It’s been a long six months since I last confessed…I mean wrote a blog entry. I’d like to say that it’s because there weren’t any races, but there was a rather hellish race in western Pennsylvania for USARA’s National Championship. Ali, Bruce and I turned in a respectable finish, coming in 10th in the open division and 13th overall. That said, our bodies just didn’t seem to want to go, and everything that could go wrong did, or so it seemed at the time. There were wrong nav decisions, forgotten trails and a tempest that nearly sank us during the paddle, to name a few of the hurdles confronting us. Unlike Untamed New England, where every gamble and decision led to an outstanding race, this proved to be the antithesis of our summer euphoria, and I think we were all glad to head off into winter slumber when we finally dragged ourselves across the finish line.
Racing aside, I’d like to say we haven’t had any travels or adventures to write about, but we spent a week in New Orleans, we’ve been highpointing, I’ve embarked on a part-time adventure through graduate school…we’ve been busy. Granted, I’ve been writing guest posts on Abby’s blog concerning our highpointing, but I’m not sure that’s a valid excuse. So, in short, I guess the winter is my off-season from training and blogging about racing and other occasional musings, though I imagine anyone who reads this gets far more reading material from my other half’s far more professional and entertaining website.
Tangential musings behind me, I’ve had my first race of the season, and the second is around the corner, so it’s time to start writing again. Before the Rev 3 Epic race rolls around next weekend, I figure I better get last month’s event in the books or it shall never be remembered. It wasn’t an adventure race, and sadly, it wasn’t our annual snowy romp through the woods of upstate New York since Snowgaine was postponed a week at the last minute and prior commitments would not allow us to go up that weekend. Looking to get an early season tune-up in the bag, I signed up for a solo run at a 12 hour foot and bike, adventure race-style rogaine southeast of Richmond. I believe the Soggy Bottom Boys put this event on last year in its inaugural form, and it seemed like a good race to break out the compass and bike and shake off the winter malaise. A few weeks before the race, I teamed up with local Keystoner Brian Komoroski. We had never raced together, but our paths have crossed several times in the local racing scene, and he had always impressed me as a laid back, fun-loving guy who would push himself until he couldn’t go any further. Seemed like a good match, and we set off for a day of fun along the shores of the Chesapeake.
The race started off well with an impressive 3 hour foot rogaine in the Pipsico Scout Reservation. The weather was perfect: warm enough so that we weren’t cold and cool enough so that we weren’t overheating, which I find is often a problem in the early season. The woods were open for running, bald eagles were perched and watching, and the course was beautiful, laid out among deep reentrants, marshes and along beaches fronting the bay. We ran relatively well, shaking off some early season blunders and finding all but 4 of the 25 morning controls. After a slow transition (during which I struggled to put together various maps into a cohesive whole…I don’t’ think I’ve ever struggled as much with UTM plotting as I did in this one) we jumped on our bikes and set off for a 6 hour bike section along rural backcountry roads.
It was here that the fun began as many of the controls demanded creative attack-points considering the significant amounts of private property on the course. Again the woods were beautiful, but at times it was more challenging finding a place to access a swath of woods to reach a control rather than actually finding the control. There were some tense moments with locals and park rangers upset about some teams using private property, and rumors swirled about a rogue local in a red pickup who was roaming for racers. At one control, he found a team, posed as a property-owner and subsequently pulled a gun on the stunned racers. I can only imagine. To say the least, it was an exercise in creativity and perseverance. We dropped a few more points, but with the exception of one, they were all credited to teams for various reasons. We learned later that the race directors were plagued by some bad luck as a handful of property owners who had agreed to give the race land-access reneged on the agreement without disclosing this to the directors.
After a winter away from the bikes, we slowly rolled back into the TA for the final three-hour section, legs tired but loose. We’d be finishing up with a night foot-O, and we were stunned to learn that Brian Mayer, racing solo for Team SOG, had blitzed the course and had already finished, well ahead of everyone. It was an impressive showing, and we were in awe as we set off into the night. We made quick work of the first five or six controls, though the steep slopes and reentrants immediately slowed our tired legs. We moved efficiently, Brian and I trading off steep attacks and returns for controls. 45 minutes later, we were thinking we’d be done within two hours, but we then ran into our first significant nav issue of the day. It began with a tricky control we had to abandon and come back to from a different direction. After losing 20 minutes or so to confused wanderings in a series of narrow reentrants, we finally found it and continued on, only to realize that I had missed a CP plot when plotting controls. Thankfully we saw a team searching for a control in a section of woods nowhere near anything on our map, so I realized the mistake and we settled down to plot the point. Afterwards, we found ourselves in a long and slow bushwhack. What should have taken us 10 minutes took us 30, and at this point we realized time might become an issue if we didn’t finish off the final three points smoothly. On a side-note, as we bushwhacked in, we passed a wildlife camera, and someone is currently pondering a mysterious picture of two sets of legs in the middle of the night.
After finding the second blackhole of a checkpoint, we raced off, and thankfully we made quick work of the final controls, crawling out of the woods with three or four minutes to spare. Ultimately, we had a great time, finishing third overall in the twelve hour division, eeking out IMON-Point and several other local teams while losing out to Brian and Jeff and Joe from EMS who were masquerading as Team Dirty Old Men. It was a great way to start the season, and while I would have liked less stress on the bike section, the course was beautiful and well plotted. The format was novel with staggered starts and interesting timing so that one really didn’t have any idea who was where or even how many folks were racing. The food was reputed to be great, though it always seemed like we rolled into TAs when supplies were depleted by other racers. Most importantly, Brian turned out to be a great teammate as I expected he would be. So, all in all, it was a nice start to the season; I just hope I do better with UTM plotting for the rest of the season!
As for next weekend, Abby, Bruce, Brian Reiss from Adventure Pocono, and I will be heading back to Virginia to race in the new REV 3 Epic race. The race runs along and around Skyline Drive, and while we’re excited to get the season going in full gear, I think we’re all a little unsure of whether we’re ready for a 26 hour race this early in the season, especially with the monster elevation gains Skyline Drive guarantees. While this had been my primary concern coming into this week, a recent case of laryngitis… or some other virus, bacteria, who knows…has laid me up for an entire week, and I’ve now got bigger concerns than whether I trained enough going into next weekend…
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He lives!
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