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Monday, July 31, 2006

Adventures in Adventure Racing - Part 1

OK...I'm still feeling a bit off sleepwise. My body's still not back on track after spending well over 24 hours up and about, coupled with some serious exertion and plenty of time feeling nervous. But I'm ready to report on the race. I'm doing it in two parts...as it was a long race, thus it's a long race report.

The tale begins with Jeff and I heading to race headquarters in two vehicles a little after 5 p.m. Jeff had the canoe on the back of the truck, while I had the bike and all of our boogie boards in the Aztek. As we were stopped at the last main intersection before heading out toward the lake, we saw on the digital sign outside the bank that it was 101 degrees. Since those digital signs rarely factor in humidity and heat index, I'm guessing 105 was more accurate. HOT!

The next several hours were spent checking in and sorting gear and packing it into dry bags and getting our packs as light as possible without forgetting anything important. I'm guessing my pack weighed around 20-25 pounds. Sometimes we'd have our PFDs attached, and once we hit the bike leg I then added on one pair of sopping wet trail running shoes (we were able to leave our bike stuff - shoes, helmets, lights - with the bikes when we dropped them off). So lots of weight on the back.

At 11:30 we were given our maps and we began plotting UTM points. Really, Lori and Courtney plotted UTM points while I held the maps down and used my fingers to mark the large coordinates while Lori did the fine tuning. At midnight we were given the go ahead, but we waited a few minutes to get the last bit of plotting done and headed off a few minutes after midnight.

The race began with a prologue before you could set out toward the first checkpoint. It involved a swim across a small inlet to a tree with a glow stick and a password. I did the swim, and for a moment was excited because I thought I'd get a break from the heat. No such luck...the water felt like a hot tub...it was sweltering. There were a bunch of nasty clingy vines in the water making it harder to stroke and kick, as they grabbed you. When I got across I was so thrilled to see I had to climb a shear muddy incline to get the password. Yippee. Even more thrilled when I saw that the password was actually "password". Sigh. Back across the hot tub to Lori and Courtney.

I'd forgotten this until now, but we weren't the first folks to give the password to the prologue checkpoint folks. So how come they directed the "what's the password?" question to Lori and Courtney who were dry and not to the dripping wet team member, that being me!?!?!

Courtney made our start on the paddle a lot easier by purchasing some wheels for the canoe. The thing is HEAVY and we had a semi-long haul to the boat launch. We made it look easy. The wheels came off pretty easy and we set out for checkpoint 1.

Navigating at night, on the water, is just about impossible. We followed the other boats to CP1 and Lori and Courtney hopped out while I stayed with the boat and punched our card for the CP. Then things got tougher. Lots of boats had gone off in different directions, so Lori and Courtney were stuck reading the maps by headlamp while I paddled the whole time. It was impossible to see inlets or to see if large masses of trees were made up of a single island, or two or three. So we overshot CP2 and 3 and made the choice to just head out and try for CP4.

Prior to this we'd run aground in one of the lake's low spots! I hopped out to pull us off, only to find that after several quick steps on land I somehow ended up to my armpits in water. WTF?!? How was I to get back in without tipping the other two out. This was, for me, my one real moment of feeling athletic. Thank goodness I have fairly decent upper body strength. I managed to heave my chest onto the side, while Lori and Courtney held the boat stable with their legs out over each side. Then I somehow turned into a gymnast as I pulled myself in like I was straddling a pommel horse, and I'm sure Courtney had a great shot of my ass, poor thing. Then I somehow pulled myself forward into the seat, then pulled my legs around. The boat rocked a bit...but we didn't have a tipping scare.

On the water on the way to CP4 we came across something really creepy. If it had been a cartoon it would be along the lines of the Corpse Bride. All through the water in front of us arose these silvery white tree trunks and limbs. They were all of varying height and breadth and were very otherworldly in appearance. The smaller ones were almost impossible to see. I spent the bulk of that leg on the water peering through squinted lids, hollering for hard paddling on one side or another to get us around these nasty spectres. Courtney had a go at them once we punched CP 4, and Lori got us through the worst of them at the end as we made our way off the lake to the bikes. After more than five hours on the water.

We punched in for CP5, got our shoes swapped and put on gloves, helmets and lights. Right before we were ready to head off Courtney's light went out. She didn't freak out...she was calm and simply swapped her nice bike light for her headlamp and we punched out for CP6 and were off. That left Lori with the only really bright lamp, but the first leg of the bike took us through some neighborhoods, so street and porch lights added a bit of illumination.

Courtney had lived in that neighborhood before her move up north to Jasper. So we swooped and swerved through the quiet residential streets and found the checkpoint lickety split. So good to get to one easily. We were able to drop off our PFDs at this CP, leaving them atop our boogie boards for the swim. We quickly got some food down and were prepping to head out for CP7 when I looked down and saw I had a flat.

to be continued...

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Pack Chafe

I'm still muddling over all that went on, so anyone waiting to read about my first AR has to wait just a little longer. It was an experience. I truly enjoyed it. But, I also learned I have a lot to learn!

Blackberry bushes scratched and punctured the legs pretty good during the trekking and bushwhacking portions of the event. But the only real injuries sustained came from my pack (first time I'd warn it for an extended, damp period).

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It looks, and really is pretty minor, but it does hurt and it's going to be sleeveless shirts for a while, as any rubbing really aggravates. Luckily it is the end of July in Georgia, so sleeveless shirts are quite doable! And, yes, I have a matching pretty on the other arm!

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

bikes and boogie boards, canoes and a compass

Well...with the 12, no make that 7 Hours of Dauset behind me (I was on a duo with my fellow Sorella, Linda Demma. We came in 17th out of 18 duos...but as Renee noted they didn't break us apart into 2 men, coed, and 2 women sub-categories, so we consider ourselves to also have finished 1st as we were the only 2 woman duo), my sites are now set on this weekend's 12 Hour Ocmulgee Adventure Race.

The race involves paddling (flat water, but at night), river swimming (thankfully not at night...but there are snakes and wigglies in the water) on a boogie board (with or without flippers - depends on if we want to carry them around afterwards...but the swim is being bandied about as being 4 miles long), biking and hike-a-biking, orienteering (hence the compass), trekking and whatever other silly tasks they decide to throw in. Sometimes you have to sing, dance, do mental challenges.

We're required to carry two liters of water, but we also have to carry some sort of filtration system. Makes sense, because I went through two liters in less than two hours of biking at Dauset.

The big deal is going to be keeping gear to a minimum, while at the same time ensuring we have all of the mandatory items. We have to haul this stuff on our backs/shoulders throughout the event (through water, on the bikes, whilst running, whilst bushwhacking, basically all the time.

Then there's Mother Nature to factor in...the forecast calls for the chance of rain pretty much everyday for the next ten days. Murphy's Law leads me to believe it will hold off until 12:01 Saturday morning (perhaps I didn't mention this race starts at midnight and goes to noon the next day) and then let it rip all over us. We not only have to read and orient on a map at night...we also have to make sure the darned thing doesn't get soaked. They make rainproof mapcases, but still.

Nutrition is going to be key too. Since we're going to be going against our bodies' natural clocks, food is going to be extra important to keep us moving and "with it".

All that aside...I'm really looking forward to it. Right now my team is in a class by itself. We're the only three woman team. In fact we're the only woman team. All the other categories are co-ed or all men at this time.

Couple Dauset Pics

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My duo partner Linda about to swap with me after
her first lap. That's Maconga's own Beth behind her.

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Me, with a silly face, but mud free, before the first wet stuff.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Short(er) but sweet!

The 12 Hours of Dauset, scratch that ... let me start again:

The 7 Hours of Dauset was this weekend, and man did we have fun!

We arrived Saturday morning to what was the greatest landmass comprised solely of popup tents I had ever seen. Seriously, we must have had like 10 tents strung together to form our mass compound, aka, the OMBA/CGC/MAX pit area. It was great!! It was huge!! It was surprisingly well organized!!! It was filled with lots of exclamation points!!!!

Our race got off to a great start. My teammate Charles was setting down some great lap times, and I was able to keep my ave speed right around 10 miles per hour -- pretty good for a 10 mile loop! The skies threatened rain all day long, and eventually the bottom fell out. It was odd though, I wonder what Charles did to piss off Mother Nature, as it was dry on my second lap, rained on his, trail was muddy but no rain on my third lap, POURED on his next lap. Poor Charles! He got all the rainy laps! I got 3 miles into my fourth lap (this time it was actually raining on me) and the race got canceled. I weighed the "continue and screw up my bike, slip in the mud and break my arm, ruin the trail" option against the "bail out now, I bet the tent is nice and dry" option ... yeah no contest there. I bailed. Some hard-core folks (read: Monte and Don) finished their laps and it seriously upped their standings!!

Overall I had a great time. Our co-ed two-person team was scored against the 2-person male teams and the 2-person female teams. For simplicity's sake, ok, that works. But from a competitive standpoint, it just ain't right to score the ladies against the men. Now, I'm a hardcore feminist, and I don't mean anything derogatory here, but if women were of the same physical abilities as men, the Olympics wouldn't have sex-separate events. ya know? So ... maybe next time we can get the promoters (who are AWESOME folk) to break out the male, co-ed, and female teams separately. So overall we finished 13th, and if it had been just the co-ed two-person teams, we would have finished 2nd.

So what's coming next on Renee's Massive Race Calendar of Doom??? VACATION!! Yep, me and Jake are taking a few days off to bum around Charleston, SC. Anyone been there?? We're going bikeless and running-shoe less (as opposed to shoe-less running, which is a whole different sport altogether). After that I'll start gearing up for my next tri at High Falls!

Oh ... and as a teaser ... coming this fall/winter ... CYCLOCROSS!!

Monday, July 17, 2006

Long live long rides

So the 12 Hours of Dauset is now nearly upon us. This will be my first 12-hour event as a duo. I've done them on 3-person teams several times before, but never a 2-person. I was getting a little panicky last week, you know, the usual "what am I getting myself into" thoughts. But now I've calmed down. All it took was one long ride.

First off, "long" is always relative. I don't get to do a lot of long rides. Most of the events I train for are short (again, it's all relative). My norm is the mtb cross country race, 12-18 miles depending on the course, fast as I can. Then there's the triathlons, all sprint distance, and usually over in 1:45 to 2:15. So if I'm on the bike for more than 2 hours, it's a long ride.

Saturday I headed up to Dauset where I met Mark D. for a road ride around the Jackson area. There's a tri coming up at High Falls State Park, and last weekend was pretty much the only opportunity I had to ride the bike course. So we got in a nice 20-mile ride: 1:10. As soon as we finished we chugged some water and met a big group of locals at Dauset Trails for a trail ride. We rode one lap of the 12-Hour race course, and boy was it fun! It combined several elements of the trail that I love, some in surprising new ways! The Huff-N-Puff Extender. Fun. Turkey Trot (in race direction). Fun. Bootlegger. Fun. Climbing Pine Mountain? eeehhh, fun the first time, but I bet not-so-fun after about hour 8.

The best though? Sandy Creek backwards! I've been a long-time lover of riding Sandy Creek the "normal" way. It's faaaast with nice swoops and little drops. When I saw the course profile last week, I was thinking of Sandy Creek and how it's mostly downhill, translation, mostly uphill race way. I was moderately trepidatious. Not after riding it! It was like a totally new trail. I had a blast. As it turns out, it's fun backward and forward!

After lap one we hung out in the parking lot, munching on peanut butter sandwiches and waiting for nightfall. It was just getting dusk so we sat around for a good 30 minutes before strapping on the lights and heading out for a night lap. Sometimes I don't like riding at night. I guess it depends on the trail and the company. Two girls alone out at the Pig Trail kinda creeps me out. Dauset wasn't like that though -- of course it helped that there were about 10 of us. So the night lap went great. Nothing much weird out there to trip you up in the dark. It was so nice and cool by that time, it felt wonderful. I think the night laps at the event are what I'm looking forward to the most.

So that brought the trail tally to a little more than 20 miles in a little more than 2 hours of ride time. Add that to the road ride, and I had a nice, long ride Saturday. Enough to work out the "can I really ride ALL DAY??" jitters.

Sunday I took it easy and am planning one hard ride this week before I start tapering off for the race. I'm extremely anal-retentive and obsessive about making sure I have everything I need, washed, packed, complete with a list -- so I imagine I'll spend a good amount of time Thursday and Friday fretting over my packing. But at least I won't forget anything, and no matter how Charles and I finish at the race, at least I'll get in a long ride.

Now all we need is a fun and creative team name. I was telling my boyfriend that I wanted my team name to be "Team Jan's Not A Doper." Wouldn't that be nice to hear over and over? But Jake (who's racing solo) threatened that if I did, he'd race as "Team Yes He Is." lol.

Any suggestions?

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Gear of a different kind...

Yes, I know. It's been ages since I've posted anything. But I figured some of you were tired of reading about my iron levels and their determination to keep from rising to acceptable levels. So I've been kinda quiet. But I've missed blogging. Missed digital conversations with many of you. So I'm back. Plus, Renee was getting kinda lonely being the only one keeping the blog updated!

So after a long 4+ hour trail ride with Namrita yesterday, and a pretty packed day of paddling and orienteering/trekking planned for tomorrow, I took an easier ride today. I hadn't been downtown on the MTB for months. It was going to be hot and muggy no matter where I decided to ride, so I figured I'd maximize mileage and spin with a road ride on the knobbies. I hit the levy for a little grass resistance work...but the back half hasn't been mown in forever. I soldiered through face high grass for about a quarter mile and decided that was stupid. So I stuck mostly to the asphalt. 23 miles in just under two hours. It was hot and sunny so my tan got another boost. Plus, it was hot enough that the riverwalk was deserted. I didn't have to go offroad to miss trail-hogging walkers who refuse to use follow the rules of staying to the right and ill-mannered children who pay no attention to the fact that folks might be coming their way on a bike.

But the best part of the day was before my ride. Trolling the camping gear aisles at K-mart this morning, getting my individual gear ready for my first attempt at an adventure race. It's July 28th. It starts at midnight. So we'll be trekking in the dark. Paddling in the dark. Trying to find points on a map in the dark. Hoping to correctly read a compass in the dark. Yep...I purchased my first emergency blanket today. It's all folded up tight, looking like compressed aluminum foil. I bought a knife. Down here in GA hunting and fishing circles that's pronounced "NAAHF". I got the requisite compass...and am praying el Jefe will give me a refresher lesson on using it tonight! I've got a head lamp...as my helmet light won't last for 6+ hours of dark. Amazingly this wasn't to be found in the camping area...nor in the do-it-yourself area. It was over in electronics next to the CDs and video games. Weird. I couldn't find a flare or a waterproof lighter. So I'll have to go hit Dicks or Academy.

A few days ago the paper reported a dead 10 foot alligator was found on Lake Tobesofkee. We'll be in and around water for the entirety of this race. I'm hoping that no other modern day dinosaurs are going to be around. The race includes paddling and river swimming...I'm kinda hoping for a rogaine format with the swimming at the very least taking place once it's light.

More on fine-tuning for my first AR coming soon. Of course we've (Renee and I) got a 12 hour MTB race next Saturday. So you may be hearing about that too!

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Carter's L-ache

Yes indeed. My legs did ache at Carter's Lake.

Jake and I went up Saturday morning to prepare our campsite and get in a preride. We knew preriding a place like CL the day before the event was a bad decision for the legs. But we wanted to be familiar enough with the trail to know when to let go of the brakes on the downhills, so we rode anyway. Despite our attempts to take it slow and granny the whole trail, it's difficult not to over-exert yourself on some of those climbs.

The camping was great. The weather was in the 80s and we put up the tent sans rain fly to stay cool at night. It dipped into the low 60s so I was glad I brought a thick blanket just in case! We were up bright and early at 7 a.m. to gather our belongings and drive to the other side of the lake for the race.

The race start was heinous. It was a torture-fest for sure. About 1/4 mile straight UP a road. And when I say UP, think Brasstown. Yeah. Then drop into the trail for a nasty long downhill, which was VERY sketchy!! The rest of the trail continued in similar fashion, up down, up down, up down, repeat. I'm not sure it was actually flat anywhere.

So the legs were hurting from the get-go and I resigned myself to just finishing the race strong and not killing myself trying. That was until I met up with an expert rider on previously mentioned scary downhill (which we rode through at the end of each lap). So as not to be accused of slander, I'm only going to refer to him as 352 -- not that it was his race number or anything ... and not that if you want to know who it was you can look up the Carter's Lake event at goneriding.com

... So 352 comes up behind me hollering for me to get out of his way, that he's an expert rider and needs to pass. Now, I'm familiar with this situation, as I often get passed by the top end of the experts. And every time, I do all that I can to quickly get out of their way. But on this particular downhill, going anywhere but straight down the line down the hill was out of the question. So I told him I couldn't move and he'd have to wait. He insisted quite loud and angrily that I needed to move out of his way. Let me explain, you can't stop on this downhill, and you can't pull over off the trail. It's that steep and sketchy. So I told him again I couldn't move. He proceeded to tell me that "oh well, he'd just have to force his way around me." And that's what he did. And it scared me so bad that by the time I got to the bottom of the hill. I was having a full-blown asthma attack. I was off the bike for 10 minutes trying to regain my breathing. I managed to get back on the bike with the support of a female beginner racer who happened to be at the bottom of the hill spectating. I managed to pedal out the last lap, very slowly, and with rapid and irregular breathing -- all because he couldn't wait the 30 seconds it would take to reach the bottom of the hill.

When I finished, I immediately approached the promoter about 352's actions. They called him over and our verbal confrontation led to another asthma attack. To say I was "worked up" was putting it lightly. He defended his right to pass and made a reluctant and forced apology that wasn't in the least sincere. The announcer defended him saying 352 was a nice guy and had been racing a long time. Well, I've been racing 4 years and have never had another rider treat me that way on the trail. So shame on him!

The good news is, karma always wins out in the end. Come to find out, not long after his "ill-timed pass," as the promotor put it, he broke his rear derailleur and had to DNF. Guess you reap what you sow.

I finished 5 out of 7 and was SO glad to see Jake waiting on me at the finish line! It was a tough race, but I'm glad I didn't let my slow legs and a rude racer get me down.

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum!

On a final note, for my day job I'm a newspaper editor. I occassionaly write. I did a column that printed Sunday about camping in the summer time. To read it, go to http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/living/14980338.htm