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.

It's Only a Number

So in exactly two weeks I'll be 42. Yep...42. Not 21, not 24, but 42. The last year has been spectacular in a lot of ways and a disaster in others. While it's great that my hand is healing extremely well after surgery, I've had to have a cortisone injection in my right foot and with all of the running I've been doing, my left knee is bugging the crap out of me. Not fun for sure but it appears to be part of this thing called life.

Anyway, this whole pending birthday thing started me thinking last night about one of the guys that I mountain bike with. Those of you that see me regularly have heard this story before but I'll tell it today for the masses. The story goes like this:

A couple of years back I was just really getting serious into adventure racing. I was riding and running at every opportunity I could find. The way that rides usually came together was that during the week, someone would send out a blast text message that said something like "Wheels down at the park and riding at 6....be there if you can." And that was it. A few texts would fly back and forth and a group would come together. Between Bob, Erika, Ross, Dina, Sebastian and a few other folks we almost always had someone to ride with. Sometimes we all made it, sometimes just a couple of people made it, and sometimes you just rode by yourself.

As time went by, we all got to know each other a bit. Husbands, wives, girlfriends, kids, jobs etc. All just a part of becoming friends. It didn't take much to figure out the following: Dina is the hardcore racer. Erika is hot on her heals. Bob can climb damn near anything. Ross had the most adventure racing experience and Sebastian was fast but crashed a lot. Still does actually.

So anyway the story goes like this. I send out a blast text one day and get a few responses. Come 6 o'clock, it's wheels down and Bob and I are the only two folks at the park for the ride. Sweet. Riding with Bob makes me a better rider because he pulls off some climbs and lines that in my mind just aren't possible only when I follow him, I can make it.

Now, as we're riding and talking I recall that Bob had mentioned a couple of daughters and a son. So I casually ask him if his kids go to O'Connor High School or are they going to UTSA. My logic was that I figured Bob was in his late 40's or early 50's which might put his kids in that age range. So Bob, gets kind of quiet and then says "My kids?....Shayne my son is 41...he's older than you are." Needless to say I was a little shocked. Bob had been kicking my ass on a mountain bike for well over a year and he has as son that's older than me? What's wrong with this picture?

So I casually ask..."Bob...just how old are you?" To which he says...."I just turned 60." Are you f***ing kidding me? Apparently not.

That little nugget of information set off about years worth of random outbursts. I'm sure people thought that I had Tourette's Syndrome when I would just blurt out "The man is 60!" If I heard someone less than 60 complaining about how they couldn't do something because they were too old, injured, tired, or fat, I'd tell the story above and let them know that my friend Bob was 60 and going strong. In fact, I told the story so much that I could ask my oldest daughter the following "How old is Bob?" to which she would reply..."The man is 60!"

I say all of this and write this little update today because while I may sometimes get caught up in the fact that I will soon be 42, my friend Bob turned 62 yesterday. The man is 62, still riding, still racing and still making me look bad on technical climbs. He's proof every time I see him on the trail or go for ride with him that your physical age, well, it's only a number. Happy Birthday Bob. I hope to be doing what you're doing when I'm 62. See you on the trail.