Adrenaline Rush 12 Hour

Mark, Liz and Dennis pre race

This weekend I competed with Dennis and Liz in the inaugural Adrenaline Rush 12 Hour at Shenandoah river state park.  We had an early start and drove out to the park the morning of the race.  After hosting our own race at this location and spending many hours exploring the area, I was really looking forward to actually doing a race in the park.

 The Adventure addicts race directors Michele and Andy did a great job with pre race communications and as very active participants in the adventure racing community, understand all the nuances associated with race setup and how to make participants feel welcome, comfortable, and ready to race.  We appreciated the nod to the other race directors who were participating the in race during the pre race brief.

The general course flow was a trekking O-Course, then mountain biking within the park, trekking to a canoe put in, a 6 mile paddle with portage half way, a short trek back to bikes, a 30k bike on surrounding area back roads and then an O-Course back in the park. Maps for the final O-Course were to be given out later in the race so it was difficult to determine how long that sections would take. With every point being equal and only three points out on the long bike, it was debatable if that section was worthwhile doing.

Route choice for first O-Course

We plotted our route for the first O-Course which was in the north end of the park and got ready for the start.  We determined our competition would be imonpoint/Odyssey and one of the teams from the Halfwaythere crew. All experienced and strong co-ed teams. With a Rogaine format for the first leg we know we would be racing our own race and not have to worry about keeping pace and would only know our standings as we pasted through transitions.

After a short prolog up a very steep hill to the visitors center we were out on the O-Couse bagging checkpoints. We stuck to the route we had planned and were back to bikes in around two hours and about 20 minutes behind the lead teams. The bike section covered all the great biking trails in the path.  We hit the Point trail first doing and out and back to the CP and then out and back up the grueling grind of the Allan’s Mountain trail. Then over to Bear bottom loop where we caught up with our good friends Greg and Scott and then ended up at the bike drop.  We saw Mike passing through on the Sprint course and heading back to start line well ahead of the pack.  He went on to win the Sprint race taking first overall. At this point Dennis and I were feeling good. Liz was a little off pace after still recovering from the flu virus a few weeks prior.

Bike route

We had a 2-mile trek to the boat put-in.  We got in the water and were happy to find the current relatively strong.  Kudos to Dennis for controlling the boat so well.  With his background in white water and paddling he kept the canoe as straight as an arrow and did a great job navigating the river.  This makes a huge difference in the amount energy you have to expend and makes up time. We had a protégé over the Low Water Bridge, which we made short shrift of, and continued down to the take out another three miles down stream. On the way down we saw one of the HalfWayThere teams heading back up the river so we knew we were in a least 2^nd place and needed to make up time.

From the boats we had a short trek back up the river to the bikes and then headed out on the roads.  As we were riding we saw Imonpoint/Oddysey fly back to the park putting our standing at 3^rd place.  They were making great time. For the rest of the ride we hardly saw any other teams.  We later found out that most racers opted not to do the bike and instead concentrate on the point heavy trekking O-Course.  This proved to be a wise choice for many teams.  It also meant that we really had to clear the O-Course so as not to get beaten by someone who had not put in the extra 30k to get three points. The ride out was long and up hill but the return ride was fast and quick putting us ahead of our planned schedule.  We aimed to leave ourselves three hours for the O-Course although this was a gamble, as we had no idea what it would entail apart from get 20 CPs.

Liz found her second wind on the bike and really pulled one out the bag to get us back to the park in great time to get our maps for the second O-Course.  I knew we would be completing the last hour and a half in the dark so planned our route to take on the most tricky sections of the park early on and in daylight. With an out and back route planned with a few bailout options depending on time, we set out on foot after a quick transition where we took on some more food and water.  The weather was unseasonably warm making it extra important to take on fluids and stay hydrated.  No complaints from me about that.

Route choice for second O-Course

The second O-Course map had the trails removed, which made navigation a little trickier.  Point to point was the best option and where possible take trails around some of the deep and steep reentrants that sap your energy as you go up and down them.  The course was well laid out and challenging.  It would have been nice to have point numbers on the flags as reassurance that you were at the right one but close inspection of the terrain and the accompanying clues was usually enough to verify you were at the correct CP.  By the time we were at the furthest CP we only had an hour and a half to get back and clear about another 12 checkpoints.  I knew it was going to be close.  We had to get back by 9pm or we would start loosing our heard earned points. With the sun slowly disappearing and the final check points, although closer than previous ones were in some challenging terrain. Liz took on role of timekeeper and kept close tabs on our progress. We dug in, ran where possible and started nailing the rest of the points.  As the darkness fell I found that my navigation improved.  I was able to shoot a bearing and not be distracted by things I normally am during daylight.  You have to forget about the terrain features and follow the arrow on the compass.  This seemed to work well and we made great time clearing the final CP’s.

Podium

The very last CP was on an island.  I charged across the small stream to get to it and then proceeded to run around like a chicken with it’s head cut off.  I had carefully navigated this far and then for some reason thought I could run in random directions on the island and find the point.  With about 15 minutes until cut off, this was not a good tactic.  As I hunted around with one of the HalfWayThere teams we eventually found it.  Disoriented, I shot a bearing back to the trail where I could see my fellow teammates lights bobbing around.  I waded back through the channel that separated the island and I was back with Liz and Dennis and sprinting to the finish.  We arrived with quite a few other teams with six minutes to spare before the cut off. It was great to have lots of the other teams and volunteers there cheering for everyone as they came to the end of a long and tiring day.

As we suspected many teams did not do the bike and I think only three teams cleared the entire course.  We ended up taking third with Imonpoint/Odyssey taking and impressive first and HalfWayThere finishing 20 minutes ahead of us in second place.

This was a good race in a great park.  Thanks to the Adventure Addicts and all there hard working volunteers for putting on the race and also the rangers at Shenandoah River Sate Park who are making this venue a top destination for out door recreation.