Exorcising Demons

Last season I banked every navigation blunder known to man and cashed each and every one in over the course of 24+ hours in the wilds of southern NY and northern Jersey. While this year’s edition of the Shag was downsized to 12 hours and my teammates from the previous year’s debacle were either recovering from pneumonia or racing with the NYARA gang, I was anxious to have some redemption and make amends for the mind-boggling mistakes of last autumn.
Joining me this year were Ali Bronsdon, recently returned globetrotter, and Chris Bartges, my steadiest teammate over the past two seasons. We toed the sandy line upon the darkened beach of Ringwood’s Shepherd Pond beach, tendrils of mist rising in eerie plumes, illuminated by the shifting beams of headlamps from the 25 or so teams running this year’s race. Somewhere in the darkness, ATP lurked, prepping for their runs at Nationals and Worlds this fall, and a handful of strong NYARA teams along with Calleva, Gung Ho and who knew who else also waiting to test themselves out in the woods. GOALS ARA was also represented by Jonathan Neely who was rearing to head out as a solo to see just how fast he is…
And so, the race began with a mad dash along the shore, Chris, Ali and I among a few lead teams, hitting the woods and trails for the first of three segments. The RDs had said clearing the course would be difficult, but we were determined to start off with the intention of doing so, and the first 2 optional CPs went smoothly enough. Coming out of CP 2, however I managed to turn us around completely, and I began to relapse, having flashbacks from last September and experiencing cold sweats as I envisioned another horrible day in a race with little room for error. The race had provided a set of maps and had recommended another, which we bought. The thing was, the two maps were completely different. The north/south orientation was different. The magnetic declination? I don’t even know since one set of maps seemed to be without any clear indication. More problematic was the fact that the trails the maps DID have in common looked completely different. If I didn’t know better, I’d never have known the two maps covered the same landscape. And so it was that I learned a hard lesson that nav would be a bit more challenging than normal; we ran out of CP2, and 10- 15 minutes later I realized that all was not quite as it should be. After a run in with Jon, which only further confused me due to where we found him, I finally was able to re-orient us, and we set off, having lost 20 or so minutes.
The remainder of the foot section went relatively smoothly save for one mysterious saddle that many teams seemed to wander around and a near miss, when I literally found myself bracing for an avalanche of large, duffel-bag sized rocks that I had dislodged as we scrambled up a rocky embankment. As we looked for the saddle, we strayed quite a bit away from it, dropping another 10 minutes or so into a series of other, more distinct saddles, but we had crossed paths with ATP, Calleva and NYARA(s) not long before, so we knew we were probably still in a reasonable place even if we had dropped back a bit. While it could have been worse, these two mistakes were big ones, that unfortunately cost us quite a bit in the end, but what I’m feeling most today is the pain inflicted by the hills and rocks of Ringwood. Never have I taken such a beating from a race; I had only been training for 3-4 weeks leading up to this race, and while I was worried about holding up, my muscles felt and feel just fine. But I turned my ankles several times, took a nasty fall on one knee and took a diver that left my thumb compass useless and my shoulder strained as my arm lay pinned beneath my pack. A high ankle sprain (I think) made the swim toward the end of the race quite painful and has me limping about slowly today…
When we finally emerged from the foot section, we transitioned to bike and found ourselves 10 minutes or so behind Calleva who were behind ATP, who had already gone out on the bike. Frustrated that we had left so much time out on the foot section, we transitioned just ahead of several NYARA teams (they were like ants out there, swarming over the entire course) and set off on the bike section, a technical fun house of trails, with absolutely no logical circuit to decipher. I would be curious to see how other teams approached that section as it seemed that everyone was doing something slightly different, but when we finished we were happy to find Calleva still only 10 minutes or so ahead of us and ATP actually still out on the course. One or two of the NYARA teams (we learned at this point, that there were a number of 2 person and solos out there for NYARA but no actual teams of three) were also finished with the bikes and had just completed the mandatory swim, which was next up.
The water was cold, and swimming without PFDs and packs wasn’t exactly a leisurely respite from the running and biking, but we got through it and made our way back to shore, only to see ATP and others hitting the water sans packs. Turns out some people had told us we had to have all our gear with us, when in reality we didn’t…Ah how frustrating AR can be sometimes…And then there was the paddle. While we were again frustrated to see many teams breaking the rules (we had been told that we had to ALWAYS have our boats with us, no matter where we went; if we went on shore for a CP set back from the water, boats had to go too…thing is, many teams seemed to either miss this part, misinterpret the instructions or simply didn’t care by this point of the race…personally, I think the former two reasons probably account for the infractions…) we made good time, navigating through the narrow rivers, small lakes, rancid canals and deep mud of the Ramapo River. Our hearts fell a bit as ATP made up the time on us here as we wasted more time on one CP, lugging our kayaks in circles in the woods, searching for a CP we literally just missed by feet, but we still hoped to close the gap on Calleva, and we still held out a tiny bit of hope that ATP might be within reach. We paddled with everything we had left, dragging out boats through thick mud and over shallow water, broken by river rocks, nearly becoming cemented into thigh deep muck and racing across open water when possible.
Ultimately, we came out of the water to find that ATP had won by 6 minutes. Calleva came out of the water 20 minutes later, so while we were disappointed to have lost it to ATP (and of course kicking ourselves for three significant blunders that collectively cost us 30-40 minutes) we were happy to have made up so much time to secure second place. Jonathan also did well, taking first place in the solo division. Ultimately, the course did prove clearable. As I recall, the top three co-ed teams and two of the NYARA 2 person teams swept the course clean. Many teams likely could have bagged at least one or two more CPs at the end of the day if they hadn’t set off thinking it wasn’t possible, but everyone seemed to have a great run in the woods, and I think the paddle proved more challenging than many expected. As always, NYARA once again planned a wonderful event, and it was a perfect return to racing after the disappointment of our finish at Untamed back in July. Ultimately, we finished the same as last year: 2nd in the premier division and 3rd overall, and while there were still some blunders that were just too big for comfort, in all, the Shag 2009 went far more smoothly than last year’s edition and I can finally lay that nightmare to rest…