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.

Members of TeamSOG traveled over the mountains and through the woods to get to Ohiopyle, PA this past weekend to come together as a team and get psyched for the upcoming season.

Of course, you can’t expect a group of athletes to come together to just talk about things like adventure racing, kayaking, climbing, running and playing outdoors. One of the greatest parts of being a member of such a diverse team is enjoying multiple sports throughout the day.

Team members rolled into town on Friday to find chilly weather around the Youghiogheny River in Ohiopyle.  No matter though.  TeamSOG finds ways to enjoy any type of weather.  Julie and Jennie ventured into the woods with Doug’s American Adventure Sports mountain biking clinic.  No doubt the girls were able to provide helpful insights into biking techniques for the clients, as well as serve as an obvious inspiration for the future adventure racers.  Susan grabbed her kayak and hit the loop section of the Yough with some old friends, enjoying familiar waves, eddies and rock slides

We woke to beautiful blue skies and a warm sun rising on Saturday, a true sign of a day packed with adventure.

Saturday morning the ladies headed out for a morning run before Team Media festivities began.  Julie, Jenny, Susan, Alisa and Ellen traversed the Great Gorge and Beech Trails through the Ohiopyle State Park.  Susan led the girls on these two trails, some of her personal favorites from days of living and guiding in this small river town.

The entire group then came together for an intense Yoga class with Katie.  Moving through sun salutations, balance and strengthening poses, the group gave some much needed oxygen to their muscles while sweating out toxins (most of which were received at the pub the night before).  Katie provided a challenging class while also reminding us about the key element of mental awareness we need for our races.  Thanks Katie!

Then the cameras arrived!

We all suited up in our awesome TeamSOG apparel, gathered our gear and had a great photo shoot by the truck and trailer.  Sitting in the back of that truck and smiling at the camera, I couldn’t help think about how amazing it was to be around such an amazing group of athletes.  Our diverse backgrounds all seem to overlap somehow, providing supportive connections for the participation in every sport.

The afternoon was spent maneuvering through the currents of the Youghiogheny River.  Susan, Julie and Doug provided key safety information for the AAS participants, as well as valuable information about paddling techniques.  The river gave us plenty of opportunities to practice paddling, as well as bask under the warm sunlight, breathe fresh air and smile with gratitude for the opportunity to be a member of TeamSOG.

With still several hours of daylight remaining, Brian and Maggie grabbed their bikes and headed out to the trails.  No reason to waste such precious sunlight!

That night our sponsors, SOG Knives & Specialty Tools, topped off the evening with food and drinks at the local Pub…a proper celebration for such an awesome day.  Busy times at the pub even forced Susan to relive her days as a server and serve the whole group as well as some other diners.  She was an excellent Waitress!

Sunday the group headed back out into the woods for work with ropes.  Doug again gave the Academy group some necessary instruction on safety and general rules around ropes and climbing while the team setup two rappels and a climb.  JD, Doug, and Brian led the rappels getting some academy participants over their fears and allowing others to build up valuable experience.

Next the group split between ascending and climbing.  Our expert climber Maggie led the climbing instruction teaching essential climbing knots as well as belaying and climbing techniques.  This also allowed for some climbing practice on the crag.  Back on the rappel lines Doug was teaching the very unique skill of ascending.  This is not typically a skill that most people learn but these lucky adventure racers got to learn from some of the best as Doug spent years in the military as a paratrooper and teaching rope work.

While out in the beautiful weather and scenery the team was also able to shoot some more video footage to help express what TeamSOG is all about, our Mission Statement.

After another successful day Doug wrapped the weekend up, we took some pictures, and everyone said there goodbyes and grabbed one last bite to eat in the park before heading out in our seperate ways.

These are some of the best weekends and we are lucky to have a sponsor that supports us and Doug who is able to bring us all together to share some great experiences in one of the greatest outdoor adventure areas in the region.  We are all looking forward to a great competition season, already underway.  Thanks again to our awesome sponsor, SOG Knives; our team manager Doug and everyone else who came out to make the weekend such a success.

Keep an eye out for TeamSOG this season!

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.

Awesome Race!

For me, this event really began back in December. Looking for a reason to be somewhere for the winter, I used the excuse of Team Trials being held on the Nantahala to move to Asheville for 3 months. It also helped that my dad and sister lived in the area and I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be surrogate mother to Hudson, Andria and Leland Davis’ dog. (By the way, their new North America Guidebook is one of the coolest books any paddler can own)
The thought that the southeast might we warmer (and therefore more conducive to training on the water during the winter) also enticed me. After weeks and weeks of freezing temperatures and a ridiculous amount of snow, I have learned to never expect anything out of the weather anymore.

Yet, somehow I bucked up enough to gain a semblance of control over this craft, enough to stay in it and keep it relatively straight. I actually found using a wing blade to help a lot with this, in addition to the flatwater workouts I put myself through.
The race weekend turned out to be a blast. Something about competition is just really exciting for me, every time, no matter how much physical torture I know I am going to endure. I couldn’t help but talk to all the other racers I hadn’t met yet, just oozing with enthusiasm.

Sprints were first, 2 trials on a 80-90 second course through one rapid.

I really just tried to paddle as hard as I could for the sprint. Considering that my boat control is still fairly non-existent I thought I might as well just rely on my strength for this one. Blasting through the top hole (as opposed to slicing to the right of it) slowed me down, but made for a great photo.

I placed 3rd out of the ladies in the sprint, only 1.67% off of Tierney-the numba-one lady. For those of you who don’t get this comparison, that is REALLY close. Haley, second-place-jr-racer, was only 1.13% off Tierney.

Pushing to the finish line on the Classic race course

Sunday’s Classic race, a 12-15 minute race, was a bit more of my speed. Give me the longer endurance race and I’m a happy ‘yaker. Of course, the tornado that threw me into the shore as I pulled away from the start, picking up water from the river to spit in my face, made for an interesting beginning to my first Classic event.

Every time I felt myself backing off, I made myself go faster. Every time I came out of a rapid, I made myself go faster. And every time I thought of Tierney a few spots behind me, I made myself go faster. Although I was barely breathing across the finish line, I think I could have gone faster.

I pulled it up a bit for the class, allowing me to jump to 2nd place for the final rankings. Amazingly enough I was still just 1.65% off of Tierney. What is with that number?

It feels pretty good to make the Team, even if I can’t make it to World’s in Spain this year. I’m looking forward to working out the kinks over the next 2 years and hitting an international event in 2012!

Thanks to Adam Elliott for the great photos!  For more shots from the event click here.

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!

TeamSOG training in the southeast on the Nantahala River

How often do you get to genuinely feel like a true beginner again, after practicing a sport for nearly a decade? Almost never.

You can fake it, like letting a 6 year old catch you in a game of tag, or…

You can fudge it, like using only one arm to shoot hoops.

But rarely do you get to feel the excitement and anticipation of square one again.

If you have been kayaking for as long as I have try sitting in a wildwater boat and you’ll know exactly what I mean.  Throw everything you know about the forward stroke, torso rotation and edge control out with the trash.  Get the slate as blank as possible, you’re going to need it.

Perhaps this doesn’t sound like a very good idea?  You spend years developing skills and techniques and reach a fairly advanced level within a sport.  Why would you want to throw it all out the window.

To get better.

It also makes class III really REALLY exciting again.

The boat is going to teach me a lot about kayaking that I might have assumed I already knew. Just trying to get a proper forward stroke is sometimes too much for me to think about. I find myself returning to taking it in pieces, just like how I recommend my students approach learning to paddle.

I continue to struggle finding a sufficient level of comfort in the boat so that I’m not just using correctional strokes the whole way down. A little padding here, a new seat from the Czech Republic and many, many more days on the water should help out a lot. I can only imagine what this is going to feel like when I have my ducks in a row and can work on paddling as hard as I possibly can.

My sister did comment that the boat looked like a torpedo. I answered “that’s because it is.”

In the end of February it was time to start getting ready for the season.  A local guy was putting on a grassroots Rogaine and the team saw it as a great training race and good practice.

Baker, Brian and JD (and his wife) all planned to race.  Brian was trying to recover from his torn hamstring in time but wasn’t quite back to health and certainly wasn’t going to try and come back early from an injury like that.  Instead he left the racing to the other two boys this weekend.

There was a decent AR crowd there mostly including racers from VA like Trakkers, IMONPoint, Calleva, and others.  The course was broken into three parts.  Everyone started on a foot section then had to return by the cutoff to get onto their bikes for a Bike-O.  After returning from the bikes there was one more foot section.  Those with the most points win.

The competition was great and they even had food.  There are some pictures as well.

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

Toby just flew down to GA for Army Ranger Training.  Basically a 60 day long adventure race extreme.  We’re hoping to get him back safe and sound at the end of April and get him back in shape to start racing again ASAP.