Promised Land State park was the start and finish for the 2009 GOALS Cradle of Liberty race. From early Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon we paddled, shot (paintballs), trekked, biked, and navigated our way over, under and through northeastern PA.
We had two new additions to the team for this race: Jen Moos from the Paradofobia AR team flew in from Ft. Lauderdale and my personal friend Tim Miller raced this as his inaugural AR event. We had a good race and ultimately ended up 5th in both the overall and three person coed categories. Thanks so much to both of you for doing this with me!
Highlights from the race:
Pre-race. The drive from Northern VA to NY to pick up Jen en route to Tim’s house outside of West Point, NY. Friday I-95 traffic. Grrrr….. 12 plus hours of driving. Getting Jen, arriving at Tim’s and chowing on some BBQ - worth the effort 
Race. A short time into the race there was a paintball event - one person per team had 20 paintballs to knock over a gallon water jug, failure to do so resulted in a 10 minute penalty. Tim smoked it.
High water levels, and the last 2/3rds of the paddling was in a raft. Question. What is the maximum hull speed for an inflatable raft? Answer. Crazy slow. Quantified as 1 to 2 knots faster than drunk people propelling themselves by having their small children swim behind their rafts.
Wet bike sections on “almost” unrideable trails. Wet roots, rocks and deadfall everywhere. Any worse, and the effort to ride would not have been worth it. But, it was rideable and we made decent time riding it. (Read - we worked our butts off trying to keep up with Jen, she absolutely crushed everyone in sight on these sections.)
Dismal trails on the O-section. Hindsight, it would have been better to bushwhack than attempt to follow the trails.
Making some great decisions as a team late in the race. We assessed how long the trek would take vs. the point value of the the CP’s along it. So we skipped the trek, bagged some high value bike points, and had more time for the final bike o-section. Definitely a good team move.
Post race. Chatting with all my fellow racers - always one of the best parts of the racing scene.
Ordering one of everything on a McDonald’s menu. Strawberry shakes….hmmmm.
Racking out on the most comfortable bed ever - Tim’s giant couch.
Thanks to Bill and Ann Gibbons and all of their staff for putting on a great, epic race. Can’t wait for next year’s edition!
Lastly, a special thanks to our sponsors. We could not compete at the level we do without your assistance. Thanks to all of you for making this possible!
See you outside,
Shane
Race Reports, Uncategorized
