USARA 24 hr Nationals Race Report

Missouri is just not my place for good luck I guess. Here's the quick and sweet, about halfway into the course we were disqualified because I lost our passport. Bummer, out on a technicality and it was my fault too. Long version below.

The race was in Potosi, MO; a very pretty area. We arrived and checked in the night before, there were a lot of big guns out there and Robyn Benincasa was there as a USARA rep and was cheering on the teams, cool, she's a lot smaller than I thought she would be.

The race start was at 7 a.m. at the Trout Lodge, it was cold, temps were in the 20's. We had to split up for the first section of the course, Jim ran up the road to get our passport and then back down to the lake and Sara and I would paddle the canoe across the lake and pick up Jim.

The gun goes off and we quickly split, Sara and I reach the canoes and the madness ensues; canoes falling everywhere (they were stacked three high), people arguing and yelling at each other over who had right to that canoe. Somehow in the madness I ended up snagging a canoe and Sara and I were in the water in 6th place, out of 80. Not bad.

We paddled into the fog on the lake, visually this made for great photos, but it was sooooooo cold out there. Any water that splashed onto the canoe quickly froze. We reached the meeting area just as the front runners were arriving. Jim took a little longer than anticipated, but we still were in the top 20 when we gathered him in and left. This is where the race organizers could've done a better job, we had a two seat canoe for a three person team.

We paddled to the island and quickly nabbed the next CP and continued on. Jim was having trouble getting comfortable without a seat and was constantly changing positions. My hands were starting to feel warm, finally, though I still had ice on the outside of my gloves. We reach the next CP just as the bottleneck started, we were third inline to punch the CP and the line was at least 10 boats long when we left. We finished the paddle and we were in 15th place coming out of the water, doing ok.

Now we implemented our strategy for the start of the race; look at the map, but basically follow the front runners for a while to keep them in our sights. I was a little slow at the start of the orienteering section because my hands were thawing (the previous warming sensation was completely false) and were so painful that I couldn't run fast. Our strategy was working great for teh first 3 CPs, in fact we were catching more and more people. Then we made a small snafu going off trail and lost a few minutes. Then we encountered a trail map with a "You Are Here" on it, that cost us 15 more minutes; who'd have figured that knowing our exact location would throw us off so bad.

Soon we were settled in and one of the teams near us was very familiar, Team Monster Energy was Team Pain Syndicate at the MAR; we were faster then and I knew we could be faster now. We flew through the last few check points and reached the bike transition placed somewhere in the teens. The best exchange of the day was when Robyn Benincasa came over while we transitioned and said,
"What team are you guys?"
"Team Seek Adventure"
"Do you guys have a sponsor?"
"No, not really."
"Man, you guys are scrappy!"

On to the bike, awesome, time to reel in some more teams. We were cruising as usually and within 10 minutes we've already passed a team. We are hitting checkpoints without hesitation and everything is going great. Next thing I know we're passing Team Yoga Slackers, they were quite fast at the MAR and this means we were now cracking into the top 10. The 4th bike CP had a twist, we get there and there's a sign giving us coordinates to the real CP, interesting. We don't pick the best route to get there, but we lose only about 5 minutes. CP 5 is quick and we're blazing towards CP6, right on the heels of another team. We reach and intersection and the other team is there talking to a hiker. He says he came from the right and he started at the campground, that was all we needed, we headed right towards the campground. Well it was the wrong campground and we were then lost for 1.5 hours. Talk about a bummer. We get to the CP in 33rd place (it was only 100 yards to the left when we made the wrong turn).

We keep our pace steady and methodical, we didn't want to blow through any intersections we needed. We were clawing our way back up through the field. The biking was very nice here, mostly singletrack, but it made it difficult to pass. We arrive at the next transition area and we're in 30th place, with several teams there as well. We change over to our trekking stuff and head out, hoping to get to the canoes before it gets dark (and really cold on the water). I was carrying the passport and I switched it over to a pocket in my pack, because carrying it in my short legs didn't seem secure enough for a trek.

Three miles into the trek we're tangled up with the teams in front of us and I decide to do a sanity check on the passport. I reach in the pocket, it's not there. I try some other pockets, still not there. I quickly tell the team to stop (seconds before we were about to splash across a 20 foot stream crossing) and let them know. we check my pockets again and then realize we have to backtrack.

Reluctantly and disappointingly we retrace our steps looking for the passport. We make it all the way back to the previous CP without a trace. We ask if anyone turned one in and the said no, and then they said without it we were DQed. We theorized that some other team might have picked it up or that it blew away with some wind, either way we were out.

The only highlights of this part of the race were when we got back to the transition area the other racers were dumbfounded, they though we had finished the trek and canoe already. The other thing that made us feel ok was that at the same time Team Nike Beaver Creek was pulling out (due to one team mate hurting himself), they were only minutes ahead of us.

So we rode back to the lodge, had a great meal and went to bed early. We heard the next day that everyone was coming off the water freezing and borderline hypothermic, I was glad to miss out on that.

A disappointing end to the season, but it'll serve as good motivation for next year.

I want to thank my teammates Jim and Sara for not making me feel like a schmuck for losing the passport, thanks for understanding.

Colorado Dreaming

I've been in Mississippi for 8 days now for work, man I miss Colorado. That's why this post is just some pictures from some Colorado this year.

BT trucking up Maroon Creek Rd on our warm-up ride.

The road bike posing in front of the Maroon Bells after the climb.

Hanging uot in the cold wind waiting for Andie's leg to start in the Colorado Outward Bound Relay.


My belly button's view of my rides.

Out on a local ride, good old High Grade.

Boom Baby!

My team and I (Team Seek Adventure) just received an invitation to compete in the GoLite USARA Adventure Racing National Championships.

Time to saddle up and redeem myself!

Nov. 2 -3 near Potosi, Missouri

Follow the action on race day with live updates on the USARA Website

The Buildup Is On

After being out of commission Monday with a 1 day cold (that's happened 3 times in the last 6 months now) it was nice to get out and ride again.

I hopped on the non-commuter road bike for the first time in a while. Wow, that's a fast bike, even with me running Andie's heavier wheels right now. Just an hour spin around Bear Creek Lake Park, just me and the cyclocross guys out there.

One of my teammates recently reminded us to "keep training in case we get into nationals.", like I would stop anyways. If I'm not training for AR, it's something else; right now it's a two-headed monster, the Las Vegas Half-Marathon and 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo, which actually combine to be pretty nice AR training.

The LV half is one of the best HM courses I've seen, this should just plain be fun, maybe I should do it as one of the Running Elvi.

24 HOP I will be doing solo, this will be the A race for me and I'm sure I will have a lot of fun prepping for it. Hopefully this year will be more winter riding and less indoor trainer riding. though Andie found me a super sweet Kurt Kinetic Road Machine at the REI garage sale while I was out racing in Missouri.

An interesting thing about the 24 HOP is the running LeMans style start. A lot of 24 hour races start this way to thin out the crowd, I wonder if I can get the hole shot for the run. Time to do a few strides in my biking shoes.

Berryman Adventure Race

Here it is, Team Seek Adventure's attempt at qualifying for the National Championships.

Thursday September 27th, evening. We all meet at my house before departing for Missouri. Jim there's with a nice surprise, our first sponsorship! Jim had been in contact with Crocs and had worked out a gear sponsorship through them. So, with our new footwear on (their socks are uber-comfy BTW, but if you're borderline on the sizing go with the larger) we loaded all of our gear in/on to Joe's suburban.

Joe, like he was possessed, drove entirely through the night and got maybe an hour of car sleep in the morning while I drove, maybe he didn't trust any of us to drive. ;) the drive to Missouri is long and pretty uneventful, 16 hours. I got to catch up on some movies I had never seen, but nobody would let me put in Deliverance until we were on the way out of Missouri, now I know why.

Of course we were short on time after we arrived and we scrambled to get our gear in order and then get some sleep before the race, too bad we couldn't have arrived a few hours earlier.

The race started at 5 a.m. on Friday with an orienteering leg. The race was all bunched up through the first 3 checkpoints. We had one glitch in going for the 4th CP that cost us about 15 minutes, but everything else went smoothly. We came out of the morning mist and into the first transition area in 18th place.

We quickly changed over to our bikes and headed out. We climbed up a hill and then bombed down the other side, that's when Sara told us we missed the turn at the top of the hill, dang. Back up we went and then shortly after getting back on course Sara's pedal fell off, we put it back on. Two minutes later, it comes off again. We investigate a little more and it seems as though her pedal bearings are seizing and her crankarm is starting to strip. We get some lube in there and swith out a pedal from Jim's bike and we're going again. 30 minutes later Jim flats, man, these delays come in bunches. Luckily, biking is our forte and we are passing teams all the time now. We arrive at the next manned CP in 14th place. Most of the route is on the Ozark Trail, an extremely beautiful singletrack that is actually hardly discernible at times, at least it was daylight.

We get to the TA in 9th place, heck yeah, we're in a groove. We fill up our bladders at a clear and cool natural spring and get going. It turns out we took the long way, but we still maintained our position and got to the canoes in 9th place, 1 hour before sunset.

Canoing is wonderful, I'm so used to paddling ridiculous inflatables that these feel extremely nimble. Jim and I are in one boat, while Sara and Joe are in another. I'm in the back, controlling the direction and Jim's just adding horsepower up front. We get into a rhythm and are making great time. We hit the first CP right at sunset, the next three would be done in the dark. This is when it gets fun. Jim and I come around a bend in the river and there is a local there running a generator and big lights on a section of the river. this is nice because we can see the rapids, what isn't nice is his advice. I was going to go straight down the middle, but he wasw frantically yelling "Go left!", now this might've been "Don't go left!", but none of us heard it that way. By the time we realized we shouldn't be on the left it was too late; we hit a tree and then quickly dumped the boat. Swimming at night sucks, we lost our high powered headlamp and about 50% of our food (the biggest problem). Soaking wet we finish out the river leg, very slowly though as our light situation was less than ideal.

We pulled out at 11 p.m. and I quickly changed into some dry clothes so I wouldn't freeze. The next leg was trekking so off we went. The first two CP's were in the middle of nowhere and were a challenge to find, but we got them. On the way to the next one I fell apart. I had a detached head feeling, I was stumbling a bit and I was going pee every 10-15 minutes. I was going through what it could be in my head and things like hyponatremia, caffeine overdose and just plain bonking kept coming up. Finally, I had to make the team stop and try to sleep for 1.5 hours, this only got me to a point where I could be towed. 5 or 6 teams passed us during this.

We get to the end of the trekking leg and by then I think I had figured out that it was the caffeine that screwed me up, I had taken the equivalent of 3 cups of coffee in 2.5 hours, but since I stay away from caffeine at all other times that was enough to do it for me. No more caffeine during races!

We transistion to the final bike leg in 14th place, ugh. Shortly after starting the bike I felt fully recovered, it only took 11 hours, and we were back to chasing down teams. We passed 2 teams during this last leg and finished in 35.5 hours. It looks like we were 15 minutes too slow to qualify for the National Championships, but we'll get the official word later.

~35 miles of Trekking
20 miles of Canoing
83 miles of Biking

Even if we don't qualify it was a good race and I learned even more about what my body will do when pushed in different ways, though I would really like a chance at redemption in Missouri at the USARA National Champs.

Fall is so lovely

I love riding in the fall. Less crowds and more of this:50+ miles and 17 of it was on singletrack just like this. I did see a few people out, but once I got to the Indian Creek trail it was pretty solitary other than the group of three on Blacksheep bikes I saw (one of the guys was the actual builder for Blacksheep bikes), a lot of titanium in that group.

I'm back

Just got back from the Berryman Adventure Race in Missouri. It was a good time, I'll add more details later. A few things slowed us down, but we might have still qualified for the national championships, we'll find out shortly.