2014 USARA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
The big daddy - the USARA National Championships in Deep Creek, MD. Our biggest race ever. What we had been looking forward to with equal parts excitement and foreboding since qualifying in the spring.
We qualified for Nationals at our first race of the year - at the Lightning Strikes Adventure Race, where we met AR legend Robyn Benincasa. When we met her, she told us we should definitely do the USARA race. We laughed openly about that. 30 hours straight? Nighttime navigation? Racing with the best teams in the country? We never imagined we would do that. Fast-forward just seven months, and we're headed to Nationals. Amazing how time and experience can change you.
We qualified for Nationals at our first race of the year - at the Lightning Strikes Adventure Race, where we met AR legend Robyn Benincasa. When we met her, she told us we should definitely do the USARA race. We laughed openly about that. 30 hours straight? Nighttime navigation? Racing with the best teams in the country? We never imagined we would do that. Fast-forward just seven months, and we're headed to Nationals. Amazing how time and experience can change you.
We left Madison Wednesday afternoon and met Starker in Rockford, where we boarded the Sketchmobile, all decked out for a long road trip, with an air-mat in back and gear piled all around. We had just received our new jerseys in the mail, and before we left we got a few pictures of us in our powder-blue glory.
We went out for a big dinner at Mark’s Fusion Cafe, then drove to a little town in Indiana near Notre Dame, where we got a hotel room. The town we stayed in was right on the border of the Central/Eastern time zones, and we were worried our cell phones might not correct and that we would wake up too late, but fortunately we got up on time and set out early, driving east through Indiana, Ohio, then Pennsylvania. Finally, in the mid-afternoon, we arrived in Deep Creek, after nearly running out of gas in the last 10 miles.
Our first stop was race registration, where we got our free swag, our race bibs and our boogie board (for the much-anticipated manmade whitewater course we would start the race with), and went over to Wisp Mountain Resort to check in. The hotel room was very nice, which was kind of a shame since we knew we wouldn’t be spending a lot of time there. At 6 p.m. or so, we went over for the race briefing, and ended up sitting right next to Tecnu, last year’s national champions and the favorites to win again. They had their own media guy taking photos and videos. That, along with sitting in the presence of 50 of the best adventure racing teams in the country, gave us a bit of a star-struck awe, and we tried to soak it all in without getting too amped up and nervous.
The race briefing went over the race structure and spent a long time specifically on the boogie boarding aspect of the race, which sounded pretty cool but a bit intense. They didn’t give us too much information, but we did come to understand that we would be running up the side of Wisp Mountain to the whitewater course, then taking turns running the course on our one boogie board. After that, we would be running back down to the base of Wisp and continuing with the race.
During the briefing, our friends Claire Riley and Gilly Fisher showed up and we became one of the few teams with a real live fan club at the race. Gilly had driven down from upstate New York for the race, and then the two of them had driven another three hours from Baltimore to western MD - big time devotion from some true friends! We went out to dinner afterwards at the hotel, and Claire and Gilly informed us they had something interesting up their sleeves for the next day. We got back to the hotel, finished our last-minute preparations, and got to sleep around midnight.
During the briefing, our friends Claire Riley and Gilly Fisher showed up and we became one of the few teams with a real live fan club at the race. Gilly had driven down from upstate New York for the race, and then the two of them had driven another three hours from Baltimore to western MD - big time devotion from some true friends! We went out to dinner afterwards at the hotel, and Claire and Gilly informed us they had something interesting up their sleeves for the next day. We got back to the hotel, finished our last-minute preparations, and got to sleep around midnight.
Obviously, with such a big event in our immediate futures, getting to sleep wasn’t easy. I’d say by the time our alarm went off at 5 a.m., we had gotten maybe 3-4 hours of sleep. Not ideal going into 30 hours of nonstop activity, but it was what we had to deal with. By 5:30 we were out the door and receiving our maps from race control, which was set up in the lodge at the base of Wisp. It was a pretty crazy time, with teams sprawled all over the place trying to “do maps,” as Kate and Cliff like to call it. We started plotting, trying to double-check everything without going too slow, as we only had 1.5 hours before the start of the race. Somehow, while simultaneously stuffing bagels with peanut butter and bananas into our mouths, Kate and Cliff got all the race points plotted and tried to piece together how the race would actually run while Starker went over how to use the GPS our race-provided tracking unit.
Upon first glance, the race looked like this: two-mile run up to the whitewater; three laps of whitewater boogie-boarding; a run back down to the base lodge at Wisp, our first transition area (TA1) (two checkpoints total); 12-mile bike o-section on Wisp Mountain (three CPs), a one-mile run to paddle TA2 (one CP), a four-mile paddle (with an optional additional 10-mile paddle down to bottom of Deep Creek Lake for additional two CPs) to the first foot o-course (five CPs); a four-mile paddle back; a one-mile run back to the Wisp TA; a 15 -mile bike to a 4-CP bike-o trail section, a 15-mile bike ride to a five-CP bike-o section, a 12-mile bike ride to a huge, 10- CP foot-o section, a 15-mile bike back through a four-CP bike-o section and then a final 15-mile bike back to Wisp, where there was one final three-CP foot-o section.
With no required CPs, we had huge route choice (after the race, it was really neat to look at the GPS tracks of all the teams together and see how they had chosen different routes). We didn’t really think about skipping significant sections of the course, since we really had no idea how long each section would take us. We figured we could make those decisions en-route as we gauged our progress. With our main objective trying to get a feel for what a championship course was like, we eventually settled into a strategy of trying to visit as much of the course as possible, perhaps not maximizing our point score but certainly our miles traveled and experiences.
In our final minutes of pre-race action, we were one of the few teams to cut up our maps, and we got nervous seeing that, and we found one downside was that it was hard to see how the route was linked together after we made the cuts, which might have cost us in finding a better route around the course. But in the end, it was a good decision, as we heard that many teams had trouble handling the massive-sized reams of paper.
We headed outside to the bike TA and as we were finalizing our gear, the race gun went off. We were unsure what it was at first, and then we saw teams streaming through the start line and up the ski hill. “I guess we’re starting now!” Cliff yelled over the din. In the USARA's video of the start; you can see we were among the last teams to head through the gate.
Upon first glance, the race looked like this: two-mile run up to the whitewater; three laps of whitewater boogie-boarding; a run back down to the base lodge at Wisp, our first transition area (TA1) (two checkpoints total); 12-mile bike o-section on Wisp Mountain (three CPs), a one-mile run to paddle TA2 (one CP), a four-mile paddle (with an optional additional 10-mile paddle down to bottom of Deep Creek Lake for additional two CPs) to the first foot o-course (five CPs); a four-mile paddle back; a one-mile run back to the Wisp TA; a 15 -mile bike to a 4-CP bike-o trail section, a 15-mile bike ride to a five-CP bike-o section, a 12-mile bike ride to a huge, 10- CP foot-o section, a 15-mile bike back through a four-CP bike-o section and then a final 15-mile bike back to Wisp, where there was one final three-CP foot-o section.
With no required CPs, we had huge route choice (after the race, it was really neat to look at the GPS tracks of all the teams together and see how they had chosen different routes). We didn’t really think about skipping significant sections of the course, since we really had no idea how long each section would take us. We figured we could make those decisions en-route as we gauged our progress. With our main objective trying to get a feel for what a championship course was like, we eventually settled into a strategy of trying to visit as much of the course as possible, perhaps not maximizing our point score but certainly our miles traveled and experiences.
In our final minutes of pre-race action, we were one of the few teams to cut up our maps, and we got nervous seeing that, and we found one downside was that it was hard to see how the route was linked together after we made the cuts, which might have cost us in finding a better route around the course. But in the end, it was a good decision, as we heard that many teams had trouble handling the massive-sized reams of paper.
We headed outside to the bike TA and as we were finalizing our gear, the race gun went off. We were unsure what it was at first, and then we saw teams streaming through the start line and up the ski hill. “I guess we’re starting now!” Cliff yelled over the din. In the USARA's video of the start; you can see we were among the last teams to head through the gate.
We made our way up the hill as one of the final teams to the whitewater section, and Starker didn't hesitate as he headed into the water first. He moved quickly past some whirlpools where other racers had gotten stuck and gracefully slid down the first rapids. That’s when we spotted Claire and Gilly dressed up in life-sized costumes of our Strong Machine icon, accurate down to the Flava-Flav like clock/compasses hanging around their next and handmade foam paddles with “Go Strong Machine” written on the blades. Their amazing get-ups were later captured on a USARA video:
Kate and Cliff said hello as they waited for Starker to finish his loop, and then started chatting with Jeff from Alpine Shop, who took time out of his race to give them a few tips. Each loop took about 20 minutes, and Kate was second up. Cliff watched her navigate the course and learned all the ins-and-outs, eddys and currents. Meanwhile, Starker gave him advice on how to stay in the current and not get sucked into the whirlpools on either side. By the time Kate finished her lap and Cliff got in the water, he felt like he could nail it. Staying in the current was much faster than getting stuck in an eddy, but it also prevented you from ever catching your breath, and there was relief when Cliff finally got spit out into the final pool at the bottom of the course. Thanks to good teamwork and communication, the team finished up the section now more mid-pack than back-of-the pack.
Still soaked, we ran down to the TA, where we got on our bikes and headed up the mini-bike race (King of the Mountain/Fastest Climb award) back up to the top of Wisp. Instead of taking the direct route, a dirt trail with a 20-percent grade, we opted for the paved road that added a couple of miles but cut down on the intense uphill. We got to the top and set off on a series of trails congested with other racers, picking up the first point easily, then bikewhacking down a steep hill to a second trail that we scouted for a few minutes before figuring out which way to go and finding the second CP. The third CP was a five-mile bike ride away, with the first few miles along a pretty burly trail that slowed us down a bit. The last couple of miles were on a double-wide road, and then we did a short run up to the CP, which was in a neat spot - up a ladder on the top of a big climbing rock.
We rode out of the park on an asphalt road, then careened down the downhill we had come up from Wisp, probably lagging in the back third of the pack. By this time, it was getting a bit windy and cloudy but wasn’t raining yet, though it was pretty ominous. We completed a one-mile run to the paddle TA, carrying our paddling equipment, and saw Claire and Gilly waiting for us at the kayak put-in. They gave us a big cheer as we headed off to Deep Creek Lake State Park into a gnarly headwind.
We rode out of the park on an asphalt road, then careened down the downhill we had come up from Wisp, probably lagging in the back third of the pack. By this time, it was getting a bit windy and cloudy but wasn’t raining yet, though it was pretty ominous. We completed a one-mile run to the paddle TA, carrying our paddling equipment, and saw Claire and Gilly waiting for us at the kayak put-in. They gave us a big cheer as we headed off to Deep Creek Lake State Park into a gnarly headwind.
Progress was slow as we inched along over some curling waves, but seeing Claire and Gilly once more as they waved to us from a dock was a big pick-me-up. We saw an all-male team capsize and went to help them, but there wasn’t much we could do and they seemed okay. We got to the park and took a minute or two to shake feeling back into our legs, with Starker especially cold after getting the brunt of the waves coming over the bow. We then set off on a five-point O-course. As we started up a hill to the first CP, we saw one team headed out on bikes. This threw us off, as there was no way they could be this far along in the course yet given the time elapsed. As it turned out, they had skipped the paddle entirely and had biked to the paddle TA, then dropped their bikes and done the O-course on foot, before continuing on bikes. We didn't think this should have been allowed by the race director, because they effectively eliminated an entire discipline of adventure racing and saved themselves a bundle of time as well by not having to go back to Wisp. But given how new we were to the sport and how we had no hope of racing competitively with top teams like NYARA, we didn't dwell on it.
On the o-course, we had little to no problem finding any of the points, giving us confidence for the rest of the race. At this point, we were feeling really good, trying not to overexert ourselves too soon into our first 30-hour race. We were mostly walking, keeping in mind our race goals of just finishing and having a good time. We were eating and drinking a lot, chatting and laughing most of the time too. The lack of stress really helped keep us having fun and not worried too much about how we were doing compared to the other teams. We decided against getting the furthest-away point of the five o-course CPs, knowing it would probably take us too long to make it worth it. Some highlights of this section included Kate steering a compass direction down a steep hill and finding one CP perfectly, and Starker finding another at the mouth of an old mineshaft. We then headed to the beach, just as we felt the first sprinkles of rain.
We got back to the canoes and headed back to the paddle TA, then back to Wisp with our gear. On our walk back, the weather turned much worse, and it started absolutely dumping rain on us. We got into the TA in a full downpour, soaking wet, just as it was getting dark. We agreed to a long-ish transition, hiding from the rain in Sketchy (Starker's minivan) while changing some clothes up and eating a bunch. Finally, and perhaps a bit reluctantly, we headed out but immediately ran into trouble trying to get out of town, as the map was not entirely clear where the correct road was (or maybe Cliff just had trouble reading it). Finally on our way, we decided upon taking the northerly route to a four-point bike-o section on what looked like some pretty gnarly trails. By this time, it was about 9 p.m. and totally dark, but fortunately not raining much anymore. We got our bike lights on and found the entrance to the bike trails pretty easily. Near the entrance, we passed a bunch of lights going the opposite way. Cliff spoke up, saying, “You know this is the way back to Wisp, right?” And the voice behind the light said, “I think we know where we’re going.” As they swept by us, Cliff looked back and saw the jerseys of Dart/Nuun fading into the darkness. Yes, the eventual second-place finisher definitely knew where they were going. Oops.
Out on the trail, we were by ourselves on a rocky and muddy but flat section of singletrack until we got to the first CP, where we saw a bunch of teams swooping in from the other side. These were teams that had elected to get an additional CP on the other side of a big mountain from us. After the CP, the track looked a lot more rutty and we saw a bunch more teams. At one point, Cliff argued for dropping our bikes and running over the ridgeline (about 500 feet of vertical) to get another CP, and we eventually did so. We got back to our bikes, found our last CP and headed out of the woods. Then Cliff’s bike light failed. As we worked on seeing what was going on, a truck’s headlights came down the road and turned into us. At this point, it was past midnight. He must have been wondering what in God’s name three people were doing in his driveway in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night wearing matching powder blue cycling outfits. Well, we were trying to figure out why Cliff’s light wasn’t working. We got out of his way and he drove on, and by then we had figured out that the light's battery hadn't held its charge. So Starker went McGuyver and strapped an LED penlight to Cliff’s handlebars, and we proceeded on.
Fortunately, it was a pretty bright night out, with a nearly full moon. The roads were freshly paved and gave us some easy riding, mostly downhill to our next destination, a four-point bike-o-course that we turned into a foot-o course. It was at this point that Starker began to comment how his brand new 29er wasn’t performing up to his expectations (more on that later). We spent a little bit of time looking for the first point, eventually finding it deep in the woods on what looked like private property. We continued on to New Germany State Park, where we had to head into the woods to collect two CPs. Our lack of light and skill made us fear taking our bikes on the technical trails, so we proceeded on foot instead. This proved very time-consuming. We didn’t see many teams until the farthest-away point, when we ran into a bunch, many asking us why we didn’t have our bikes. Besides a crazy big uphill that would have been slow, we probably should have brought our bikes. Oh well, lesson learned.
At this point, Cliff started getting a wicked case of the sleep monsters, and basically relied on Kate and Starker to guide him back to the bikes, a 45-minute trip. We got there, and heading out, we stopped at the park's warm and well-lit bathrooms to regroup. Cliff was for staying longer, but Kate kicked his ass and we got going. On our way out, Cliff spotted a team hunched over an overturned bike. We stopped to check it out, and it turned out they had broken a chain. Learning from his experiences with Malcolm in the Michigan adventure race, Cliff just happened to have a QuikLink in the right size, and Team 404 became our new best friends as we saved them a lengthy repair job. They told us they would tell the race director about our help and we told them not to worry about it. Then they asked us where we were going. We told them our proposed course, and they gave us a much better option that gave us an extra CP. We thanked them profusely and then moved on, clearing the section by finding the last CP using the race director’s “We don’t want you crossing any streams if you can help it” clue to go further down the road that we felt was right so we didn’t have to wade ankle-deep in a stream.
From there, we faced a long downhill bike ride to the big o-course TA. We flew down the nice new roads as red leaves fell all around us - quite magical. Unfortunately, by this time, it was also quite cold, and we were already wearing all our layers. After getting worried we were on the wrong track because we weren’t getting to the TA fast enough, we saw an oasis of light and arrived at the TA at around 4 a.m. By that point, we were freezing. But the TA had hot broth and hot chocolate, and we indulged in both as we studied the o-course map, which gave us a choice of points worth different values, to add up to a maximum of 10 points. We knew we didn’t have the time or will to get all of them, so we made a plan that added up to four CPs and headed out feeling rejuvenated.
We walked out of the TA on a road heading uphill, and soon, we left the road and turned off onto a trailless, very steep hill. Kate led us to the first point directly, which we were later proud of as several teams had trouble finding it. After struggling up a very steep slope, we made the ridgeline, then proceeded up it for what seemed like forever, through what we deemed a “highway” created by hundreds of racers clomping over long grass. A couple of times, the trail disappeared and we were forced to trudge through viciously sharp briars that clung and ripped at our bodies from foot to head. Kate was on her A-game, and we found our second and third CPs without a hiccup. The point at the top of the hill was especially impressive, given that there weren’t any handrails or noticeable navigational aids around to help. Starker’s eagle eyes also impressed as he spotted the flag from a long way off. Then we headed back downhill, just as the sky started to brighten a bit. Feeling great, we made our way down the “highway” but that was when made our first (and only) navigational blunder, and it was a big one. Kate was convinced we were going down the wrong arm of the mountain, and our compasses were backing that theory up. We wanted to head on a southwesterly heading, but our compass needles read straight south. To make sure we were going the right way, we traversed over as far left as we could get, and saw the valley below, making us feel like we were on the left side of the correct arm. But then we started doubting that as the compass stubbornly still read south. This could have been the low point of the race, as we spent 45 minutes traversing around trying to get an idea of where we were. Fortunately, the sun was coming up and that helped our spirits, though it also brought a fresh breeze of cold air. Finally, we decided just to descend the “highway” and that was the right call. Seems obvious now, but it was much less clear in the dark and after staying up for pretty much two nights straight.
We found our fourth CP out on a ridge and then descended over the top, heading down a very steep slope that had already been distrurbed and made loose by several other teams. We all ended up sliding on our butts and multiple occassions, but finally we made it to the bottom of the mountain and found the asphalt road that headed up the middle of the park. Cliff wanted to head up the road and get another CP, but we decided against it, as it was now past 7 a.m. On our way down the road, Brian, the race director, pulled up next to us in a truck and started asking how we were doing and how we liked the course. It was a fun conversation, as we usually don’t have the time or the access to talk to an RD mid-race. We told him we were loving the course but it was kicking our asses. Finally, we made it back to the TA, got ourselves ready for the bike out, and pedaled out, feeling good. That feeling didn’t last long, as we hit a crazy uphill not far out of the TA. In retrospect, we should have looked at the map closer and seen that a CP we intentionally didn’t go for because it was a two-mile out-and-back pedal. In reality, it was a thru-road that would have been an easier option than what we ended up taking, which was a road with 8-15 percent grade. It was beautiful, running alongside a creek with lots of mini-waterfalls, but we were in no shape to tackle it. It took us the better part of an hour and a half to make it the five miles up the hill. Then, thinking we were past the worst of it, we found that the road just continued to climb, inexplicably, as it wound along a ridgeline. We decided to skip the three CPs that were located on trails off the road (in Deep Creek Lake Park, the same place where the first o-course was located), and headed back on trafficky roads back to Wisp, stopping once to confirm our route choice at a restaurant. With the wind and our exhaustion combined, the last miles were very tough, but we finally made it back into Wisp and the finish. We pulled into the parking lot and there were Claire and Gilly waiting once again for us (having slept in our unused hotel room the night before).
There were three more CPs up on Wisp (actually four - another weird quirk of the course was that you got a bonus point for getting any of the hiking points at the end), but we had all agreed we wanted to be done, and so, 28 hours and change after starting out on Friday morning, we finished our race between noon and 1 p.m. on Saturday. We shared a big group hug and went up to our room to clean up. Gilly and Claire went out to fetch us some delicious Mexican food, which we scarfed down (we hadn’t eaten anything but snacks for the entire race), and then Kate showered and went promptly to sleep, while Starker and Cliff held on to their promise of taking a hot tub. They went downstairs, took a quick shower in the public shower room, then dipped into the hot tub. They talked for a bit, watching as other teams came in through the hallway outside the pool area. But then they both started nodding off. As Cliff woke to one of Starker’s snores, we made the call that it was time to get out and get a nap in before the awards dinner.
We woke up at 6 p.m. for the 7 p.m. dinner, and actually felt surprisingly good. We went down to the staging area, where a spaghetti buffet was waiting for us. We ate - a lot - then listened to a talk by a guy who had climbed Denali and then hiked out with an inflatable kayak which he had paddled all the way to Anchorage. Claire and Gilly sat with us at the banquet, and we also sat with a guy who had done several Primal Quests and Eco-Challenges, and told us a lot of great stories about those races.
Then they started handing out the awards. When they came to the Dave Boyd Award for Sportsmanship and mentioned how 404 Racing had run into some trouble on the far side of the course in the middle of the night, Starker turned to the table and said, “I knew it” (he had been predicting this all night). Strong Machine was called up to the dais and presented with our award, which was large and featured a strip of shirt from memorial patches worn for Dave Boyd during a previous national championship race. It was very silly feeling and a little exhilarating to be receiving an award in the presence of so many good adventure racers despite being one of the bottom-ranked teams at the race, but we had no compunction accepting it and promptly bragged about it all over social media.
On the o-course, we had little to no problem finding any of the points, giving us confidence for the rest of the race. At this point, we were feeling really good, trying not to overexert ourselves too soon into our first 30-hour race. We were mostly walking, keeping in mind our race goals of just finishing and having a good time. We were eating and drinking a lot, chatting and laughing most of the time too. The lack of stress really helped keep us having fun and not worried too much about how we were doing compared to the other teams. We decided against getting the furthest-away point of the five o-course CPs, knowing it would probably take us too long to make it worth it. Some highlights of this section included Kate steering a compass direction down a steep hill and finding one CP perfectly, and Starker finding another at the mouth of an old mineshaft. We then headed to the beach, just as we felt the first sprinkles of rain.
We got back to the canoes and headed back to the paddle TA, then back to Wisp with our gear. On our walk back, the weather turned much worse, and it started absolutely dumping rain on us. We got into the TA in a full downpour, soaking wet, just as it was getting dark. We agreed to a long-ish transition, hiding from the rain in Sketchy (Starker's minivan) while changing some clothes up and eating a bunch. Finally, and perhaps a bit reluctantly, we headed out but immediately ran into trouble trying to get out of town, as the map was not entirely clear where the correct road was (or maybe Cliff just had trouble reading it). Finally on our way, we decided upon taking the northerly route to a four-point bike-o section on what looked like some pretty gnarly trails. By this time, it was about 9 p.m. and totally dark, but fortunately not raining much anymore. We got our bike lights on and found the entrance to the bike trails pretty easily. Near the entrance, we passed a bunch of lights going the opposite way. Cliff spoke up, saying, “You know this is the way back to Wisp, right?” And the voice behind the light said, “I think we know where we’re going.” As they swept by us, Cliff looked back and saw the jerseys of Dart/Nuun fading into the darkness. Yes, the eventual second-place finisher definitely knew where they were going. Oops.
Out on the trail, we were by ourselves on a rocky and muddy but flat section of singletrack until we got to the first CP, where we saw a bunch of teams swooping in from the other side. These were teams that had elected to get an additional CP on the other side of a big mountain from us. After the CP, the track looked a lot more rutty and we saw a bunch more teams. At one point, Cliff argued for dropping our bikes and running over the ridgeline (about 500 feet of vertical) to get another CP, and we eventually did so. We got back to our bikes, found our last CP and headed out of the woods. Then Cliff’s bike light failed. As we worked on seeing what was going on, a truck’s headlights came down the road and turned into us. At this point, it was past midnight. He must have been wondering what in God’s name three people were doing in his driveway in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night wearing matching powder blue cycling outfits. Well, we were trying to figure out why Cliff’s light wasn’t working. We got out of his way and he drove on, and by then we had figured out that the light's battery hadn't held its charge. So Starker went McGuyver and strapped an LED penlight to Cliff’s handlebars, and we proceeded on.
Fortunately, it was a pretty bright night out, with a nearly full moon. The roads were freshly paved and gave us some easy riding, mostly downhill to our next destination, a four-point bike-o-course that we turned into a foot-o course. It was at this point that Starker began to comment how his brand new 29er wasn’t performing up to his expectations (more on that later). We spent a little bit of time looking for the first point, eventually finding it deep in the woods on what looked like private property. We continued on to New Germany State Park, where we had to head into the woods to collect two CPs. Our lack of light and skill made us fear taking our bikes on the technical trails, so we proceeded on foot instead. This proved very time-consuming. We didn’t see many teams until the farthest-away point, when we ran into a bunch, many asking us why we didn’t have our bikes. Besides a crazy big uphill that would have been slow, we probably should have brought our bikes. Oh well, lesson learned.
At this point, Cliff started getting a wicked case of the sleep monsters, and basically relied on Kate and Starker to guide him back to the bikes, a 45-minute trip. We got there, and heading out, we stopped at the park's warm and well-lit bathrooms to regroup. Cliff was for staying longer, but Kate kicked his ass and we got going. On our way out, Cliff spotted a team hunched over an overturned bike. We stopped to check it out, and it turned out they had broken a chain. Learning from his experiences with Malcolm in the Michigan adventure race, Cliff just happened to have a QuikLink in the right size, and Team 404 became our new best friends as we saved them a lengthy repair job. They told us they would tell the race director about our help and we told them not to worry about it. Then they asked us where we were going. We told them our proposed course, and they gave us a much better option that gave us an extra CP. We thanked them profusely and then moved on, clearing the section by finding the last CP using the race director’s “We don’t want you crossing any streams if you can help it” clue to go further down the road that we felt was right so we didn’t have to wade ankle-deep in a stream.
From there, we faced a long downhill bike ride to the big o-course TA. We flew down the nice new roads as red leaves fell all around us - quite magical. Unfortunately, by this time, it was also quite cold, and we were already wearing all our layers. After getting worried we were on the wrong track because we weren’t getting to the TA fast enough, we saw an oasis of light and arrived at the TA at around 4 a.m. By that point, we were freezing. But the TA had hot broth and hot chocolate, and we indulged in both as we studied the o-course map, which gave us a choice of points worth different values, to add up to a maximum of 10 points. We knew we didn’t have the time or will to get all of them, so we made a plan that added up to four CPs and headed out feeling rejuvenated.
We walked out of the TA on a road heading uphill, and soon, we left the road and turned off onto a trailless, very steep hill. Kate led us to the first point directly, which we were later proud of as several teams had trouble finding it. After struggling up a very steep slope, we made the ridgeline, then proceeded up it for what seemed like forever, through what we deemed a “highway” created by hundreds of racers clomping over long grass. A couple of times, the trail disappeared and we were forced to trudge through viciously sharp briars that clung and ripped at our bodies from foot to head. Kate was on her A-game, and we found our second and third CPs without a hiccup. The point at the top of the hill was especially impressive, given that there weren’t any handrails or noticeable navigational aids around to help. Starker’s eagle eyes also impressed as he spotted the flag from a long way off. Then we headed back downhill, just as the sky started to brighten a bit. Feeling great, we made our way down the “highway” but that was when made our first (and only) navigational blunder, and it was a big one. Kate was convinced we were going down the wrong arm of the mountain, and our compasses were backing that theory up. We wanted to head on a southwesterly heading, but our compass needles read straight south. To make sure we were going the right way, we traversed over as far left as we could get, and saw the valley below, making us feel like we were on the left side of the correct arm. But then we started doubting that as the compass stubbornly still read south. This could have been the low point of the race, as we spent 45 minutes traversing around trying to get an idea of where we were. Fortunately, the sun was coming up and that helped our spirits, though it also brought a fresh breeze of cold air. Finally, we decided just to descend the “highway” and that was the right call. Seems obvious now, but it was much less clear in the dark and after staying up for pretty much two nights straight.
We found our fourth CP out on a ridge and then descended over the top, heading down a very steep slope that had already been distrurbed and made loose by several other teams. We all ended up sliding on our butts and multiple occassions, but finally we made it to the bottom of the mountain and found the asphalt road that headed up the middle of the park. Cliff wanted to head up the road and get another CP, but we decided against it, as it was now past 7 a.m. On our way down the road, Brian, the race director, pulled up next to us in a truck and started asking how we were doing and how we liked the course. It was a fun conversation, as we usually don’t have the time or the access to talk to an RD mid-race. We told him we were loving the course but it was kicking our asses. Finally, we made it back to the TA, got ourselves ready for the bike out, and pedaled out, feeling good. That feeling didn’t last long, as we hit a crazy uphill not far out of the TA. In retrospect, we should have looked at the map closer and seen that a CP we intentionally didn’t go for because it was a two-mile out-and-back pedal. In reality, it was a thru-road that would have been an easier option than what we ended up taking, which was a road with 8-15 percent grade. It was beautiful, running alongside a creek with lots of mini-waterfalls, but we were in no shape to tackle it. It took us the better part of an hour and a half to make it the five miles up the hill. Then, thinking we were past the worst of it, we found that the road just continued to climb, inexplicably, as it wound along a ridgeline. We decided to skip the three CPs that were located on trails off the road (in Deep Creek Lake Park, the same place where the first o-course was located), and headed back on trafficky roads back to Wisp, stopping once to confirm our route choice at a restaurant. With the wind and our exhaustion combined, the last miles were very tough, but we finally made it back into Wisp and the finish. We pulled into the parking lot and there were Claire and Gilly waiting once again for us (having slept in our unused hotel room the night before).
There were three more CPs up on Wisp (actually four - another weird quirk of the course was that you got a bonus point for getting any of the hiking points at the end), but we had all agreed we wanted to be done, and so, 28 hours and change after starting out on Friday morning, we finished our race between noon and 1 p.m. on Saturday. We shared a big group hug and went up to our room to clean up. Gilly and Claire went out to fetch us some delicious Mexican food, which we scarfed down (we hadn’t eaten anything but snacks for the entire race), and then Kate showered and went promptly to sleep, while Starker and Cliff held on to their promise of taking a hot tub. They went downstairs, took a quick shower in the public shower room, then dipped into the hot tub. They talked for a bit, watching as other teams came in through the hallway outside the pool area. But then they both started nodding off. As Cliff woke to one of Starker’s snores, we made the call that it was time to get out and get a nap in before the awards dinner.
We woke up at 6 p.m. for the 7 p.m. dinner, and actually felt surprisingly good. We went down to the staging area, where a spaghetti buffet was waiting for us. We ate - a lot - then listened to a talk by a guy who had climbed Denali and then hiked out with an inflatable kayak which he had paddled all the way to Anchorage. Claire and Gilly sat with us at the banquet, and we also sat with a guy who had done several Primal Quests and Eco-Challenges, and told us a lot of great stories about those races.
Then they started handing out the awards. When they came to the Dave Boyd Award for Sportsmanship and mentioned how 404 Racing had run into some trouble on the far side of the course in the middle of the night, Starker turned to the table and said, “I knew it” (he had been predicting this all night). Strong Machine was called up to the dais and presented with our award, which was large and featured a strip of shirt from memorial patches worn for Dave Boyd during a previous national championship race. It was very silly feeling and a little exhilarating to be receiving an award in the presence of so many good adventure racers despite being one of the bottom-ranked teams at the race, but we had no compunction accepting it and promptly bragged about it all over social media.
We got back to our hotel room around 9 p.m. and didn’t waste much time before falling asleep. Claire and Gilly left that night to get back to Baltimore, and we headed out early the next morning to start our long drive back to the Midwest.
Overall, it was an amazing, unforgettable experience, with many lessons learned and indelible memories made. We stuck together as a team and made sure we had fun at every step. Finishing a race this hard and relentless requires extreme mental and physical strength and resilience, and I don’t think any of us were sure we could do it until after we crossed the finish line. But having that as an accomplishment is a huge confidence boost both for our future racing and for life in general.
Overall, it was an amazing, unforgettable experience, with many lessons learned and indelible memories made. We stuck together as a team and made sure we had fun at every step. Finishing a race this hard and relentless requires extreme mental and physical strength and resilience, and I don’t think any of us were sure we could do it until after we crossed the finish line. But having that as an accomplishment is a huge confidence boost both for our future racing and for life in general.