The Quad Killer

So, this past weekend was season-end for me as I spent the weekend down in north-central Old Dominion for Odyssey’s 24 hour AR-Ogaine. I targeted this one a long time ago with a number of goals in mind:
1) Race solo; I raced solo once during an 8 hour event way-back-when when I started racing. I’ve wanted to race on my own once in a while ever since to focus on nav and see what kind of pace I can move at.
2) Finally do an Odyssey event. I’ve missed out on four seasons worth of Odyssey adventure races, and while this wasn’t an adventure race, at least it was an Odyssey race.
3) Take a crack at the podium; the field might not be stacked like Nationals was two weeks before, but I figured there would be a solid AR team or two and a solo racer or two who would push the pace. It would be tough, I was sure, but I’d take a crack and go for the fortune and glory, as everyone’s favorite adventurer once said…
Well, race week unfolded with me laid up on the couch on Sunday and then missing school on Tuesday due to a debilitating cough. I had gone in to see the doctor at the end of the prior week, but the inhaler I was given didn’t help and I was beginning to worry. So on Wednesday I went back to the doc, and while X-Rays ruled out pneumonia, she diagnosed me with bronchitis and threw me on antibiotics. She was anything but enthusiastic about me racing on Saturday, but she said that I could do what my body would allow. I hinted at the length of the event, but I sugarcoated it to say the least…

So it was that I found myself coughing and wheezing ever so slightly in a small parking lot overlooking a beautiful, valley-lake in Douthat State Park in George Washington State Forest. 18 teams composed of solo racers, twos and threes waited until five minutes to 4:00 in the afternoon before receiving their first set of UTM coordinates and the map. The course was divided into four zones; each team or solo competitor started in a different zone and received UTM points for ten controls in the first zone. A time limit was imposed for each quadrant, and racers had to return by the end of the imposed deadline or they risked losing points for every minute overdue. Once the first zone was completed, the team could return to the start, receive a new passport and ten coordinates for the next zone while turning in their old passport. Once a zone was completed, racers could not go back to previous zones.

When the race began, the solos all took off for zone 1. I had plotted well, but I found myself behind two other solo racers; several more were behind us, but all of the multi-person teams had been sent out to another zone first. My goal was simple: go out hard and clear as much as possible with the 90 minutes or so of daylight remaining. According to the rules, any extra time at the end of a zone could be banked for the next zone. I expected the second zone to be slower and more challenging as it would have to be done entirely in the dark, so I wanted to move as quickly as possible through the first zone to bank extra time for the next zone.

For the first half of the zone, I found myself constantly crossing paths with Charlie Roberts and Brian Thompson, two racers who I didn’t know of but who I later learned are quite experienced and quite successful racers from North Carolina. Brian and I finally diverged, and an hour or so later I rolled into the TA to find I had come in first and had finished the first zone in just over three hours, roughly half the allotted time. A good start, I thought, as it allowed me almost nine hours in zone two, which looked to be a far more challenging section with the terrain broken by continuous reentrants and spurs. I began plotting my points only to hear the door slam open several minutes later. Brian and Charlie came rushing through the door, and it was clear the race was on.

I finished plotting for Zone 2 and set off at a run, rapidly gaining elevation and nailing the first three controls. The fourth control was set on a spur among several other similar landmasses, and I went into it confident that I could bag the CP and maintain my slight lead over Charlie and Brian whose lights I had seen over a ridgeline coming out of the third control in a deep reentrant. I quickly made my way along the ridgeline, out onto a spur and found…nothing. I worked my way back up the spur, realizing I had found my way onto the wrong spur in the darkness and found the next spur over, frustrated that I had probably coughed up my lead and expecting to run into Brian and/or Charlie coming out of the control. Down the spur I shuffled and quickly realized that there was no control here either. By this point I had coughed up significant time and I knew the other solos had probably nailed it and had moved on toward the next CP. Frustrated and starting to feel tired, I made my way back to the top of the ridge and the trail, to reorient myself and try again. I found the trail, paid extra diligence to orienting myself and attacked again. And for a third time I came up empty, finding myself on yet another spur devoid of a control. Frustrated, I gave it another go and finally found the right spur before setting off to finish the section, the remainder of which went relatively smoothly, other than having to ford a rather cold creek in the crisp, late autumn night.

When I reached the TA, I was judging that I had lost an hour at least, probably more like 75-90 minutes. I also knew I’d likely be behind Brian and Charlie, but I hoped the gap would be no more than 30 minutes or so. I rolled up to Ronny who checked me in just after 1 AM. Brian and Charlie had come in around 11:45! My heart fell a mile, but I set about plotting points and got myself out. I reset my goals focusing on finishing the race efficiently and keeping my lungs in my chest as I was starting to run out of gas physically. The massive amounts of ascending and descending were taking a toll on my under-conditioned legs (let’s just say I haven’t been running much these days…), and the cold night air was catching up with the bronchitis. Half an hour into the third zone, I bent over, vomiting on the trail, and I began to consider bailing after finishing the third zone; my body was unhappy, I was feeling quite ill and there was no way I was catching the other solos at my ever-slowing pace. But I’d get through the third zone, I told myself.

So I worked my way back up to the lofty heights of the western ridgeline. I moved as steadily as I could, taking numerous breathers after big climbs to drink water, rest the legs and at one point try to sleep for a few minutes. Instead, I lay on my back, lights off, staring at the stunning night sky and the glowing spotlight that was the half moon rising from the east. Much of the third zone could be done on trail, or at least I determined to stick mostly to trails in my tired state, and I realized that the moon provided plenty of light through the leafless canopy, so I ran for stretches without light. And I felt stronger. And faster. The third zone was the least linear of the zones; upon first, second and third glance there was no logical circuit to use, but as I became more focused and relaxed, enjoying being out in the beautiful autumnal night for the sake of the night and fresh air rather than for the race itself, I settled on a new plan that utilized some downhill trails when others elected to keep climbing; I also began to rely on my altimeter in a way I never have before, and quickly worked my way through the remaining controls.

At one point, as I hiked up to the ridgeline, a coyote howled nearby and seemed to be coming closer. I decided to turn my headlamp back on at this point, and made my way quickly to the next CP, a cabin sitting atop an exposed spur. Unfortunately, I was still in the depths of night, so I could see nothing except the spectacular night sky, but sitting on the porch provided a final break before setting off down the mountain to bag the final two controls of Zone 3. The first control flew by, and as I worked my way onto a large, densely thicketed spur, I saw two lights coming toward me and heard my name. I was perplexed, thinking it must be Dave and Tracey who were out on the 24 hour as a two person team, but I was stunned to find I had caught Brian and Charlie. They had been wandering about the spur and were going out to attack the final control from another point, and while I know they lost a bunch of time on the spur (they had officially teamed up by this point) I also suspected my route choice had helped me make up the time on this zone.

Ignoring their warnings of lost wandering, I headed out onto the spur, and while I did indeed wander for a moment myself, I managed to bag the control and raced off for the TA. Ronny was shocked to see me come in before my solo, now duo, competitors, and I quickly began plotting the final zone, struggling at first in my tired state, but gradually becoming quicker. I finished plotting only a minute or two after Brian and Charlie had arrived into the TA and I set off, knowing I had a 15 minute or so lead on them (turns out the lead was 13 minutes). I took off at a run and moved as hard as I could. It was just after 6 when I began, and after 15 minutes or so, I was finally able to turn off my headlamp and finish the zone with a bit of daylight. Things went well, and the only question was whether they had attacked the zone in a different way which would allow them to be more efficient and/or quicker.

As it would have it, I rolled into the finish to find myself in first place overall. Brian and Charlie came in 19 minutes later, and as it would turn out, we were the only three racers to sweep the course, earning a complete 2,000 points. I was shocked to find myself in first after my blowup on CP 44 during Zone 2, and I was even more surprised to find that we were not only the lone racers to clear the course, but that we had won by almost 400 points and had finished over 6 hours ahead of that third place team. Despite having such an epic and close race, I only saw Brian and Charlie once on the course after the first hour of racing (and excluding seeing them in the TA two times). I saw no one else while out in the woods that night, though I saw plenty of deer and a beautiful bearling half an hour into Zone 1, romping through the woods as I crashed down a hillside.

I wrapped the day up with breakfast in the park restaurant with Chris Caul and his teammate, and otherwise, I waited around, watching racers TA and finish, ultimately watching as GOALS Girls Gone Wild had a good run out on the 8 hour course, where they took fifth place, a stellar showing considering it was Ali’s first time navving such a technical course, it was a totally new beast for Bess, and Abby was rapidly sickening thanks to yours truly. While I would have liked to have CP 44 back, I couldn’t have asked for more from my first 24 hour solo race. A rough assessment of my route suggests approximately 11,000 feet of elevation gain and well over 20,000 feet of elevation change in 16:35:00 and over a distance of 35 or so miles. My quads have never hurt so badly, but thankfully, the lungs didn’t get any worse. They sounded bad for the next day, but thankfully, I didn’t have to tell my doctor that she was right:)