June 4, 2023
4th out of 18 teams
22 CP’s out of 27 (counting TA’s)
Originally I hadn’t planned on doing this race as we were supposed to be on our way to Nepal. Once that trip fell through, I still didn’t have the race on my radar since we had a wedding to attend the night before. Heather convinced me that it would be fine, especially since the start time wasn’t super early! We left Nashville IN around 6 am and only one nav error later, made it to the check in at the Parklands. As we were setting up our gear, I realized I’d left my prepped bike bottles at home but luckily I had thrown an empty one in my bin. I also forgot my ankle gators and my bike computer… honestly it seems the longer I race the worse I become at packing! I’d love to see how other racers organize their gear at home and how they prep/pack prior to the race!
The maps were handed out at 8:30 and we started planning. There were 7 legs to complete with a total of 19 checkpoints to be found with 6 TAs to visit. The prologue was a compass challenge where we ran to the center of the field where we were given an envelope with 4 bearings. We ran the first one to the cone, wrote down the letter, then ran back to the center to shoot the next one. At the end, the volunteer checked our letters and gave us our thumbstick we’d use for all the CP’s. This took us about 12 minutes to complete and get back to the start.
Leg 1 bike (1.38 mi/2.22 km in 9 1/2 mins counting TA) was a quick ride to TA 1 for our first punch. The Louisville Loop is a paved trail that goes for miles around the park.
Leg 2 trek (1.36 mi/2.19 km in 24 mins) – We made a nice loop to collect the 3 checkpoints. I had a bit of a struggle getting the scale of the map in my head since it was 1:15000 and I’m used to 1:24000, so everything was coming up too fast! By CP 3, the heat was increasing with no clouds in the sky and Heather mentioned not feeling great.
Leg 3 Paddle (2.26 mi/3.64 km in 45 mins) – The water level was pretty low so we spent a good portion of time outside the canoe. We did manage to pass a couple of teams on this leg since carrying the canoe across sand bars was easy for us and our muscles! The water felt really nice and helped revive Heather from the heat.
Leg 4 Trek (1.94 mi/3.12 km in 42 mins) – Exiting the boat we hiked back to the start and had a quick TA to grab a cold drink and dunk our heads in the water. The trek back to the bike drop took us on two trails off the Louisville Loop, one down by the river and and a nice sandbar and the other a mtn bike trail we’d see again soon! I was finally feeling a bit more confident in the map scale and we cruised along at a brisk walk.
Leg 5 Bike (7.06 mi/11.36 km in 1 hr 3 mins) – We had a rough start to the bike leg as I confidently took us the wrong way immediately after leaving the TA. We were both hot and frustrated and I took a minute to breath and settle, then we moved on to the correct trailhead. I really hate navigating in urban park areas! The bike trail we headed out on was about a mile of pretty rough terrain but nothing worse than what Heather has drug me down in Brown County State Park! I should have started to realize here that the heat was really getting to her since she was not enjoying the biking… more on this later! I did take a second to pop up the road and see if we could access the Louisville Loop and short cut the trail but since we were not allowed to travel along the Beckley Creek Parkway, it didn’t make sense. So we continued on to the trailhead and back on to the smooth sailing concrete! The second trail was a super flat cruiser along the creek, thankfully in the shade! The Louisville Loop had a detour due to bridge work so we had to hop on to some small back roads to access the southern part of the race. We pulled into the TA around 1:18 pm and looking at the weather data, it was around 86°.
Leg 6 O-course Trek (4.75 mi/7.64 km in 2 hr 5 mins) – This leg was on an orienteering map scale of 1:7500 so I had to regroup my brain and think even smaller! There were 6 CP’s here, including the Maze-O which counted as 2 pts. Leaving the TA we trekked to CP 10 with no issues and then we looped out to CP 15. Getting off the paved trail and into the woods was a blessing and we hiked the creek up to the checkpoint. The creek was riddled with fabulous fossils and I lost a few seconds picking up rocks. From there, I guess I just didn’t see because of the map fold, or just tired brain, but I took us in the direction of CP 13. Partway up, I look and see that 14 is still out there and the opposite direction. Looking back, at this point I should have realize how bad Heather was feeling and skipped 14 but she is such a trooper that I assumed she was doing ok. Instead I turned around and made an attack plan for 14. The plan was to shoot a bearing from from the trail bend and then follow it to CP 14. Another team was hot on our tails when we got there so I did a half-assed bearing with my thumb compass instead of my baseplate. I felt pretty confident when my bearing took me right to a depression but alas, there were many depressions out there (including the one’s we brought with us…) I knew I’d overshot it when I reached the park boundary. I looped back in what I hoped was the correct direction but looking at our trace if I’d looped the opposite I might have found the CP! At my closest, I was about 75 meters from it. Given the time constraints on the Maze-O (had to be started by 3 pm) and how Heather was flagging, we nixed searching more for CP 14 and decided to head straight to the maze. At this point, I’m pretty sure Heather was suffering from early signs of heat exhaustion but the only relief was to get to the maze where they had water. By absolute luck and zero good nav on my part, we somehow ended up on a trail that took us to the maze. The Maze-O was something new and I was looking forward to it. How it works is you are given a paper maze map with 10 CP’s on it. You then run the maze and collect the CP’s in order. I really enjoyed it, fun mental challenge with low penalty for messing up! I went first while Heather had some cooling time in the shelter house. The fabulous volunteers had a cooler of ice and ice cold water. Each team member had to run the maze and Heather had recovered enough to head out and she nailed it! From the maze we decided to just head back to the bikes as her condition continued down hill. We skipped CP 13 even though it was super close to the trail we were taking but did pick up CP 11 on the way. Back at the TA, the lovely medic and ice cold towels for us and that felt pretty amazing!
Leg 7 Bike (4.73 mi/7.61 km in 30 mins) – The last bike section had 4 pts, three of which were further south. Knowing the time crunch and health concerns, we nixed the 3 points south and just grabbed the one on the way back. I think if we had tried for a single one we would have been cutting it too close to the finish time. Three years ago at the first Unbridled race, Heather, Julia, and I can in an hour and half late! This year was a bit of a redemption for us (minus Julia) as we came in with minutest to spare!
In the end we managed to come in 4th place since a couple of the top teams received penalties for coming in late or breaking the rules of travel. Heather perked up with some shade and sugar but was still feeling pretty crappy. On the drive home she fell asleep in the delicious AC of the truck. The next day when I checked on her, she was feeling horrible and had a fever of 102°! A trip to the ER and a strep diagnosis later and she is on the mend! I am floored that she completed a 6 hr race in temps from 80 – 90 degrees, while suffering from the early stages of strep! Cheers to tough ladies doing the hard things
The Rambling Hamblings 