Adventure Racing

(below is a race report by team mate, Phil Dawson, who recently competed at the Checkpoint Tracker National Championship Adventure Race in Moab, UT. It is also posted on our forums section if you would like to post any messages or your experience at the race. His race photos can be seen in the "Phil's Photos" section of the Gallery")

CHECKPOINT TRACKER NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

MOAB, UTAH

OCT 29-30, 2010

            I sat next to a couple on the flight from Richmond to Dallas.  They lived near Boulder, CO and loved visiting Moab.  They gave me all kinds of suggestions on what to see: check out the Italian restaurant in Grand Junction, drive route 128 to Moab from Grand Junction, see the watercolors in the small room in the basement of the Red Cliffs Lodge, and go see the Tom Till photo gallery in Moab.  By the end of the weekend, I had done all of the above except the restaurant in Grand Junction…and all the things were really cool.  But, enough about that….

            Richmond ASR: Raging Burritos was a new mix of folks this time.  Chad (raced with him at EFix this year) and Darci (amazingly strong athlete from Seattle) picked me up in Grand Junction and we drove to Moab via route 128 (of course!).  We met Mike Kirklen (friend of Chad’s from Park City, Utah) at Chad’s condo and then drove to check-in at the Red Cliffs Lodge.  Check-in was lightning fast without  meeting or director talk and we spent the rest of the evening finding dinner, packing and dropping off gear at two different TAs that were not too far from Moab but in different directions.  Luckily, we had two cars and four racers. 

            So…it’s late October in Moab and it’s pretty cold in the morning….just about freezing when we got to Red Cliffs.  The first section was a short 3 mile river board down the Colorado.  The Colorado was a balmy 50 degrees so we donned our wetsuits and got ready for the 8AM start.  It’s not easy running from the start to the river put-in while wearing fins.  I ended up walking backwards, jumped in the water, finally started breathing again, and paddled off.  It wasn’t that bad. 

The take-out was a bit of a mad house.  We had to transition to inflatable kayaks and there hadn’t been a lot of separation during the river board so everyone was there together. Mike and I jumped in a kayak and Darci and Chad found another without too much hassle.  Everything seemed in working order (though pretty uncomfortable for a 50 year-old with a stiff back) and we started our 4 hour, Class I and some Class II, paddle down the Colorado.  We kept the wetsuits on since it was still ice cold and were only able to take them off just before the take-out at the Gold Bar Parking area.  My Seal-Skin socks were nicely filled with river water and remained so for the entire paddle.  My feet finally warmed up about 20 minutes into the next trekking section.  

Chad and Mike are frequent travelers to Moab so they knew the area well.  Chad had figured out the race course before we even started and this helped a lot.  We received more maps and satellite photos of Poison Spider mesa at the kayak take-out and quickly plotted the next section.  Once again, not a lot of separation had occurred on the paddle and a bottle-neck quickly developed at CP3, a via ferrata that was the only up to the remaining CPs.  CPs 4 through 8 were all optional and we quickly had to adjust our race strategy because of the 90 minute delay.  This was really the only race director snafu, but in the long run it did take us out of contention for any hardware.  Our team really wanted to do the tyrolian traverse and rappel, so we nixed a few CPs and got to the traverse (CP11) early, knowing that there would be a back-up at the 6PM cut-off.  I’ve never done a traverse and it was a blast.  This race was starting to become an epic adventure.  A quick rappel and a walk through waist deep water followed the traverse and led us down a ravine for a quick jog back to the TA.

It was getting towards dusk, so we transitioned quickly to bikes and took of like bats out of hell!  We must have been doing 24 or 25 mph in a pace line back into Moab.  I was thinking to myself, “I can’t keep this kind of pace up for too much longer.”  Luckily, it wasn’t too far to Moab.  We were also having some lighting issues so Chad was trying to get to Moab to get some replacement bulbs before bike stores closed.  We didn’t make that cut-off, but Mike and I had extra lights; so we stopped at McDonalds, had some real food (Darci would disagree), put the lights on the bikes, and took off pedaling up to Slick Rock Mesa and the next TA.

Here we were given a choice.  We could trek or bike the next section…in the dark.  Chad and Mike, knowing the terrain, strongly suggested trekking.  I was worried about my knee not holding up for a long trek over endless sandstone domes, but quickly realized that biking this would have been close to suicidal.  All but one of the points were fairly easy to find; and we eventually found that one after we regrouped and re-plotted our course.  The trek took about 6 hours, and we were all ready to get back on bikes when we returned to the TA about 5AM.  I think Chad was the only one who really knew what we were in for.

We headed southeast towards the La Sal mountain foothills.  We just kept going up!  I estimate we climbed about 4500 feet and topped out at about 8500 feet according to my altimeter.  The scenery was gorgeous as the sun came up, bathing the hills in early sunlight and lighting up the sky with all shades of red, orange, and eventually clear blue. I was having trouble with both fatigue and altitude near the end and, for the first time ever, had to get towed.  Chad and Darci were still going strong, so Chad hooked me and Mike up in a bizarre 3-person tow pattern and dragged us to CP23 at Mountain Loop Road, and the high point of the race.  The view was awesome and the ensuing descent was epic.  It felt like the Tour de France as we dropped into Castle Valley: hunkering down for aerodynamics (and warmth!), cutting the corners on the hairpins, slowing down for the icy patches, maximizing both sides of the curves to maintain speed.  When we got to the flats in Castle Valley, Chad pulled just like the night before.  A couple of teams stuck on to the train; we blasted by a couple more; I tried to lead at the same pace but Chad was back within a minute or two once again offering to lead…which he did.  A few small hills slowed the pace down below 25 mph and the finish line was there in no time.  We crossed the line at 10:30AM, 26 ½ hours after the start.  A quick nap (except for Darci who busied herself packing bikes and doing all the hard work) and a big lunch got us all back to feeling close to normal. 

We had been so lucky.  It had been cold, but it was late October in Utah for heaven’s sake…. not as cold as it could have been.  It stayed bright and sunny the whole race.  I spent a weekend racing with awesome athletes; and the course was epic.  It was a great way to spend Halloween!