Sofa King Hot and the Cable of Death

So this year Ross and I were hoping to do the long version of the Spread Your Wings Adventure Race at Camp Eagle. We were both really looking forward to it. Apparently we were the only ones. Bern hadn’t been riding or running much lately so she gracefully bowed out. Sebastian swore he’d never ride his mountain bike again after the race last year and I honestly don’t think he has. And lastly, Jordan decided to graduate from college and get a real job. Freaking real world.

For a few weeks I kind of gave up on doing the race since we couldn’t pull a 4 person co-ed team together. Finally about 3 weeks out from the race I called Ross and said “Hey man, let’s just go do the race for fun as a two person team.” We hadn’t been spending much time training in the heat but we decided that it would a good chance to get away for a day or two, make it a ‘training event’ and hang out with some fellow AR folks. And so we did.

We were up early the morning of the race and had set all of our gear up the night before. Just like the previous year, we decided to TA out of our room which worked out rather nicely. At 7:30 a.m. Robyn and Art went through the pre-race meeting and were emphatic about the need to hydrate hydrate hydrate. Temps were expected to be in the 100s with a heat index of 110. It was going to be a scorcher.

Above: My pre-race set up of 'stuff'

This year the start of the race was a little bit different. At the word “GO” a map was flashed on the big screens in the pavilion. The map had 4 or 5 checkpoints that were scattered around the ‘play area’ of the camp itself. This first leg is really just designed to spread the teams out a bit. It didn’t matter what order you got them in so we set off on foot and quickly rounded them up.

The second leg was a biking leg and was essentially navigating a series of trails to pick up a few checkpoints. They’ve been reworking a lot of the roads and trails at Camp Eagle so this wasn’t as straightforward as it may have seemed. At one point I took us down the wrong road and we ended up having to bikewhack (that’s bushwhacking only you have your bike too) up the side of one of the rocky hills. As hard as this was, it would prove to be one of the easier tasks of the day. Towards the end of the bike leg we did a little more bikewhacking to shave time off of the leg. When it’s blazing hot outside, there’s a lot to be said for working smarter, not harder.

Next leg up was the swim leg. I thought it was a little odd that this was so early in the day. Even though it was already 95 degrees or so outside, I was thinking they’d save this for later in the day when it was 100 plus. Anyway, we hit the big water slide and flew down into the cold Nueces. Man that water felt AWESOME. We made quick work of swimming to the 3 checkpoints and were back at the Pavilion in no time for our next set of instructions.

Above: Sunrise at Camp Eagle

The fourth leg turned out to be a rather interesting leg. This leg consisted of a number of “fun camp” type things to do. Ross and I both had to take a turn on a “Mountain Scooter” It’s like one of those Razor Scooters that the kids use only it has mountain bike wheels. At one section I had to shoot 3 cans off a rail with a 22 caliber rifle. I’m an ok shot but these weren’t the best guns in the world. Probably the toughest thing on this leg was what they called the “Mine Maze”. This is something new that they have recently put in at the camp. When we arrived at this leg, there was a girl standing at the entrance to the mine. It quickly became apparent that we would need our headlamps which we had left back at TA. Ross suggested that we skip the checkpoint which wasn’t something I wanted to do. Even though we were just racing for fun, my logic was that if we somehow came in with the fastest time and skipped a checkpoint and were beat by a slower team that got all of the checkpoints that he’d be pissed. Long story short, we ran to the room got the lights and came back. Now, to enter this ‘mine’ you had to crawl through 20 or so feet of drainage pipe. This was a little weird. For anyone who is claustrophobic, this would have been a nightmare. Once down inside the mine, you could tell that the ‘mine’ was really a series of large buried railroad car sized containers. A couple of problems down here showed up right away. The first thing was that there was absolutely no fresh or moving air inside of these things so it was oppressively hot and hard to breath. That caused us both to sweat profusely and get ridiculously hot in a hurry. Not only that, but this truly was a maze and it wasn’t nearly as easy to get out of this thing as we thought. We probably spent 20 plus minutes in this thing and it just sucked the whole time.

Above: The "mine" entrance and the tunnel. Claustrophobic much?

Once we finally got out of this damn thing we grabbed another checkpoint nearby, then one in a mud pit and then ran over to do the rappel. We timed the rappel pretty well this year and got there when plenty of ropes were free. This year they had us use the figure 8s to control the decent. For me it’s a little easier to move quickly down the face of the cliff. The only problem with doing this is that the friction of the rope in your hands gets hot pretty quickly. I only had my bike gloves so it was a little challenging to move fast and hold on the way I wanted to. Once I got to the bottom, I did a fireman’s belay for Ross and that was it. Rappel done. Check.

On the way back to TA we guessed that we’d be doing a paddle section next and we were right on the money for that one. It was sofa king hot at this point that I spent as much time in the water getting wet during the paddle as I did actually paddling. There were only 2 CPs but they were at opposite ends of the river. The hardest part here was portaging the kayak UP the dam. I’m certain that kayak was full of water. It probably weighed 300lbs to 400lbs. Other than that, it was great to be in the water and cool off again.

Back at TA, we picked up the coordinates for what would be our 2^nd biking leg. This looked to be fairly easy as we only had 3 CPs to get. We knew exactly where the first one was….the windmill. The freaking windmill. It was probably 2 p.m. or so at this point. Blazing hot. Those of you who are unfamiliar with Camp Eagle, the windmill is a well known location as it actually has a water tank and potable water. It’s also one of the highest points at the ranch which means lots of climbing on the bike…in the heat. Anyway, we saddled up and moseyed on up to the windmill….slow and steady. Once we got there we both felt like we were going to die. How hot? Sofa King hot. I kicked of my bike shoes, dropped my pack and just jumped into the tank of water to cool off. I didn’t even give it a second thought. Damn that water felt amazing. We probably hung out in the water for 5-10 minutes to get our core body temperature down and put some life back into us. Once out and with our gear back on, we started heading to CP 17 which was just down the way a bit.

As sort of a psychological game I was hoping to play with myself I said to Ross: “Hey man, it’s like 90 degrees outside, with this breeze and the wet clothes, it doesn’t feel so bad.” To which Ross said: “Wrong. The temperature on my bike computer says it’s 109. It’s sofa king hot!” Thanks for that little kick in the nuts there my friend.

So we made it over to CP 17 and found that rather quickly and then took off to CP 18. CP 18 was in the same general area where we had trouble with another checkpoint last year. This whole area is essentially a dry draw/creek bed that runs northwest to southeast. The whole thing is probably a mile or more long with several minor draws that shoot off of it. It’s one of those spots where everything looks the same and unless you’re really freaking good with a map, you can spend all day looking in the wrong spot. When we rolled down the corner into the creek bed, we saw a series of bikes beside the trail and I fell prey to a common racing mistake that goes a little like this: “Hey…here’s some bikes….these guys must know where the CP is at.” The problem here is pretty obvious. It’s the assumption that another team knows what the hell they’re doing which, a lot of the time, they don’t. So we stopped and looked around for a minute and it just didn’t look right to me. So we went farther down the creek bed to an area that looked a little better to me but it still wasn’t right. At this point I wasn’t exactly sure where we were on the map and blind guessing while you navigate is just a bad bad bad idea. We were spending way too much time on this CP and Ross mentioned skipping this one as well. We then had the same conversation that we had earlier about missing one CP and having some slower team beat us because they had all of the CPs. In my mind, we had been moving along rather nicely, not having any big issues and thought that we might actually place. I mean if we were hot, having minor issues and we sort of know what we’re doing; there are plenty of other teams that were probably completely lost, having problems with heat or just generally not doing all that well because things just weren’t going right. I remember passing one team with this guy was sitting on a rock and all he could say was…”It doesn’t exist.” I asked him what didn’t exist and he said “CP18 doesn’t exist.” Awesome motivation.

Anyway, at this point Ross decided to head on down the road to a trail intersection and count the distance back as a way to hopefully find the CP. I rode down to follow him and then stopped in a large open area to look at the map again. As I did, it hit me. This open area corresponded exactly to a large clearing on the map. A double check of the peaks in front of and behind me and I knew exactly where we were. As Ross rolled back up with his distance calculated, I let him know that I knew where we were….only he didn’t believe me. He was certain that we couldn’t navigate off of terrain features alone and told me as much. I told him we needed to go about 100 meters back up the trail and then veer off into the draw for the checkpoint. Still he wasn’t convinced. We hopped off of our bikes and I shot the bearing I wanted to travel and had Ross flank me to the right. 100 meters in and…BINGO….checkpoint 18! Maybe it was just luck on my part but it was nice to nail that one down.

We passed several teams on the way out and acted like we couldn’t find the CP so they wouldn’t just go right to it. As we moved away from CP 18, we had a little mini-celebration on finding a CP that so many other teams were having trouble finding. We picked up the pace on this Jeep road as we were making our way back to TA. We crested a little hill and started to pick up even more speed on this nice little downhill that led back to the main road. Riding downhill is way more fun than riding uphill. Anyway, we were chatting it up and probably rolling along around 20 mph or so when Ross started to yell something and slammed on his brakes. Instinctively I started to grab my brakes when all of a sudden what he was yelling about came in to focus. Stretched across the road and locked tightly to two steel poles that were cemented into the ground was a ¾ inch rusted steel cable that was serving as a “gate” to keep people from driving up the Jeep road. At this point, we’re totally screwed only we don’t know it because everything is happening so fast that we don’t have time to process it all. I was on the left, Ross was on the right and we hit the cable FULL FORCE at the same time. Our bikes stopped instantly. We didn’t. I was lucky enough to be flipped and launched over pretty quickly and I landed pretty much flat on my back. Unfortunately Ross landed mostly on his head and right wrist. What made matters even worse was that when I went over the cable, my bike was still attached to me and it ultimately landed on Ross. Sweet mother of pearl it hurt.

Above: The Cable of Death from two different angles

To say that this sucked is an understatement. I don’t think either one of our lives flashed before our eyes before we hit the cable but time definitely seemed to slow down. Fortunately it happened super fast. If we actually had time to think about it and really brace for it, we probably would have been way worse off. We rolled around on the ground for a bit and managed to crawl out from under a pile of bikes. After we did a guick “you ok” check, we stood up and dusted ourselves off. Ross had taken a good chunk of skin off of his left leg and put a good sized dent in his helmet. The back of my right shoulder and the inside of my right forearm were scratched up a bit but more bruised than anything else. The bikes were scuffed up a bit as well but nothing on them was broken either. We gathered ourselves together and then made our way back to TA. We let Robyn and Art know about the cable and they rushed someone out to mark it or take it down. Most everyone somehow or another heard the story about the cable and without fail they asked us...”You mean you hit the cable that was marked with all the flagging tape?” To which we said…”We’re the reason it was marked with flagging tape when you got there. There wasn’t any flagging tape on it when we hit it.” Yeah, we’re trendsetters like that.

So after we licked our wounds and tried to make light of the cable incident, we grabbed our clue sheet at TA and found out that the last leg would be a long trek leg right in the heat of the day. On the map, the checkpoints looked to be fairly close together. In the real world it was probably 4-5 miles of trekking and navigation. We decided to shortcut the route to CP 19 and at the top of the first hill we came across a 2 person female team (Wendy and Jennifer). They asked how to get to the windmill and we pointed them back up the hill they just came down. Dejected doesn’t quite cover the look they had on their faces. Apparently Jennifer had been throwing up and was having some serious heat issues. We admired their determination and offered them help but they seemed to have a firm grasp on their reality which was a good thing. They made the call to head back to TA to see if they could get to any feeling better. The next morning we learned that they unfortunately had to DNF right after they made it back to TA. The heat was just too much for Jennifer and she couldn’t keep any food or liquids down. That heat. It’ll freaking kill you if you don’t watch it.

So yeah it’s hot. Sofa king hot. We started to hoof it pretty steadily and knocked out CP 19 quickly and then started the climb up and out of the draw towards CP20. At this point during the race, everything was difficult and slow. In the cover of the trees there was no breeze at all and it was just exhausting to move. Every 20 meters or so worth of climbing we would have to stop because we were both hypoxic and getting light headed. We’d catch our breath and keep climbing only to have to stop again. Once we were on the ridge and the breeze was on us, we were ok. On CP20 Ross helped get us in the right spot so we could find that one without too much trouble. Even with that, CP19, CP20, and CP21 were all basically the same. Start at the top of the ridge, descend nearly a couple of hundred vertical feet into the bottom of the draw and then climb back out. CP21 was on the way to the windmill…yes the windmill. We took a pretty big chance on grabbing CP21 before we actually got to the windmill itself. At one point Ross said he was getting the chills (not good when it’s 108 outside) so he took a quick break in the shade while I worked my way down into the draw to the CP. Climbing back up and out sucked sofa king bad but all we could think about was getting into the water at the windmill. Once we got there, we duplicated the routine from earlier and just got into the tank to cool off. Cool water has never felt so good. We stayed in for probably 10 minutes to bring out core body temperature down so we didn’t die on this last leg. There was a girl there taking pictures while we cooled off and I’m sure she thought we were about to pass out.

Once out of the water, we filled up our camelbaks from the tap under the windmill. After only 3 of the 5 CPs on this leg, they were almost empty. Ah….fresh water straight from mother earth. Damn we were drinking a lot of fluids. After that, CP22 and CP23 looked to be repeats of the first 3. Descend from the ridge to the bottom of the draw then climb back out. At CP23 I took a good look at the map and decided that I didn’t want to climb anymore. The descent from the ridge into the bottom of that draw was the steepest and hardest of all that we had done and it would have been a total kick in the ass to have to climb out of that damn draw. I took a another look at the map and decided to take us northeast down the draw and towards a road. Thank God for old Jeep Roads.

Once back on the road it was fairly easy navigation back to TA. Simply head southeast and follow the roads. As we walked across the suspension bridge I looked at my watch and it was almost 6:30 p.m. I remember Robyn and Art guesstimating that the winning team for the 12 hour race would come in around the 6 hour mark. Based on that and our 10:21 finish time I figured we were middle of the pack out of the 20 teams racing in the 12 hour race. We handed over the passport and I glanced at the finish log to see that 6 or 7 teams had already finished. Someone asked how many of the checkpoints we collected to which we replied “All of them.” Sure enough they double checked our passport to verify that we had indeed punched all of the checkpoints. After that, someone off to the side said, “Congratulations! You’re the Overall Winner of the 12 hour race.” What? How can that be? Our time was 10 hours and 21 minutes. Ross and I gave each other a nice high five and then started asking questions about the other teams that had already made it in and how we won. Sure enough, 6 or 7 teams had come in already but they had all missed at least one CP. Most of the teams that were already in simply had enough of the blistering heat and were literally exhausted and beaten down from being in it all day. It’s not that we were shocked that we won the race as we’re certainly capable of performing extremely well. It just wasn’t something we were trying to do as we were just there to have fun and brush up on some skills. We weren’t fast at doing much of anything because of the heat. I guess if we were anything during this race, we were consistent and didn’t make any huge mistakes that we couldn’t recover from. We also paid attention to how we felt and tried really hard to manage the heat and hydration all day long.

Above: Post race carbohydrate infused recovery drink and one well worn race bib.

Just out of curiosity I figured out how much food, water and liquids I consumed during the course of the day/evening. Here’s how it worked out: 400 ounces of water/Heed, roughly a full gallon of just plain water, one Coca-Cola, one A&W root beer, and one Monster Lo-Carb. These were all specifically for the sugar and caffeine. I ate two Chick-fil-a sandwiches, a small pizza, a large brownie, a small Clif Bar, some Chex mix, some Pringles, a Stinger Honey Wafer and some sport beans. Right after the race I had a huge double cheeseburger, fries and two Shiner Bock beers. Still, after drinking nearly 5 gallons of liquids during the day and eating all of that food, at the end of the night I was still hungry and still thirsty. That’s just crazy.

All in all, we really had a great race. We really went just to have fun, practice a bit and enjoy Camp Eagle. Somehow we managed to win the thing. Thanks to Ross for working with me on CP 20 and trusting me to find CP 18 even though he was certain I was just guessing where the hell we were at the whole time!

Hell's Hills - The Hardest Run of My Life

Almost one year ago to the day I did the Hell’s Hill Trail Run in Smithville with my friend Patricia. It was the first event of any kind that I had done since my thumb surgery a few weeks earlier. As a result of the ‘non-training’ I did for that event, we basically just muddled our way through the run and came in at a time of 3:48 and change. It was still a great run and I always have fun when I’m racing with Patricia.

Unfortunately for me, Patricia was unable to do the run with me this year which left me doing the run on my own. If there were any good news to be had in that, it was that my race time would actually be a more accurate portrayal of ‘my time’ and not the result of running with a team like we do in adventure racing.

This was the same event and same venue as last year. A 25k Trail Run. 25k is 15.5 miles and in my mind I felt like I could finish the race in a time around 3:15 or so. Anything around that time would be extremely gratifying on a personal level for me.

So Friday before the race I’m visiting with my friend Jordan who I had already asked earlier to do the race with me as a sub for Patricia. At age 23, Jordan has 0% body fat and is as fast a jack rabbit. I’m literally old enough to be his father. In fact, I think I AM the same age as his father. Anyway, he had already declined my invitation but I knew that if I could convince him to do the race with me that I had a real shot at the 3:15 minute goal. Long story short…his schedule had changed up at the last minute and he was now available to do the race with me. The only problem was that he hadn’t run more than 3-4 miles at a time in the past few months and he was going to be winging the entire race. This was going to be interesting for both of us.

As the clock approached the 7:00 a.m. start time on race day, I noticed that I was much more nervous than in previous races. It had been a rough couple of weeks for me and maybe it was just the buildup of my nerves over that period of time. I figured that was either going to work for me or against me. The start was upon us so in my mind I just thought….”I guess we’ll soon see how this thing goes.”

At the start we took off on the run and immediately the pace was much faster than I expected. Jordan was moving pretty quickly and I was just trying to keep up with him. The first mile or so is basically all uphill with several quick ups and down and LOTS of rocks. They do call the place Rocky Hill Ranch for a reason. On this first mile, I swear we were clocking an 8 minute mile pace. My heart rate shot up through the roof and I was certain that I was going to go too hard too soon and blow my legs out before we really even got started. When my Garmin beeped, I looked down to see that we ran the first mile in exactly 10 minutes. It honestly felt like we were moving WAY faster than that.

After the first mile, the course leveled out for a bit and we fell in line with a small group that was running at about the same pace that we were. Out of sheer luck, we started running with a guy named Scott who I was supposed to have met up with day before. Running in our small group, miles 4 thru 9 all clicked by at pretty much the same pace. Regardless of the terrain we were coming in between 11 and 12 minute miles consistently. Scott had his Garmin set up a little differently than mine and he was showing us to be on track for a 2:45 to 3:15 finish or so depending on when he looked at it.

Normally, during a typical/comfortable run for me, my heart average heart rate stays in the 155 range. I could tell that I was a good bit above that the entire run but didn’t really want to check to see where I was exactly. All I knew was that I was giving it all I could without bonking during the race. As we approached mile 10, we came out of the trees and into a flat open area. Once we hit the Jeep road, Scott stopped to walk. Having done the race last year, I knew that this was a spot to pick up some time AND that the aid station was just up the road in the trees. Unfortunately Scott was starting to cramp up and although it was difficult for him to run, he sucked it up and we all ran a pretty quick pace to the aid station.

Jordan, Scott and I on the Jeep Road around Mile 10

At all of the aid stations I had taken a cup or two of ice water and poured it on my head to cool me off because it was just humid and sticky outside. I did the same here. We then grabbed some fruit, some water and some soda and stuffed it down as quickly as we could. As we turned to leave, Scott told us to go on without him as he was cramping up pretty badly and needed to stop. We didn’t want to leave him but the amount of pain that he was in was obvious and we knew that he needed to run his own race…not ours.

Once Jordan and I took off, I knew it was going to be painful from here on out. During these last few miles; Jordan did exactly as I had asked him to do before the race which was to make sure that I did more running and less walking. I checked my watch and knew that we had roughly 5 miles left. At just over 2 hours in to the run, a quick check of the math told me that if we could clock in 12 minute miles that we had a real shot a finishing in 3 hours. That would be on the faster side of what I believed that I could do for this race. A rush of adrenaline shot through me and for a moment my legs felt great again. Too bad it didn’t last longer.

Moving Down the Jeep Road Into the Trees

As we turned the corner I took note of the hills in front of us. They weren’t big or particularly steep but were instead long inclines that burned every ounce of energy out of your legs. Mile 11 rolled by and my Garmin beeped….13:55 for that mile. Crap…we’re not going to make it. Jordan kept telling me to take baby steps and to ease back into the running pace we had been on earlier. My legs were screaming at me to walk or take it easy for a minute. It was everything I could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Mile 12 rolled by and my Garmin beeped….11:24 for that mile. Better. That helped but we were still off the pace with BIG HILLS yet to come. Mile 13 came and went at 12:20 and my legs were starting to ache in ways that I have only felt before MAJOR cramps. At mile 14 we started to encounter the Hell’s Hills portion of race with several good climbs thrown right in front of us. Mile 14 tied for the slowest mile of the day at 13:55. At this point there just seemed to be no way that we were going to make the 3 hour mark that just an hour earlier seemed attainable.

Enter motivator Jordan Orsak who had been pacing me all day. Jordan asked me what our time was and I told him 2:48 and change and he said that we were going to hit that 3 hour mark…period. We crested one last hill and off in the distance we could see the cars and the finish line. My left calf was cramping sofa king bad that I could barely put weight on it. Still, if we could really clock the distance in less than 12 minutes, we might just hit the 3 hour mark. We took off and it was just then that I realized….that hill was the last hill….it’s all a downhill run to the finish line! Maybe, just maybe we could hit it in time to make 3 hours. Jordan kept the motivational comments coming and was basically a freaking cheerleader for the last mile plus. I looked at my watch at 2:58 and knew that we had what looked to be a little more than a quarter of a mile to go. My heart rate was through the roof, my left leg was cramping to the point where I was basically running on a stump and I felt like I was going to die. The time on my Garmin rolled to the 3 hour mark with a little ways left to go. I started to think to myself that I’m actually going hit this magical 3 hour mark. Jordan sprinted ahead of me and crossed the finish line at 3:00:37, he turned around and yelled at me to sprint so I could make it in under 3:01. 50 yards left…tick tick tick and then….BEEEEP…as I crossed the timing strip at 3:00:59. Holy freaking cow I thought I was going to drop right there on the spot.

Crossing the Finish Line and High Five

I was exhausted. Completely spent. You know how when you see those distance runners cross the finish line at some event and then they just collapse…that’s exactly how I felt. Jordan gave me a quick high five and then I just put my hands on my knees and tried not to pass out. I stood there for probably 2 minutes before I raised my head. When I looked up I saw an empty chair and decided right then and there that I didn’t care who that chair belonged to…I was going to sit in it. And so I did. For 20 plus minutes I just sat there in a daze. When I finally did get up it was excruciatingly painful to walk. My legs hurt like they never have before.

Without a doubt the effort I put into this trail run one was of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. It was if I crammed all of a 24 hour adventure race into a 3 hour trail run. When I was finally home and able to pull up the stats from my Garmin, I was shocked at the numbers. My peak heart rate was 193 bpm. My average heart rate for the entire race was 170 bpm. That’s 3 hours and 15 plus miles with your heart pounding at 170 bpm. In looking deeper in to the numbers, our average overall pace was 11.57 per mile. Without that first 10 minute mile there’s no way we would have finished in 3 hours. The fastest pace we ran came right at the end of the race as we sprinted to the finish. It was a 7.50 mile pace. Overall I was 63rd place out of 126 runners in the 25k as compared to 91^st place last year. Exactly the middle. My time this year was almost a full 48 minutes better than the previous year. I’ll take that.

While I would like to say it was all me and my determination that got me through this run in that 3 hour timeline, I owe a big debt of gratitude to my regular running partner Patricia for helping me with my running over the last year. Without her, I wouldn’t be running nearly as well as I am. She is truly one of the best people I’ve ever met and I am thankful for who she is and blessed to have her as a part of my life. Last but not least, I need to thank my good friend Jordan Orsak for stepping up to the plate and acting as my pacer for the run. In what could easily be a father/son type relationship, I have found a true friend in Jordan. I asked him to make sure that I run the race…not walk and to tell me to suck it up and go even when I didn’t want to. Jordan acted as the pacer, cheerleader and motivator and that was exactly what I needed for this race. Here’s to great friends, a great run and the new adventures to come!

Bandera 25k - Tejas Trail Run

The Hill Country State Natural Area just outside of Bandera, Texas is as beautiful as it is rugged. If it can cut you, scrape you, trip you or otherwise make you bleed, the HCSNA has it. Every January, Tejas Trail productions puts on an Ultra Trail Run at the park. You have your choice of doing the 100k, 50k or 25k trail run.

As most of you know, I’m not a ‘runner’ although I have improved my running quite a bit in the last year or so. In January 2010, Bernice, Patricia and I did this same race. The 2010 race went down on record as the coldest weather they had ever had for this particular race. When we rolled up at 6 a.m., it was 10 degrees outside. By the time we started the race at 7:30, it had warmed up to a scorching 14 degrees.

We had elected to do the race ‘adventuring racing’ style so we had our camelbaks, food, etc with us. Right off the bat, our water froze solid. Long story short, it was a long, long day on the trail. All 4:45:40 of it.

This year I signed up for the race early, knowing that I could knock it out in a much better time. I had been riding my bike a lot recently so I knew I had to switch over to focus on running. Unfortunately, as I started putting more miles on my feet, my left knee started to bug the crap out of me.

I wish this were something that I could write off to the typical aches and pains of training but that’s not the case. Last year at the Miles of Discomfort Bike Race, I banged my left knee on the stem of my bike. I didn’t think anything of it at the time other than it hurt like hell. Since then I’ve had this random knee pain that just comes and goes. Sometime my knee feels like it’s going to lock up. Sometimes it just hurts. And sometimes it feels perfectly ok.

Anyway, the knee had been bugging the crap out of me and even though I had paid for the race, it didn’t look like I would be able to run it. Enter Bernice and Patricia to put the peer pressure on me. Needless to say, I was ‘encouraged’ to do the race by my friends.

This year’s weather turned out to be spectacular. Start time temp in the low 50s which is perfect running weather in my opinion. Bernice ended up being late for the race so Patricia and I took off on our own at the 7:30 start. Clearly this was going to be a much better day. The first couple of miles included a couple of hills that I remembered from last year. Patricia and hills don’t get along all that well so I did my best to get her up these things without her dying on me. After that, the first 10k flew by pretty quickly. We grabbed water at the aid stations and settled in to a nice jogging pace.

Patricia and Me on the Trail

Around mile 11 there was a big aid station with food and drop bags for the folks doing the 50k and 100k. We rolled in to the tent and have never been so happy to see M&Ms, Trail Mix, and real Coke. Something about working out and putting your body under stress makes race food taste SO GOOD! As we finished off our snack, we took off but immediately started to hit a little bit of a performance wall. Mile 12 was tough and it seemed like my feet were just begging me to stop. Patricia was holding her own but her feet were starting to bother her as well. At mile 14 or so, there is this nasty hill that you have to climb. I say climb because you really can’t run the thing. At this point in the race your legs are already a little tight and having to move up and down this thing isn’t easy. Somehow we managed to make it up and back down again.

As we got back on the Jeep road that led to the finish line, I think we both got that extra shot of adrenaline knowing that the finish line was close. We ran a pretty good pace to the finish even though both of us were hurting pretty badly. Finish time for me… 3:48:54. Almost a full hour better than last year. That works out to be 4.096 miles per hour. On a good day with no hills, rocks or cactus to navigate I can run 6 miles per hour. All in all, it wasn’t a bad day for me. Just for fun I calculated the pace of the guy that won the 25k. 9.468 miles per hour. In a time of 1:39:01. Who the hell can run that fast…on trails? Not me.

Heading to the finish line

So now I have goals for next year. Try to get my time down under the 3:15 range. If I can do better than a 5 mile an hour pace, I might be able to get my time under 3hrs which would put me in the top 100 or so for the race. It’s good to have goals.

My thanks to Patricia for helping to pace me on the run this year. She has that runner’s block thing where she can just zone out and go for a while without thinking about this distance, the time or the pain. I hope to have that some day. If I can just get my knee to cooperate with me.

Huntville Hammer 2010

Wow. What a great weekend in Huntsville State Park just south of Huntsville, Texas.

I has been about 6 months since my last 'real' Adventure Race. It seems like most of the Race Companies slow it down for the hot months and then crank the races back up again when the weather starts to cool down.

I'd been itching to race for a while as having a target race keeps me focused on my training. In the last few weeks I'd been spending time at a couple of Orienteering Meets to improve my navigation skills as I wanted to serve at the 'bus driver' for our next big race. The Huntsville Hammer was my first 'big' race as full time navigator.

My friend and Texas State Ski Team member Jordan had been asking me about doing a race since the spring so I convinced him and my regular training partner Ross that we should do the Huntsville Hammer...the long course. All 12 hours of it. For some reason they agreed. Sweet.

Ross and I drove down to Huntsville the night before the race and Jordan and his girlfriend Stacey met up with us early the next morning. Ross was just 2 weeks off of an amazing performance in the 24 hours of Rocky Hill where he rode 16 laps...for 24 hours straight. Ross had been so focused on training for that race that he could tell me exactly how many miles he had ran in the last 5 months. 2.25. Not 225 miles. 2.25 total miles. This was going to be interesting for sure.

To hedge his possible lack of performace, he wanted to try and set our expectations low by saying things like "I won't be fast" or "I'll run but it will be ugly." Never mind that a slow mile for Ross is a fast mile for me. And, well any miles that Jordan would run with us would be like going for a light jog for him.

Anyway, we met up in the morning, set up TA and got ready for the big day. They started us off on a 3.5k run on a trail through the forest to spread the teams out a bit. We all hung together on the run and tried not to go too hard too soon since we knew it was going to be a long day.

Above: Flying along on the first bike leg

Back at TA we picked up our first set of clues and set off on a marked bike course around the lake in the State Park. This ride was really just a matter of staying on your bike and trying to keep the pace with the groups in front of you AND getting out of the way of anyone that wanted to pass you. For a while we had a pretty large group riding together. One of the all female teams consisted of 3 women who were essentially professional mountain bikers. Ross told me this after the fact...of course. And I kept wondering why during that 7 mile loop that I felt like I was pushing it kind of hard. Little did I know I was following 3 pros. Sweet Jesus we were flying. We only had to pick up 2 checkpoints on this ride and it was back to TA. Man it was a fast ride though.

Once in we received our next set of instructions we set off on a trek for 4 checkpoints. We traveled some with Caroline and Raymond's team as well as Eric and Frank. All of these guys are from Houston and have raced with Ross many times. We picked up a couple of checkpoints together and traveled with them for a while. After one of the checkpoints, I couldn't figure out why the other teams were heading back up the same draw we just came down when the next checkpoint was in the other direction. Seeing this as an opportunity, I took the guys a different route and we nabbed the next checkpoint way ahead of the other teams and started heading back. We felt like we were moving pretty quickly but soon enough Eric and Frank caught up with us and we later saw Caroline and her team slide by us on another trail. Oh well. Guess we should have been a little faster.

Above: Coming in from the paddle section

Back at TA, we were surprised to see that both Eric and Caroline's teams were already out on the paddle. Believe me, it wasn't like we were just lolly gagging around out there and I couldn't figure out how they were putting so much distance between the teams. We hoped in the canoe and started hauling ass to catch up. At one point we pulled on shore next to them as Ross and Jordan ran inland to get a checkpoint. I think Jordan tried to kill Ross by running him in to the ground with his Ninja like speed. They were back in a hurry and we made up some serious time here. We paddled like crazy back to TA and got our instructions for what would prove to be the longest leg of the day....a Bike/Trek combo.

The initial part of the ride was out near I-45 where we were sent to a random checkpoint and then off to the Sam Houston Monument on 45. If you've never driven by this thing, it's huge. 77 feet tall to be exact. Anyway, Stacey had been sitting at TA all day long and Jordan's parents wanted to see what this Adventure Racing thing was all about so knowing we were going there, they decided to meet up with us at the visitors center. Adventure Racing isn't the most spectator friendly activity in the world so it's kind of nice to get a little cheer or boost along the way. After a quick hello and goodbye we were back into the forest for more checkpoints. On this leg we caught up with Eric and Frank again and we just stuck together this time as a group of 5. It was really fun racing with these guys. Good sense of humor about the sport and a lot of fun to travel with.

Above: Inside the Visitor's Center at the Sam Houston Memorial Statue

After a few more checkpoints we put our bikes down in the middle of the forest at the bike drop location and set off on the trekking portion of the leg. We found out later that the trek was about 8.5 miles. There were only 5 points on this leg and I experienced my first real navigation mistake of the day. On CP 3 the clue was "Fence" and on the map the fence was up a road that ran along a pipeline route. In the real world the "road" that was most traveled continued along with the pipeline whereas the road where the CP was bent off to the right slightly about mid-way along the road. We weren't the only team to make this mistake and after we pulled our hair out for 15 minutes, Ross looked at the map and said...we may be here....not here. Sure enough, we bushwhacked through along this fence line to the "road" where the CP was sitting bright as day. Wow. Thanks to Ross for saving us on that one. As we made our way down the road, it was easy to see how me missed the split. The road we needed to take was so offset and behind the treeline that you would have almost had to have stumbled upon it accidentally to know it was there.

Above: The bike drop in the middle of the forest

As the leg was wearing on, everyone was starting to get a little tired. On a trek or a run, my feet start to hurt about mile 7 or so and today was no exception. All I wanted to do was get back on the bike and get back to TA because my feet were taking a pounding. I took us on a couple of "short cuts" on the way back and while I think I saved us some time, it's tough to know for sure. I know Frank and Eric were happy about it because they had planned to go back a different route and my route choice was certainly shorter than what they were going to do. It took us a bit to get our lights on and get back on the bikes but once we did, we made good time back to TA.

This next leg proved to be our last leg. It was a simple 3 CP bike leg but it was already dark outside and it's tough to ride in an unfamiliar place with just a headlamp. We spun along pretty quickly for the first bit and had a little trouble finding CP1. Once we found that one we moved right along to CP2 which was right on the trail. It took a little longer for me to get us in the right spot for CP 3 on this leg because...well...navigating in the dark when you can't really see any terrain features is a bitch. The clue for this checkpoint was "Run Ridge" and we ran along a ridge....until it became obvious I had us on the wrong ridge. Back to the bikes and we ride over to the next ridge. Bingo. There we have it. At this point we knew we were getting short on time so I hopped on the bike and started setting a pretty good pace. Ross and Jordan didn't mind so much but remember we were also traveling with Eric and Frank at this point. I think Frank told me to slow down at one point. It was either that or he was telling someone to pass him. All I knew was that we had just seen Caroline and Raymond on the last leg and I really wanted to beat those guys back.

I felt like we moved pretty quickly and we rolled back in to TA at 11:34 into our race. I was hopeful that we would get the clues for our next leg and one of the CPs would be close enough to go get it but after I took a quick look at them and plotted them, it was obvious we were done for the day. I turned in our passport and that was it. A great end to a great day.

Above: Back at TA realizing we have time to go out on one more leg

A little while later, the awards were handed out. While there weren't any awards given for 3 person all male teams, there was an award for the 2 person male teams. Our traveling partners for the better half of the day Eric and Frank took down 1st place in that division. I wish I could take some credit for that but those guys helped us as much as we helped them.

And, as it turns out, we took 1st place in our division as well and 8th overall! As for me hauling ass on the bike ride back to TA on that final bike leg. Well, that paid off as well. We finished 2 minutes ahead of Caroline and her team.

Last but not least, I wanted to thank my teammates Ross and Jordan. Jordan made us faster than we would have been without him which helped our weak points and we helped him be better than he would have been on the bike and in the boat. Even though it was his first race, he did extremely well, and if he sticks with us on this, we might actually get faster! And a special thanks to Ross for catching my nav mistake and getting us to that checkpoint sooner rather than later.

Above: Team "All Day" (Frank and Eric) along with us Team "Occasionally Lost" at the Finish

I also wanted to give a special thanks to Frank, Eric and Caroline and her team. Ross has always said nothing but good things about these guys and spending the better part of the day running around the forest with them proved that you can find great people that love to do the same crazy stuff that you love to do just about anywhere. Hope you all had as much fun as I did. Until next time guys....race on.

Easing into Fall

It's late October now and fall is officially upon us. Since the Camp Eagle AR in late May I have been absolutely swamped with all kinds of things. In addition to work and family related stuff I've been doing my best to ride, run, race and stay active. I'll let this update serve as a recap of some of the things done since the last update.

Skiing - I've probably been on the water more this year than I have in many years. I can't tell you how much I've missed it. We've finished most of the major developer tasks at the Ranch (www.SanMarcosRiverRanch.com) and have now entered into a new phase where I spend most of my time selling and speaking with builders about building out the community. The great thing about this is that I actually have some time to enjoy the fruits of so many years of planning and building. It's truly amazing to pull up to my boat, drop it in the water and ski on any one of 4 world record capable slalom courses. Our lot owners are the best folks I know and I feel so lucky to have found this old ranch to develop.

Mini Pyramid at Lake McQueeney with Luke and Jordan

This summer was also the first summer that my oldest daughter ever skied. She literally went from never skiing to learning to ski in June and then on to skiing the mini course on slalom in late August. In the middle of all of that, she was a part of Ski Bees this summer and learned how to do some show skiing acts. She skied in two different tournaments this year and if she keeps it up, it won't take her too long to be better than I ever dreamed of being. I'm so proud of her.

Racing and Working Out - Adventure Racing season quiets down in the summer so as a team we focus on getting together to do workouts when we can and doing other events as cross training. In early June I talked two longtime friends who had never done an Adventure Race into doing a Sprint Race with me. I'd serve as navigator and guide us through the race. All they had to do was survive and stick with me. Kyle had the benefit of the local trail knowledge and Leslie was looking to step up her racing to a new level. I don't think any of us planned on placing or actually being competitive in this event. Soon enough though we're clicking along on the checkpoints and we realize that three 40 something year old friends from high school are kicking the crap out of nearly 30 other teams. That's the fun thing about Adventure Racing. You can be a totally bad ass athlete. Fast runner, biker etc. but if you don't know where you're going or what you're doing, it doesn't matter. It's intelligent racing. Go figure that we actually take 3rd place! I know that Kyle and Leslie had a blast and so did I. Hopefully they'll keep training and become my newest AR junkie friends.

After that race we had two Triathlons at the ranch that I decided to do. I entered the "Fat Tire" division which means you did the race on your mountain bike. It's perfect cross training for me. It had been a while since I had done much swimming so I did some open water swimming to get up to speed. On the first race I totally blew my transitions and came in 9th place out of 16 people in my division. I'm used to doing Adventure Racing transitions where you come in to TA, get some water, grab a bite, plot some points, make a quick plan and go. Big mistake at a triathlon. I was happy with my bike time but I was not happy with my overall performance at all. 3 weeks later I cleaned up all of the mistakes from the first race and again entered the "Fat Tire" division. The swim was only 400m but I made the mistake of going out too fast for the first 200m. I basically did the breast stroke for the last 200m. I was certain this leg was going to ruin my race. I hit transition and was out in a flash. I rode my ass off and was only passed by a few 'roadies'. Nothing makes me feel better than to fly by someone on a road bike on my mountain bike. An out and back ride and a fast TA again. The run was only 5k but my legs were hosed. I ran with a guy for about a mile but couldn't keep the 7.5 minute pace he was running. My run time was slower than I wanted but it was all I could do. Still, when it was all said and done I placed 3rd in my division! When I looked at the splits I was shocked that my slow ass 400m swim time was actually the 3rd fastest of the group. I absolutely nailed it on the bike and was the fastest in the division. The two guys that beat me were runners and finished their 5k in that 7.5 minute pace. In order for me to have moved up to 2nd place I would have had to have finished nearly 9 minutes sooner. Not an easy task. Even so, all things considered I was pumped to place at a race that was hosted the ranch that I helped build. Awesome feeling.

Lisa Richter and me after the River Ranch Tri

Now, as the days start to cool off, AR events will start back up again. My goal for next year is to be in good enough shape to take on a few more Triathlons next summer. To do that I'll have to work on my running and swimming. I'll also need to take off that extra 20lbs that I've been talking about for a while. It's not that I'm overweight really. It's just a whole lot easier to move less weight than it is to move more weight. Plus you move it faster. I've been working on my running and my Orienteering which will help me all around. Throw in some bike races and a little more attention to my diet and I should be good to go. That's all from here for now. Enjoy Halloween!

Tougher Than I Remember

Over Memorial Day Weekend my teammates, Ross, Sebastian, Bernice and I competed in the 2010 Spread Your Wings Adventure Race at Camp Eagle. As a team we have done several 12 hour races together but this was our first 24 hour race together. While we all expected the race to be tough, personally it was a much harder race than I anticipated.

There were a number things that made the race difficult. Part of it had to do with the heat. Part of it had to do with all of the freaking rocks. And, the navigation was significantly more difficult this year. Out of the 24 hour teams, only two teams collected all of the checkpoints. Yes, as compared to past years, this was much, much harder than before.

Here's a race summary by leg:

We started off on a little run/swim down the river to retrieve a card with our team name on it. Running down a knee deep river isn't easy if you've never done it before. Sebas hit one end of the line, I hit the other and was able to find our card. We swam up and ran back to TA to get our map and plot our points.

Biking was the next leg. First stop was the windmill. The freaking windmill. That meant climbing right off of the bat. Not some little pansy climb but a climb to the high point at Camp Eagle. Damn. Once at the windmill we had to jump in the water tank and grab a colored golf ball as per our clue sheet. Easy enough. Next clue wasn't a checkpoint but a "hint". The hint was "scaffolding" and in past races there had been scaffolding in place to climb over the high game fence. This is where we had our first nav issue. We went up and down the fence looking for the scaffolding that wasn't there. We kept thinking we were missing something or making a mistake because the scaffolding simply wasn't there. Big mistake. In retrospect, all we needed to do was get on the other side of the fence and bushwhack to the road to get to checkpoint #2. We wasted an hour or so here that would come back to haunt us later.

This is also the spot where for the first time in any race I (not sure about my teammates) encountered another racer who was just a prick. Upon seeing another team on the other side of the fence Ross asked "How'd you guys get to the other side?" 99% of racers would have replied with something like "Just climb it" or "Keep looking down that way...there's a way to get through". This guy replied with "Magic". Prick.

Anyway, once we finally decided to focus on the other checkpoints, we collected them pretty easily. We knew it'd be tough to get them all in the race anyway but didn't expect to skip one on the first leg. Oh well.

Back at TA we collected our new set of clues. Looks like we'd be doing a rope section and some land nav on foot. We hustled over to a new climbing section that was probably 30 feet or so high. The camp staff that was working this leg let us know that we were the first people to actually climb this section of wall. They had just set up the anchors days before and while the camp staff had done some climbing, that was it. We selected a route that we thought we could all climb and Bern went up first. Slowly but surely we coached her hand hold and foot holds from the ground. Soon enough she was done and it was my turn. As soon as I got on the wall, I knew it wasn't going to be easy for me at all.


I'm 210 pounds and at that weight it's hard to keep yourself on a wall...period. I managed along just fine for the first 3/4 of the climb. At that point I needed a handhold for my left hand to pull myself up and place my right foot on a ledge. I felt around with my left hand up over a ledge and grabbed a good hold. As I shifted my weight to my left and pulled with my hand, the unthinkable happened. That chunk of the wall gave way and sent a few football sized chunks of rock tumbling below. Fortunately my rope caught me. As soon as I gathered my wits again, I spun myself around and finished the climb and did a quick rappel back down the wall.

Once on the ground I noticed a few people standing around Bern as she sat on the ground. I'd been so freaked out about the wall giving way and me nearly falling that I didn't think about where the rocks went. Sure enough, Bern tried to jump out of the way but one of the big chunks bounced in to her left shin right below the knee. Ouch. Nothing was broken but you could tell right away that it was going to hurt like hell for a while. Bern's one tough chick and if she say's it hurts....it must really freaking hurt. Oh well. Race on or quit. Bern says let's go....and so we go.


We grab a couple of more checkpoints and Sebas takes the map for a while to lead us over to a checkpoint in the draw. We never, and I do mean never overshoot a checkpoint. If anything we come up like 10 or 20 meters short of it. I'm not sure how we did it but somehow we managed to shoot past the draw for the checkpoint by several hundred meters. We ran in to another team that was looking for the same checkpoint and they felt like we were too far as well. They thought that they had the right draw or close to it but just couldn't find it. At this point, Ross took over the map again and located a known point to help us find the checkpoint. Bam....15 minutes later the guy from the other team spots it and both teams punch it and go. From there these guys traveled with us towards the next checkpoint as they had to collect it as well. They helped us with one and we led them right to the next one in return. After that, we were even and off on our own again to grab the rest of the checkpoints.

Back at TA again we set off on the swim leg. Actually this was the fun part where we got to go down the big water slide and then collect a checkpoint on the river bank across from the pavilion and then on top of the iceberg. Almost immediately upon hitting the water we all started to cramp a bit. Not too bad but enough to hurt like hell. Feet, forearms, inner quads, calf muscles. Not fun. Anyway, the first checkpoint was a breeze and then on to the iceberg. Sebas went up and punched. Ross went up. I went up. Bern was the last to go.

Now, for those of you not familiar with the iceberg at Camp Eagle, it's this enormous inflatable floating mountain that you can climb. It has hand and foot hold handles. It looks big, fluffy, and easy to climb. It's not. Not even a little bit easy. Like many other things I had warned Bern about, I had warned her that climbing the iceberg was going to be a bitch. I don't think she believed me. If you see her anytime soon, ask her what the hardest part of the race was. If she says anything other than the iceberg I'll give you $100.


Anyway, so there she is with Ross and I helping her get started on the climb. She's no where close to climbing this thing when she says that she can't do it. Bullshit. We're not going to let this happen. At this point Sebas climbs to the top of the iceberg and holds on with one hand. Bern's sitting on the pre-climb area about to go. I've got my left hand on one side of her butt...Ross has his right hand on the other. We push her to the standing position and I hold one of the handles so she can get her foot in. Perfect. One more step up and Sebas can grab her. She slides right puts her left foot up pulls herself to the left and then reaches up with her left hand for Sebas to grab. She hangs on like her life depends on it and uses the leverage from Sebas to climb to the top. Freaking awesome. One of the coolest parts of the whole day was to hear the crowd on the deck behind us scream and clap when she made it to the top. Way cool. Way cool.

After a graceful dismount from the 'berg we head back over to TA and discover that we're doing a bike/rope section. Sweet. We gathered up our bikes and rode over to the climbing section where we were outfitted with our helmets, climbing harness and lobster claws. We set off on a nice traverse across along the rock wall and then climbed up an out of the river basin area.


Once at the top we made our way over to the rappel. Two years ago I made it to the rappel late and had to do the short rappel in the dark. Spooky but fun. This time we got there plenty early and got to do the full on 185ft rappel from the top of the cliff. What a view. I slid over and they set me up. I put on my gloves and dropped over the side of the cliff.


Awesome. I did a fair amount of walking down the wall until I was comfortable with how fast the device was going to lower me. After that, it was a few good bounces....a nice ledge and I was done. I think we all had a good time on this section and the nav issues seemed trivial after doing the rappel. After we finished the rappel it was an out and back bike section to collect a few checkpoints while riding through some beautiful scenery.

Back at TA we plotted our next move. How to NOT get lost in the woods at night. At some point on this leg, we traveled with a few other teams for a point or two and that certainly helped us locate a couple of the CPs. Unfortunately frustration set in as Ross, Sebas and I searched up and down a draw for close to an hour looking for a Checkpoint. Never have we been so sure that we were in the right place. Never have we been so frustrated. It could have been as simple of a mistake as turning your head before your headlamp shined on the orienteering marker but man it was depressing not to find this thing. We finally gave up and decided to head back to TA and embark on the next leg of the race. It was becoming apparent that if we didn't hurry that we wouldn't receive an official finish and none of us would have been happy to race for 24 hours and not have a ranked finish.

By this time it's about 1:30 ish in the morning and we're pretty whipped. Bern's leg is killing her. Sebas is losing the pep in his step and I'm tired and cranky. Ross was the only one of us with any real zip left and I can't help but think that it had everything to do with him leaving for Maui the next day. Rat bastard.

Anyway, the next section was a paddle for two CPs. We decided to skip the portage and just grab the CP closest to us and then head out on the next section. In and out uneventful paddle and we were done.

Next up was a night biking section. The trails at Camp Eagle have pretty benign names like "Moon", "Boot", "Texas" etc. They might as well name them "Rocks of Death" or "Blood on Your Bike" because those would be more appropriate. Mostly this section turned out to be ok with a few things worth mentioning. One, it was cool outside...finally. Especially in the draws and on the down hills. Two, I was leading the ride and there were ENORMOUS spider webs across the trails with ENORMOUS freaky looking spiders in them. I had Ross take a picture of one of these things because it was so bizarre looking.


And lastly, the last section was called "Armadillo" and was down a dry draw that fed into the Nueces. This ride is hard during the daylight. It's really tough at night with the shadows and limited sight distance. At one point I yelled back to Ross to walk a section that I'd just sort of ridden. I turned around just in time to see him roll off his bike. Ouch. At another point we stopped and all turned around to see that Sebas was kicking his bike. No one is really sure why. Anyway, along the ride we had to collect checkpoints at various locations. The "old mine" and "the cave" were two pretty fun CPs. Once out of the draw of death we headed back to TA.


Once we rolled back in to TA, it was 4:30 a.m. We asked Robyn what the closest CP was and she said it was the hilltop. "Fine....let's go get that and be done" Ross said. No one disagreed. We probably could have grabbed one or two more but we were just totally hosed by this point. We plotted the points and then made our way across a dam to the general area of the CP. Sebas wanted to free climb the cliff...at 4:45 a.m. .... after nearly 21 hours of racing. We thought about it and then just went for it. Good call because what a blast this was. Pitch black outside. Climbing a cliff in a little climbing line with nothing but your headlamp. It wasn't too tall maybe 40 or 50 feet. Just enough to hurt you pretty bad if you fell which made us all extra cautious. Once up at the top, Ross and I climbed the rockiest hill on the planet to the CP. We down climbed the same route we had climbed up and headed back to TA. Official time of finish 5:21 a.m.

Back in our room we were all beat, smelled horrible and not very talkative. We rotated turns in the shower to clean up and then crashed out for an hour or so before breakfast. Man what a difference a couple of hours sleep make. Not that I was overly refreshed, but when 8 a.m. rolled around I felt almost human again. Almost. On any other day, a big meal has the potential to be completely disgusting but today...well today it was the best breakfast I'd ever eaten in my life!

When it was all said and done, we had a pretty good race. Other than Bern getting struck by falling rocks, no one had any performance issues. No major injuries. No major cramps. No significant dehydration. This was a tough course. Robyn and Art had said so from the beginning. Out of 20 teams in the 24 hour race we placed 6th in Co-ed and 11th overall. 6 teams were unable to complete the race. Only 2 teams collected all of the checkpoints. If there was anything that really slowed us down, it was the heat. It was the hottest day of the year so far. Thanks to my teammates for putting up with my cranky ass in the middle of the night. And a huge thanks to Robyn and Art at Too Cool Racing and all of the volunteers at Camp Eagle for putting on an awesome event.