One Dislocated Thumb, Two River Crossings....

Above: Sebas, Bern and Ross re-enacting the great river crossing of 2010

Murphy’s Law states: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”. While that may be a generalized overstatement of our experience at the 12 Hour Eco-Lonestar race at Perdenales Falls State Park this past weekend, it was a tough day at the office by our high adventure racing standards.

Race day. Up at 5 a.m. and off to the race. At the race, unpacked and ready to roll we receive our instructions and boom, the race starts at 7 with a little 2 mile run down by the river and then a little climb back to TA. Sebas and Ross took off and Bernice and I did our best to keep up. Running down by the river I somehow managed to find the lone thorn vine which conveniently ripped my lower right leg to shreds. Awesome! First blood less than 5 minutes into the race. What else could go wrong?

Back at TA after the run we received our next set of instructions which consist of finding one checkpoint on a 13 mile bike loop. Less than 3 minutes into the ride and BAM…Ross breaks the chain on his bike. I’ve heard of this happening, but I’ve never seen it firsthand. Fortunately, Sebas had a chain tool in his pack and between the two of us we had the chain fixed in maybe a minute or two. Sweet. A total of two links were removed from Ross’ chain. This would unfortunately prove to be problematic for the next 11 hours.

Thinking the worst was behind us we set off on great ride around Perdenales Falls State Park. This place was a great mix of climbs, down hills, nice single track, Jeep roads, and some technical and not so technical spots. About mile 9 of the ride, I had taken over the lead on some technical areas and was cruising nicely through some flowy sections of the trail. I’m still not sure what exactly happened next other than my front tire slide out while I was moving along pretty quickly. Next thing I know, I’m on my way down and trying to brace my fall. My right hand hit the ground first but then collapsed when my right thumb decided to bend backwards towards my forearm. Sweet mother of pearl that hurt. My elbow, shoulder and head followed next. I’m not sure how I came unclipped from the bike but there I was after the tumble, flat on my back thinking that I had just broken my wrist or at a minimum had dislocated my thumb. Shortly thereafter, Sebas, Ross and Bernice showed up as I rolled around the dirt trying to get a handle on the pain. After a few choice expletives, and some jumping around it was clear that my wrist was not broken. My thumb was less fortunate however. Still fully functional but extremely sore we made it back to TA and my onboard pharmacy. I’d make it through the day with meds, but it was going to be painful.

Out on our bikes again for the next leg, we quickly ran down 2 checkpoints and then met up with a group from Houston as we went for a couple more checkpoints. Together we found another checkpoint and then set off downhill to find the last point across the river. Ross made the comment as we got to the river bank that in the previous 2 races he had done here that the river crossing had been dry and he thought it was funny that they called it a ‘river crossing’. Today however was another story. On this day, the Perdenales River was raging. Later in the day we saw signs warning of “Swift Water” and “Stay Out of the River”. It would have been nice to have seen those earlier in the day BEFORE we decided to cross the river.

Above: Me trying to smile through the pain and step aside so Bernice can take a picture of the rapids where we crossed the river.

So there we are at the river bank with the team from Houston. The checkpoint is on the other side of the river and there’s simply no other place to cross the river. Time to hike a bike. So one at a time we throw our bikes on our backs and start to make our way across the Perdenales. This is by far the fastest moving water I’ve even attempted to cross and by fast I mean when you picked your foot up to take a step, the water would literally sweep your foot and try to take you downstream. It was a fight just to stand there let alone walk. One by one we made it to the other side and the off we went to look for the checkpoint. We went to the left; the Houston team went to the right. We’ve got ‘em I thought. We’ll get the point and be done in no time while they’re lost. Right? Wrong. An hour or so later, we realized that BOTH teams were wrong. Both teams (us and the Houston team) plotted this same checkpoint wrong as the checkpoint was actually on the OTHER side of the river right next to TA where we just came from. We didn’t have to cross the river after all. Wow. Irony had dealt us a big blow as the Houston team was confirmation for us that we were headed in the right direction for that checkpoint and we in turn were confirmation for them that they were on the right track too.

Above: A couple that thought we were crazy to be anywhere near or in the water was kind enough to take our picture

Bummer. At this point we realize that our day is done. Done meaning that we won’t be competitive at all time wise. We were racing as an “Unofficial” 4 person team in a 3 person team race anyway but we really wanted to hang with the 3 person teams if we could. Oh well. I suppose lesser teammates would have packed it in and called it a day but we did the only thing that we know how to do. Deal with the mistake and just keep going. One small obstacle remained in our way…the river…again. Learning from the first crossing the second crossing went a little easier. Depending on where you crossed the river it was anywhere from just above your knees to waist deep. Again we somehow managed to make it across the river without anyone getting swept downstream.

And while I may write about it like it was a non-event, crossing this river was no joke. It is by far the most dangerous thing I’ve done in a race. Crossing that river was a little bit of a reality check. Had any of us been swept downstream, it would have been a potentially dire situation. I don’t think anyone would have drowned but we would have been beaten up pretty badly. Still, debris (logs, trees, brush, old fence lines etc.) was everywhere in the river. Get swept away and then get hung up, snagged or trapped under that stuff and you’re done. That being said, while it was the most dangerous thing we did all day it was also the most fun thing we did all day. I was proud of our team for working together to get across safely.

As the remainder of the day unfolded in front of us, Ross probably had the roughest day. Ross had the misfortune of the broken bike chain right off the bat which led to non-stop shifting problems for him ALL DAY LONG. His bike either shifted randomly or not at all. How he was able to stick with us for most of the race is a tribute to the great racer that he is. Add to that tummy trouble from a chick-fil-a sandwich the night before and Ross easily gets the “Badge of Honor” for continuing to race on in the face of adversity.

Sebas gets the award for falling in the river, completely submerging himself with his bike on his back, managing not to get swept away and then being able to stand back up again. How he was able to do it I don’t know. Water temp? 50ish degrees or so. Percentage of dry clothing on Sebas after the river crossing? Zero. Therefore, Sebas gets the “9 Lives” award with a note that he just used one of them.

Bernice? Well her race was flawless. She was tan, rested and ready to roll. In fact, this girl rode like the wind. She even cleaned a steep rock/gravel hill like it was nothing and schooled us on how to ride a mountain bike. When we were riding on the roads, she basically went into her ‘zone’ and pedal stroke for pedal stroke pulled away from us all slowly. She’s a machine on the bike and I know she was happy that we spent most of the race on our bikes. Bernice definitely get’s the “I’ll Show these Boys How to Race” award. Great job Bern.

As for me, today my right hand and thumb looks like a small bunch of bananas and my right leg looks like a cat used it for a scratching post. I’m 99.9% pretty sure that my thumb isn’t broken and according to my own self-diagnosis I believe that the ligaments and tendons in my right thumb are mostly intact however stretched and or slightly torn. I’ll live through the pain and keep doing what I need to do to get better and be a more helpful asset to my team. All in all it was a tough day but a great day just the same. We made a couple of errors that we’ll learn from and a couple of unforeseeable events (chain, thumb, shifting) that derailed us. Overall we did 50 plus miles on the bike, paddled about 5 miles and did probably 8 miles on foot. Thanks to Ross, Sebas and Bernice for having the right stuff to push on through the adversity that was the 12 Hours of the Eco-Lonestar. To me, that’s what it’s all about.