Saturday was my first adventure race. A fellow triathlete had placed a post on a triathlon board for a race near Toccoa, Georgia that had teams needing replacement members. The Raging Russell was billed as a 7-10 hour race including paddling, running, hiking, mountain biking and navigating. As a triathlete and an Ironman, I figured I could hang with almost any group who could navigate through the course. My technical mountain bike skills would be below many mountain bikers’ level, but I figured I could make it up on flats and uphill. I decided to respond.
After a few emails and a phone call I ended up on a team with a few guys from Chattanooga. Matt seemed like a great guy and had done a few races before. His partner had been racing with him the entire time. They had a 30-hour race under their belt, as well as a win in a shorter race. It sounded like a good fit. Then they asked if I had any navigating skills- oops! I said that I had good map reading shills from my time working as a courier, but nothing in the woods. I found a tutorial about navigating in the woods, and using UTM coordinates. Matt and I both read up and figured it was a go.
Race morning we met up at race site. Matt's partner had pulled out of the race with an injury, and a young guy, Tyler-whose name I could never remember, was filling in. This would be his first race also. "Up the Creek" was a team comprised of a 20-year-old, a 30-year-old, and 40-year-old; the last one would be me. Only one guy had experience in adventure racing, and none of us much navigation experience. Two of us were on borrowed bikes, and were carrying borrowed equipment. On the mountain bike segments I would be styling in a pair of "Van" BMX look-alike cleated shoes. Ben would be our support guy- a very friendly and funny guy who turned out to be an invaluable member of our team.
When we were packing up our gear and were deciding whether or not to carry a snakebite kit, I shared with the team the joke of the two guys out hiking. One of them gets bit on his private parts by a snake. The other guy dials his doctor on his cell phone. The doctor says that the guy has to cut the snakebite and suck all venom out of his friend's wound, or his friend will die. The guy turns to his friend and says, "The doctor says you're going to die!"
At 7:00 AM all 26 teams were given race packets. We pulled four UTM plotted maps out of the envelope with the passport. We quickly plotted the racecourse, by the UTM coordinates we were given. I put a big 'X' at the checkpoints (CPs) and drew the route with a highlighter. I numbered the CPs in order. When we were satisfied, Matt, Tyler and I hustled off.
Our first leg was a two-mile run to the paddling section. On that first run a puppy that lived in the wooded area we started from ran with us. He was excited about all the company and activity. Earlier that morning, one dickhead had been throwing him around trying to get him to stay away from a dog they had brought to the race site. I figured since the puppy lived out there, and we and the other dog were visiting, that this was not cool. I don't know what the leash laws are, but you don't treat a puppy badly; it is just not done. The race started before I could berate the guy, so I let it go. As we were jogging the puppy was a bit of a bother, but he was having fun, so no harm was done. The puppy ran up to a team just ahead of us, and was playing with them. One team member turned a kick the little puppy in the side, hard!
I yelled, "Hey ass-wipe, lay off the puppy!"
The guy turned and stared at me and said, "Huh," with the look of a guy having the same I. Q. as Anna Nicole Smith.
I yelled again, "Don't kick the puppy, asshole!"
The guy just turned and ran on. I was hoping I would not get DQ'd for cussing at another competitor, but I didn't think the guy would complain to race officials. I can just hear him, "I was kicking a puppy, see, and this guy cussed at me."
At the first checkpoint all we did was pick up kayaks. These were real kayaks, not some cheap inflatable ones. I was thrilled. I asked Matt and Tyler if they had any kayaking experience. They said no. I figured we could just keep a steady pace, and make up any lost time on the bike and running. We actually did very well. I looked at the passport, and it seemed that the second check point was just a cove, and it looked like we did not have retrieve a 'word' or anything there. So we started to skip it, but I looked again, and read that we did need to get a word. I hustled in the cove and found the CP card, which had a picture of a funny bug on it, and sped off to catch my teammates who were continuing downriver. We hit the third CP with 2 other teams, including the puppy kicker, and figured we were in the top 5.
Our first navigational error came at CP 4. We ran over a bridge and did not get the ‘word’. I was just learning that if there was a CP, there was always going to be a word or something to prove you had been there. We had to stop, let the three teams we were running with continue, and send Tyler, the youngest, back to get the word. We lost 20 minutes. We were out of the top 12 after that. I stressed that we just keep a steady pace, and you never know what happens.
We went through 3 more checkpoints on the run. During that time we were trying to run back through some of the teams that passed us on the first error. I was following a girl through a very tricky part on a river's edge when yellow jackets stung us both. Her sting was on her leg, and mine on the middle of my right butt cheek. This would bother me the rest of the race. After a few nasty uphills and some very technical trails, we hit the checkpoint where we got our bikes. We were just out of the top 10, but had all the CPs completed. If you miss a CP you get a two-hour penalty, which is death during a 7-hour race. Ben had all our gear out. My teammates were sitting down and changing shoes and goofing with their bikes. As a triathlete, I know the value of fast transitions, so I was yelling to keep moving. As we were getting on our bikes, I told Ben that I had been stung on the middle of my ass, and he needed to help with that. He said, "You're going to die!"
We did well on the bikes. I was stronger uphill, and they faster downhill. We balanced each other out well. The first checkpoint on the bike was to find the word on the trail between two stream crossings. Matt and Tyler got up ahead of me, and I made a turn and saw two very small stream crossings. In the middle was a big mud puddle. Matt and Tyler were standing in the middle of this mess. I was wondering what they were doing when I saw Matt reach up and turn a hanging piece of wood to get the CP word. We did not say anything but Matt and Tyler started to walk out of the puddle when three teams came racing buy yelling to get out of the way. None of them noticed the hanging piece of wood, and we said nothing. We rode off and at the next stream crossing I got my front wheel stuck and did a face plant into the water. At the next checkpoint, by a pond, we saw the 9th CP word. There were 2 teams there, and they asked us if we saw the 8th CP. We just said yes and continued. A mile up the road, pavement began, and I knew we had to go a mile, and then fork. We passed 3 or 4 teams who were looking at maps, and trying to figure out what was going on. The puppy kicker’s team was lying by the side of the road. I asked if they were okay, thinking they might have had a mechanical. They yelled that they were lost and had missed a few CPs. I knew their race was over. I smiled at the puppy kicker.
We continued, and made a turn after a green mailbox onto a dirt road. I made the team go a quarter mile to get out of sight- we did not want to help others trying to catch up with us. We checked the map, and I had to ride back to get the mailbox number, our CP ‘proof’. Another few minutes wasted. Then we were off. At the next CP we dropped off the bikes and went back onto foot. Ben said we were 6th. We hustled through the transition, as I stressed speed to my teammates. Ben filled up all out water bladder, and scolded Matt for not drinking. He had a full hydration pack and a full bottle on the bike. Matt was starting to weaken, so we knew he was dehydrating. We left the CP in 4th place. I spent every 50 meters telling Matt to drink. He probably came close to hitting me.
The navigating was tricky for this next part. We went down a trail, around a barricade, and then made a sharp right off the trail and bushwhacked through the woods. We were following a course marked with ribbons since this was not marked on the map. The ribbons were green and blended in with the leaves. Another team caught us, and we made it through the woods together. We hit the next CP under a railroad trestle, and then hit some steep Georgia clay hills. There was no shade, and Matt was still hurting. The other team left us.
Right before the next CP we hit a mystery event. The team that had left us on the hills was stuck trying to figure out the puzzle to the task. We tried it and could not quite get it. I stopped us and just looked at the situation. The answer came to me. We completed the task and ran off leaving the other team. They had seen my solution, and so would be right behind us.
Ben was jumping up and down when we hit the transition for the last leg of the race, which would be on the bike. I asked how far the other teams had on us, and he screamed that we were in first. Our adrenaline surged as we put on our gear that Ben had spread out to dry in the sun. We hustled out on our bikes for the two hours ahead of us on the bikes.
As we hit the road we stopped, and I looked at the map to make sure I knew how to get to the next CP. I saw three right turns and then follow the trail to the old grave. The only problem was that there were four turns. I had misread the map. We lost 25 minutes, and first place. Our adrenaline dropped and we struggled through some very hard terrain for two hours. We were exhausted, tired, cranky and just plain beat. Many of the hills were so steep we had to walk the bikes up. We thought the end was on top of every hill or around every corner. All we saw were more hills. Then Tyler got a leak in his tire. It went flat. We used a CO2 cartridge to ‘juice’ it, hoping the air would stay in long enough to get us to the finish line. We did not want to change a tire. We had to juice it 3 times before we finished.
At the finish we did one more mystery task and were done. 7 hours and 40 minutes for team “Up the Creek.” Three teams had finished before us, but one had missed a checkpoint. We ended up 3rd overall out of 26 teams and the 2nd male team! Not bad for my first race. We got some nice goodies for our effort, including some very nice $70 headlamps. It was a great race, by some great people, benefiting the United Way.
My friend Bill had warned me that if I did one of these races I would become hooked. He was right. I have already talked to two of my training partners about racing soon. Hopefully my navigation will improve.
your note []Copyright 2002 Tim
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