I need an adventure race fix bad. Really jonesin’ since my team has been racing without me for the past 6 months doing 3 person races and me always being the 4th man out. I open the mailbox to find this little index card advert for the L&C. I post myself on the teamfinder as I work in Memphis to put a team together. My compadre/AR mentor Scott ‘radar’ Rogers agrees to race and I recruit Laureen ‘superwoman’ Coffelt from another local team. Just like that about 2 weeks before the race we are in. Many thanks to Steve and Natalie McBee for putting us up and putting up with us while visiting the northwest corner of the natural state. We enter the Masters division because we can (old and shameless). Our goals are aggressive, to finish in the top 3 overall and win masters.
The race…….I was totally impressed with everything. Friday pre-race went flawless, well-organized, excellent pasta feed and short and sweet pre-race meeting. All was going well until we are told that the race starts at 3 a.m. Let’s see, yea, 3 hours sleep should do it. After 3 or 4 sue piggy’s (Arkansas is playing Tennessee in football in Fayetteville tomorrow) we are off to the McBee country estate, our lodging, for last minute plans and a few winks.
Up at 12:45 a.m. Dressed and coffee and to the start at L&C. Outfitters. It’s early and cold, 30’ish, as we stage our bikes and are told at 3 a.m. sharp to load up on buses and vans to parts unknown. Our team was following the big orange school bus and when it pulled off the pavement trying to make a hard right turn, not meant for a 38 foot long land yacht, it got stuck in a ditch still a couple of miles from the start. I guess the race directors need a little adventure too. Anyway the mishap delayed the start about 30 minutes so we stood around in the dark shivering and huddling with other teams to stay warm. (big thanks to Dynamic Earth for the body huddle) At about 4:30 we assemble for the start and we are off for an O section with 6 checkpoints. The terrain was very hilly and off trail. Our first checkpoint was A1. I love A1 as many of you reading this do. (after the race we find out a lot of teams had trouble with A1) It’s so fun to get a race started on a positive note…NOT. Evidently we totally overshot the mark and searched for about 15 minutes before giving up and going on to A2, a manned checkpoint where we were told we had to get A1 first so we went back and searched again with no luck. “I’m thinking, oh yea, this is going to be a great race.” After forever we look at each other and decide to go back to the start and reset. Yep, an hour of crashing through the woods, we are right back where we started with nothing to show for it but one bruised rib, several lacerations and a few empty gel packs.. Actually our attitudes were pretty positive still. Super Scott, trusty navigator, who is almost always dead on and a real talent, kept his cool. Laureen who we hadn’t raced with in forever was probably wondering what the heck she had gotten herself into. And me, I was just thinking about the ensuing pain we were about to endure getting back into this race. I had a feeling it was about to get real fast. After resetting we did the whole O course in less than an hour. Scott almost killed us pushing the bushwhacking like a man possessed. I was just back there counting paces and trying to keep up and keep an eye on Laureen who was taken off guard with the pace. (and this is the girl who was second at the Sylamore 50k last year, she ain’t slow!) Perfection this time around and we hit the transition where we received maps for the rest of the race. When we arrived at the TA there were probably 20 teams there plotting maps. We plotted and left transition in a hurry (only one of those teams made it out before us) and we were probably in 10-12th place at that point.
After a few miles of gravel road/trail run we hit the zip line where a few teams were waiting to cross. The crew there made quick work of getting teams across so the wait was minimal and gave us a chance to re-check our plotted points and eat. We made it across the zip line (very fast and fun) and a ¾ mile run to the boats.
I have no clue about the name of the river we paddled but it was really nice. The first 3-4 miles were on a fairly narrow channel with great bluffs and water was moving o.k. Nothing dangerous but helped us make progress. We had to get out of the boat twice to get it over some low spots. (cold feet) After a few miles in the boats the river opened up and the wind (headwind of course) picked up considerably and the current slowed. We were very encouraged as we picked off several boats and it gave us something to work for every time we saw another one in the distance. We had a really good paddle section and I think we ended up passing 5 boats total. After about three hours and around 12 miles, with frozen feet and cold /wet lower limbs we saw the take out. None too soon I might add because I was wasted and cold. When we got out of the boat, I fell flat on my skinny butt ‘cause my frozen legs didn’t want to do what my brain was telling them to do. I think everybody in the boat felt about the same way I did. We worked hard and it paid off.
At this point we transitioned onto bikes. Thank God for wheeled travel. The weather was absolutely perfect on dry land with clear skies and a warming sun. We fueled up and took off. The bike section was solely on country dirt and paved roads with some serious climbs placed strategically by the course directors. It seemed we were either climbing a steep hill to get a checkpoint, to turn around and go back down or fly a downhill to a checkpoint only to turn around and grind back up the same hill. Very cruel. The bike section had a couple of fun problems including Frisbee golf at one checkpoint and some dirt digging and wheelbarrow pushing at another. The bike section was about 25 miles total and in the process we passed a couple more teams and were chasing another the last 5 miles as hard as we could but could never close the gap. We made it back to the finish in a little over 9 hours in 3rd place overall and 1st masters team.
Scott, Laureen and I were very satisfied with our race. Although we had a very sketchy start, we kept our focus and worked hard to get back in the race. Scott’s navigation was superb as usual and as usual it is a real treat for me racing with him. Like I tell my friends who don’t adventure race, I love to watch him work and we compliment each other well. It was great racing with Laureen, she is an animal on the bike and her attitude was so positive. I take something away from every race and this one is no different. This time I was reminded that in adventure racing, the race isn’t over til they pull you off the course or you cross the finish line and that in that span of time anything and everything can happen. Stay positive and never give up.
The Lewis and Clark AR is a jewel. The people were wonderful, the course flawless and challenging, the competition is very good, the hosts gracious. The post race festivities were over the top. Limitless great food and drink. The prizes, well, I have never seen so many prizes in my life.
Finally, if you haven’t done the L&C you definitely should. This group knows how to put on a party. Thanks to everyone involved. We had a blast.
Viva the Rats………….Billy