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Tag Archives: GOALS ARA

Reboot

7 Comments Posted by on February 2, 2013

I’ve been doing a lot of waiting recently.

Professional waiting.  Personal waiting.  Racing waiting.  Each is independent of the others and they’re all interconnected and it’s meant that over the past few months, my life has felt like one big holding pattern.

Last week, on an early flight to the west coast – I was in LA for a family wedding – I decided that I was done waiting.

I started easy, by firming up a race calendar for the spring and summer.  I’m looking at a two-day snowshoeing race next month, a marathon this spring, and then a handful of adventure races between May and July, before Brent and I head to Eastern Europe for 3-4 weeks of hiking and exploring .  Nothing too elaborate this year – nothing longer than 48 hours or more than 500-600 miles away.

Then I put together a training plan.  It’s not dramatically different – I’ve already been getting in long runs and speed work and the like  - but something a little more formalized, a little more on-paper.  I’m a big fan of on-paper.

And then I started “training.”

For about three days, that is – until my right achilles started complaining.

In point of fact, it had actually been complaining for a few weeks – it started the day after I raced a 9k in New Orleans in three-year-old minimalist trail shoes.  I’m not sure if it was those shoes or the Brooks Ghosts that I started wearing two days later, but my calf has been cranky on-and-off since.

I consulted with a couple friends – Jason, a college track coach/new teammate, and my new-ish running buddy Kristy, (or, as she’s known in our house, Kristy-from-the-Philly-Marathon) – and now I’m in the middle of a week-long rehab bonanza.  Lots of massaging and stretching, boatloads of icing – and zero running.  Then I’ll ease back in for a week and hopefully be back training in earnest by mid-February.

Maybe in different shoes.

I’ve pushed my target marathon back from March to April, to give myself an extra four weeks to prepare.  I’m currently eyeing the Athens Marathon in northeastern Ohio.  Not ideal in terms of location, but the weekend works well logistically and the course looks relatively fast and forgiving.

And so I guess I’m back to waiting.  But now I know what I’m waiting for.

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2012 Krista Griesacker: The Cliffs Notes Edition

3 Comments Posted by on July 30, 2012

This past Saturday, I teamed up with GOALS veterans Bruce and Jon for the 12-hour Krista Griesacker Memorial Adventure Race in Hamburg, Pennsylvania.

I had grand ambitions to write a detailed report about our adventures, but I spent yesterday afternoon in the ER making sure I hadn’t cracked my shin and then spent this morning at my regular doctor, getting a prescription for an oral steroid for some kind of insect bite or sting-gone-wrong – and Brent and I are getting on a plane in five hours for Scotland.

So instead, a bulleted cliffs notes version of what transpired… luckily, those injuries aren’t a reflection of our day in the woods.

The Paddle

  • The race began on the water, with a several-kilometer paddle around a dammed lake.  After a short separator, we were the second team to shove off – and we went in the exact opposite direction of the first checkpoint.  We paddled all the way to the dam, left our boat, and then bushwhacked another half kilometer past the dam before realizing where we were on the map.

Another team portaging around the dam at the END of the paddle (the right way) – all photos c/o Tim Mundon

  • Thus began our Paddle of Shame.  We retraced our strokes all the way across the lake, crossing paths with every single other team on the way.
  • After collecting CPs 2 and 3 en route back to CP 1, we opted to pull off the water and portage our boat 800 meters along a railroad bed, cutting off roughly 4 kilometers of paddling.  Jon hoisted the canoe on his shoulders for about 750 of those meters.
  • We hit the first TA close to three hours after we began.  Though we’d made up upwards of 30 minutes with the portage, we were still the very last team off the water.

The Bike

  • Five minutes after we rolled out of the TA, my front brake cable spontaneously dislodged from its socket.  ”Not to worry,” Jon told me.  ”You won’t be needing your breaks for an hour or so.”
  • After a short stretch of roads, we turned off into the woods, reattached my brake, and began a 2-ish kilometer climb straight up to a ridgeline.  For the first 2/3, I found it easier to spin up in my granny gear than to hike-a-bike.  At one point, though, I got off to walk a particularly rocky turn, and when I tried to remount, the damp, slick ground and steep hill and too-low gear conspired against me, and I promptly fell over onto the side of the trail.  ”Don’t worry – I didn’t see anything,” said Jon from behind me.  ”You’d be surprised at how often I do that,” I told him.  And with that, I clipped into my pedals and fell right over again, this time nailing my shin on a large rock.  It swelled.  I resorted to hike-a-bike.
  • Atop the ridge we found some gloriously fast trails.  We flew through the next section, collecting all of the points en route to the next TA.

Ann Lombardi of Team GOALS II on the ridgeline trails

  • We arrived to see that about half of the field had already dropped their bikes and set off on foot.  Progress.

The Foot

  • From here we descended through the woods into a valley for a short foot section.  I was beginning to bonk as we pulled into TA, but a Philly soft pretzel saved the day.  A big, doughy ball of salt on a hot day – what more could you ask for?
  • We learned later that a number of teams struggled in here, but with Jon on the maps, we ran a smooth loop.  Less than 45 minutes after we set off, we started the sharp ascent back up to the bikes.
  • For the first time since the paddle, we crossed paths with Laurie and Val, who were out as the only all-female team on the course.  As folks commented throughout the day, they were doing great (for girls).

The Bike

  •  We transitioned back onto our bikes, and bombed down a series of gravel switchback en route to a road that would take us to the final foot section of the day.
  • It was a quiet, uneventful ride, save for Jon’s flat tire and the mid-day sun that began melting all the racers.  By the end of the ride, we found ourselves in a pack of teams.  Slowly but sure, we’d managed to sneak back into the race, though we still had no idea where we’d finish.

The Foot

  • This last section was the only repeat from previous versions of the Krista.  Once we ascended a couple kilometers up an exposed gravel road, we reached Pulpit Rock and the quintessential view from Hawk Mountain.

  • From here, we had just a few checkpoints to collect before bushwhacking down the mountain to the finish line at the Civil Air Patrol Base.
  • We moved well enough through the first two points and then found ourselves back with a gaggle of racers in search of CP 24, the final flag before the descent.  The clue read 50 meters north of the Appalachian Trail but the plot had the point on the south side of the trail, and wherever it was, there was no good point from which to attack.  We spent over an hour scouring the woods.  Finally, all of us cried uncle and began making our way down the trail when Ann Marie of Team Antiguan Monkey Hunt cried out, “There it is!” and darted into the woods.  We all quickly followed suit, nabbed the point, and began the long slog back.
  • This final descent took us through thick, rocky, brambled, spider-webbed woods, and though I felt like I was moving relatively well for me, Bruce and Jon began to open up a bit of a lead as we trudged along.  Two thirds of the way down, Bruce turned back and pointed urgently to our left, “there’s a coed-3 team right there.  Let’s move.”  It was all the motivation I needed to practice my footwork on the technical terrain.  I took off in a combo gallop/run and tried to match the guys the rest of the way.  I moved well for the most part, delayed briefly by a sharp pain in my left tricep – some kind of bee sting or spider bite – and when we reached the base, Bruce ran to grab our climbing gear and Jon and I sprinted toward the final section to suit up.
  • All that was left was an ascent up and rappel down a firetower and a quick run through an obstacle course.

  • Only one team member needed to ascend and we’d decided earlier that I would use the opportunity to practice for Scotland, but when it became clear that we were in a dash to the finish, Bruce clipped into the rope and scampered to the top before Jon and I even made it up the ladder.  Volunteers checked our gear and within seconds we were dropping down the other side.
  • Bruce’s speed on the climb was all we needed.  We pushed through the obstacle course and ran through the finish, good enough for third place overall and second in the coed-3 division, behind our friends on Team NYARA.  The guys from Team MOAT took the overall win as a male-2.

At the awards ceremony later that evening, race director and GOALS co-owner Bill Gibbons looked over at us as Anne called out the rankings.  ”How the hell did you manage that?” he asked.

None of us had any idea.

–

That’s all for now – we’re off to the airport.  More from the other side of the pond!

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Untamed New England, Legs 6 and 7: Escaping the Flood

5 Comments Posted by on July 23, 2012

Posted by Brent (also published on his blog here!)

In case you missed them:

Leg 1 Report
Leg 2 Report
Leg 3 Report
Leg 4 & 5 Report

Leaving the transition at Sugarloaf was bittersweet; we had turned in a strong showing on the alpine trek and felt like we had regained a fair bit of momentum heading into the final stretch of the race. That said, we also were setting off on the short course despite feeling we had plenty of time to finish the full one. There was nothing to be done, however, except revise our goals to finishing strong and making a run to be the first of the short course field. This seemed a reasonable goal, as we had passed or made up time on a handful of teams at Sugarloaf, and we were only behind Rachel and Michael from Bushwhacker on the short course.
After a relatively quick ride, we pulled into another of the wonderful Maine huts. This one had a large lodge and several bunk houses, one of which had been set aside for racers to sleep in during the orienteering relay. We were surprised to find Yogaslackers still at the hut (the last of the full course teams), and we quickly checked in and started the relay. Mark set off first, tackling the long-difficult course. I would go second on short difficult, Abby would then head out on the short, easy course with the waning daylight helping her, and JP would serve as the anchor on short long. Only one racer could run at a time, so we had the opportunity to rest our feet and recharge before setting off for the final night of the race.

Rachel from Bushwhackers at the O-Relay

The relay went well enough, and while we don’t know the actual team splits, from what we could gather from the volunteers, we turned in a strong showing. The relay served as a nice break as we each banked various amounts of sleep. Once again, we were treated with food from the hut staff, this time a collection of fresh fruit, brownies and various other treats that helped us recharge as we waited for our teammates to complete their various legs.
An hour or so after dark, after we each spent time out in the open woods, scrambling past beautiful waterfalls and crossing paths with other lone racers from the handful of other teams at the relay, we set off on bikes, headed to the final leg of the race, another packrafting-trek leg to the finish. We had watched Bushwhacker pull out an hour or so before, so we knew we were closing in on them, and NYARA, the Daredevils and Calleva had arrived a while after we did, meaning we were opening up our lead on the rest of the short course teams.
The bike to the final TA was straightforward and mostly on various dirt and paved roads. As we neared the TA, JP leading the way, we were startled by a female moose, darting across the road. JP, startled by the large shadow and gleaming eyes, swerved a bit, and we all laughed with relief. A second or two difference would have inevitably meant a collision with the moose, but thankfully we biked on, Abby cheering, all of us smiling as we finished the bike.
It was a bit before midnight, and I quietly lit a handful of candles and pulled Abby’s birthday “present” out of my bin (presents in an adventure race should be edible; so I stowed some chocolate covered pretzels and cranberries in my bin). It was still June 22, and after a hoarse and weary round of happy birthday, we finished our transition and set off for a third Maine hut, back by Grand Falls, the site of the ropes from day one. There we would get instructions for the return to the Northern Outdoors lodge and the finish line. As we trekked off from the TA, we turned out lights off, hiking along the dark shadowed roads amidst thousands of fireflies and one of the starriest nights I have ever seen. It was finally cooling off a bit, and we were in high spirits as we went.
Over two hours later, we stumbled off the long, flat trail, our energy gone from the monotonous slog through the woods. Some teams elected to packraft the quiet river alongside the trail, but for reasons unclear in retrospect we elected to trek. Maybe it had something to do with my packrafting abilities? I don’t know…
Anyhow, after navigating a handful of final trails after the falls, we checked in at the hut, were given our UTM coordinates for the final eight points and then decided to sleep for half an hour before the final stretch. A few other teams were sleeping about the grounds of the hut (we were not given access to this one), and when we awoke, team Untamed New England (the fifth place, full course finishers) had just checked in.
For the first time in the race we were cold, all shivering and unsure of what was in store. The eight points were scattered along the Dead River, the junction of the Dead and the Kennebec, and then south on the banks and hills of the Kennebec to Northern Outdoors. We had heard plenty of information since before the race started about the Dead.
“Class IV and V water. No way you will want to packraft that”.
“No water at all if you hit it at the wrong time. There’s a dam and they only release the water at particular times.”
OK, but no clear idea of what times there would be water in the river.
The first point was four or five miles downriver, and we could either drop from the lodge and try the river, or we could trek the winding technical trail to the control and drop a couple hundred feet to the bank and assess the river at that point. After discussing our options we elected to trek first, worried that we’d waste time heading to the river if there was no water and also concerned about getting on the river in the cold.
We made good time and dropped to the riverbank, a very steep, climb down. By this point the sky had fully lightened and what we found was breathtaking. A narrow river, meandering through dense wilderness, surrounded by high, steep, forested slopes, a foggy haze blanketing the river giving the river a fairytale shimmer in the morning light. The river, filled with rocks, was a steady stream of whitewater, but the rapids, while often long and sustained, looked manageable. We couldn’t see the checkpoint, but we knew it was down river, so we inflated out boats and set off, Abby once again in Mark’s boat, JP and I in our own.

We don’t have a picture of the river, but Kristin Eddy from Team SOG, snapped this one of Abby and Mark’s rafting. Mark isn’t THAT tall!

I had been concerned about this final rafting section because of my previous experiences in the raft and because of the potential nature of the river and its rapids, but ultimately, the section would go down as my single favorite leg in a race to date. Not only was the scenery breathtaking, but I found that I could paddle whitewater far better than I could flatwater in my raft. The rapids just kept coming, and while there were hairy moments with my boat being swamped in endless stretches of white water, navigating the ceaseless ripples, rapids, rocks and falls was exhilarating and unlike anything I have ever done (and will likely do again).

Down toward the confluence of the Dead and Kennebec. Not as dramatic as what we saw further upriver, but still a sense of the morning mist.

We found the first point after launching, and continued downstream where we finally caught up to Bushwhacker. We found the second point together and then settled in for a long paddle downriver, several hours of rapids and fun. Aside from the scenery and paddling, the section was also highlighted by the most amazing wildlife sighting of my racing experience. As we paddled around a bend, Mark and Abby slightly ahead of JP and me, we heard the following:
“There’s a moose swimming in the river!” Abby shouted. JP and I came around the bed, and I saw a…deer? Swimming across the river. Not a moose, but still a cool sight.
“There’s a bobcat…with a fish!” I heard Mark shout, and looking over at the bank, toward which the deer swam, I did indeed see a bobcat (though we later learned that it was probably a Canadian Lynx) chewing on…not a fish.
We all had stopped paddling, our mouths hanging open as the scene came into clearer focus. The Lynx’s jaws were locked around the skull of a fawn, one of the smallest fawns I have ever seen. The mother was swimming across to aid its offspring, and the combination of angry mother deer and three colorful boats floating downriver spooked the lynx, which proceeded to toss the fawn into the air and dart back into the woods. The doe emerged from the water and crashed off into the woods after the cat, and the fawn paddled frantically back across the river, straight toward me. As it neared, I could see it bleeding from its scalp, but all in all, it looked in decent shape considering its ordeal, and before long it made the far bank and stumbled from the water.
We all gaped at each other before paddling on, in awe of the Dead River and its many surprises. While a long paddle, the rest of the leg was a bit less amazing, with JP and I struggling to keep out boats afloat in some of the more difficult stretches of whitewater. We stayed together, JP saving my gear in a near disaster that saw me balanced precariously upon a boulder after being monetarily submerged in a hole)at which point my gear had popped out and quickly floated away). We would periodically have to pull off the river to empty our boats, all the while leapfrogging Bushwhacker in their two person raft.

Teammate Jonathan Neely who raced with Amy, Pete, and Rodney from NYARA.

Finally we emerged in calmer water above the confluence with the Kennebec, and we bagged a few more points before heading down the final stretch of the Kennebec. As we neared the second to last point, Bushwhacker, who had fallen behind us on a point or two we had to trek to from the river’s edge, caught up to us, and we made a pact to cross the finish line together, though their higher time credit would guarantee them a higher overall finish. That said, we gladly agreed to stay together and before long we beached our rafts on the river bank to nab the final point on the river. With gear and boats safely up on shore, we headed into the woods along a stream to the point, and of course it was an “all-punch” meaning every team member had to punch his or her wristband. We laughed and were in high spirits as we made our way back to our boats, the finish line practically in sight.

Rodney and Amy from Team NYARA
JP and I were bringing up the rear, and I was in the process of explaining that all we had left was 100 meters of paddling to the opposite side of the river and a 3 mile trek with one more checkpoint to the finish line, but as we emerged from the woods, we were greeted by pandemonium. Rachel was in the river, waist-deep, holding onto my boat. I was puzzled, but even more confused when I looked downriver to see Michael swimming frantically around a river bend, his and Rachel’s boat vanishing ahead of him with all their gear. Mark and Abby were hurriedly shoving off in pursuit, and JP ran up the shore to grab our gear bags which were floating away.

The Yogaslackers unique method of paddling packrafts. They have been doing this a lot longer than I have!

The Yogaslackers paddling down the Dead.

An unidentified racer without her raft.

A long ways upriver, someone decided to release a dam. I don’t know when they did it, but the timing was about as close to catastrophic as it could have been. A torrent of water flooded the river, and the surge rapidly elevated the water levels, sweeping our gear off the shore. Had the deluge hit us a minute or so earlier, we would have lost all of our gear to the river, but thankfully we managed to successfully salvage everything. When Mark and Abby took off, he dumped her on the far side and then set off to save Bushwhacker’s boat, which he did, though he was swept a long ways down river. He and Michael somehow ended up together and they made their way back up shore to meet the four of us who had broken down what gear we had as we waited.Before we knew it, Rachel, JP, and I were alone on the river bank with 1 ½ rafts (JP’s floor had ripped out not long before). After a bit of discussion and some scouting around the river bend to see what was happening with our other teammates, we set off, Rachel in my boat, JP following. We made the other side where we found Abby at the take out. So what happened?

 

Disaster averted, we set off on the trek, remarking on the final adventure of the race, yet another moment that will live in our collective race memories. Ironically, Mark had been commenting before we had landed our boats for the checkpoint about how the wheels can come off right before the end, a bad omen to be sure. Thankfully, the final trek went far smoother, and before long we were trekking into the Northern Outdoors lodge to cheering volunteers and guests, 77 hours after we had started.

77 hours after the start.
Ultimately we finished tenth in the premier category and tied for eleventh overall with Bushwhacker, an agreement we had arranged with them after our fiasco on the river. We asked Grant to adjust our respective time credits to equal out, and then it was off to sort out our post-race adventures, namely eating, cleaning up and finding a place to sleep. While we were still bummed knowing we could have finished the whole course (we finished with 21 hours of race time still on the clock) we had a great experience, as always, at Untamed New England and were pleased with our result.
I for one came out of this race with more unique memories than I have from any other event. Sinking in my raft, the packrafting across Flagstaff Lake in the lightning-lit night, my dissolving drivetrain, the great Alpine Trek and Dead River float. The Maine huts, the Lynx and Deer, racing alongside so many great friends and teams throughout the race. Having two new great teammates in JP and Mark, and of course the final flood. It was a race to remember, and I’m only disappointed to know that Untamed 2013 will likely by in the fall, meaning after three straight editions I will be unable to race due to my teaching responsibilities. That said, a month after the race, I still find myself smiling when thinking about the blue lakes and green mountains of Maine, memories of Untamed 2012 will have to sustain me until the next I can go race in Untamed New England.
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Untamed New England, Leg 4: The Agony and the Ecstasy

6 Comments Posted by on July 16, 2012

In case you missed them:

Leg 1 Report

Leg 2 Report

Leg 3 Report

It was roughly 6 pm when we arrived at the Sugarloaf ski resort, where we’d be spending the next half day of the race.  Out of Sugarloaf we had two legs to complete – each bookending a short conservation project – and we had 15 hours to get through it before a prescribed cut-off would knock us off the full course.

First up: the mountain bike-O.

The TA – described in the race briefing as the Nemo “tent oasis” – was equipped with several communal shelters for teams wanting a bug-free snooze, and as we transitioned from foot to bike, we thought briefly about pausing for a short nap before heading out onto the trails.

Just a small section of the Tent Oasis

But even though we thought we had a comfortable window of time for the next two sections, we opted to push on, reasoning that (a) we all felt awake enough, and (b) it was too hot to sleep inside a tent.

Instead, we pulled on our bike shoes, downed as many calories as we could take in (I was on the verge of a pretty serious deficit by that point, and the PB&J sandwich that I had stashed in my bin was like nectar of the AR gods), and after losing a bit of time on some unexpected map issues, we set off back into the woods.

Recently, the resort’s winter nordic trails had been converted to summer mountain biking trails.  We would be covering roughly 20-25 miles here, and we estimated that we’d be out on the course for roughly 4-5 hours.

With Mark and Brent negotiating the complicated networks of trails, we found the first CP with relative ease.    From there, we opted to ride to the furthest point from the TA and then collect the remainder of the flags on our ride back.

We moved steadily enough on the bumpy terrain for several miles – until we heard a pop.

Brent looked down to find his rear derailleur hanger, um, hanging off.  He and Mark tried to replace it with the spare that JP had brought, but they weren’t compatible.

We dropped our bikes and settled in.  For the next several minutes, Mark attempted to turn Brent’s bike into a single-speed.  And as we stood there in the damp woods, the mosquitos orchestrated a full-on coordinated assault.

Never before had any of us experienced the buzzing and biting that we did in those 45 minutes.  These bugs took the unrelenting bombardment that we’d experienced throughout the race to that point to a whole new decibel.

Finally, after a fair bit of trial and error, Mark had jimmied Brent’s chain to run sort-of-smoothly, enough so that he could pedal through flats and gentle inclines.  On the sharper climbs, he resorted to hike-a-bike.

This worked well enough for a little while, but as we continued on, the bugs, the heat, and the lack of sleep began to take a toll.  We paused to cool off.  We had a small gaff at the next CP.  It was becoming clear that morale was beginning to lag.

And then, our race nearly ended.

Right after CP 2, Brent began to notice a rattling in his drivetrain.  At first, we thought perhaps the chain had slipped.  It hadn’t.  Then we wondered if the chain was loose.  It wasn’t.

Then, Brent heard a loud pop.  We all looked down expecting to see a broken chain, and instead found ourselves staring at his largest chain ring, sliding down the crank.

The middle ring wasn’t far behind.

When he bent down to investigate the damage, he found that one of the bolts holding the drivetrain together had completely sheared off.

The other three?  They were nowhere to be found.

At this point, we were at the farthest end of the section and had several checkpoints left to collect en route to the TA.  We had no choice but to push our bikes for the next 7 hours.

Well, let me back up…

For the first bike leg of the race, I made the mistake of wearing bike shoes that were far too big.  While they were great for riding, they had no business hike-a-biking along that technical trail that paralleled the river.  What’s more, with quick release laces, I was unable to find the right balance that would keep my feet in place without binding them into numbness.  So, by the time we reached the long trek on Day 2 of the race, the bottoms of my feet were a blistered mess.

This mountain bike section was a welcomed reprieve, and I knew that to preserve my soles for the remainder of the race, I needed to avoid pushing my bike as much as I could.

So with the guys alternately hiking and coasting, I shifted down into my lowest gear and spun slowly next to them.

By 1:30 in the morning, we’d been out on this section for 7 hours.  We were all dragging, mentally as much as physically, but with only two more CPs to go, both relatively close to the TA, we thought we still had a chance to make the cut-off.

Then came CP 7.

To this day, I still have no idea what happened at CP 7.  I’m sure that the gentlemen with the maps could offer much more color commentary here.  From my vantage point, we dropped our bikes and set off through the woods on foot, and I found myself stumbling along, eyes fluttering.  Well past the point of exhaustion-induced sleep monsters (remind me to tell you about 200-pound badger-mole I spotted at Untamed 2010… and the time that Brent saw a kitten in his soup).  I was downright sleep-walking down the trail.

We ended up spending 90 minutes in search of #7.  I have no recollection of those 90 minutes, other than stumbling around in the dark.

Somewhere, sometime, someone on my team spotted it.  They punched our passport, and we headed back down the trail to nab the final flag en route to the TA.

At 3:30 in the morning, 9 hours after we set out, we finally saw the lights of the Tent Oasis.  We trudged in, dropped our bikes, and essentially stood in place for 20 minutes or more deliberating on what to do next.

By that point, we felt pretty certain that we wouldn’t make the cut off.  We were exhausted physically and beaten down mentally.  We couldn’t decide between sleeping, eating, or knocking out the conservation project.

Finally – finally – we landed on conservation.  Someone had built an illegal trail below the outdoor center, and it would be our job to ‘erase’ the trail by covering it with leaves and sticks.

We dragged ourselves the 1/2 kilometer to the site and found a cheerful race volunteer, who instructed us to pick up two tools and find our pre-apportioned section of the renegade trail.  We walked down, lifted our rake and our spade, and five minutes later, we’d transformed our designated area into a veritable wilderness.

This entire section should have taken us 15-20 minutes, including the trek in and out of the TA.  Instead, it took upwards of an hour.  By the time we returned to our bins, though, we had made a plan.

We would sleep until 7:30 AM, eat a hot meal (all hail Mark’s jetboil stove, which boils water in 90 seconds), and then set off for the Alpine Trek.

We laid down in the tent at 4:30 and within minutes each of us was dead to the world.  Though I’m certain that I set my watch correctly, 2.5 hours later, the alarm chimed, and we awoke to our third morning of the race.

Mark, the next morning – bright eyed and bushy tailed

And this was a special morning, the one I’d been looking forward to since the race dates were released last fall.  It was my 31st birthday – and I was determined to celebrate in style.

We climbed out of the tent and began to repack our bins.  As I was preparing for the next trek, Randy Erikson, acclaimed adventure photographer, came over and handed me four pieces of chocolate.

“It doesn’t count as outside assistance if it’s your birthday,” he said.

Awake for fifteen minutes and already eating chocolate?  I knew it was going to be a good day.

Though we were fed, changed, and packed by 7:30, we opted to wait an additional half hour for the new bike rental shop attached to the outdoor center to open.  Team DART/NUUN, who cracked two frames earlier in the race, had borrowed new bikes from the outfitter the night before, and we were hopeful they would have something that Brent could use.

For us, it was rental or bust.

45 minutes later and we were in business.  All that was left was handing over a credit card to use as collateral.

Except, of course, none of us had a credit card with us.

I ran frantically through the TA, checking in with all of the racers I knew until Team Calleva’s Marcy - who we’d only met once this past May at NYARA’s The Longest Day – handed over her card without hesitation.  Seriously, adventure racers are the most generous people in the world.

I ended up returning the card a few minutes later when the shop owner suggested that we leave Brent’s broken bike instead.  He took off the front wheel and handed it off to Team SOG, who was in search of a spare front tire after suffering a tear the previous day, and then we were off for the much-anticipated trek.

This section would have us ascending through the woods to one summit, and then making our way above treeline through a saddle and up to the top of the famed Sugarloaf Mountain.  We had heard that the trek was taking teams upwards of 9-12 hours, far longer than anyone had anticipated.

Still, we traipsed happily into the woods, quite literally buoyed by our near-empty packs.  It was the first time since the race began that we weren’t carrying pounds and pounds of gear, and I felt wondrously light.

We made quick work of the first climb, pausing briefly to search for CP 21, nestled near ground-level on a small stream.  We passed our friends on Team Calleva and caught a quick glance of the Danes of Team Daredevil not far behind us, but otherwise we were on our own.

As we reached Summit #1, we paused briefly to take in the view.

This was, without a doubt, one of my favorite treks in any adventure race.

Our friend, Luis Moreira, a photographer from Breathe Magazine, hiked with us for awhile as we made our way to the next CP, in the saddle between the two peaks.

     

This was the toughest section for me mentally, as we descended the steep, technical terrain – always a struggle for me.

“Sorry for slowing down,” I said to Mark as we negotiated the rocks.  ”These types of sections are…” I paused. “The sections that I’m the least good at.”

“I love how you said that,” Mark replied.  ”A lot of people would say that they hate this type of terrain, or it’s the worst part of a race, but you painted it as room for improvement.”

“That’s funny,” I said.  ”I never thought about it that way.”

A new way to conceive of perceived weakness.

From that CP to the next one, we knew we had some choices to make.  Teams had offered all sorts of stories of this stretch back in TA.  We could either drop in elevation and take the ski slope up, or bushwhack through the woods toward the summit, or try some combination of the two.

Or we could get really lucky, find a freshly cut trail at our exact elevation, and have two strong navigators both confident enough to improvise.

We followed our logging trail around to the ski slope just below the final push up Sugarloaf.  We climbed the last hundred-or-so feet, and in under five hours we were at the final CP, greeted by our other Breathe Magazine buddy, Joel Perrella.

By this point, the sun was high and the temperatures were climbing.  We paused briefly at the top to cool off and refuel, answered a few questions for Joel’s camera, and then began the steep descent down the ski trails, alternately shuffling and trekking as our knees (and my feet) would allow.

Shortly before the bottom we passed by a small cafe, and since everyone but JP had run out of water on the ascent, we made a quick pitstop.  Brent went straight for the hose (where the water ended up tasting like rotten rubber) but Mark, JP, and I indulged in a detour to the drink counter, where I got my first taste ever of icy cold Orangina.

I had no idea what I was missing.

From there,we returned to the dreaded bike trails – site of the absurdity that was the previous night – and before we knew it we were back in TA, only 6 hours and 45 minutes after we began.

And even though we’d missed the time cutoff and were detoured onto the short course for the remainder of the race, we were all in good spirits as we bid goodbye to the amazing crew of volunteers at the Tent Oasis and set off on a gloriously smooth road ride toward our next destination: the O-Relay.

It was now early afternoon.  I had about 10 hours left in my birthday and three more goals to accomplish before the day was out:

(1) To get some high-calorie food into my body.  I’d been doing a dismal job of fueling for much of the race, and it was only a matter of time before it bit me in the butt.

(2) To not totally screw up my “short easy” leg of the O-Relay.

(3) To see a moose.

1.5 out of 3 ain’t bad.

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Untamed New England, Leg 3: Pancakes in Paradise

7 Comments Posted by on July 9, 2012

Posted by Brent (also published on his blog here!)

In case you missed them!

Leg 1 Report
Leg 2 Report

After transitioning from bikes and repacking for more packrafting (now down a raft and heading into a night crossing of Flagstaff Lake with only three boats for four people) we shuffled off into the darkness for our first Maine hut and the “Pancake Paradise”. This would be our first time at one of the amazing huts in the Maine Huts and Trails system, an amazing network of trails with a handful of first class huts. We made quick work of the trails leading into the hut and were a bit in awe of what we found.

The Pancake Paradise, waiting for us to arrive

Expecting a dark, damp shelter, we were greeted by a brightly lit and airy structure of pine and glass, air and water tight, and as accommodating as one could ask for under any circumstances. In our situation, a couple of hours from daylight after 16 or so hours of racing, it truly was a paradise in the wilderness, and the three staff members managing the hut warmly welcomed us with pancakes, tea, coffee, various deserts and who knows what else. I was frankly feeling the heat and a bit spacy at the moment, confused by the luxurious setting, one that is rare to say the least in the sport of adventure racing.

Imagine this all lit up, glowing in the night. Paradise indeed!

We took our time in the cool air of the hut, a welcome reprieve from the humidity and heat that had been threatening me since the race began. We would be setting off in our rafts once we departed the hut, so we elected to inflate our boats and get set inside, safe from the mosquitoes and aided by open space and light. We also took the opportunity to eat an actual meal, paying a small fee for an all you can eat spread. And while we all struggled a bit to eat considering the heat and our churning metabolisms, we took in a good bit of sustenance before setting off into the night, grateful for the short break and good vibes and conversation from the folks in the hut.

We didn’t stop to sleep, but we heard other teams fell victim to the comfy couches

As we set off from shore, Abby now in Mark’s lap in his superior boat, me paddling her boat after sinking mine, thunder rumbled and lightning flashed as rain spattered down upon the glassy surface of Flagstaff Lake. Following a compass bearing, we floated off into the night, making our way 2k across the lake, hopefully heading straight toward the cove on the opposite shore where the next checkpoint waited. We could see lights from other teams far across the water, and in the flashes of lightning we could make out the shoreline and the point of land, around which lay our cove. Strangely enough, despite my packrafting woes, we seemed to make good time and when we came into the cove we saw several teams setting off into the woods, Team SOG remaining behind as they continued to pack their gear. As we landed they set off into the woods, leaving us behind on the mosquito-infested shoreline as the night rapidly turned to day.

Another team examining the lake crossing the following morning

After splashing through the marshy cove to find the checkpoint, we had a good debate over whether we should packraft around to the next control or attempt to bushwhack our way out to the road paralleling the lake on the foot. If we nailed the nav and found the right tracks through the woods, we would likely travel faster than by paddling, but if we struggled with the nav or the bushwhacking went south, we could wander for hours before getting out. Ultimately we decided to pack up the boats and trek, and thankfully it turned out to be the right call. The mosquitoes were ferocious, but otherwise, we made good time, and before we knew it we were paddling once more, having traveled two hours along the shoreline, primarily by trail and road, toward the next control.

As we put in, we realized we had somehow passed SOG, but before long, they came skimming by in their two person Alpaka rafts, and our paddle quickly went downhill as I struggled to keep up with my teammates. The wind kicked up as we headed for our final checkpoint on a small island, and instead of paddling the half hour or so further along the shoreline, I called uncle and made my teammates pull over. We deflated our rafts, packed up and shot off for a bushwhack over a hilltop toward the first of four controls on the long trek to the next transition.

Had that bushwhack been a difficult one, my teammates would have likely left me in the woods for my miserable rafting skills. By paddling further up the lake, we theoretically could have found a trail that would have led to the control, but the woods proved easy to traverse and within an hour we had punched the control and turned toward the crux of the hike, a long climb up to the Appalachian Trail and then a steep descent down the backside of the ridge. The trek started off easily enough, and while the map suggested we were in for a long bushwhack up the slopes of the ridge, we found the trail heading toward our checkpoint continued for several hundred unmapped feet.

When it finally turned off our compass bearing we continued along one of several creek beds. We worked our way along the mountain side, and after we had identified what we thought was the correct stream (the next checkpoint was located on one of them) we hit an unmapped trail. While it veered off from our creek, we decided to follow it and we soon came upon our friends from NYARA, Bruce and Chris, who were racing as a two person team. Not long after we also came across Michael and Rachel from Bushwhacker, another strong two person team. Both teams seemed confused by the trails, but our altimeter suggested we still had to climb for several hundred feet.

Before long, we all decided to travel together, and when the trail turned even further to the west, we shot off along the mountain side, side-hilling to our creek and right onto the flag. The heat had once again crept up on me, and we halted for a moment, allowing NYARA and Bushwhacker to continue on without us before I finally waved my teammates on. Here was the fun part, a massive climb up an ever steeper slope. We followed a rough compass bearing, but unlike many teams who seem to have stuck to their compass, enduring hellacious bushwhacking on their way to the summit of the ridge, Mark improvised leading us well, drifting as necessary to avoid the thickest growth.

Unfortunately, I struggled mightily with the heat as we slowly climbed, but before long we met up with Bruce and Chris again. We settled into a routine: ascend 200 feet, pause, drink. Ascend 200 feet, etc. Even with the regular breaks, I wasn’t recovering, and finally Mark shouldered by 25-30 pound pack (in addition to his own) and we set off once more. For whatever reason, this break saved me, and even though I took my pack back 10 minutes later, that 10 minutes of relief allowed me to finish not just the ascent but the rest of the trek without issues.

We finally broke free of the trees on the AT along the ridge line. We had drifted far enough to the west that we were a couple hundred feet above the saddle, from which we would attack the next control, but again, this was better than the dense thickets other teams seemed to encounter by traveling more directly. When we reached the saddle we dropped down the backside of the ridge, looking for another stream and another flag. It took a bit of sleuthing, but before long we oriented ourselves correctly, found the trickle of water that was the “stream” and dropped a thousand feet or so to the flag.

Relatively speaking, the remainder of the leg was uneventful. One more control and then just a lot of trails and pavement to get to the massive transition area at Sugarloaf, a popular ski mountain with a network of mountain bike trails as well. We arrived in the early evening, just past 6 PM. We had until 9 AM the next morning to complete a 15 mile mountain bike loop and a similarly long alpine trek which would have us trekking, bushwhacking, scrambling, and scaling to the lofty summit of the ski slopes, though most of the trek would be anything but clear-cut ski slopes. Still, this all seemed manageable, and we felt that we were in a good position to make that 9 AM cutoff and continue on the full course. We transitioned relatively quickly, jumped on our bikes and set off for the bike loop, eager to take advantage of the last hour or so of daylight before the darkness of night two settled in. What a night it would turn out to be.

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Untamed New England, Leg 2: A Semi-Charmed Kind of Day

15 Comments Posted by on July 4, 2012

We came off the packraft debacle in 31st place and maintained that back-of-the-middle-of-the-pack status through the canoe and the whitewater paddle.  We began to make up some ground on the short foot section at the end of Leg 1, and coming into TA, we were eager to capitalize on that momentum on the first bike leg.

Friendly volunteers (who happen to be friends who are volunteering) are always a welcomed sight

Up next?  Roughly 20 miles of trails to the ropes course, and then an additional 10-ish miles to leg 3, the biggest foot section of the course.

Trying to fix my odometer.  For a few brief moments, my bike was sparkling clean…

Following a quick transition – a bit too quick, as we would soon come to find out – we took off down the road to checkpoint 7.  Buoyed by the new discipline, we merged into a paceline and flew down the early descent.

For about 2 kilometers.

Until Brent realized that he’d left his PFD – mandatory gear for the ropes course – back in transition.

So much for a fresh start.

We turned tail and raced back to the TA.  Luckily, our bins were in the back of the U-Haul still parked at transition – and not on the U-Haul that had passed us on our return ride.

JP ran into the truck and rifled through our gear, and before long we were back on track, riding down the road alongside some familiar faces from the East Coast adventure racing circuit – Team Halfwaythere.com.

Our initial plan had been to ride the roads to checkpoint 7, and then evaluate the trails to find the best route to CP 8.  That is, until Michelle from Halfway There turned to us.  ”You guys heard CP 7 was canceled, right?”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, they told us at the TA.  The point was misplotted so they’re directing all teams to continue on without it.”

Well, this was news.

Should we rely on the word of another team?  Should we continue onto 7 to hear this for ourselves?  What if they’d misunderstood?  What if it was bad information?

After ten minutes of back-and-forth, we ultimately decided to continue on to CP 8.  We later learned that we were the last team to leave transition before the race staff got word of the error.  Had we not returned to get Brent’s PFD, we would have continued onto 7 and likely spent far too long looking for the flag.  Teams did receive time credits for their delays at the next transition, but still, our mis-start turned out to be fortuitous.

Not long after, we turned off of the road and onto a rough trail that would lead us most of the way to the ropes.  The elevation was relatively modest, but the muddy, rooted, rocky terrain – coupled with the 90 degree temperatures – made for slow going as we found ourselves in and out of the saddle for the next several  miles.

We would ride, push, and lug our bikes from stream crossing to stream crossing, pausing at each opportunity to dunk our heads in the water and ward off overheating.  A few hours into the ride, I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything since the whitewater rafting.  Though I remained low for the next half hour, our pace was barely slowed by the near-bonk – a testament to how battered the trail was.

Still, aside from Team DART-Nuun, who pushed through early mechanical issues to earn a second-place finish in the race – we weren’t being passed by other teams.  It seemed that everyone around us was laboring just as slowly through this first bike section of the race.  And because the scale of the maps was so big, Brent had no real sense of whether the terrain would change.  We just gritted our teeth and continued on, trying to find a rhythm in the constant stop-and-start.

And then, suddenly, we were flying.  Brent had spotted a small connector on the map that dumped us out onto a dirt road.  For the next 10+ kilometers, we were speeding along, marveling at the relatively smooth terrain and the lack of tire tracks lining our paths.  Apparently we were one of only a handful of teams to veer off the main trail.

And when we pulled into the ropes course not long after, we found ourselves in 14th or 15th place.  Thus began Brent’s navigational charm that would take us through the next three days of racing.

At the ropes, we learned that there was an unanticipated backlog.

In previous versions of Untamed, the ropes sections had been reserved for the top teams who were able to complete the full course.  Wanting to offer all racers the opportunity to ascend and rappel, this year race director Grant Killian situated the ropes just half a day into the event.  The course included a 40-foot descent, followed by a packraft across a river, then an ascent up the other side, and finally a Tyrolean traverse back across from above.  To deal with the unavoidable delays, all teams went “off the clock” from the moment they checked in until the time they clipped in for the descent.

Upon learning that we had a two-hour wait at the ropes

We spent the next 124 minutes hanging out on the banks of the Dead River, swatting at mosquitos, chatting with other teams, and trying to relax as we slowly made our way to the front of the line.

When we were finally called, we headed over to the rappel site, clipped in, and slid down the rock face – only to find another backlog at the ascent.

Ultimately, the ropes course ended up feeling more like something to get through than something to really experience.  When all of us made our way across the Tyrollean an hour after we began, we were itching to get back on our bikes and continue on our way.

The next several miles had us back on the main trail, riding and hike-a-biking along the river.

“Take note of this,” Brent said when we finally turned away from the water and onto another dirt road.  ”We’ll be back here on foot during the final leg of the race.”

“Fantastic,” I said.  ”But at least we won’t be on our bikes.”

A few kilometers later, just after 1:00 AM, we pulled into the next TA, eager to be on our feet in earnest for the first time all race.

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Untamed New England, Leg 1: Packrafting, Paddling, and Sinking, Oh My!

4 Comments Posted by on July 1, 2012

By Brent (also posted on his blog):

After a year off, Untamed New England returned in fine fashion last week with an epic four day course in the western wilds of Maine. After an amazing race in 2010, we went into this race with a vastly different line-up but with similar ambitions: run a clean race, finish the full course, and do as well as possible in a stacked course. Easier said than done, as always, especially since the field made the last edition’s look relatively easy. With several US national champions, several more of the very best teams from the United States and Canada and a strong international field highlighted by the defending world champs, Thule, we knew our top five finish from 2010 wasn’t going to happen again. With that in mind, Abby and I joined forces with Mark Lattanzi and JP Bordeleau, and while I was the only returning member from the 2010 team, I felt confident we could do well, hoping we could finish somewhere in the top fifteen when all the dust settled.

After a relaxing day at the amazing Northern Outdoors Lodge in Forks, Maine, we spent the evening before the race poring over maps and finalizing our packing and gear bins, which we would see an amazing six times this year. A two hour bus ride the following morning left us at the headwaters for the Kennebec River. The race started with a bit of chaos as teams inflated packrafts and milled about below the starting arch with 20-25 pounds of gear, inflated boats, and the pre race jitters that come with the beginning of an expedition race. When the race began, half the field made their way straight to the water, diving into miniature rafts and heading off into the surprisingly large whitewater that waited around the first bend in the river. The remainder of the field set off at a trot along a road heading toward CP 1. We decided to hit the water as soon as we could find an opening.

We entered the water efficiently, but before long we found ourselves falling toward the back of the pack as JP struggled to keep up. His boat had not properly inflated, and after finally sorting this out, we set off in hot pursuit of the field. The first two controls were easy enough to find, and other teams were likewise struggling with their packrafts since few racers had any experience with these small, delicate and personalized boats. With the second point behind us, we found ourselves emerging on a lake, paddling under a hot sun toward the third control where we would transition to the real boats for a couple of hours of flat water paddling. And here began our problems…

As we paddled the river, I had been comfortably floating along, paddling well and skimming through the rapids, but as we transitioned onto flat water with our rafts, I slowed significantly and found myself falling considerably behind my teammates. After a short while, Mark, our lone packrafting expert, fell back, and we determined we would tether up and tow for the final kilometer plus of paddling. Sounded good. Except for the sound that I heard a few minutes after tying together.

“Hear that hissing, Mark?” I called after first noticing the escaping air. Mark stopped paddling and we both listened. Nothing.

“Guess it was nothing,” I said, and we resumed our labored journey toward CP3. A moment later the hissing resumed. “You seriously don’t hear that?” I called out. We stopped again, and again we heard nothing, Mark surely thinking I was going to be a tough teammate for the next few days as I was already imagining things on a full night’s sleep.

“No,” he said. “We’re close to the boats, let’s just get there.” We continued on, and all seemed fine until it wasn’t. The hissing returned, and the next thing I knew the pontoon of my raft began to rapidly soften. Considering that I had all of my mandatory gear for the race and all the maps in my boat, I gave it a moment’s thought and decided to bail out, scrambling out of my boat into the chilled waters of the lake.

“Get my gear!” I hollered to Mark who quickly rafted up to my sinking boat and began the salvage mission as I swam to shore. I made it to the wooded shoreline in good time and looked back briefly to see Mark hauling my dead raft onto his lap before setting off, bushwhacking along the water toward the TA. I soon caught up to JP and Abby who were floating around the next point. Bursting from the woods, I gave Abby a start as she thought she was about to see her first moose. Instead she looked at me with bewilderment, and after hearing the story of my personal Titanic she and JP continued along as I swam across a small inlet, cutting the distance to the TA.

Moments later I emerged to find the canoes and kayaks and the rest of my team pulling up on the small beach. A quick look at the raft confirmed that the seam of the strap we had tied into on the bow of my boat had torn, and we decided we’d deal with the raft when we needed to, which wouldn’t be until the next day. After our less than stellar start, we set off on the paddle, somewhere in the bottom third of the field of forty nine teams. The paddle went well enough, we made up a spot or two, and we joined up with the Soggy Bottom Boys for the next section of Leg 1, a 13 mile journey down class three and four rapids on the Kennebec River.

I had been dreading this section a bit, but I had successfully blocked it from my mind. After finishing high school, I had my one and only rafting experience on major white water in Costa Rica. After three days of enormous water and several close calls involving flipped boats and holes that continued to suck me to the bottom of the river, I had successfully avoided further rafting adventures…until now. Twelve years of adventures and the necessity of making it through the rafting for my teammates helped ease my psyche a bit, and by the time it was all done, I found myself wishing the rapids had been a little bit bigger, that I had gotten a bit wetter, and that we had a bit more time to enjoy the whitewater before leaving the boats.

That said, the raft came to a quick end, and after repacking our packs, we knocked out a short three kilometer trek to the gorgeous Moxie Falls (which I personally didn’t even see) and on to the first real transition where we were able to ditch our paddling gear and weight before setting off on our bikes for Leg 2, ropes, and Flagstaff Lake. We’d have to figure out the packrafting for Flagstaff, but thankfully it happened a kilometer from a TA and only 50 meters or so from shore. Had we been in the middle of Flagstaff Lake, our near disaster in the first two hours of the race could have been a catastrophe.

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The 2012 Cradle of Liberty: A Race Director’s Tale

11 Comments Posted by on June 13, 2012

It was 6:30 PM.  The 2012 running of the GOALS ARA Cradle of Liberty had started nine hours earlier, and I was stationed at a TA with half a dozen volunteers at the Mount Penn Fire Tower, in Reading, PA.

We had been sitting there for two hours, based on earlier projections of when the first teams could show up, but so far there were no teams in sight.

A few hours earlier, we’d sent one racer to the hospital, following an allergic reaction to a bee sting.  Within the hour, we’d be making the decision to cancel the overnight 20-mile paddle, after our Water Safety Team alerted us to dangerous conditions on the river.

On paper, it might sound like the race was a categorical disaster.

But paper is a funny thing.

–

When Brent and I began planning the Cradle last November, we were both aware of our constraints.  Brent was balancing graduate school with a full-time job.  I had a two-hour commute to and from work and was in the midst of a book project, on top of teaching.  We were both already committed to an ambitious racing schedule for the spring that would require diving into an intense training plan on January 1.

We were ready to devote the time necessary to design and direct a 24-hour race, but we needed to tailor it to accommodate our already bursting day-to-days.  This meant that we had to find a course that was relatively close to home, that still satisfied the conditions adventure racers look for  in a race – solid parks, fun trail networks, and a healthy dose of navigation – and that didn’t tread over familiar GOALS terrain.

These parameters set into motion a course that followed the Schuylkill River corridor between Valley Forge and Reading, a course that would travel through six distinct parks, would feature eleven discrete sections, and would offer participants the opportunity to gather more than 115 checkpoints, when all was said and done.

The race began on Saturday, June 2, at Evansburg State Park, where registration opened at 5:30 AM.  The night before, we were out in the pouring rain until close to midnight, setting flags.  As we ate our convenience store dinner (the third or fourth Wawa sandwiches of the week) in the car at 10:30 PM, I turned to Brent.

“So, we’re not doing this again next year, right?” I asked, repeating what had become our mantra for the previous several days.

“Definitely not,” he affirmed.

Still, we were both excited when we pulled into Evansburg at 5:15 AM on race morning and connected with Anne and Bill Gibbons, owners of the GOALS organization.   And after a smooth check-in – every single team had their maps (maps #2-#10, anyway) by 7 AM – and a detailed team meeting where we tried to cover every contingency, we bussed racers to Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site for the opening prologue and the first leg of the day.

Between the two of us, Brent and I have upwards of 80 races under our belts, and we worked hard to draw from those experiences as we planned the Cradle.  And in terms of race management, we both agreed that if there’s one rule that stands out above all others, it’s consistency.  Be clear on the rules from the start, and don’t veer from them during the event.

But of course, when your pre-race briefing runs a few minutes over, the school bus is a couple minutes late, there’s a roadblock en route to the start, and a national parks ranger wants to chat, you have to improvise.

We’d told racers that morning that regardless of the official start time, any and all cutoffs would remain in force and the official finish would stay at 9:00 AM Sunday morning, as noted on the instruction sheet.  But by the time we gathered everyone at Hopewell, it was nearing 9:30 AM, and we wanted to allow teams a full 24 hours on the course.

Okay, then. New plan, we told participants.  Cut-offs would stay in place, but we would extend the finish time to 9:30 AM.  ”Did everyone hear that?  Are you sure?  Are you positive?”

And with that, we counted down from ten and sent racers off on the opening separator, a three-leg relay that would have teams collecting their passports, a handful of UTM coordinates, and Map #1, for the Hopewell section of the course.

The race consisted of a combination of mandatory and optional checkpoints.  Except for the final section back at Evansburg, each CP was worth one point, but teams that missed a mandatory punch would automatically be ranked below every team that retrieved all of the mandatories, even if their total number of points was significantly higher.

We designed the course so that if the top teams in the country ran an absolutely perfect race, they may have a chance at clearing all of the points in the allotted 24 hours.  It was a big course with intensive navigation – we estimated anywhere from 70-120 miles in total, depending on route choice and the number of CP’s teams went for – and there was the potential for error at every turn.

It was our hope that all of the teams would remain out on the course for 24 hours, regardless of how many points they ended up accruing.

We knew it was going to be a long day.

As the teams finished the opening relay and headed into Hopewell for a foot loop, volunteers began unloading bikes from the U-Haul.  Racers had four mandatory CP’s and as many as nine optionals to get on that leg of the course, and we anticipated at least 1.5-2 hours before we saw any teams back in transition.

It was the beginning of hurry-up-and-wait.

Once everyone was in the woods, Brent took off for a full day of point-setting – we had been able to hang roughly 75% of the flags the week before, and he planned to finish up the final few sections during the race – and with the blessing of Anne and Bill, I took on the role of general race manager.

My first task?

Take some of the volunteers down to one of my favorite CP’s in Hopewell.

We wanted the race to highlight the historic heritage of the region, and Hopewell Furnace seemed the perfect place to start.

Just a couple hundred meters from the TA stood an impressive stone structure, once an active hub of ironmaking.  On either side of the Furnace was a narrow dark tunnel, and when we were exploring, we found a missing brick in the bottom of the right passageway.  In the hole we placed a plastic bag filled with lit glowsticks.  Teams were to retrieve one of the lights and hand it in when they transitioned to the next section.

 Source

I’m not sure whether teams were quite as impressed with the CP as Brent and I were…

—

Though the race had started half an hour later than anticipated, we still had a schedule to stick to.

So at 10:45, I left Hopewell and drove the five miles to the entrance to Birdsboro Waters, site of the next TA.  Volunteers were scheduled to arrive at 11 AM, and I didn’t want to leave them waiting.

When several weeks earlier I had sent out an email to friends and family soliciting help for the weekend, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  What we ended up with was an embarrassment of riches, with at least half a dozen volunteers at every TA – lots of wonderful friends, ready for action.

But of course, when I greeted my friends at Birdsboro and apologetically delivered the news that racers were still probably about an hour out, I wasn’t surprised when they took it in stride and settled in to enjoy the day.

   

 Lots of volunteers

Finally, just before noon, I received a text from Bill, still stationed at Hopewell.

“First team is back but lost maps.  Call me.”

A quick conversation revealed that one of their packs had snagged on a branch, and the zipper had opened.  It seemed that the group was missing both their overview topographical map and Map #2, for the Birdsboro section of the course.

“Okay,” I told Bill, “they’ve got two options.  They can either find their way to Birdsboro and I can give them new maps here, or they can wait for me to drive back to Hopewell and deliver them.”

“They’ll wait here,” he responded after conferring with the team.  ”They want to know what the penalty will be.”

“Brent and I need to figure that out,” I told him.  ”I’ll let them know when I get back to Hopewell.”

And with that, I called my phone-toting husband (a true anomaly for the man who refuses to own a cell phone) and got back in the car for the ride back to the start.

We quickly debated the merits of a time penalty vs. a point penalty and ultimately erred on the side of time, given that we hadn’t made the repercussions of lost gear clear in the race briefing.

“An hour?” I asked.  ”Half an hour?”

“Half an hour, I think,” Brent said.  ”But let’s check with Bill to make sure he agrees.”

I turned into the Hopewell parking lot ten minutes later to find Bill pulling out.

“One of the racers was stung by a bee and she’s having an allergic reaction,” he relayed urgently.  ”I’m going to pick her up and evaluate the situation.”

Not wanting to delay the medical care, I quickly confirmed our penalty plans and watched Bill drive off before handing the replacement maps over to the waiting team and explaining the results of their infraction.

It would be a half hour time penalty, to be assessed after the race ended.  They would still have the full 24 hours to complete as much of the course as they could, but if another team tied their point total, the penalty would be taken into account for placement.

In hindsight, we all agreed that it may have been too modest a penalty, but Brent and I felt strongly that without fair warning of the consequences, we weren’t comfortable doling out a harsh punishment.

As the grateful racers rolled out en route to Birdsboro, Bill pulled back into the parking lot.

“Is she okay?” I asked, before realizing that the injured racer – a friend of mine, in addition to a participant – was in the backseat.

She seemed reasonably stable, but had a spreading rash and was a bit woozy when she stood.  After calling back over the Birdsboro – where we’d unintentionally and serendipitously stationed both a doctor and a nurse – we decided that she would drive back there with me so that our impromptu med staff could check her out and determine what to do next.

We returned to TA #2 as the first teams were transitioning back onto foot.  In Birdsboro, they had a lengthier loop consisting of six mandatory CP’s and an additional seven optionals.  It would be roughly 9 miles in total, if they cleared it.

To access the park, teams had to cross two creeks, both of which were rigged with wire cables.

I only saw one team elect to traipse through the water.  The rest took advantage of the cables to preserve their dry socks as long as possible.

Though the hills of southeastern PA are relatively tame, Birdsboro offers some impressive terrain for such a small park.  Several of the checkpoints required steep ascents or descents.  We placed one mandatory flag at the top of an old quarry, now peppered with climbing lines.  When I set the flag the night before – without a headlamp, in the middle of a downpour, with thunder rolling across the sky – I’d wondered whether it was a mistake to force teams up the gnarled climb.

It turned out that my concern was unfounded – everyone I spoke to about the point seemed to enjoy the technical scramble.

As racers were traversing Birdsboro, I sat with volunteers in the TA, checking in teams and keeping an eye on our injured participant.  As the afternoon progressed, she continued to struggle, ultimately throwing up the Benadryl she’d taken.  At that point, the doc on hand suggested that we take her over to the nearest ER for treatment, and with so many personnel on hand, our two media mavens for the race (one of whom moonlights as a nurse) took a break from their facebooking duties to make the trip to Reading Hospital.

Said Media Mavens, tracking the race one facebook post and tweet at a time.

After Birdsboro, teams returned to their bikes for the trip up to Mount Penn, the furthest point on the course.  But first, they had to navigate their way through the Neversink Mountain Preserve, a little-known park tucked away on the outskirts of Reading and once home to several grand hotels.  The buildings are long gone, but their foundations remain, and the area is littered with the vestiges of the impressive 19th century resorts.

The Neversink course took racers along old rail trestles, through the “Witch’s Hut” gazebo, atop a covered reservoir, and even inside a fully intact wine cellar, built into the side of the mountain.

Because there was no TA there, teams were largely on their own for several hours, but late that afternoon, Brent took a break from setting checkpoints to document the loop.

     

At some point, I got another phone call from Bill.  A team member had lost her whistle – mandatory safety gear – in the woods.

Thirty minute time penalty, I said, same as the dropped maps.

Consistency.

By that point, I’d left Birdsboro to meet our next group of volunteers at the Mount Penn Fire Tower.  Though we’d asked them to arrive at 4:30 PM, I knew that it would be a few hours at least before the first teams arrived.

Before long, though, Anne pulled into the parking lot, armed with pizza and our bee-stinged racer, now pumped with fluids and steroids and ready to help.

I have to say, as disappointed as I was that she wasn’t able to continue racing, it was wonderful to have her there as a de facto volunteer.  A seasoned course designer and director, she jumped into the action without missing a beat, and as the night wore on, she became my second set of eyes as we checked passports and tabulated point totals.

It was also then that Anne brought news that we’d be canceling the paddle.  The rains the week before had caused water levels to rise dramatically.  When Brent and I had first scouted the river, we’d been able to walk long stretches of the course, with the water barely lapping at our calves.  When we’d set the paddle-o (a small orienteering section in and around a series of islands) the evening before, the water was well over our heads (or rather, well over Brent’s head, since I cheered him on from the riverbank as he hung those flags).

For reference, the point on the bottom left here shows the water pressure when we scouted the canoe leg, just over 600 CFS (cubic feet of water per second). The point on the top right shows the water pressure on race day – nearly 9,000 CFS.

Our water safety boats couldn’t even get on the river.

Just before dark, Team SOG crested Skyline Drive and turned into our Fire Tower parking lot.  After breaking the news that they wouldn’t be paddling, we explained to them what the Mount Penn section would look like.

There would be two loops, one on foot and one on bike.  The foot loop consisted of three checkpoints and the mountain bike, seven.  All were optional, but they had to decide which loop they wanted to start with before seeing the maps.

Volunteer Ali, explaining the two loops

There was a firm 11:00 PM cut-off to finish up at Mount Penn.

SOG decided to take advantage of the last precious moments of light and start with the bike.  They were the only team who had the opportunity to do so.

Brian of Team SOG, talking strategizing.

Most racers arrived at Mount Penn between 10 PM and 11 PM, much later than we’d anticipated.  Some went off to gather a few foot points.  Many opted to skip both loops altogether.

When they checked out, they received the remaining handful of UTM coordinates for the course, which would get them to the now-defunct boat put-in.  There, Brent and Bill were working feverishly to design and print new maps to get teams from the put-in to the take-out by bike.

Though almost all racers were disappointed that they’d be riding through the night, many seemed relieved not to have to get on the water.  They’d caught glimpses of the river earlier that day and were wary of paddling the swift-moving current at night.

The view of the Mount Penn Pagoda as teams began their descent

We thought that racers would be more spread out by that point in the race, but nearly every team pulled out of Mount Penn at 11:00 PM.  From there, they would ride down Skyline Drive and then back up and over Neversink before jumping on the Schuylkill River Trail to the Ganshahawny Boat Ramp.

Even though there would be no paddle, we elected to keep this part of the course the same.  That way, teams would have access to their anticipated gear and food that they’d tucked away in their paddle bags.  They’d also receive fresh maps from Bill, guiding them along an additional 20-ish miles of flat riding, which they would have covered on the river.

As the last teams were pulling out, our Mount Penn volunteers headed home and the handful of us that were left made our way to Lock 60 in Phoenixville, site of the paddle take-out and the next foot loop.

With a couple hours to spare, we made a much-needed pitstop for coffee and snacks, and then commenced waiting for the first teams to arrive.

At Lock 60, racers were treated to a little bit of time out of the saddle as they took on the small foot-o to collect as many as seven points, all optional.  The park was tiny, but we’d utilized it to its fullest effect, both to ensure that the fastest teams would remain on course for 24 hours and to showcase some of the unique features of the area.

One of the checkpoints was at a makeshift campsite.  When we’d come upon it while out scouting, I wondered aloud whether we’d have to worry about any safety issues there overnight.  But when we came into the modest clearing, Brent looked back and laughed.  ”I don’t think we need to be concerned with anyone hanging out here.”

On the ground, rocks were laid out to spell L-O-V-E.  The trees were adorned with small stained glass hummingbirds and hearts, and tacked to the trees were biblical verses espousing peace and kindness.

We were pretty sure teams would be safe.

Though folks seemed happy for the short respite from the bikes when they arrived at Lock 60, energy levels were low across the board.  Many teams pedaled into the TA and promptly dropped their bikes and laid down on the ground.

But then a funny thing happened.

The sun started to come up.  Gradually, everyone came into focus.  And as it happens during every adventure race, with the new day we all got an extra boost – racers and personnel alike.

This was also the first time in about 18 hours that I’d seen Brent.  In the middle of the night, he’d finally set the last point for the course, and he joined us at Lock 60.  But he’d missed the chance to interact with teams throughout the day and was eager to check out the action, so when the first racers returned to their bikes for the final push back, he headed to Evansburg to give directions on the next section, and I remained at Lock 60 to check in teams.

That is, until I received the next phone call.  It seemed that at the tail end of his full day of flag-setting, Brent had accidentally forgotten a key piece of the Evansburg section.  He needed to go back into the woods, but the first teams were expected to arrive within the hour.

“Not a problem,” I said, and headed to my car, leaving three fantastic volunteers in charge of the Lock 60 TA.

From Lock 60, teams would bike the last stretch – anywhere from 10-17 miles – back to the start.  Along the way they had the option of picking up as many as ten optional checkpoints, many on a short mountain biking loop on the southern edge of the state park.

Crossing a spillway en route to a couple optional CP’s outside of Lock 60

When they arrived at the final TA, they were greeted with two orienteering challenges, both optional and worth a total of 10 points.

Option A was a Memory-O.  Here, teams would have access to a map with the first point plotted on it.  They would have to memorize a route there, and once they arrived at the CP, they would find a map to the next point (those maps were the critical piece Brent had left out, when he set the memory-o).  In total there were six flags on the course, and they had to clear the entire thing in order to earn the allotted four points.

Only two teams elected to try it – GOALS ARA and NYARA – and both were successful.

Option B was an orienteering relay.  Here, racers were presented with three loops – short, intermediate, and long.  They had to designate one person to complete each loop, and only that person would receive the corresponding map.  Here, too, teams only scored points for loops that were completed in full.  The short course was worth one point; the intermediate, two; and the long, three.

Brent pow-wowing with the long-legged gentlemen of Team SOG

These various challenges at the end had their intended affect.  The finish line was bustling right up until 9:30, when the final team ran across.

I attempted to tally the points as they came through but quickly realized there was too much activity to think straight.  Instead, I escaped to the front seat of my car with Anne, and we totaled and re-totaled the scores.

When all was said and done, Team SOG emerged the clear victor.  Cumberland Trail Connection/ARMD came in second, and GOALS rounded out the top three of the premiere division (for more detailed results and additional photos, click here).

After a quick awards ceremony, racers began to depart.  Anne, Bill, Brent, and I – with the help of a few hearty volunteers who remained – stuck around to break down the TA and debrief about the event.

On the way home, Brent and I decided to stop for lunch to celebrate.  As we toasted the past 24 hours – and the past 7 months – we returned to our conviction of the previous week.

“So, we’re not doing this again next year, right?”

“Right.”

“But you know, there’s this great network of parks…”

“I was thinking the same thing…”

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2012: The Year of…

10 Comments Posted by on January 2, 2012

After 10 days of traveling, we returned home late last night, ready to settle into 2012.

Brent and I spent a lot of time during our trip talking about the past year and the one to come.

There was all sorts of introspection and retrospection and future-spection on the life front – but on the racing front, all conversations were geared toward prepping for the next ten months.

The schedule for the year is almost set.  So far we’ve got:

The Snowgaine (2-day snowshoeing race) in New York - March 10/11

The Palmetto Swamp Fox (12-hour adventure race) in South Carolina - March 17

The Natchez Trace (12-hour adventure race) in Tennessee - March 24

The Rev3 Epic (28-hour adventure race) in Virginia - April 21/22

The NYARA Longest Day (24-hour adventure race) in New York – May 19/20

The GOALS ARA Cradle of Liberty (the 24-hour adventure race Brent and I are designing and directing!) in Pennsylvania – June 2/3

The Untamed New England (4-day adventure race) in Maine - June 19-24

The Adidas Terrex (5-day adventure race) in Scotland - August 18-25

The East Coast Adventure Racing Championship (24-hour adventure race) in Pennsylvania – September 14/15

The US Adventure Racing Association National Championship (30-hour adventure race) in New York – October 12/13

Brent enjoyed the training plan we put together last year and requested that we come up with a new one this time around, so we’ve got a date to put that together later today.

In the meantime, I need a name for the upcoming racing season.

If 2010 was the Year of the Bike and 2011 was the Year of Extreme, 2012 is shaping up to be the Year of… what?

What’s bigger than Extreme?

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Movin’ On Up

11 Comments Posted by on November 9, 2011

Remember the race that Brent and I put on earlier this year?  The 6-hour sprint adventure race that we dedicated 60 hours of our spring to designing?

Who could forget our Clown Boats?

Well, because we don’t have enough to occupy our times these days (I hope that dripping sarcasm makes its way across the blogosphere), we’ve decided to up the ante.

A couple weeks ago, we signed on to design and direct our first 24+ hour race, the GOALS ARA Cradle of Liberty, to be held in June or July of 2012.

We spent last Friday doing some preliminary scouting and have come up with a rough course that we’re both pretty jazzed about.

I can’t say much without giving away closely guarded race secrets (seriously – when we borrowed maps from a friend, I had to ask for a whole stack so she wouldn’t know which we were using), but I will tell you that Brent and I are gearing up for some serious work over the next several months.

There will be routes to explore, parks to visit, permits to secure, maps to build, checkpoints to place, sections to vet, volunteers to line up, and a whole lot more that I can’t begin to anticipate yet.

When all is said and done, we’ll hopefully be set to roll out a seriously epic adventure in eastern PA.

Who’s in?

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