White and Nerdy Racers

Special Operation Adventure Race - 5F0 miles of redemption

2010-06-11T08:41:00.001-04:00

Catch Up Stub

2010-06-11T08:38:00.001-04:00

First Run in a Long Time

2008-07-08T20:56:00.003-04:00

Well we got our email reminder from G-O-A-L-S to register for the Krista which is a 50 mile race at hawk mountain. (one of our favorites).

My plan was to work hard this year and try to get us in contention for a top 10 or podium finish. then Disney happened. My previous post.

So, today I am 12 pounds heaver then the target I set for myself 5 months ago, I am 2 minutes per mile slower.... but the good news is I don't feel any pain in my knee.

that's right, tonight I ran 2miles in around 17:30, Iced my knees after, mowed the lawn and did not feel any pain. I am running in new, lighter shoes and taking preventative Advil to reduce any swelling.

Tomorrow I will go out for a quick road ride, depending on how I feel, I may run another 2 miles
Friday or Sat.

I plan to make the call on if I think my knees can finish the Krista w/o getting injured. (I am sure I can finish the Krista, but a what cost? I don't want to put the Blackbeard and Edge in jeopardy by rushing into a 50 miler.)

stay tuned for updates...

Quick Update

2008-06-25T16:12:00.003-04:00

Folks,

My knee really hurt during my last Disney trip.... too much early running and walking through the parks on flat cheap sandals.

During our last race (SOAR) my knee was acting up, in fact when my bike broke and we made it a one speed with 5.5 hours left to ride, I really chewed up my knee. I over drove the gear I was in (middle middle) on climbs, lots of out of the saddle, I was smoked and the knee was barkin'. (more on that later). The knee was so miserable that I only trotted / walked on our last 1.5 mile foot movement uphill to the rappel at the end of the day.

I could not move it much the next day on the way back home.

I have not run since the race.

Today I saw an Ortho.... very nice. Got some X rays...
His diagnosis was 'Classic Tendinitis, predisposed to it by my knee bone structure'. (thank god)
He said my knee caps are misaligned and I am prone to this condition. [Evidently my self medicating Tylenol 800mg about every hour during marches and field maneuvers kept the swelling down in my former life. :)]

He gave me a shot of cortisone, claiming I have a 50% chance of the shot working.
He told me to rest the knee; ice it when done working out; take advil, and gently ease back into training.

I see him 6 AUG for followup, but he believes I can race at the end of AUG.

He and John recommended I consider using ellipticals...

what a sigh of relief.. I was worried I would have some kind of 'real' problem.

Making it Back

2008-06-16T04:51:00.002-04:00

Well, John and I completed the SOAR race weekend. (more like a 4 day odessey)...

we will post our detailed report soon!!

The road goes ever on and on...

2008-06-12T23:18:00.007-04:00

Day one is in the books. With a bit over 800 miles behind us Rob and I are settled in a hotel a little more than an hour from Highlands. Tomorrow we'll head to the race venue and see what we can find out about the race by quizzing some of the locals and taking a look at the actual terrain.

We got on the road around 1045 this morning, which was about a hour earlier than we had planned. It's not often that things go more smoothly than you expect, but we were willing to take advantage of the fact and get on the road with some time to spare.

A bit more than a hour into the ride we got to Carlisle and decided to stop for lunch and take a quick look at the house Jen, the girls, and I had lived in immediately after I left the service. While the picture to the left doesn't really do the house justice, Rob did say that Jen deserves a medal for allowing me to uproot her from this place and bring our gypsy caravan to NJ to follow a job. With that quick sojourn behind us, probably the most significant happening of the day came around 1 pm when the stereo in the van spontaneously died. I personally think that the device had been giving us some none-too-subtle hints that it was about to give up the ghost while listening to some podcasts earlier in the morning. It did this by repeatedly flipping the direction of play for the cassette adapter with no warning. My working theory was that the stereo was using this technique to file a protest for being overworked. When we didn't didn't read the signs properly there was clearly only one remaining option for the stereo. So, it quit. This obviously puts the kibosh on our ideas for listening to the entire Dune audio book...perhaps more importantly it also limits our ability to start each day with a ceremonial playing of White and Nerdy.

At this point our fingers are crossed that the problem is just a blown fuse that can be quickly swapped out. We'll try to find a Dodge dealership tomorrow so that someone can look at the issue and at least give us an idea of whether it is quickly repairable. If not, then we'll do without...and this trip will seem a whole lot longer. Strange as this may seem to some of you, even Rob and I are hard pressed to come up with enough conversation to fill 8+ hours of non-stop driving.

With our entertainment options thus reduced, Rob and I had to settle for more primitive entertainment on the road. I will allow the our readers to determine our state of mind by considering the two pictures below which I considered hilarious when I saw them.

Ok...so we aren't talking Monty Python quality humor here, but come on...El Cruncho? That's pretty good. And I don't know who Professor Cline is or what he studied, but I have to say that his Haunted Monster Museum is awfully damn intriguing. It also makes you wonder, what exactly do you think he is a professor of? Monsterology?

More information tomorrow once we have had a chance to recon the race site. -- John

Too Excited...

2008-06-12T05:17:00.004-04:00

[This is post 2 of a multi post race event for original Special Operations Adventure Race post, John started here....link]

So John calls me last night. Kind of last minute, I need to hear your voice kind of stuff. What am I doing at that time??? Mowing the lawn, why you ask? Because I will be in no condition to mow it on Sunday. :)

I come in from the lawn last night, I get showered and Carla gives me the message from John. Something like… “Rob, give me a call, I would like to make sure I am bringing the right stuff, no emergency just call me tonight”… UM, what?… I am thinking to myself... that can’t be what John said or means. Why did I doubt the message I got from my wife? Because on Tuesday (5 days before the race), John was recounting his packing list with particular emphasis on the decisions he made the previous night (Monday). (Notably to repack and take a tube out of his saddle bag the night before) In a word John is prepared. So why the call…. Mox nix. The call was good for me, helped get me out of thinking about the work crisis du jour. (and it is a crisis, which I leave behind for Sam)

The call was good for me since I was able to convince John to bring his kayak paddle, in case at the race meeting Friday at 1900, they announce conditions that would allow us to bring paddles. This is a good idea to me, since I am not convinced attaching half paddles to a camelback on the race is a bad idea yet. The mountains of Highland, NC might help me decide in a hurry… I will let you know. The reason taking a kayak paddle makes sense to me, kayak paddles provides advantage in the water section (10% of the race), and even if we don’t use it, we have room to take it on the road trip.

Why do we have room to take it??? Because my cool wife let me ‘borrow the mini-van’… and it’s not just a mini-van, it’s a mini-van with a THULE luggage rack on top. (yes--- yet another indicator of self domestication, I am a proud owner of a grand caravan with stow and go and a roof rack and bike rack, and big cup holders) very good for piling the team and gear and bikes for road trips. (Very good for piling family and extended family and luggage for road trips to Disney… but that is another story) The Van is sooooooo large that we might just be able to sleep in the back in sleeping bags!. If that plays out and we move the bikes to the bike rack, then we could conceivably spend nothing on lodging for the trip… saving around 90 bucks we planned to spend on a hotel Friday night. (Thursday night is free due to John squaring us away with some free point rewards from Marriot. too cool).

So thanks again Carla, for letting me have the van again :)

You might be wondering why the post is called Too Excited…. Well I could not sleep in this morning. I got up before 0500 to update my laptop gps software. I t has us leaving my house at 1000 and arriving at the hotel tonight at 1859 tonight. We shall see just how long it will take us to get there. I also wanted to get an RSOI post out. We are taking laptops with us so we can post frequently on the trip. (yes we take the internet with us when we travel:) )

Well back to packing out the Van, optimize stow-and-go an luggage rack to keep the back open and ready for john’s stuff and possible sleeping accommodations. Yes I am Too Excited.

John and I are bringing podcasts for the road trip.... and I am bringing the Dune audio books; 18 CD's of some of the best science fiction (pr prophesy?) I have been exposed to. Yes I am Too Excited.

White and Nerdy hits the road

2008-06-10T20:52:00.004-04:00

Short note today for anyone who still checks up on our exploits.

This weekend Rob and I will be spending some quality time together as we make a 700+ mile pilgrimage to Highlands, NC for another race. The Special Operations Adventure Race is our next event and takes place this weekend.

We'll be taking Thursday and Friday off work so that we can make it to the venue in time for the mandatory team meeting at 7pm Friday night with enough time to spare that we can familiarize ourselves with the area at least a little bit.

Should be an interesting race for many reasons. We are entered in the 'Elite' category (which I think means we get a membership card and frequent racer points for use in future SOAR races) for the 12 hour/50 mile race. Last year's winners came in at about 7.5 hours. I am particularly pleased that photos from last year's race pretty clearly show a flat water paddle (dare I hope for a lake??) that doesn't require dragging the gorram boat.

Since the road trip, race, and subsequent drive home will be a multi-day event I'll try to post a little each day to keep everyone up to date on how things are going. If I get really creative with my writing I might try to exploit the parallels that our itinerary has to the archtypical hero's journey to make it seem that much more exciting for our dedicated readership (that means you Brian Soeder).

More to follow -- John

Placeholder for Rob's writeup re:MS 170 tour

2008-06-10T20:51:00.000-04:00

Still waiting....

The Price of Laziness (a cautionary tale)

2008-05-08T21:37:00.030-04:00

So there I was, no shit, at Brandywine Creek State Park, this zombie look on my face as we pedal the last mile back to the finish line in The Savage, the first GOALS ARA race of the season... and I haven't done much to train for it.

‘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…

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)

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.

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.

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 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.

Army 10 Miler (the race, the experience)

2007-10-13T17:11:00.000-04:00

So there we were, no shi_, up to our armpits with 25, 998 other runners... (and some notable 3ID folks)

It was a hot morning, a humid morning at my 3rd Army Ten Mile (ATM) race, and wouldn't you know it... it happened again...

what happened?

I was once again irresistibly drawn to the array of 60 port-o-johns at the start line minutes before the start gun fired. In fact I was more than drawn to them, I was compelled. I was as compelled into that little solitary green smelly vestibule as a Reaver is compelled to close with a non Reaver. The problem was the waiting. 60 port-o-johns for 26k runners means there will be long lines and waiting. And wait I did... but everything worked out ok :) It was my first 'number 1' experience of the day.

After nature called we moved to the start line, we were in wave 2, which means our target complete time was between 80-120 minutes. There are a few pics of us out there. check them out at action sports international. (Or click the link for Rob and Carol) (Notice the GOALS shirt? from my first adventure race, where John and I medal ed, but that is another story :) )

So, when I signed up for the ATM, I thought I would finish somewhere faster than 90 minutes. But, alas, my training program deteriorated after the Hawk Mountain race. In fact, with the exception of one 6 mile run, I had 0 running / riding workouts before this 10 mile race. So I basically woke up and ran 10 miles because I wanted to, not because I was training for it :) That lack of preparation and the heat made for a slow 10.20 min/mile average. YUK. Thanks to Carol for staying with me, I am sure she could have finished in 90 flat or better!

The heat and humidity took their toll on many racers, there even was one death. He almost made it to the finish line. RIP stranger.

The race started great... we ran a 9:05 first mile with Jim and Susan. I felt some internal pain, clearly lack of running was going to slow me down. I finally got away from the pain around mile 2.5 when we headed down hill and into the shade. There were so many runners, I sped up and started picking people off, it felt great, but only lasted about a mile, when the sun blinded me and the heat oppressed me, and the 2-3 gallons of ice cream I ate the previous week started getting me back....

The middle of the race was good, miles 4-6 were fun enough, very scenic, probably my favorite miles of the course, and there was a GO BANANA sign!! You have to realize the significance of this sign... Sure there was a human size banana running with a human size Wheaties cereal box running past me (I think they were really people in costume, but I was probably more than a little delirious) and the sign was ostensibly for that banana, but (And that is a large but) GO BANANA was almost our Adventure Racing Team name. And at that moment, I thought of our fearless (the only thing he fears is a running race for running's sake) team captain, John. You see John likes the Simpson's and nominated GO BANANA for your GOALS team name on more than one occasion. So naturally, when thinking about my team captain, I ran just a little faster for a few miles.

I planned to keep one GU in my pocket. It was a mental thing... after passing the capitol building I would GU up. I did not expect to get any tactical benefit from the nutrients/calories but I was expecting to get some short term mental gains. Sure enough, around mile 6-7 I needed something. We had already passed the guy who played the flute (no kidding there is a runner who plays the flute)... actually he passed us, he was on his way back from the capital building, we were on our way to the capital building. So where was I headed with this part of the rant... Oh yeah, I needed something. So I GU-ed. It was good. It was what I thought I needed, unfortunately it was less than I expected, I was miffed and a little let down, so I actually ran with the empty GU packet in my hand for a mile. what a bummer, I was running out of gas with the hardest 2 miles ahead of me (no shade). I guess GU is not a replacement for training.

So the last 2-3 miles were head of me and I knew it. No pain in my legs, no blisters, no problems to speak of, but no real motivation either. I was looking forward to the last water point, I was planning to drink water at gatorade, and walk a few paces. The water point came and went, it was dominated by the backdrop of a hill of sorts. It was an on ramp to 395 or something, and it represented a 30 foot elevation change. what a wimpy hill, but it was just big enough to take away any mental reprise from the water point. great. So I dug in and made quick work of the hill, then the last stretch of mile and a half was ahead of me, completely open, crossing the river... just will power at this point. I am glad I was not hurt or cramping.

I crossed the finish line, secured a finishers coin for COL Moore and COL Palma, met up with Jim and Susan (finished 4 mins faster than me) and Ron and Jackie (77 mins and 83 mins total).
We parted ways, I headed to my totally cool cousin's place for a shower. Shout out Leigh and Finnigan.

Some of us got back together for lunch. I ate my ceremonial post ATM fish and chips and Guinness lunch and I made my way to union station for my train back to PA.

a great day with great people. next year I will train for the ATM and get a sub 90 min time. maybe my real goal will be to get John to run. (It would be good to get him by his fear of running a race for running's sake :) )

comments?

Was this done intentionally?

2007-09-03T20:22:00.000-04:00

I am going to skew a bit towards the white and nerdy focus of the site for this post, and away from the racing for a change...just a warning. Skip this if you aren't interested.

So, I spent a decent chunk of this holiday weekend watching (again) the entire run of Firefly episodes. I do this every six months or so as the mood moves me. Every so often I'll catch something that I haven't spotted in the past and this time was no exception.

The screen capture on the left is from the excellent episode "Trash" and occurs at the 21:40 mark of the show. Jayne is opening up a panel on an automated garbage bin so that its navigational system (don't ask...just watch the gorram show if you don't understand) can be reprogrammed. What caught my eye is the computer display to his left. I mean, honestly, who puts a computer display on the outside of a flying dumpster? But the real point of interest is that the monitor pretty clearly shows that the dumpster is running either Windows NT or Windows 2000. You may need to download the picture and blow it up, but trust me...it's high quality Redmond-produced gos se.
There are three windows open, five programs running in the task bar (win2k didn't have application stacking) and the recycle bin is in the bottom left hand corner of the screen, right above the start button.

This proved several things to me:

Even with several hundred years of time to continue developing, Win2K is the best and most stable product that Microsoft has yet, or will ever produce
Jayne is the one doing the reprogramming. If he can hack Windows, then by god, anyone can
Even with a few centuries to refine their product, MS products are still only good for taking out the garbage

Maybe I'll go and check this weekend, but even with all his monitors, I'll bet you dollars to donuts that Mr Universe wouldn't be caught dead running Windows. Just a thought.

Longest. Ride. Ever.

2007-09-02T21:44:00.000-04:00

As I posted yesterday I rode in my first century today, and all in all things went very well. Total distance was 106.63 miles in 6 hrs and 16 minutes.

The day started early since the ride was scheduled to kick off at 7 am, which meant that I had to be awake and out of the house at 0615. Now generally I refuse to get up this early since I left the Army, but in this case I made an exception.

I got to Brookdale Community College about 0645 after committing what I suspect are at least a dozen moving violations to make sure that I didn't miss the start. I needn't have worried. When I arrived there were around 50 riders in the parking lot, sporting a rainbow of brightly colored cycling jerseys and unloading a multitude of bikes that on average probably cost more than the kelly blue book value of my truck. One of the more interesting rides that I have ever seen showed up on top of a car that parked in the space next to me. It was a triple bike. Not a tandem, but a triple. Personally I can't understand why folks would want to ride these, particularly on a long ride like this. I have to think that after 60 or 70 miles the dude in front of you gets pretty stinky. I mean, come on, how long can his deodorant really last...particularly when your nose is about 10 inches from his back?

One other figure of note rode with the C group. This guy looked to be in his 60s, had a ZZ Top type beard, wore blue jeans, a long sleeve T shirt, hiking boots, and (I shit you not) road warrior-esque body armor on his TORSO, ARMS, and LEGS. This guy was wearing more protection that I had in Iraq. I don't know if he finished, but I saw him at the turnaround point so I know he rode at least 50 miles like that. Good on him. He must be a better man than I am.

As I unloaded my gear and stretched out I debated with myself whether I should ride with the A group, who are the fastest riders in the club, or the B group. I convinced myself to stick with the B riders since I hadn't done much serious road riding in a couple of weeks and this was at least 1/2 again further than any ride I had ever done. As it turns out this was a good decision. Once we started we never saw the A riders again and I don't think I would have been able to hang with them very long.

We started a few minutes late, and I have to say that the weather was absolutely perfect for riding. Crisp blue skies, temperature in the low to mid 60s, and virtually no wind. This made the first few miles fly by. Our group started with around 20 folks, which is large, and pretty much ensured that we would separate as the day went on. We did a good job staying together for the first portion of the ride, and by mile 20 or so I had met all the folks in our group.

At around the 20 mile mark we ran into some, shall we say, navigational challenges on the part of our ride leader which resulted in an extra six miles of riding on our part. At this point it was still early and cool, so we took it in stride, particularly since there were no hills to speak of on our bonus miles.

Shortly after we got back on the correct route we had the first flat tire of the day and I went back to help out the guy on the side of the road. He was having some issues getting his tire off the rim, and didn't seem to be exactly expert level on replacing a tube, but with some help he got a new tube installed while the rest of the group waited about a 1/4 of a mile up the road on the top of a smallish hill. Once the new tube was installed we started pumping and found that it wouldn't hold air either...maybe it was bad out of the box, or maybe it was punctured by the less than elegant use of tire levers putting it on the wheel, but we had to start all over from ground zero as the riders on the top of the rise glared at us with less and less patience. The guy with the flat didn't have another tube and was going to throw in the towel and call the support vehicle (yes, this ride had dedicated support vehicles...how cool is that?) until I convinced him to take one of my tubes and keep going. Once he agreed we got the second tube on much faster than our first attempt.

We got back on the road and picked up the pace for a while, eventually separating into at least two groups. I am not sure what caused the break in contact, but all of the sudden I looked over my shoulder and about 1/2 of the group was gone. Not just sliding back slowly as you might expect, but totally out of sight despite the fact that we were on a long, straight, flat road and could see for a good ways. I am guessing that somebody had mechanical issues, since that would stop folks cold, but I never did find out what happened.

Anyway, the group I was with kept riding until we got to Washington Crossing Park, near Trenton. I assume this park takes its name from the battle of Trenton and sits beside the Delaware river. I could see Pennsylvania across the river, which drove home for me how far I was from Brookdale and how much riding was left in the day.

As you might guess, the ride back from Trenton was harder than the ride out for a couple of reasons. First it was hotter...not dramatically hotter, but I would say that the temperature topped out in the high 70s which is enough to start pulling some electrolytes out of you. Second, there was a decent amount of climbing on the way back. Mind you, this was not Hawk Mountain climbing, but we had descended into the Delaware water gap and now we had to pick up all that elevation again before we could get back on the long flat stretches heading back to the coast. Third, we already had a bit over 50 miles behind us and a couple of the folks on the ride hadn't been eating much. Finally, the breeze which had been non-existent on the ride out was picking up as the temperature changed and we had a significant headwind for a good portion of the return trip.

Because of all this the ride back was slower than the ride out, but not dramatically so. We ended up averaging 17 miles an hour on the entire ride, which I think is a pretty respectable speed over 100 miles.

Now, one thing I haven't mentioned yet is rest stops. We stopped about once every 90 minutes or so to give folks a chance to eat, refill water, and use the facilities. These stops got more frequent as the ride when on and people needed more breathers, but by the time we got to the town of Marlboro I thought we were home free. But then, 5 miles from the end of the ride, someone decides that they absolutely have to stop at the WaWa for a potty break. Ugh.

When we left the WaWa for the home stretch I took the lead and quickly dropped most of the group on a longish hill on route 520. One other rider, a guy named Ferris (no, not that Ferris) that I had been bullshitting with throughout the ride, stayed with me and we continued to separate from the group. Our breakaway was helped by a conveniently timed traffic light that we were able to squeeze through just before it turned red giving us a clean break and the ability to basically time trial back to Brookdale on our own. Now, Ferris was doing his 5th century of this summer and was pretty clearly a stronger rider than I am. So we took turns pulling on the last leg with him taking longer turns up front and breaking the wind on the flat stretches and me pulling on the uphill sections. I am not sure if he got much benefit from sitting on my wheel during the climbs, but he never complained.

So Ferris and I rolled into the parking lot as the first members of the B group to finish the ride with the rest of the group coming in between 2 and 5 minutes behind us. Some of the group was visibly hurting, but by and large everyone looked like they were doing alright.

Overall this was a pretty fun riding experience and I will definitely do it again. It's tough to beat six hours of continuous riding for cardio training, and on a day like today it's almost criminal to not get on your bike. I am looking forward to upgrading my bike to something lighter and more responsive and seeing the difference that will make... but that won't happen for a while.

Nothing says Adventure racing like Spontaneous Pain

2007-09-01T21:10:00.000-04:00

So, Rob has recently sent an email to a few of us with a comment along the lines of, "one of my primary goals is to run an adventure race (ed note: presumably a sprint) without doing any specific preparation." Along these lines, Rob, I humbly offer the following submission:

I just found out that my local bike club is holding their annual century ride tomorrow. I am going to do it.

That's 100 miles. Without any specific preparation.

With that said, it's not like I am going into this totally cold. The Krista was about 30 miles on the mountain bike, carrying much more gear, and going up a mountain several times. This ride is on my road bike, with very little gear, and coastal NJ doesn't have much in the way of hills to speak of. All things considered, this will just be about pacing myself.

It should be fun. Riding a century has been a goal of mine since I got my bike, so tomorrow I'll get to check that off my list of things to do before I die. I have done a decent amount of road riding this summer, mostly on my own, so I am looking forward to doing some serious drafting on this ride.

I am taking a break from prepping my bike and the rest of my gear right now to post this. The ride leaves at 7 am from Brookdale Community college, so I'll need to be out of the house by about 6:15.

I have plenty of food, and just to make sure, I am packing my PBJs tonight so that everything is ready for tomorrow.

I'll post again tomorrow once I finish the ride. Wish me luck.

Codename: Goober Grape

2007-08-13T21:53:00.000-04:00

Thanks for doing the write up on the race, Rob. As I look back there are a few other things that I would like to add since you were too polite to discuss them.

One of the things that Rob didn't mention in his summary was that I spent the better part of the race battling cramps. Because I was dumb.

I ate everthing I had, drained my camelback at least twice, and threw down as much HEED as I could get at the staffed checkpoints to keep from totally shutting down, but by the end of the final climb over Hawk Mountain on the bike I was just about done. It was difficult to fully straighten either leg without it locking up. This is obviously not a good thing when you are trying to ride a bike up a mountain. If this had happened earlier in the day it would have been the end of the race, at least for me, but we knew that once we got to the top of that hill it was just one screaming descent down the mountain between us the finish line. We had measured this climb in our cars during the recon so I knew exactly how far it was to the top, and even so it was a serious chore to make it to the summit. Now the descent was nice...getting off the bike at the bottom of the hill...not so nice.

Two years ago when I did this race I had a similar problem, but to a much worse degree... During that race when I got to the top of the ascent on the ropes I had about a 2 minute session where every large muscle in my body seized up simultaneously...not a good feeling at the best of times, but with about 4 hours to go until the end of the race it was especially bad. That race I spent the last third or so in zombie mode, just following behind my teamates and trying to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Anyway, on the drive back to Rob's place after the race he and I talked about this, and in typical Rob fashion he had a simple comment.

"Eat more."

"I had something like three bars, and god knows how many GUs," I said.

"Those are supplements," he replied. "Eat more."

Truer words were never spoken.

Now, there is absolutely no doubt that I didn't eat as much as Rob and Carol during the race, and early in the day it didn't bother me. I was killing the climbs and feeling great. It wasn't until after the hellish canoe drag when the sun really came up and started to pull the electrolytes out of us that I hurt. The result was that I had to consciously dial back my effort level for the rest of the race to avoid cramping, all because I hadn't brought enough real food for myself.

I guess the couple of ounces that I saved didn't pay off after all.

Even now, a week after the fact I still feel a little weak and sluggish in my workouts and I think it's a direct result of not eating right on the race course. While I didn't fully bonk, I definitely slowed down towards the end of the day, and its safe to say that I used up all the glycogen that my body had handy and started burning other energy stores. I can't dig up my sources right now, but I am pretty sure that at a certain point your muscles start breaking themselves down for energy, and I am starting to wonder if maybe that happened to me. It would explain why I am still recovering from a race I did a week ago, and why when this happened to me two years ago it was even worse, and basically put me out of commission for eight weeks.

So, with all this as perspective, what is the plan for future races? I think I have a secret weapon.

Peanut butter and Jelly Sandwiches.

I did the math. A good PBJ has almost 450 calories in it. That is equivalent to 4 gooey, gel type supplements (and thus about$6-8 at EMS). They go down quick, weigh next to nothing... and oh yeah...I can eat my weight in them without slowing down. Considering that a complete MRE provides about 1200 calories, the PBJ stacks up pretty nicely. The best part? No spoon required and virtually no trash left behind either.

I may have to think up a hardened PBJ transport kit. Something like an old CD case or maybe just some light weight tupperware to keep my peanut-buttery-jelly-slathered goodness from getting ruined en route. If anyone has any ideas, post a comment and I'll tell you if I give it a try.

So, I don't know if we are going to hit another race long enough to try this out until next year, but know that when we do I plan on having a pile of PBJ in reserve.

If you're with me and you ask nicely, I might even share.

Best Race Ever!!!!

2007-08-11T22:47:00.000-04:00

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. ….

Krista Griesacker Memorial Recon--- John is fastest

2007-08-03T12:29:00.000-04:00

So there we were, no scheisse, knee deep in bug spray and humidity on our reconnaissance of the 50 mile Krista Griesacker Memorial race at Hawk Mountain, PA. Another great venue put on by our favorite Adventure Racing folks... GOALS.

Let me tell you something: that mountain may not be very tall, but 1500 feet of elevation change in less than a mile hurts. It really hurts. It hurt my legs, my lungs, and my ego. So, we climbed it only once, figuring we will have to climb it a few times on race day. And the best part about climbing is the descent. I maxed out at 32.4 MPH and John (Team Captain) maxed out at 32.5 (of course). We took this as a Legolas / Gimli competition and yes, I was the elf.

The idea of spending some time on the mountain before the race makes sense from a 'certain point of view'. In addition to riding up the mountain and around some of the trails, we took a look at the river…this time of year, it’s really more of an overblown trickle…in fact it is entirely possible that the water level of the VERY [sic] Little Schukyl (emphasis mine) could see significant positive change if a few folks upstream chose race day to wash their car.

We also got a chance to look at some of the cool unique terrain on this course. Carol, John and I were hopping around (rock scramble) the talus. These very big rocks were totally cool. Cool, in the vernacular, of course, since the actual temperature of the rock field was somewhere between the average for the 4th and 5th rings of the Inferno as a result of the giant barbeque-esque effect created by the Honda Civic sized rocks soaking up the summer sunlight all day and radiating the heat straight up. ("You know in the Carribian, they have these black rocks that you can go see and they call the site Hell, but they charge you admission..." )

Its not just about the mountain terrain, we will negotiate an obstacle course as well. It seems there is a ranger school here. (no, not my beloved RANGER school) The Civil Air Patrol and the PA State Parks and Recreation maintain a camp and training facility on the mountain. Check out these obstacles, looks like a pretty nice 90-120 foot rappel tower!

We will let you know how the race goes… it is 5 AUG, all 12 hours/50 miles of it!

Strange Coincidence

2007-07-23T21:08:00.000-04:00

So I went into my LBS the other day (as I do all too frequently) and Jason, the mechanic/owner, looks at me in a very concerned way and says, "Dude, how's your bike?"

I can only assume that since I walked in empty handed that this time he thought I had wrecked so badly that there were no remaining parts large enough to carry in. At the time however, this didn't occur to me and I just shrugged and told him that I needed a few tubes after hitting a few of the rocks in Hartshorne a bit too hard.

He nodded understandingly, pulled a few boxes from the back, and started ringing up the tubes. I passed him my card and as the machine was processing the sale, he says casually, "So...are you gonna be upgrading that road bike of yours anytime soon?"

That's a good mechanic. And probably a better salesman.

He knows me, he knows my bike(s), and he knows when the two don't exactly match.

So, I tell him that yes, I am looking to get a better ride sometime soon...something with a carbon fiber frame, I think.

"Nice," he says. "Have you considered Giant?" And then he grabs the 2007 Giant catalog, opens it up right to the page with the specs for Rob's new hotness.

Small world, huh?

New Bike

2007-07-18T19:01:00.000-04:00

I pick it up tomorrow!!

Is anyone else in a love fest with their Local Bike Shop? Mine just reduced the price for the road bike I have been looking at. 350bucks off!!! (and I just noticed Curt uses ColdFusion to power his website... way cool Curt, you get 500 Points for keepin' it real)

I will pick up my TCR2 after work.

Here is another piece of serendipity for you... I needed more saddle time, especially attacking hills, and I am going on vacation next week, to a very hilly part of PA. Now I can ride longer and get more endurance training value.

In case you are wondering... there will be clip-ins.

Injury update

2007-07-13T20:55:00.000-04:00

So I've had some abdominal pain when I ran on Wednesday with John, and think it was caused by one of my many falls biking on Sunday. I tried running again today on the beach and couldn't get 1/4 mile before stopping. I'll try biking tomorrow; that should be doable, but if the pain persists for more than a week, I'm going to a doctor. I hope it's not a hernia.

Gauging Interest in Non-PA Adventure Races, such as...

2007-07-13T16:46:00.000-04:00

So we've got two adventure races under our belt. They happen to be adventure races that were sponsored by GOALS, and that's fine. They also happened to be held in PA, and that's fine too. They even happened to be held in a place that was conducive to mountain biking in places that have hills (or mountains). Don't get me wrong, I love the mountains.

That said, I'm wondering if you guys are open to the idea of looking outside of the PA/NJ area. I actually have one in mind, and ran the idea by John over Sametime this morning. Uncanny how it's located in the same area I'm at right now: the Outer Banks

It's in late September, so about halfway between the Krista and the Edge, and would focus on slightly different disciplines (most notably mountainbiking on flatter terrain, kayaking, and orienteering over coastal terrain vice hilly terrain.

Here is the Link to the Blackbeard 12-hour adventure race

Let me know your thoughts. I know it's not as close and it makes for a quicker OPTEMPO, but it would force us to focus on something different in our training than what we're currently focused on (elevation gain and technical mountain biking).

'H' is for Hartshorne...and header...

2007-07-08T18:07:00.001-04:00

Sam and I took a second ride this weekend at Hartshorne Woods park. We were operating as Team White and Nerdy (-) since Rob has some fairly well documented mechanical problems from our last ride that aren't resolved yet and Carol didn't answer the phone when we called.

This video is a significant step up from yesterday's attempt. By adjusting where and how the camera was mounted on my helmet we got a MUCH better angle that results in a video that shows something other than gravel rolling by. I don't think Michael Moore will be contacting us anytime soon for advice on video editing or putting together a documentary, but we have definitely improved from last time.

Caught on camera this time around we have our first video recording of me falling sideways like a big dork when I can't get my feet to to unclip from my pedals, and more importantly, Sam's debut as a professional rodeo clown (mountain bike division) as he goes entirely over his handlebars about 1/2 way through the clip.

Every time I go to Hartshorne I come away more impressed with the trails and today was no exception. Well maintained trails that are technical enough to give everyone a challenge and long climbs that provide good training value make for a great place to ride.

Coming Attractions

2007-07-08T14:32:00.000-04:00

John and I just completed about an hour at Hartshorne. We changed the camera placement on his helmet, and as a result got some awesome video. Highlights include first-person perspective of a clip-in fall by John, a monster header by me, and some great downhills. Should post the video this afternoon.

HIghlights of some of our hill practice

2007-07-08T08:48:00.000-04:00

So here's a little 'raw' footage of our trip to Round Valley near Clinton, NJ

We picked Round Valley for our most recent foray for a couple of reasons. It theoretically "split" the distance between Rob's place in PA and the rest of us, the Dirtworld review had some good things to say about the trails, and it had a lot of climbs for us to train on for our upcoming race.

That last part at least was true.

We had quite a few mechanical issues on this ride, from Sam forgetting the skewer for his front wheel (saved by the local bike shop) to Rob shredding his front chainring(s) and getting a catastrophic flat at the end.

The video is OK, but we will need to refine the aim point for future posts so that you can get a better view. For this one, pay close attention to the sound and you can hear Sam describe what happiness means to him.

As we get a little better with the video editing suite we should be able to polish these up quite a bit more. Might hang version 2.0 of this video at some point in the near future.

Next in the queue

2007-07-04T20:46:00.000-04:00

It might be a bit premature to put this up, seeing as how no one has yet posted a race report for the event that we just finished this past weekend, but since there is only a month to go it's time to put up some information about the Krista Griesacker.

I competed in the Krista two years ago and remember it as the single most painful day of my life. Maybe that is because I was being dragged through the event by two teammates who were both significantly faster than I was...but whatever it was, this was a tough race for me. I think that this year our entire team is better prepared for this than I was then.

So, that being said, the differences between the two races are basically these:

Since the Krista is conducted on a mountain, there are some hellacious climbs involved in this race, both on foot and bike. Hill training over the next few weeks will be absolutely key to how we perform in the race. I guess this is the trade off for the race being half as long as the Cradle.
It stresses navigation quite a bit more than the Cradle of Liberty. While the navigation points in the Cradle, even on the orienteering portion, seemed to be pretty straightforward and easy to find, as I look back on the Krista through a haze comprised in equal parts of time and pain, I remember it being a good bit harder to find the checkpoints. It is worthwhile to note that I did not carry the map the last time I did this race though, so my memory could be skewed. A good indicator of the difference in navigation is that each team was required to pass a skills test for map work and compass use...something that was not done at the Cradle.
There will be an obstacle course and rope work during this race. In the 2004 event the rope work consisted of rapelling down a sheer face and then ascending back up the rope. We will need to do this at a bare minimum once, and preferably twice, before the race in order to refine technique, size the foot loops, and get used to using ascenders.

Pretty much the entire race will be during daylight, although if we run long we could stray into the early evening, so lights are strictly a safety precaution. The trails for the mountain biking section last time were pretty straight forward. A lot of painful climbing, but nothing that I consider to very technical. As I recall, at least one competitor was competing on a cyclo-cross bike and doing pretty well. To get ready for this we need to spend some quality time at Hartshorne and really hit the hills.

The packing list for the race is pretty much identical to the Cradle of Liberty. Only addition is the ascenders and foot loops. This is an optional piece of gear since the race staff will provide them if we don't, but considering that sizing the foot loops is an individual thing, I think it's worth while for us to get at least two sets of these.

Two other items of note: I think we should register for this race as two teams of two, just as we did for the Savage. This will get us two canoes for the paddling section which might be a HUGE item if the water is running as low this year as it did in 2005. Also, our paddling gear, to include PFDs, will be transported to the put in for us. So, plan on paddles, vests, and all the rest of our stuff.

Share Your Workout

2007-07-04T00:22:00.000-04:00

This post is another attempt at getting our workouts synced. John and I were using the google docs but I stopped. :(

I will be using the comments section for this post to share my workout plans and accomplishemnts with you. Feel free to add yours as well.

2007 Cradle of LIberty Race Report, Part 1

2007-07-03T12:43:00.000-04:00

So here we are before the race we just competed in, the 24 hour Cradle of Liberty in the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania.

Big happy family.

We had spent the better part of the past few months getting ready for this event, and it finally happened last weekend. Here is a quick summary of how things went...next time I'll bring a micro cassette recorder or the new hotness with me so that I can actually have a record of some of what goes down on race day. Apologies all around to anyone who might have wanted to see this earlier, but for some reason this post was slower in developing than the others.

Registration started at 1100, so we got there at about 1030. We got some nice parking spots in the shade and began pulling our stuff out of the vehicles. We signed in, got our emergency radio, maps, etc and then had our gear check. It was pretty apparent that we had worried way more about the packing list then the race staff did. In any case, our stuff was checked off, we sat down with the maps and got a rough idea of how we were going to progress on the course, loaded our bikes onto a truck for transit to the first transition point, and then got on a bus to take us to the starting location.

The race started at Jim Thorpe, PA. If you haven't been there, Jim Thorpe is a pretty cool little town with a railroad, river side views, an opera house, little stores and cafes, and a bike shop within spitting distance of where we started.

So far, so good...which is pretty much the way you want things to go before the race starts.

We unloaded the bus, got paddles and PFDs, and then posed for the obligatory pre-race picture. (A couple of these are posted to the Picassa album linked on the right sidebar).

With all that out of the way, the race started with a cattle-like stampede. There was one raft per team lined up on the beach about 300 yards from where we started. At the sound of the gun everyone started running for the beach, grabbed a raft and carried it to the water. Our plan was to take a very mello pace to the rafts and grab whatever was left when we got there so that we wouldn't do something stupid like sprain an ankle or trip and face-plant because we were in a hurry to get to the boats. So we took a nice leisurely pace to the beach, being passed on all sides by racers who evidently thought they were trying out for a place on the olympic sprinters-who-wear-white-water-rafting-gear team, and there at the bottom of the trail leading to the sand is a raft. It is the closest raft to the trail, and the closest raft to the water, and yet all the other racers were avoiding this particular raft as if it were infested with ebola, creating a scene strangely reminiscent of Moses parting the Red Sea. So we grabbed the raft, took advantage of the short walk to the water and were the fifth team in the river.

That's pretty much the best part of the race for us...I'd say it was all down hill from there, but, well, it wasn't.

The map above shows the portion of the Lehigh River that we paddled, starting at Jim Thorpe and ending in Weissport, about 8 miles south. The water level was pretty low since this was not a white water release weekend, but the good side of that is that there weren't many other folks on the river. We got stuck on rocks, and played bumper boats with other teams, and generally fell behind the majority of the competitors, most of whom seemed to be taking this VERY SERIOUSLY and I think maybe didn't like the idea that someone out here was actually having fun. By fun, of course, I mean getting hung up on rocks, jumping in and out of the boat to push ourselves off of these nearly invisible obstacles, and generally splashing around like someone who shouldn't be racing, but should instead have a very concerned TV personality holding a telethon for them.

We got to the end of the paddling section in about 22nd place out of 24 teams. Not exactly something to write home about (and yet here I am blogging...oh, the irony...). At this point we picked up our bikes, ate some food and got on the trail heading back north. We did well at the transition, leaving 5 or 6 teams who had paddled faster than us behind as they futzed around with their gear and generally wasted time. We picked up an old rail trail heading north along the river for a couple of miles and made good time, again passing a team or two as they tried to figure out how to get up the river bank to the road that would allow them to cross to the east side of the river.

At this point the cue sheet said that we should proceed north along the river on the canal trail...it also said that the canal trail would end and we would need to break brush with our bikes. This is NOT something that is fun to do, and since the map showed the canal trail ending pretty quickly, it appeared that his bike whacking would proceed for upwards of 4 miles. This was why we thought there might be a better way to go about this.

WARNING: Thinking about things like this during an adventure race can be extremely hazardous. It can also make you waste loads of valuable time and look stupid. Consider yourself warned. DO NOT TRY THIS DURING YOUR OWN RACES!

We had decided to try something different and take a road that looked like it would save us significant time by getting us much closer to the next river crossing with less effort. This involved avoiding the nice, wide, flat canal trail that ran along the river in favor of riding up a road that was apparently the inspiration for several early roller coasters in a futile attempt to get closer to the next checkpoint. Our well-laid plans were foiled for two primary reasons. 1. The roads were, shall we say, less than optimally marked by signs and 2. All the property bordering the river was privately owned and thus illegal to use to access the water.

By the time we figured all this out we had lost at least an hour of time and had ridden several extra miles on hilly terrain. NOT a good thing this early into a long race. In any case we eventually decided to cut our losses and backtracked to the canal trail. We then made our way north along the river on the way to the second checkpoint where we had to cross the Lehigh river on foot while carrying our bikes.

Here we ran into Bill Gibbons, the race director who had almost-but-not-quite given up hope of ever seeing us outside of a situation where he had to identify the bodies. Bill was kind enough to tell us that it's generally BAD to question the route the race director provides. Given his perspective on this particular issue I have to say that any other opinion would have been highly irregular, but this time around he was absolutely right.

Suitably chastened I watched from the western bank of the river as the rest of the team crossed the water behind me. Note to self: Next time doing a race involving water crossings, mandatory individual equipment for Carol includes a snorkel. Other than the almost drowning part, everything went well as we pulled ourselves across the river.

We took a quick break in the same parking lot where the race had started, got something to eat, mounted our lights on our bikes since the sun was getting low and headed off through Jim Thorpe, aiming pretty much straight up the biggest hill in the area.

Now, I already mentioned that Jim Thorpe is a nice little town, but that is tough to appreciate as you ride a bike up a road (coincidentally named race street) that is so steep at some points you are pretty sure its about to do a loop-the-loop like a slot car set. Fortunately this portion of the hill was steep, but short and quickly leveled out into a much more ridable grade that took us generally uphill for a couple of miles to the next checkpoint. This point was at the top(sort of) of a long ridge line that generally ran east-west. The staffer manning this point told us that there was one more team behind us, and he had received no word about where they were on the course.

Since the sun was going down at this point we turned on our lights and proceeded into the darkness buoyed in spirit by the news that at least one other team was having problems too. At this point we adopted our motto for the rest of the race: We suck less.

The next portion of the race was a long, rocky ride along a trail that more or less followed the spine of the ridge in a southwesterly direction for several miles. I blew a tube on my rear tire less than 100 meters into the trail, but after we got that repaired the rest of the ride down this trail was slow and bumpy, but relatively uneventful. The ridgeline trail dumped out onto a road and a quick right turn headed us to the next checkpoint.

This checkpoint was manned by the folks from ARFE who were one of the race sponsors. They were pulled up on the side of the road, operating out of their SUV, and giving out candy in exchange for trash turned in by racers. I suppose someone could have just grabbed some candy and tried to run, but they wouldn't have gotten far. The ARFE crew, clearly preparing for this eventuality, have brought with them a gigantic great dane who was big enough that he was either the result of genetic experimentation or a throw back to the mesozoic era. So, under the watchful eye of Digby, the biggest dog in the world, we took our candy and got ready to set out on a section of trail described in the pre-race brief as a "wicked steep descent with lots of loose rocks."

It was then that the magic happened...

[cue deep movie-guy voice]
TUNE IN FOR PART 2 TO FIND OUT WHAT THE MAGIC WAS, AND HOW OUR HEROES SURVIVED...

[ dramatic pause ]

THE CRADLE OF DOOM..ahem...LIBERTY

Adventure racing 101 and assorted ramblings

2007-07-02T17:41:00.000-04:00

In the spirit of supporting the team, I'll throw some stuff up here and see how it goes. I think this probably qualifies as my first blog posting ever, although I did make a few pro-linux comments as an experiment on windows live spaces one time, just so that I could appreciate the delicious irony of it all...
As I understand it, Steve Balmer was pretty upset when he found out, but since there were no chairs readily available within throwing distance I am still alive to tell the tale.

So, to start off, I think its probably appropriate to start with a short discussion of what adventure racing is since the sport doesn't exactly receive NFL levels of media exposure. Now, the "official" definition of adventure racing is:

Adventure racing is a combination of two or more disciplines, including orienteering and navigation, cross-country running, mountain biking, paddling and climbing and related rope skills. An expedition event can span ten days or more while sprints can be completed in a matter of hours. Typically there is no dark period during races, regardless of their length the choice when (and if) to rest is left to the competitors.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_racing

and while I wouldn't normally presume to question the awesome, some might say prescient, knowledge base that is wikipedia, I think this definition is about the same caliber you might get if you asked Stevie Wonder what red is.
Stevie might tell you (if he were of a particularly clinical mindset when you asked him...just go with me on this one) that red is a color with a wavelength between 625-750 nanometers. He might go on to tell you something particularly insightful about the making of Ebony and Ivory, or the history of Motown, and while everything he said is factually accurate this description doesn't even begin to capture any of the subtle nuance inherent in EXPERIENCING the color red. Essentially, you wouldn't really walk away learning anything useful about the color red...unless you're an astrophysicist who spends a lot of time behind a spectrometer...in that case the whole nanometer thing is pretty darn cool.
So, you might ask (and I'm glad you did), what is a BETTER definition for adventure racing? I'll give you my take since you asked so politely, and I'll even tailor my description into short vignettes (not to be mistaken for baguettes, which are very good, but totally unrelated) that are tailored for an audience that grew up on MTV style video cut ups and Rocky musical training montages, and consequently has an attention span roughly equivalent to that of an over-caffeinated hummingbird.

Adventure racing is: muddy...unforecasted swimming... short naps on asphalt in the middle of friggin nowhere...rocky...a $225 T shirt that is EXACTLY the same one I got last race...sandy...getting to see the red sauce from your enchilada again and again...hilly...balancing the value of local trail knowledge against the emotional pain of talking to the crazy guy who just walked up to you...wet...one gel per hour and one meal every four hours unless you want to bonk...cold...hot...harder than running...painful...exhilarating...a good way to get rid of that extra money you have lying around...lots of quality time at your local outfitter...a meaningful relationship with a good bike mechanic...packing...repacking...checking your packing...checking everyone else's packing...watching while everyone else checks your packing...getting pissed off when the race staff doesn't give a damn about the stuff that you spent all that time packing (which leads you to wish you were PACKING, if you take my meaning)...bar none the best argument in favor of the existence of the camelbak...flying headfirst over your handlebars and sticking the landing well enough to earn a score of 9.5, even from the tough German judge, and you would have had a ten if you'd only kept your feet together...long uphill rides in the middle of the night which provide ample opportunity for soul searching...traversing a 4 inch wide trail with a bike over your shoulder and trying not look down...truly appreciating the value of a good lighting system...a great way to find out who your real friends are...better practice reading and using a map than I ever got in the Army..wet, soggy, blistered feet that smell like they are wrapped in leathery burnt bacon...one of many ways available to test the strength of a marriage.

As time passes, I am sure we can wicker that, shall we say wordy, definition down into something a bit more succinct, but I think that captures most of the essentials. Feel free to elaborate or comment from your own perspective. I'd be interested to see how your experience differs from mine.

Introductions all around

2007-07-02T16:32:00.000-04:00

For those of you who may have surfed here idly and don't know who these crazies are in these pictures, a brief moment of introduction...

I'm Sam, the tallest of the bunch (see photo). The youngest and the least athletic (and quite possibly the most self-deprecating). I'm normally seating in front of the comforting glow of a monitor while playing all manner of computer and video games.

Then there's John, the most experienced of us when it comes to 'adventure racing,' who prefers his bicycle to the two feet that God gave him. You'll normally find him spending his time ranting against Windows, playing chess, and managing his Madden football team.

There's also Rob, who'd rather be managing Windows domain controllers in a overheating tent in Iraq. He is very muscular and suffers from a peculiar hypercharisma. He likes challenging himself by running up and down hills and intellectually dominating people who don't know what they're talking about

Finally there's Carol. Carol is a blond chick. Carol is also an intellectual ninja. She'd probably rather be writing software right about now (or being a 10th degree black belt in some form of martial arts dancefighting -- see? Nin-JA!) Instead she pals around with us meatheads and adds a very zen flavor to the group.

I'll let one of the other group post about our recent misadventures in Jim Thorpe, PA, site of the Cradle of Liberty race in which we just competed.

Inaugural Post

2007-07-02T13:27:00.000-04:00

This blog stems from a conversation we had on the way back home after our longest race, the 100 mile Cradle of Liberty. (http://goalsara.org/yr2007/crad_of_lib07.html)

The Vision for this blog is to provide an inprocess media history of our adventures and commentary.

Enjoy and contribute... if content is king, then sharing content is divine.