This was
the first Urban Adventure Race for team Greenhorn and it was quite an
experience and challenge. The course was well planned and we could tell the
race directors had spent a considerable amount of time coming up with
checkpoints in interesting locations.
The start
time was 4:30 am. However, I’ve competed in a race that started at
12:00a.m - with no sleep at all and this seemed like a blessing
compared to what we were expecting.
Trekking
The race
started out well for us. Bob towed me for the running portion of the
race, and although we had to endure a few jokes and comments (apparently some
have not seen a tow used for adventure racing) this enabled us to be one of the
first teams back at the TA area.
Transition Area
We ran to
the nice, big, HQ tent to map out the course for the day. Upon seeing
that some of the first few checkpoints were around the lake, we were
unsure of what route to take - there was no trail on the map
and we hoped there would be some kind of trail that looped the
lake. We tried to plot our points as quickly as possible and worried
about the advantage the home teams had over those of us who were from out
of town. We ran to our bikes and unfortunately underestimated the amount of
time this race was going to take and I didn't grab enough candy bars for an
entire day (usually we are done with a 12 hour race in 7 or 8) Matt was
trying to put on his helmet and I told him we needed to get going to
follow the others teams rolling out.
Biking
We hustled
out of TA and followed two other teams right up to an awesome singe
track trail that (sure enough) looped around the lake. It was a
lot of fun, except for jam-ups and this guy in front of me that kept
falling over on his bike. At one point the trail split off and there
seemed to be people on bikes everywhere. We blindly followed a team
taking a right on the trail (they didn't miss a beat on the turn so we knew
they had to know where they were going) and I laughed when some guy
on another team behind me commented on how in a situation like this all
you can do is follow a team that looks like they know where they are going and
hang on. That's exactly what we did up to the highway. We rode our
bikes to a farm without too much incident, and except for being passed by
quite a few teams (that's what happens when you don't ride more than a
couple times a year) we were happy when we made it to the canoe
put-in.
Canoe
The canoe portion of the race had a distance that wasn't really too bad - except for the low water, and portage we had to do. (also the hunters hiding in the grass was scary) We saw many teams pulling out their canoes along the left side of the bank, which made us second guess our plotting, but we looked at the terrain on the map which told us we had further to go. After obtaining the checkpoint needed we turned around and headed back to CP 5 which was easy to find (whoever tore it down should be ashamed – that’s poor sportsmanship) Again we got passed by numerous teams, a frustrating time really, but we chugged along right past checkpoint 6 without realizing it until we took out of the canoes and expected to get a punch on our pass card. That's when a volunteer tried to tell us the next checkpoint was up at the farmhouse. I stopped and looked at him, and asked him if we were at checkpoint 6. All he would say is the next checkpoint is at the farmhouse. I told Bob to pull out the map and we looked at the terrain of where we plotted 6 and realized we had blown right past it. We took off on foot down a jeep trail knowing that many other teams had done the same thing and thought 6 was at the farm house.
Sure
enough, after obtaining 6 and heading back through the woods we were met by
multiple teams who were looking for 6 as well. I felt better about our mistake
and we grabbed our bikes and went up to the farm. We had to climb over
some hay bales (a special event we had at the Berryman) and we obtained our
plots for the next portion of the race.
Biking 2
At this
point the wind began to blow very strong and it felt like rain was coming.
I was getting cold from not moving during map plotting and wished I had worn
pants instead of bike shorts. We took off again on the bike, and, once
again, were passed by a ton of teams. More frustration. Torrential downpours began that felt like
hail, a gunshot went off that sounded like it was only a hundred feet away… At
least we could follow teams back into town since we had no idea of which way to
go (other than looking at the map) we followed teams to the park, and then
headed up some quad-burning hills that just about did me in for the day!
It felt like it was 5 o'clock in the afternoon and I asked Bob what time it was
and it was not even Noon yet! We made
it to a section were the race directors required us to hike-a-bike down a huge
hill. On the way down, Bob slipped on a
wet rock and jammed his foot really bad.
We thought it might be broken, but fortunately he was okay. On the way back up I saw another person slip
on that same rock – treacherous terrain.
Back at the top on the road, we saw two angels in a Red Bull car pull up
and provide us with a complimentary sugar high that tasted like nectar! Ahhh…maybe I could finish this race after
all! The next few checkpoints we ticked
off pretty quickly until we made it to the rappelling section. The teams were moving fast down the wall,
but we still had to wait at least a half hour since we showed up behind about 7
or 8 teams.
Rappel
I hate
heights but I could tell Bob and Matt were exited about this event. When it was finally our turn, I was feeling
sick but I knew I had to get through this as quickly as possible to try to
catch the teams already finished – the rope was getting very hot towards the
bottom of the rappel. We hoped back on our bikes and we rode down a street that
had way too much traffic and left our bikes in exchange for the last set of
checkpoints.
Trekking
Finally,
the trekking section! Usually this our strong point. We started jogging, ran up and down hills, up a tower with an
incredible view, made it to the gym for the mystery event, and then more
jogging. I wish there could have been
more choices on the route back to the HQ, but there was only one way to really
take. We didn’t catch any teams at the
end, except for one that mis-plotted a checkpoint and I was fantasizing
about the food and drink I would consume at the end. We finished 15th overall. Terrible placement for our team, but we vow
to do better next time.
I would definitely recommend this race to all levels of racing. The race and dinner were very well planned and the pre/post race food was excellent! The swag bags were better than USARA nationals in 2003, and we loved the racing shirts. Thank you to the race directors and supporting staff and anyone else who worked to bring this race together, we had a great time.
Erica