Raid the Rock Adventure Race

Prior to this weekend, I’d only been to one adventure race, and it was just a solo sprint-type event (Ozark Extreme- Village Creek). Raid the Rock was a lot different- I raced with Mike and Darryl for Ozark Outdoors Supply, and the race itself was a lot longer.

When I arrived at check-in on Friday, I met up with Darryl and we discussed the plan of action for the race. He informed me that in the co-ed division that the races were often decided by who had the fastest woman on their team, and that I’d be a “ringer” for them. Sounds like a plan! Mike arrived soon after, and we went through gear check and the pre-race meeting, where we learned that the race would start at Burns Park at 5:30am. After that, it was off to dinner and sleep!

Wake up call: 3:15am!

Apparently, with a start at Burns Park, that means that the race could start out with any activity- paddling, trekking, cycling… etc. Mike and Darryl guessed correctly when they thought it would be paddling (based on the mandatory gear including glow sticks, which are hung on the front/back of the canoes if you’re paddling in the dark).

So, we got our maps, went back to our support van to plot coordinates, then headed out to the water. As everyone slipped into the Arkansas River in the dark, the combination of canoes/glow sticks/headlamps looked incredibly eerie.

Oh yeah- now would be a good time to mention that it’s been at least 15 years since I’ve been in a canoe. Luckily, Darryl and Mike were awesome canoe-drivers, so my job was to just sit in the middle and stay in-sync with Mike while Darryl steered from the back.

We punched the first few of our checkpoints (CPs) in the general vicinity of the launch. One required a little up-current paddling, but we generally zipped right through everything and were headed down the river to the first transition as the sun was rising from behind the Little Rock capitol building.

Side note- one CP was on a boat dock that had a large, sleeping wasp nest under it. I had to hold the canoe steady up against the dock while Mike punched the passport. I have a bad phobia of wasps and let the guys know that I’d be exiting the canoe if they came after me. Luckily, the wasps were still asleep.

After about an hour of paddling, we arrived at the transition 1 boat ramp several miles down the river. From there we hopped on our bikes to head back to Burns Park. After weaving through some neighborhoods, we got onto the River Trail MUT. This was my time to be useful- I sat on the front and pulled while Mike & Darryl drafted. It helped us catch up to other teams that had finished ahead the paddling section. However, I think we lost a little time on some of the singletrack with Mike struggling over some of the slippery, rocky terrain/climbs (at some point, it had started raining, and was on & off all day long). About halfway through, we arrived at a huge, steep hill that looked like a former quarry. It had ropes hung down from the top, and we had to climb up with our bikes. That was “interesting” to say the least :) After about 20 miles of riding, we arrived back at Burns Park for transition 2.

At the support van, we changed shoes and refilled out hydration packs. The race instructions were to pack climbing gear with us and keep our bike helmets as well. Unfortunately, we rushed out and forgot the helmets. When we arrived at a righteous zip line about half a mile later, we were forced to go back to the van and get the helmets before we could harness up and cross the river. Crap!

We soon arrived back at the zip line. It was on a cliff high above a small river and crossed down to the bank on the other side. This is probably a good time to mention, I’ve never been on a zip line before, and, based on what everyone said, this was one of the tallest/longest ones they’d experienced.

When the safety-guy told me to step off and cross my legs, I took one fast step and jumped- woohoo!!! Someone was taking photos on the other side. Hopefully I can find those soon…

Once we got moving again on the other side, we found CP22. Then we noticed some ruckus in the woods. All of the other teams who were ahead of us were milling around, and the race director was on his radio. Apparently, they’d been searching for a long time for CP23 and no one could find it. Darryl decided to give it a shot while the other teams decided to skip it. A few minutes later, the race director found us and told us to skip it and move on. We had caught up with everyone ahead of us, but they gained time back while we were searching.

The next few hours were spent running, hiking, and bushwhacking around the park. We went through everything- trails, open woods, walls of privet, briers, swamps, drainage ditches, tunnels… you name it. We found a lot of the CPs quickly, but others took 10-15 minutes of searching. Eventually, we worked our way back into the main part of the park. We went back into the woods for CP46, and, as we were jogging out, I felt a jab on my right thigh. I slowed, thinking I was caught on a thorny vine when I felt a second, harder jab on the back of my left thigh followed by an insane burning sensation…

F*%#!!! HORNETS!!! RUN!!!

I envisioned myself being engulfed by a swarm of evil, angry, flying hypodermic needles full of posion and ran for my life, bursting out of the woods and nearly into traffic on the main road through the park. Holy crap, that hurt- the pain was a burning & aching feeling that extended into the top layers of muscle. It kept hurting all day/night, too…

At that point in the race, there was a time cutoff- if you make it back by 1:15, you get to go out for another 7 CPs. Otherwise, your day is over. We made it in at 1:14, so we headed back out. There were 5 teams way ahead of us, and no one else made it in after us, so the pressure was basically off, and we finished up laughing, joking, and having a good time. We arrived back to the finish about an hour later, 6th out of 17 co-ed teams, and still friends. I’m pretty sure that qualifies as a successful adventure race!

After heading back to Darryl’s house and cleaning up (OMG it felt soooo good to be dry!), I relaxed a bit, ate a snack, and hit the road back to Memphis so that I could get home & rest up for the Clear Creek XC race on Sunday.

Road Trip to Road Trip

So Ryan and I got home from Midland (Michigan) about an hour and a half ago. After unpacking the car, I ran to the store for some groceries and came home to make a quick veggie burger while Ryan started work on my road and mountain bikes. Reason being, I’m leaving for Arkansas in the morning.

My original plan was to run the Midnight 50k tomorrow night, but I haven’t been running at all lately. However, there’s an awesome-sounding MTB race in Eureka Springs on Sunday. Turns out the Arkansas state crit championships are tomorrow (women’s race @ 11:20) as well. So, I’ve got my carbon-wheel brake pads on the road bike as well as replacing the eff’d up granny gear (thanks to Dirt, Sweat, & Gears a while back) and adding some tire sealant to the MTB.

The plan is to leave around 7:00 for Little Rock, race the 40 min criterium, then head to Eureka Springs to pre-ride the race course. Sunday, I plan on racing, then possibly heading over to Devil’s Den State Park for a little recon ahead of the adventure race that will go on there at the end of next month. Whether I go there or not, I still plan on stopping by Lake Sylvia for some distance riding & climbing on the fire roads out there. It’ll be my last long ride/climb before the Off-road Assault on Mt. Mitchell that I’m tentatively planning for the weekend of the 25th-26th.

Epic road trip!!!

Training for August

The past two weeks have yeilded over 43 hours of training- mostly road riding, but also some running and MTB riding. You’d think that I’d be ready for a rest day like today, but I’m pretty itchy to be doing something besides laundry and bike wrenching. This week, I’m gonna cut back a little bit so I can be ready for the Smith & Nephew/ Marx & Benzdorf Grand Prix. I’ll be picking right back up afterward, though, and let that race start another high volume training week that includes some higher intensity efforts on the bike and a little more running.

It’s all in an effort to ready myself for August. The schedule is looking like this:

8th: Bartlett Park Ultras (probably doing the 50k)
15th: Fools Gold 50/100 mile Mountain Bike Race (Goal is to be ready for the 100 miler)
22nd: Berryman 6/12 hour duathlon (Um, 12 hour… duh…)
29th: Devil’s Den Sprint Adventure Race (gonna seem like just a warm-up after the 3 weekends before it!)

So I’ve got to be well-adapted to performing 12 hours of strenuous physical activity in the heat. It’s going to be a killer month, but I think I’ve got a good start on my training base so far. I need to incorporate some longer runs in so that the running during the 1st & 3rd weekends doesn’t kill me too much.

Also, for Fool’s Gold and for the Berryman race, Ryan will probably be off road racing, so if anyone wants to go with and fill camelbacks/kick my butt when I get tired, then shoot me an email.

Time for a Recon Trip

Since part of my success at Village Creek last weekend was due to being a little bit familiar with the park’s layout and trail system, I’ve decided that I need to get out and do some more reconnaissance before the Devil’s Den and Ouachita adventure races. Unlike Village Creek State Park, those are not day trips! So, I’m going to go on a bit of a road trip next week and hang out for some riding/running in both areas for a day or two. Who knows- maybe I’ll stop by Lake Sylvia along the way back.

‘Til then, I’ve got some road racing to do at the Tour de Louisiane down in Covington, LA. Should turn out to be a great training week if everything goes as planned!

New Trail at Nesbit Park

Well… soon-to-be new trail, at least. The guys at MSTA are in the process of extending a portion of the white trail at Bartlett/Nesbit/Stanky Creek park (choose a name… it goes by any of those). I found the trail flags and some partially cleared sections today on my run. Here’s a screen shot from Google Earth. The new section is the area circled in red.

stanky

Village Creek Sprint Adventure Race

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I decided to stick with the sprint category for my first attempt at adventure racing. This meant that the course was generally marked and required only very basic map following skills in order to confirm that you were on the proper trail.

The race started with a 5-ish mile run. Luckily, it was on the portion of the trail that included all of the steep pitches (I consider that to be lucky because I rode most of it earlier in the week, and my Garmin showed that some of the hills were in the neighborhood of 30-40% pitches- much easier to climb when you’re not pushing a mountain bike). I had already marked my main competition- a guy that won the sprint division races last year and the one earlier this year.

Funny side story… before the race, I was talking to another solo sprint guy. I told him that since no other women signed up that I’d be gunning to beat all the guys. He pointed to a guy on the other side of the parking lot and warned me that I’d OK except for that guy, because he always won by half an hour or something. I chuckled and said something along the line of, “meh, no problem.”

So, when the race started, I just set pace with “that guy.” Soon enough, going uphill, I passed him. He paced me. I eventually put a little bit of a lead on him, but my transition to the bike was somewhat slow, and we ended up leaving the transition area together. I’m not sure when I lost him, but by the time I got to the first bike checkpoint, I looked back and he was nowhere to be seen. I knew better than to take it easy at that point and kept pushing the pace. My race almost took a disastrous turn when I was crossing a creek and got massive chainsuck. I got off of my bike and tried to yank the chain out, but it the top and bottom lengths of chain were wedged in between chainrings like a sweaty fat chick in skinny jeans. Of course, about a minute later, I got passed by my mark… Soon after, I fixed the chain by using the screwdriver on my bike tool to pry it out.

I got back on my bike, determined to catch, attack, and drop. I caught up on a hill. I inched up behind him until I was about a bike length back, then pedaled as hard as I could (wanting to look un-catchable), passed him with a quickness, and bombed down the other side of the hill. This guy had some serious upper body muscle, so I knew I’d be at a disadvantage carrying and paddling the kayak in the next stage and needed all the extra time I could get.

The kayak portion generally sucked. The inflatable boats we used spin around easily in the water, but I quickly figured out how to sit in the front and get moving. The worst part was carrying the awkward, heavy boat back up the hill after paddling a mile.

Amazingly, I was still in the lead when I received instruction for the final stage- run to the swimming area of the lake, swim out to a marker, and swim back. I made the mistake of not removing my hat, sunglasses, and hydration pack, so when I got to the water, I flailed around like a drowning rat. I lost what bit of a lead I had. He exited the water just ahead of me, but headed back up the hill rather than going to the course marshall to get his passport punched, so he had to go back- giving me the few seconds I needed to get back in the lead.

At that point, it was all or nothing. I ran across a grassy field (in lieu of taking the slightly longer road). The ground there was literally like swiss cheese- some sort of burrowing animal colony had entrenched itself. I went for broke- I was thinking to myself, I’m either going to break an ankle or I’m going to win.

Luckily, option B occured. I won by about 30 seconds- 2 hours, 32 minutes & change.

Remember the guy I had talked to before the race? I talked to him later and asked if he’d thought I was joking. It was fun. I got a lot of questions after the race- where did I come from, was this really my first race, etc… it was kinda weird. The coolest thing, though, was actually getting to sit down & talk to Kurt (my “mark”) for a little while. I may actually team up with him and another guy to compete as a co-ed team at the Ouachita 12 Hour Adventure Race in October.

It was a good day.The only downside is that I got home too late to pack up and make it over to Mousetail Landing State Park in time to set up camp before dark. There’s a XC race in the morning that I had previously planned on entering, but I don’t want to wake up early and drive over, so I’m just going to do my usual 70 mile Sunday ride instead. I think my legs will be a little tired, anyway.

And for my NEXT trick… (and motivational rant/speech)

I think I’ll run a 23 mile trail (er, forest road) race (The Catsmacker). Sure, I doubt I’ve run more than 10 miles since the Ouachita 50k, but I keep telling myself:

It’s only 23 miles.”

And, no matter how hard I think about it, I cannot see the absurdity of this statement. I know that it’s almost a marathon, that rocks on the forest roads are hard on the joints, that the hills will be long and hot… I honestly think it’s not going to be that big of a deal. Sure, I’ll be sore, but that’s to be expected.

I’ll run ~7 miles today and probably throw in a couple more before the weekend. I think I’m gonna leave early on Friday and do some MTB riding from Lake Sylvia since my last attempt at doing so resulted in massive amounts of FAIL when I arrived to the campsite only to find it closed until the next weekend.

So yes, I plan on riding a bike for upwards of 4 hours on Friday and following it up with a difficult 23 mile run on Saturday. I’ve been thinking about stuff like this for a while. It goes without saying that the general population of people who don’t exercise on a regular basis are dumbfounded by just the thought of riding a bike a couple of hours or even running more than a few miles. However, I’ve grown increasingly aware of the fact that even some of my active “peers” view some of my outings as extraordinary.

I disagree. I think you’re all capable.

I think that everyone has their own standards of what’s “possible.” As long as you have these standards, you view anyone who surpasses them is doing something “crazy” or “amazing.” You’re also setting limits for yourself when you have such standards because, to you, such things are “impossible.” So I’m writing this to encourage everyone who reads it to open their minds a bit and stop thinking in terms of what is within your perception of “normal” physiological limitations and start exploring just how hard you can push yourself. Go ahead- do some two-a-days. Go for a ride or run that’s twice the distance that you’ve ever gone. Do those things on back to back days. Hell, do them on the same day. My point is, stop limiting yourself to the accepted standards of what’s “possible” or “normal.” You can be better than that.

Road Trip

Since Jens Voigt the mountain bike is still laid up in the hospital with a fractured derailleur, I made a late-week decision to take a trip to Chattanooga for the 3 State 3 Mountain century ride. It’s been rainy, but the rain has been patchy, and the weather channel was showing a break in the showers Saturday morning. I was also incredibly bored with Memphis area roads. So, last night I swapped a compact crank on to the BH (not that I can’t get up the mountains without it- it’s more of a question of do I want to go up the mountains without it) and this morning I set out on the road.

I made plans to stay at the Raccoon Mountain Caverns campground. However, when I arrived today, the place was packed… not with just the usual campers, either- it had been taken over for a large Bluegrass Festival! There were tents packed in to every open patch of ground on the property, and people packed in and around them in much the same manner. The guy at the front gate told me that there was room for primitive camping. “How much for one night?” I ask. He tells me ten dollars. Score!

At least I thought.

“Oh yeah, then there’s the price of admission to the festival, and that’s twenty bucks, so yer lookin’ at thirty total.”

I’d like to pause here and say I honestly think that hanging around a bluegrass festival tent farm could probably be pretty damn fun. However, with a long run planned for the afternoon, a century planned for tomorrow morning, and another 70 miles on Sunday, I really can’t justify doing that right now. I’ve got to race a 12 hour in a week!

So I tell him sorry, that’s a bit steep and head back down the road to find a motel. Best Western. I unload the car, change, and head back out to Raccoon Mountain for some trail running. Even though I took a trail map with me, a couple of the turns were not marked and I ended up only getting in about a ten mile run rather than the 15 I was hoping for. I gotta hand it to the SORBA people… that is a first class trail system! We could never have anything that nice in Memphis because people would tear it up the first time it rained. I didn’t pass a single spot that had been rutted or widened.

When I arrived back at the motel, I turned on the TV only to see that the area was about half an hour away from getting slammed by some thunderstorms. That, along with my own hot shower and indoor plumbing made $80 for a room seem not quite as bad. My tent has a rainfly, but I’m pretty sure it would keel over in high winds. Once I was cleaned up, I went to a nearby Chinese buffet where I heard a really good joke courtesy of the people at the table next to me. It was a husband and wife (I’m assuming), two teenage girls, and a ~8 year old chinese girl who appeared to be an adopted child. I wasn’t paying too much attention to them until I heard one teen girl say to the other, “Hey, you want to hear something funny? Hey Caroline (to the Chinese girl), where do babies come from?”

“From China!” Caroline answers happily. Everyone laughs. I giggled a bit myself.

So now I’m back at the motel. The weather forecast has changed, and it looks like tomorrow will be wet. I really wish I had a rain cape. Maybe I’ll go to WalMart first thing in the morning and get something waterproof so I don’t freeze on the descents. I think the weather was a lot like this last year except a little cooler (though apparently it cleared up later in the ride). I’m just glad I’m not too busy racing to do things like this. It’s a nice break, even if the weather is crappy.

Weekend Excitement!

I’m getting geared up for the upcoming Burns Park Adventure Race Clinic on Saturday. I’m hoping to learn a lot- especially from the “mountain bike skills” portion of the clinic since my tech-riding skills are pretty lame right now.

I plan on camping out Saturday night. Where? I’m not quite sure yet. I was planning on venturing out to the Womble trail, but I’m wondering if my time would be better spent making the much shorter drive out to Lake Sylvia and riding the more familiar forest roads in that area. For one thing, I would have time to get in a run (stop by Pinnacle again maybe?) or ride before driving to west Little Rock for dinner (as opposed to cooking on a campfire). It would probably be better for me as far as conditioning goes since I’m planning on entering the Dirt Sweat and Gears 12 hour in a few weeks. I can also engineer my ride so that I make different loops from the campground, which would allow me to do a “self supported” 5 or 6 hour ride rather than trying to pack all at once for a day’s worth of riding into the wilderness.

What do my readers think? Womble? Ouachita? Sylvia? I’m so conflicted…

Oh yeah- before you answer, just know that I’m going to have all summer to go out that way for other adventures…

OT50K Photo

Here I am at the top of Pinnacle Mountain- it’s hard to tell from the photo, but from where I came from, you had to climb up using your hands and some mild rock-climbing skills. It was highly awesome:

pinnacle

P.S. The Skins tights were a little warm, but I think they had something to do with my legs staying “fresh” during the race.