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

Sure.. everyone has heard of hike-a-bike.. and it is expected in the mountainous races.  But who ever heard of hike-a-canoe?!?  I mean really.. and we were told this was "much better than last year"?

Yeah having the bikes in the canoe would've probably been worse, but I know we spent more time out of the canoe than in, on the paddling leg.  I hope they had insurance on the canoe rentals.

And do they really recycle the same course every year?

Hey Kevin -

Ah, I think you have become spoiled by doing Grant's great races! ;-)

I did not do this GOALS race last year (but I have done a few of their other ones in the past and they put on good events), but I heard that the water level was definitely better this year...not to mention the fact that teams had to bring their bikes for the portage and the paddle last year as you mentioned! Since I feel we are a very strong paddling team, it would definitely have been to our advantage to have a paddle section that was more "paddle-able" (though we still managed to move up from 6th to 2nd or 3rd)...and I must admit that I was definitely bummed during the sections where we had to get out of the boats (though that was really only because my legs were cramping up so painfully each time I had to get out and back in!). However, with all that said, I was not really bummed out (or surprised) that some sections of the river were just too low to paddle. I've have actually come to expect and welcome some of that as part of the wonderful sport of AR...and I have definitely experienced the "hike a boat" it in MANY other races, either in the form of sections that are too low to paddle, or in the form of REALLY long portages. In one Genesis race last year, we had a section where we paddled and portaged between a total of 7 different lakes. One of the portages was about 3/4 of a mile, and that was AFTER having to portage THRU a lake bed that was about 75% dry when we arrived. In AR, I have definitely experienced run legs where you can't always run or even walk (serious uphill bushwhacking)...and bike legs where you can't always bike (we all saw some of that this weekend!)...so why not paddling legs where you can't always paddle? ;-)

I think that the ability to navigate tough river sections (and the ability to get in/out of the boat quickly!) is just another a skill to be learned in AR. In several cases we, found that the ability to paddle all the way thru a certain section depended on just picking the right line thru the shallow water. We passed one team who was stuck in a very low section, yet we paddled a better line and never had to get out of the boat in that section at all...and we passed another team who capsized getting out of their boat in a shallow rapid, while we just hopped out and ran the boat past them.

As for the course, since this is a memorial event and benefits the civil air patrol site, I guess they are kind of limited to running the race right in that same area...so in a 12-hour race you are bound to see some similar sections and areas from year to year.

It sounds like the paddle leg was the same, but I am not sure what other local paddling options are there. There is the Big Schuykill River, but if you go there you are getting pretty far away from the Civil Air Patrol area?). I think they changed up the order of events last year (biking before trekking?), and although the biking was in the same area, I assume they used different CP locations...and I don't think they did the same long road ride all the way around the mountain last year...?

Anyway, despite the heat and the pain, we definitely enjoyed the event and we'll be back...

Jim

Yeah I don't mean to be hard on GOALS at all.  It's easy to sit back and criticize and complain, but I know they put a lot into making this as fun and enjoyable as possible.

I really enjoyed the trekking leg (despite getting lost somehow looking for the ropes CP).  The biking was pretty fun and I actually thought they had just the right amount of hike-a-bike in there.  It was all pretty ridable with the exception of the areas that crossed through the creek.  Coming back down the mountain was lots of fun.  And I have to admit that using the canoe like a scooter through the rapids was kinda fun and refreshing.  I won't mention the ropes section because I'm staying positive..

All things considered, it was a fun race.  While I'm not sure we will be doing this same race next year, we will probably do some of the other GOALS races.

In the end though, it really makes us appreciate the work HR Adventure puts in to make their races so great!  Disclaimer: any perceived butt-kissing was unintentional and should be ignored.

Oh.. one more quick question about the paddling section.  Did anyone else see a roughly 15 year old kid in his back yard.. butt-naked.. talking to a parrot?  While I don't wish this on anyone, I'm hoping it wasn't some sort of shared hallucination between Bob and me.

Hey Kevin...I definitely missed the kid and the parrot! Perhaps you were out in the sun just a little too long? ;-)

Agree that the ropes section had some problems. If you do ropes that early in the race and only have four ropes to climb, you will tend to get backups...but of course if you do it later, teams who get short coursed may not get to try the ropes. The lead teams got thru right away, but when we arrived (in 9th) place, we experienced a bit of a wait...and by the time we left, the backup was MUCH longer. It was also confusing to us how the time credits worked. In my mind, you should receive a credit ANY time you spend waiting at the ropes section...but the way it was explained to us, we would only receive a credit after 20 minutes of waiting...?

Anyway, as for the other GOALS races, I have done The Savage Sprint (in the spring) twice and the Edge (in the fall) once and both are really great sprint races (4-6 hours). They get about 90-100 teams for those races, so it's really fun/challenging. The parks they use are fairly small, but they find creative ways to get around that and prevent crowding on trails, such as having teams do the paddle/run/bike sections in a different order. Nav is not as difficult in those races, with the CPs either on trails, or on easily recognizable features.

Hope to see you there!

Hey everyone, it was great to see all of you on the course and I hope you had fun. To explain some of the inside stories of managing this race, we have to work with the PA Game Commission who owns just about everything in PA. The biking section has been the same for the last three years. We're working on getting permits for some of the other trails in the area. The first year we had a hurricane and had to cancel the water section. Moving the race to earlier in the year may be an option that we have thought about and are working on deconflicting it with the school's training schedule. For the ropes section, we acknowledge by offering time credits that there will be a back-up. It's hard to predict when the bottle neck will occur. We added more orienteering to try to separate teams and keep things moving but the masses seemed to be moving at the same pace. I was actually surprised to see how long it took teams to get to the ropes. I thought you would arrive sooner. But all things considered, we only had one evacuation for a broken hand on the bike course. There were no other serious injuries. No reported bee stings or other animal contacts either.

Thank you to all of you for a great day of racing.

Bill

Kevin - Ruth and I did see the kid in his backyard - but he wasn't naked yet.  He seemed to be "walking" his dog while his mom did laundry.  Our take was that he was autistic and enjoying a beautiful day outside.

Bill - regarding animal contacts,  Ruth and I went past a large, very loud and very pissed off rattlesnake during the hike-a-bike.  Had we been on our bikes at the time, it would not have had much of an impact on us, but as we were 3 feet away from him and moving slowly, it created a situation that was one of our most memorable of the day.

Also, we really enjoyed the paddle (but not the portages).  Two girls (not 3 big guys) made the paddling mostly paddling instead of pulling/pushing.  We got out some, but tried to stick to good lines and it worked for the most part.  It was beautiful out there.

Overall, we had a lot of fun, some good luck on the trekking, no mechanical or nutritional difficulties, and enjoyed the comraderie of the racers and volunteers.  Thanks, Bill and Anne.

I did the hawk mountain race in 2005.  I thought the hike-a-canoe section brought out the adventure part into the race. It certainly made picking your lines down the creek matter....no point and paddle there. Having to take the bikes instead of them being trucked for us was good as well. I'm all for sections that remind me I'm adventure racing and not at a triathlon styled track meet. I also thought all the off-trail foot sections at that race was great for similar reasons. I  did the Genesis race mentioned in another post with the 7 lakes and portages in between and thought that made that race stand out. I really can't remember much else about that race.

Perhaps if I spent a lot of time training for the paddle and ended up pushing the canoe I'd feel differently, but right now I race for adventure and pick races based on the likelihood of some unique elements and that have tough navigation. It seems like the water legs have untapped potential for creative race planning.

I'm still looking for a race with a whitewater swim....

. . .  a good bunch of us met up outside of Charlottesville and enjoyed 4-5 hours of great elevation...