See the SPOTAdventure Map, pictures, and report that shows the first 24 hours of our race at:

SPOT Adventures

TeamSOG (Brian Mayer, Steven Baker, Julia Pollock, and Joe Moershbaecher) set out on an extremely daunting “24 hour” adventure race course.

We arrived Friday night and crashed to get some rest before the race. Saturday morning we woke up got some gear together and headed over to registration. Brian took a quick detour to do a radio interview for Lionheart on the Doug Pike Show. We got our maps and started plotting. The race was interesting with a neutral start scheduled for Sunday morning when people would be allowed to start the paddle with only a short bike afterward and an orienteering course. This was going to make the last 6 hours very intense.

We started the race in the intense heat from the Wilderness Adventures camp in New Castle, VA at noon on Saturday. After a short prologue we got out of the camp in first place and right away were thrown onto a steep 700′ MTB climb. It really took a toll on Baker. Combo the heat and the effort and he was really feeling it. We spread out his gear between us to lighten his load and continued on.

At the top of the mountain we entered a forest road and began to see some teams catching up. We were soon able to pull away again and made our way down the ridge to the town of New Castle where we were glad to fill up on water while enjoying some AC at the Dollar Mart. We then remounted for a 2700′ of climbing. Again this took a toll on Baker and once we summitted Baker emptied his stomach 100 yards from the CP. We now had to make sure to rehydrate and refuel him appropriately. Dark was approaching and we had a very technical 1800′ descent. This allowed Baker to begin to recover as well as some relief from the heat as night came upon us. On our descent we saw IMONPoint/Odyssey about 15 mins behind. We rushed through the Bike-Run TA and began the trek to the paddle put in with several checkpoints along the way. Baker was slowly feeling better but we spend a signifcant amount of the time fast walking to help him. The course was also fairly thick not allowing much of a chance to run. We also were beginning to feel some real fatigue.

We were bushwhacking along a ridge for what seemed like forever and finally caught up to IMONPoint/Odyssey who had passed us by taking a slightly different route. It was nice to see some companions in our same situation but we soon split up again. They chose to drop down off the ridge too early as we continued on to attack from further along the ridge. At the time we didn’t know if they meant to do what they did or not. Either way we raced our race and got the CP. We then chose to get the first optional CP which included a gruesome bushwhack descent because we couldn’t find the trail that went down from the ridge. This took a lot of time. Upon returning to the top of the ridge we came across IMONPoint/Odyssey again to find out they did get lost and did not get the optional CP. We were now in first place and had an advantage on them with the extra CP.

We continued on to the next optional CP. Daylight was now approaching and I was realizing we still had a long way until; the boat put in. I was beginning to think the optional CP may have been a bad idea. Either way it was done and we had to keep moving. We got to a section where we were supposed to follow a “trail” from one CP to the next. The catch was it started in the middle of nowhere and was not on the map. We had trouble finding the plotted trailhead and when we started traveling down it we were getting frustrated because we didn’t know where we were and where the trail was supposed to be going exactly. Eventually we decided to drop down to the river and attack the point from there. We ended up finiding part of the “trail” again shortly before we approached the CP. We now, due to some Nav troubles and a trail that didn’t really exist, were already past the cutoff for the paddle meaning we would not complete the entire course. Upon arriving to the put in  at 1030am we found out that IMONPoint/Odyssey had already arrived and skipped the paddle to the final bike to finish the course. We would have 100 minutes to complete the final bike in order to finish officially and win the race. If we didn’t we would finish unofficially. We were told the bike would take approximately 2 hours and that was on par with our estimates.

We decided that even though we were unlikely to finish we had to give our best efforts and try to finish officially for the win. We were transported to our bikes and then took off. We were on a mission and REALLY wanted to get the win. Unfortuantely we were unable to make the cutoff. We finished about 15 minutes over the time which was still faster than what the estimated time was for that section of the course and about 40 minutes faster than IMONPoint/Odyssey completed the course.

We had completed more of the course than any other team and were very proud of our accomplishment on such a tough course in such harsh conditions. We were certainly winners in our book. Most teams had to turn around earlier than us and didn’t get the optional CP we got. In retrospect that optional CP cost us some valuable time but at the time we decided to get it we felt that we did need that point to win the race and thought we would have enough time to finish. A long tough course prevented us from doing so.

We are getting ready for Lionheart in 2 weeks. We are sending two teams and looking for a first and second place!!!

Again this year I volunteered to vet the Calleva course for Dima. We have developed a good relationship and he knows what to expect from my racing. I enjoy very much the opportunity to race a course with less stress and importance on winning. It is also an amazing training opportunity.

This year it fell a week before the Odyssey One Day. This was perfect timing for a long day of training. I vetted the course with a neighbor of mine. Monika Sattler is usually racing for the competition (Team Trakkers) but this was a good chance to get to race with each other. Also we will be racing against each other at Odyssey so maybe we will pick up some pre race secrets…

There was some great orienteering on the course this year. Much more terrain involved which made things easier. On the other hand the navigation on the water gave us some problems because maps were not true to the islands actually there. We took some time to make the right decisions which cost us some time but overall was the best approach.  We were able to gather the points really fast. CP’s go by much faster in a 10 hour race than a 48 hour race (Equinox Traverse was my last race). After the O-course we decided to cross the canal twice. Basically I read the map worng and we didn’t have to cross it.

There was much less Stinging Nettle than last year when Baker and I did this course. That was very much appreciated. It was very hot and we had to stay really hydrated. We kept our pace fast and killed some of the sections. This lead to us being able to finish the course over 1 hour faster than Dima had expected. This got us home earlier which was great.

The biggest addition to the course was a river swim. I was excited going into this but my opinion changed as we got into the water. The river was low which meant lots of bumping knees. Also my injured toe was exposed and every time it even touched a rock I was in MAJOR pain. The river swim took longer than expected and we spent most of it on slow moving water or trying to kick up stream, not fun!

Either way it was a lot of fun and I had a blast as usual. I look forward to what adventures Dima has in store for next year’s course!

Photos compliments of Oleg Litivenko and Vladimir Bukalo

I roll over and the clock reads 7AM, this was certainly not how I expected the day to start. I jumped out of bed and ran to my phone, Brian Mayer – 10 missed calls.  I quickly dialed his number and informed Brian I had overslept and would be leaving immediately, I must have said “I’m sorry!” about 20 times in our two minute conversation.

As it turns out Brian had also overslept as well, although not nearly as bad. I had been up late the night before packing, cleaning my bike and doing some much needed cable maintenance. I think I went to bed sometime around 2AM. My alarm was set for 4:30AM, for whatever reason my body rejected the notion that two and a half hours of sleep would be adequate for a 12-hour mountain bike race and must have unconsciously hit the OFF button, doh!

After scrambling to finish packing the car and get dressed I was out the door and on my way to the race. The race start was at 8AM and here I was leaving Richmond to drive to Quantico at 7:30AM. I arrived at the Quantico Marine base at 8:50 and had scrambled to get body marking and my jersey on just in time for Brian to come rolling through off his first lap. I was still putting my gloves on as I ran over to meet Brian at the timing tent. With only a 3-5 minute hitch in our giddy up I was on my way and we were still in the race, only a few minutes off the overall leader.

Brian and his fiancée Katie had decided to sleep in their living room as it is much cooler in the summer than their bedroom. In doing so they had gotten up to turn the alarm off in the bedroom and gone back to sleep. They ended up oversleeping by 30 minutes and luckily had gotten to the race in time to sign us in and setup camp. Brian ran the Le Mans start by default since I was still in my car. He ended up the first one back off the run about 10 yards in front of the mass of people and was on the bike and the course in first.

Brian finished his first lap in 58:10 including his Le Mans start run. I was surprised to see him so soon, when we pre-rode the course a few weeks prior to the race I was convinced we would be pulling 80 minuet laps. The course was dry, super rutted, sandy, manky, single track horse trail, so I go on? You are probably asking yourself where are these trails I’d love to ride some blown out mank! Anyways when I took the baton from Brian I noticed he was really dirty but didn’t say anything, he quickly informed me that he had crashed on the downhill that was bumpy and had sand at the bottom (I was cautious of this the whole first lap and then I realized this description could have been any of the downhill’s). I rode my first lap in a 56:51 which included my minor delay of having to get my gloves on, not bad after showing up 2 hours late. I tried to spin as much as I could the first lap knowing the following laps would take a toll in the heat. Especially since I hadn’t eaten a proper breakfast or hydrated at all. Brian cranked out an impressive 57:45 on his second lap and came in dirtier than the first lap; I guess he had crashed on one of the other bumpy/sandy downhills. I felt super strong the second lap and was taking more speed through the turns, I didn’t feel it but I guess I was beginning my downward spiral into terminal dehydration; lap split was 57:32. Brian spun a 57:25 on his third lap holding steady, he had some chain trouble however managed to crank out an impressive lap split nonetheless. 1:13:14 – That’s all she wrote, about halfway through the next lap (4.5 miles) I blew up, the muscle cramps in my legs from being dehydrated forced me to walk every uphill and struggle to stay on the bike on the downhills. Brian had been waiting anxiously and took off as soon as I got back. I drank as much as possible while waiting for Brian but felt drained. Brian finished the next lap slightly slower, 59:47, anticipating I’d feel like crap and when we met at the timing tent he could see the look on my face and knew he was going back for a double pull. After loading him up with some gels and full water bottles he was back on the course. Meanwhile I was downing all the drugs the medical tent would give me for dehydration. I managed to get some food down and rest and stretch a little before Brian came rolling back into the timing tent 64:39 minutes later (impressive). Knowing the condition of my legs I decided to spin super easy to avoid cramping at all costs. I ended up walking most of the climbs in anticipation of massive cramping, I managed to finish my 4^th lap in 67:51. Brian did his 6^th lap in 62:06 and I finished my 5^th and our final lap in 67:26 still cramping.

Overall I think we had a successful race. I was still tired from a 40-mile trail run I had crushed the weekend before and combined with the heat, dehydration, over-sleeping(really under sleeping) and being late to the race I think we could not have expected much more. Brian did a great job of stepping up and helping the team out when I was beat down. We finished second in our division, Duo Male, and were 34:12 behind the first place team. Third place finished 27:36 behind us.

A special thanks Katie, our race support! Katie did a great job of getting us setup, filling water bottles, feeding and stretching us, it’s always a pleasure to have great support! Dan, a former roommate of ours, and his girlfriend Kelsey came late in the race and helped breakdown our camp and carry our gear to the car as well as take some pictures. They also gave Brian a ride home. Thanks again! In addition we were both able to leave with a couple of free pizza pies leftover from the race, a good finish.

-Baker

Steep, Technical and Fast: Miracle Mile near Eugene, Oregon

With only one week left in the Eddyflower Total Vertical Challenge, Susan continues to push to keep her top 10 position. In addition to reaching more than 20,000 vertical feet of challengeing Class III-V whitewater throughout the Pacific Northwest, this TeamSOG member has also managed to raise over $700 for First Descents.

Check out the Standings throughout the next few days to see how she finishes out!  Don’t forget to show your support and make a tax-deductible contribution to her team as well!

This year’s Yough Xtreme was the first race officially sponsored by SOG and you could definitely tell a difference.  There was a record turnout and more competitive teams than ever.

Pre-race meeting in style with TeamSOG trailer

TeamSOG had a new look.  We were crossing a new teammate over.  Susan Hollingsworth just back from training for and making the national team in NC was trying herself at Adventure Racing.  While in NC she was able to get some MTB training in which was a new sport for her.  And she even competed and WON an off-road triathlon.  Not bad for someone who doesn’t own a MTB.

Yough Extreme TeamSOG: Susan, Brian and Jennie

Brian and Jennie had the pleasure of racing this weekend with this great athlete and we knew she was going to be competitive.  As she still did not own a MTB she had to borrow one from our climber Maggie Hamill.

***Talk about team work and versatility among such a diverse team!!!***

The team rolled into town on Friday and got ready for what looked to be a pretty recognizable course through Ohiopyle State Park.  There was one new trail that would be used and the team agreed to try it out but other than that the race included classic challenges such as climbing firetower road, paddling the middle Yough, and running the rail trail.  Unfortunately due to some wet weather the rappel had to be cancelled.  The race started in the 50’s dropped to the 40’s when it started raining, rose back to the 60’s around midday, and then turned to 40’s and windy again on the mountain before everyone raced to the finish.

TeamSOG started strong staying in the front of the pack for the prologue and the run.  The technical MTB trails slowed Susan down a little bit but we still had the teams in sight.  When we approached the new trail we saw that it was mostly road.  This was great and would expect not to be a problem.  When we got towards the bottom near the rail trail we had to take a much less used road with a major rut down the middle.  Susan who was already a little shaky on the downhills took a tough fall and bruised her knee and had a major cut on her elbow that would later need to be stitched.

The fall knocked the wind out of her at first but Jennie, our resident nurse, got right on top of taking care of her and made sure she was ok.  After cleaning and bandaging the wound Susan was ready to go.  I was SUPER impressed with how eager she was to get going again.  It was truly inspring!  She was doing something she was already not completely comfortable with and just had a rough fall and was ready to go.  I remember finally reaching the rail trail and expecting to give her a break I bent over to fix my shoes.  When I looked up she was already 100 yards down the trail!

The team continued on.  We had a great paddle and run on the rail trail and were able to make up some of the time we had lost.  We then got on our bikes and Susan powered hard up firetower road doing an amazing job.  We came rolled into the O-course behind 5 teams that we saw leaving as we arrived.  Right before we arrived we had some more bad luck.  Susan had taken another fall though seemingly not as bad it twisted her knee pretty bad.  When we started looking at the orienteering points we realized that because of Susan’s knee it would be best to try and get all the points on foot.  We decided to get 3 of the 4.  These three happened to be the lowest point values leaving the highest scoring CP out on the course.  Unfortunately, even though we ran to all 3 of those points we lost ground to the teams that were able to bike to the key CP.

Susan’s knee continued to tighten up and as we were heading down you could really see here fighting through the pain.  It was a long day for a first time adventure racer.  She had done an amazing job.  The team finished 8^th but could have easily been in the top 3 had it not been for our setbacks.  The team raced amazingly when we could and really was able to put the hammer down!  I was super excited about our finish and although the result wasn’t as good as we hoped I know that the team was very competitive and that Susan is a great talent that will hopefully get a chance to try her hand at AR’s again soon!

Chris Caul once again showed his meddle in a unique racing category.  After finishing the Shenandoah 100 last year on a tandem with his teammate Kristen Eddy, they decided to try their hand at another endurance event.  This time they took on the Bakers Dozen.  This is a race held in Northern Virginia on a farm only open to riding for this race.  The course usually fills up the day it opens.

Chris and Kristen competed in the Duo category which seemed quite unfair considering they were both doing every lap.  It was more like a Coed Double Solo.  They didn’t let this stop them or the 3 flats and 1 broken chain (pictured).

It looks like they had a great time riding these technical trails and I think they earned  a first place for their unique categoryas well as the respect of all the other racers.

This year the Endorphin Fix lived up to its name, again.  Despite cutting the course back down to its original length of 2 days (50hours) this race was probably just as tough as the last two 3 day courses.  Again being held in the New River Valley of West Virginia it was sure to contain A LOT of elevation.

Heavy snow in the area over the prior 2 months made conditions very wet/muddy.  Leading up to the race Odyssey was even considering requiring snow shoes as mandatory gear because it was unknown when the snow would melt.  The snow did melt but this proved to provide a whole new challenge, MUD!

The team struggled to find a fourth team member to race.  Brian was still not ready to race such a long taxing race on his hamstring and Jennie ran into some scheduling issues so KD, JD, and Baker were stranded without a fourth.  Baker finally convinced his roommate, Michael Stratton, to join the crew and make it four.  Michael is certainly experienced in the longer races competing prior Beast of the East’s and EFIX’s as well as many 1-days.  Although he hasn’t been racing much lately at least he knew what to expect.

The crew showed up Thursday night and prepared for race start Friday morning.  As it always seems they were packing up until the last minute.  At race start (noon) it was actually SNOWING!!!  What were they getting themselves into?  The course as seen from the maps and race rules of travel seemed to be very challenging especially considering the weather and there was plenty of climbing as always.  It seemed only the top teams would be able to finish the entire course and there were plenty of extremely competitive teams there.  Several of the top 20 teams from Nationals traveled to WV to race.

Right from the bat the course starting taking a toll on teams.  Teams were already realizing that getting all the CP’s might not be the best strategy.  Dima, from Calleva, determined from the start to finish took the lead and decided not to get any optional CP’s, a strategy that would later prove wise as he was the only won to finish the entire course (aside from optional CP’s).

Certain stories I heard involved walking through knee deep mud and having to drag canoes through mud.  They even had to “melt” the mud off their bikes after it had frozen on over night.  THAT IS CRAZY!!!

Other top teams were getting knocked off from a combination of attrition, weather, or injury.  TeamSOG was facing there own troubles.  Baker was having some issues with his ankle after twisting it a few weeks before the race.  JD on the other hand had recently had some hardware removed from his ankle which was also causing him pain.  The guys pushed through this and kept on fighting.  Michael was handling most of the navigation and worked out some early kinks from lack of practice.  About 36 hours into the race JD really started to have issues when he started throwing up.  It started inhibiting the team and they were having trouble keeping pace.  The team was hoping to just finish in time under the best conditions so with this setback they felt they would not be able to finish on time and therefore felt it was best for everyone’s health not to continue.  The team certainly gave it there all and fought through a lot of adversity.

Again, this was an extremely difficult race and many had trouble finishing let alone finishing the official course.  These guys will get some rest and be ready to go again and start racking up some wins.

Race Start Photo: Adam Elliott

I’ve always liked biking and running, but when combined with winding, technical trails and a kayak race I found that I LOVED biking and running.

Finishing the Mountain Bike Leg and Crossing the Finish Line Photo: Adam Elliott

Keeping up with the Boys Photo: Adam Elliott

Last Sunday was my first race that involved more than just kayaking.  Clemson’s Off-Road Endurance Triathlon was made up of a 5 mile trail run, a 4 mile kayak and a 10+ mile mountain bike ride.  Starting off on the run, full of adrenaline, I immediately pulled ahead.  I knew that if I could keep up with the top runners and pull ahead in the kayak, I might be able to hold my place through the bike leg.

The end of the 5 mile run is where things started to get really fun.  The course fed us through Clemson’s downhill biking course, giving us hills and a rad luge course that had me shouting and wahoo-ing my way toward the kayak leg.

Catching up to JP, a fellow Wildwater Kayak racer of mine, I knew that I was nearing the top of the Endurance crew.

This might have been the only moment I wasn't smiling. So serious! Photo: Adam Elliott

Well, pretty obvious to say that if you throw me in a kayak, my spirits and enthusiasm will skyrocket.  No difference here.

Flying past the other racers in their slow, plastic kayaks, I set my sights on the other boys in fiberglass boats and pushed ahead.  The four of us pulled into the transition station one after another, making us the top 4 in the Endurance class.

As we geared up for the mountain bike leg, I knew that I needed to maintain high speeds whenever I could.  The biking course was by far the MOST TECHNICAL and LONGEST mountain bike ride I’ve ever done.  I knew this going into the race, having had to borrow a friend’s bike and only riding it once before the race.  I was, sadly, passed by some of the guys, but held my position as the first female.  At least I know what I need to work on.

Despite being difficult, the bike was super fun.  Flying through the woods, making sharp turns and avoiding steep embankments into the lake kept me on my toes.

The Wildwater Racers taking on a Triathlon...and Winning. Photo: Adam Elliott

Crossing the finish line was great and celebrating our wins was even better.  JP won the Endurance class overall and I took home the Women’s Division 1st place medal.  I even took second for my age group in the Sprint division, despite having doing the longer endurance course.  Ben and Steven, the other races pictured above, each won for their respective age classes.

Looking forward to more multi-sport races in the future!  (After I work on my Mnt. biking skills a bit of course!)

Way too much fun. Photo: Adam Elliott

Thanks to Adam Elliott and his amazing camera skills, driving me to the race and helping with transitions.  Couldn’t ask for a better crew on my side!

Baker ran this race this year.  He and I have run it multiple times and love the Lynchburg Ultra Races run by David Horton and Clark Zealand, like the 50 mile Masochist race I ran last November.  The ++ stands for 2 extra miles, for a total of about 33.5 miles.

Horton’s Races

Clark’s Races

This time, since my hamstring is healing from a strain, I supported him.  The race was run in Appomattox and the course is almost entirely on trails.  There was about 4 inches of snow on the trail.  Baker was in the lead group early, breaking the snow, which was quite brutal.

I caught him a little beyond halfway, in 4th place, to find out he hadn’t eaten anything and quickly gave him some Clif Shots and Bloks to fuel him up.  The lack of nutrition took a toll on him forcing him to drop a few places.  He was passed by a very tight group of people finishing in 12th place but only about 12 minutes, which is not a lot, behind 4th place.

I was also supporting my girlfriend Katie who was running her first ultra.

Pictures posted soon!

-Brian

It’s hard to believe its January and we are already racing!

The North Georgia Adventure Race or NGAR is a 30 hour race that took place in the beautiful mountains of Northern Georgia primarily around the Fort Mountain State Park. The chosen three Team SOG racers were Kristen Dieffenbach, Matt Shreve and myself, Steven Baker. Our team was fortunate enough to have a support crew consisting of one of Matt’s good friends Taylor.

I began my journey Thursday night by driving to Blacksburg, VA, this overnight stay allowed me to break up my 10 hour drive and visit some old friends from school. I spent the night with Chris Clarke and Heather Fisher who were kind enough to let me crash on their couch. Chris made an excellent send off breakfast of eggs and biscuits before I left for Georgia and he left for school. I arrived at Fort Mountain State Park around 1PM Friday afternoon, and caught a quick nap before Matt showed up with the boat and the remainder of the mandatory gear required for check-in.

The NGAR staff was very well organized and made checking in a breeze. Matt was lucky enough to get a brand new 17 foot canoe with a middle seat from an Atlanta rental outfit, it had the tags still attached and everything! It was a great treat to receive the maps at check in; this gave us plenty of time to plot points and layout our route. After checking into race headquarters we setup camp in our cabin, which was a misnomer as was more like someone’s home – complete with china hutch and washer and dryer. Matt, Taylor and I pulled all our gear into the ‘cabin’ then Matt and I plotted the map while Taylor followed along recalling his days as a marine sniper and his ancient plotting tools.  We ate dinner throughout the plotting of our maps.  Taylor brought some excellent homemade chili that was much appreciated. Matt and I had just about finished the map work when Kristen arrived on the scene, just in time since she had the contact paper for water proofing the maps. This proved to be critical later in the race as some teams were forced to drop as their maps became soggy unreadable mush. Taylor and I waterproofed maps while Kristen walked Matt through what gear he would need during the race. This was Matt’s first race over 10 hours and was eagerly absorbing the wealth of knowledge Kristen was presenting to him.  Kristen and Matt had finished packing by the time I was satisfied with the maps. So I packed my gear while they loaded bikes and their gear into the vehicles for transport. Once everything was loaded and ready for the morning we headed off to bed for the last sleep we’d see for the next 30-40 hours.

Revelry! Revelry! Revelry!  This is how we woke up, Taylor had already packed his things and was shooing out the door so we could head to the race. After a couple of wrong turns on the way to the race start we decided Matt would not be in charge of navigation, but we’d love him all the same.  We unloaded the boat and bikes and laid out our gear for the start of the race. The race began with a 1 mile prologue (in this case it was a run) to separate the field since the boat landing wasn’t big enough for more than a few boats to leave at a time. I was nominated to be the lucky prologuer and run to the bottom of the dam road and back up.  While I warmed up for my run, Kristen and Matt scouted the best route down to the water for the boat put in.  There was an obvious path down, but they were able to find a nice back channel path that would save us time and jump us places for the put in.

As we gathered around the starting line we were giving our last minute instructions and notified that there was a bass tournament and a rockfish tournament that would be occurring while we were out on the water. Boom bang, the gun went off and I was on my way down what was more of a rock garden than a road. Kristen met me at the top of the hill with my PFD so I could dress while turning in my prologue lollypop that I had sprinted for.  I had managed to get back to the boats in third and we were on the water in 8^th It was obvious from the start our pre-race decision to use canoe paddles was going to slow us down as we were not able to keep pace with our competitors despite Matt’s great water skills.  He was able to provide us with some great pointers so despite the equipment handicap we plugged along and eventually fell into a steady rhythm. We reached the first checkpoint after trying to avoid constant bombardment from crazed bass fishermen in drug smuggling cigar boats. I couldn’t quite figure out why their boats needed to go so fast but they did none the less and they seemed not to notices us as they flew past. We portaged across an easy finger to shave paddle time when heading to CP2. We continued our rhythm and were only 8 minutes off the leader going into CP3.  Upon arriving at CP4 we made another portage, this time with what felt like a 500 ft climb only to bushwhack with the canoe off the back side.  Matt and I shouldered the canoe while Kristen shouldered the packs and paddles.  Amazingly, we made it to the water without any major slips down the steep hill.  As hard as both the up and down were, the move shaved a serious amount of paddle time. We exited the water in 15^th place – not bad considering our paddle pace.  And as we found out later, some of the teams out of the water ahead of us had opted to skip some of the points so they weren’t truly ahead of us at this point. We punched CP 5 coming out of the water.

No tears were shed as we left the paddles and PFD’s with Taylor who set up a really well organized first TA. At long last we were on our bikes and in our element.  We hit CP6 at the bottom of the same dam road where I had run for the prologue and continued north towards Fort Mountain State Park, picking off three or four teams along the way. The ride began as a mostly flat road ride and eventually turned into gradual gravel climb before reaching CP7. After reaching CP7 we had to climb a steep and muddy single track, much of which was hike a bike. Eventually we reach the paved access road at the park entrance and coasted downhill to our support crew pit stop TA1 where Taylor was waiting with hot oatmeal and chicken noodle soup. Shortly after leaving the comfort of the transition area it began to rain and didn’t let up until well after the race had ended Sunday.

Leaving the TA we rode a short distance to CP8.  Leaving CP8 we got turned around for 20 minutes or so after switching to the park map.  After we realized it had been marked wrong the night before we were back on track. I regained my orientation and we were on our way. We continued on bike down some knarly single track complete with boulders and ice that was better suited for goats than wet mountain bikers. Not long after starting down our first trail we switch back to hike a bike to ensure our safety travelling up and down the steep downhill’s in the Georgia Blue Ridge Mountains. We clipped off CP9 and CP10 no problem. We passed some teams heading the wrong way but we stayed the course and found our points without trouble. Leaving CP10 we hit a mix of paved road and gravel climbs before arriving at CP11. CP11 was the transition from bike to trek and we arrived just as dusk was falling.  We had a few laughs with some young TA helpers, organized maps, changed shoes and we left slightly ahead of another team we had passed on the way to 11. We bushwhacked down the site of the CP/TA to cut off a portion of the road, and travelled north traversing the mountain on gravel roads.  The steady rain continued and small pockets of fog had just begun to roll in.

The beginning of the end. As primary navigator I led us down an old logging road to cut off another long portion of road. We weren’t on the logging road long before it became overgrown and hard to follow. We continued, following terrain features and eventually the road ended. After some indecision and no visible offshoots we eventually bushwhacked down a re-entrant only to come out right where we wanted, CP12! In the fog and rain, it was a very lucky spot as we weren’t really looking for it yet.  Feeling confident, we struck out on the road to find CP13.  Matt had begun to feel twinges in his knee and Kristen was confident he was feeling IT band issues.  She taught him some IT and glut stretches that he could do on the trail to try to keep the damage and pain to a minimum as we went.  From the old road, we thought we found the trail that would cut us across the mountain towards CP13.  After a bit of bushwhacking and following the overgrown trail, we discovered we were back on the trail we had used to head for CP12 before we lost it!  We found another team that had spent quite a bit of time here and they filled us in on all the angles they had attempted from this trail.  We were confident about where we were on the map but the trail leading to CP13 did not seem to exist and without an altimeter, and given the time we had already lost bushwhacking to 12, we were not confident about bushwhacking to CP13.  Matt’s knee was not holding up well to the rigors of bushwhacking either.  So we opted to head back out to the road, run down and around to the TA and attach CP 13 from the other side.  The down was a nice steady paced run and Kristen gave Matt some pointers to keep his knee safe on the down run.  All seemed to be going well in the drizzle and fog.  Then we hit the TA and headed back up.  Almost immediately we discovered a slick and thick mud trail that made for very slow going.  Matt began to have trouble staying warm.  Kristen concentrated on feeding him while I focused on the maps.  While the travel up to 13 was pretty straight forward, it was certainly not easy.  The trail was rocky, muddy and at times very steep.  Matt began to shiver and Kristen tried to warm him with hand held pocket warmers.  Unfortunately the now driving rain and high winds made it impossible to activate these little air activated heaters.  At the very top when we found 13, we found momentary shelter from the wind.   We used my space blanket and wrapped it inside Matt’s outer layers to try to help warm him.  He was shivering at this point and we were afraid to strip him down before using the space blanket.

We pushed the pace trying to help warm up Matt as we headed for CP 14.  A short trail jog brought us to a spot where we had to dive in on a bushwhack to CP14.  Without an altimeter and in the continued rain, it was slow going.  Working with another team that was down a member, we spread out and worked our way toward CP14.  Once we found it, it was a further bushwhack down to the trail and then a run/slip/slid to the TA.  Matt was still very cold and his knee was screaming.  We had also all run out or very low on water, a nasty irony given the rains and wind.

Back at CP15/ the trek to bike transition, Matt huddled by the fire while I changed maps and Kristen changed shoes.  We had hoped to continue on after I downed 4 s’mores, but Matt was done.  Having gone over twice as far as he had ever raced before, the pain in his knee and the cold got to him.  After being sure that Taylor was on his way, and talking to the TA folk, Kristen and I double checked the map and were on our way.  A wet, very foggy downhill didn’t do much to warm us up as we tried to control our pace on the wet rutted roads.  The guys at the TA had assured us that the rain was done for the night.  We road on, psyched for the pavement even though we found ourselves climbing again.  The climb warmed us and we set a good pace.  Soon we were at CP16, a neat mountain bike camp.  They had graciously opened their dining hall for the race – a warm little space with pot belly stove, warm stew, and shelter from the wind.  We went in momentarily to check in and get more water.  As we left the warmth of the little building, the rain started again. And it started to come down hard and cold.  Kristen looked at me and said ‘you really want to do this?’ and we decided that this would be our end point for the race.  Excellent training for a January and a great way to light the fire for the rough weather training that is sure to come over the next few months as we prepare for season.

-Baker