The Cradle of Liberty was our first non-winter race of the 2016 season and our first real introduction to the East Coast racing scene. It was also a great chance to race with Claire Poulin, who hadn’t done much previous adventure racing (with Strong Machine or otherwise) but who had bravely stepped forward to be our fourth teammate for ITERA, coming up in August.
Kate and Cliff were able to sneak out of work early on Friday and their first stop was the Kennebunk Bicycle Shop to pick up Cliff’s brand new Niner Air9. Holy cow was Cliff excited. He had seen how much better Kate looked, felt and rode on her new Niner and he was eager to get his hands on his own strong machine. With the bike loaded up on our sweet 1 UP rack, and our Subaru loaded up with all the great expensive gear we invested in over the winter, we felt like we had finally morphed from amateurs into a real adventure race team for the first time.
The drive down to Allentown, PA was long but went smoothly, barring some traffic in Connecticut. We arrived at the campground, located about 10 minutes from the start, at about 10 p.m. and Claire fortuitously and by complete chance arrived just 2 minutes after that. We cruised into the campground to get a feeling for our surroundings and noticed with relief that there was only one other group of campers in the entire campground, and they were sitting quietly around a campfire. We thought we might actually be able to get some good sleep. How wrong we were…
Claire and Cliff got tents set up while Kate started setting up our gear (putting on our new Nordenmark bike map holder, fitting the tow, filling water bladders, etc.). After a quick conversation outlining our strategy (take it conservatively, communicate a lot, have fun and don’t worry about placements), we managed to get into our tents by 11 p.m. By 11:15, the noise from our campground neighbors began. First, it was loud and lurid conversation, then the music started. Then there was shouting over the music. Claire was lucky enough to have earplugs, but Kate and I tossed and turned in helpless frustration. By 2 a.m. they were no joke having a howling contest. I think we managed about 30 minutes of total sleep before our alarms went off at 4:15 a.m. As we quickly donned our uniforms and loaded up the cars, one of our neighbors came over with a look of true concern on his clearly drunken face and asked us, “Is the music bothering you?" And we all couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
We got to the race start right around 5 a.m. for the opening of registration. We got our pinneys and the information that we had a 30-minute bus ride at 6 a.m. and we wouldn’t get our maps until after the start. We also learned it would be a point-to-point race with no gear drops. We saw and said hello to our good friends Abby and Brent (and now Tamela!) from Rootstock Racing, as well as REV3 and GOALS. We gathered for the pre-race briefing at 6 a.m. where Claire won a door prize that included a tan Tiger Balm hat that we dared her to wear for the race (she refused), then we got our stuff together and boarded up the bus.
Kate and Cliff were able to sneak out of work early on Friday and their first stop was the Kennebunk Bicycle Shop to pick up Cliff’s brand new Niner Air9. Holy cow was Cliff excited. He had seen how much better Kate looked, felt and rode on her new Niner and he was eager to get his hands on his own strong machine. With the bike loaded up on our sweet 1 UP rack, and our Subaru loaded up with all the great expensive gear we invested in over the winter, we felt like we had finally morphed from amateurs into a real adventure race team for the first time.
The drive down to Allentown, PA was long but went smoothly, barring some traffic in Connecticut. We arrived at the campground, located about 10 minutes from the start, at about 10 p.m. and Claire fortuitously and by complete chance arrived just 2 minutes after that. We cruised into the campground to get a feeling for our surroundings and noticed with relief that there was only one other group of campers in the entire campground, and they were sitting quietly around a campfire. We thought we might actually be able to get some good sleep. How wrong we were…
Claire and Cliff got tents set up while Kate started setting up our gear (putting on our new Nordenmark bike map holder, fitting the tow, filling water bladders, etc.). After a quick conversation outlining our strategy (take it conservatively, communicate a lot, have fun and don’t worry about placements), we managed to get into our tents by 11 p.m. By 11:15, the noise from our campground neighbors began. First, it was loud and lurid conversation, then the music started. Then there was shouting over the music. Claire was lucky enough to have earplugs, but Kate and I tossed and turned in helpless frustration. By 2 a.m. they were no joke having a howling contest. I think we managed about 30 minutes of total sleep before our alarms went off at 4:15 a.m. As we quickly donned our uniforms and loaded up the cars, one of our neighbors came over with a look of true concern on his clearly drunken face and asked us, “Is the music bothering you?" And we all couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
We got to the race start right around 5 a.m. for the opening of registration. We got our pinneys and the information that we had a 30-minute bus ride at 6 a.m. and we wouldn’t get our maps until after the start. We also learned it would be a point-to-point race with no gear drops. We saw and said hello to our good friends Abby and Brent (and now Tamela!) from Rootstock Racing, as well as REV3 and GOALS. We gathered for the pre-race briefing at 6 a.m. where Claire won a door prize that included a tan Tiger Balm hat that we dared her to wear for the race (she refused), then we got our stuff together and boarded up the bus.
The race started soon after we unloaded with a run to a field to pick up our maps and race directions. We were told to read the directions very carefully (it turned out to be good advice, as they would come into play many times in the race). We had to plot our first three points, and after getting some gentle help with the correct plots from RD Brian (you can see our corrections made on the map), we set out at a fast jog to the first CP, which was a swim to an island. We got there and Cliff immediately realized he had dropped the special prologue passport, which was about the size of a drivers license. We turned around and retraced our steps to the start, with much cursing from Cliff. Brian handed over the passport with a smile, saying “so it was you who dropped your passport!” We ran back up the trail to the island, Cliff burned off his anger by successfully swimming out to retrieve the first CP, and then we were off! CP 2 was a half-mile run away, then to CP 3 and the canoe put-in.
The canoes were not the best for three people. Kate sat in the middle and tried a variety of positions, all of which did not permit great paddling position or comfort. But that actually might have been a benefit, as it allowed her to get a good look at the map and figure out how to attack the course ahead. There were 16 mandatory CPs and another 42 or so optional points, all of which appeared to be linked and approachable by bike. Since there were so many points and we knew our team speed was not up for getting all of them, we unanimously decided to drop any points that seemed too difficult or out of the way. Kate was also able to read the race rules in detail, which helped us avoid losses of time suffered by other teams.
With the aid of a downstream current that sometimes led into Class I rapids, we made our way in decent time down the river to the first paddle CP, which was a portage around a dam. Downstream, we put in into a canal, and ended up having to portage again over an island, which was not the fastest option. We ended up losing a bit of time here to the other teams around us. Further on, we picked up the last river CP before paddling past a bunch of islands full of CPs that we couldn’t get (they were reserved for a later stage) before hitting the take-out.
At the TA, we had a quick snack while securing our life vests to our backpacks, then headed out on bikes across a bridge and up a hill in a residential neighborhood to what the race rules called the “Salisbury bike/trek/swim.” The race rules said “run as much as you want, ride as much as you want, swim as much as you want.” Sticking to our bikes at first, we tackled the “Walking Purchase Park multi-use trail system,” getting S4 and worked our way around picking up S5 through S10, skipping S2 and S3 since they looked like they were more remote and uphill. The biking was really nice with some fun features to negotiate, and Kate looked really good on her new bike. After an hour or so of fun, we made it down to S1, where we dropped our bikes, donned our PFDs and jumped into the Lehigh River, enjoying the cool water on what was turning into a pretty hot day. We alternated between trudging in knee-high water and lying down and letting the current take us downstream as we obtained i1-6, which were located on the series of islands we had passed in the canoe (some teams had mistakenly gotten these CPs on the canoe leg and had to go back and get them again). At one point we all held hands to steady ourselves in a particularly swift current, and that was fun and not awkward.
At the TA, we had a quick snack while securing our life vests to our backpacks, then headed out on bikes across a bridge and up a hill in a residential neighborhood to what the race rules called the “Salisbury bike/trek/swim.” The race rules said “run as much as you want, ride as much as you want, swim as much as you want.” Sticking to our bikes at first, we tackled the “Walking Purchase Park multi-use trail system,” getting S4 and worked our way around picking up S5 through S10, skipping S2 and S3 since they looked like they were more remote and uphill. The biking was really nice with some fun features to negotiate, and Kate looked really good on her new bike. After an hour or so of fun, we made it down to S1, where we dropped our bikes, donned our PFDs and jumped into the Lehigh River, enjoying the cool water on what was turning into a pretty hot day. We alternated between trudging in knee-high water and lying down and letting the current take us downstream as we obtained i1-6, which were located on the series of islands we had passed in the canoe (some teams had mistakenly gotten these CPs on the canoe leg and had to go back and get them again). At one point we all held hands to steady ourselves in a particularly swift current, and that was fun and not awkward.
Not awkward.
Getting back to the TA, Brian greeted us with some encouragement and his belief that we could still clear the rest of the course if we hurried. Motivated, we rode our bikes a dirt road for less than a mile before running into a lot of teams heading up to punch W1, which according to the clue sheet, was located in a building. We found what was pretty clearly the correct building - a sort of concrete bunker with a silo - but we couldn’t find the CP. We looked all around the area but couldn’t figure out where else it could be. Finally, a team that had arrived about 10 minutes after us told us the CP was in fact inside the building. Turned out it was hiding behind the front wall. Oh well.
We continued on, hitting W2 through W7, especially happy to find the very tricky W3 without the problems that some other teams had (sorry Rootstock!). In retrospect, W4 took a long time to get to, and although we found it without problem, it might have made sense to skip it in order to bank time to nab more points later on in the race. Once again mounting our bikes, we rode through Allentown, making a brief stop at a bodega for some much-needed ice-cold water and orange soda. We arrived in the South Mountain Reservoir for another bike section, finding all the points easily enough and making the decision to skip A7, which was just a little too far away to be worth the trip.
Kate nailing the nav up to A4.
Then came our second highlight of the race (following the island-hopping section) - the water tunnel underneath the highway. Pictures don’t show the brightly-lit CP flag (WP1) hanging at the end of the long, kinda creepy tunnel that reminded us of the tunnel under the prison in the Barkley Marathons. The tunnel brought us out to HS1, the start of the “hide and seek” section. This section didn’t have flags, but just punches, and each clue worked off the punch before it. For example, HS2 was 100 meters south of HS1, and HS3 was 50 meters south/southwest of HS2.
The tunnel of DOOM.
Unfortunately, not used to adding in declination since our racing days in the Midwest (where there is zero declination), we steered off to the east. Only thanks to Bobbie, a solo female racer, were we able to get back on track and find HS2. We worked together with the two-person male team Dumb and Dummer to tackle all the remaining points with the exception of HS9, which we couldn’t find immediately and didn’t want to waste too much time on, because at this point we only had an hour left before the cutoff. Claire was a superhero during this stage, using her spidey-sense to track down three CPs that were extremely well-hidden. RD Brian was hanging out with a bunch of volunteers near CP8 and they all cheered when Claire found it hiding in a pit as Cliff and Kate obliviously walked by it.
This is kinda what the thicket was like, only the thicket was much worse.
RD Derek returned with us to our bikes and continued to motivate us, adding the warning that we should leave a good time cushion to make sure we got to the finish on time. We headed out with the plan of getting the three remaining mandatory CPs and then the finish, but Cliff convinced the team to get another optional point close-by, R1. After studying the Rodale section map (sorry, can't find it anywhere to photograph to show you it) and our watches, we realized we had to drop the other optional points and skeedadle to the finish. We then headed to the mandatory R11, R12 and then R10. This, in retrospect was another mistake. We should have used the red trail to go from R1 to R10 and then rounded back out to R12 and R11. As it was, at R10, we realized that the only nearby trail out to the finish was blocked off on the map with a type box that read “OFF LIMITS!” and so, with 20 minutes left, we faced the dire choice of retracing our steps and facing a 2-3 mile detour, or bushwhacking through what looked like a wall of brambles to get around the off-limits area. Kate wanted to backtrack, but Cliff said we didn’t have enough time and Kate quickly agreed. Cliff took a dramatic deep breath and plunged into the thorny thicket. Some small scratches on his beloved new bike later, he pushed through into a clearing and the team felt their luck improving. Right as we thought we might push out onto the gravel trail leading to the finish, we hit another brutal wall of thornbushes. We thought our race was over, but Cliff charged in and miraculously found a squatters camp right in the middle of the thicket, which had a trail leading into it that looked like it went the right direction. He followed it with his eyes, then turned back to the team and yelled “There’s something...good ahead!” Sure enough, the trail went out to the gravel road, where we sat marvelling at our feat for a moment before Rootstock burst out of nowhere, startling us. Brent yelled something (we later found out he wanted to get in a paceline) but Cliff’s chain was off. We got it fixed, rode the last few hundred meters to the archway finish and came through the line to a chorus of cheers at 7:04 pm, six minutes before the cutoff. Holy hell that was a close call! We were all amped up and had a big celebratory hug, congratulating each other on a job well done.
In the end, we got sixth place both in our division and overall. As it turned out, a lot of teams had trouble with the cutoff, perhaps due the lure of all the optional CPs. Lamprey Systems finished with a remarkable ONE SECOND to spare, avoiding a penalty that would have dropped them to fourth - definitely the closest possible finish we’ve ever seen. Both GOALS teams missed the cutoff and that dropped them down, allowing us to beat one of them. One of the REV3 teams had a great race and was the only team to clear the course - bravo. The standings show the top 7 teams were all co-ed three person teams, which we have never seen before and shows the level of competition we need to get used to now that we’re East Coast racers. But we weren’t too worried about our placing. The main objectives of the day - get some camaraderie with Claire, try out our new gear, and don’t mess up the nav - were all accomplished in spades.
In the end, we got sixth place both in our division and overall. As it turned out, a lot of teams had trouble with the cutoff, perhaps due the lure of all the optional CPs. Lamprey Systems finished with a remarkable ONE SECOND to spare, avoiding a penalty that would have dropped them to fourth - definitely the closest possible finish we’ve ever seen. Both GOALS teams missed the cutoff and that dropped them down, allowing us to beat one of them. One of the REV3 teams had a great race and was the only team to clear the course - bravo. The standings show the top 7 teams were all co-ed three person teams, which we have never seen before and shows the level of competition we need to get used to now that we’re East Coast racers. But we weren’t too worried about our placing. The main objectives of the day - get some camaraderie with Claire, try out our new gear, and don’t mess up the nav - were all accomplished in spades.
We hung out for a bit after the race then headed to a hotel right by Dorney Park to shower. We were sorely tempted to check out the theme park, as we could hear the screams from the roller coasters from the hotel parking lot, but we settled for dinner at Carraba’s that ended prematurely in drooping eyelids and skipped dessert. Sleep that night was blissful and then breakfast at a fancy-ish place in Allentown was even better. We all agreed - we can’t wait to race more with this team!
