Matt Hayes, Julie Heidt and I headed off to Atlanta on the redeye Wednesday night for the USARA Nationals 30 hour Adventure Race. Thursday was a busy day for us, as we had to drive up to Blue Ridge, collect our bikes from the bike shop, build them, drop them off at the bike drop, pack our packs and then head out to the pre-race meeting Thursday evening. There we got the CP coordinates and two maps for the race (minus the prologue), after which we quickly headed home and got to work on route planning, and eventually got to bed by 11pm.
The next morning we woke up at 4:30am to get to the pre-race meeting at 5:45am at the park in Blue Ridge. After a short meeting, we boarded a train and travelled six miles up the river to the actual start of the race (one team missed the train and had to run six miles to the start). We were given the prologue map on the train, which included a short orienteering section, followed by a knee-deep river crossing to reach the canoes for the 15 mile canoe trip down the river under sunny skies.
Toccoa River was fairly wide and shallow, and we constantly had to maneuver around (and over) rocks. I really enjoyed this leg, as the river was pretty, but also kept us on our toes. A 3 foot high spillway blocked the river at one point,
requiring a short portage. We made it off the water in 6th place. We then had to carry/drag our canoes almost a kilometer along a logging road to the canoe drop-off point, where we started our run segment at 10:30am or so.
We ran through a nice trail system for several more miles to the bike drop-off point at Thunder Rock campground as skies clouded up and a drizzling rain started.
I discovered that I had a flat tire as we jumped on our bikes, requiring a quick fix. Then we headed out on a mountain bike leg to pick up 5 more CPs. This leg introduced us to how the race navigation was going to be. CP5 was on an unmarked forest road off the main road, then CP 6 was off a small unmarked horse trail off the unmarked forest road. We followed the visible yet faint trail along the ridge to CP 7, and then dropped down the ridge to Patterson Gap for our bike-to-run transition at CP 8, at 4pm.
By this time, it had begun to really pour hard. I kept my bike gloves and wool shirt in a ziploc to keep them dry, so that I could wear them at night when it was cold. The rain was not too bad, as long as we didn't stop exercising for too long.
The next section was a 7 mile trekking loop, where we could get CP 9,10,11,12 in any order. We did these in numerical order, and dispatched them fairly quickly. Leaving CP 11, we had to bushwhack 1200 feet up to a logging road. CP 12 was on a ridge in the woods, requiring an out-and-back bushwhack. We donned our headlamps as the light fell into darkness, and we were happy to collect the last trekking CP before it was too dark. We returned to CP 8/13 to pick up our bikes again at 6:35pm.
The bike ride from CP 13 to CP 14 was fairly straightforward on a main forest road, although there were a lot of ups and downs. I was a little tired from towing Julie the previous foot loop, and so I could hardly keep up with Matt and Julie on some of the climbs here. Although Julie got towed a lot in this race (using our WeGo Team Link), she really kept up and made the rest of us work to keep up as well. We were definitely not dawdling. We arrived at CP 14 at 8:16pm.
CP 15,16,17 was another trekking orienteering loop, which we again did in numerical order. The Pinhoti Trail was not marked on our map, but we drew it in the night before and planned to use this trail in our loop. I felt good to have done some previous research to that we did not have to make as many on-the-fly decisions about uncharted trails. We felt really strong on this 9 mile loop. We also saw DART coming the other direction, and they were looking strong, but not too too far ahead of us. We were in 4th at this point, and felt solid.
Returning to CP 14/18 at 10:50 pm,
we picked up our bikes again for the killer longer-than-eternity biking section. We could get CP 19-13 in any order, followed by CP 24, then CP 25-28 in any order, followed by CP 29 and then to the finish. Little did we know that this would take over 12 hours.
We picked a route that hit CP 19,20,23,22,21 then 24. We saw DART coming back from CP 20 as we hit CP 19, which was on top of Flattop mountain. We were close to 3rd place at this point. Julie's brakes stopped working due to mud and wetness (get disc brakes), and then she mentioned that she did not have health insurance. Accident waiting to happen? Stay lucky, Julie. On the trail to CP 20, a turn-off was extremely hard to find, and we passed it, then passed it again on our way back. After some careful mapwork, however, we found the trail, disguised by downed trees and almost invisible until we bushwhacked a short ways back into the woods. This trail quickly became a bike-carry as we constantly hiked over fallen trees. The trail dropped out onto CP 20 and a forest road. We followed this to a spot where we left our bikes to climb to CP 23 (on another hill) and back. From here, we had planned to take a trail marked on the map over to CP 22, but we could not find it. Where the trail was marked leaving the logging road there was now a 20 foot cliff, so we quickly decided to take the road to CP 21 instead. This was a long winding downhill ride that became really, really cold as we travelled along the creek at the bottom through cold, almost frosty mist. We turned off on FSR 623 to the end to get to CP 21, then retraced our path back to the main road. Only CP 22 left.
CP 22 was deceptive and difficult. We followed a road onto private land that dead-ended into a forest. An old forest service road that was completely overgrown continued on, but was heading west instead of south. We doubled back and tried again, and after a couple of false starts, we discovered that while the actual new-looking road curved from south slowly to the west past some houses, the road on the map stayed south and crossed the creek. We ducked into the woods as a few other teams were milling aimlessly around in the same area, then we crossed the creek and found the old overgrown road. After a difficult bike/bushwhack, we nabbed CP22. The sun was just rising and both we and our hopes started to warm up.
We got to CP 24 at 7am or so, after 8 full hours on the previous orienteering section. Bonfires were going and a couple teams were warming themselves by the fire. It turns out that everybody was having a difficult time and very few people had passed by who had already cleared the course. We were still in the running. The next section was going to be easier. It could also be done in any order, but the order was fairly obvious (CP25,27,26,28,29). From CP 24 to CP 25, we could either take a 3km trail or 12 km on the road. We had seen a trailhead on the previous night, but it turns out that it was in the wrong spot and was the start of an unmarked decommissioned forest service road.
At this point, I think that we should have switched plans and taken the road, but after 24 hours, we were singularly minded. We bushwhacked a short bit to find the old overgrown trail, then pushed our bikes the 3km through bush and over logs to reach the FS road to CP 25. The 3km trail took us an hour to traverse.. In any case, we had a race to finish.
The last CPs were all easy to find. CP 25 required a short hike up to a waterfall and back. We headed down the road another 15 minutes to CP 27, which put us on a trail that lead to Hudson Gap. We pushed our bikes a lot on this trail, although it was much clearer than trails we had seen the previous night. Hike-a-bike was a common theme for this race.. The map showed a forest road that came within 80 vertical feet of the trail, but a group ahead of us had no luck finding the road on a bushwhack they had done, so we stuck to the trail that continued up along the river valley, now unmarked on the map. It left us right below Hudson Gap, to which we climbed right up to the CP. Only roads left now.
We followed logging roads and paved roads to CP 28 and 29. At this point, we started seeing a lot more teams, as everyone was heading back to the finish with whatever collection of CPs that they had collected so far. The very last section from CP 29 to the finish, however, was brutal. We travelled 4 miles on a railroad bed, and we could either ride between the rails (lots of jarring bumps across railroad ties) or try to ride the gravel along the edge which got very narrow most of the time and spilled off into a ditch. Once under the freeway at the south edge of town, we jumped onto some real roads and rode into the finish
at 11:30am.
We finished 6th. Only 7 teams out of 80 completed the whole course. We finished in 28.5 hours, three hours behind DART/Nuun (the winners) and only 25 minutes out of third place.
The next morning we woke up at 4:30am to get to the pre-race meeting at 5:45am at the park in Blue Ridge. After a short meeting, we boarded a train and travelled six miles up the river to the actual start of the race (one team missed the train and had to run six miles to the start). We were given the prologue map on the train, which included a short orienteering section, followed by a knee-deep river crossing to reach the canoes for the 15 mile canoe trip down the river under sunny skies.
Toccoa River was fairly wide and shallow, and we constantly had to maneuver around (and over) rocks. I really enjoyed this leg, as the river was pretty, but also kept us on our toes. A 3 foot high spillway blocked the river at one point,
requiring a short portage. We made it off the water in 6th place. We then had to carry/drag our canoes almost a kilometer along a logging road to the canoe drop-off point, where we started our run segment at 10:30am or so.We ran through a nice trail system for several more miles to the bike drop-off point at Thunder Rock campground as skies clouded up and a drizzling rain started.
I discovered that I had a flat tire as we jumped on our bikes, requiring a quick fix. Then we headed out on a mountain bike leg to pick up 5 more CPs. This leg introduced us to how the race navigation was going to be. CP5 was on an unmarked forest road off the main road, then CP 6 was off a small unmarked horse trail off the unmarked forest road. We followed the visible yet faint trail along the ridge to CP 7, and then dropped down the ridge to Patterson Gap for our bike-to-run transition at CP 8, at 4pm.
By this time, it had begun to really pour hard. I kept my bike gloves and wool shirt in a ziploc to keep them dry, so that I could wear them at night when it was cold. The rain was not too bad, as long as we didn't stop exercising for too long.The next section was a 7 mile trekking loop, where we could get CP 9,10,11,12 in any order. We did these in numerical order, and dispatched them fairly quickly. Leaving CP 11, we had to bushwhack 1200 feet up to a logging road. CP 12 was on a ridge in the woods, requiring an out-and-back bushwhack. We donned our headlamps as the light fell into darkness, and we were happy to collect the last trekking CP before it was too dark. We returned to CP 8/13 to pick up our bikes again at 6:35pm.
The bike ride from CP 13 to CP 14 was fairly straightforward on a main forest road, although there were a lot of ups and downs. I was a little tired from towing Julie the previous foot loop, and so I could hardly keep up with Matt and Julie on some of the climbs here. Although Julie got towed a lot in this race (using our WeGo Team Link), she really kept up and made the rest of us work to keep up as well. We were definitely not dawdling. We arrived at CP 14 at 8:16pm.
CP 15,16,17 was another trekking orienteering loop, which we again did in numerical order. The Pinhoti Trail was not marked on our map, but we drew it in the night before and planned to use this trail in our loop. I felt good to have done some previous research to that we did not have to make as many on-the-fly decisions about uncharted trails. We felt really strong on this 9 mile loop. We also saw DART coming the other direction, and they were looking strong, but not too too far ahead of us. We were in 4th at this point, and felt solid.
Returning to CP 14/18 at 10:50 pm,
we picked up our bikes again for the killer longer-than-eternity biking section. We could get CP 19-13 in any order, followed by CP 24, then CP 25-28 in any order, followed by CP 29 and then to the finish. Little did we know that this would take over 12 hours.We picked a route that hit CP 19,20,23,22,21 then 24. We saw DART coming back from CP 20 as we hit CP 19, which was on top of Flattop mountain. We were close to 3rd place at this point. Julie's brakes stopped working due to mud and wetness (get disc brakes), and then she mentioned that she did not have health insurance. Accident waiting to happen? Stay lucky, Julie. On the trail to CP 20, a turn-off was extremely hard to find, and we passed it, then passed it again on our way back. After some careful mapwork, however, we found the trail, disguised by downed trees and almost invisible until we bushwhacked a short ways back into the woods. This trail quickly became a bike-carry as we constantly hiked over fallen trees. The trail dropped out onto CP 20 and a forest road. We followed this to a spot where we left our bikes to climb to CP 23 (on another hill) and back. From here, we had planned to take a trail marked on the map over to CP 22, but we could not find it. Where the trail was marked leaving the logging road there was now a 20 foot cliff, so we quickly decided to take the road to CP 21 instead. This was a long winding downhill ride that became really, really cold as we travelled along the creek at the bottom through cold, almost frosty mist. We turned off on FSR 623 to the end to get to CP 21, then retraced our path back to the main road. Only CP 22 left.
CP 22 was deceptive and difficult. We followed a road onto private land that dead-ended into a forest. An old forest service road that was completely overgrown continued on, but was heading west instead of south. We doubled back and tried again, and after a couple of false starts, we discovered that while the actual new-looking road curved from south slowly to the west past some houses, the road on the map stayed south and crossed the creek. We ducked into the woods as a few other teams were milling aimlessly around in the same area, then we crossed the creek and found the old overgrown road. After a difficult bike/bushwhack, we nabbed CP22. The sun was just rising and both we and our hopes started to warm up.
We got to CP 24 at 7am or so, after 8 full hours on the previous orienteering section. Bonfires were going and a couple teams were warming themselves by the fire. It turns out that everybody was having a difficult time and very few people had passed by who had already cleared the course. We were still in the running. The next section was going to be easier. It could also be done in any order, but the order was fairly obvious (CP25,27,26,28,29). From CP 24 to CP 25, we could either take a 3km trail or 12 km on the road. We had seen a trailhead on the previous night, but it turns out that it was in the wrong spot and was the start of an unmarked decommissioned forest service road.
At this point, I think that we should have switched plans and taken the road, but after 24 hours, we were singularly minded. We bushwhacked a short bit to find the old overgrown trail, then pushed our bikes the 3km through bush and over logs to reach the FS road to CP 25. The 3km trail took us an hour to traverse.. In any case, we had a race to finish.The last CPs were all easy to find. CP 25 required a short hike up to a waterfall and back. We headed down the road another 15 minutes to CP 27, which put us on a trail that lead to Hudson Gap. We pushed our bikes a lot on this trail, although it was much clearer than trails we had seen the previous night. Hike-a-bike was a common theme for this race.. The map showed a forest road that came within 80 vertical feet of the trail, but a group ahead of us had no luck finding the road on a bushwhack they had done, so we stuck to the trail that continued up along the river valley, now unmarked on the map. It left us right below Hudson Gap, to which we climbed right up to the CP. Only roads left now.
We followed logging roads and paved roads to CP 28 and 29. At this point, we started seeing a lot more teams, as everyone was heading back to the finish with whatever collection of CPs that they had collected so far. The very last section from CP 29 to the finish, however, was brutal. We travelled 4 miles on a railroad bed, and we could either ride between the rails (lots of jarring bumps across railroad ties) or try to ride the gravel along the edge which got very narrow most of the time and spilled off into a ditch. Once under the freeway at the south edge of town, we jumped onto some real roads and rode into the finish
at 11:30am.We finished 6th. Only 7 teams out of 80 completed the whole course. We finished in 28.5 hours, three hours behind DART/Nuun (the winners) and only 25 minutes out of third place.
The race was very tough, and I felt good too have finished it. Matt and Julie were stellar teammates as well.
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