At Pennsy's Request-18 Hour Adventure Ra ce Report

“MISSION ON THE MUSCATATUCK 18 HOUR ADVENTURE RACE
NORTH VERNON, INDIANA

We began with a 6 am after a restless nights sleep with some trail running and orienteering (which lasted the entire race). It was still pretty cool and our co-ed team was well prepared for whatever it was that lie ahead (you never knew until you go there). We took our time plotting our UTM coordinates and obtaining bearings (only 2nd in importance to staying hydrated). The course was laid out well and coordinates were dead on.

Following the trail running section we received our next check point coordinates which required some mountain biking. It was about 9 am and our checkpoints ranged from only a few miles to (without the map in front of me) about 12-15 miles away. We left our transition area on the leg only to realize that we had left our bike lights and had to backtrack about a mile to get them. It was very early still with much daylight left obviously but you should always be prepared. By going back to get them we saved ourselves for later that night it turns out. Along our bike leg we had passed up a check point which we went back to get and then plotted a short cut to the next point which took us through small towns and a lot of road riding. By the time we reached the last check point in this section it was afternoon and our water was very low. Fortunately up on arriving at the last checkpoint for that leg, we saw the canoes! WATER!

It was getting pretty hot and we all filled and treated water as we pushed of for a 12 + mile canoe section with 4 checkpoints. These proved to be the toughest yet as it was constant paddling in some interesting conditions. The checkpoints as it turned out were quite a ways from the river too. We had to pull the canoe out of the water and bushwhack, climb and run the few miles to some of these points then return to start paddling again. We had a close call when I was pushing us off at one point, slipped and doing some pretty good damage to my right leg, everything in my leg began to spasm, the cold sweats came on and I thought passing out wasn’t to far off. Fortunately my teammates understand this stuff and without a word, Tina, who was in the middle, turned around, grabbed the paddle from me and proceeded to move us downstream while leaving me alone for a bit. 3 Aleve and 20 minutes later all was well, good thing because we had a long way to go. We got another checkpoint in a cemetery and portaged our canoe over a small hill and back to the river which cut about 1.5 miles from the canoe section. Unfortunately that also kept us from getting near the transition area and kept us from our food and much needed salt and electrolytes. We had been treating water from the river most of the day and were almost out of any food whatsoever.

Around dusk, wet, hungry, tired from rowing, and all with some blood surfacing from bushwhacking, we arrived at the last canoe checkpoint which was manned. Receiving our next coordinates we plotted under headlamps and set off through service roads and fields. It was dark by now but the moon was bright and we did much of the first hour here without headlamps to save battery life. The area had been flooded recently and when we hit the trail to the next point by the river, it was nothing but mud. Shoes were being sucked off in the mud (flat tire) and at points a slip would have dropped us a good 10 feet down into the river At this point we looked like we had been in a mud fight and all lost. I should mention though that we were having the time of our lives. We all had small, not very bright headlamps (to keep weight down) but the trade off was that you really couldn’t see far in any direction and the moon light had faded behind the trees. Proper navigation at night is essential, more so than the daylight where you can easily locate landmarks to find your position. We checked our coordinates a few times and finally came upon the checkpoint we were searching for, you would have thought we just won the “Beast of the East” with all the yelling! Approximately a mile further we reached the ropes course at about 9:30 pm. Arriving to some cheers and yells from some of our support personnel.

We reached the top of the cliff for the rappel section, geared up and doubled checked each other. With little food and constant physical demands over the past 15 hours it’s good to check each other head to toe for safety (which you should always do anyway). Tina was first on the rappel, next I was up and it was very interesting rappelling in the dark, personally I really liked it but I took a couple of good hits against rock as it had become muddy from previous competitors and there was no footholds to be found. Chris went last and we kept our harnesses on and moved to the next section which was a traverse (pulling yourself across a rope primarily using upper body strength). In a traverse you are facing the sky and hanging of a rope above the ground. I will guess that the traverse was about 200’ across and I started out in a blaze of glory, of course that was on the first half which is essentially downhill from the sag. I reached the ¾ mark and had to just hang for about 10 minutes. My forearms were burnt at that point that grabbing the rope and pulling resulted in basically my hands running over the rope, I couldn’t grip anything. I pulled some more after a time and my safety line (upper rope) got stuck in one of the tree tops. I could have just slept right there, I was spent. After a few minutes I pulled up to the top rope to free it from the branches. With my head hanging and looking upside down at my target one last series of painful pulls brought me to solid ground. Both my teammates at the ¾ mark hit the same “wall” the certified climbers there called it. Apparently everyone started out quick and hit the “resting” point. One gentlemen actually had to be rescued as his body just gave out.

Moving away from there we found our bikes that had been transported back to this location and it was now about 11:30. We had a little ride to get back to the finish before the 12 midnight cutoff so we headed back (thank God for the lights!). We all made it back safely, beat up in the process but ready to do another one in a second.

A reporter there that interviewed us thought everyone there was crazy and maybe we are but we pushed ourselves both mentally and physically and you can’t find that combination much anymore. With the technology that exists today people are seldom self reliant on themselves in situations where you are on your own. For us it really teaches you a lot about yourself and what you are capable of.

As a side note- we are looking for sponsors if any companies are interested!

Thanks for reading hope you enjoyed it.”

“I did enjoy it, very much! Thanks for sharing. I gotta do one of those before this year is over...”

“What was your team name?”

“Nice job Roach! Now go get a massage from one of those "Happy Ending" places!”

“Awesome Rob!! I'm glad I was able to coax you into posting a report. Thanks!”

“congrats and good job”

“Fritz,
the team name was DoInIT Outdoors. It was our first long race and our goal was not to get lost, have fun and finish. It really left a positive attitude for future races.
Thanks all for the positive feedback.”

“Thanks for the report. Been thinking about your race and how you did. Good job Bro!”

“Hey I know where that place is!!!!!!


Cool report!


8)”

“Roach, awesome report. Sounds like you had a great team. If you dont mind, can I bombard you with some questions?

1) how did you meet your teammates
2) how long have you known them
3) how often did you train together
4) what were some really helpful things you learned
5) what were some things you would do differently

If you want you can send this stuff via-email. just click on my name...thanks in advance!”

“Great!! Glad it was a positive experience!!! Congrats!”

“U Da Man! Thanks for the report.”

“Roach - don't you dare take the discussion with Birch offline. :)

There are a number of us here who are real interested in AR.”

“I haven't overlooked your questions but I dont' get on here much. I will post something hopefully tonight in response.

later”

“For what its worth, here are my answers to your questions birch, fritz and maybe a few more. Keep in mind though that while we had done several smaller races and A LOT of training for this race, we are still beginners. My answers and opinions are simply that, mine, and I don’t intend for these to be the answers and opinions of everyone, each person will have there own things that works for them. There are many awesome books out there on AR and even better than that, the community is very helpful with any questions, I know they were for us.

As far as teammates: I met Tina (teammate) about a year ago at a trail running event and Chris(who was only 16, very cool, and top of the pack mountain biker) was a last minute replacement for a teammate who went down prior to the event. Most of this I will refer to Tina as we have agreed that we are a great race pair and can seriously compete in the future.

When we met at the trail running event we ended up running most of the race together, until she ran ahead, talking about AR. We were both entering several events like this to eventually get into AR. The most important part at the beginning was that we had a good conversation and expressed the same ideas of what we wanted to get from racing.

I can’t stress the importance of your teammates enough. Don’t just get into a race with your buddies because there your friends unless your prepared for some friction afterwards. That’s one of my personal opinions. Likewise, Tina and her husband Jeff will never race together either, there are just too many things that can carry over post-race and they tend to get serious at different times which could cause friction. I’m not saying that it will happen but the possibility is there. Friends tend more think that you should “understand” and when the going gets tough and all you want to do is fall over, a friend may not look to kindly at you when you are all over there case to keep there @ss moving, and vise versa. When you get tired, low on food and have pushed for a long time, political correctness is out the door and you pretty much just say what you think and feel and that could very well be the total opposite of what you or someone else wants to hear. That’s where setting your team goals prior to getting into a race is important. That way whatever happens you know you are both working toward the same goal. Long story short, find someone who won’t take things during the race personal, and you shouldn’t either.

The best thing you can do is to attend (volunteer) at a few adventure races before you actually enter one, you will learn an enormous amount. I was on support crew for a few and volunteered and Tina did the same, it helped us out immensely and don’t underestimate the experience and knowledge you can gain by just watching.

Second only to teammates I believe, and several others have stressed, is navigation. Fact is without it, you aren’t going anywhere anyway, or maybe you are but in the wrong direction. For example, one team lost their orienteer during race week but still decided to give it a go. I don’t believe they ever found 1 checkpoint. These people were in shape too, but that did no good at all. One of the race organizers expressed to me the next day, while we were on the subject, that he would rather find a good orienteer person who may not be in very good shape as opposed to the opposite. He said that he would go so far as to rig a tow rope to there bike and pull them along and even carry much of their non-mandatory gear. Believe me, we saw it, without proper navigation, no training in the world will get you from A to B because you won’t know where it is.

Breaks. While you will certainly need breaks to fill your water bladder and other things, try to minimize these. We were caught up in the idea that a 5 minute break here and there over an 18 hour race was pretty insignificant. Looking back we stopped way to much. Say a total of 15 minutes every 3 hours....that’s an hour and a half that could have been cut to ½ hour with better management.

Do not stop for water until everyone is out, that was most of our extra time. If someone runs out, share until everyone is out then stop, not 3 separate stops. Put one person in charge of getting water while the others look at the map.

Duct tape food to your bike so you don’t have to get into your pack while riding, another stop.

Use the duct tape over the back of your ankle when traversing if you plan on wrapping your feet over the rope.

Sip a sports drink every 15 minutes and in between that time water. Water alone won’t keep you hydrated, as a matter of fact, water alone can aid in flushing some needed nutrients from your system. You need the sports drink for electrolytes. And take or be sure to eat something with salt, without all of this it will lead to cramps. Consider 80% of your race diet should come from carbs and the rest from protein and fat. And train with the food and combinations you will race with so you know how your body reacts. Don’t try something new at race day. Example-Flat coke is one staple I and others train and race with because of the energy boost when you need it, however, I had a sip of a coke just after the race that was not flat, it didn’t stay down very long.

And NEVER assume something will happen. As in the case with our bike lights(read report). We easily could have assumed we would be back to the transition point to get them later but we weren’t, luckily we went back for them when we did. Also we thought we would at least be at the transition area a few more times during the day which we weren’t so we ran short, as did everyone, on food. We had only thrown in out packs enough for 4-5 hours. Thing is, we never knew where our next leg would take us until we got there so we should have carried a bit more with us. The irony was that we had bags and bags of properly proportioned food and nutrients at the transition area that we couldn’t get to.

Do something everyday to train even if its only technique.

Wear gaitors if you like to cut down on the cuts in the bushwhacking. I don’t but I saw one girl who had them on, whether or not others did I don’t know. It may sound odd but one of the factors that pushes me so hard is the pain, the cuts, and the bruises, hard to explain but you either get it or you don’t.

Well these are only a few thoughts and random at that, you will no doubt find your own things that work for you and could get 100 different ideas from 100 different people.

One last thing, the AR community is similar to backpacking community in that people(teams) will help eachother out. We were among several teams at a couple checkpoints looking for the punch and all searching as 1 team to help eachother…..very cool people, make sure you stay one of them.”

“Roach, Thanks for the info. I have done two solo races. One last year and one last month. I am currently training for a 24-36 hour race with a 4 person team. I know one of the teammates well but the other two I dont. We are planning on some group training sessions but we will have to depend on each others word when it comes to individual preparedness.

I agree about the food deal. I carried all my food for may last race (16 hrs) simply because I know how I am am when I am hungry. I also found that carrying two platys (one with sports drink,one with water) was a big help. Other teams were getting water while I went on by.

I know that physically I am okay and my nav skills are good. I am jsut curious about the whole team dynamic thing.

On sat a teammate and I are going ridin. It'll be good to get to know him.

Thanks for the info. Any other race coming up?”

“Great info, Roach, thanks for taking the time to post it all. Seems pretty much in line with what I have read in a couple of AR books, as well as on a couple of AR discussion groups.”