Well as we met and headed up to Checkpoint Tracker I knew I'd hear about getting a new bike a few more times and I laughed it off. I figured I could at least finish off this season on it and switch bikes in December.
Now to the race. Checkpoint Tracker had advertised a national level challenge and I was pretty sure that they would deliver. We got half the maps at the pre-race and the usual routine of heading back to the hotel room and plotting CP's started around 9 PM. We were staying in Barkley Lodge on Lake Barkley at Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky. The area was quite pretty - the lake is a great backdrop for the beautiful woods. I was racing with Erik from Utility Mutants. We were up there with Florida Xtreme; Courtney, Jeff, Mark, and Jim. They had raced in Kentucky 2 weeks earlier at the USARA National Championship.
The Race
The race started with really 3 prologs; a little foot loop to create a photo opportunity, a second foot loop with a 200 yard paddle to create a second photo op, and then an orienteering loop. Erik and I stayed near the back of the pack and I used the GoPro to video all the teams - most of which were in front of us.
After we got out of the water we headed towards CP3, and immediately followed a large group of teams up the wrong re-entrant (too far north). We spent a good 20 minutes re-shooting the bearing and coming off the hilltop with the other teams who made the same mistake we did. Doh! Though it is always good to make a small mistake early than a big mistake later. We headed to CP 2 and nailed the small pond quickly. The other teams that were with us disappeared off into the woods to our west even with us calling to them. Oh well - we punched the control and headed to CP1 which was a pretty easy find. The red line is what we ran, (yellow was our plan). When we got back to the boats to head to TA1 it appeared that half of them were gone.
We are pretty good paddlers and teams that were already in the lake and near out of our sight I was pretty sure we would catch. It was nice, cool and sunny. The paddle took us just over an hour - I shot a video of us coming into TA1. As we approached we could see Florida Xtreme already on the long rogaine foot leg. Here is a video of me taunting them as they crossed in front of us. I calculated that they had exactly a 15 minute lead at that point. They had done the early orienteering in the CP1 to CP3 order and that proved to be a better method.
The Rogaine
The next leg of the race was a LONG Rogaine embedded in the race. We had 10 hours to try to get as many CP's as possible. We were going to try and get them all, but it was going to mean going fast AND being dead on with the navigation. The maps are below (in 2 parts).
The strategy took us across the bridge where we quickly found CP7 and CP8 by going up and over the ridges following the lake shoreline. (The red line is our course). CP8 to CP10 was simply punch through the flat area to the road and run to the road bend and head back into the woods. The pond was tricky - but we also had about 6 teams with us at this point. We then punched straight out to the road again and used the power line road intersection to attack CP9. Again a quick find and we had a few teams with us. We decided to head straight across the ridgelines to CP14 where a lot of the teams dropped out to the road. We ended up being faster and that put us in front of a lot of teams. We had CP20 to get before we headed to CP15 (CP36) at the road intersection. CP20 had a large cleared area that had overgrown with briars along the steep slope. This was punishing Erik who was not wearing long pants or leggings and was getting pretty chewed up on his legs. We went over the reidge and dropped down the ridge to CP15. CP15 was a manned CP and seeing Bill there checking in teams gave us a bit of a boost as we headed to CP11. All the teams with us had disappeared by this time, either taking another route or falling back on the navigation. We were alone as we attacked CP11 (up to hilltop after 3rd re-entrant along road). From CP11 we punched straight through the very thick low area to CP16. We passed Tecnu at a stream crossing here and were able to refill our water bottles at the stream. Here is a little video of this crossing.
CP16 to CP21 was our first nav mistake. I somehow got caught up behind another team which drew me off my bearing and left me totally lost. We decided to punch back north to the flat area and re-attack the control. The second time we went very slow and cautious, finally using the double hilltop to the north to drop south to the control. We came upon Yoga Slackers here and got some tips and gave some tips for the upcoming controls (they were coming from the other direction). From CP21 to CP22 we simply followed the ridgeline and went straight to the control. CP22 to CP24, punch to the road and then attack from correct spot on road. We made one bad attack attempt before realizing we were too early, but nailed it on the second try. CP28 was simply trying to hit the correct re-entrant, which we did not - but we did figure out the re-entrant we were on and corrected by following around the ridge line. At this point we were running out of time and decided to skip CP29 and go straight to CP25 - this was pretty easy at this point as was pushing to the road and nabbing CP26. It was starting to get dark so we decided to head back and try to grab a couple more along the route - our route is shown in the red line. We arrived at the TA with a good half hour to spare. There were a few teams taking advantage of the nice warm indoors of the TA - quite a luxury with a real sink (read fresh clean water). We saw Florida Xtreme coming into this TA just as we were leaving for the boats.
It was nice and dark as we hit the paddle to head north to the next TA. I heard teams complaining about the paddle. For me, paddling at night is awesome - it is cool and it allows you to relax a little bit between hard legs. Most Florida teams are good flat water paddlers - we have lots of flat water here and have plenty of chances to work on that skill. The paddle was quite enjoyable and we passed about 6 teams on the water, we also caught up with a few before the next TA. The only challenge was a muddy portage at CP33. At CP33 we had a trek to CP34 where the bikes were staged which we ran (the entire 2 1/2 miles) because we were cold and also to stretch our legs out after the paddle.
The Bike Leg
The bike leg was a lot of dirt roads (some in poor condition) and single track. There is a LOT of single track at land between the lakes. In the day and with fresh legs I would have been in single track heaven. This was an incredible section of single track riding and it was straight forward enough that it was rideable at night. At CP41 we had to build a noodle raft and cross 600 meters of water in 34 degree weather or take a 2 hour penalty - we took the penalty. After CP41 we hit another section of single track that was really fun and the sun was coming up.
Here are some video's of this section - after I could get video with the sun up.
Busting past one checkpoint - LOOK REAL CLOSE at the tree.
At this point of the race we were doing great. We were a bit tired, but were in an excellent position to finish and it was looking like a podium finish. However just when all is great disaster starts. Going up a rise I snapped my chain. We stopped and did some repairs - but as i got back on the bike I knew we were going to have some issues. The chain was going up and down the gears (high and low) with a mind of its own. I thought it might be a stiff link, but was not sure. Luckily the single track was pretty flat here and we were able to progress very slowly to CP47 (next to last one). The ride back to the boats was going to be tough and I was not able to put any real pressure on the pedals as I could feel the crank set slipping. I broke my chain the second time without any real stressing of the chain - a quick inspection revealed that my derailleur was at an angle and was torquing the chain. We were riding along the grass on a road where the pavement was off-limits. We also noticed that this was being largely ignored by teams - however I was not willing to violate this rule and told Erik I wanted to go back to the last TA to regroup. Once back at TA47 we figured that the only way to make the cutoff with the bike issues was to use the illegal road (which was a DQ) - we decided to drop at this point and take a ride to the start. I did take this video of using the bike as a "kick-bike" heading back to the TA (for fun).
Fixing the chain
The Kick Bike
In the end - we calculated that without the bike issues we would have ended up with 43 CP's and a possible 3rd place division finish - BUT even with all the problems we enjoyed ourselves. We raced as a great team - and I'm looking forward to more races with Utility Mutants.
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