Rev3 - Green Ridge Adventure Challenge - Race Report

Green Ridge Adventure Challenge – Race Report
July 21^st, 2012
Team: Britt, Greg and Michael
Written by Michael Spiller

The Green Ridge Adventure Challenge took place in Green Ridge State Forest near Cumberland Maryland.  Kevin Howser  and Hutch from the Cumberland Trail Connection Adventure Racing team were the race director.

The Green Ridge Adventure Challenge was my first team race in two years after coming back from shoulder surgery last season.  I was also racing with Greg Voelkel one of our teams fastest racers and Britt who is 21 years younger than me.  I knew this race was going to be a challenge because of the terrain in this area of Maryland has a lot of elevation.  After seeing the course I decided the mountain were twice the size of what we used in the Epic Race this past year.  It seemed that the only flat section was going to be the paddle section the Potomac River.

The team met up on Friday night for the team check-in.  Britt drove 10 hours from Illinois and Greg flew up in a plane from Florida for training mission for the air force and I had a short 2 hour drive from Northern Virginia.  Greg was delayed because after landing there was another plane that was landing that had a higher priority than Greg so he was delayed getting to Cumberland.

We arrived at the Race course at the South End Rod and Gun Club near Oldtown, Maryland at 5:30AM on Saturday morning and prepped our gear for drop locations provided by Cumberland Trail Connections.  They were going to drop our paddling gear and bike at two different locations to be picked up during the race.  At 7:00Am they handed out the preplotted maps and Greg and Britt laid out our strategy for the race.  The race course was going to be about 65 miles with paddling, running, and mountain biking.  Seem like it was going to be a fast course with lots of ups and downs during the day.  We were extremely lucky because it was raining and the temperature dropped from the high 90’s to the mid 70’s and it raised the river level for the paddle section. 

At 8:00AM the race was started and we needed to hit two trekking points on our way to the river to pick up the canoes.  Scott Pleaban’s two person co-ed team was in front and we soon fell into second place and hitting both points and running the whole time.  It was a few miles to the river and we arrived to see Scott getting into the water.  However our paddling gear had not arrived yet and we were searching for our paddles.  Kevin sent some of his crew back and they found our gear and gave us a 16 minute time credit while we waited for our gear.  About 10 teams came in and they were hitting the first Checkpoint on the water.  Kind of killed our mojo but we knew we would be slow in the water because we had rented a canoe and the teams in front of us had their lightweight canoes so we didn’t want to fall too far behind.  We received our paddling gear and started paddling to the first CP upstream.  We opted to run and swim instead to the checkpoint and passed several teams and moved into 5th place.  As we paddle downstream we passed one more team and moved into 4^th place behind Scott Pleaban, ARMD and GOAL’s.  Once got off the 5 mile paddle we picked up our bikes and now my bike helmet was missing.  We spent 5 minutes looking for a helmet and Kevin once again stepped in and gave me his helmet so I could continue racing.  We took off on the C&O canal to go through the Paw Paw tunnel.  It was pitch black in the tunnel so we needed to pull out our lights to even walk our bikes through the tunnel.  We arrived at the first Orienteering course and we were 34 minutes behind the lead teams.  We opted to scramble straight up a hill instead of taking the trail to the first checkpoint.  I knew it was going to be a long day and the legs were going to be hurting.  We ran to every checkpoint and Gregs navigation was on point.  The coolest checkpoint was an old train tunnel in the middle of nowhere in the mountains.  Of course we came out on the top of the mountain and had a very challenging climb down to get the checkpoint.  We cleared the course and moved into second place only 5 minutes from the lead.  Now we were on our bike and this was going to be our strong section of the race.  However we missed the first biking checkpoint and rode four miles out of our way and now dropped back to 4^th place.  We rode up mountain to great overlooks and down mountains to different landmarks and felt pretty good until a logging truck started coming up the road.  Greg stopped, I slid to a stop and Britt slid into a stop but hit me in the process and fell off her bike.  She cut her leg, cut her chin, and cut up both hands and we originally thought she broke her finger.  She also bent her front derailer.  We spent some time checking her out and she felt like continuing and was bleeding from three different spots.  This girl is tough.  I would have been crying and quit the race.  We continued on to the next trekking section.

With all our mishaps we still only 3o minute behind the lead team and we had a 21 minute time credit at the end of the race.  However what this really means is that we need to run the orienteering course to catch the lead teams.  Once again we hit the first two points and we were making up time on the lead teams.  My legs were screaming and it was still raining, so we were soaking wet.  We moved into 3^rd place and knew the lead team was only 10 minutes ahead of us then we were talking and overshot our attack point by a ½ mile.  Greg somehow found the right reentrant for the next point and we picked up the last point and headed back into the bike transition.  We passed the GOAL’s team on the way back to our bike and moved into 3^rd place again and hit our bikes to try to catch the lead teams on our way to the finish line.  It might sound easy but we were on an ATV trail and it had tons of trees down, lots of mud, slipper rocks, and of course lots of climbing.  It took over an hour to go 3 miles.  Then we needed to climb to the highest point in the race for a 2 point bonus checkpoint.  Did I want to get it?  NO!!!  But we did and as we climbed we saw ARMD coming down the mountain.  We had made up over 20 minutes on the bike section and now they only had a 10 minutes lead.  With our time credit we were in front by 11 minutes.  We rode hard for the next section of the race to the finish line and were only a few minutes behind the lead and with our time credit we were in first place.  We had three bonus points to hit by the 8:00PM cut off and victory was ours.  However it didn’t play out like that.  We hit the first point with only a minor mistake and then went for a low point because we thought it would be the easiest.  We spent 25 minutes trying to find the point with no success and had to go to the finish line with only one bonus point.  Kathy’s ARMD team hit the high point and the river point so they were able to pick up one more bonus point and won the co-ed elite division.  We found out that the UTM’s for the point we were looking for was off and Greg almost found it but turned back because the area he was looking was too far off the description.  However, that Adventure Racing, mistakes happen and as a race director I know Kevin and his team put on a great race.  The best food ever was server at the end of the race with Sloppy Joes, homemade Mac and cheese, BBQ beef, salad, fresh corn on the cob and a keg of beer.  Our journey took us over 70 miles and to me it was an excellent day with great teammates and I would not change a thing.