Adventure Racing

            I’d never done a multi-day event before, but I remember going into adventure racing to push the limits of my comfort zone.  I bit the bullet, sent an email to Susanna at Odyssey Adventure Racing, and asked if she’d put my name out there to see if any teams were looking for more members.  Dima, the captain of Calleva responded fairly quickly and we met as a team about a month before the race.  A cold day in Maryland was spent practicing rappelling, orienteering, paddling with the new Wing paddles, and trying out towing procedures on the bike.  The team consisted of me, Dima, Sasha, and John.  Dima and Sasha, two crazy Russians, had raced together before, luckily spoke English well, and have a reputation for running a fast and tight team.  John, a member of our armed forces from Fort Bragg, NC, had met Dima at a previous Odyssey event but had not raced with him; and I have raced before, but never with Team Calleva and never for more than thirty hours.  Even though we seemed to work well on practice day, a multi-day event is a completely different animal.

            The next few weeks entailed multiple emails, filling out Google spreadsheets, figuring out who had what, as well as training for the event.  Training and planning went well and April 23rd found me driving the four hours to Pipestem State Park with the canoe on top and the Honda Odyssey loaded with all kinds of fun adventure gear.

            Pipestem is a place you must visit!  It’s gorgeous and has a great hotel with pool, restaurant, a gondola that takes you to the bottom of the gorge, and even a golf course (didn’t get to try that out).  It’s definitely a great weekend getaway for any outdoor types you might know.  We all arrived about the same time, checked in and started getting the gear figured out.  This took until at least 10PM but we’d done what we could by then and settled down.  Sleep came pretty easily.

            A 7AM race check-in time got us up early so we could stand in line for gear checks, climbing checks, etc.  We finally got the maps for the first half of the race and started plotting.  The weather was great and promised to be good for the whole race.  Some rain was predicted for Saturday but sunscreen was applied and luckily had to be re-applied a number of times over the next 3 days.  The race was to begin with a 1 ½ hour drive to the start of the white-water guided section.  White-water rapids would quickly give way to a short paddle and then portage up a trail to the small town of Ansted where we would transition to bikes.  An extensive bike led to a trek to the climbing site.  More trekking would bring us to bikes and then a boogie-board river swim and on to the first O-course, probably at night. That’s all we knew at the start.

            So, we loaded up the van (I mean LOADED up the van) and drove to the Cunard put-in.  Oleg and Vlad would be our support crew and we came to love them over the next three days.  I cannot say enough good things about them.  Hot soup was always ready, bladders were always full; they even replaced brake cables on John’s bike and plotted points for us later on.  Fantastic!

For the rafts, a random lottery system determined who would be in which boat for the start since we couldn’t all paddle off together down Class IV and V rapids.  Five boats would be in each wave and teams were randomly assigned to paddle together in 8-person rafts.  Odyssey spiced the whole thing up by making one person from each team run upstream about a quarter mile, jump in and swim to the raft.  I was the lucky teammate; so the whistle blew, a short run with PFD and wetsuit booties, a sharp in drawing of breath as I hit the 55 degree water, and a fast swim to the raft started our course downstream with Jackie our guide yelling near-obscenities at us to get us moving.   It was a blast!  And to add even more excitement, John’s shorts kept creeping downwards so much so that the raft next to us couldn’t stop laughing at the sight, a weakness we quickly took advantage of as Jackie continued to scream at us.  Dima, who sat just in front of her, still claims to be deaf in one ear from the decibels.

            The Teays Landing takeout was a blur of activity as we transitioned to canoes for a short flat-water paddle to Hawkes Nest State Park.  I took a few pictures with my fancy wrist camera but was quickly reprimanded by Sasha who said something about not wanting to lose a race because Phil was taking pictures.  At Hawkes Nest we strapped on portage wheels and followed the crowd up the road.  It was the wrong road, of course.  There was Ronnie Angell about 25 minutes up the road telling us all to turn around and head back down the hill to get the Mill Creek trail which we had seen off to our right.  We had violated Dima’s second rule of adventure racing; something about “others are not better navigators than us.”  So, like the lemmings we were, we all ran back down the hill and trudged up the trail as night fell.  A couple of miles brought us to the Ansted ball field and our support crew waiting with bikes ready.

            We pedaled into the night looking for CP4 and 5.  Both checkpoints proved difficult and we burned a lot of energy doing more elevation change than we needed but after six hours of biking and a wade through a creek we had found both checkpoints (thank you Team 95 for your guidance for CP5) and cruised into Winona (CP6/TA2) at about 3AM.  Many teams missed CP5 and there’s some dispute over correct UTM coordinates, etc so we consider ourselves lucky (and persistent) in finding it.  More experienced racers would have seen the wisdom of following the Rails to Trails motif mentioned in the race rules and some teams did just that. 

            Trekking now commenced and we knew the initial route from CP6 would be tricky.  We were lucky, and relatively little backtracking and bushwhacking found us at the climbing site just a dawn was breaking.  Rappelling off a 100’ cliff as the dawn broke over the New River Gorge was awesome.  This was one of those “adventure racing moments” as I said “this is soooo cool” all the way down the rope.  At the rappel bottom, the Endless Wall Trail gives access to fantastic climbing along the south rim of the gorge, but it’s a tough trail to navigate and we were thankful that we were doing it in daylight.  After stumbling around a bit to find CP9, a hike down Route 82 into the gorge  (only 800 vertical) and back up the other side (only 800 more!) brought us to CP10/TA3, warm soup, sandwiches, and waiting bikes.  All these transitions were fast as Dima and support crew were keeping a close eye on the clock.  We were efficient and fast and quickly sped off east towards the next CPs.

            At this point we had a cut-off to make: 4:30 at the Grandview Sandbar campground.  This was where we would do the boogie boarding through some rapids on the New River.  We figured we had it in the bag but then a wrong turn before Cunard, a double-back and then an endless up and down along McKendree Road on the north bank of the river made us pretty nervous.   Sasha and Dima consulted some locals who said we could ride along beside the railroad through a tunnel and save a lot of energy and time.  Some minor bushwhacking (after climbing up a hill too far) brought us to the tracks and a very dark tunnel.  We popped out the other end, scrambled up an embankment, crossed the river and made it with only 20 minutes to spare.  We had to be walking with all our swimming gear up the road before 4:30 to make the cut-off so transition was lightning fast.  It was about a 4 mile trek up river and we had to be in the water by 6PM.  For me this is where endorphins kicked in.  My knee didn’t hurt, I could run with a pretty full pack and I felt good as I tried to keep up with my fast-trekking teammates.   We were in the water with 10 minutes to spare. 

            So, we’d been biking and hiking for 24 hours, awake for 36, and here we were immersed in cold river water, flippering our way through Class I and II rapids.  It was nice to be cool and somewhat clean, but you can imagine that cramping was an issue.  Calves, quads, and hamstrings each had their turn and standing up after the swim was quite a feat for me.  I also distinctly remember a fellow racer from Berlin Bikes saying “I think this is the last fun part of this race;” not a good omen.

            This is when we got the map and coordinates for the rest of the race.  We spent a bit of time in transition as Dima plotted, and we all ate and tried to get about a ½ hour of sleep.  The sleeping really didn’t happen but lots of food was consumed as we determined we wouldn’t see our support crew for a long time.  It turned out to be 36 hours. 

            We started off into the night for a trek to the Bragg O-course.  It was about an 8 mile trek to the beginning of the course, the end of which was straight up a hill beside a waterfall along something you could hardly call a path.  Our navigation stayed good but it was tough and we were getting tired.  We bagged two points (all 6 were optional), Dima fruitlessly searched for CP18 while we three caught about 20 minutes of a chilly nap, and as dawn broke we also grabbed CP19 up a reentrant.  So we had 3 of 6 and were really ready to get out of there.  It had definitely been a low point for the team with all of us tired and Sasha feeling sick at regular intervals.  Being an MD has some advantages as a little Zofran (anti-nausea medicine) helped her get through that a little easier.  Dawn found us at Bragg-Samuel lane and the bikes.  Our support crew had been allowed to drop them off, but was not allowed to stay and could only give us a couple of bike bottles; no food was allowed.  Thus began the bike odyssey.

            The map for this section basically consisted of a black and white copy of the West Virginia Gazzetteer at 150,000 scale and included six mandatory checkpoints; and talk about hills!  This whole component took us more than 24 hours, must have covered about 100 miles and at least 10,000 feet of elevation.  The route choice was mandatory, part of which entailed hiking up and over a ridge (which we did in the rain as day was ending), and must have taken us up and down every hill in Southeast West Virginia.  Except for the rain that night though, the weather was fantastic.  Sunscreen was definitely a necessity.

Living off the land was part of the plan.  We stopped at small town stores for food and drink (I had forgotten to pack sunglasses and had to buy a pair), begged Mennonites for fresh spring water, and even bargained with a family for a new tire for John’s bike; that’s right, a new tire, not just a tube!  John’s tire developed a nice bleb as we tore down a hill on this fairly hot day and it wasn’t going to hold the rest of the race.  While John was driven off to a neighbor’s house to get said tire, we sat and watched the clouds roll in and bantered with “dad” about the Talladega race that was going on at the same time.  I’m sure they were a little perplexed by all these strange people riding by in groups in the middle of their nowhere. 

With the rain came nightfall and plenty of hallucinations.   As pavement dries, it leaves fairly complex patterns.  I could not believe how creative I was as I saw faces, landscapes, and friends crawl by under my tires as we climbed yet another hill in the dark.  Dima and Sasha started talking Russian to John and I without much effect and I kept thinking John was someone else.  Just before CP28 we stopped to try and get some sleep for an hour.  I couldn’t believe how fast I had fallen asleep on cold gravel with a couple of shirts, a shell, a cap on, and a fleece draped over my legs.  An hour later found me waking up shivering but somewhat rested.  A few push-ups got the blood flowing again but something wasn’t right.  Dima had not slept.  As we all came out of our own personal fogs, we realized he wasn’t making any sense.  He was delirious, talking about quitting, flipping the bird at us a few times, crying on John’s shoulder; something I’d never seen.  We finally got him horizontal (he fell asleep immediately), left him with Sasha, and John and I went off to look for CP28.  We were joined by Mike and Karen but all four of us had no luck.  Two hours later we woke Dima up, coaxed him back to humanity, filled up the bladders at a convenient spigot, and slowly went looking for the elusive CP28.  Of course it turned out to be about 50 feet further along the road that John had explored.  Dima matter-of-factly said “there it is” in a thick Russian accent and off we went, up and down more hills (almost one too many for me) towards our next transition, the canoes, CP29, Dickensen Branch Campground, and a new day.

We had planned to sleep at this transition but fortune had not smiled on us and Dima was again barking orders (he seemed to recover completely) as we wolfed down more soup and sandwiches, slathered on more sunscreen, and barely made the cut-off out of there.  We had a 1PM deadline to reach at the end of the paddle and we weren’t entirely sure we’d make it.

On the paddle down Bluestone Lake there were also optional CPs.  Of course they weren’t floating around just waiting to be picked up, but Dima figured we could get one that was fairly close to shore and not too technical.  He didn’t factor in the steep climb and rocks made slippery by a nearby waterfall, but he bagged it and we clambered back in the boats.  All the other points were really too far when considering our time constraint, but we made the final transition with about 55 minutes to spare.  N.B. Paddling and dreaming at the same time is not something I had experienced before!  The whole thing was very surreal.

Once again transition was a blur since it was now 12:30PM, the finish cut-off was 5PM, and we had 14 miles of trekking, river-crossing, and climbing up the gorge wall to do.  Everyone started off at a blistering trek pace and I tried my best to keep up.

We were approaching 72 hours of racing, had been up for about 80, and had about 1 ½ hours of sleep under our belt; and we all seem to feel pretty good.  I was amazed.  As Instructor McGuire, a former Navy Seal and our instructor at SealteamPT workouts says, “it’s amazing what the body can do;” and he’s right.  That had been one of my worries and now it didn’t seem to matter.  I’m sure longer races need to be handled differently, but Captain Dima had managed our team well.  Tempers had been short at times and delirium is never good (hallucinations and “dream paddling” are OK) but we had functioned as a team and prevailed. 

The trek was relatively easy and time passed without incident.  We passed a number of teams questioning the route, wondering where the river crossing was, consulting maps, but there was only one option up the Bluestone Gorge and we kept hiking without concern.  We spotted the hotel up on the ridge, hiked passed the tram station, downed delicious Jelly Belly Sport Beans and Clif shots (thanks Sasha and John), and waded across the river at the rope crossing.  Only a climb up the gorge wall remained.  We passed a couple more teams on the way up as John was determined to “beat their a….  up the hill” and the blessed finish line appeared at the hotel where we started a mere four days ago. 

The finish was anti-climactic as is de rigueur for most adventure races and after some hugs, pictures and handshakes we quickly found sandwiches and soup.  It’s amazing how the body shuts down when it knows it’s done.  One sandwich and one bowl of soup essentially locked up my legs and kept me glued to the chair unless I made a superhuman effort to stand up.  As I mentioned before, the weather had been near perfect; but the clouds were rolling in for some afternoon storms and as we packed up hastily for the drive home the heavens opened up.  It seemed a fitting way to end the race.  The drive home was luckily uneventful except for a three hour nap at a rest area, and I crawled in my front door about 1AM with the knowledge I had to work that morning (that was bad planning on my part!).  The rest of the team also made it home safely and since then there’s been much exchanging of gear and pictures.  I’m still not sure if I want to do that again since the passage of time has not yet put a rosy glow over the whole memory – but ask me in a month or two.  It will probably be an enthusiastic YES!

 Phil Dawson


Getting ready to portage.