Team The North StarBerryman 18hr Adventure Race 2023

Steve, Paul, and I

2nd in division, 8th/22 overall

Choose your own adventure style with some required gear locations.

Leg 1 – Trek 6.19 km/3.85 mi 1:16 

Leg 2 – Bike 24.02 km/14.93 mi 3:47

Leg 3 – Trek 25.57 km/15.89 mi 6:39

Leg 4 – Canoe 22.78 km/14.15 mi 3:08

Leg 5 – Trek 10.68 km/6.63 mi 2:30

Total travel 87 km / 54 mi

Paul asked back in February if Steve and I wanted to do either the Berryman or Shenandoah so our team could see how we all work together in prep for Endless Expedition this summer. Having done the Shenandoah last year with the Chickpoints, knowing that mountain was waiting again, I said lets do the Berryman! This was all before I’d actually looked at the race registration to discover it was a midnight start… We all took a day of work on Friday and made the drive over to Echo Bluffs State Park in the southern part of Missouri. This was the same day/night that Indiana was getting hammered with storms and tornados, all of which we somehow missed! We arrived at the park and found out that the tent camping I’d reserved was actually hike in camping, not car camping. Whoops! A little sweet talking and we were able to get a site for the truck (since that is our tent)!

Pre-Race: We had the meeting, were handed our giant map and clue sheets and told to go plan our best route! It was a choose your own adventure style, meaning you could collect the points in any order by any mode, as long as you met the short list of specific rules. Some trails were off limits to bikes and once you handed over your bike/canoe, you could not access it again. The bare bones directions were this:

HQ —> CP12 get bikes —> CPA leave bikes —> CPB get bacon and 2nd passport —> CP39 get canoe —> CP20 leave canoe —> HQ

Steve and Paul laid out a nice (although a bit overenthusiastic) route and then we worked out the times. This showed we’d need extra hours to do the route as planned, so we scrubbed out the second bike loop altogether. Our planned times and actual times worked out to be incredible close!

Leg 1 – Trek: The race actually started a little farther away than the HQ and we were the 2nd to last team to arrive at the start! I had to dump out my coffee and stash my “good” glasses in the cup and hide the whole thing in the bushes since I’d forgotten to change into my race glasses and I didn’t want to break my good ones in my backpack. 3-2-1 GO and off (and up) we went. Why is it always an uphill start?? This trek was to the bike drop with 3 CP’s to collect on the way. Paul’s fresh walking stride is soooo much faster than mine that I was falling behind. Friends, this will be an ongoing theme for me I fear! We had budgeted 2 hrs for this trek and shaved off 45 mins!

Leg 2 – Bike: Hopping on the bikes, we tried to find a trail that was marked on the map that would take us up to CP13 but after a short bike whack, we bailed on that plan and continued on. The flags on the bike portion for the mini CP markers, much for challenging to find! Our route was basically  the opposite direction of the herd, so we met racers at CP 15 for the first time. This marker appeared to be missing, lots of teams searched the area and no sign of it was found. Teams told us that CP 14 was also missing but we figured if our tracker showed us going to the correct spot that we’d get credit for it. We headed out to the ridge and once again Steve worked his nav magic. He said stop here, looked downhill and BAM, CP14 was right were it was supposed to be! Turns out we were the ONLY team to punch CP14! Coming for the direction the herd had, there was another ridge they need to jump over to, so a parallel error. Coming our direction, it was more clear that the trail split onto the other ridge. The biking was a mix of forest roads that you could drive a car on and others that hadn’t seen a bush hog in many years! There is just something great about flying down forest roads in the dead of night, trying to stay one step ahead to plan for the next obstacle! This was also the only section of the race that I was in the front of our team. Looks like the assault bike training is paying off, now to get a treadmill…

Leg 3 – Trek: We arrived at the bike drop said goodbye to the bikes. I never thought I’d be the person who wished for more biking in race but I knew the next leg was going to be really challenging for me personally. I don’t know what I need to mechanically do different in order to walk more efficiently. My hamstrings burn out so fast and then I just fall farther behind. Once I’m continually behind, then the negative self talk starts. This is one of the reasons I really like racing solo, I can keep my own pace, look at the maps, make choices. When I’m on a team, I always seem to be the slowest walker and it’s just a follow the leader situation, which isn’t as fun! Anyways, we heading out on the trek, making our way up to CPB where B=bacon! If you look at our track, you’ll see we approached B dead on, then stopped, looped around, came at it from another angle and then finally made it. Here is what happened! Our initial approach was perfect but it seemed to be taking us directly to a house, marked with loads of private property signs. It was just staring to get light out, we didn’t see any signs of life at the house but also didn’t want to have an angry home owner come out and yell at us. We circled around on the roads and ended up right back at the same house but on the other side. We checked the sandbar, we checked everywhere! Paul said he could smell the bacon and that it had to be the house! Steve and I hung back while Paul went up to ask potential strangers if they had any bacon for us! Turns out it was the CP and much rejoicing (and some bitching) was had by all! All told, this circling around cost us thirty minutes, which we sorely would need at the end of the race!

Fueled on bacon, and with a second passport in hand, we headed out to the more technical nav section. Much of this part is a blur to me since I was just trying my darnedest to keep up and not fall too far behind. I know we climbed a lot and ran into several teams that we leap frogged with. We ended up cutting 3 checkpoints from this section do to running out of time. I think our initial route must have been longer than we estimated since we did cover 25 km and still dropped 3 points! 

Leg 4 – Canoe: Our plan of hitting the river a noon was just about perfect! We rolled in about five minutes after noon and got ready to sit down for a bit. Ah, to sit comfortably and paddle down the lovely river, giving the legs a well deserved rest. Alas, this was not the case for me! The middle seats for the canoes that we were promised didn’t make it to the boat pick up area. I tried kneeling on a lifejacket but quickly cramped up. So I sat on the bottom of the canoe and then tried to paddle but the height and angle of the paddle really killed my bad shoulder. Other than that, it was really nice to be off my feet! The river was moving great and other than Paul having to put up with our front seat driving (sorry Paul) I think our team canoeing skills are great! The first CP was clued to paddle into cave, and that was awesome! Just a small cavern in the side of the cliff but really cool! The next CP’s were less fun, requiring beaching the boat and bushwhacking up to the points. We passed the bacon stop and a volunteer offered us a middle seat but we declined since we didn’t want the hassle of pulling over and redoing everything. The last CP for us on the boat was probably the nastiest CP of the day! CP N3 was a creek bed that was buried in the middle of an area that had probably been clearcut and was now so overgrown with briars that it was almost impassable! Somehow we made our way, crouching and crawling to the flag and then exited a different but not exactly easier way! A short paddle later we were at the take out and down to just about 3 hrs of racing left.

Leg 5 – The final Trek: In the planning stages, we knew that the shortest way back from the take out as a 5 km trek. The longest we planned was a 10 k trek. I’m sure, dear readers, you can predict which trek we did.. yep, the 10 k one! Steve was more than a little delirious coming off the canoe since he doesn’t take time to eat or drink anything. He handed the map to Paul and Paul led us up to CP4. Looking back, with a clear head and lots of sleep, we should have skipped CP 4, cut up from the canoe take out and gone to CP 6. This probably would have allowed us time to get CP’s 5 & 2 on our way back in. As it was, we had to hump it double time to make it back to the finish with no penalty. Turns out, we could have probably gotten CP 2 since the penalty didn’t actually take effect until you were 10 mins late. I thought you lost one point immediately and then another at the 10 min mark. I guess my default is the high pucker factor of being late to a DINO race where Brian takes away 1 CP for every minute late! And yes, it is possible to have negative score in his races!

Finish and post race thoughts: The RD’s had a fabulous taco bar set up, with lots of beverage options! We ate and then hobbled back to our campsite, collecting our paddle bag and bikes along the way. The truck camping once again worked out great and after a lukewarm shower I crawled into by sleeping bag and didn’t move for about 10 hrs! 

If we do this race again, I think I’ll try and get an actual room. Camping is great but if it had been raining it would have been much more difficult to stage our gear. This area is beautiful l and one of the things I love most about adventure racing is that it showcases areas that I’ve never heard about and hope to visit again!

Post race memos for me:

Clothing was just right for this race, started a bit cool but warmed up. Wore the new HH trekking tights, good for this temp probably too warm for Endless. Mill Race Marathon tech long sleeve was great. Wore the compression knee socks (not the topo ones, can’t remember the brand). Ate most of my food, going at the faster pace increased my fuel needs. The Infinite was really good, maybe take more of this on other races.