‘I am in the singularity of pain’, the voice whispers in my head amidst throbbing temples and the bitter taste of bile at the back of my throat.
This is what I get for leaving active duty Army, I tell myself. I have been relieved of the motivation to first achieve anything physically, and now the proverbial chickens have come home to roost. My body has finally started to overcome the conditioning the Army has bestowed upon me over the last eight years, much like the Harkonnen overcame the Suk conditioning of Doctor Yueh. I have been taught to (or rather mentally conditioned to believe that I can) find my physical, mental, and emotional limits, and burst through them like the Kool-Aid Man through a brick wall, reveling in it all the way...
...Well, Kool-Aid Man, you never tell us that once you break through about two or three walls, you inevitably will bounce off of a wall (or the wall will break you)!
I am reminded of last year, around the same time in April, when I was about 15 pounds lighter, and in twice better shape, and competed in my first ‘adventure race.’ It was the same race, The Savage, done at Marsh Creek Lake State Park, PA. I was with Rob, John, and Carol last year too. It had some low points, like pushing bikes up a steep hill, capsizing a canoe in 50-something degree water, and going off-azimuth for about 30 minutes. But it eventually came to an end. We ended up finding all the points and finishing within the allotted 6 hours.
‘I AM IN THE SINGULARITY OF PAIN,’ the voice grows stronger as my stomach clenches again. The long bands of muscle known as my calves become Prussik knots lashed to my tibia and fibula.
I struggle back to the finish point on my bike, and my mind mists over…
…I am reminded of a cool and clammy 3am morning at Glen Onoko Falls in picturesque Jim Thorpe, PA, the last weekend of June for the Cradle of Liberty. I had a hooded look on my downward canted head as I follow wayward glints of cat eyes affixed to seemingly random trees like the “tricksy lights” of the Dead Marshes, first up the steep stone stairs, then back down again. Waking up two hours later to legs that would not straighten out. Sitting in the parking lot with my head in my hands and tears of shame and inadequacy welling up in my eyes as I gave up the ghost...
Oh, and we did this too... just like these guys ... but at midnight. (I think this pic is of the very rock face we had to traverse)
'I AM IN THE MOTHERFUCKING SINGULARITY OF PAIN!!'
…My mind SNAPS back into reality when the handlebars of my bike falter while gliding over a narrow wooden bridge at about 10 miles an hour. Like many times over the past few miles, I have failed to maintain a straight line. This time, however, it came with a price. The front wheel grazes the side of the railing, and the chain reaction begins. Hand burns on the flat of the railing, wheel turns 90 degrees, internia carries body over bike and faceplant ensues.
‘You are in the singularity of pain, dear Sam, you are reaping what you have sown,’ the voices come together in something of a chiding, singsong commentary from the Greek chorus. (Oh how the Fates vex me!)
So, let’s flashback to the beginning…
‘I AM IN THE SINGULARITY OF PAIN,’ the voice grows stronger as my stomach clenches again. The long bands of muscle known as my calves become Prussik knots lashed to my tibia and fibula.
I struggle back to the finish point on my bike, and my mind mists over…
…I am reminded of a cool and clammy 3am morning at Glen Onoko Falls in picturesque Jim Thorpe, PA, the last weekend of June for the Cradle of Liberty. I had a hooded look on my downward canted head as I follow wayward glints of cat eyes affixed to seemingly random trees like the “tricksy lights” of the Dead Marshes, first up the steep stone stairs, then back down again. Waking up two hours later to legs that would not straighten out. Sitting in the parking lot with my head in my hands and tears of shame and inadequacy welling up in my eyes as I gave up the ghost...
Oh, and we did this too... just like these guys ... but at midnight. (I think this pic is of the very rock face we had to traverse)
'I AM IN THE MOTHERFUCKING SINGULARITY OF PAIN!!'
…My mind SNAPS back into reality when the handlebars of my bike falter while gliding over a narrow wooden bridge at about 10 miles an hour. Like many times over the past few miles, I have failed to maintain a straight line. This time, however, it came with a price. The front wheel grazes the side of the railing, and the chain reaction begins. Hand burns on the flat of the railing, wheel turns 90 degrees, internia carries body over bike and faceplant ensues.
‘You are in the singularity of pain, dear Sam, you are reaping what you have sown,’ the voices come together in something of a chiding, singsong commentary from the Greek chorus. (Oh how the Fates vex me!)
So, let’s flashback to the beginning…
Prologue: It could not have been a more perfect day. The temperature remained somewhere between 60 and 70 degrees the whole day, though a nice breeze was present atop Hawk Watch, the start/finish point of the race. About a hundred teams of twos and threes showed up for the race (I noticed one jersey with 105 on it). At the pre-race huddle, Bill Gibbons asked how many folks were first-time adventure racers. Between one-third and one-half raised their hands. I could remember raising my hand last year.
There was a nice sense of confidence as we looked at the map, the same map we had bought the previous weekend (a 10-year old orienteering map). We had gone through what seemed to be the entire Brandywine Creek State Park that Saturday (my birthday) either on foot or on bikes, and when you looked at the pre-plotted points, there didn’t seems to be very much that was an unknown to us, except for five of the biking points that were plotted on a simplistic trail map of some privately-held nature areas. ("All too easy, " I could hear, no I could actually feel that sentiment rolling off my two comrads like mid summer heat waves rising from the pavement.)
There were four events: Six points of foot orienteering; seven points of mountain bike orienteering; three points (reduced from four) of canoeing; and, of course, the team challenges (this year they were a stretcher carry, a blindfolded scooter slalom course, and a knot tying event (a double figure-eight on a bight, a Prussik knot, and a taut-line hitch). John had been craving to select a sequence that did the foot course first, and as it turns out we were treated to just that.
As the race began, Rob represented the team in the “Captain’s Event,” meant to provide initial spacing between the teams, and consisted of a sprint from the start point (located near the top of a hill) down to the Brandywine Creek some 150-250 feet lower in elevation to pick up our team ‘passport’ and race back to the start to link up with us and begin the course. Rob completed the Captain’s Event (around 2 miles) in about 16 minutes. Rob also had installed two windows in his barn the day before, and seemed tired. Rob was, to quote, “smoked” upon his return. That’s why I admire Rob. His stupidity goes in a different direction than my stupidity ever could.
Act I: Easterling Gambit (Accepted)
There was a nice sense of confidence as we looked at the map, the same map we had bought the previous weekend (a 10-year old orienteering map). We had gone through what seemed to be the entire Brandywine Creek State Park that Saturday (my birthday) either on foot or on bikes, and when you looked at the pre-plotted points, there didn’t seems to be very much that was an unknown to us, except for five of the biking points that were plotted on a simplistic trail map of some privately-held nature areas. ("All too easy, " I could hear, no I could actually feel that sentiment rolling off my two comrads like mid summer heat waves rising from the pavement.)
There were four events: Six points of foot orienteering; seven points of mountain bike orienteering; three points (reduced from four) of canoeing; and, of course, the team challenges (this year they were a stretcher carry, a blindfolded scooter slalom course, and a knot tying event (a double figure-eight on a bight, a Prussik knot, and a taut-line hitch). John had been craving to select a sequence that did the foot course first, and as it turns out we were treated to just that.
As the race began, Rob represented the team in the “Captain’s Event,” meant to provide initial spacing between the teams, and consisted of a sprint from the start point (located near the top of a hill) down to the Brandywine Creek some 150-250 feet lower in elevation to pick up our team ‘passport’ and race back to the start to link up with us and begin the course. Rob completed the Captain’s Event (around 2 miles) in about 16 minutes. Rob also had installed two windows in his barn the day before, and seemed tired. Rob was, to quote, “smoked” upon his return. That’s why I admire Rob. His stupidity goes in a different direction than my stupidity ever could.
Act I: Easterling Gambit (Accepted)
The Brandywine Creek meanders in a generally lazy north-south line on its way into the Delaware River, bisecting the Park into two sections. The start point was in the western portion of the park, as were two foot points. We aimed for one that was in a clearing along our beeline for Thompson’s Bridge, representing the center of gravity for most of our maneuver throughout the day. The unique feature of the bridge was that you had to cross over the Thompson Bridge Road overpass in order to cross the Brandywine Creek (this assumption would later be disproven – keep reading). The next point followed a steep ascent to one of the highest points in the eastern portion of the park. It is important to note that The Oracle, though thought to dwell in lofty mountaintop temples in Greek mythology, does NOT, in his current incarnation, like to climb said mountains. Thus began my long, slow descent into a place where my soul could be purified, also known as Pain Purgatory.
Once up to the hilltop, and the point found, we dropped a bit of altitude and hopped on a trail that followed the ridgeline on a slight uphill as we ran for our third point. We lost about 5 minutes looking for this point, but quickly identified the error and backtracked along the ridge until we we found the marker. The fourth point was easy to find since it was on a well marked trail, that trail took us up the rocky spine of the highest ridge in the park. Scaling the trail we passed several teams who were taking the same route as we were...a few of whom were pushing bikes rather than trying to ride the rocky climb. On our descent towards the fifth point, we found ourselves faced with a dilemma: break brush and take a high speed straight line shot towards the next point, or follow the trail winding a longer, safer route to the point we were after. Up until this point, we had chosen the latter, and now I pushed for the former. We decided that it was worth the risk and entered into The Easterling Gambit (Accepted) ©. Turned out that we gained about 30 seconds on the effort (passing one team who had started the downhill track before us). Huzzah. My highlight of the day (and Rob's). That said, there should be a rule that says never follow a red-green color deficient guy (me again) who says, “I see the [orange] point!” when it’s 150 meters away in the trees. [As it turns out, we still have no idea what Sam was actually looking at since we followed his line down to ridge to a parallel trail and immediately took a 90 degree right turn for another 200 yards -- John]
As we started to return to Thompson’s Bridge, we were following the trail but quickly noticed that some teams had decided to ford the creek.
Flashback to the week prior during our recon.
We watched a Brandywine Creek that had been swollen by a week of rain surge upstream and thought that a) it wouldn’t be fordable, and b) that it should be some easy downstream paddling. More on ‘b’ later…
Flash forward.
Well, the girls that were fording the creek were up to their knees and no deeper for the most part. So we decided to follow. Probably saved us about 300-400 meters of jogging in exchange for getting feet wet and slogging through 75 meters of water (in chess punctuation you might append either ! or !? to this). Later we would see bikers fording the creek as well, and I believe that we were all in agreement that this would be a ‘?’ move. The final point was the ascent to the hilltop, and Rob and John proceeded to jump into the woods to find the point along with the combined manpower of about four other teams trying to find the same point. Then it was back to Hawk Watch to check in.
Total elapsed time to complete the foot portion of the race: 1 hr, 47 minutes.
Interlude: Lookteamchallenge!Teamchallengedone.Quick,downasmuchfoodandliquidasyoucan! Ok,let’sheadbacktocanoes.
Act II: Would You Stop Hitting My Goddamned Paddle?
We huffed it on foot back to the canoe transition point at Thompson’s Bridge. Huffing is onomatopoeia, meaning it was also the sound of my breath leaving my lungs when clambering up onto the overpass, then back down to the canoe transition point.
The Gibbons Principle applies to all GOALS-sponsored adventure races. The short definition of the Gibbons Principle is that for every adventure race involving paddling, the water avenue will be just deep enough to allow a two-person vessel, but will cause a three-person craft an extreme amount of discomfort. And so the Bradywine Creek, instead of being a manageable three or four feet deep (like we saw the previous weekend) was now a bottom-dragging two feet in most places. The point placement forced us to have to paddle upstream for half of the event, so John (Today's master route planner and (common sense guru)) plotted us a course that consisted of one upstream leg, a longer downstream leg, and a short final upstream leg, which allowed us to use the downstream leg as rest before the final push.
Once up to the hilltop, and the point found, we dropped a bit of altitude and hopped on a trail that followed the ridgeline on a slight uphill as we ran for our third point. We lost about 5 minutes looking for this point, but quickly identified the error and backtracked along the ridge until we we found the marker. The fourth point was easy to find since it was on a well marked trail, that trail took us up the rocky spine of the highest ridge in the park. Scaling the trail we passed several teams who were taking the same route as we were...a few of whom were pushing bikes rather than trying to ride the rocky climb. On our descent towards the fifth point, we found ourselves faced with a dilemma: break brush and take a high speed straight line shot towards the next point, or follow the trail winding a longer, safer route to the point we were after. Up until this point, we had chosen the latter, and now I pushed for the former. We decided that it was worth the risk and entered into The Easterling Gambit (Accepted) ©. Turned out that we gained about 30 seconds on the effort (passing one team who had started the downhill track before us). Huzzah. My highlight of the day (and Rob's). That said, there should be a rule that says never follow a red-green color deficient guy (me again) who says, “I see the [orange] point!” when it’s 150 meters away in the trees. [As it turns out, we still have no idea what Sam was actually looking at since we followed his line down to ridge to a parallel trail and immediately took a 90 degree right turn for another 200 yards -- John]
As we started to return to Thompson’s Bridge, we were following the trail but quickly noticed that some teams had decided to ford the creek.
Flashback to the week prior during our recon.
We watched a Brandywine Creek that had been swollen by a week of rain surge upstream and thought that a) it wouldn’t be fordable, and b) that it should be some easy downstream paddling. More on ‘b’ later…
Flash forward.
Well, the girls that were fording the creek were up to their knees and no deeper for the most part. So we decided to follow. Probably saved us about 300-400 meters of jogging in exchange for getting feet wet and slogging through 75 meters of water (in chess punctuation you might append either ! or !? to this). Later we would see bikers fording the creek as well, and I believe that we were all in agreement that this would be a ‘?’ move. The final point was the ascent to the hilltop, and Rob and John proceeded to jump into the woods to find the point along with the combined manpower of about four other teams trying to find the same point. Then it was back to Hawk Watch to check in.
Total elapsed time to complete the foot portion of the race: 1 hr, 47 minutes.
Interlude: Lookteamchallenge!Teamchallengedone.Quick,downasmuchfoodandliquidasyoucan! Ok,let’sheadbacktocanoes.
Act II: Would You Stop Hitting My Goddamned Paddle?
We huffed it on foot back to the canoe transition point at Thompson’s Bridge. Huffing is onomatopoeia, meaning it was also the sound of my breath leaving my lungs when clambering up onto the overpass, then back down to the canoe transition point.
The Gibbons Principle applies to all GOALS-sponsored adventure races. The short definition of the Gibbons Principle is that for every adventure race involving paddling, the water avenue will be just deep enough to allow a two-person vessel, but will cause a three-person craft an extreme amount of discomfort. And so the Bradywine Creek, instead of being a manageable three or four feet deep (like we saw the previous weekend) was now a bottom-dragging two feet in most places. The point placement forced us to have to paddle upstream for half of the event, so John (Today's master route planner and (common sense guru)) plotted us a course that consisted of one upstream leg, a longer downstream leg, and a short final upstream leg, which allowed us to use the downstream leg as rest before the final push.
As we clambered into the boat, the seating order (front to back) was John, Sam, and Rob. The unfortunate middle man did not get a nice elevated plastic seat. Instead he got to slide his 6’3” frame into the bowel of the canoe and fight a constant battle with leg cramps, a piece of cross-beam wood digging into the small of his back, and the dreaded “Brandywine enema”.
In hindsight, the toughest portion of the canoeing was the first, long, upstream leg. It took us a good amount of time to find the rhythm with the paddles and thus navigate the good lines. There were about four or five times that required Rob and John to dismount and drag the canoe out of the shallows. This was probably the most stressful time for John, because I was consistently out of synch with his paddle, and our blades would smack like Spock and Kirk dueling in the kal-lif-fee. More than once I got to witness John (almost comically) devolve into berserk fury in his chastisement of me, 3 person canoe events, and Gibbons' selection of rivers. Then the paddle blades started to hit his head which is, of course, the natural result of trying to avoid hitting his paddle. Paddle or head? Life is full of tough decisions. Sad, but true.
In hindsight, the toughest portion of the canoeing was the first, long, upstream leg. It took us a good amount of time to find the rhythm with the paddles and thus navigate the good lines. There were about four or five times that required Rob and John to dismount and drag the canoe out of the shallows. This was probably the most stressful time for John, because I was consistently out of synch with his paddle, and our blades would smack like Spock and Kirk dueling in the kal-lif-fee. More than once I got to witness John (almost comically) devolve into berserk fury in his chastisement of me, 3 person canoe events, and Gibbons' selection of rivers. Then the paddle blades started to hit his head which is, of course, the natural result of trying to avoid hitting his paddle. Paddle or head? Life is full of tough decisions. Sad, but true.
Audience participation: Below is a compare-contrast. Any striking similarities?
Exhibit A: Us Paddling
Exhibit B: Spock vs Kirk, no holds barred
At some time during the course, John, announced a permanent rule that he would no longer race in a boat that had three people in it. This was cause for some lively dialogue between John and Rob while I continued to rub the blinding salt out of my eyes. There were many occasions when we craned our necks to look up the creek to see if there was the telltale orange and white triangles of a point, and many times we saw canoes off in the distance, continuing to paddle upstream as well. Eventually we found our upstream point (as GOALS had nixed the closest upstream point at a site that was occupied by a family barbeque, complete with idiot guy using a rope swing to fall into a two foot-deep portion of the creek next to a giggling fat girl – believe the quote from John was, “He’s getting lucky tonight.”...Rob's deadpan response, "That's unfortunate").
The downstream portion was about thrice as quick, a result of our improved technique and a 3mph current. We continued to leave canoes behind us as we successfully navigated some of the patches that had previously caused us to dismount. That said, once we approached the final points at the end of the downstream leg, we dismounted the canoe and I carried the passport to the final canoe point 50 meters downstream. Easy, right? The water had only been thigh high for all of our dismounted efforts. “Keep walking, Sam!” Rob called out as the water suddenly enveloped me up to my head. And then he said, evendently not caring about the sudden depth, "Walk faster, Sam!" so I swam the rest of the way to the point, oblivious to the fact that my cell phone had been submerged and subsequently murdered. On the last upstream leg, we seemed to do a little more walking than paddling, ultimately to our advantage. Later in day, while we were on our mountain bikes we came to a halt on the trail because we were blocked by a team who had seemingly given up entirely on paddling upstream and were carrying their canoe along the path that paralelled the river. We ultimately did not pass anyone in my recollection, but we were not passed either. We finally arrived at the transition point and huffed it back to Hawk Watch, another nice mile-long jaunt. (up hill, no really, it was uphill)
Total elapsed time 4 hr, 10 minutes (holy shit, did we just spend almost 2 and a half hours on the stupid canoe?)
Act III: The Pain Train’s Coming… WHOO WHOO!
The downstream portion was about thrice as quick, a result of our improved technique and a 3mph current. We continued to leave canoes behind us as we successfully navigated some of the patches that had previously caused us to dismount. That said, once we approached the final points at the end of the downstream leg, we dismounted the canoe and I carried the passport to the final canoe point 50 meters downstream. Easy, right? The water had only been thigh high for all of our dismounted efforts. “Keep walking, Sam!” Rob called out as the water suddenly enveloped me up to my head. And then he said, evendently not caring about the sudden depth, "Walk faster, Sam!" so I swam the rest of the way to the point, oblivious to the fact that my cell phone had been submerged and subsequently murdered. On the last upstream leg, we seemed to do a little more walking than paddling, ultimately to our advantage. Later in day, while we were on our mountain bikes we came to a halt on the trail because we were blocked by a team who had seemingly given up entirely on paddling upstream and were carrying their canoe along the path that paralelled the river. We ultimately did not pass anyone in my recollection, but we were not passed either. We finally arrived at the transition point and huffed it back to Hawk Watch, another nice mile-long jaunt. (up hill, no really, it was uphill)
Total elapsed time 4 hr, 10 minutes (holy shit, did we just spend almost 2 and a half hours on the stupid canoe?)
Act III: The Pain Train’s Coming… WHOO WHOO!
The wind blows.. the air feels heavy.. an ominous sense of doom and dread creeps over me. What's the forecast, Mr. T?
Ahh, the bike portion, our strongest event. If we hustle we can get all our points and probably have 20 minutes to spare. We each down some food (there's something to be said about the nauseatingly feel of a tacky mouth heavy with sludgy powerbar spit when combined with the wet/clammy feel of sodden feet from shoes full of creek water, all the while chewing your cud as you try to get a rhythm going on your bike... something that water can't wash away) and refill our camelbaks. John and Rob put their biking shoes on as I drink some more water.The string section of the orchestra begins to grate some foreboding notes in the background, meanwhile the dopplered sound of a train whistle is lost amidst the wind.
The downhill charge towards the Thompson Bridge is over and done in a heartbeat. There's a little confusion following the thin train right along the Brandywine instead of the faster trail about 10 feet higher in elevation that we had reconned the week prior, but we get it right eventually. Then it's a speedy little jaunt to the end of the trail, which terminated at our own Bridge of Death where we were forced to answer three of the following four questions before we were allowed to proceed:
1. When was George W. Bush's Birthday? July 6th
2. Which reality show producer also sponsors a multi-day adventure race? Mark Burnett
3. What is the average muzzle velocity of a 9mm pistol round? 1200 feet per second
4. When is Flag Day? June 14th
For the record, we got three right in about 1 minute. We will leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine which of the four questions we couldn't answer.
WHOO WHOO! The pain train's comin', baby!
Suddenly, after the Jeopardy, *hurk* ... I didn't feel so well. John recently hypothesized that I can puke on demand, citing the infamous 'red sauce' incident (which paired nicely that June 2007 evening at Allaire with the scratched cornea) and the more recent trail run he and I did this past Saturday where the bacon, eggs, and waffles became 'second breakfast' (Pippin, I don't think he knows about second breakfast!) Well anyway, I was a quart of fluid lighter about five minutes later, and then we remounted
Well it was all a blur from me from then on... the brief burst of adrenaline bestowed upon me soon subsided and the cramps began. So I enjoyed pushing the bike up the hills and taking the rather wicked descents down the hills. I'm not sure how fast the downhills were, but I would guess it was about as fast as... this:
Total elapsed time 5 hr, 51 minutes
Epilogue:
Well, another one for the books, or shall I say, blog. We came in under the 6 hour limit. We got to all but 3 points. We looking around for the race standings and noticed that 2 teams completed the entire course at around 4:30 total time. That means they were one whole event faster than us. Amazing. We found some free grub, ate up, and decided to hit Arby's hard for dinner. I think Rob even had a 32oz chocolate shake, he asserts Arby's has the best chocolate shakes. Finally, after about 90 minutes later we got home around 9 PM. A long day filled with mostly good memories... mostly....A few words on mountain biking and me. When you stick a 230-lb 6'3" guy on a moutain bike and he is supposed to follow guys with power-to-weight ratios far superior to him, you start feeling like this guy (i.e. frustrated):
A few words on Gibbons post-race food: is it just me or is a bunch of soft pretzels (and I do mean a bunch...), some chips, and a cooler full of drinks just .. not.. enough?
Statistical Analysis: Of the 106 teams that started, 41 teams finished all points within the time standard. Additionally, 12 teams finished all points, but outside of the 6 hours allotted. The remainder finished the 'alternate course'. Assumption is that they rank the 12 late arriving teams ahead of the alt course teams. So we finished about 50th percentile. Eh.
5 comments:
great post SAM!!!!
We love you Sam. Sarcasm, bile, and all.
But don't ever hit my goddamn paddle again.
Seriously.
Sam, I think that was one of the best blog posts I have read in a while. Great use of pictures and Youtube...
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