The G-Rant : Grant's Rants on Adventure Racing

July 2006 - Posts

• Ultimate Support Vehicle

  I'm working on getting an affordable and functional support vehicle for our team going to Moab for the race out there this October.  There are lots of options, but too many in the $1,000 price range.  Ouch! A friend shot me a link to this beast of a vehicle (one photo is at right).  I'm pretty sure we'd spend more than $1,000 just in gas for that week, but we'd have no problem finding our support crew in transition areas.  Just the same, I think I'll keep on looking. I remember being impressed at how posh the support was for the EMS team at the 24-hour race we did last year in New Hampshire.  They had the whole EMS RV at their disposal.  Congrats to them on a great sponsorship negotiation (and they won the race, so I think both parties made out pretty well). Back to Enterprise.com . . . Posted Jul 31 2006, 04:38 PM by gkillian with 1 comment(s)

• Am I Ready For the Storm?

  I hear this a lot these days, "we're in pretty good shape and all, and we're excited about adventure racing, but am I ready for the Storm The Eastern Shore Adventure Race?" Short answer: Probably not.  I say this because I want to err on the side of caution.  I want racers going in with their eyes open as there's the potential for unintentional "wet exits" on the open water paddle legs and race day is not the time to see if you do -- or if you don't -- have the rescue skills.  I don't know of any other adventure race on the East Coast that will throw this level of paddling challenge at you -- except, perhaps, some of the surf zone stuff we're looking at for the Sea & Sand Adventure Race in November (but you'll have to wait on that until later...). This year we'll be doing skills testing Saturday morning where each team will have to demonstrate water rescue skills off the beach at Cape Charles.  It's just another measure we can take to make sure participants are prepared.  Plus, it makes racers and their gear get all wet before the race even starts -- what a bonus!  Now, if you've got good paddling skills then you probably are ready for the Storm because the Eastern Shore of Virginia doesn't have brutal terrain to bike or run on.  You even get a break overnight to put your feet up and eat a smore by the fire, what more could you ask for from your first adventure race?  The Storm is on pace to sell out this year (amazing, since last year we were begging teams to race it), but if you get your act together and take a paddling class or two from some professionals, there's still time to get comfortable on the water before race day. Posted Jul 31 2006, 02:36 PM by gkillian with 5 comment(s)

• Virginia Beach AdventureFest Opens for Business!

  The Virginia Beach AdventureFest website now offers online registration for several of the main events.  Click on the "Register For Events" link and you're on your way!  This is the first time HRAdventure is doing registration per person instead of per team for our adventure race; it should help us keep our costs better under control and makes a lot of sense since the Bear of the Beach trail run and the VB Metr-O Orienteering Race are all priced per individual. We've got a spiffy logo for the AdventureFest, and soon we'll have the whole site redone in matching colours and style! We're close to finalizing details on a few additional events for the weekend, so we'll be expanding the schedule and registration as we nail down the final details.  The website will be getting a lot more content in the next month or so.  For example, we'll explain how we're crowning a male and female champion for the entire weekend, the "King and Queen Kraken" -- note the octopus reference -- the guy and gal who do the best on a team in the adventure race, as a solo runner at the trail run, and on a team or as a solo at the urban orienteering event will be crowned as the Krakens for 2006; I expect we'll do some fun prizes for this honour as well as all the prestige. All in all, things are shaping up nicely for this coming November . . . now check out the site, get registered, and get training! Posted Jul 27 2006, 08:59 PM by gkillian with 3 comment(s)

• Drugs in adventure racing?

  It's all too common these days . . . you see news reports like this potential shocker about Floyd Landis involving performance enhancing drugs and athletics.  I'm thinking for a $100,000 prize at an adventure race like Primal Quest, you might have some teams supplementing their training with more than just commercial vitamins.  I don't know if there's random drug testing at PQ, or for the cash prize winners, but it's something the sport of adventure racing should be ready to deal with BEFORE it gets out of hand.  With pro teams racing long races so frequently (the adventure racing world championships in Sweden are only a few weeks after Primal Quest!), any edge in recovery is bound to be attractive.   There are some really crazy people in the sport who push themselves way beyond "normal" limits and, unfortunately, it's not unimaginable that one or two of these crazy people might reach for a syringe if they thought it was the difference between winning a race and just finishing it.  Thanks to CheckPointZero I was able to dig up this link to the "first drug test DQ" in adventure racing history (this is also the only one I'm aware of).  If you don't want to follow the link, here is the relevant portion: Further to the doping test carried out at the arrival of the Raid World Championship on December 2nd in San Martin de los Andes, the sample N° 380469 has been declared positive. The identity corresponding to this sample is Nadia Michel, member of team AXN Nike (ARG). In accordance with the regulations applicable at the Raid World Championship this positive doping control would have had the immediate effect of disqualifying the team, had they not already been disqualified for unsportsmanlike behaviour. The Raid enforces an anti-drug policy, so perhaps the other big races do likewise and I'm just out of the loop.  As if adventure racing needs another expense to add to the overhead! By the way, if it turns out that Floyd Landis did use drugs on the Tour, HRAdventure will have no other option than to revoke his 10% off HRAdventure discount card.  Ouch! Posted Jul 27 2006, 11:33 AM by gkillian with 14 comment(s)

• Roping in a few more new teammates

  The couple I'm racing with at the GOALS race in PA next weekend joined me and some other friends at the Manchester Bridge in Richmond for some practice with ropes (ascending/rappelling).  It's not an epic location for rope work or anything, but it's perfect for getting several reps in and, since my teammates for this race (Beth and Scott) had never used ascenders, it was good to make sure they were familiar with the process and their climbing harnesses etc.  Even though the actual rope site at the GOALS race will probably only take 10 or 15 minutes, it's good to invest a little effort getting comfortable with the gear and the process.  As this will be Beth's first adventure race of any kind, and Scott's first adventure race more than a few hours, anything we can do to reduce pre-race anxiety is a good thing and getting this rope work in will set the stage nicely for a clean rope skills check and a good rope section on race day.  There's nothing worse than agonizing for an hour or more with a pre-race skills certification -- the GOALS staff are nice and will do on site instruction, but that's time better spent out of the sun and resting for the real race. So, yes, this has turned into my summer for racing with people I don't normally race with.  I never planned it like that, but the usual Team HRAdventure suspects have been in Florida (Pam) or Tennessee (Mojo), and we struggled unsuccessfully to get a race on the calendar.  This race with Scott and Beth, however, has been something we've been talking about for a year or more and I'm excited for them to finally take the plunge.  Beth does a lot of triathlon and Scott does the marathon thing every now and then, so I'm confident they'll be in fine shape for the 12-hour race.  They've helped organize the HRAdventure events so they're no strangers to adventure racing, just not being an adventure racer.  The race will be over before they know it . . . and then they'll wish we could go back for more! Posted Jul 26 2006, 08:18 AM by gkillian with 5 comment(s)

• PQ Resources from the racers

  Mojo just forwarded this cool link of materials on PrimalQuest from some of the racers . . . this is where to go if you want an unvarnished perspective on the race.  Dave Bogle's report is particularly interesting to me since the Sutliff Hummer team is a household name around here (and we've all been kept awake during the 2005 Storm dark zone by Mark's snoring).  I don't want to give anything away, but a shocking line from Dave's report is: "They told me I would need a wheelchair for a couple of weeks as I had lost both of the soles of my feet." It's not all pain and agony, though.  There are interesting tidbits in Dave's report about how the race start (with all the horses) was contrived for media consumption, how "water = mosquitoes," and how teams played word games to keep from falling asleep while they paddled (as an aside, I can get pretty bored on just a few hours of paddling . . . just ask the folks from this past weekend). Any word on PQ 2007? Posted Jul 24 2006, 04:27 PM by gkillian with no comments

• DNF

  A DNF is never satisfying, but the DNF that ended our Odyssey One Day race this past weekend doesn't feel as terrible as it sounds.  We had a lot of fun, saw some beautiful wilderness, and got a great work out.  We raced for 22 hours or so and can now chuckle at the navigation mistakes, the nutrition issues, the blisters, and all the lessons that come from a race like this. We did well for the first third of the race, racing around 6th place and our 4 racers in 2-person canoes even out-paddled a team in kayaks!  We knew the trekking leg would be the crux of the race and it proved to be our downfall.  I still don't know how we got so mixed up on the way to the 2nd optional trekking point, but it shook my confidence and I started questioning my every nav decision from that point on.  We determined way too late that pace counting was the only reliable tactic for sorting out the web of trails (some mapped, many unmapped).  Teammates had developed some nasty blisters that made running impossible, so recovering a strong finish on the full pro course seemed unlikely even though we got the o-points necessary to qualify; our focus became just finishing the race.   To finish, however, would require fuel and part of the team was having trouble eating without getting sick.  We had sufficient water, and we could always purify more water, but we ran out of food that they could eat.  We were approaching a long bike leg that wouldn't offer any bail out points if the situation got worse, and it was mostly hike-a-bike so I estimated we had several hours still to race.  Tim spoke up, as the voice of reason, before we got too far on the hike-a-bike section, "We're digging a deep hole here," he observed.   It's never an easy decision, but we returned to a manned checkpiont from earlier in the race and waited for the cavalry to pick us up.   Everyone is OK and we had some pizza and laughs hours later, so no permanent damage done; I did have my doubts when Eric had to pull the car over to vomit on the drive back to race HQ -- I knew it was bad when, instead of saying something funny like, "a DNF makes me physically ill," Eric struggled back in the car and mumbled, "keep driving, get to the doctor at HQ".  Eric is fine, I'm glad to report, and had we remembered more eletroyltes or Heed for the long leg of the race he might have been perfectly fine. It was a very fun weekend and good to see some of our friends again -- this time I could actually race along side them!  Thanks to Mario for being our great support crew and saving us around noon on Sunday morning!  I'm glad I have only a couple weeks until I can race again . . . Posted Jul 24 2006, 12:46 PM by gkillian with 1 comment(s)

• Orienteering Maps for the People!

  Holy O-maps, batman: check out the Rocky Mountain Orienteering Club (RMOC)'s master meta-map.  It shows all the orienteering maps in the Rocky Mountain area and has links to the real orienteering map and courses!  I spoke with the RMOC leadership over Christmas (I was visiting family out in Denver) and commented that there was no repository for this kind of info; they said they had been considering some sort of public portal for o-maps and  . . . 7 months later, they've got an awesome resource for Denver area orienteers.  Way to go RMOC!  Next time I'm out there I will certainly be checking some of these places out.  I should probably sign on as a RMOC member just to support all their good work! Too bad Denver is a 4+ hour plane ride away. Closer to home, I remember talking with some Quantico Orienteering Club (QOC) leadership this winter and they didn't sound very interested in sharing their maps online in this fashion.  The maps represent a lot of intellectual capital and are a valuable resource for the club; the QOC tightly controls who has a copy of the QOC maps.  Is there really a black market of orienteers itching to print boot-leg copies of a JPG showing the o-maps in the Washington DC area?  I understand where the QOC is coming from, and I respect all their hard work, but maybe paying members of the QOC could get access to the kind of resource the RMOC has developed.  Heck, I'll even volunteer to do the web page showcasing the QOC maps and do any other leg work.  Maybe they need to go to a "pay per copy" model where you can order the maps online and get them emailed to you (or, gasp, snail mailed if they're worried about digital duplication . . . but high quality scanners are easy to come by so even a hard copy isn't safe from duplication).  Again, I'll volunteer to put that sort of thing together for them. On a related note, the local orienteering advocates at Encompass-Adventure just circulated an interesting link showing the same terrain on a USGS topo map vs a "true" orienteering map.  The differences are significant and represent a lot of painstaking work by some orienteering mappers.  I know Shawn Callahan (of Encompass) put in some hard work on the New Quarter Park O-map we used at the Rogaine a few weeks back; thanks again Shawn!  Maybe we'll start the Orienteering Hampton Roads O-Map repository with the New Quarter map when Shawn finishes it? Posted Jul 18 2006, 04:17 PM by gkillian with 7 comment(s)

• Ipods Everywhere

  This just in courtesy of "A Trail Runner's Blog": "While I think it could be potentially disruptive to other runners to pull people from a race field for headphone use, I do think a race director would be justified in not including someone violating the race rules in the official results or refusing to supply them with an official time or finisher medal." Apparently the fine print of some of those race forms and rules prohibits Ipods etc.  Interesting implications for adventure racing . . . I've known some adventure races to explicitly ban Ipods and all "music devices" from their events, but I've also read about teams (at the AR World Championship in NZ last year, most recently) using Ipods to keep morale up during really long trek legs.  I've started training with an Ipod, not 100% of the time, but about 1/2 the time on solo training runs/rides.  For this 24-hour race coming up, I thought about bringing the Ipod along but it violates one of my cardinal rules when it comes to racing: simplicity.  Having to keep track of the Ipod, the headphones, and keeping the whole thing dry is a mental expense I don't want to incur.  Music might be nice to have along for some of the way, but it's not worth the hassle for this 24-hour ace.  My Ipod will stay at home for the race, but I can imagine a longer race making an Ipod more tempting to toss into the bag. As for running events not permitting Ipods, let each race do what it pleases.  While there are times when an Ipod would be terrific (during long trail runs), I can see the other side of the coin where it's important to be able to hear the calls for help from somebody else on that long trail run -- who knows, maybe someone discovered they're allergic to bee stings and are in anaphylactic shock and are hitting the emergency whistle like their life depended on it?! Posted Jul 17 2006, 12:29 PM by gkillian with 3 comment(s)

• Coming to a roof rack near you: Point 65N Kayaks

  Today was a Lactic Acid Day for me . . . instead of slaving at a computer I got in a good 6 hour workout.  I tried out my new arm band for the Ipod and it worked like a champ; I got my Rage Against The Machine fix while riding the Marl Ravine trail at York River State Park.  The day concluded with a rainy 10 mile paddle on the York River.  Rick and I got caught in a major rain storm that totally soaked us and made for some anxious moments with thunder and lightening, but we wisely pulled over for about 10 minutes to let the thunder pass us by.  Even got to play with the bilge pump! Rick was generous enough to bring out some of his kayaks from www.PaddlePoint.net -- their website is still in progress so bare with them.  The "Point 65 Degrees North" kayaks are very nice with a "key hole" cockpit, very nice lines, and some other nice touches; the boat I paddled tracked well and was very responsive.  Of course, my regular kayak is a total junker that I use just to get paddling practice and I'd never race with it or take it out into serious paddling situations, so maybe I'm not the most discerning judge. The Point 65 N kayaks are very popular in Europe and starting to make inroads in North America.  Based on the pricing I've seen and my positive experience today, I bet in a few years you'll see many of those kayaks on roof racks near you! Posted Jul 14 2006, 10:47 PM by gkillian with 4 comment(s)

• Rogaine Retrospective and Glow Sticks On CP Flags?

  We ran a clinic and a night Rogaine this past weekend, and both went off well.  I always feel like there isn't enough time to cover everything I want to in these clinics . . . we originally planned a full weekend "adventure racing camp" where we'd have 2 days of interaction, instruction, and conclude with a 6 hour race at the end of the second day but like many of our grand schemes the demands of a real job and schedule issues prevented us from putting all the pieces together.  It's just as well, because I think 2 full days would burn out the participants so that by the end they wouldn't get nearly as much from it as from these shorter, more focussed clinics. Anyway, the Rogaine was fun; you can check out the Rogaine results if you're curious.  The Richmond ASR team (two of my teammates for next weekend) really tore up the course but came back 5 minutes too late so, in dramatic fashion, Tim Dunkum from Richmond was the overall winner.  His team won the Sproute 2006 short-course, so he probably takes to this navigation stuff pretty quickly; he was also at the clinic earlier in the day, so maybe that helped.  Maybe. More important than who won, the 30 or 40 people out there (teams in size from 2 to 5) all seemed to have fun and there were some smiling new faces along with the smiling old ones.  That's always cool.  For the night orienteering, the classic orienteers out there would've liked to see glow sticks on the flags but I feel like that makes things fairly easy for the terrain that we're working with.  If we had more space, then glow sticks might make more sense.  We work hard to hang controls on significant features, especially at night, so that it isn't a complete easter egg hunt out there . . . but we don't want everyone to have a cake walk either.   It's always a balancing act. What are your thoughts on night orienteering and illuminating CP flags (glow sticks, reflective tape, etc)?  I know official orienteering rules say glow sticks, but in the adventure races I've done the night orienteering never uses glow sticks to "give away" control locations.  For the Storm 2006, for example, we have no plans to light up the CPs for the night portion. Posted Jul 10 2006, 08:06 PM by gkillian with 6 comment(s)

• Team HAG rides again . . . and might be racing for beer?

  With our Canada race kaput, those of racing as HRAdventure / Axis Gear (aka HAG) rearranged schedules and are all set to go the weekend of July 22 for the Odyssey race out in Roanoke, VA.  I see lots of familiar names on the list of registered competitors (go to the web page for the race and click on the "Registered Competitors" link); of the other 27 teams (including solos) registered, I'm at least acquainted  with 7 or 8 of them from a previous HRAdventure race or clinic -- some of them I know fairly well and Scott Mabry's Silly Geese team were the ones nice enough to give me an ice cold Sierra Nevada during the mandatory dark zone of the 2005 Storm the Eastern Shore.  I can still taste it now.  Gotta love a team that makes space for beer in their gear bin . . . especially when they're limited to 2 bins per team for that dark zone.  It's all about your priorities! So, while we're disappointed to not be heading up to Quebec for the Raid The North this weekend, we'll be excited to get a race going the following weekend in the Blue Ridge Mountains!  It'll be very fun racing amongst so many people we know.  I think we should put a friendly wager together . . . involving beer and/or ice cream . . . it doesn't even need to be a "winning vs losing" thing . . . maybe we'll do it so that the team with the cleanest gear at the end of the race has to buy the beer?  The team with the fewest ticks? Posted Jul 10 2006, 02:05 PM by gkillian with 4 comment(s)

• Exposed: Where to Paddle on the Eastern Shore

  Just in time for teams looking to get an edge at the Storm the Eastern Shore Adventure Race, Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has produced: The Eastern Shore Seaside Water Trail Hats off to DEQ for leading this effort!  Our partners in crime at Southeast Expeditions (sponsoring the Storm 2006 along with Blue Ridge Mountain Sports) contributed to the documentation, so you know the material came straight from the source. This is a resource that makes paddling more accessible and, although it might give teams an idea for what the Storm the Eastern Shore race could be like, I'm excited to see this online.  So, check this for some amazing paddling ideas on Virginia's Eastern Shore.  Also, don't forget the paddling clinic we're organizing on the Eastern Shore on July 22.  There's still some space available and what better way to improve you skills than to 1) go to the Eastern Shore for the paddling and 2) learn from Dave "I know where adventure racers are coming from" Burden! Posted Jul 06 2006, 02:58 PM by gkillian with no comments

• Am I cursed to never race again?

  Man, I must be cursed when it comes to picking races to compete in.  My first race of 2006 was rescheduled just weeks before the original event date; Odyssey had trouble with the "permitting" so they emailed all the teams with a new race date just a few weeks beforehand.  Needless to say, many were not pleased and I know several teams couldn't or didn't want to race on the new date.  I was unhappy with the date change, but Pam and Mike talked me into sticking with the race and we went out and had a good time anyway. We were pumped about a 36-hour race in late June up in Maine, but the race cancelled due to the race directors pursuing other options.  The curse strikes again. So, it boils down to the fact that I haven't competed in an actual race since February -- too busy planning and organizing and doing other things -- but when the Raid The North opportunity came along I jumped on it.  I've wanted to race up in Canada for some time and this 36-hour race looked like the only ticket in town for July.  Well . . . this weekend we learned that the race was cancelled and they messed up our registration (but we're getting our money back . . . the Raid the North folks still seem like good guys and they're extending a killer discount for us to their big 5 day race).  The point is, no race for me in July.  The curse again? Fortunately, there is a glimmer of hope that I can race at the Odyssey 24-hour event over July 22 weekend.  I think we can keep our arrangement with Axis Gear to race as HRAdventure/Axis Gear and the next trick is reworking teammate schedules to race on a different July weekend than we had planned. I know the Big Head Crew from Virginia Beach are racing the Odyssey event, and I suspect we may see some other familiar Virginia faces at that race.  Who knows, maybe this is the lemonade to be made from the Raid the North cancellation lemons.  I really need to get some long training days in between now and the Moab race, so a 24-hour in the Shenandoahs fits the bill nicely.  Training by racing is my preference over me packing up all my gear and disappearing for a weekend of solo training in the mountains . . . Posted Jul 05 2006, 12:22 PM by gkillian with 6 comment(s)