Run Row Rock and Roll Adventure Race

By Michelle Thompson   

This weekends race started with Dave and me meeting at the Fairbury wellness center Friday. We received our maps and race instructions and begin preparing our maps for the Run Row Rock and Roll adventure race in rural Fairbury, Nebraska. This race was designed by and directed by our teammate Craig. Everything seemed pretty straight forward. We had a brief race meeting at 8pm and then we were off to meet Micah. Craig once again arranged for us to stay at his friends Jack and Jackie's beautiful home. It's like having our own apartment when we are there. A great way to start the race experience!
We reviewed our route and did a few more race preparations then called it a night.

We woke at 5 to very loud thunder and big bolts of lightening. We loaded things up. And we're off to the bike drop. The rain, that was forcasted to fall all day, stopped but clouds remained. We were shuttled to race start on the "redneck subway" which was a cattle trailer. I can only imagine what the passersby must have thought.

The race started at 7:30 with a running section followed by a canoe on a lake, trek/run and then, the most enjoyable part, a 1/2 mile canoe portage through a muddy ravine and woods. Then we were off on a short river paddle ending at the bike drop. This section was titled "Swamp Thing."
At this point there were 3 teams in the lead including us.

We took off on our bikes riding on mostly gravel roads, up and down, but mostly up,up, and up. Don't believe it when you hear Nebraska is flat. Craig was able to design the course so we had the pleasure of doing a 1 mile long climb. Thanks Craig , that was fun! The next section titled "Cabin By the Lake" started with a team challenge. This challenge was log sawing done by 2 teammates while the other steadied the log. No problem. I'm sure it was because of my superior steadying skills. Then it was off on an orienteering section. This section was not given to us until we arrived. This included 5 points. Once completed we were off on the bike again. This included gravel and pastures. At this point we were neck and neck with a solo racer.

This next section, "The Hills Have Eyes," started and ended on bike but was primarily a trekking section up and down some steep creek banks and through lots of poison ivy. Yikes! Near the end of this section Craig had a surprise for us. It was a time trial on a very, very steep hill. The male and female winners would get $80 in prizes. The guys decided they would help me win. I hooked the tow up to Dave and Micah pushed. Up we went. Dave was an animal. I felt like I was working hard but Micah said he had never seen the tow pulled so tight. We were glad that quickly came to an end and we were off on our bikes to the next section. What a nice surprise Craig. Thanks for thinking of us.

The next section, "The Bucket List," began with an orienteering section then a paddling section on a small lake. We decided we had better do the land section first. After all that hard climbing we werent sure if we would get up if we started in the canoe. We got 4 points on land, 1 which could have been really tricky but Dave was spot on.We decided to do the team challenge next. This was an attempt to " walk on water." Two large buckets were given to each of us. We were then supposed to stand in them, one on each foot, beside a rope that crossed a small cove of the lake. We were then supposed to pull ourselves across the water without falling. Dave and Micah both satisfied Craig's wish and proceeded to quickly plunge into the water. I, however, decided to straddle the hip high rope and pull myself across. Success. Then it was off to 3 more points in the canoe.

We were all anxious to reach the finish line. We were now in 1st place but knew the racer behind us was fully capable of catching us on bike if we did not push hard. We had 1 more rural section titled "Live Free or Die Hard." One point had been taken out due to all the rain. One point remained. Then it was back to the city of Fairbury. Once we reached the city we had 2 Cps to find. We had familiarized ourselves with the city layout the night before so felt pretty confident there would be little hesitation. From a distance we could see the railroad crossing light begin to flash and the crossbars descend. NO WAY! As we got closer we realized it was only 1 car. What a relief. We grabbed our last 2 points and headed to the finish. Finish time 7 hours 12 minutes.

Nice job guys! Almost flawless navigation from Dave, a strong push on the run and bike from both Micah and Dave, and great teamwork in transitions pulled us into and kept us in the lead. Believe it or not Craig, you did such a great job with this course we don't even have any suggestions. Only, could you throw in a few more climbs next time!?
Next up Big Mountain Adventures 24 hour in Colorado Springs next weekend. Bring your O2.

GOALS Cradle of Liberty - 24 Hour

GOALS: Cradle of Liberty 24 hour race

This year the race was held in southeastern PA.  Now if you look at a map of southeastern PA, there’s not a whole lot of “green” park area, but the race directors did a fantastic job of finding every nook and cranny for the racers to explore so that we really did feel like we were out there..and not 5 minutes away from a gas station.  This race our team got shortened last minute from 3 coed to 2 male.  John and I were disappointed to not be able to race in the premier division and get points for the team, but we were still committed to giving the race everything we had and having a good time.

looking over maps last minute before the start

Our cars were parked at Evansburg state park, which is where the finish would be.  After registration, packing food and loading paddle bags and bikes onto a truck, the racers had a short meeting and we all got on a bus to head to the Hopewell Furnace national Historic site, where we would start the race at 9:30.  The morning was chilly, but the sun came out to warm us up shortly and we were thankfully granted great weather for the rest of the race! 

Plotting checkpoints after the prologue

The prologue consisted of 3 relay legs on foot. Each leg had to be done by only one racer of the team.  The first leg had the racers run to pick up some coordinates of mandatory checkpoints that would need to be plotted for later in the race.  The second leg had us running to pick up our passport, and the third leg got us the map with pre-plotted checkpoints for French Creek state park, which would be the first foot orienteering leg of the race. 

After plotting the rest of the mandatory checkpoints we were off racing.  The overall course consisted of over 100 optional checkpoints, and would not be clearable, our strategy would be to start off clearing as much as we could, but not wasting time searching for a CP if we were having trouble with it, because each one was worth only 1 pt.  We attacked the first leg in a CCW format, aiming to clear every point.  John was navigating, and his sense of direction was dead on.  We were checking off CP’s one by one with ease and never had to spend more than 5 minutes searching for the flagging when we were in the area of the CP.  We spent 3 to 4 hours on the first leg.  Having cleared our last checkpoint, we were running back to the TA to pick up our bikes and head out.  On our way there we saw SOG and GOALS leaving on their bikes, so we knew we were doing pretty well and could not be too far behind the leaders.



Starting the first trekking leg



A quick bite to eat while we put on our bike shoes and we were off to Birdsboro park.  The ride there was on roads, and practically all downhill.  John and I remarked that all bike legs should feel as good as that!  When we arrived at Birdsboro, we dropped our bikes, changed back into running shoes and headed into the park.  The entrance to the park is a wire bridge that spans a creek.  It’s always fun to try something a little out of the ordinary, so when John and I both got on to the bridge, it was apparent that we were both a little too tall for the spacing of the wires, and having two of us on at the same time did not give us any benefit in keeping it stable.  Thankfully we were able to cross without taking a dip, and we headed into the park.  On our way in, down an abandoned road, we blew past the entrance trail to the first CP, but we would be coming back that way, so instead of backtracking we decided to just get it on the way out. 



Crossing one of the cable bridges into Birdsboro



The park was essentially divided into two halves by an abandoned road.  The northern half had a bit more elevation change, and a closer grouping of CPs, and the southern half was far more spread out.  We decided to go after the northern half first, because the high density of CPs would let us get more points more quickly, and if we needed to cut out of the park to hit a time cutoff, we wouldn’t be losing much.  We made quick work of the first few checkpoints in the climbing crag area and surrounding hills.  As we were headed to the last cp in the grouping, we went a little too far down the trail, and had to adjust our attackpoint accordingly.  I think this was a mistake, we should have backtracked to our original attackpoint.  We were searching for the last CP in where we thought it had to be.  The clue was “boulder” and we were in an area of the woods that was suddenly populated by large boulders, but after 20 minutes of looking, we still hadn’t found it.  We decided that it wasn’t worth any more time for 1 point and we should move on to the southern end of the park.

This area of the park went fairly smoothly.  We decided to forego 2 CPs that were much further out than the others, because we wanted to move on to the next section and didn’t want to spend the time.  After getting back to the access road, we knocked off our last CP (the one that we passed earlier) and crossed back over the wire bridge to get back on the bikes.

We biked north on a mix of roads and rail trails to Neversink Park, which is on the southern outskirts of Reading, PA.  The map for this section had a large number of CPs, both mandatory and optional, and we wanted to get as many as we could, while still making an 11 pm cutoff to get in/out of the next TA at the top of Mt Penn in reading. 

 After a quick analysis of the map, we decided to attack the park in a CCW fashion.  One of the exits of the park had a McDonalds marked on it by the race directors, and we decide that we would give ourselves a little reward after getting out of this section.  The trails here were all bikeable, some were a bit too steep and had to be hikeabiked, but it provided for faster moving over trails then the previous two legs, which was a nice change of pace.  At the entrance there were two CPs on opposite sides of the trail, which ran through a ravine-like topography.  Most teams were dropping their bikes and going after one, then the other.  We decided to drop bikes for only one of the CPs, and then hike-a-bike up to the other, because it would prevent us from spending time backtracking.  I think this move helped us to save a lot of time and was a good choice because a little bit of bikewhacking got us onto a great open trail that was fast and took us everywhere we wanted to be. 
From here we made the decision to go for the most difficult CP in the park.  Thankfully it was still light out and that made it far easier to navigate.  We dropped our bikes and slogged a couple hundred vertical feet up some overgrown powerlines, crossed a road, and headed into some woods where the CP was located on a small ridge.  We were able to locate the tiny ridge (maybe 10-15 feet high?) and find the CP, which only took a small amount of searching.  After getting it, we booked it back to our bikes and continued on the fast trail that circumnavigated the park to check off more CPs. 

It was becoming apparent that we were not going to have time to clear this portion of the course and still make the cutoff.  So we started to make our way out of the park, getting the CPs that were along our course of travel.

when we made it out of the park, we did make a quick detour to McDonalds.  I knew we were pressed for time.  But I feel like this was the right choice.  We had been going for 12 hours now, and were craving something besides race food.  We shoved down 3 burgers each, and 2 large cokes, refilled our water bladders  in the bathroom, and headed out.  I have to say that it was one of the best burgers I’ve ever had, and I felt so energized.  Definitely the right choice.

The TA at Mt Penn had an 11 PM cutoff, and we had a large, formidable road climb ahead of us to get there.  I think it turned out to look a lot worse on the map, because we had allotted ourselves close to 2 hours to get there, and it ended up only taking 1.  That was good news, because it meant we wouldn’t have to immediately turn around, but would be able to go out for at least one optional CP at the Mt Penn area.  When we got to the TA at the top of the climb, we were informed that the 20 mile paddle leg for that night was cancelled because of flood conditions on the river.  We had seen the river at a couple points throughout the race and it was HIGH and moving FAST.  I have to say I was a bit relieved, because I wasn’t exactly looking forward to a night time paddle where it would be difficult to control/stop/unboard and board a canoe in such a fast moving river.  Instead we would be biking the same distance, and a few of the mandatory and optional CPs on the paddle would be removed.

Coming into the Mt Penn TA at 10 PM

With that news, we threw our running shoes on and went out to snag one CP before we had to leave Mt Penn for the 11 PM cutoff.  We did just that, and headed out.  Back down the hill (which surprisingly took far less time to go down, than up =]) and then back into Neversink park, to go up over that hill, and to check in at the Paddle TA, where we would receive further instructions on the night time bike course.

On this road portion of the bike, we caught up with NYARA and Carpe Vitam.  Our three teams stayed together, forming a paceline, and we were all able to blast through the section.  I cant remember ever going this fast on a bike this far into a race.  It was awesome being able to work together and have each racer take their turn setting the pace and pulling.

We got to the TA and got our instructions for biking to where we would have been pulling the canoes out of the water.  It was roughly 20+ miles of road.  John and I went through our food stash in our paddle bag to refuel and restock our backpacks, and then got on the road.  Both NYARA and Carpe Vitam had slightly quicker transitions than us, but we were able to catch them and get back into the same paceline. 

During the ride, I was setting the pace, and then John took his turn right behind me.  I guess I didn’t notice until it was too late, but we had lost Carpe Vitam, and then shortly after NYARA had to pull off and go their own pace as well.  So then it was back to 2.

While riding, John and I got a craving for a 3am cup of coffee as we passed a gas station.  So we decided to take a quick detour and get some.  I know this is not typical for adventure racing, but having resources like this was really enjoyable.  Back on the road, we pushed on to the next TA and were able to give our bike seats a rest.

The Park at Lock 60 is surprisingly small, but somehow GOALS managed to cram an impressive foot orienteering course into it.  John and I went through and cleared the section one by one.  By the time we were done and back to the TA, the sky was starting to go from black to blue, and I knew that I would be getting a second wind shortly as we headed into the second to last leg of the race.

We had a choice to bike directly back to Evansburg state park, and go for some optional there, or go after more optional on the bike.  We opted to stay on the bike, because we felt like we have kept a consistently good pace and were happy with it.  The optional checkpoints led us through some interesting abandoned roads, and into a small mountain bike park.  At the one optional checkpoint here, we got a map of the surrounding trails which had 5 or 6 more optionals shown on it.  Since the trail area was small, and included a lot of elevation, we decided we could do it faster on foot.  So we quickly dropped the bikes and put on shoes to head off onto the trails.  We cleared every optional but one, which we chose not to go for because of its distance and out-and-back format.  We decided to head back to evansburg and try for some of the optional there, which could be closer.

The quick ride back to Evansburg brought us to the finish line, but we weren’t done yet.  We had an hour and a half to go, and had our choice of 2 different courses.  One was a “memory orienteering course” where we got to look at a map, and then had to go find the checkpoint by memory.  At that point there would be another map, and so on. 6 cps for a total of 3 points, and you had to clear it to score the points.  The other course was another relay orienteering course. 3 separate stages, easy/medium/hard with each stage being worth a few points each (again, had to clear the stage to get the points)  after a short debate with john, we decide to do the relay, because my brain was not working as well as it could be after racing for almost 24 hours.  John took the first leg and got back in 30 mins.  So I went out for the second leg.  I had an hour to clear it.  Which wouldn’t be a problem.  It took me a few minutes to get used to the scale and orientation of the map, but once I had a feel for it, I was on my way.  I managed to clear that course in 45 minutes.  So with 15 minutes to spare, we officially finished.   



John waiting for me to finish the last orienteering leg



We washed our legs down with some tecnu, ate some pancakes and sausage, and stuck around for awards to find we placed 1^st in class and 3^rd overall behind Team SOG and Cumberland Trail Connection.  This was a great race for John and I.  Overall I think it went well, but looking back at it I can pinpoint areas where I know we lost time and we could have made better choices.  Each race I learn something, so hopefully next one I will be faster.



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