The Final Tune-Up

Three weeks after our strong race in NYARA’s 28 hour Longest Day, Chris and I geared up for the Cradle of Liberty, which has also expanded to become a 28 hour fun filled event…seems to be the trend these days. Joining us was friend and racer extraordinaire, Tamela Lynch who was kind enough to drive down from New Hampshire to round out the team. Our goals were ambitious in a tough field that included two teams from NYARA, a GOALS 1 team starring Bruce, Jon and Tracey, the young but speedy Nature’s Cure boys with Suze Falvey alongside (I heard after the fact that she was just coming off a victory in a solo 24 hour mountain bike race…a national championship of some sort?!), HTO Trakkers, ARMD and of course the almost always victorious gang from EMS. We knew we had our work cut out for us, but we felt that if we ran a good race and held up physically, we’d be a in a good position. And of course, lady luck would have to lend a helping hand or keep us safe as she always has something to say during an adventure race…
So, long story short, while no one got hurt, and we held up rather well physically (we had our low and slower moments, but we didn’t have the stopped time that we had at the LD), this wasn’t our luckiest race. We ran a great race in many respects. We moved well, regularly passing teams and generally nailing navigation. We held the lead for roughly the first half of the race, and when we lost it and thought we were falling out of contention for a strong finish, we’d find ourselves right back up in first or second. Going into the final four+ hours of the race we still were in contention, and for all we knew, the race was on between the two GOALS teams, EMS and Nature’s Cure.
But considering how well we were doing, luck and a major mistake in following rules (yep, there are still plenty of “firsts” to be had in adventure racing) really came back to haunt us by the end. After a fun ropes challenge which saw us ascending, traversing wires, climbing to lofty platforms in trees and rappelling down and scrambling up tires and sheets of canvas with holes in it, we set off essentially in a dead heat with GOALS 1 and Nature’s Cure. And that’s when lady luck decided to abandon us for the first time. The maps, old as always, suggested a nice trail that would take us south toward the next CP, and as we were catching up to GOALS and Nature’s Cure who were a few minutes ahead, we veered off the main road to take a shot at the trail. Except it wasn’t there, and we realized we had lost several minutes by detouring and looking for this trail. Back to the road we went, and we set off again, biking along the darkening pavement, and catching a glimpse of GOALS ahead of us. But as we neared a junction for a second access road, we veered off once more, heading down a grassy road as GOALS continued on up the road. Figuring they had missed it, we set off, racing through the woods, finding the CP on the near side of a tunnel under I-84 and then splashing through this dark waterway to the other side…where we found GOALS 1, on foot.
Up a hill we rode, and we soon passed EMS, coming down…on foot. Gung-Ho, on foot…And we then realized we had made a critical error. First of all, our short-cut turned out to be slower than the road ride others made. Second of all, it was illegal. There had been a UTM coordinate I missed when plotting points at the ropes section, and Chris hadn’t noticed it either when looking over the passport. After the ropes, we were to bike AROUND the State Games Lands to a parking lot designated by UTM coordinates. From there, we were to set off on foot to hit the CP at the underpass. And so, whereas we could have likely stayed in the lead going into the night, we gave it up by taking a slower route, and then having to do it all over again to stay official. So we dropped our bikes in the parking lot, set off on foot and raced back down the hill to the interstate and the CP a second time.
By the time we reached the O-Course, EMS and GOALS had opened up a 40 minute or so lead on us, but while Nature’s Cure surely reached the O course much earlier as well, it seemed to take them longer to transition, and they set off only minutes before we did. We plotted the points and set off in the opposite direction as GOALS and EMS whom we had seen riding in. We had seven hours or so to get as many of 420 points on the section as possible. There were ten CPs spread over a large area, and we went big, heading south to cover more distance but hoping to bag higher valued CPs. We moved well, jogging when the hills were on our side, and we cleaned up four of the ten CPs which accounted for half the points: 210. We had the time for a final 20 pointer on the way back to the TA, and we went for it via bushwhack. Thus far, we had whacked several times on the O-section, and all had gone relatively seamlessly, so we rolled the dice once more, and then quickly lost them in a thick marsh that came out of nowhere and then seemed to expand rapidly. After only minutes of hardship, I decided to abort and lead us back out to the road from which he had come, but we just couldn’t get out. It was an agonizing time, and we realized that not only had we lost our chance at the 20 points, and maybe even a 30 pointer after that, we were going to have to go back on the roads, which were longer, and we had lost a significant chunk of time. We finally broke free of marsh and the woods and made our way back, coming in shortly before the 6 AM deadline. Tried, tired and deflated, we were stunned to learn that Marc (Marc Bress of the GOALS gang and co-race designer, director) believed we had outscored GOALS and EMS and had tied with Nature’s Cure. We had seen GOALS and Nature’s Cure riding out as we ran in, but EMS was still in transition and were still in it when we left minutes later. So, despite our blunder early in the race and two gambles gone wrong, we still were tied for first in points and hopeful that we could climb back into it.
We rode quickly, electing to hit the big 70 point fire-tower CP but deciding to skip a 45 point nearby. At the time, we thought it would take far more time than it was worth, and we thought we could move quickly through a short foot section and get to the final bike leg which had a total of 200 points. In retrospect this was a mistake as the CP was far nearer and quicker than we thought, and little did we realize, but this “short” foot section would prove to be our coffin. Going into it, we were still in the hunt for a top spot, and maybe even a victory, but we made the mistake of adding distance to get a 45 point CP in a marsh, which we failed to find. By the time we bailed on it (it was there, but was one of those CPs that can only be seen from certain angles. We likely passed by it half a dozen times, but we just didn’t manage to spot it) we had lost significant time and the trek out proved to be a killer. Ultimately, we spent 3+ hours on this section, leaving us 55 minutes for the bike-O. We did snag one CP, and while we passed by the vicinity of two others, we decided it was getting a bit too tight and went straight to the finish. In reality, we probably could have bagged another one or two, but thankfully it didn’t matter in the end.
EMS did the smart thing and trekked straight to the bikes, which turned out to be far easier and quicker than what we did. This left them enough time to bag all but one of the ten CPS on the section, which once again propelled them to a victory. GOALS 1, in my opinion, had done the smartest thing, and they had elected to skip the foot section altogether, leaving the night O-section and just staying on their bikes for the rest of the race. This also allowed them plenty of time to rack up the points on the final bike. Ultimately, they pulled off a strong second place finish. Nature’s Cure must have scored more on the bike section following the night-O as they finished in a comfortable third, and we found ourselves in fourth.
Ultimately it was a great race in a strong field. We were a bit disappointed as we felt we had run a better race than the standings suggest, but we had a good run, generally nailed our nav, moved well and had fun. And of course, every race is a good learning experience as so much of AR is about strategy, and it was evident at the end that EMS and GOALS 1’s experience paid off in a major way over those final several hours when a four way tie was finally broken.
The race itself was a good one, especially the first several hours. We began with a canoe downriver through some decent white-water. A temporary pull out was a nice change from most races where you often find yourself in a death march of monotonous paddling. After hopping out of the canoes, we had a short foot section which included a paintball challenge. Each team had 20 rounds, and someone on the team had to take a shot at partially filled water jugs. The goal: knock it off the stand in 20 shots. If you failed, you had to stop for 10 minutes. Tamela took our shots, and had it down in 9 shots, which may have been the race record. If not, it was close. This was the moment when took the lead, which we held for the next eight to nine hours.
After the paintball, we had an unplanned rafting section. The RD’s had planned for us to be back in the canoes for the last two thirds of the paddle, but the park rangers demanded we be in rafts “for safety” due to higher than expected water levels. And so while we were paddling our cumbersome rafts through mostly flat water, getting laughed at and pointed at by locals who were amused by the helmets we had to wear, we wondered what these park rangers were thinking. Turns out that there were many people in canoes, and many people who had no idea had to paddle, and I even heard that there were two occasions when racers rescued recreational paddlers! While it was certainly slower and generally unnecessary, the rafting was something new and fun for the start of the race, and the river itself was quite nice. Just north of the Delaware Water Gap, there were numerous cliffs and waterfalls scattered along its shores, making for a scenic ride before the real race began with 70+ miles of biking and hours of trekking.
We also had our share of animal adventures with ticks galore, a nighttime encounter with a rather large porcupine on a rather small trail, and warning booms from the tail of an angry beaver as we skirted its beaver-made pond in the depths of the woods on the night-O section. We saw some deer, I saw a turkey and we heard a pack of coyotes nearby us during the night, followed by a chorus of ominous owls as we became entrapped in the unknown depths of the swamp at end of the night foot-O. And who could forget the newts? The first bike ride after the river saw us in the woods for several hours as rain poured down upon us. Every few meters, I would see a newt, orange or light brown, out and about on the rain soaked logs, grasses and rocks, which might have been fine for them but slowed us significantly and led to several falls as we stubbornly biked as much of the slip and slide as we could.
Other than a banged up ankle, which got caught in a rocky hole below a thicket of ferns, and some nasty chafing (I HAVE to figure this out…and no, Bruce, it wasn’t just because I ended up in running shorts for 10 hours of biking…) I came out feeling pretty good, though I’m not sure what to think right now about the prospects of embarking on my first multi-day race in 10 days up in the wilderness of New Hampshire. I’m not quite sure what to do about food, and the new challenge of that kind of sleep deprivation makes these 24-30 hour races seem like a joke. And terrain will be far more challenging I suspect…and I’m still a bit disappointed with my biking legs, though I felt better during this race than I did at the Longest Day, so that must count for something. And the fact that it’s 72 hours. And the fact that I have to figure out how to get everything I need down to 30 pounds at the most (less really since the race says gear bins have to be 30 pounds or less, including the weight of chosen gear bin). And the fact that it’s 72 hours…
I’m not regretting it, and I’m not nervous (yet), but the reality of my first BIG race is finally upon me. It’s been 3 ½ seasons coming. I feel like I’ve learned a lot about this sport in that time and am as ready in regards to experience (though maybe not physically) as I could be. But man, my chances to train and get ready are now over. All that’s left is to rest up, let my body heal from this weekend, and get my gear and shit together for next Thursday when the gun goes off for 72 hours of non-stop fun near the northern border. All I can say is: at least I’ve got Bruce, Jon and Tracey to get me through it…