Training Log Archive: abiperk

Event: Rev3Adventure Shenandoah Epic 24hr AR
 

Condensed report, since the long one's now posted on GOALS blog...

In short, a sloppy race for the team that never quite felt like a race.

Started with a quick run on the mountain biking trails at Down River Canoe. There were a total of six points on the trails. We had to get a minimum of two before we could get on the water. The rest we could pick up by bike at the end. We went for the closest two and returned for a quick transition onto the water.

Paddle was a straightforward canoe down to Front Royal on the Shenandoah River, with a stop midway for a "ropes" section, where we were clipped into a line and had to follow an obstacle course of trees and barrels to the other end. The water was high - so high that they almost canceled the section - and moving quickly.

From there, we had a short and uneventful 5-ish kilometer urban-o through Front Royal, which included a Civil War Challenge, where one team member had to dress himself as a Confederate soldier.

Then a rolling 17k road ride to the one and only true foot-o of the race - six points that could be done in any order.

We went in for #18 first - up a creek just off the road. Jon ran in to punch and noticed that there was a clip hanging from the flag. Up until this point everything had been e-punch. We were all given blue bracelets at the start and told that there would be some points where we'd all need to manually punch, but Jon assumed that they would have a corollary blue bracelet attached to them (which we've seen in other races). We continued on. only to hear from other teams along the way that they'd all punched.

The rest of the loop was largely off-trail. The attacks were relatively smooth, but we had trouble sighting the CP's. By this point, it was also 85 degrees without a cloud in the sky, and the heat was beginning to take a toll, on Jon in particular. We moderated our pace, reminding ourselves that we just wanted a good day of training. It was the right move - by evening, it had become a race of attrition, with a number of teams DNF-ing because of dehydration and heat exhaustion.

After the foot loop (and a repeat visit to CP18), we returned to our bikes for a a trail ride up, around, and over a few ridges. The ride included an out-and-back to CPs 24 and 25. Technically, we were allowed to retrieve them on foot or bike, but the trails were smooth and open, and it was easy riding to get close to each point. This is also where the course started to feel familiar - I don't generally have a great memory for course specifics, but I recognized these points from the 2012 race.

Next, we had a grueling 2+ hour hike-a-bike up and over the Masa-something ridge. We were all pretty low at this point. Jason was loopy from sleep deprivation, Jon was still managing the heat, and Pete and I were feeling fine physically but down mentally. At one point, we took a break to re-group and all admitted that we'd rather be home. I've never had that happen mid-race before, and given where we were individually and collectively, I was pretty sure that our day would end at the next TA.

We made it over the ridge, spun through the requisite selfie-stop at the Woodstock Tower, and pulled into the TA, The next section was a big loop - 25ish kilometers - that could be done on foot or bike. The area had three central arteries - two ridgeline trails with an ATV track running down the valley in the middle. I had done the same loop in 2012 and knew that some of the trails were rideable and some would be downright miserable. It was clear that strategically, bringing our bikes would have made the most sense, but when Jon suggested that we forget strategy, leave our bikes, and go on foot, no one protested. We decided to trek for two hours and evaluate from there.

We headed for the first CP and got about 10 minutes in when we realized that we'd left the clue sheet at the TA. After a brief discussion, we decided that we remembered enough of them not to worry about it. It only proved an issue for the first point, which was plotted in the creek but was actually hung by a culvert (the clue). We looked for 20 minutes before giving up and deciding to re-attack on the way out.

We went up to the eastern ridge and made steady enough progress, collecting two CPs (30 and 31, I think?) relatively smoothly. We realized, though, that the orienteering flags that we'd been looking for earlier in the day had been replaced by simple pink flagging with an e-punch attached - not even any reflective tape. This made sighting the points rather difficult, especially the third one we attacked -- the clue was "picnic-sized boulder," and it was plotted on a hillside below the trail. After several minutes of searching, Jon somehow spotted the punch - literally laying flat on top of the rock.

That was fun.

We finished the portion of the loop we'd set out to do, leaving three points behind.


It was now 5:30 in the morning. The course was opened for almost six more hours, and we were separated from the finish by a bunch of miles (I ended up with a total of almost 100k for the race on my bike computer but don't remember how many were from this section) of riding and those four mountain bike points from the beginning. There was also CP38, which sat on a bridge about 1200 feet below the TA on the back end of the course, down a viciously cold road... Another point from the 2012 race that I remembered all too well. We contemplated going down for it - we had plenty of time - but decided to head for the finish instead.

But first, we had to return to the fire tower...

Somewhere along the way, we realized that we'd missed the punch at CP28. The directions for that point had us taking a team selfie and emailing it to race headquarters, and we hadn't realized that there was an all-punch (on pink flagging) there as well. After a lengthy debate in TA (would the selfie count? Would we get credit for it?), we rode back up the 1.5k of gravel road and punched.

Then it was a fast ride down the mountain on gravel roads and a slow hike-a-bike through the familiar Veach Gap. As we were making our way up that last ridge, we thought briefly about going for CP41, an off-trail slog up to the highpoint from the valley below the gap. More back and forth, and then just as we were dropping our bikes, Jason started throwing up. Another victim of the heat.

By that point, we had stopped racing a long time ago, so it didn't seem worth putting his health at risk for one additional checkpoint. Instead, we passed through the gap, flew down the trails on the other side, and rolled through TA to collect our final points on the awesome awesome mountain biking trails behind Down River Canoe. I had ridden these trails in both of the earlier Epics I'd done, but they were still a highlight of the day.

We finished up at 10AM, 82 minutes before the course closed and happy to be done.

So, like I said, a weird race... that never really felt like a race... But it was fun to spend the weekend in the woods with these guys and to catch up with everyone at our first true AR of the season.

C • Cliffhanger 6

Spinning at the hotel gym.

Also went up and down 11 flights of stairs a couple times today. Hill training?

Left early this morning for a few days in Nashville for a conference. By mid-afternoon my brain was full so I escaped to the hotel gym for a quick run.

Treadmill was strange - the surface was a sort of tire tread material, and it seemed to be calibrated wrong, but these are the numbers it gave me.

A month late and a few dollars short, but here's our race report from the Meltdown, posted at Breathe Magazine, with nods to a few folks here on AP --

http://www.breathemag.ca/race-reports/adventure-ra...

A couple miles with Z in the pack and then a woods loops with the dogs