This blog is usually updates from the cool travels we go on but this time I want to tell you about Adventure Racing! I recently got back into the sport after a break of about 10 years. Let’s start with a trip down memory lane:

When we first started teaching at East, a fellow teacher Mike told us about adventure racing. He talked us into trying a race to see if liked it and to see if we had the skills to keep up with him. (You are going to notice a lot of “we” in this blog since Steve and I started this together.) Most of those first races I did were on a team with either just Steve or with Steve and Mike. My memories of those races are all a blur now but I did try and re-create my race history:

• 2006, June 10 Planet Adventure Sprint 8 hr – CCFCCP 2C with Steve 3rd in division
• 2007, June 9 Planet Adventure Sprint 8 hr – Team Troglodyte 2C, no results found
• 2007, Sept 8 Indianapolis Adventure Race – Potential Energy 3C 14th overall, 8 in division
• 2008, April 5 Planet Adventure 24 hr race Story Indiana – Potential Energy 3C, 2 in division
• 2008, June 7 Planet Adventure Sprint 8 hr – Potential Energy 3C – This is the one that got cancelled because of the extreme flooding.
• 2008, Aug 16 Planet Adventure Urban Sprint 6 hr – 3C Potential Injury, no results found
• 2008, May 10 DINO Mission Lite 4 hr – Solo 15th overall, 1st in division
• 2008, Sept 6 Indianapolis Adventure Race – Potential Energy 3C 14th overall, 7th in division
• 2009, May 16 DINO Mission Lite 4 hr – Solo 15th overall, 1st in division
• 2009, Sept 19 Indianapolis Adventure Race – Potential Energy 3C 21st overall, 12th in division

• 2009, Aug 15 Planet Adventure Sub-Urban Race

• 2009. Dec 12 Midget Adventure Race –  2C with Steve, 2nd or 3rd?

• 2018, May 12 DINO Mission Lite 4 hr – 3C with Geet & Jake, 26th overall, last in division
• 2018, Indy Quest Urban Adventure Sprint – 3C BOTU Racing (Steve, Scott, me) 10th overall, 3rd in division
• 2019, May 11 DINO Mission Lite 4 hr – 3C with Patrick & Jake, 9th overall, 2nd in division

• 2019, June 29 361° Dale HollAR 6 hr – 2C, DNF result due to teammate getting heat exhaustion. I continued on alone.
• 2019, Aug 3 361° Dead Fred 9 hr – Solo. 15th overall, 3rd in division

• 2019, Sept 7 DINO CIA 12 hr – 3F with Karen & Heather, 17th overall, 1 (and only) in division

• 19. 2019, Sept 27-28 USARA Nationals, Boone NC – 3F Chickpoints with Kristy and Karen, 1st in division

Moments I remember from those early 2006 – 2009 races:

• Being asked A LOT if I could go faster, usually by my husband! We finally followed the lead of other teams and used a bungee stinger on his pack during the runs. I really didn’t want to do this after seeing a very competitive team literally drag their female teammate through the woods after she tripped! I called them team “Drag the Girl” in my mind every time I saw them after that.
• Apologizing to other teams as Mike and Steve barreled them over with the giant yellow canoes in their rush to get to the water fast.

• Diving to the bottom of a backyard pool to read a math problem, coming up to pass along the numbers and words, then doing old school loooooong division to get the answer. Keep in mind that the racers were filthy at this point so I really feel bad for the owner of that pool!
• Rappelling off of the dam at Geist Reservoir with a short rope that ended and you just had to let go and fall!
• Throwing an absolute bitch fit during a race in Brown County (one of the Midget ones?) when I just could NOT deal with my bike and the pain any more. Not my finest moment. I did eventually walk down the hill I had thrown my bike, pick it up, and continue on. I did get a larger bike after this and the fit was so much better!
• One especially memorable race was the Planet Adventure 24 hr race, staged out of Story Indiana. This was in April of 2008, and Lake Monroe was at a pretty high flood stage. Our team, Potential Energy, was doing pretty good when we hit the paddle at dusk. Keep in mind at this point in time, cranial illumination wasn’t the best unless you had $$ and all three of us are and were public school teachers. We headed out on the creek, being told that we’d know the take out because there would be a bonfire. Dark happened fast and our stream emptied into a completely flat flooded plain full of trees. We spend the next probably 5 hrs paddling in circles, trying to find the channel out. I remember passing a bank and seeing a team huddled around their small fire trying to warm up because the temps had dropped and hypothermia was a real concern. Imagine my surprise when after another hour of paddling we found another team huddled around a fire… wait, that’s the same damn team! At this point all of us were exhausted. Mike had hypothermia going on, Steve was falling asleep at the stern and steering us into trees, I was doing both, freezing and falling asleep. We rounded a corner (probably one we had gone around numerous times) and saw a bonfire! Every boat on the water headed in that direction, only to find it was not the take out but some locals out for a fun evening! I can only image what they thought as at least 20 bedraggled, freezing racers stumbled up to their fire like zombies! The locals shared the warmth of their fire and showed us where we actually were on the map. Some teams took them up on an offer of being driven back to the start because they were so cold. Our team chose to climb back in the canoe and Steve got us to the correct take out. I remember never being so cold and tired as be climbed up to the TA where our support vehicle was waiting!

Around 2009, it felt like a lot of the local races sort of dried up and we sort of drifted away from the sport and into other things, like CrossFit. In 2018 we decided to introduce our gym members to adventure racing at the Mission and Mission Lite race. This really re-ignited our passion for it and for me it was learning a whole new skill like navigating! In the process of doing more races, especially as a solo female, I made contact with other ladies into adventure racing! I remember in those races back in 2006 – 2009 a team of two ladies racing under the team name All Terrain Females and I was so impressed with them! I don’t fangirl much, and I was too introverted to go up and introduce myself back then, but I recently met one of them! It was really cool to shake Stephanie’s hand and thank her for being so inspirational back then and for doing so much to bring women into the sport!

Thanks for joining me on my trip down memory lane and now for how I ended up at the most recent race, USARA Nationals!

After the Dead Fred race, Stephanie connected me with Karen and Kristy with the goal to get another all female team to Nationals. Karen had already qualified her Chickpoints team and Kristy couldn’t make the CIA race which was the next qualifier. Karen stepped up to navigate that one and then we’d figure out the roster for the second team. In the end, the three of us all raced together under the Chickpoints team, taking first in our divisions! I told them that I would be slow but that I also wouldn’t quit and luckily I fulfilled my promise! Here’s how the race went from my back of the pack perspective.

The race technically didn’t start until 8 am but with maps handed out at 6, that was the unofficial start. The maps themselves where huge and Karen and Kristy plotted the UTM’s while I watched and learned. The first stage was up the ski hill to our bikes, down to Trout Lake for a prologue. Each of us had one checkpoint to get and then we met back up for the next big bike leg. This one went from Trout Lake, through Blowing Rock, then down a huge gravel hill  (seriously, it was 4 miles and descended 2300 feet), picking up bike leg checkpoints as we made our way to the paddle. This was at least a 35 mile bike ride according to Google maps, and that’s not counting the side trips we did! I was feeling pretty good for most of this section, although the downhill gravel ride was terrifying to me! I gripped the handlebars and breaks so hard my fingers were numb when we finally hit level ground.

We made it to the paddle in what I thought was good time but the helpful volunteer suggested we might want only go for one checkpoint since the fastest teams were taking about 3 hrs to get all of the paddle points. I was a little bummed by this since paddling is the one skill I brought to the team but it was the smart decision. The paddle was easy, super flat but really hot. The heat just continued to climb the rest of the afternoon, and it definitely took a toll on me and other racers.

We left the paddle and made our way to the TA 3 area at the Wilson’s Creek Visitors Center, picking up points and another 13 miles on the bike! Kristy was doing most of the bike navigating and I was just trying to keep up. We hit TA 3 around 5:15 pm. I had eaten my turkey and cheese wrap after the paddle and snacked my way through several bags of fruit gummies, sport beans, red vine bites, a pack of salt & pepper cashews, and a venison beef jerky stick. The 3 L of water I was carrying in my dual bladder, plus the 2 bike bottles were all just about empty. A short break to empty one set of bladders and fill up another and then we headed off onto the orienteering course. At this point I was so saddle sore that anything other than biking was amazing! As we left the TA, we hiked past a small general store for the local campground and it was still open! We bee-lined over to it and each had a soda, plus Kristy got an ice cream. That jolt of sugar was so welcome! We continued hiking to the trailhead in good spirits. The O Course was a set of four points scattered in a loose loop with several out and backs if you didn’t want to bushwack, and we did not want to do that! Karen and Kristy shared the map and with two sets of eyes on the terrain, we made it to the points without too many issues. I think we were on the course for about 7 hrs and I was bonking hard at the end. At one point I stepped over a log that had small round mushrooms on it and it reminded me of the color of ducklings, to the point I thought how cute, miniature ducks on a log! Sleep monsters are a real thing. I’ll be honest when I say I was about useless at this point in the race. We made it back to the TA and we had to decide if we wanted to go out for the 2 bike O. That was a hard NO from all of us at this point since we’d have 2 bikes for 3 people and the points were pretty far away. Other teams were able to do this by putting 2 people on one bike but for me, that was not an option! We opted to skip all of these points since they weren’t required. We refueled on food and water, and just sat for about 15 mins, taking time to change into dry socks. This simple thing made such a difference to my comfort level. As for the biking again, that was completely uncomfortable!

Leaving TA 3 and heading to TA 4 was another 10 mile bike ride, picking up one checkpoint on the way. Google maps tells me that this climb took us up 1200 feet and while it was gradual, it was too steep for me to maintain a pace on my bike. Karen and Kristy were saints during the night, not grumping at me for my frequent need to stop. I’d bike until the pain in my legs was too much, then I’d hike a bike for a few more yards, then I’d collapse and just not move for 2-3 mins. Wash, Rinse, Repeat until we finally rolled into TA 4.

This was an optional TA and we had originally planned to skip it but since we skipped the bike o part, we opted to go for at least one point on this one. This was another one foot three checkpoint orienteering course. We planned to go for one and thought the waterfall point would be the closest. It was the closest but it also went down a good ways, only to have to climb back up. My moral was sinking lower each step and I struggled to keep up and just kept falling farther behind. I think this was when I decided to to chew my caffeinated gum. WOW, I should have done that an hour ago! While the taste was awful but the effects were almost immediate. I perked up and told the ladies I was good to go for another checkpoint since we were already out here! We quickly snagged the hilltop point and made our way back to TA 4. We allowed ourselves a few minutes to eat before heading out. I had carried a small can of Starbucks Espresso for just this moment! It paired beautifully with my PB&J.  Since we hadn’t originally planned on coming out to TA 4, we now had to route back from there. We had budgeted a lot of time to make it back to the start, knowing that the hill climb would eat up at least 2 hrs, and now we had extra time. The roads seemed the safest option, especially since we’d gotten burned on the trail back from checkpoint 9. We heard about a trail leaving out of TA 4 that would take the 10 mile road ride down to a 20 minute downhill trail ride. We decided to give it a go and I’m super glad we did! It saved a lot of pedaling and time. It did come with a unique risk though. I had a helmet mounted like that was shaped like a torpedo. On more than one occasion down that trail, the low hanging branches across the trail would catch on the light and nearly take me off my bike!

From TA 4 to the start of the hillclimb was pretty uneventful. The sunrise was beautiful! The caffeine was flowing and I was content, completely ignoring the fact that soon we’d be climbing 2100 feet over 4 miles. What can I say about the hill climb, it was freaking rough. I was not able to ride my bike for 95% of it. The monotonous movement over such a long time (2 hrs) dulled the brain, making it almost more of a mental challenge than a physical one. The sun was well up by this time and I was getting too hot again. It was pretty cool to see the teams that could pedal up the hill do so, they were super bad ass! At one point nearish the top, I noticed a ditch on the right side with flowing water. It would have been comical for the drone to fly over at this point, when 2 of the 3 of us were crouching Golem style in the water, splashing our faces. Gone were the smiles, replaced with grimaces of determination. Our deodorant had quit hours ago. I noticed this because when some teams would pass us, I would notice that they smelled relatively nice! Eventually we made the top and coasted into town to grab some water and then make the final push to the finish. We came in just at noon on Saturday, 28 hrs of racing behind us, with enough points to take first place in our division!

Things I learned during this race:

• I’m not as fit as I thought I was, need to add in more biking.
• I really want actual food that is not sweet during a long race like this.
• The bandana hanging from the pack strap is essential!
• Put more of my food on the bike, instead of carrying it all in my pack.
• Practice staying up all night, it’s a lot harder than I imagined it would be!

Steve has a saying that I can’t remember in full, but one part of it goes “all good adventures contain an element of suffering”, and this was one hell of an adventure! I’m super grateful to Karen and Kristy for letting me literally tag along on this one, soaking up their knowledge as well as my whacked out, sleep deprived brain could! I’m already planning on how to train for next year!