I went to the night training event in Richmond yesterday and did some good night training with Efix teammates Sherry Correll and Joel Jimenez (we'll be Team Untamed Adventure for that race). Russ, our fourth teammate, couldn't make it down from Philadelphia so we had my friend Don Babb round out our 4-some for the evening. I had raced with Don a few years ago, he used to be on the old HRAdventure "team" page, but he took a few years off after ending a race with the paramedics and supplemental oxygen in 2005.
The 10 hours we spent at Pocahontas State Park showed that Don certainly is "back in the saddle" as he hung tough while we paddled, biked, and trekked around the course that Eric Cone put together for us and the other 30 people who came out. It snowed earlier that day, and the cold was certainly a factor, but some tough CP placements really ramped up the difficulty on the evening.
Our night went like this:
First, we got out to the park about 3:30 PM to setup our gear. I was going to do Q & A for the Untamed VA race at 4 PM but there really wasn't an opportunity since most people were like us -- running around staging our boats and getting ready -- I'll be at BRMS next week in Richmond, anyway, so that's a better time to talk.
At 4:45 PM we got our race instructions and maps and began the fun. We had until 7 PM to do the optional paddle checkpoints, and as we plotted the four paddle CPs it became clear that the two hours permitted wouldn't let us get all of them. After we were finished with plotting the 20 or so CPs, I had mentally shortened our paddle leg even further because there was one ugly CP early in the biking leg that I wanted to get before dark.
So, we completed just two of the four paddle CPs while fighting with Don's tandem kayak the entire way (Joel and Sherry were cruising in their nice solo touring kayaks). We transitioned quickly, cognizant of the setting sun, and did a quick easter egg hunt to determine the order of the next 3 CPs. Lucky for us, the monster CP . . . CP "A" . . . was the first one required by us after the easter egg hunt and we set our goal to obtain it before sunset.
CP A was in a low, flat stretch of about 1000 meters square devoid of any mapped features but full of brambles, trees, and brush. Our only option was biking to a trail junction and then following a heading and pace counting; so we set to it with the sun low behind us. Having never raced together before (Don and I haved raced together, but I had never done much with Sherry or Joel before), I was impressed with our teamwork. Don and Joel were tasked with keeping us on the right compass heading, and Sherry and I were tasked with the pace counting. Our pace counting was perfect (which is shocking to me, since the woods were really dense and the margin for error increases for a 500+ meter pace count like we had), and Joel spotted the bag just South of us once we arrived at our pace count number. We actually had 20 minutes of daylight to spare and got back to our bikes without headlamps! Finding CP A in the dark would prove very hard for the teams that came after us.
The other biking CPs included some hard flag placements, and CP 9 in particular took us 90+ minutes as we canvassed a gradual hillside in search of the bag. Ultimately, we found the control after working in concert with another team and we realized that we had walked all around the area but just hadn't happened to focus our headlamps at that particular clump of trees. We completed the rest of the biking CPs and returned to the TA around 12:30 AM -- hours after the time estimated to complete the biking leg. We were, however, the first team back from the biking leg which meant it was proving tough for everyone out there. We headed back out and nabbed two of the trekking CPs; we were racing with full packs (Joel and Sherry have never done a bigger race like the upcoming Efix so it was good for them to experience a full load on the shoulders) so we didn't push the pace and just walked our way through the final couple hours. We returned around 2:30 AM and called it a night.
It turns out only a couple teams even went out on the trek leg, the cold and the long biking leg having pruned the field down considerably. Honestly, there was a ton of trekking on the bike leg since all but two CPs required bushwhacking to get the punch; a specific "trekking" leg was extra credit. Sherry and Joel had logged some time whitewater paddling on the James River earlier in the day, so it had been a very long day for them already.
We had a great team experience and we started building a rapport that will serve us well during the race in a couple weeks. Thanks to Eric for all the time and planning that went into the night -- it's cool to have a venue permit night events like this every so often, and Eric was talking about another "diet" or "mock race" out there later in the year.
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My 3 teammates at a trekking CP around 1 AM (left to right: Joel, Sherry, & Don). Note the red CP punch tied to the wrecked picnic bench on the right -- another inventive CP placement!
The four of us in the cabin at event HQ (left to right: Joel, Sherry, me, and Don). Don looks a little giddy here, and I know we got some interesting looks as we fumbled through the convenience store grabbing drinks and food on our way home at 3:30 AM.
Eric and Don at the finish (Don, again, looks a bit drunk on lactic acid or something). Seeing the laptop there reminds me that we took advantage of this night training to test some cool new software for the Untamed VA adventure race. Thanks again Eric!
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