Training Log Archive: abiperk

Event: DVOA Rogaine Pocono Environmental Education Center
 

Event: The Cradle of Liberty Adventure Race
 

Cradle of Liberty with Brent and Tamela. Second overall, despite a really sloppy race for us.

Derek and Brian put together a complicated and creative course and kept us thinking the entire time. No maps or info until the start, which meant a lot to process on the fly. A bit problematic in places, but overall it was a lot of fun, even despite our issues.

Started off smoothly with a nice little orienteering separator, and then immediately got on the water. We got tripped up by some volunteer directions at the first CP but otherwise a smooth paddle down the Lehigh River. Pulled out in second with a good strategy for how to attack the next several sections.

The rest of the race could be done by bike, foot, or swim -- we could choose the mode of travel and swap as much or as little as we wanted. Ultimately, we ended up on bike for most of the rest of the race, dropping only to go in for some of the checkpoints. Except for a few miles on roads between sections and a very brief stretch of rail trail, all of the riding was on rocky, technical trails -- slow travel, but we were able to ride most of it. We covered a total of 31.4 miles on bike in the final 9-ish hours of the race. Not sure of the distance on foot or paddle.

After a quick transition, we headed out on the rail trail for the "island" section, a series of six checkpoints in the middle of the river. We hit the first cluster of four first, then rode out to the furthest point, did a quick out-and-back across the river, and retraced our ride downriver for the middle CP. We'd scouted that area when we paddled down and saw that it would be a good place to cross, so we took our bikes across to the island to get the punch and then shouldered them across the main channel to the next section of the race, 10 points, almost all directly on the trails.

Unfortunately, I'd read the directions for this section while we were paddling and by the time we got there, we'd all forgotten the rule that we could only cross the train track at S1, so we lost about half an hour on a muddy out-and-back from our initial approach. We were disappointed to get on the trails and learn that almost all of the teams had missed (or ignored) that rule and had gained a significant advantage by entering the section further east.

We rode the technical trails well enough and were relatively clean on the maps. We exited through S1 and learned that only Rev3 had passed through. A few minutes later, we ran into Joe, Jeff, and Britt as they were coming out of a CP.

This is where our real trouble began. We hit the first two points on foot okay, but Brent was having some issues with the supplementary maps, which had no scale on them and weren't oriented to the master map. We rode a few hundred meters down the trail (about 150 meters too far, it turned out) and dropped to go up for the next point. What we thought were 100 foot contours were actually 50 foot, and we ended up fighting our way through thick brambles well above the CP. We ultimately hit a power line and oriented ourselves, but by the time we came back down and joined the hunt for the CP (there were at least half a dozen teams looking for the "confluence clearing"), we'd lost at least 45 minutes.

Finally, Cliff White of Strong Machine came through and landed right on it, and generously pointed us in the right direction. We finished up the section and moved through the rest of the course, but not without several more (smaller) bobbles. Brent rarely struggles like that, and I got increasingly frustrated with myself that I'm not strong enough on nav to help out the team. I'm never going to be as clean and fast as him or other strong navigators, but I'd like to be able to contribute when it's needed.

We also couldn't seem to hear each other in the woods. Twice, Tamela and I rode right past a turn that Brent took, and several times we got caught up waiting for one or the other of us who'd thought they'd heard someone else say we were stopping/continuing/turning. No idea what was going on, but it was affecting all of us -- equal opportunity miscommunication -- and it cost us several minutes over the course of the day.

In the end, we dropped four points on the final section of the course and rode in to the finish with six minutes to spare, 15 minutes behind Rev3, who'd managed to clear everything. We were pretty sure by that point that several other teams had passed us as well, but it seemed that a lot of folks struggled out there. We ended up in second place (divisionally and overall), estimating that we lost 2+ hours with all of the slips.

So, not the clean race we were hoping for, but we felt pretty good about the finish, given the circumstances. Congrats to Joe, Jeff, and Britt for a strong win!

C • Congrats! 6

Finishing up the Jolly Roger. So many ticks - they should make Frontline for people.

We unexpectedly found ourselves on a rogue nude beach, where two old men twice encouraged us to take off our clothes and join them. We decided not to put a checkpoint there.

C • Nude beach 2

C • frontline for people 4

A combination of deep sand, hike-a-bike, and surprisingly fun trails.

Final IT check before Cradle this weekend.

Shake out to Chestnut Hill to meet my dad and Z.