Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Pere Marquette Trail Run 2010


This year’s Pere Marquette race made my 15th year of competing in this race. I have to say that this year I had more fun than I have ever had in all my 15 years of running it. So I know what you’re thinking, what made this race so great, well let me tell you.

This year has been a particularly hard training year for me. I have competed in 6 Adventure races, including the Checkpoint Tracker National race, the Louisville Ironman, the Berryman Epic mountain bike race, and the Vino Fondo, plus many shorter races of all types, tri’s, bi’s, bike races, and trail runs. All this to say, I’m have become a little burned out and having a hard time really concentrating on my training since early November. I have been chasing my friend Jenny religiously up and down our hill course training for the PM race, but my head was just not onboard. So when my friend Val asked me if I wanted to run with her, I said yes, I would love to just run this for fun and not even try to make it a race.

So two weeks before the race Val rolls her ankle and has to take some time off running, she finally gave running a try the day before the race and decided if she took it easy she could run. Well race day came on with a bang, when buckets of water were dumped on us overnight and throughout the race. You can not even imagine how muddy the race course was. Our plan was to run the pace that worked best for Val’s ankle and with all the mud that pace was going to be slow.



My wave was 11 and Val’s was 20, so I just hung back and started in wave 20 with Val. We took off up the first hill and our feet were just sliding around in the mud, but this mud was nothing compared to what we would find later on the course. Like on the first really steep hill on the way to the first water stop. Not only was it so muddy that it pulled my shoe off, but there was a gang of Zilla’s at the top of the hill cheering us on. I felt like Rocky when I finally made it to the top of the hill. The palms of my white gloves were covered in mud from a couple near misses on being sucked completely into the muddy black hole. I couldn’t help but give Bobby the course marshal a nice high five when I made it to the top of the hill. The cheers and taunts on my way up the hill, made it all so much more personal and fun. I’m just really glad that I wore my new shoes for this race, what better way to break in a new pair of shoes.



After making it to the top of hill one, we had some downhill and we got to one corner that was so muddy we had to run over the side of the hill where a really nice runner helped us down so we wouldn’t end up flat on our face in the mud. After we made it through this section, we hit a few really wet spots, which weren’t so bad because the mud was a little thinner and it wasn’t trying to suck my shoes off at every step. Next stop the road crossing at the top of hill two. Once again the Zilla gang was there cheering us on and giving us water. There is so much to say for a race where you know all the volunteers, it made it so much more fun. By now we were way behind the pack with only a few runners still behind us. I have never been this far back in the pack, but I kind of liked it. We talked to everyone, we laughed about everything and just had fun. I couldn’t believe how much fun I was having sliding around in the mud and not worrying about trying to run fast and place. I met some great people, caught up with Val on life in general and even discussed the great YouTube video “I’m an Ironman”. If you haven’t seen this video you have to watch it, you will laugh the entire time.

Now we were on our way up hill three, we caught a few people and the hill didn’t seem nearly as bad as usual, since it was so muddy and we were just trying to get through with our shoes in tact, I completely forgot to concentrate on how hard that stupid hill is. I looked up and was at the top of the hill before I knew it. We ran through the next few rollers and headed down the railroad tie steps to the road crossing which starts hill 4.



Coming to the road we saw Lori taking pictures, so we made sure to look good for her. How can you not look good when you are having so much fun. One thing I have to point out, this was the first time I have wore my new Zilla long sleeve running shirt, and although I really liked it, it was a bit of a dress. I think next time I better tuck it in my tights so I’m not racing in a dress.

We crossed the road and made it up the steps and back to the first muddy hill, you saw how muddy that hill was on the way up, now how to get down the hill was a whole different animal. Bobby the course marshal, said everyone is sliding down on their butts, so you guys should do it that way. Haha, we must be really gullible, because we just said OK and down we went. Val even used here feet to try and propel herself down even faster. Where else can you just sit down and slide down a muddy hill on your butt and think it is a normal thing to do. By the way, do you think this mud makes our butts look big.



We ran across the finish line with a smile on our faces with no idea of how long it took and even better, we didn’t care how long it took. When we finished the awards were already over, the hot chocolate was all gone, the volunteers were starting to clean up and the parking lot was starting to clear out.

We found a hose and rinsed off all the mud, then grabbed our clothes and headed to the bathroom to change. So the race was over and I was driving home when I noticed that I still had a stupid grin on my face and couldn’t stop thinking about how much fun I had. Next year I will be back to racing and wanting to win, but no matter how fast I run this race, I don’t think I will ever have more fun then I had this year.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Castlewood Adventure Race 2010



For once the Castlewood race started out with mild temperatures. On race morning it was 38 degrees, overcast with no rain or snow in sight. That’s a big switch from the 17 degree start in 2009. Just as you would believe Chuck and I were relieved about the weather conditions, especially since after seeing the maps and clue sheet, we knew that we would be on the water for a long time. There were 4 canoe points in about 11 miles of paddling. Rock Racing, better known as Robin and Chuck, are the worst paddlers in the world, and I am not exaggerating. No matter what technique we use, how hard or how fast we paddle, we just seem to go nowhere fast. It was a blow to us when we saw that there was going to be so much paddling in this race. So if anything at least the weather was going right.

It was a 40 minute bus ride to the start, as soon as we stepped off the bus, we both went directly to the bathroom line and were lucky enough to be pretty close to the front. As we came out the crowd was moving to the start line for last minute instructions from Jason and the Oak Ridge Boys singing the national anthem while we looked at a flag on a military guys pack. Hey, we had to make due, there are not a lot of flags on the river.



So the race was off at a fast pace, the first checkpoints were all within Route 66 state park about a 4 mile distance and the crowd of racers were going every which way. I know Jason’s thought was to make the trek first to break up the racers and not have a crowd getting in the river, but I think we were all moving at about the same pace. That means at CP 6, there were a lot of teams hitting the river at the same time.



As we pushed our canoe in the river, I jumped in and screamed when the canoe almost dumped into the frigid water. We have never had a problem launching in the past, but for some reason it wasn’t going well. We made it off the ramp and I turned to ask Chuck what went wrong and he told me some guy was pushing us in, I guess he either thought he was doing us a favor or just wanted us out of his way, which ever, it could have been the end of our race, had we fallen in the river. From there we hit some fast water with a big log that was trapped against a bridge pillar. That could have also been the end of our race too, but miraculously we made it through, again I screamed “this is not good” as we went through, Chuck just laughs at me when I do that.



We headed down stream for a long canoe leg, we were passed by a couple teams, but we did catch a few teams too.



We just wish we could figure out how to paddle better. We finally made it to Sherman Beach where getting out of the canoe didn’t go well and I ended up with wet shoes and socks. Lucky for me I brought an extra pair of socks and it was time to put on bike shoes. I tied my running shoes to the outside of my pack and hoped they would dry before I had to wear them again. We grabbed our bikes that had sunk in the mud and pushed them up to the parking lot area which was transition.



We both tried to be fast in pulling off wet gloves and socks and getting dry ones on, but were having problems because our hands were so cold our fingers wouldn’t work. While doing this we were also trying to eat and drink. We wasted too much time in transition. It was probably only 5 minutes, but in a race this short (Ha! Two years ago I never thought I’d be calling an 8hr race short) every minute ends up being important. Finally we headed out on the bike and my hands were so cold that I had to keep shaking them to try and fend off frost bite. After about 15 minutes I started to get feeling back in them. At this point we had reached where we and about 10 other teams thought CP 8 was, but it wasn’t there. We wasted 10 to 15 minutes riding around before we all found it. We found out after the race that it was not plotted on the maps in the correct place. After CP 8 and 9, we hit the tunnel and ran through it to CP10, lo and behold, guess what was there. A volunteer making sure all team members came to the checkpoint. We were so happy to see this, because we see teams cheating all the time and having the strongest teammate run to the CP’s and leaving the others behind. This kept everyone honest at least at one CP. After a few more CP’s we were back to the canoe where we heard sirens and saw emergency vehicles, apparently there was a racer down, but I never got the full story about it.

So back into the canoe we went, this time for a short paddle to the CP and then on to West Tyson. The canoe started out rough again, we got caught on a large log behind the island and had to take a few minutes to get the canoe dislodged. This was bad because on the second leg we had bikes in the canoe with us making it top-heavy. We were lucky not to end up like these guys:







But soon we made it to CP13 and punched it without even leaving the canoe. The next stop was West Tyson for another Trekking leg. There were tons of canoes when we made it to the beach.



We took off running and ran for a while until we hit the first hill that really was more of a mountain than a hill. It was so steep that our feet were sliding off the side of our shoes. I had to grab onto the loop on Chuck’s pack with one hand and use trees to help pull me up the hill.



We went right to every CP without a hitch, I think it was the best we have ever done orienteering. We kept running into teams we knew and they were teams that usually beat us, so we felt like we were keeping a good pace. At the next CP there was a gear check, but it went fairly quickly, there were some efficient volunteers manning the checkpoint and we had been prepared and were fast at pulling out our gear. After Chuck punched the next checkpoint at the top of what was to be the last uphill, we started down back towards the river.



We were both having problems from all the uphill and the downhill didn’t help at all, Chuck’s knees were hurting and my foot was hurting, so our run was slow back to the canoe, but we ran anyway. When we made it back to the beach we were glad to see that there were still a lot of canoes on the beach.



Back on the river for another long paddle, like I said before, we suck at paddling, so this did nothing to help our time. I did however have on canoe gloves which made it much easier to paddle since my hands stayed dry. I could tell both Chuck and I were getting tired. We both made sure to eat at the start of the last paddle. Looking back, I should have eaten more, lesson learned… AGAIN….. So on to Castlewood beach it was. When we got there, we saw the volunteers, who we knew, Kate and our Rock Racing teammate Patrick.



Of course Patrick yelled to us that there was a change in the maps and we would have to paddle down river then back up again. At that point I almost believed him, and then I remembered it was Patrick so we beached the canoe.

We pulled out our bikes, then started carrying the canoe up the boat ramp, only to find out at the top, that we weren’t finished yet, I said louder than I thought “you have got to be kidding me”, I was not happy at all. We had to take the canoe all the way to the parking lot. I had to stop twice to change arms and rest, it almost killed me carrying the canoe that far. So after we dropped the canoe we watched a little skinny guy pick it up by himself, threw it over his head and carried it to the truck like it was a bag of straw. How do those guys do that? I want to know that trick.

We changed shoes and took off some layers of clothes then headed out on the bike. Chuck put a lot of thought into route planning the night before the race, and this was one of the risky decision points. We were going to climb the ‘castlewood stairs’ carrying our bikes. We quickly made it to CP23 at the bottom of the stairs, then over the top to CP24.



I should have eaten a Honey Stinger Rocket Chocolate bar before I left the beach, I could feel the bonk starting by the time I hit the top of the stairs. I tried to stay on Chuck’s wheel, but kept falling off, I needed a short break, but didn’t want to lose any time, so we just kept going. As we were heading down to the road crossing to climb cardiac hill we saw some deer in the woods, they just stood there and looked at us, like they were saying get off our land. It was kind of eerie.



As we came up on cardiac hill we found many other teams riding the same path. Then we saw Lo and Karen coming down cardiac hill. We wondered why they had taken that route, but at the same time I thought, they made a smart move because they weren’t pushing bikes up this hill. We covered the last 3 CP’s pretty quickly. Just as we left the last CP, we were barreling down the hill when Chuck hits a rock with his back tire and it threw the rock across the path, with a loud blast, his back tire fish tailed, but he held it up. I yelled “this is not a good time to flat” and we kept riding. Just as we hit the road Chuck felt it, his tire was flat, but we were only 100 yards from the finish by then and he rode in on the flat. He sliced his sidewall when he hit the rock.



Too bad his new Trek Superfly 100 didn’t come with Kenda tires, their sidewalls would have held up to that rock. He ordered a new set of 29 inch Kenda Karma the day after the race. It is a great credit to Stan’s sealant that it held long enough to finish the race.
We finished in 7:37, we ended up in 5th place in the 2 person co-ed division, we were hoping for 2nd or 3rd, but were still happy because we finished well under the time limit and were both feeling ok, sans my bonk that was about to hit hard.



Jeff Sharpee was at the finish line so we had him take a finish line picture, and then headed over for some food and drinks. We got the chance to talk to Jason for a few minutes and told him how much we liked the volunteer catching the cheaters at the tunnel. Then we reminisced about the Checkpoint Tracker Championship for a few minutes. By this time we were both freezing so we changed clothes and decided to leave since we didn’t think we would get a prize for 5th place and the awards ceremony was over 2 hours from starting. So on the way home we dissected the race and tried to figure out how we could have gone faster. We need to work on transitions and of course we need to learn to paddle. At least this year, we were 25 minute out of 3rd place and in 2009 we were over 2 hours out of 3rd place. So it was a good race for us. Next year top 3, I can feel it!

And one other positive note: None of the race course photographers were able to catch us peeing in the woods like this guy.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

The Results are in for 2010



ROCK Racing, aka Robin and Chuck are officially ranked at number 4 in the nation in the 2 person Co-ed division of the CheckPoint Tracker Adventure Race Standings.



Monday, November 29, 2010

Indian Camp Creek 2010

To cap off 2010, this Trek Mountain Girl thought it would be nice to have an early morning ride out at Indian Camp Creek near Moscow Mills, Missouri. There are miles of trails, with more climbing than you would think. We had a good turn out with some experienced and some fairly new riders.


We also picked up a few riders on the trial and gave them an escort to get them out of the woods. They also contacted us later to say they would like to come to any other rides we have, this is great news, we love picking up new riders. We rode two laps with the second lap covering some new trails, which had a substantial amount of climbing. Indian Camp Creek doesn’t have a lot of rock, but it can be treacherous in a few places, as Mike found out.


It’s not a good ride unless someone has blood to prove it.

My good friend Christi, who I have known for more years than I want to say came out to ride also. She is new to mountain biking and she really had a great time. I know we will be seeing more of her in the future.


I tried to take some video with my spy cam, but must have done something wrong, because all I had was about 5 seconds of seeing the front wheel of Chuck’s superfly. I wish I would have known how to the use the video function on that camera.



So we had a great ride, followed by some food and drinks and best of all, it was on Trek.





Thanks Trek for your support of mountain biking in the Midwest. We have had some great rides this year, thanks to Trek and the Trek Mountain Co-op.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

2010 Checkpoint Tracker Nationals

By: Robin Rongey with Edits by Chuck Vohsen



I have no idea how to start this race report, the Checkpoint Tracker National Championships was probably the most demanding race I have ever attempted. When talking to people since the race, I have been asked, was it harder than the Ironman. This is a really hard question to answer. The Ironman was physically demanding because you just go as hard as you can the entire time, the later miles are definitely mentally tough because your body just wants to give up. CPT was physically hard due more to needing shear strength for all the climbing, in the canyons and mountains, both on foot and bike. More than the physical aspect was the mental aspect of this race, wondering are we going the right direction, are we reading the landmarks correctly, am I going to fall off a cliff and die. For me the race was so hard because of the fear factor, I was out of my mind with fear for most of the race, I just kept thinking at any moment I was going to either fall off a cliff, into the canyon, or my bike was going to slide off the side of the mountain. Chuck wasn’t as fearful as I was and he worked really hard at reassuring me that I wasn’t going to die. So, let me tell you how our adventure started. We met at the park in ride lot in St Peters, loaded up the adventure van and were off for the long drive to Utah. Our plan was to drive straight through, stopping only when we had too. We stopped for lunch at McDonalds, while still in Missouri, then again for dinner in Kansas, and there is no place to stop in Kansas, we ate at Taco Johns and it was awful. Driving through Colorado was slow going due to snow and ice. We stopped at a rest area and realized it was one of the exchanges we were at during the Colorado relay in 2009. After leaving the rest area, Chuck was driving and we were pulled over by the Avon, Colorado sheriff. I said “Chuck were you speeding?” he said “I don’t think so”. The cop told us Chuck’s license plate light was out and then ran his license to make sure he had no warrants. He also asked where we were heading, since it was 2 am. When we told him, he got all excited and told us how slick rock got its name, that back when the wagon trains came though and it would rain, the rock would become so slick that the wagons wheels would slide off. Great if a wagon can’t make it through how was I going to do it on a bike. All was well, Chuck had no warrants so he sent us on our way and just as we pulled back onto the road a mountain lion raced across the road right in front of us. Now I had to worry about being eaten while I was out there. We finally made it to Utah and turned onto hwy 128 which took us right into Moab. On our way through the windy roads, we saw a bunch of deer and a giant bighorn sheep with the big spiral horns. We drove right past the Red Cliff Lodge which is where the race started and ended and into main street Moab. It was about 7 am. We stopped for gas then picked a place called the Pancake Haus to eat. We should have known that if they can’t spell House correctly, we probably don’t want to eat there. We went in, sat down, smelled curry, looked at the menu, then got up and walked out. So Denny’s it was, we ordered way too much food, then almost fell asleep in it. Since we couldn’t check into the hotel yet, we went to a bike shop, where Chuck bought a nice outdoor research hat because he forgot to bring his. Then we hit the Adventure store and finally went to the hotel, lucky for us, they let us check in early. We also met another racer from Houston checking in and chatted about the race, he seemed like a pro, which made us even more nervous. We routinely tried to call home, but getting cell service was a trick, we finally both got through to our families to let them know we made it ok. We hung out in our rooms for a few hours trying to catch a little sleep since we had just finished a 24 hr drive. Then went for pizza and then to race check-in where we picked up our packets, maps and passport. Every other adventure race we have done has always had a pre-race meeting to go over details and answer any racer questions. This race didn’t have the meeting so we cornered the race director to ask a few questions. He was a great help. The map was enormous, and scaled at 1:35,000. In some areas the contour lines were so jammed together and twisted they looked like a giant bowl of spaghetti. Chuck started getting worried. Then we had to get team pictures taken with the skeleton. Guess this would make it easier to identify bodies later on. The first gear drop was where we would come off of the riverboard and start the long kayak leg. We were told that the only gear we could leave at this drop was our paddles. Then at the bike drop we left all of our gear for the bike, climbing and first section of trekking. We have never raced before where you didn’t have your pack with you all the time, so it was going to be a trick to make sure we had all the right gear staged in the right drop points. The team passport showed 23 checkpoints but we were only given UTM’s for the two gear drops. So we then headed to the hotel to plot the few UTM’s we received at check-in, into points on the map. This was also something new, we have never raced where you only get a few points at the start, so we knew we would be doing most of our plotting on the course, which is always stressful and prone to errors. We were trying to decide what to do about food and water, because we would be out hours before we made it to our packs. Since we would be river boarding first we had no way to carry supplies. Chuck rigged a way to attach a water bottle to his board and we thought we would stick some Honey Stinger bars inside our wet suits. I had not prepared for the order of events, thinking we would be in the water in the afternoon, I did not bring any extra tri shorts, so I had to wear my only pair of tri shorts and dryfit shirt under my wetsuit. This would be a problem because I would want to take off all my wet clothes before the trek, which meant I would have to wear tights during the trek while my tri shorts dried. It worked out ok, since it didn’t get really hot during the day. It seems like no matter what part of the country we race in Evil Race Directors want to get you wet at the beginning of every race, assuring an uncomfortable day. Race morning came. It was cold at the start we grabbed our rented Zoik riverboards, put on our wetsuits and flippers and waited for the start. One thing we forgot to do, even though we talked about it was put Honey Stinger bars in our wetsuits, at least Chuck remembered the water bottle. The gun went off and we ran down to the dock and jumped in the river. The water was 50 degrees. We headed down the river with the pack of racers, I had an issue right away, my knee pad kept slipping down, I tried to pull it back on, but after being sucked into a hole and then spit back out, it was gone, I could see it floating down the river, but was working hard just to pull myself back on my board and couldn’t grab it. I yelled at Chuck who was in front of me to grab it, but he couldn’t get to it. Another racer did see it and pick it up and give it to Chuck. There were several ‘holes’ in the sections of fast water that sucked you under and spit you back up a few yards downstream. The first wave that went over Chuck’s head was soooooo cold he came up in shock and gasping for air. The POS crappy $79 wetsuit he bought had loosely sewn seams and let in way too much cold water, he was seriously shivering before we made it to the take out. Can you get hypothermia in 20 mins? We made it to the take out at the kayaks in about 20 minutes and drug ourselves up on shore and grabbed the kayak closest to the water, then I grabbed the paddles and we were off. We started hitting rapids pretty quickly and the water was raining down into our kayak. It is a good thing that there are drain holes in the kayaks or we would have been sunk in the first 20 minutes. After about an hour we were out of most of the rapids and on flat water. We were not too happy about this, it is much slower going when paddling flat water. We were getting passed by teams and just couldn’t figure out why we sucked so bad at paddling. We shared the bottle of water, but not having food, really killed us. We had started to bonk with at least another hour on the water. We even took a couple of paddle breaks of 1 minutes long to try and recover. We saw some teams eating food and I thought about diving in their kayaks and taking it from them, but I was so weak by then, I would have just fallen in the water and drowned. We finally saw the takeout and made it in. When we asked the race official if we were last, we were surprised there were still many teams behind us and the first team in, only beat us by an hour. After 5 hours in the water, we were so hungry that we stumbled to our gear and changed clothes, it took me 20 minutes to get my wetsuit off, no matter what I did, I couldn’t get it off because I was shaking so badly. Chuck was faster, he was changed, eating and plotting points on the new map before I even had my wetsuit off. He was so cold it was almost funny seeing him sitting there repeating the same set of UTM’s over and over to himself, trying to plot them on the map with shaky and shivering hands. Finally, I had dry clothes on and I kept thinking I smelled like urine, which was really possible because both of us had to pee in the wetsuits while on the water, no time to stop and try to take it off, but soon I realized that it was the campground bathroom we were near that smelled, it wasn’t us.

If any doctor reads this blog, we’d like to get a professional answer to this question: Why is it impossible to pee and paddle at the same time? We both had to pee so bad, but our bodies wouldn’t let us until we sat still. So you know what we were doing during those paddle breaks.

Chuck wasn’t very happy with this new map. It was a color copy of what looked like a google-earth satellite view with no contour lines to show elevation or terrain details. But it was all we had to go on. One thing I realized the entire race was the beauty all around me, it was amazing, I couldn’t help but just stare at the scenery. When we left transition starting the trek into the canyon it was the same, I couldn’t believe I was racing in a place as beautiful as this. We climbed into the canyon, after eating back at transition we started feeling much better, although our packs were so heavy it was no easy task. After climbing for a while we came to the mystery event, it was a climb up a rock face, there was a line of people waiting to go up, so we had time to put on our climbing gear and Chuck did a little more work on the maps. He transferred all the points off of the google-earth thing and put them onto the topo map. It was finally our turn, Chuck went first and I followed, when he cleared the first anchor, and yelled “Clear”, I started up, after the second anchor, I was stuck, there were no more foot holds and the rock was just a flat face, I was starting to panic, but the guy below me yelled up to me, “use the rope and your feet only” I was trying to use my knees to help me up. That bit of advice got me moving and I was quickly on top. We trekked over to a traverse across the face of the rocks, Chuck hooked on and went across quickly. His INOV-8 shoes were sticking like glue to these rocks. I followed and was much slower, I think I was making fearful sounds the entire traverse, wonder how I was ever going to get home alive. we had to shimmy down into a crevice and I just knew I couldn’t make it, but I did, we were off heading for another checkpoint. I’m not sure how Chuck could put up with my fear, but he seemed to take it in stride. We trekked with our climbing gear on because we didn’t want to take the time to pull it off then put it back on later, plus it didn’t seem as heavy on my legs as it was in my pack. We trekked through the desert like atmosphere and made it to the next checkpoint. Since the rope sections of the course had such long lines to wait in we had to make a decision on whether to skip checkpoints and take the penalties so we could make the cutoff times at the climbs or skip the climbs and take those penalties. Since we don’t get to climb much in the Midwest we decided to skip checkpoints and do all the climbs. It was probably a bad decision for our total time, because we would have gotten more checkpoints and fewer penalties by skipping the climbs. We wanted to make sure we had fun and did everything, so in the end we made the right decision. We trekked more and finally saw the traverse, Chuck has a way of picking up the pace when he sees someone in front of him, so he takes off when he sees a couple other teams heading the same direction, he is jumping off rocks that we have no business jumping off, he points out other lines so I don’t have to jump as far, we are almost to the ropes when I can’t keep up anymore and as I try to jump off a rock I hit my knee and elbow, then make a really wounded animal sound and wipe a few tears from my face and keep going. When I make it to the top of the canyon, I survey my injuries and decide that at least I have blood and bruises to show for it.



Now we are on top of the canyon wall waiting for our turn to go across the traverse. It sounds like we have an hour of waiting so we eat and drink. The longer I’m there the more scared I become, at one point I thought I was going to puke. A guy was out on the ropes halfway across and couldn’t pull himself any further, they had to do a rope rescue to pull him in. My thoughts were that is going to be me. We had pre-planned that Chuck would cross first and I would come after, but when we got to the ropes they didn’t like they way Chuck’s gear looked, there was a twist in his belay loop so he had to take it off and change it around, so I went first. I had planned on turning on my helmet cam for this, but was so nervous that I forgot. I made it as far as I could and my arms were so tired I would have to stop and put my arm over the line and rest. I could see the rock behind me and yelled to the guys working it, asking how far I had left, they said 20 feet and coaxed me in, telling me 10 feet and then two more pulls and I could put my feet down. I made it, I was shaking, but I made it. I got off the rope and went to the safest place I could find on the top of the rock to wait for Chuck. Chuck made it over much faster and we headed for the rappel, we got there just as they were closing down and were able to get our passport stamped, but they didn’t allow us to go down the ropes. We were now on our way out of the canyon and it was getting dark, we put on our head lamps and started trekking. A couple teams came by and the lights they had were so much better then ours. We knew then we needed more light, we stopped and changed batteries and that helped some.



After what seemed like hours, but it was much shorter, we came to a long corrugated pipe, which was a drain under the railroad tracks, we walked through it and popped up on the road just a hundred yards from the transition. We were greeted at the transition by volunteers and asked if we had seen more teams, apparently there were multiple teams lost in the canyon that had to be found by search and rescue the next morning. Now we had to get on our bikes for a ride to the other side of Moab. We made it to the bottom of what was to be a long climb, stopped where there was a street light to look at the map and while there was offered a ride to the top of the hill by some local dude in a pickup truck. We declined, and he said “You sure? It’s a long way up!” I really wanted that ride. We headed uphill for several miles and ended up at the Slick Rock transition point. There we found out we could bike or trek the next 8 points, we chose trekking. Chuck plotted the maps with no help from me, I couldn’t see the locations, I’m not sure if it was due to my eyes getting bad with old age, a low sugar bonk or just not enough light, but I was no help.  Chuck laid down on the ground and plotted the points using the great plotting tool that Brooks-Range had supplied to all race teams.  I managed to stop shaking long enough to get a picture of him planning the route with highlighters.  One of the tricks we've learned from other races.



We walked off into the pitch dark at about midnight and picked up CP 21

pretty quickly then went on to CP 20, but could not find it, we had to be right on top of it but the points were really well hidden in here. The terrain was what you call bouldering, we climbed boulder after boulder, mostly really large ones, at one point I had my body plastered to a boulder with my feet sliding out from under me and was about to cry because I just knew I was about to fall to my death. I’m not sure how I made it up that, it was all kind of a blur, but I think Chuck grabbed my arm and pulled me up. Chuck was getting tired and looked bonked too, I saw him stumbling along on one giant boulder and told him he looked drunk.  We ate a couple of Honey Stinger waffles and recovered enough to go on.  We continued to trek and our lights started going dim, we made a decision to skip points and go back to transition because if we lost our lights we would have been out there all night, and not made the next mandatory time cutoff.. The moon had finally come out, but was too small to help. So we only got 3 out of 8 points in the slick rock section. Back at transition we plotted a new point for CP 23 and were told that it was mandatory and also that it was all uphill to the checkpoint, It was on the top of the 8900 ft Lasalle Mtn but all downhill after that for a 14 mile ride right into the finish.

We rode uphill for miles, we had estimated that it was going to be 13 miles to CP 23, so the first time I looked at the mileage on the bike computer and saw we had only been riding for 6 miles, I was more than distraught, I was starting to feel like there is no way I can finish this. We kept riding and riding in the complete dark with nothing but our bike lights shining on the dirt road. We went for a long periods of time without seeing other teams, no houses, no powerlines. The only sign of civilization was this narrow dirt road that went up and up. The sun finally started coming up and every small rise in the road would trick us into thinking we had made it to the top, only we’d reach the rise, and see more climbing. We came across a muddy singletrack trail that when we planned the route last night looked like it would be the fastest way to the checkpoint, but once we saw it we decided to take a rock road instead. Our thought was that the rock road would be easier to ride even if it were a longer distance. Just as we made the decision a solo girl came up and told us to take the trail, we said we had other plans and she seemed almost mad because we didn’t agree with her, telling us it was further with more climbing. We followed our own instincts and took the road, soon she came up behind us and was taking the same route. It was more climbing and more distance and I had just about decided that I couldn’t go any further when we saw the hard road. I was thinking that we were almost to the checkpoint, but it was another 5 miles uphill on the road until we saw the checkpoint.

At CP 23 we crossed paths with teams that took the trail and they said it was so bad they had to walk almost all of it, Chuck’s decision for us to take the road was the right one. All total, we had just ridden 22 miles of uphill, most of it in the total dark. Our Niterider lights saved us on this leg. We now had 1 hour and 50 minutes to get to the finish to make the 28 hour cutoff. We were now at the top of the mountain and had 14 miles of paved road going downhill. We took off and were flying down, we were hot and sweat covered, all our clothes were soaked from all the climbing, but didn’t think about how cold it really was up there, so going down it got cold fast. We rode passed several snow banks then came around a switchback and hit ice on the road, again my life flashed before my eyes. One side of the road was the mountain, the other side was a drop-off into the canyon. I could just see me crashing on the ice and dying right there. So the only choice I had was to use no brakes, little steering as possible and not pedal, just work to keep the bike upright. I made it through with a sigh of relief only to roll around the next switchback and hit another patch of ice. By this time I was so cold that my entire body was shaking, my teeth were chattering and my bike was wobbling. Chuck who has a death wish was screaming down the hill in front of me saying “weeeeeeeee”.  Ok so it's not really a death-wish, he is just so confident on the new Trek Superfly 100 that it just looks like that.  He's only had if for about two months now but he says it feels like an old friend and Trek really got it right when they designed and built this bike, or maybe it was the way The Cyclery in Edwardsville set it up.   My Trek Top Fuel was actually doing great, I could have never made it up those climbs on my old mountain bike, it just amazes me how great my Top Fuel is.

Chuck noticed I had fallen behind and slowed down. I pulled up beside him he saw me shaking and said lets stop and put on jackets, but I didn’t want to stop, I just wanted to see that finish line before the cutoff. Here is the thing, if you don’t make it in before the cutoff, you get a DNF, I was not about to have driven all the way to Utah, and put my life on the line, I don’t know how many times and get a DNF, so we just kept riding. Soon we made it to the finish line with 48 minutes to spare. I almost fell off my bike. We got our pictures taken at the finish then got food, and it was the best burger I have ever eaten in my life. I’m not sure if it really was that good, or if I was just so hungry I thought it was, but it didn’t matter. We loaded up the van with our gear, not even taking time to look at the results because we just figured we didn’t do very well because we skipped a lot of checkpoints. We headed to the hotel, as soon as we got a cell service we called home and found out that we were in 3rd place at that time based on the checkpoint tracker website. Now the website wasn’t that great because there was no cell service and no way for them to do live updates, so the updates were few and far between. We found out that so many of our family and friends had posted notes to us, which was so great to read and really made us feel good. We still figured the site was probably wrong, but decided to go to the awards party anyway, just to see. The party was great it was a Halloween theme with many people dressed up. I got a picture with a few of the racers
and even with the race organizer, Yak. The results were passed out and we found out that we were in 4th place for the 2 person co-ed division in 27 hours and 12 minutes, which was fantastic! We would have preferred 3rd place because we would have gotten prizes, but I’m not complaining, we could have been one of those teams being pulled out after spending the night in desert canyons by SAR. So bright and early Sunday morning we headed home and I mean earlier then planned. We planned to leave at 6:30 am, but Chuck was banging on my door at 5:30, he had called the front desk for a 6:00 wake-up call, but for some reason they called at 5:00, so since I was up, we left before 6:00. Now let me tell you this, I may have been fearful of losing my life during the race and after the race you would think that was over, but it wasn’t. Chuck is a terrible driver and he likes to see just how close he can get to the back of a semi truck before he uses his brakes, I think it might be like a game to him, but just to make sure I was safe I said a few prayers during the ride home. Chuck Edit: Stop it! I’m a good driver! Drafting trucks is fuel efficient! We did make good time, even with all the snow and ice in Colorado, it only took 22 hours.  Sitting in a car not moving around for that much time can really put a hurt on your legs after a long race like that.  Good thing we remembered to pack our Recovery Socks:


The final question: NO I won’t do this again, I am not prepared to race in the canyons, the mental stress was more than I ever want to endure again. As for Chuck, he has already said he will, so all you girls reading this, it’s time to put in your bid to be his partner for the next race in Moab.

One last note, this was a great event, expertly put on with the best rope volunteers I have ever known. Thanks to the Checkpoint Tracker and the race organizers for putting on such a great event.