Rev3 Shenandoah Epic
Luray, VA
April 20-21, 2013
Rev3/MK Team - Greg Voelkel, Ernie Lawas, Fritz Pameijer & Emily McDonald
Rev3/MK Midwest Team - Britt Mason, Cory Mason, Chuck White & Dave Ashley
Race Report by: Emily McDonald
As the new kid and rookie on the Rev3/Mountain Khakis Adventure Racing Team, I was both stoked and incredibly nervous coming into my first 24+ hour adventure race. I'd done 24-hour mountain bike races before, but this was a whole new ball game.
Since the Epic was put on by our title sponsor, Rev3, race most of the Rev3/MK team was in town, either racing or volunteering. Immediately I felt that I was part of a big, badass, but fun-loving family. These were not only my teammates, but my friends, eager and willing to help me with every step along the way.
I'm sure there are 101 different ways to dissect this race - but for me at least and my recollection, I lump it into three main parts - Shenandoah River Paddle & Trek; Elizabeth Furnace Mountain Biking & the O-Course and; Shenandoah River State Park trekking and mountain biking. So hold on to your butts - we're about to dive in to this girl's first 24+ hour adventure race!
Shenandoah River - Paddling & Trekking
With stories of nasty weather for the previous two editions of the Epic, I was quite happy when Friday night's rain showers cleared up, leaving us with a cool and clear April morning to start the race. We arrived at the main TA around 7am to stage our gear and board the busses to the start of the paddle. Both our teams managed to snag seats on the first shuttle bus, which gave us plenty of time to pick our canoes and stage them. Then it was sit, wait and keep warm. A little before 10am, the last shuttle unloaded and we began to launch the canoes. The mass start of ~85 canoes and kayaks is quite impressive. At first it was a chaotic mess of paddles flying and water splashing everywhere, but with my teammate Greg at the stern of our canoe, we got out of the mayhem and were on course to the first trekking section.
Now - I'm 99% sure that anyone who's raced or done any type of endurance sport has experienced the "bonk" and most people wait until later in the race to bonk, but me, well apparently my system thought it would be awesome to bonk within the first hour of the race. Way to make a first impression on my teammates ... So after about 30 minutes of paddling, we reached the take-out for the first trekking section and came out swinging. Fritz and Ernie likened our canoe landing to Normandy as we came a little hot to the landing. We tossed off the PFD's and took off jogging up the hill in stride with our Rev3/MK Midwest teammates to bag the first checkpoints. After a few minutes, Team SOG caught us on the run, and while they followed our Midwest team toward CP2, my team kept going and pretty much ran straight up a ridge to get CP3 and 4 first. Running up a mountain after 30 minutes in a canoe hurts. Even my best Jens Voigt impression (SHUT UP LEGS!) did nothing to quiet my quads or keep my heart rate from redlining. Waayyyy too early for this to happen in the race. As we headed down after securing the checkpoints, my energy level plummeted to the point where Fritz gave me a tow - which basically meant I was hanging onto a bungee off his pack to help me keep pace. We passed the Rev3/MK Midwest team on their way up looking strong. Later Britt and I would laugh as she noted the look on my face, which we concluded was a combination of "oh shoot I'm messing this up / what the heck is going on / OMG this hurts" I definitely had some internal panic going on as it was way too early in the race for me to be feeling like this. I didn't know how I'd ever survive the next 25 hours and I was terrified of letting my team down. I was the rookie - they had taken a chance racing with me and the last thing I wanted to do was let them down.
The tow definitely helped me catch my breath and as we got back in the canoes, Greg made sure I put down some food and water. We survived the rapids, picked up the two remaining paddle CPs without much ado (well, not much ado, but at times a nasty headwind!) and made it to the take-out at the main TA around 1:30pm.
My legs completely rebelled when I got out of the canoe. Apparently sitting in a canoe for 3 hours wrecks havoc on your legs. They felt all jello-y and weak. Being soaked from the river didn't help much either, but we got the boats up, took care of the two race challenges at transition (a puzzle and blowing up a bike inner-tube), changed out of the soggy clothes and were off on the bikes. At least now my confidence rose a bit as we were heading into my comfort zone on two knobby tires.
Elizabeth Furnace -Mountain Biking & O-Course
While I thought I'd be a-okay on the bike - I neglected to realize that riding with a 15-20 pound pack is a lot different from riding with a tiny Camelback or no pack at all. As we headed up Panhandle Road toward Elizabeth Furnace - I tried to stand climbing a hill and my legs buckled. Definitely something I'm not used to, but thankfully for me, my awesome teammates came to my rescue. Greg took some of my nutrition off my pack and gave me a tow up some of the hills so I could re-gain my strength and energy. Being towed on a mountain bike was an extremely humbling experience. I'm on Rev3/MK because of my mountain biking, and here I was having to get a tow early on. Later, I'd find out though that towing is pretty commonplace in adventure racing as it helps you save energy for the long haul.
Up and over Shaw Gap, we were into Elizabeth Furnace proper and I started to feel a lot better. Turning onto the approach to Mudhole Gap, we unfortunately we ran into the Midwest team having to deal with one of the worst cases of chain-suck in the wheel/cassette I've ever seen. That would derail their race as trying to fix the mechanical, Chuck badly tweaked his back and had to retire after. Britt and Cory did carry on unofficially, making great time and clearing the rest of the course.
The climb up to the Massanutten Trail via Mudhole Gap was a long, steady grind. Greg gave me a tow again up the seemingly never-ending gravel climb to help me save energy for the gnarly single-track section we knew was coming. Once we got to Mudhole, I was finally starting to feel myself and feel energized. We hit the single-track pretty and I felt like a changed person. My heart rate was under control, my legs felt better and I was on a mission. Now was my time to show my teammates why they were racing with me. We caught and passed several teams along the trail, which was pretty motivating. Once through Mudhole, we had a brief rest on a fire-road before tackling Massanutten Trail. The trail basically goes straight uphill a to a very rocky ridge. If you're familiar with Elizabeth Furnace's "Figure 8 of Hate" this is the trail you descend from the fire tower... and we were climbing up it. Ouch. It was a lot of hike-a-bike, from the extent that I didn't want to waste energy getting on and off and on and off over and over again when we'd come to the seemingly impassable boulder in the middle of the trail. But then again - this is riding in the GW National Forest at its best... We solid time up to CP12 at Woodstock Tower (even stopping for a 30-second "enjoy this view!" break) and ran into a lot of teams heading up as we were heading back. The ride to CP12 fueled my energy and determination, I was stoked, we were moving fast and working well as a team.
We flew down the trail and picked up some nice fire-road to grab CP11 before heading into TA. The guys were laughing about my "comeback" and how I went from bonking to pushing the pace, but hey, all that mattered is we were definitely in the game, feeling great and pushing hard! Weather was cool and comfortable, the trails were great and I was on my mountain bike - what else does a girl need?
There was a little time at TA to change out gear (dry socks are a life-saver!) and plot the points for the O-Course. We also learned that the Rev3/MK Midwest team had had to officially abandon the race. I was really bummed for them. Silver lining though is Chuck was now volunteering at the TA with the other awesome volunteers, which made the transition a lot smoother.
Re-fueled, we set out on foot to tackle the O-Course just as the last of the daylight was fading. The O-course seemed fairly straight-forward as Erine, Fritz and Greg had the navigation dialed. We did
momentarily take a wrong trail after stopping to re-fill our water at a creek, but we quickly realized it and corrected to get back on course, probably losing no more than 5 minutes. I was feeling about 110% better on this trek than the previous one and was really enjoying trekking at night. The moon was out, and while it was a little chilly, our brisk pace kept us warm. We had some unexpected cheerleaders along the trail, as some kids from a campsite were sitting along it offering s'mores and whisky. They were cute, but we politely declined.
Up on the ridge, we had to do some bush-whacking to find two of the CPs, and bush-whacking at night is quite the experience. I've night-hiked before, but there was something just extra exciting about heading off the trail and into the unknown. I was slightly disappointed we didn't see any bears - but I think the chill and the wind probably had most of them curled up sleeping anyway. The last down-hill on the O-course was super rocky and technical and I managed to bang my ankle a few times as my head-lamp started to indicate low battery. Not good, but not detrimental at least.
We rolled into TA probably around 2am, and had cleared the O-course faster than we planned, so it was nice to have a little time cushion before heading back up through Shaw Gap. It also looked that if we kept going at this pace, we'd easily clear the entire course with time to spare. My team is awesome :-) It was great to see Dusty, Aaron and Kelly volunteering at the TA, a huge hug from Dusty and part of a semi-frozen Snickers bar re-energized me as we set out on the bikes once again.
The climb out of Elizabeth Furnace was one of the hardest hike-a-bike's I've ever done. We knew it was coming since we had ridden down it earlier, so we wore our trekking shoes to make the climb little easier. Once we finally reached the top though - it was a screaming downhill, one of those trails that makes you grin like a 5-year old just 'cause it's so much fun. Sure, it was a little muddy - but if you don't like getting dirty, muddy and wet - well then adventure racing isn't for you.
We hit the gravel road back to the main TA pretty fast and while I was a little tired, we still pushed it since I knew we'd be re-fueling and out on the last trekking segment soon enough. We punched in around 3:30am, I got another hug from Mark (theme here - I like hugs, especially when I'm a little spacy during long endurance events) and got ready for the last trek!
Shenandoah River State Park - Trekking & Mountain Biking
This part of my recap gets a little fuzzy as it was the witching hour where we'd been racing for over 18-hours by this point and the way my head works if I'm outside at night, once the sun goes down, I perpetually think its midnight, whether it's 9pm or 3am, so it had been "midnight" for almost 8 hours and I was starting to not know what end was up. Lucky for me, I had my teammates to follow and we made good time getting over into the park with a little bush-whacking to save some time. Most of the points were again straight-forward. I made the mistake of changing my nutrition here and my stomach rebelled a bit - instead of the Power Bar Gel Blasts, which I had been chowing down on most of the night, I grabbed a pack of shot-blocks, something I typically eat in races, but for some reason, the sweetness and texture of them just made my stomach turn and for a good 30-45 minutes on the trek I was pretty sure I was going to throw up. Ernie advised me to keep drinking and try and get some solid more "real" food down. All I had that was solid and "real" was a vanilla Power Bar that was 85% frozen since it was hovering around 40-degrees out. I somehow go it down though, and my stomach played a little nicer as we wrapped up the last of the CPs in the park and headed back to transition to grab our bikes for the final leg.
The sun was just starting to rise as we rolled out one last time. I had put down some Red Bull and part of a banana so my stomach was a lot happier. My legs on the other-hand, were about done. Aside from the bruise on my left ankle, I had picked up a funky sharp pain in my lower right shin on the downhill sections of the last trek. Thankfully biking didn't impact either of those two, so all I had to deal with was the general fatigue from being up now for close to 24-hours. The trail signs and the map we had didn't quite match up so we had a little confusion initially, but got it sorted soon enough and hit most of the remaining CPs without any major issues. After we got the final one, it was time to book it out of the park and back to the finish at TA, but to get out of the park without taking the scenic route, we had to bush-whack up two seemingly monster hills with our bikes....and I thought hike-a-bike was tough - now try bush-whack-a-bike. I set my determination and somehow got through it with a lot of encouragement from my teammates. We clipped in, picked up the last trail and flew into the finish.
We punched in around 7:30am, 29 minutes after SOG, but still clearing the course in about 21 1/2 hours to secures 2nd place. I was exhausted, but stoked. Hugs and high-fives all around, as we managed to overcome some early difficulties, but finished strong and smiling. And while of course winning would have been awesome, I'll happily take 2nd place in my first 24+ hour adventure race. But now - I'm a little more experienced, a little wiser and while I still may be a rookie, it's game on for the rest of the season!
 |
| (Spoiler alert!) Rev3/MK at the end of the Epic - Greg, me, Fritz & Ernie |
Shenandoah River - Paddling & Trekking
With stories of nasty weather for the previous two editions of the Epic, I was quite happy when Friday night's rain showers cleared up, leaving us with a cool and clear April morning to start the race. We arrived at the main TA around 7am to stage our gear and board the busses to the start of the paddle. Both our teams managed to snag seats on the first shuttle bus, which gave us plenty of time to pick our canoes and stage them. Then it was sit, wait and keep warm. A little before 10am, the last shuttle unloaded and we began to launch the canoes. The mass start of ~85 canoes and kayaks is quite impressive. At first it was a chaotic mess of paddles flying and water splashing everywhere, but with my teammate Greg at the stern of our canoe, we got out of the mayhem and were on course to the first trekking section.
 |
| Greg & Ernie make trekking & trail running look so easy! |
 |
| Fritz gives me an early tow ...while I look a little shell-shocked... |
 |
| Big smiles after not swamping through Compton rapids! |
Elizabeth Furnace -Mountain Biking & O-Course
While I thought I'd be a-okay on the bike - I neglected to realize that riding with a 15-20 pound pack is a lot different from riding with a tiny Camelback or no pack at all. As we headed up Panhandle Road toward Elizabeth Furnace - I tried to stand climbing a hill and my legs buckled. Definitely something I'm not used to, but thankfully for me, my awesome teammates came to my rescue. Greg took some of my nutrition off my pack and gave me a tow up some of the hills so I could re-gain my strength and energy. Being towed on a mountain bike was an extremely humbling experience. I'm on Rev3/MK because of my mountain biking, and here I was having to get a tow early on. Later, I'd find out though that towing is pretty commonplace in adventure racing as it helps you save energy for the long haul.
 |
| Finally on bikes! Yay! |
Up and over Shaw Gap, we were into Elizabeth Furnace proper and I started to feel a lot better. Turning onto the approach to Mudhole Gap, we unfortunately we ran into the Midwest team having to deal with one of the worst cases of chain-suck in the wheel/cassette I've ever seen. That would derail their race as trying to fix the mechanical, Chuck badly tweaked his back and had to retire after. Britt and Cory did carry on unofficially, making great time and clearing the rest of the course.
The climb up to the Massanutten Trail via Mudhole Gap was a long, steady grind. Greg gave me a tow again up the seemingly never-ending gravel climb to help me save energy for the gnarly single-track section we knew was coming. Once we got to Mudhole, I was finally starting to feel myself and feel energized. We hit the single-track pretty and I felt like a changed person. My heart rate was under control, my legs felt better and I was on a mission. Now was my time to show my teammates why they were racing with me. We caught and passed several teams along the trail, which was pretty motivating. Once through Mudhole, we had a brief rest on a fire-road before tackling Massanutten Trail. The trail basically goes straight uphill a to a very rocky ridge. If you're familiar with Elizabeth Furnace's "Figure 8 of Hate" this is the trail you descend from the fire tower... and we were climbing up it. Ouch. It was a lot of hike-a-bike, from the extent that I didn't want to waste energy getting on and off and on and off over and over again when we'd come to the seemingly impassable boulder in the middle of the trail. But then again - this is riding in the GW National Forest at its best... We solid time up to CP12 at Woodstock Tower (even stopping for a 30-second "enjoy this view!" break) and ran into a lot of teams heading up as we were heading back. The ride to CP12 fueled my energy and determination, I was stoked, we were moving fast and working well as a team.
 |
| Probably an "Emily are you eating?" moments ... thanks for keeping me going guys! |
We flew down the trail and picked up some nice fire-road to grab CP11 before heading into TA. The guys were laughing about my "comeback" and how I went from bonking to pushing the pace, but hey, all that mattered is we were definitely in the game, feeling great and pushing hard! Weather was cool and comfortable, the trails were great and I was on my mountain bike - what else does a girl need?
There was a little time at TA to change out gear (dry socks are a life-saver!) and plot the points for the O-Course. We also learned that the Rev3/MK Midwest team had had to officially abandon the race. I was really bummed for them. Silver lining though is Chuck was now volunteering at the TA with the other awesome volunteers, which made the transition a lot smoother.
 |
| Ernie & Greg plot out the O-Course |
Re-fueled, we set out on foot to tackle the O-Course just as the last of the daylight was fading. The O-course seemed fairly straight-forward as Erine, Fritz and Greg had the navigation dialed. We did
momentarily take a wrong trail after stopping to re-fill our water at a creek, but we quickly realized it and corrected to get back on course, probably losing no more than 5 minutes. I was feeling about 110% better on this trek than the previous one and was really enjoying trekking at night. The moon was out, and while it was a little chilly, our brisk pace kept us warm. We had some unexpected cheerleaders along the trail, as some kids from a campsite were sitting along it offering s'mores and whisky. They were cute, but we politely declined.
Up on the ridge, we had to do some bush-whacking to find two of the CPs, and bush-whacking at night is quite the experience. I've night-hiked before, but there was something just extra exciting about heading off the trail and into the unknown. I was slightly disappointed we didn't see any bears - but I think the chill and the wind probably had most of them curled up sleeping anyway. The last down-hill on the O-course was super rocky and technical and I managed to bang my ankle a few times as my head-lamp started to indicate low battery. Not good, but not detrimental at least.
We rolled into TA probably around 2am, and had cleared the O-course faster than we planned, so it was nice to have a little time cushion before heading back up through Shaw Gap. It also looked that if we kept going at this pace, we'd easily clear the entire course with time to spare. My team is awesome :-) It was great to see Dusty, Aaron and Kelly volunteering at the TA, a huge hug from Dusty and part of a semi-frozen Snickers bar re-energized me as we set out on the bikes once again.
The climb out of Elizabeth Furnace was one of the hardest hike-a-bike's I've ever done. We knew it was coming since we had ridden down it earlier, so we wore our trekking shoes to make the climb little easier. Once we finally reached the top though - it was a screaming downhill, one of those trails that makes you grin like a 5-year old just 'cause it's so much fun. Sure, it was a little muddy - but if you don't like getting dirty, muddy and wet - well then adventure racing isn't for you.
We hit the gravel road back to the main TA pretty fast and while I was a little tired, we still pushed it since I knew we'd be re-fueling and out on the last trekking segment soon enough. We punched in around 3:30am, I got another hug from Mark (theme here - I like hugs, especially when I'm a little spacy during long endurance events) and got ready for the last trek!
Shenandoah River State Park - Trekking & Mountain Biking
This part of my recap gets a little fuzzy as it was the witching hour where we'd been racing for over 18-hours by this point and the way my head works if I'm outside at night, once the sun goes down, I perpetually think its midnight, whether it's 9pm or 3am, so it had been "midnight" for almost 8 hours and I was starting to not know what end was up. Lucky for me, I had my teammates to follow and we made good time getting over into the park with a little bush-whacking to save some time. Most of the points were again straight-forward. I made the mistake of changing my nutrition here and my stomach rebelled a bit - instead of the Power Bar Gel Blasts, which I had been chowing down on most of the night, I grabbed a pack of shot-blocks, something I typically eat in races, but for some reason, the sweetness and texture of them just made my stomach turn and for a good 30-45 minutes on the trek I was pretty sure I was going to throw up. Ernie advised me to keep drinking and try and get some solid more "real" food down. All I had that was solid and "real" was a vanilla Power Bar that was 85% frozen since it was hovering around 40-degrees out. I somehow go it down though, and my stomach played a little nicer as we wrapped up the last of the CPs in the park and headed back to transition to grab our bikes for the final leg.
The sun was just starting to rise as we rolled out one last time. I had put down some Red Bull and part of a banana so my stomach was a lot happier. My legs on the other-hand, were about done. Aside from the bruise on my left ankle, I had picked up a funky sharp pain in my lower right shin on the downhill sections of the last trek. Thankfully biking didn't impact either of those two, so all I had to deal with was the general fatigue from being up now for close to 24-hours. The trail signs and the map we had didn't quite match up so we had a little confusion initially, but got it sorted soon enough and hit most of the remaining CPs without any major issues. After we got the final one, it was time to book it out of the park and back to the finish at TA, but to get out of the park without taking the scenic route, we had to bush-whack up two seemingly monster hills with our bikes....and I thought hike-a-bike was tough - now try bush-whack-a-bike. I set my determination and somehow got through it with a lot of encouragement from my teammates. We clipped in, picked up the last trail and flew into the finish.
We punched in around 7:30am, 29 minutes after SOG, but still clearing the course in about 21 1/2 hours to secures 2nd place. I was exhausted, but stoked. Hugs and high-fives all around, as we managed to overcome some early difficulties, but finished strong and smiling. And while of course winning would have been awesome, I'll happily take 2nd place in my first 24+ hour adventure race. But now - I'm a little more experienced, a little wiser and while I still may be a rookie, it's game on for the rest of the season!
