Jared, followed by TJ, arrive at CP 23 to discover a fiesta of bocce and bourbon. Custom gel in flask at chest.

Contributed by Jared Macary | Race Date: 3/17/12 | www.AdventureAddictsRacing.com

Vitals

The 12-hr Adrenaline Race Elite Race by Adventure Addicts Racing (AAR) encompassed 15-20 miles of mountain biking, 10-15 miles of trekking, 6-9 miles of paddling, and intermediate-advanced navigation.  This was my first race of 2012 and I was joined by racers Andi Ballou and TJ Hoff.

Andi, TJ, and myself registered as TeamHalfwayThere.com/Spokes, Etc. and were the fourth team to do so.  That’s right, there were four TeamHalfwayThere presences at the Elite race.  I served as principal navigator, but welcomed input from my teammates in efficient route selection.  From 9 AM to 9 PM we maneuvered inside Andy Guest State Park, along the Shenandoah River, and outside the towns of Bentonville and Browntown, Virginia.

The 12-hr Adrenaline Race Elite Race was Adventure Addicts Racing’s first-ever adventure race.  Race Directors Andy and Michelle, who have become important figures in my life, started AAR late last year.  Not only did I want to support them in their new endeavor, I wanted to see what madness they cooked up.

Experience

There were several reasons I wanted to do this race.  The first being that I wanted to start off the racing season early and with a bang; 12 hours sounded like just the ticket.  The second being that I wanted to get some direction as to my development for the season.  For example, last season was about becoming familiar with racing.  I think this season is shaping up to be about moving quicker and smarter (e.g. thinking strategically).  Third, I wanted to test some new equipment and nutrition.

The high point of the race for me was arriving at the last TA with roughly and hour or so left in the race.  Our team decided to hit the O-course to see what damage we could do.  Damage was done as we worked together to quickly snag 8 CPs in the dark.  This was my first time navigating and leading a team in the dark.  I found that when night fell I had a new intensity.

The lowest point for the team, I believe, was more about dread than anything else.  The rules of travel stipulated that Elite teams had to make a 2 p.m. cut-off in order to get to the paddle section.  We wanted to get on the water badly for the sole fact that it would be fun.  We made an effort to find CP 20, but ultimately decided to abandon the charge in favor making sure we could do the water event.  We pulled it together and made steady, positive strides all the way to the put-in.  We were one of the final teams to get on the water.  The views were amazing from the river.

On the paddle I saw turtles, darting fish, and bocce-ball-tossing, bourbon-drinking race volunteers.  I thought my eyes and ears were playing tricks on me as I looked onto the shore.  I was no sooner at CP 23 and staring at Paul Morris’ hip-flask.  The man volunteers in style.

The moment that will stay with me for some time was nearing the finish line flanked by several great teams, and hearing the cheers of volunteers and other finished competitors.  TJ insisted that our team cross the finish line together.  We complied by adjusted our pace, running down a cement path, and cresting a small incline to meet flash bulbs, smiles, and wonderful AAR gifts – pint glasses!

Barry, Victor, Michelle, Andy, Cathy, Shane, Candy, Kelly and other TeamHalfwayThere teammates were alongside me.  They shook my hand and congratulated me.  Receiving their kind words at the end of a slog was comforting and motivating.

Outcome

In the end, our team placed 21 out of 34 teams of all categories and with 31 of 48 possible CPs.  I highly recommend the 12-hr Adrenaline Rush Elite Race from Adventure Addicts Race.  It is fun, challenging, exciting and certainly cheaper than therapy.  I must give shout-outs to the race directors and all of the volunteers who were awake earlier than and went to sleep later than many racers.  I must also give a shout-out to my teammates, Andi and TJ, as they taught me about keen leadership, patience, and teamwork.

Lessons Learned

My Osprey Talon 22 pack was perfect in terms of fit and functionality.  The folks at Osprey really know what they’re doing.  This is my 3^rd pack with them, but my first adventure race style pack.  I also used lock-laces for the first time.  I found them to be very easy, but I found myself adjusting them frequently, especially during the paddle.  The tops of my ankles swelled and I fiddle with the lock-laces a fair amount to relieve pressure.  Perhaps this was much more about my anatomy than a product.  At any rate, loosening the lock-laces was very easy.  In terms of nutrition, I created my own sports gel from a recipe in the Thrive Diet. Thrive is a vegan-based endurance race-focused diet.  The gel had a base of dates and agave mixed with lemon juice and raw cocoa.  It provided me with the performance I had hoped it would and it tasted good.

Next Race

10-hr Yough Extreme as a solo racer.

Race Reports

Brian, Todd, and Antoinette stomp toward CP 23

Contributed by Todd Davis | Race Dates: Saturday, March 17, 2012 | Shenandoah River “Andy Guest” State Park | Adventure Addicts Racing

“This is really out there!  I mean I’ve done ultras and stuff, but you guys – well – this is hard” – That’s a quote from our rookie teammate Antoinette somewhere late in the race on Saturday.  And it was delivered with a supremely satisfied smile.  I think she also said something beaming about this “being really just a big kid’s game on a huge scale” too, but the smile was great because as any adventure racer will tell you, we knew at that moment she was hooked.

Ultimately, this race report is going to focus on “lessons learned,” because we learned a few big ones the hard way Saturday, but we want to first focus on the positives.  Brian, Antoinette, and I were racing together for the fi

rst time Saturday and we were thrilled to be a part of our friends from Adventure Addicts Racing’s inaugural race!

The Basics

Started on trek/O-course, then mountain-biked park trails, then trekked to paddle, then paddled, then trekked back to bikes, then big road biking section, and finally back for a big O-Course.

The Good Stuff

1) Our top team goal was simple: Make sure Antoinette wants to go again.  And despite a somewhat disappointing result, we definitely achieved that since she’s charged up about Wild Wonderful already.  This was her first AR of any kind and she rocked it.  I’ve been touting her prowess for over a year and she did not disappo

int.  Her fitness level on foot and while road-biking are truly impressive and she dove right in to punch points deep in re0entrants late in the race when us tough guys were struggling.

2) The weather was spectacular and made for a really fun, stress-free race experience.  Even what might have been a monotonous paddle section was a breeze enjoying weather like that.

3) Andy and Michelle – What can we say?  Just a fantastic job putting on their first race!  The maps were outstanding and there wasn’t a single point (that we got anyways) misplaced or misplotted.  Also got a pint glass, a t-shirt, a bottle, and oh yeah, discounts for Spokes and REI.  They’ve set the bar high for themselves in future races for sure.

4) Nav/Strategy (Micro) – This was really only the third race of any length I’ve navigated for a team.  Unfortunately for Hyland he’s been a part of two of them.  But fortunately for him, I’ve improved a good bit and generally with his help, we did a great job point-to-point and on our strategy within each section.

5) Maybe I really am a masochist, but despite the travails we’re about to share, I always take a bit of perverse pride in being the final team to check back in before the finish cutoff.  As usual, that was us, including finishing up with me swimming back from that island and that creepy statue that I guarantee was 100x creepier in the dark than it was for those who did it during the day.  Or maybe I’m just a fraidy cat.  Very proud of the team for hanging together and milking that course as best we could to come back from our bad decision.

Best Decisions

1) Brian making the call to quickly transpose the points for the second O-Course onto the map from the first bike section that had the park trails on it.  This was huge!  I’m incredibly familiar with the park trail system by now and as soon as we did this, I was immediately able to identify our best route that saved us some serious up and down bushwhacking and allowed us to cut from trail to trail when possible.

2) Bike-whacking during the middle of our mountain bike section.  We decided to bike-whack for 5 brutal minutes straight up a 100 meter hill, but this saved us both a long road climb and an initial climb on the next trail loop.  Needless to say, prior knowledge of the park was huge for us on this one.  It was also just kind of bad-ass.

Scariest Moment

Guess we should have learned from Ben Affleck’s Dazed and Confused character O’Banion that you just shouldn’t prod a bully, but man did the guy driving the very same bright orange muscle car from the movie scare the hell out of us after we saw him try to murder solo racer Scott Pleban.  We were pretty sure the redneck was wasted and definitely sure he was pissed that a bunch of citified folks in fluorescent spandex were out ruining his Saturday cruising, but after he tried to mow down Scott, he hooked a U-Turn and waited until he was abreast of us to rev his ridiculously over-the-top engine and near about scare us off our bikes into the ditch.  Then we even passed his “compound” later on the Bentonville/Browntown road where he appeared to have a weekend Stars & Bars fiesta under way in all its drunken bigot glory.

Lessons Learned (the hard way)

1) Nav/Strategy (Macro) – For our team, this race came down to a single strategy decision: Choosing to do the second bike leg.  It basically turned into a three-hour time-suck for three points, of which we only got one.  Even going for those points pretty much cost us a chance to clear the second O-Course.  Of course, it wasn’t until we were way the hell out on the bike leg and fully committed that we realized what a blunder this had been.  In the end, I’m not sure we would have made the decision any differently had we known because when we set out on that section we still really thought we might be able to clear the course.  (Plus the three teams that ended up on the podium did clear the course, so it wouldn’t have gained us anything in terms of hardware).  But seeing Jeremy and Jeff’s team happily finishing up the second O-Course with the sun just fading in the sky while we desperately were just beginning scraping around out there after all that biking was a real blow.  (Fabulous recognition of the bigger picture by Jeremy and co. by the way!)

In hindsight, maybe the biggest lesson is that this bad decision was really the culmination of a lot of smaller bad decisions that started even before the starting  gun went off.  First, because we weren’t staying the night before the race and we felt confident in our knowledge of the area, we arrived fairly late to the race.  This prevented us, at least in part, from spending enough time with our maps that we might have realized this was a potential strategy.  Second, I need to think more seriously when switching between maps of different scales.  After zipping through the first trek on the 1:15,000 map of the park, I needed to account better for the scope difference moving to the 1:24,000 for the bike loop.  Third, we should have focused on our strengths, which in this race were foot sections and navigation.  Although Brian’s incredibly strong on the bike, since this was our first race together we weren’t overly organized in terms of paceline or towing on the bikes.  While on foot, Ant and I felt great and we had a huge home-field advantage with our knowledge of the park terrain and trail system.  We had even guessed the second O-Course would be back in the park on the other side.  Overall though, I’ve just got to keep an eye on the bigger picture (i.e. 45 out of 48 CP’s would’ve been better than 37) and we have to manage our own egos.

I also got a random flat on this purely road section, which thankfully Brian fixed in no time, but definitely didn’t help the morale.  Tubeless by my next race for sure!

Oh yeah, on the bike leg, just because you’ve committed an error and then you’re down because you’ve realized your mistake, you don’t have license to get lazy like we did with the clue sheet and blow right by a CP without looking in the storm drain either.  Needless to say, this was entirely my fault and had we at least nabbed that CP it might’ve at least cheered us up about the effort.

2) Help each other earlier in the race – We were slow on the road biking for two reasons.  First because I’m just slow out there.  But second because we didn’t get organized in paceline/towing setup early on.  Part of this may have been due to the scariest moment previously mentioned which happened right at the start of this section.  But we should have forced ourselves to get organized.

Maybe more importantly, I should’ve towed Brian more on the trek-to-boat and trek-to-bike mid-race.  Probably should’ve even made Antoinette give Brian a pull too.  He was hurting a bit on his feet in the unexpected heat and sweating a ton.  I towed him a bit, but then got concerned with using up my own energy.  Would’ve been better off spending it while I had it, because I couldn’t help him nearly as much on the second O-Course later on.  Again, we all have to check our egos.  Brian could’ve asked for the help and I shouldn’t have hesitated to give it in order to save myself.

Best Piece of Gear

Can’t speak for the team, but as a navigator, I borrowed a great bike map board for the first time and it makes a world of difference.  I used the AR Nav MBO-2 Rotating Map Holder and it was outstanding.  With just the straps and a couple of binder clips I was able to move it around easily while riding and save serious time and headaches from looking down at a map around my neck.

Race Reports

Shane and Candy: Lovers, Racers, Snappy Dressers

Contributed by Candy Hagerman | Race Date: March 17, 2012 | http://bit.ly/GBQJCF

Why did I sign up for this race?

I signed up for this race because our good friends, Andy and Michelle started an adventure racing company, Adventure Addicts Racing, and this was going to be their inaugural race.  It was an opportunity to support them and to race with my favorite person, my husband Shane!

Shane and I were both so excited to race together in the 6 hour race.  We have raced together in the past and loved it.  Many people say, “How can you race with your husband?”  My response is “I love to race with him!”  He is so strong and incredibly helpful and encouraging.

Before I ever raced with him, I knew what I was getting in to.  He is very competitive and focused.  I made it very clear to him years ago that I wanted to race to have FUN!  And secretly, I am competitive too.  I knew whenever I raced with him, we would have fun and if I wanted to push myself, he would happily support that!

This brings us to getting ready for the race.

Yes, we even had a lot of fun getting ready for the race.  The majority of our friends to include Shane are very experienced racers, so “getting ready” for a 6 hour race is probably very different for them as it is for me.  Shane has spoiled me with every piece of gear imaginable, so it is hard to come up with something that I need to buy for racing.  But, that wasn’t going to stand in my way of shopping for fun gear.  I love to shop and knew that more cool gear would add to the excitement.

The race was on St. Patty’s Day, so of course I bought some green shirts at REI to wear post race.  Two of my favorite purchases were a new pink smaller Gregory pack and new trail running shoes, the Cascadia 7’s.  Shane insisted that the new shoes would help me run faster through the woods and have better grip.  While trying them on at REI, a girl said she had a pair and loved them.  That sealed the deal and off I went with new (cute blue) trail shoes and they proved to be the most comfortable trail shoes ever with great stability and grip.  And of course, I wanted a lighter weight pack so it didn’t weigh me down and if I needed to give it to Shane it would fit in his pack.  The pack was so comfortable and light weight that I didn’t need to take it off and always had my water ready to drink.  Definitely a good purchase!

As you can tell, we both are really excited for this race.  We spend the night before packing and talking about how great it is going to be to race and see all of our friends.  I’m hoping we can get to bed early so that we have a good night’s sleep before waking up at 4am to drive to Front Royal.  Life doesn’t always go as planned.  We stayed up too late and I got about 3 hours of sleep and Shane 2.  Early morning was here before we knew it and off we went to Front Royal.

When we arrived, we were greeted by the friendliest volunteers and the vibe of the event was amazing.  Everyone was in good spirits and the weather was going to be at perfect temperatures.  This was going to be a great day!

Shane and I had the biggest smiles on our faces as the race started.  I was focused on having fun and not putting any pressure on what place we finished.  There were so many teams with countless years of experience.  I wasn’t worried about how we were going to finish…until we saw three Marines with green t-shirts and Joey and Shannon Baird.  These two teams soon became the reason why I went from wanting to have fun to wanting to compete.  Of course Shane loves when this happens and he definitely likes to see what buttons will make me go even faster.  I’m in the Navy Reserves so naturally, he had some jokes about what the Marines are probably saying about the Navy.  This didn’t motivate me as much as wanting to stay in front of Joey and his wife.  Wherever I looked, they seemed to be there; slightly in front of us and smiling and joking with a great attitude.  I thought, well, we can stay with them and hopefully get in front of them.

We had to climb a lot of hills and to me they felt like mountains!  One specifically on the second trek section we climbed happened to have some sort of animal trail, so we climbed right up it.  I was so happy when I got to the top.  It didn’t matter that I was huffing and puffing, I had made it up that hill!  We start running and I asked Shane where the passport was.  He is very specific about putting it in a pouch right away to avoid losing it.  He grabbed the pouch and said, “I don’t have it!”  I wanted to cry as soon as I heard these words and looked down the hill “mountain” we had just climbed.  He said, “We have to back track and trace all of our steps so we can find it.”  I was thinking, “Yah right, we will never find it, I was looking at piles of leaves and literally wanted to sit down and start crying.  I knew he was more mad at himself than I could ever be, so I kept quiet and started backtracking with him.  And, just as we climbed what appeared to be a deer trail, he was running just like a deer.  I figured, “Oh well, we worked really hard and it is ok if we don’t have an official finish.”  As soon as I thought this, I hear him say, “I found it!”  I snapped my head back and looked up at the sky as the sun was shining in my face and I threw my hands up saying, “Thank God!”

The only bad part was Joey and his wife were long gone and so were the Marines.  I didn’t think we would ever catch up to them after this.  The next part of the event was going to be the paddle section.  I knew we would do well on the water.  One of our favorite things to do together is go paddling.  We got to the boats and saw a bunch of teams in front of us.  We quickly got in the water and were off.  Paddling with Shane is like having a motor in the boat.  He is the strongest paddler I have ever met.  We paddled hard and ended up passing at least 7 teams.  There is something so motivating about passing a team.  It is almost like it gives you twice the energy than you had before, no matter how tired you are.

The good news was, we were able to get in front of Joey and the three Marines.  I know, this seemed to be the only thing I was worried about.  After the paddle, we had a long trek section.  It seemed to go on forever!!!  As we were running, I would look back hoping I did not see their shirts.  I was running, trekking and bushwhacking faster at this point than I was at the beginning of the race.

One of my favorite points on this trek section was a point on the mountain with a breathtaking view.  Shane had pointed it out during the paddle and it was great to finally arrive there.  Yes, I did stop to drink it in.  It gave me chills and made me feel so alive!  I knew immediately that Michelle and Andy put a lot of thought into the placement of this checkpoint.  Wow, I so appreciated it and needed it!

We were running long and hard during the trek and finally reached our bikes with no sign of our made up nemesis’s.  I was happy we were doing so well.  We were right where we wanted to be and were on our way to the finish.  As we were leaving on our bikes, we saw Joey and Shannon.  I thought, “NO!!!”  So, we knew we had to bike extra hard so they didn’t catch us.  Shane kept telling me what strong bikers they were and how important it was for us to push hard to the finish.  I was peddling my little heart out and didn’t care how much it hurt because I knew we were almost finished and we could beat them if we went fast and hard.

So, we come riding in as fast as we could into the race finish.  Kelly says, wow, you guys are doing good.  We are like, “Yah, we are done, this is the finish!”  She tells us, “No, this is not the finish, there is one more checkpoint #19.”  I couldn’t believe my ears.  I just gave everything I had and we still had to go find another checkpoint?  I couldn’t believe it.  I wanted to cry and stop but knew if we could just hurry up and find the checkpoint maybe we could finish before Joey and Shannon.  Sorry to use your name so much Joey, I told you when we finished that I never need to hear your name again – now you know why!

This begins my lowest and highest point of the race.  Giving up wasn’t an option, so we went right back out to find checkpoint 19.  The pressure was really on Shane to make sure he knew exactly where it was.  He knew I was empty and was trying my very best.  We ended up getting slightly turned around in the woods and finally figured out exactly where we needed to go.  And, unfortunately, as we were out there, who do we see?  The Bairds – looking strong as they rode up to us, along with us and then slowly pulled away on a big climb.  When I saw them my heart sank.  I thought, oh no, after all this hard work they caught back up to us.  Then I thought, well they are really good and at this point what can we do?  So, Shane started towing me on bike up the hills.  I was so frustrated and as they pulled away I thought, wow, we are going to come in after them even though we tried so hard.  I was feeling sorry for myself and the hills seemed like mountains once again.  We were going up a very steep section, Joey and Shannon were nearly out of sight, the tow system broke and I wiped out.  I was hurting and for a second thought, I can just throw my bike off the mountain and give up.  Then, I thought, no, now is the time to dig deep.  I will give everything until I see the finish.

I got back on the bike we climbed a bit more and the trail leveled out.  Then Shane tells me to get off my bike and follow him through the woods.  I was like, come on, are you crazy!  Let’s just try to keep up with them.  So, he said “trust me.”  Of course I trust him so without hesitation we cut through the woods and end up coming out on the trail.  In a few seconds we see Joey and his wife behind us.  I thought, yes!  Maybe we can keep up.  Well, they kept going and I thought, oh no my legs can’t go as fast as theirs.

I kept riding and we finally could see checkpoint 19.  Joey got there a few seconds before Shane and Shannon and I turned around to start pedaling.  We both were so tired.  I started pedaling and knew this time for sure we were biking to the finish.  Something inside me thought, come on Candy don’t give up, you worked so hard, finish strong!  So, I pedaled harder and harder and went faster and faster.  It felt so good to be going fast and not struggling up the same hills.  I didn’t care about whether or not I would wipe out.  I wanted to ride as fast and as hard as I could so that when I finished, I knew I did not give up.  I didn’t know how close people were behind me, but I knew I was riding as fast and as hard as I have ever ridden a mountain bike.  And I learned that the faster you go, the easier it is!

We came out of the woods and up to the finish line and yes, I still looked to see if Joey and Shannon had beaten us to the finish line and thankfully they hadn’t!

This race wasn’t really about finishing before Joey and Shannon.  It was about reminding myself of the things I already know and that is to never give up no matter how difficult something is.  The Bairds happened to be something I could focus on and use to channel my determination.  It has been only a few years since I had battled cancer and I knew how important it was to not only be physically strong, but to be mentally strong too.  After all, life is about putting one foot in front of the other and not giving up.

Thank you Adventure Addicts Racing for putting on a great race.  I felt the adrenaline, enjoyed the people and scenery and most importantly, pushed myself beyond what I thought I was capable of.  I will use this experience as a positive touch stone throughout life and remind myself that giving up is not an option.  And a special thank you to Joey and Shannon, you guys are absolutely amazing.

Shane, I love you and I love having you as my partner in life.  Your strength, love and encouragement inspire me daily.  Thank you!!!

Uncategorized

Contributed by Paul Morris | Race Date: Feb 26, 2012 | http://www.runriderace.com/overall-monster/

TeamHalfwayThere.com/Spokes, Etc @ Monster Cross 50M

The cruel iPhone alarms began sounding off their marimba tones @ 6 a.m. inside of a cramped cabin at Pipsico Reservation near Spring Grove, VA some 51 miles away from the morning’s start line.  Several members of TeamHalwayThere.com/Spokes, Etc. competed in a 12 hour orienteering rogaine the previous day hosted by Soggy Bottom Boys Racing.  These racers were looking to complete the weekend double dip by then riding 50 miles of fire-roads amidst the gorgeous backdrop of Pocohontas State Park in Chesterfield, VA.  After quickly packing up the cars we departed Pipsico headed for Pocohontas, by way of McDonald’s and a much needed Egg McMuffin and coffee.

Once at Pocohontas, the principal protagonists of the day (Michelle Faucher, Nate Graham, Brian Hyland, Paul Morris, Barry Nobles and Paul Ruchlin) checked in and suited up before mounting our mountain bikes and heading off to the start line.  Just after 9am the race began with nearly 400 riders streaking up a road climb and circling a roundabout before departing the pavement in favor of dirt fireroads and the pace was fierce (see video of start).

Nate, Brian and Paul rode together early jockeying for position amidst a sea of cross bike roadies.  There certainly were numerous sketchy corners and blistering descents as the roadies tried to maneuver their cross bikes around the course.  After witnessing a host of flat tires (thankfully no flats on our team due to all of us riding a Stan’s NoTubes setup) and steering clear of several crashes, Nate pulled away towards the front of the pack on his trusty single-speed and would be chased by Brian and Paul for the remainder of the day.

In the dead leg category (which consists of those Ironmen/Ironwomen that raced for 12 hours the day before), Michelle rode with her personal pacer Paul Ruchlin and managed to put some distance on Barry (still recovering from his 3 day race across the entire state of Florida earlier that same week).  At the end of the first lap the Garmin GPS read 22 miles and then instead of returning onto the same loop, the course turned across Swift Creek and took racers on a delightfully fast and fun 6 mile loop before returning to the start/finish area for the final 22 miles of the Monster Cross.  The pace remained high with heart rate monitors routinely chiming in the 165-175 BPM range and riders working together across teams to help deliver one another across the finish line in this first early season test following a winter spent riding on trainers.

Personally, I worked incredibly hard in my second lap and saw the entrance to the infamous “pain cave” but was never lured in by its siren song.  I refused to enter the dreaded pain cave and sit down to rest since I knew the consequences of such action.  Instead, I focused on my eating right to keep my energy level up and led a train of 5-6 riders.  I drove the pace for nearly 45 minutes before ceding the pace making duties to a Marine whom proceeded to shatter our pace line by dropping those barely hanging on, but our collaborative hard work delivered the two of us to the finish line well under 4 hours.

Special thanks to our personal cheerleader and post-race driver following back to back days of racing, Cathy Hovis.

Team results

It was a day highlighting off-road cycling’s youth movement in which two of the top four finishers were aged 17 years young.

• Nate Graham  3:35 (In his first ever off road race and on a singlespeed no less)
• Brian Hyland  3:40
• Paul Morris  3:47
• Michelle Faucher  4:29
• Paul Ruchlin  4:29
• Barry Nobles  4:48

Race Reports

One of many CPs at SBB Rogaine

Contributed by Jeff Nicholson

For most of the TeamHalfWayThere.com, this was the first race of the season and a great way to shake off the rust (although not Barry, as he was down in Florida doing a short 72-hour race across Florida).

The race consisted of 4-two person teams, even though some of us signed up as soloist in order to obtain a map per person. The teams were:  Kelly/Jeremy, Victor/Barry, Paul/Cathy, and Michelle and I. Andy was also there helping out Mark, the race director.

I arrived Friday around 8pm and headed down to the Lyon camp where race HQ was located. As I walked into the building I was graciously greeted by the race director, Mark, and he gave me a brief rundown on how the next day’s events would play out. We discussed check-in times and how we would inevitably be traversing through some swamps (if we wanted to). I also got the rundown on the location of our cottage. After we joked a bit he directed me to a homemade pot pie and a KILLER piece of strawberry pie!

On the way back up the hill to our cottage I ran into Jeremy who came with two awesome pizzas (yeah, I ate even more so please don’t judge). The next to arrive was Michelle, followed closely by the BAMV filled with Cathy, Paul, and Barry. After a little bit of settling in and a few pieces of pizza later we all attempted to rack out around 12am. Morning came early but we were all excited for what we knew would be a great day of racing that SBB is becoming known for. The weather started off cool, but was expected to be in the low fifties by 1pm which made for perfect racing weather. As we arrived at race HQ we were greeted with a nice spread of food and hot fresh coffee! The check-in process was a breeze and very organized with a good amount of swag.

During the race brief we were informed the course would be broken into three Rogaine style sections, with different maps for each. The first section was a three hour O-course on foot, followed by a six hour mountain bike/foot O-section, and ending with a three-hour night O-course on foot. All of the CPs along the course were assigned with points between 30 and 90, so at the end of the day whomever had the most points would end up winning. Teams could start racing anytime between 8 and 9am, so Michelle and I decided to start it at 8:10 after we were all geared up and ready. Once we decided to go, Mark handed us a pre-plotted map for the 3-hour section and gave us a free 10 minutes to plot our course before the three-hour timer started. We made our route decision and took off at 8:20. The first section consisted of a little bushwhacking, unimproved camp roads, trails and swamps. We had no serious issues with any of these points and made our way around HQ in a modified clockwise rotation bagging a good amount of the CPs along the way. The three hours flew by and we made it back to HQ a few minutes before 11:20.

Once back, we received our second set of pre-plotted maps along with a sheet of paper with a handful of optional points that needed to be plotted. After some discussion and looking at all of the 35 plus points on the map, we decided to forgo the optional CPs and focus on acquiring as many points as we could before 6pm which was the cut-off for everyone on this section. We were feeling great and took off on the bikes after about 10-15 minutes inside HQ. We decided to head for the farthest point North (worth 90 points) and work our way in a semi counter clockwise manner. Most of the points were scattered off of the maze of hunting roads in the area. The riding was fun along many of these roads and trails, but very muddy from the rain the day before. Fortunately, neither one of us had bike or body issues the whole day. With that said, I have to talk about my (and maybe Michelle’s) new go to race food.

On Friday I experimented with a sandwich wrap that consisted of Flat-out’s whole grain oval wraps, two slices of good salami, six slices of large pepperoni slices, two slices of sharp cheddar cheese, and Dijon mustard. It sounds simple enough, but I tell you what it was awesome and boosted morale! While on the bike O-course we saw Ronny Angell (Owner of Odyssey Adventure Racing) and Jen Smith a few times, along with Andi Ballou.

CP 14 over gully

After a mostly error-free section we started our way back to race HQs with one stop planned to snag CP 14. We found CP 14 with zero issues other than the point was roughly 20 feet in the air! We stared at it for a minute or so thinking it may have been a test or some sort of challenge. The problem was the tree was horizontal to the ground and directly above a gully at the top of a re-entrant and it was tied to the branch. I attempted to see if I could pull the tree down enough for Michelle to punch the passport, but that obviously was not going to work. After another minute of staring at it, Michelle made a command decision to take a picture so we could be on our way. I took out my phone and took a couple shots, but the pictures didn’t do the scenario any justice.

As we entered race HQs about 15 minutes before 6pm, we were greeted with our cheering section of Paul, Cathy, and Andy. We also got to watch Jeremy and Kelly roll in looking fresh and ready to go followed by Barry and Victor also looking good. Michelle and I both needed water and a bit more food, so we stocked up, grabbed our maps for the next section, and took off as the sun was setting. We ran to where we thought the first CP was, but had a bit of trouble locating it. After looking for around 10 minutes we saw Victor and Barry who couldn’t find the CP either. Michelle and I broke off and eventually found the CP one reentrant over from where we thought it was according to the map. After finding the first point the sun had set and it was pitch dark, but once Michelle kicked on her new Lupine X it might as well have been dusk still. The headlight was very impressive lighting up the CPs from a good distance away. We were bagging points for the next hour or so, when we ran into Jeremy and Kelly charging up a steep hill as we were making our way down to the CP they just bagged. After punching the point we started off to our last planned CP when I took us on the “long route” to the opposite side of camp with only 20 minutes until our 12 hour cut-off time. When I say “long route” it really means nav error which caused us to come in 8 minutes over time. Once we realized where we were, it became obvious that we were in for a good 2-3 mile run back to race HQs. Since our goal for this race was to dial in our Nav and work out team dynamics, I looked at the error as a good lesson learned and felt great about the race as a whole.

We arrived back to race HQ fairly smoked, but feeling great overall. Mark and his crew had an awesome line up of food for us to gorge on, which I know I did! Three plates of food and dessert later, along with great race stories we packed up all of our gear and headed back to the cabin since most of the team had a 50 mile MTB race the next day. Unbelievable! Everyone grabbed a shower and shared a few more race stories then crashed after a great day of racing on a great race course. Thanks to Mark for a fun, hard, and memorable race, you did a fantastic job of making this a race I will come back to year after year.

I want to thank Spokes etc. and all of the team members on TeamHalfWayThere.com for adding me to the team this year, it is an honor! All of you are impressive athletes who, in conjunction with Spokes etc. make for a formidable force in the Adventure racing world.

Race Reports

Contributed by Barry Nobles

Races in this report:

• Florida Sunshine Sea-to-Sea 72 Hr
• Soggy Bottom Boys 12 hr
• Monster Cross 50 miler

Last week, a fellow whom I admire very much, Mr. Ronny Angell, the President and Owner of Odyssey Adventure Racing, announced he will soon offer an adventure racing teleclass.  With the description of this class, Ronny mentions the experience he brings to the class, and I quote: “13 years of obsession, passion, and mistakes!”
I’ve raced a bunch of Ronny’s races, have taken his navigation class, and have had the pleasure of racing against, and been soundly beaten by Ronny and his teams.  So I know for a fact that Ronny actually makes very few “mistakes.”  That said, the fact that Ronny willingly shares and teaches from his “mistakes,” speaks to his confidence as a racer and a person.  In fact, these are qualities I’ve noticed that many adventure racers share: the ability to recognize when things went wrong, the perspective to laugh about what went wrong, and the generosity to share those “mistakes” with other passionate racers so we can learn from each other and help evolve the sport we love: Adventure Racing.

In this spirit, I present my following race reports in the form of mistakes or lessons-learned.

Disclaimer: These reports are based on my foggy memory of what happened in the woods and in the dark during three races in ten days.  Please feel free to fact-check with any of my teammates…they can likely add many other “mistakes” I made along the way….

Florida Sunshine Sea-to-Sea 72-hr Adventure Race

Race Dates: Feb 16-19, 2012 | www.pangeaadventureracing.com

This was my first race longer than 24 hours. I was very excited going in, and to be quite frank, I was also nervous that I would somehow let my teammates, Bryce, Christy and Aaron, down.

My Lessons Learned

If you and most of the other teams are swarming around the same location in a canoe for over an hour and are all certain the checkpoint should be there… it probably isn’t.  A volunteer tracked us down and informed us the point was misplaced.  It was character-building to search through thick, quick-sandy mud looking for a point that wasn’t there, though not nearly as character-building as it must have been to paddle 10 miles for naught as our pals on the Odyssey team, Shane, Andy and Jen did.  Greg, the race director, took full responsibility for the misplaced point, and employed his healthy, self-depreciating sense of humor and restarted the race and all was back on track (adventure racers are generally a very forgiving lot as long as you’re straight with us and tell us how you’re going to make things right).  Shane, Andy, and Jen did what champions do… they shrugged it off and considered it a free warm-up for the rest of the paddle.

It was exciting to clear the canoe section and hop on our bikes.  Our team is comprised of strong bikers and we immediately formed a pace line and rotated pulling responsibilities.  It felt good to stretch the legs and get some miles behind us as we journeyed from the Gulf to the Atlantic coast of Florida.  It was also satisfying to drop a number of teams in our wake (while generous, adventure racers can be competitive too).

My sense of flying across the state was short lived.  On the first night, on a stretch of single-track trail appropriately named “Earn and Burn,” I couldn’t keep my bike on the trail and I struggled for at least three hours.  I wasn’t ‘earning’ anything though I was surely ‘burning.’  The team seemed to patiently slow to my pace for awhile and then Bryce started fighting with his cleats, couldn’t clip out, and began tumbling to the left each time he tried to dismount.  About this time, Aaron, decided to face-plant directly into the trail a couple of times.  Very generous of them to join me in my misery.

This gave me the opportunity to collect myself and realize that either I had infected the team with a case of “struggle-osis” or perhaps I wasn’t the only one struggling for various reasons.  Of course Christy appeared fine and was likely wondering why her team was taking the “Burn” part of the trail’s name so literally.  Thanks to Bryce’s nav skills, we eventually cleared this section of the course, got back into our pace line on the road, and started trucking again.

Lesson learned: Even if you feel horrible, keeping pushing forward. Your teammates will compensate and you can eventually regroup.

During the first 48 hours, I peed every two hours and sometimes more frequently, often dropping to the back of our team.  After realizing that something was amiss, I decreased my intake a bit and subsequently decreased my peeing to once every six hours or so.

Lesson learned: While hydration is important, over-hydration makes you inefficient.  Listen to your body, calibrate your consumption to the environment and your body’s needs, and adjust as necessary.

On day two, my brain was addled because I was jet-lagged from France and sleep-deprived from working and packing and driving and blah-blah-blah-excuse-excuse-excuse.  Anyway, I wasn’t sure if I could maintain for the rest of the race, so I asked my team for the opportunity to lie down at the next transition.  Though I was grumpy waking up, the 20 minute nap really helped clear some cob-webs.

Lesson learned: 1) Tell your teammates what you need.  2) Sometimes even a short nap refreshes your brain and body.

Later on day two, the section of my Camelbak that conjoins the straw to the bladder was scraping a tramp-stamp into my lower back.  Upon hearing my whining, Bryce suggested I turn my bladder around so the pointy part wouldn’t scrape my back.  Um…duh…problem solved. Thanks, Bryce!

On night three, as we prepared to take on an orienteering course, I was hot in transition and planned on wearing shorts.  Bryce suggested I wear pants and boy I’m glad I did because we did a lot of bearing and distance nav that took us right through multiple fields of prickers and nasty scrub brush.

Lesson learned: Tell your teammates the dumb things you are doing or plan to do so they can correct you.  Thanks again, Bryce!

The course Greg set was spectacularly scenic.  Paddling through the quiet, remote, lilies was especially beautiful and gave us the opportunity to see manatees, alligators, eagles, osprey, and even a bear, fishing from the shore.  I also saw an armadillo sauntering around the O-course at night.

After a fun and fast ride to the finish with Bryce’s buddies from Team Endeavor Racing, we enjoyed a ceremonial dip in the Atlantic Ocean and our 6th place finish was in the books.

I highly recommend Florida Sunshine Sea-to-Sea as a great multi-day race for first timers or veterans.  I also recommend staying a few days afterward so you can rest and recover in the Florida sun.

Shout-outs

Marissa: Thank you for getting us home in one piece.  You had your own Adventure Race by driving us dirty, tired hobos directly back from Fla to VA, some of it in the driving snow.

Christy: Thank you for listening to me whimper at various times and being so strong and steady on all parts of the course, especially the canoe.  Thanks also for the leftover Cheetos I found in your life-jacket.  I ate them.  I did not eat the veggie pellets I found in one of your pockets.  I’m still not quite sure what those were.

Aaron: Hands down, you kicked the crap out of this race.  Your training has clearly worked for you.  Many times during the race, I felt like I was the only one on the team who hadn’t gone this far, because you looked so strong.  I am especially impressed you had the energy to tackle (literally) the bike skills park we randomly encountered halfway through the state.

Bryce: thanks for employing your sense of humor to keep us all on track and together for 65+ hours.  You kept us moving and really helped me, as a rookie to the multi-day world, get through this race and actually have fun.  Thanks for sharing your rotten sandwiches and that spicy chicken thing on the paddle.  Sorry for threatening to punch you in the ovary on the third night.  The armadillo made me say it.

Another highlight of this race was seeing Andy Bacon, Shane Hagerman, and Jen Moos at the finish, beaming and basking in their accomplishment, having just shredded the course and their competition.  In my humble opinion, they were the best prepared and had the most desire to win so it was especially satisfying to see their hard work pay off.

Soggy Bottom Boys 12-hr Adventure Race/Rogaine

Race Date: Feb 25, 2012 | www.sbbracing.com

One word sums up this race:  Linsanity!

My teammate for the upcoming Adventure Addicts-Adrenaline Rush race, Victor Lin, agreed to partner up for this 12 hour event, which started less than a week after the Florida race.  Because of the format of this event, we could each carry a course map, so my plan was to watch how Victor attacked each point and to follow along on the map so I could learn from the master.  What I learned is that Victor moves so quickly that not only did I not have time to consult the map, I struggled to keep up with him the entire race, and the map case just bitch-smacked me in mockery for 11 hrs and 56 minutes.

To give you a quick taste of what it was like:  while running through a thicket at full speed, Victor would absorb the map, leap over and under logs like a Hawaiian limbo expert, and then say, “The point should be just ahead.”  Then as I’m gasping for breath and unwrapping the pricker vines embedded in my neck and wrapped around my ankle, I’d look through the brush ahead of me to see Victor punching the point, to which I would yell, “Linsanity!”

Lesson learned: I’m not really sure what the lesson learned here is, other than to say that Victor is a fast and nimble athlete who is ready for the big time.  I hope that when I taper beforehand, Eva and I can keep up with you at the Adrenaline Rush on March 17.

Update: Victor and I finished 3rd place overall.

Mark Montague, race director, did a great job organizing the race and the post-race food was the best I’ve ever had in 100+ races, no lie.

I believe our team, TeamHalfwayThere.com/Spokes, Etc. had the largest turnout.  It was great to see Andi Ballou, Jeff Nicholson, Michelle Faucher, Jeremy Kinsell, Kelly Stock-Bacon, Paul Morris, and my lovely Cathy Hovis out on the course at various times.  It was also great to see Mr. Andy Bacon, Florida Sea-to-Sea Champion, giving back to the community by volunteering at this event.

Monster Cross 50 Mountain/Cross Bike Race

Race Date: Feb 26, 2012 | http://www.runriderace.com/overall-monster/

I woke up that morning still exhausted from doing the FL race the previous weekend and further cooked from chasing Victor through the woods for 12 hours the day before.  So, I secretly hoped my teammate Michelle (who had also done the Soggy Bottom 12 hr) would back out of this race so I could do the same under the pretense of keeping her company or massaging her feet or something. Unfortunately for me, Michelle is a bad-ass so I had no cover for wussing.

Unlike my friend Dietrich whose race plan for the Shenandoah 100 MTB race a few years back was to “go out hard and stay hard,” my race plan was to go out  soft and stay soft, and keep my weeping beneath a level that could be detected by other racers or volunteers.  I guess that worked out okay because, to my knowledge, no one caught me crying on film and I actually finished. Nothing really eventful happened during this race except that I was very grateful to see my girlfriend, Cathy, cheering me on around mile 47 and yelling “three miles to go” which reassured me that the end of my hardest week of racing was coming to a close and I was going to complete everything I had set out to do.

After the race, I learned that my teammates did great:

Nathan Graham of Spokes rocked his first race ever!  He’s a natural.  Clearly pain is not a factor for him…

Brian Hyland (who devilishly talked me into doing a double that weekend and bailed under the pretense of being a good father) rode hard.

Paul Morris pulled the ‘niner train, that I wished I could have been onboard.

Michelle Faucher and Paul Ruchlin worked together for a strong finish.

And I even got a brief glimpse of my Wimmisis (long story that we’re sure to address in a future race report)…

Race Director, Mark Junkerman put together a course that featured a lot of swooping turns and Pocahontas State Park is always a beautiful place so I recommend this race for anyone looking to shake out their legs in late February.

To make the greatest race week of my life possible, I’d like to thank our sponsors from Spokes,Etc. and Specialized.  From my 2011 Epic 29er that delivered me over 250 miles w/o a mechanical, to the tune-ups from Ryan, Sam, Ricky, and Julio, the humor and support from Marc Walowac, our new man Nate Graham who scared the Monster out of the Monster Cross, and especially the help, encouragement, and multifaceted detail work from our biggest supporter, from behind the scenes, Mr. Steve Beheler. Spokes has been great to the team and we really appreciate your help making TeamHalfwayThere.com/Spokes,Etc. one of the top-ranked adventure racing teams in the country.

http://spokesetc.com/

http://www.specialized.com

Just think…the season has just begun…

Race Reports

The team at race start on Day 1

Contributed by Aaron Bernard.

At 11PM the night before check-in, TeamHalfwayThere.com rolled out of the frozen wasteland that was Virginia and headed south… south to an area of warm temps, alligators, and nervous anticipation. For Bryce and Christie this was nothing new, either having done this race several times before or being a veteran of the multi-

day adventure race experience.  For Barry and I, this was uncharted territory.  This was our first race over 24 hours, and we were stoked.

13 hours later we arrived in Palm Coast, FL at the race check-in mid afternoon offering us plenty of time for last minute grocery shopping, gear checks, and beer drinking.  Unlike other races, our gear and bikes were required to be loaded into U-Haul’s by 10PM.  This worked out well as it forced certain people on our team (I won’t use any names but his name starts with “B” and ends with “arry”) to actually get some sleep the night before rather than messing with gear all night long.

The next morning we loaded the buses  to bring us across the state to the start line at the Wacasassa River on the West Florida Coast.

We arrived at the put-in for the initial paddle leg and squared away our paddle gear and bikes.  Teams had 2 route options if they wanted to clear the 3 paddle points… either head upstream 3 Km to bag CP2 and 3 and then paddle 7 km out to the Gulf of Mexico for CP1, or vice versa.  All teams except 2 (including IMONpoint.org with Shane, Andy and Jen) decided to gets points 2 and 3 first.

Christie and Barry on the first paddle of the race after looking for a CP that didn’t exist

This was some of the most beautiful paddling that any of us had ever done and I even saw a manatee within the first 5 minutes of the paddle, shouting loudly like some kind of excited school-girl.  After being the first team to arrive at where we thought CP2 was supposed to be, and searching for over an hour… we started hearing the dreaded 3 whistle blows from back down the creek.

After turning around we found a volunteer who informed us that the point was misplaced and they were going to restart the race.  Restart the race?!  All of the teams who went after CP2 and 3 (and only paddled a few km) arrived back at race start where we waited over an hour for IMONpoint to arrive after paddling all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and back.  They were in much better spirits than I would’ve been, after finding out that they paddled 3 times longer than anyone for nothing.  These high spirits are likely due to the fact that, as a team, they resemble some sort of science experiment rocket ship made of giant quadriceps. The paddle was downgraded to a single checkpoint which was a volunteer that had paddled down the river with a 20 min head-start.  After a quick out and back to this “checkpoint” it was time for some riding.

Aaron and Bryce on the first paddle of the race after looking for a CP that didn’t exist.

We got onto the bikes somewhere towards the back half of the pack, which was expected when competing against so many Florida teams with some serious paddling skills.  On land is where we gave them a taste of what VA hill country training is all about.  After riding in a large peloton of 4 teams for several km they all split off to CP4.  We chose a different route through the tangle of sandy forest roads, pine plantations and active logging sites in and around Goethe State Forest, passing a lot of the teams along the way.  We came into the next TA feeling good and in 4^th place (Official Barry Red Bull Count: 3).

Night was closing in on our first foot section.  A variety of horse trails, foot paths, and old rail trails that were not on the map made the initial CP difficult, but we soon got our bearings and got the first CP right before sunset.  Everyone was feeling strong and we spent the next 3-4 hours collecting the rest of the foot CPs.   After a quick TA we were back on the bikes for what turned out to be a VERY long bike section.

Night 1: Photo op at a firehouse along the long night bike leg. About 70 miles of riding at this point.

During the 7-8 hr bike movement during the night of day 1 we had our one and only significant nav error, and it cost us.  We missed a turn and when it was all said and done it cost us an extra 4-5 hours and 20-30 miles on the bike that night.  We sucked it up and muscled through Santos Park and the Greenway and still got all of the points for that section including a point on the infamous “Earn ‘n Burn” singletrack.  This was some of the most technical riding I’ve ever done and I think we cumulatively fell more than we all had in the last 2 years combined, leaving looking like we had been worked over with baseball bats in a back alley.   Some highlights include Bryce falling full force bellybutton-to- bar-end and moaning “I think I ruptured my spleen” and me going head first over the handlebars and twisting my handlebars about 20® to the left on my stem…..an issue that I never did have time to fix for the rest of the race.  As the sun rose on day 2, we hit the most flowy amazing singletrack we’d ridden in a while, which definitely raised our spirits as we arrived at the first TA of Day 2 at Greenway Bicycles.  When it was all said and done, that first day/night we rode more than 110 miles, bagging a first “century ride” for every member of our team which was an awesome accomplishment!

Day 2: You can see the pump track in the background and the humiliation in my eyes

Due to the nav error the previous night, we were in the back half of the pack but we were still clearing the course.  As if it was some kind of sick joke, the next section was on the bikes again for a bike-o course that was back on the Santos trails we had ridden the night prior.  Fired up from sunshine, sandwiches, and 6 more red bulls for Barry (Official Barry Red Bull Count: 9ish) we headed back onto the flowy singletrack from earlier that morning.   Feeling good I decided to do a quick lap around the awesome looking pump track that was at the trailhead before getting underway….it was TOTALLY worth it for the first 3.5 seconds before I smashed my face in on a hard corner of what I thought was dirt but felt like brown concrete.  Everyone had a good laugh at my expense, which was worth it for morale, and we proceeded to clear the o-course and power back to the TA for a long foot section.

Day 2: The team before heading out on foot.

“This is where the race really starts”. These words from Bryce haunted me for the first 24 hours, as his theory is that on a multi-day the race doesn’t’ really start until after the first 24 hours.  Somehow, at this point it made perfect sense.  Until then I had been in 24-hr mode, still looking at my watch frequently, looking at mileage, thinking about what I would’ve been doing at home if I wasn’t racing, etc…..after the 24 hour mark the race started to turn into one big day and everything seemed simple.  Just keep moving and focus on the moment at hand.

At the start of the foot section we wouldn’t be seeing our bikes for a LONG time, which was alright by us.  Tiredness was starting to creep up on some of us as we traversed the Florida Trail and the Marshall Swamp, but we kept moving and cleared the 7 hour foot section.  At this point we were still clearing the course and felt good about our strategy and decisions so far.  We arrived at the paddle TA at the Ocklawaha River at around 3PM on Day 2 and decided indulge in some hot food (race volunteers were heating up left over lasagna from the pre-race dinner) and a quick 20 min nap.  I don’t think any of us slept but it felt good to get off of our feet.

The first point on the paddle was in Ocala National Forest and required a put-out and a quick 3km round trip run.  We were able to get this point before dark, but put back into the river with headlamps.  Paddling at night in the swamps of FL with 100 glowing eyes staring back at you from the water was an interesting experience.  Earlier on day 1 we had timed our paddle speed in anticipation of night paddling.  We estimated that to attack CP28 we needed to identify a creek coming in from the right after approx 30min of paddling.  This turned out to be a mistake.  At the 30 minute mark we started looking for the creek, and with the help of another team realized we had overshot the point by several km and were actually in the vicinity of CP29.  So we decided to scrap the point we missed and focus on CP29.  After about 30 minutes of searching we weren’t able to locate it.  The night paddle really turned out to be an issue for us and we missed 3 of the 5 CPs.  In hindsight, we should have never estimated the time and just continued to follow the bends in the river…..and in order to do that I need to get a brighter headlamp.

Day 3: Christie and Aaron feeling totally “rested” after 45 minutes of sleeping on pavement

We finished the paddle in Eureka and TA’d to the bikes around midnight of Day 2.  More maps, more food, more Red Bull for Barry (Official Barry Red Bull Count: ~27).  On this short 1 hour bike leg we found the only mountain in the state of FL.  I swear we were climbing on sandy fire roads for 45 minutes before reaching the dam where we TA’d at Lake Delancy to another foot O-course.

The Foot-O gave a lot of teams issues.  Some teams we found out had actually gone out on the course for several hours without finding any points, returned to the TA and restarted the entire O-course, sometimes taking 6-8 hours.  We had an issue with the first CP but ended up finding it, albeit not even close to where it was on the map.  After that it was pretty smooth aside from the occasional sleep induced hallucination.  At one point I stopped to pee, and as I was running to catch up I swear the rest of the team was riding towards me on Segways!  I was so pissed…..how come I have to run and they have Segways!  Needless to say, after clearing the O-course in 4.5 hours we decided to get our only real sleep of the race and crashed in the parking lot for 45 minutes.   Waking up feeling refreshed it was back to paddle the Ocklawaha all the way to the Intercoastal.

Day 3: Barry’s hair is perfect even when sleeping?!

I have to say it again, the paddling in this race was spectacular.  Some of the most beautiful cypress swamps I’ve ever seen.  We had no issues and bagged all the CPs on the 7-hour river paddle before were spit out back into civilization in the intercoastal waterway.   We hit the Welaka TA around 1200 on Day 3 and we could feel the finish at this point.  All that stood between us was a long bike leg, a foot/paddle-O, and a short bike to the finish!

The next bike leg was LONG.  60+ miles over the course of about 4 hours.  We started having some bike issues as Bryce had split a sidewall and one of my tread seams ruptured.  Some goo packets and tubes later, we were on our way.  The final 15km of this bike leg was along Old Brick Rd.  According to our in-house historian Bryce, The brick road is part of the Dixie Highway that ran from Sault Sainte Marie in Michigan to Miami Beach. It is made of handcrafted red bricks with a Florida twist of slipping and sliding soft sand.…..all we know is that it was BONE-JARRING.  Our prayers were answered when, at the final intersection before we got off the bike, we spotted sweet sweet pavement.

Day 3: The team before heading out on the last big bike section.

The sun set on Day 3 as we rolled into the TA at the Florida Agricultural Museum for the final foot/paddle o-course (Official Barry Red Bull Count: ~147).  With the nighttime fog came some more hallucinations.  Ever seen a grown man (Bryce) tossing sticks at a girl (Christie) in order to “scare off the rats”???….ever seen someone (me) crouch down and creep up on what he thought was a family of baby mice playing in the grass, only to find out it’s a food wrapper in a pile of leaves???  Needless to say it was hilarious as we cleared the foot section of the o-course.  At this point there were 3 CPs on the out and back paddle.  There was no doubt we were going to get them.  As we prepped the canoes and put in, I misjudged the distance between the canoe and the dock and we rolled.  Bryce and I right in the drink.  We got the canoe and our gear out, checked and found out everything was dry, and right then I realized… “Where is the map case”??  The answer: at the bottom of the river.  We tried everything to find it…headlamps in the water, strapping chem-lights to our paddles and searching the river floor….nothing.  Needless to say our o-course was over.  We managed to find our way back to the TA without a map.

Night 3: Back at TA after rolling the canoe, notice that Bryce and I are the only people that look cold.

We ended up riding back to the finish line with the Team Endeavor Racing…..it was like watching the Trail of Tears except instead of the forced relocation and movement of displaced Native Americans it was like the forced movement of adventure racers with 3-days of severe monkey-butt.  The moans and groans of rubbing saddle sores was the only audible noise for miles.  My plan to not sit the entire last 15km didn’t work out and soon I was participating in the sound-off.   We made it though.  Made it back to the Palm Coast Villas where we dropped our bikes and punched our final punch.

We finished in 63 hours, traveling approximately 210 miles on bike, 50+ miles on foot, and 40+ miles paddling.  After the official finish, we had a ceremonial 1km run to the ocean….it felt amazing.  Jumping into the Atlantic at 1AM was, for lack of a better term, a multi-day baptism.  It felt amazing and it always surprises me what the human body is capable of if you just suck it up and keep moving.

Finished with feet in the Atlantic Ocean!!

Thanks Barry, Bryce and Christie for an awesome race!  Thanks to Greg at Pangea Racing for putting on an outstanding point-to-point race experience.  Thanks to all the Sponsors who have helped get us to this point:

• Spokes Etc. Bike Shop
• Blue Ridge Cyclery Bike Shop
• Stans NoTubes

I now understand the multi-day addiction and I’m hooked, really hooked…..when does next year’s registration open?

Next morning with Team Halwaythere.com and IMONpoint.org

Race Reports