This past weekend, I took on the Planet Adventure 24hr AR for the 3rd time. the previous 2 years our team has ended the race chilled to the bone, disoriented, AND had to be rescued off the course at about 18 hours (once by a local sheriff, once by regular locals). With none of the former team able or desiring to return for a 3rd attempt (1 due to health issues, 1 indifference, and 1 due to extreme hatred of feeling cold (it's ok Whit, I feel almost the same)) I was left to recruit new teammates. In doing so, I had to learn some basic used car sales techniques such as releasing limited information ("we usually don't get all the details until the race briefing") and continually repeating the amazing sections of past races ("last year we had a sweet zip line thru the woods") while not repeating the torture-filled sections (having to hike thru waist-high swamp muck and miles of stinging nettles).
Well thankfully I was able to get 2 of my best friends (Micah Wilson and Chris Mason) to join me even though they had never done a 24 race before. We got down to the race in plenty of time to set up camp and make any last minute adjustments to the bikes. At 9pm on Friday we got our race maps - a lot of them, along with the race instructions. we had to then plot each checkpoint we would be visiting by taking the GPS coordinates given to us and correctly locating and marking that point on the maps. This can be very time consuming and requires a great deal of focus and thanks to whit and micah for getting the majority of this done for me so I could start to pick out route choices and try to get a feel for what we would be doing. (This was also my first race as lead Navigator, which required that I decide what routes to take to each checkpoint - basically the decisions that determine if your team stays in the race or winds up lost and possibly dies in the wilderness somewhere; so no pressure really...). We all finally got to sleep before 1 am, knowing that we had to be up again by 6 to eat some breakfast and prepare for the 7 am start.
THE START
We got off to a solid start, making good time on the 2 mile run to our bikes. Upon arriving though, Micah realized he had forgotten to pump up his bike tires and they were pretty soft. So, we started looking for the bike pump & CO2 cartridges. Well, somehow we managed to start the race w/ only 2 cartridges, 1 of which was lost in Micah's pack and the other one was mostly wasted as I was trying to hurriedly air the tire. After that mishap, we were solidly in last place but happy to finally be riding and racing. Our next checkpoint was a river which we arrived at by 8:30 and were faced with the unpleasant reality of a river swim. Thankfully the sun was up and we didn't have to take our packs, but the water was still freezing cold and by the end of it both of my hamstrings were involuntarily cramping and seizing up - not cool. Back on the bikes, it took me 30 mins to get my body temp back up, just about the time we made our only major mistake... We had noticed a "trail" on the map that appeared to connect to a road we needed to get to that would save us a few miles of riding. We found the "trail" easily enough but soon after the "trail" seemed to gradually disappear until we were left at the bottom of a ridge in waist high weeds. 2 teams ended up down there with us, but after deliberating we decided it was better and safer to back track to the road and take the "long" way. We had lost an hour trying out the shortcut and it only took us 25 mins to bike the "long"way. Lesson learned, again.
ORIENTEERING
the next section was orienteering on foot. We had to get a bunch of checkpoints spread over several miles of ridges and valleys in the HNF. Knowing we were an hour behind at this point, we tried to come up with a plan to get as many CP's as possible before the time cutoff. This would be my first real test of navigating, so I was a bit anxious. We walked along a road to a point we thought we could shoot a bearing off of to get to the CP. after a while of walking through tall grass/weeds we found a slight foot path and used that instead (thereby giving up on the bearing idea...) . 30 mins later we thought we were in the right spot but were having no luck fiding anything. Plan B: follow another team- about that time another team (Planet Adventure.com led by Jay Newlin and Deb Hutchinson) came by and since I knew they were good people and also good navigators, we discreetly tagged along. This worked for the next few points and thankfully they were accommodating and after and hour we were all talking and racing as one team. We did help out on a few points, but they definitely did the lion's share. We made it back to the TA (Transition Area) after about 5 hours and were starving. Whit had laid out all the food for us and even made wraps for us to eat! We took 30 mins to relax and digest a bit, knowing it would be a long time before we got to refuel again.
We left on the bikes and did 2 hrs of riding, catching up to a few more teams at the next event, a zip line over a massive sink-hole. it was short, but cool and a chance to rest the legs for a few mins. After that, we had some massive hills to climb on the bike on our way to the paddle. we spent most of this ride w/ the PA team as they were riding our pace, although chris felt compelled to sprint up most every hill and wait for the rest of us to walk the bikes up. he definitely was in the best bike condition and until Sunday, I wasn't sure he was even feeling challenged that much.
PADDLE
We got to the canue put-in at 7:30. I had told the team a bit about our horror stories from years past about paddling in the dark and told the guys that I've never been a great paddler, but would love to be able to get thru the 20 miles of paddling asap and not spend the night out there. I don't know if it was the CrossFit workouts we all had been doing or God's blessing, but we killed the paddle - we caught and passed 4 teams and did the whole thing in just over 3 hours! just before the end we had to stop off and do a repel off a 100ft rock face. I'm not a fan of repels as they involve heights and put me face to face w/ the reality of gravity. I was also tired and that added to my nerves and after a few steps down, I needed to push off and let some rope out to clear the rock over hang. Well, legs tensed up and I came up a bit short and slammed into the rock, nailing my hip and arm. also in this process I somehow re-arranged my position in the harness and a certain sensitive and extremely important body part/area got pinched under the straps and I was in intense pain. I tried to lay back and get my feet up to relieve the pressure, but that was not working, plus all the support crews were realizing my ineptitude and were yelling at me to put my feet down. I tried to get down that rope as fast as possible, but it still seemed like way too long to have parts of my manhood held captive like that. Not cool.
After that debacle, we got another break at TA2, where whit awaited us with warm soup, chicken and rice and soft chairs. It was midnight and we had been racing for 17 hrs. We felt pretty good, but knew the next section would be tough to do in the dark. We left with another team, hoping that more lights/heads would help to find the turns. we were looking for a park trail that would lead us to some hiking/biking trails. I found it near impossible to read the map while riding in the dark as each time i looked down the light from my headlamp would shine on the map and temporarily blind me w/ the glare off the plastic map case; just about the time my eyes would be able to focus on the map, I'd have to look up to avoid crashing. this went on for a while as I was concerned we had gone too far and the guys were way ahead of me riding with the other team. I finally just stopped and checked the compass and confirmed we had gone way too far. We managed to get back to the trail ok and began making our way along some rugged and mostly unmarked trails and amazingly made no mistakes in getting to the next CP about 2 am.
Up next was a 2nd Orienteering section, which was supposed to be shorter than the 1st one, but doing it in the dark after racing for 19 hrs, it was obvious we would be a little slow. We nervously set out to get our first point - set a bearing from a known point, tried to pace 400 meters through trees and brush and got to where we thought it would be. Luckily there was a bit of a ridge there so we could orient ourselves a bit and within 10 minutes we found the CP and were stoked! The 2nd would prove to be a bit tougher... We decided to try to get the next cp by following a creek up stream to a junction. while on our way, we began to get really tired and then REALLY tired and then just stopped. No one wanted to hold the map and take responsibility for making a decision b/c we wer all so tired and slightly loopy. So, we took a short break, down an energy drink & some food and then set out again. After and hour of going up and down a few creek beds, we decided to try it from another angle and hiked back to a trail. There we ran into our friends from the PA team and decided to join them on getting the rest of the points. We skipped the one we had been working on for now and went on to get all the rest of the points. Once again, it was great working with them and having more people to talk to and to help in staying awake. On our way back to the skipped point, they decided to start heading back to the finish and we made 2 more attempts at the point, but still came up short. B/c we were now going to be pushing the time cutoff, we had to run the 2 miles back to our bikes and I'm proud of the guys for gutting it out as our bodies were not happy w/ that choice.
We had about 2hrs of riding left and amazingly, we felt great! We easily caught up to the PA team and then rode in with them, helping them avoid a wrong turn that may have been costly, and helping them finish off the remainder of their food stash. Chris had finally decided he got a good enough workout in and even walked up a few hills with the rest of us. By noon the sun was out and it was getting hot and we were just ready to be done. the last few miles went by quickly and we rolled in to the finish in just over 29 hours, having completed the course, getting all but 4 CP's and with no injuries... not bad.
thanks to chris and micah for enduring with me and for the awesome friendship that helped us enjoy the entire race.
