2013 Atomic 30 Hour Adventure Race Report

Atomic 30 Hour Adventure Race, May 18-19 2013

Location: Blue Ridge, Georgia

Team: Rev3/MK Masters

Racers:Chris Spiller, Julie Lee, David O'Rear

Report by: David O'Rear

   

This year’s Atomic race promised a very different race for 2013.  Most notable change was a Night Orienteering course in the very remote, steep, and rugged Rich Mountain Wildlife Management Area. This part of the course would ultimately end up being the most influential segment in determining which team would take the top spot honors.
Julie and Chris were to drive down from Knoxville Friday night, and I ended up linking up with them at the Race main TA/Finish Location Saturday Morning. After unpacking our gear and bit of race prep, we checked in and received the map and race information. All CPs were pre-plotted once again this year. I understand why Race directors do this however I believe it takes away a major dynamic in Adventuring Racing. Map reading/plotting accuracy! Pangea get’s a huge pat on the back from me for using waterproof maps produced by mytopo. Not only are they waterproof, they are usually very accurate and print race information directly on the map. I really hate managing all those little supplemental paper maps which are common place. So race directors and race companies out there, get with the program. We racers spend entirely too much money on these races, so the least you can do is spend a little more of our entry fees on decent maps. Great job Pangea!  Additionally clue sheets and passports were also printed on tyvek type paper, which was huge since the weather prediction was for the typical North Georgia spring monsoon type rains which would end up greeting us at about 2am Sunday morning.

We were  bused to the start which was located at the small but picturesque Skeenah Creek Campground about 30 minutes away.  After another short briefing at the start, some pictures, we were off. The race was broken down into six segments. A seventh single track biking segment was unfortunately cancelled due to trail conditions. This was VERY unfortunate for us since Julie, Chris and myself are all very good technical riders, especially at night. Regardless of the impact to us the director made the 100% right call.

Segment 1: Day Trekking over Tooni and Rocky Mountain (9 CPs). The first segment went very well. Especially since we watched nearly every team to blow past us at the start and we ended up clearing this segment 17 minutes ahead of the next team. This was a great opening segment with challenging daytime navigation. Our time: 3:49:00         

Segment 2: Day Paddling the Toccoa from the Deep Hole Rec Area to the Dial Area (3 CPs/11 river miles).

We rolled into the transition area in the lead which enabled us to have first choice of the race boats in the TA. We opted to grab the only Mad River Adventure 16 canoe over the other standard canoes. Our thought process was the pronounced keel and stiffer bottom of the Mad River Canoe would be faster in the water. It also had back rests seats and a third seat in the center which would be much more comfortable for Julie. In retrospect we should have opted for a standard open top canoe. The Mad River was indeed faster, but since it is slightly closed at the top, it is much more difficult to recover after capsizing which unfortunately we are prone to do. Unlike last year, the paddle segment avoided the most difficult rapids on the river however due to the recent rain, the water volume was significantly higher than usual. This made for swift paddling however turned the usual Class I and II shoals into raging upper Class III’s. We cleared this segment easily in 2:16:00 and maintained the lead despite capsizing twice. Only two teams were faster.

Segment 3: Day Bike Segment: Paved and Forestry Roads (5 CPs)

The day bike segment was also smartly selected by the Director. With travel on both gravel and paved roads the routes was swift but challenging to navigate, hilly but not the blistering climbs we expected. Although we cleared this segment, this was where we made the first tactical error. We opted to do an out and back on one of the points only to realize that I plotted a segment of our route in error. Although not a navigational error it did cause us to backtrack a bit losing our time lead slightly. This would come to haunt us later. We were still in the lead overall since at this point we were the only team to have cleared the course up to this point. Day Bike time: 3:14:00

Segment 4: Night Bike Segment: Big Bald Mountain (4 CPs)

After checking into the mandatory TA we were able to exchange passports and quickly grab some food. The sun was beginning to set and we had lost our time lead slightly. We still thought our best chance was to clear the course. We choked down our food, refilled water, fixed lights and we were off. This part of the race would include gravel roads, a bit of double track, a brutal forestry road climb and some god awful trekking. We tackled the first CP quickly and then started the brutal climb up Big Bald Mountain. It was at this point I began to feel a bonk coming on. The road turned so steep that I believe we were all glad to be pushing not trying to ride. It seemed to never end. We had met up with our buddies the Howler Monkeys who were also pushing up this beast. Once we reached the saddle we were looking for, we grounded bikes and began trekking up the beastly Big Bald Mountain to grab the CP at the top. The walk down to the bikes and the ride down the mountain allowed me to recover slightly however I was still feeling less than fully recovered. We then back tracked and grabbed the third point which was challenging. We decided that we would skip the last point figuring with the night orienteering course our strongest area we could make up both time and maintain our lead. Big Bald Bike segment took 4:15:00.

Segment 5: Night Orienteering Course : Rich Mountain WMA, Cold Mountain Complex (8 CPs)

At this point in the race we were tied with Rib Mountain Racing, They departed the TA only minutes ahead and we crossed paths with them several times. Our strategy was simple, clear the course. We decided clear CPs 24 and 25 on the way to the most difficult point, CP 28. Our navigation was near flawless. CP 28 was located halfway up Cold Mountain around a series of intersecting creeks. As we were nearing within 500 meters or so the bottom fell out and it began to rain and visibility was only a few feet. Poor visibility combined with rain turning nearly every draw (re-emergent) into a raging torrent turned navigation on this terrain near impossible.  We searched for about an hour for the point deciding to finally bag it and move along.  I imagine we were probably on top of the point but visibility was so poor it was impossible to see. We were to discover no teams found that point. Of course no team looked as long as we did either. We quickly bagged two easy points on the way to the two difficult points on the steep and boulder strewn Cold Mountain. This would involve an elevation increase of over 1000 feet in the most rugged and steep terrain I have ever been on here in Ga. This would take several hours. Once again hats off to the Pangea Staff. We were one of the few teams to clear the points on Cold Mountain despite a few fumbles, a bear sighting, and a few strange hallucinations by Chris along the way. On to the TA we decided to drop the last point. We knew we were tied with Rib Mountain and thought they were only a few minutes in front of us and we would make up the lost time on the bike. Unfortunately we spent too much time on Cold Mountain. With the Single Track bike segment cancelled  we were ultimately unable to make up the time deficit.

Final Segment: Sport Race Course including Lake Paddling and short Day Orienteering Course.

Once we arrived back at the main TA we were issued new race information on the final segment. The race info seemed confusing and was proving difficult frustrating for Chris and I.  Here is where I made my biggest mistake of the race which was pointed out to me by Julie after the fact. Apparently during my frustration as I lashed out. This unfortunately was probably interpreted by the race volunteer who was helping us, as being directed at her. For this I am deeply sorry. This volunteer I am speaking of treated our team with nothing more than kindness and helpfulness so if it was interpreted as being directed at her and the Pangea Staff, I publicly and humbly offer my apologies.  The confusion can more appropriately be attributed to our fatigue than anything else. The last segment turned out to be a great finishing segment. The flat water paddling along with the orienteering made route selection as important as navigation. We cleared the segment faster than any other team, unfortunately not quickly enough to take the lead back. Segment 6 time 4:51:00. Great job to Chris and Julie taking the lead on this segment!

Overall: This was a great race from start to finish. Much improved and better flowing course than last year. I can’t say enough positive things about the Pangea Race Staff. They got this one 100% right. Pizza Hut Pizza a great post race choice, Cheese burgers, beer, prizes all good. Plus, the most original race trophy idea ever.   As far as our team is concerned we needed this race. Congratulations to Rib Mountain. I can only hope we haunted you guys every step of the way!

Looking forward to next year’s Race.

Odyssey Wild Wonderful 24 Hr

Odyssey Wild Wonderful West Virginia

Racers: Dave Ashley, John Courain, Aaron Courain, Emily McDonald

Report by: Aaron Courain

Photo Credit: Fredrik Goransson

The weekend of May 18 brought the Rev3 Adventure/MK team to the New River Gorge in WV for the Odyssey Wild Wonderful 24 hr.  After much travel, the 4 of us met at the ACE adventure resort to register and attend the pre race meeting to hear about what we were in for.  Maps weren’t to be given out until after the race start, so that meant we would able to sleep that night and not be wondering if we had spent enough time preparing with the map. 

Prologue

6 am Saturday the teams gathered to start the prologue, which would decide starting order for the guided whitewater rafting section.  The prologue consisted of a 5 point foot orienteering course within the ACE resort, with a 1 hr time limit, and penalties for finishing late.  Teams were given maps, and we had 5 minutes to look them over before starting.  When the gun went off, we ran to the highest point first, to get that out of the way and hopefully avoid a long line of racers trying to punch. Dave was navigating this race, having been here multiple times, and did a fantastic job of keeping us on point.  Our speed as a team was well matched and we finished the leg with a few minutes to spare.  Only 4 other teams were able to clear the prologue, so that put us in a good position for beginning the rest of the race.

Paddle

The paddle for this race is on the New River, with up to class V rapids.  I’ve got to say this is the most fun that I’ve had on a paddle leg.  Rev3 got assigned to the first heat, and we shared a boat with the Howler Monkeys.  We all got comfortable with each other early on and were able to work well as an 8 person team, paddling with minimal effort, but high efficiency.  Our guide kept us in the fast moving water and avoided some of the larger hits that would slow us down more.  All this led to us being in front for a good portion of the paddle, and we were able to be the first boat out of the water.  The 15 miles of paddling went very quickly.  I found myself wishing for a bit more!

 At this point though, the race was on.  We had to transition into some dry clothing and get our maps.  Dash took the lead, looking over the maps to figure out which leg would be best to attack first (there were 3 legs, which could be done in any order)  we decided to go for the trekking leg, which had the most off trail orienteering, and therefore could get it done in 100% daylight.

Leg1 – Trek

After our quick transition from the paddle, we were off on the trekking leg.  We needed to get back across the river and up the opposite side of the gorge to access the trail system that the CP’s were on.  There were two ways to do this: we could swim, or we could go slightly out of the way to a footbridge which would then take us across.  As a team, we decided that the footbridge, though further, would be the safer option, so as teams were running into the river, we went in the opposite direction.  Unfortunately we would later find out that this would eventually cost us a large amount of time in the race.

We made it across and started the climb out of the river, visiting the checkpoints on our way.  There were 9 marked CPs for this section, with 2 of those having additional UTM coordinates for 2 bonus CPs that could be plotted for a section total of 11.  Dash’s navigation was dead on.  We had very accurate bearings and pace counts, and no CP gave us any real trouble on this leg so far. 

By the 3^rd or 4^th CP, we had found our first set of bonus coordinates.  We plotted them and found that they would lead us out of the trail system and into a nearby town.  It was a pretty large out and back distance, so we decided to go straight for it, and then finish the CPs on the other side of the trail system. 

It turns out that we plotted the bonus CP incorrectly, (and didn’t copy the original UTM coordinates)  when we found ourselves searching for it on a residential street.  We took a few minutes to talk about the situation and decided to keep moving, but pass by a location where we thought it was possible for it to be.  Turns out our intuition was right and we found the CP on the way back.  That was a big relief to know that we didn’t just waste 40 minutes for nothing.  We made a quick stop at a gas station before leaving town, to fill up on water and Gatorade, and then headed back into the trails. 

As we attacked the next few CPs on the map, we came across our 2^nd set of coordinates.  After plotting we realized that we made a pretty big mistake.  Both bonus CPs were located in the town.  In order to clear this section, we would have to make the trip back into town and get the other CP.  Knowing that would add at least 30 minutes to this leg.  We all got a little grumpy at this point, but none of us foresaw this issue, so we just had to keep on and keep pushing. 

The last point turned out to be a real pain to get.  It involved bushwhacking several hundred feet down a steep reentrant, full of waterfalls, to find a triple tiered waterfall, where the CP was located.  I quickly learned that the safest way down was NOT down the water and rocks themselves, after I slipped and was taken for a ride off of the edge of one of the  waterfalls.  During that moment, I wasn’t sure if our race was about to be over, but thankfully the drop was only about 6 feet, and I was able to get myself turned around so I landed on my feet.  Water parks may be fun, but that was scary.  We all made our way onto the steep sided banks of the reentrant and kept fighting our way down, through the brush.  We finally located the CP after some trouble spotting it from the banks.  This is where we also realized how much time we wasted by not swimming across the river.  If we had chosen to swim in the beginning of this leg, we would have been able to attack this point from the bottom, and it would have been in plain sight far sooner.  Oh well, lesson learned.  Time to move on.

Our 2^nd trip out to the town to get the last bonus CP was quick and uneventful, thankfully.  It was now time to go back across the river and up to our Transition area to take on the next biking section.  This trek took us about 8 hours to clear, which is what we had expected.

Leg2 – Bike

At the transition area, we were coming in on foot, as team SOG, Odyssey and Checkpoint Zero were all coming in on bikes.  Due to the rogaine format of the race, we did not know exactly where they stood in relation to us, but after a few exchanges, we found that they all had not only cleared the first foot section, but also the next bike section.  We were about 4 hours behind all 3 lead teams now which was very disappointing to find out.  We realized how much time our race strategy actually cost us, but what was done was done, and we had to keep moving and racing.  We got on to our bikes shortly before sunset, and headed out.

 This biking section took us through some fantastic single track.  2 of the 6 checkpoints were a little off the trail, requiring a few minutes of foot travel to obtain, but we were very efficient in our attacks and had no real issues.  Unfortunately our only issue became time.  We still had another section after this, and a 35 mile mountain bike leg to get to the finish.  If we finished 1 minute after 9 am, we would be unofficial.  So we had to make some tough decisions to drop 2 points from this leg, head back to the TA, and head out for leg 3.

Leg3 – Bike/trek

Leg 3 involved a combination of biking and trekking, so we picked up our new passport and our trekking shoes for this section and headed back out into the night.  There were 7 total CPs on this leg, we were going to do what we could, but we needed to be on our way back to the finish by 4 am.  So we had a cutoff we needed to enforce on ourselves.

 Most of the orienteering here was on point and uneventful.  however, we were pushing into the 2 and 3 AM hours and starting to feel the exhaustion set in.  We found ourselves searching up and down a reentrant for a point that didn’t seem to be there, after I double checked the map with our altitude, I realized that we were looking in the wrong reentrant, and needed to be in the adjacent one.  We actually over corrected this, and again went too far the other way, searching once again for a point that wasn’t there.  One last time we looked at the map, re-situated ourselves, and then were able to walk straight to the point.  It can easily get frustrating when you think you are in the right spot and just start wandering to look for the CP, but being able to stop yourself, assess the situation and re-attack the point is always the better decision than getting flustered and angry.

The rest of this leg brought us to some pretty fantastic climbing cliffs late at night.  We had to descend some ladders bolted into the rock and weave our way down through the caves to get to the base of a wall, where we found a checkpoint. We also found ourselves traversing under an enormous cliff band and finally finding the trail to the top overlook, where our last CP for that leg would be.  We might have been pretty exhausted, but we were definitely able to appreciate the amazing terrain that we were finding our way through in the dead of night.

Time once again was not on our side and we ended up leaving 2 more CPs out on the course.  We headed back to the TA for the last time .

Leg4 – Bike

We made our self-imposed 4 am cutoff and headed out for the final 35 mile bike leg to the finish.  Somehow this leg felt like FAR more than 35 miles.   We started out on the road, which was pretty uneventful.  a few climbs here and there, but the most difficult thing was to stay awake, we all found ourselves weaving a bit on the road.  Eventually the paved road ended and the dirt road began.  The sun was just beginning to come up at this point, which always brings a second wind.

 It turns out that we would really need that second wind too.  The dirt road started climbing, and did not stop climbing.  The only change that we found was that the road went from hard packed dirt, to mud, which slowed uphill progress even more.  All of the gas in my tank was really draining at this point, but we were still pressed for time, unsure if we were going to make the 9 am cutoff or not.  We couldn’t stop.  No breaks or time outs.  Just keep pedaling.

After a couple more days of pedaling uphill through mud, we finally came to the crest and left that awful road behind us.  Now we began the fun part: descending.  We needed to make up our lost time from going so slowly uphill, so instead of catching our breath and coasting down, Emily turned on her insane mountain biker switch and began hammering down the road.  Our gears were topped out and our legs were spinning.  I was running on fumes at this point.  We were literally keeping our tires on the brink of traction around most of the turns.  For as long as we climbed, it felt like we descended for twice that.  The road just kept going and going and going. 

We finally reached the river.  Now we just had to cross and travel another 6k or so to the finish line.  all of us except for Emily were really feeling it.  I kept my legs going somehow though, however slowly that was.  At this point we knew we were going to make it in time.  The rush we put on ourselves for the last few hours paid off and we had a cushion of time to finish in.  Just get there.  Slowly but surely.

We crossed the finish line at 8:35.  We were able to punch 29 points total, which would secure us for 3^rd in the 4 person coed division, and 4^th overall, behind Odyssey, Checkpoint Zero and SOG, who were all able to clear the course.  As a team we were happy with our performance and ability to work together.  This was the first time that I had raced with Emily or Dave.  It was obvious that we chose the wrong race strategy early on, and that played a large part in our finishing status.  But we kept it together well otherwise and thoroughly enjoyed an adventure in the wild and wonderful West Virginia.

Coastal Challenge 8-Hour

Delmarva Adventure Sports Coastal Challenge

Lewes, DE

May 4, 2013

Rev3/MK Team -  Dave Ashley, Fritz Pameijer & Emily McDonald

Rev3/MK Masters - Terri Spanogle, Rory Welch, Greg Tennille& Pete Cameron

Race Report by: Emily McDonald

Time to play Adventure Racing!

On Saturday May 4th, Rev3/MK headed up to Cape Henlopen State Park  to take on Delmarva Adventure Sports' inaugural Coastal Challenge 8-Hour Sprint Adventure Race.We had two teams competing in the 3/4 Person Co-Ed Elite Division and I was on a 3-person team with Dave and Fritz. Initially I thought this would be a good "training" race to work out my kinks from the Epic and gear up for Odyssey's Wild & Wonderful in 2 weeks. And while I did learn some more valuable lessons, this race also more than lived up to its name, proving to be a fun, but very challenging day.

It was a sunny, but chilly and windy morning and we arrived at the state park with plenty of time to set up our gear, check-in and sit around and wait since while we did get the maps, we wouldn't receive any checkpoints until the race started around 9am. With Dave and Fritz plotting, we were the first team out on the trek and cut through some beach brush to head off to the first few checkpoints. The park wasn't nearly as flat as I had thought - with sand dunes and little hills in the coastal forest adding to the challenge. Running on sand and through sandy pine-needle-covered soil isn't easy, but at least it's more forgiving than asphalt. I was glad that Dave had suggested bringing running shoes as opposed to my heavier trekking shoes.

All the teams were fairly close early on and we saw Odyssey and GOALS at the first CPs and tried to kick it up a notch. We took sand-swept trail from the last CP to the transition to paddle, and were the first into transition. Dave grabbed a sit-on-top single kayak and Fritz and I got one of the sit-in doubles. Hindsight, while the sit-in was theoretically faster, we'd soon find out the self-draining sit-on-top may have been better...


15+ mph winds across the Delaware Bay had our paddle start off smooth and fast. Paddling is my weakest part, but since I was in the double with Fritz, at least I didn't have to worry about steering too much, and could work on re-fueling. Thankful we have Power Bar as an awesome sponsor because I was throwing back their Gel-Blasts like candy. Love those things.  The first two CPs on the paddle were pretty easy, even with a fairly wild beach-launch following the 2nd, where I  I mis-stepped and almost fell over the kayak getting back in (hmm..think the guys missed that thankfully...haha).  We took the opportunity to stretch our legs and run a little bit on the beach getting the last paddle CP before turning back to face the wind and a 4-mile paddle back to shore. And that is when I thought we were going to die. The swell was picking up with probably close to 2-foot rollers and Delaware Bay was quickly filling up our 2-person boat. I had some serious internal panic going on especially since at the front of the kayak the waves were either landing a) On my lap or b) In my face.

So we bailed, we paddled, we bailed, we paddled, I started to freeze, paddled some more and finally, after what seemed like an eternity, made it safely onto dry land.  To put the wind in perspective, when I got too cold to bail and had to paddle to warm back up, Fritz would bail, I'd paddle and the kayak would stay put. Once Fritz started padding again we'd actually go forward. I'm pretty sure if I hadn't been in a boat with him, I'd still be trying to paddle back....yay teammates! Even with the slow paddle back,  we were the 2nd team in, and after a quick 1km we were back at TA and thankfully it was time for the bike!

Dry socks, shoes, jersey and gloves will make you feel like a new person. That, and I downed two gels and half a pack of Power Bar Gel-Blasts before we rolled out on the bikes. Our transition had been quick enough so we were the first team off on the bikes despite being 3rd back into transition as Odyssey passed us running from the boats to TA. This bike was flat and mostly on road and a few gravel trails. The wind was awful and  at times it was all I could do to hold onto the guys' wheels. Somewhere in the melee of TA we forgot our clue sheet for some of the CPs, but luckily Fritz remembered the clue for one CP we needed to write down.  Unfortunately since we didn't have the clue / rule sheet we ended up riding for about 3 miles or so on Rt. 1, which wasn't allowed (oops!) but more on that later. On our way back to the park, we thought we might have missed a CP, but turns out it just wasn't highlighted on the map. Took maybe 3-4 minutes figuring that one out and soon we were rolling again, found the CP and were the first team back into TA.

Look-out tower checkpoint

Another quick TA since Dave convinced me I didn't need to swap out bladders and offered to carry an extra bottle for me. Having awesome teammates rocks :-) The CPs here were fairly straight-forward, and the guys' navigation was spot on. We took some of the park's nature trails and had some minimal bushwhacking to save a little time. By this point in the day, we had been moving for about 5 1/2 hours and neither my leg nor my stomach were happy. Toss it up to downing 2 gels at once or drinking too much seawater, but we'll keep it ladylike and just say I was thankful to find a port-o-potty along the trail since no food seemed to want to stay inside. Flip-side, I felt like a new person and had a little more spring in my step.  Fritz kept us entertained with stories of some of the crazy AR's he's done in the past  and soon enough, we snagged the CP on-top of the look-out tower and were ready to book it back to TA for the last bike leg.

Ribbon, team, bike - Check!

We had a quick TA again and were about to roll out until Fritz yelled that his tire was flat. Not good, especially not good since it was maybe a 30-45 minute bike and Odyssey was maybe 4-5 minutes behind us. As we went to help Fritz change the tire, they rolled out, and of course nothing seemed to work - my pump was acting funny and no one had CO2 handy, but we got it together and rolled out about 5 minutes later to see what we could do. For the CPs on this leg, we had to take a picture at each one that included all the team members, part of a bike and a colored ribbon that was at the CP. We had some "technical difficulties" the first few CPs getting the picture framed right, but soon enough got the hang of it. We ran into Odyssey at a CP and realized that they had two relatively close CPs to finish while we had two relatively far out ones. It was going to be tight.  We cleared the course and finished with about 45-minutes to spare. Odyssey had just come in ahead of us, but turns out it wouldn't have mattered if we had gotten the flat or not, because talking with them after the race we realized we had taken an off-limits road, and ultimately decided to tell the he race director, resulting in us being docked one CP. That didn't change our standings thankfully and we still had our 2nd place overall finish. Terri and the Rev3Master's finished strong in 4th, coming in a little after GOALS who finished 3rd.

 

Fritz, myself & Dave post-race

 

The whole Rev3/MK  gang! Greg, Emily, Terri, Rory, Dave, Pete & Fritz (in front)

Little bittersweet finish, but it was an awesome race that was close until the very end. I learned even more about adventure racing and myself on the course and am finally starting to feel a lot more comfortable in the sport. Not bad for my 3rd adventure race :-) Dave says I'm no longer a rookie ... ha.

Thanks to Delmarva Adventure Sports for hosting a fun and challenging race!

 

American Adventure Sports Yough Extreme

AAS Yough Extreme 10 hr.

Racers:  John Courain, Aaron Courain, Dustine Reppuhn

On April 26^th John, Dusty and myself met in Ohiopyle, PA for the American Adventure Sports Yough Extreme.  John and I have raced here numerous times and were expecting a fast course for the coming race.  After check in, we got the maps, plotted our points from the master map, and then retreated to our hotel to fuel up on pasta and go over race strategy.  Light and fast was going to be the name of the game.  Our transitions would need to be quick; only stopping to change shoes or put on life vests.  Otherwise everything would be done while moving.

Prelude

The race started with a very short prelude run, about 3/8 mile total out and back to then jump on our bikes.  We left our bikes as close to the rail trail as possible, after we agreed with Team SOG how close is too close.  Sprinting on cold leg muscles is never easy or fun, but the three of us made it onto our bikes with no issues and were immediately chasing SOG up the Baughman trail.

Bike

The first leg consisted of climbing the Baughman trail, then jumping on to the sugarloaf trail which would take us to our first transition at an overlook.  The Baughman trail is one of the few trails that lets you access the mass of the park system from Ohiopyle, it climbs roughly 600 feet in 2 kilometers, then graciously flattens out to let you catch your breath before you continue climbing on the sugarloaf trail.  We had SOG in our sights the entire time, continuing to push hard, but not wanting to blow up on the first climb of the race.  This was only 600 feet of a total of almost 9000 we would be covering today.  We made it into transition 2 minutes behind SOG, and saw them running off as we pulled in.

Run

We dropped our bikes and bike shoes only, and put on our running shoes to start off on a long fast descent back down to the river.  7 kilometers of running downhill  is not easy on the joints at all, but we kept together and worked as a team well, arriving to the paddle put in just minutes after SOG and Soloist – Earl, who is a fantastic racer that we would be swapping leads with throughout the rest of the race.

Paddle

John and Dusty took one tandem raft, and I took a single.  This leg would be the only low intensity section of the entire race.  So we took an opportunity here, to eat something substantial and rehydrate as the swift current carried us for the first few minutes.  The area received a decent amount of rain in the previous few days, so the river was moving faster than normal, which was a nice.  The rafts used for this paddle are comfortable for about 20 minutes, then your legs start going numb.  The cold water was refreshing, but I could feel my leg muscles tightening up after such a hard bike and climb.  After a few small but fun rapids, we found our take out point.  While taking the boats up the ramp to drop them off in transition, I really felt how much my leg muscles had contracted. And there was only one way to warm them back up.

Run/trek

We had another quick transition from paddle to trek, I downed a soda and part of a candy bar as we started off down the rail trail to get to CP5.  Once we started moving, the legs started warming back up.  Once again we were pushing the pace.  We had about 5k to run on the rail trail and then would cut straight up a steep reentrant to get to CP5 and then continue up to CP6 to pick up our bikes.  We estimated the run to take us about 30 minutes, but we arrived a bit early at our reentrant, to our pleasant surprise.

Then the climbing began.

From the rail trail to CP5, was 500 vertical feet. That part was actually pretty easy.  It started off gradual, and then got a little steeper and steeper until we crawled the last few feet up to the dirt road which accessed a gas well, where we would find our CP.  After punching we kept the same course, straight up the reentrant.  From CP5 to CP6 was 1100 vertical feet, with the majority of the climbing spanning less than a half kilometer.   To picture that, we were climbing on all fours, grabbing anything we could to keep us from sliding back down.  We made sure to stagger ourselves out a bit, so that when rocks let loose no one would be in danger. 

On this section I think we lost a bit of time.  In order to ease the steepness a bit, we did an ascending traverse, which put us off course a bit more than planned.  After the climbing was done we found a trail that we thought we had been looking for.  As we followed it, we realized we were at the wrong spot and had to reposition ourselves on the map and correct our course to finish the trek/climb to CP6.  We made it to CP6 with no further issues, just a little behind Earl, who obviously took a better course than we did.

Bike

One last quick transition and we were off on the final leg.  An out and back to bag CP7 brought us back through the transition area to see GOALS getting changed to get on our bikes.  That meant they were only about 15-20 mins behind us.  That gave us the motivation to really hammer the next section.  A long fast downhill with a short detour to grab CP8 which was up a stream, was made even faster by the feeling of being chased.  The smooth dirt road we were descending led us to the sugarloaf trail descent.  This trail is loose, rocky and fast; much more fitting for a long travel downhill bike, than for the hardtail XC bikes with high tire pressures that we were riding.  After having our bodies shaken apart for a while, we made it back to Ohiopyle and headed off in the opposite direction on the rail trail to make our final climb for CP9.

 

We caught back up with Earl at the beginning of the climb, and were soon at the campground, looking for a graveyard for CP9.  At this point, I was really feeling the effect of pushing so hard for 7+ hrs straight.  going the pace we were, I had not been able to get as much nutrition back into my system as I was losing through exertion, and I felt the effects of bonking starting to creep up on me as I started falling behind on the bike.  After punching 9, and descending some single track to get to CP10, a short steep section of trail that I had to run my bike up, pushed me over the edge, and I just had to stop.  I got something to eat and drink and tried to catch my breath and get my heart rate down, while trying to keep my food down as well.  The three of us regrouped, knowing that GOALS could not be that far behind us.  While trying to keep myself together, Earl rode past us for the last time on his way to the finish.  I assured him I was ok, and Dusty and I changed backpacks, as she had packed lighter for the race and divided up some of her gear between John and I.  Having a much lighter pack made a huge difference.  We continued on to punch 10, and then turned around to descent back to the rail trail.  Once at the rail trail, John put me on tow and we pushed back the few Km’s to the finish line, securing our 2^nd place finish behind Team SOG. 

Adventure racing is such a unique sport because of the team aspect.  And I can’t be thankful enough for the amazing team I get to race with every time.  We pushed hard but despite a few hiccups, finished well.  And as always, learned more for the next race.

                                                                            Image credit AAS