Best Race Ever!!!!

click here for official race results

we are White and Nerdy (team 10)


So there we were, no scheisse, it was early in the morning, too early… with only 4 hours of sleep we assembled at the start point at 0600 on Sunday 5 AUG 2007. After a last minute Official Race meeting, and a large amount of coffee, I could finally start tasting the excitement in the air….. On this day we and 33 other teams would attack the mountain over and over again during the 12 hour 50 mile race. This race was touted as the hardest race on the east coast and included; an obstacle course, a 90 foot rappel tower (that we certified our ascending/rappelling skills on the day before), a little shallow river for canoe fun, the Appalachian Trail and a host of other trails for running and mountain biking.

The team (John, Carol and I) crashed at my place the night before which was 35 long, tired, minutes away from the start point. You see, there was a mandatory team meeting on the mountain that started around 7p.m. the night before the race. We did not leave the mountain until after 845p.m. That sounds like we could have had a decent night's sleep, but nooooooo, we had to finish packing and fix a bike flat.

The race started with a traditional Captains Run. You see, in order to separate the starting of 33 teams , one person from each team 'gets' to run to a pretty far away place to pick up the passport. (Similar to a real passport, the race passport gets stamped at each part of the course you successfully complete, w/o the passport you cant prove you completed the race!) When the person gets the passport they run back to their team and then the team starts the race. Theoretically the teams will be spread out since there are fast and really fast runners! This year's Captain Run was about 300m into the forest on a 132 degree azimuth. (and then 300m back out again)

It was Carol's turn to race the Captains Run. So John and I showed her how to follow an azimuth with a compass. What a trooper, Carol took on the challenge after a 15 minute hip pocket class on how to use a compass! The run started and off went Carol. So John and I were waiting with about 90 other people. We saw the first runners get back and those teams moved out smartly. We knew there were some really fast people out there, so we were expecting to see Carol sometime after all the real runners were done.
John and I realized as the last 3 people came stumbling out of the forest in a different place that we never shows Carol how to take a back azimuth. Duh!!!!! So Carol got out there ok, then how to get back? Most of the crazy fast people were gone… I guess she hitched a ride with someone else and moved along the broken trail in front of her? Carol please chime in here…

After Carol made it back (we were not last) we started the obstacle course. It was a pretty decent layout, and since we were a team John went first, then Carol, then me, so Carol could stand on me if needed and John could pull her if needed. It was pretty fun, there was a small ropes station, an inverted 40 foot big ladder, monkey bars, a long rope crossing a big water pit. 2 out of 3 of us were dry after that one!

We decided not to hit the rappel tower next, in favor of starting the long ride out to the first check point. The ropes tower closed at 520 p.m. and we thought we would make it back in time. The ride out to CP1 was long, and there was a pretty hard slow climb to get to the top of the mountain. We passed a team on that climb and made up more time on the decent on the way down to CP2 and the canoe put it.

We traded out bikes for a canoe and started what I considered the hardest part of the race. We had spent about 20 miles riding and now we had about 7 miles of river in front of us. Normally that would be fine, but in a 3 person canoe in a shallow river with lots of rocks, we had to push the boat instead of paddle in it for 85-90% of those long, grueling, long, painful, long 7 miles. I am pretty sure the canoe tried to break my left leg and knee. I had a 3 inch swelling blob on my left shin and my knee was expressing excruciating eloquence as it clicked and twanged every time I would dig down and push the boat like a linebacker. You see John was in the front and he would pull the boat, Carol was in the middle and when she did not get out we needed her to bail out the water, that left me in the back. It was good for Carol to be in the middle since she was on paddle detail. Oh, you don’t know what paddle detail is? Its trying to catch 2 long paddles that just got thrown to you by 2 guys that are p.o.-ed at getting out of the boat again. In fact, I am pretty sure if Carol was not wearing her bike helmet, she would have brain damage, because I hit her in the head at least 5 time with my paddle. (sorry Carol) And then at the end of that long, long, ordeal, we had to carry the canoe out of the river for 200m after negotiating a 20 foot bank. The best part of that section of the race was seeing 8-10 teams pass us, and I especially liked watching that 2 person husband and wife team we passed biking up the mountain pass us in their canoe. We were pushing they were floating… nice.

We traded the canoe (the devil canoe, I was calling it by then) for our bikes, we ate and filled up on water, and took off to a 1500 foot hill top with a fire tower. Too easy, we had another team join us for the climb. Something crazy happened, Carol kept passing my on the climb!... I was like what is going on here? Has she leveled up or something? After I got off my bike most of the way up the mountain, I noticed the Race folks moved my seat down 5 inches to transport my bike. Great, we had a devil canoe and I just spent too much energy climbing because of a seat adjustment. Needless to say I fixed that problem and started destroying the climbs….

We decided park our bikes at the top of the mountain with the race officials and start the running portion of the race. A nice walk /run for about 3 hours. We ended up making an alliance with a 2 person team. I was chatting with Mike from the other team on our last race. (see the cradle of liberty post) I noticed him on the climb to the fire tower and said hello. He and his partner like chatting us up about the navigation aspects of the race, so we let hem hang with us for a while. It was kind of funny, when they decided to move out on their own, they passed a crucial turn for a hidden point. I hope they found it on their own!

We decided not to go for the farthest point on foot. It was worth 80 points, but if we went for it we might not make it back before the rappel tower closed. (the tower was worth 100 points) as it was nigh on 130p.m. and we had miles of biking to get to, we hurried back up to the fire tower. I was out of water at that time and needed to resupply at the hilltop.

We got on the bikes and started picking up more check points, john had a flat and about an hour later I had a flat. We were loosing time and the course had us going all the way back down the mountain get a checkpoint and then go all the way back up it to our start point. Yuk. It was somewhere on the movement back down the mountain that we realized we would not make it back in time for the rappel tower in time. That was a dark realization, it did not sit well with me, in fact I turned it into motivation and I destroyed the last 2 climbs up the mountain. But all for not, we missed the tower by 30ish minutes.

We had 290 total points and 30 minutes on our hands before the race was over. I left that race psyched for the next one. I only give us one bad mark for our decision to skip the rappel tower early. Other than that this race was the most fun and it is the highlight of my season. I felt I could have gone faster if it would have helped us, maybe next time. ….