Berryman Adventure Race 2010

It’s September, and those on the Adventure Racing circuit know what September means, it is once again time for the Berryman Adventure race. The race comes in two distances, the 12 hour and the 36 hour. The Rock Racing crew originally thought about doing the 36 hour, hoping to rack up Checkpoint Tracker points to try and qualify for Nationals, but since we made Nationals early on, we didn’t need the points. With me (Robin) completing an Ironman 4 weeks earlier and also having a fractured foot, and Chuck completing a half Ironman just one week prior to the race, we decided that the 12 hour race was probably the better choice.

On Friday we left for the race at noon, pulled into Bass River Resort around 3 pm, setup camp and checked in for the race. We talked to Laura one of the Bonk Hard Racing directors, she said this was going to be a great race. We got our really cool dry fit race shirts with the image of a donkey lying on his back with his legs straight up in the air, like he was dead, I thought by the end of the race, this would be a fitting image for us to be sporting.

We headed to the bike drop, it was about a 45 minute drive. We left the bikes at the YMCA of the Ozarks, it was a beautiful place.



After dropping the bikes we drove into Potosi and ate dinner then headed back to camp. We both wanted to call home, but we were in such a remote area that we had no cell reception, so we drove to the top of a hill where we finally got one bar and called home, just in case we fell off a cliff or anything, it was our last chance to talk to our families.

Back to the campsite we went for the pre-race meeting. We were given the usual rules and instructions with one note added by the park ranger, we were to be careful, there were lots of rattlesnakes and copperheads out sunning themselves in the weather. We should be on the lookout and not step on any. GREAT! I hate snakes. We received 4 maps and a clue sheet with UTM coordinates then headed back to our campsites to plot points.

A short note, a friend of ours was doing his first adventure race, he was doing it with 3 friend who also had never done anything like this before. Not only did they sign up for the 36 hour race, but they found a sponsor…. Wait for it….. the team sponsor was POW/MIA. Does anyone else think it’s funny that a team of new racers is going to attempt a course that usually only advance racers should do and the team’s name is Prisoner of War /Missing in Action. Well we gave them all the tips we could think of and said a prayer that they would make it out of the woods alive.

Back at camp, we plotted points and marked out our strategy, triple checked our gear and headed off to our tents to try and sleep. At 5 am Saturday morning we were both up, packing food and water, pulling on jackets because it was cold, around 50 degrees. It was also foggy and misty, it seemed like the air was really thick and it was hard to see much of anything.



We headed up to the start line where we encountered the crowd of racers waiting for the bus. One volunteer had a hammock hanging on the pavilion and was sleeping through all the commotion. Jason gave us some last minute instructions and one was not to use a certain route to checkpoint 16 because it bordered some private property and the last time they had this race here the owner was not happy and said he would be shooting the next racer that came near his property. Lucky for us, we had not planned to take that route in the first place. The buses came, we loaded up and rode to the bike drop. On the way, I ate little white powdered donuts, that is my pre-race food of choice, Chuck had an oatmeal cookie. Even though we were dropped at our bikes we didn’t start on the bike, we headed out for the trek. The first mile or so of the trek was a steep uphill, but we kept running when everyone was walking so we passed a ton of teams.



We found the first CP pretty fast, it was down in a deep and rugged reentrant and many of the teams missed it, they were wandering around the woods, looking for it, while we were heading to CP 2. At CP 5 we were at an overlook, it was beautiful. Chuck walks right out on the edge. It had to be over a 100ft drop to the rocks below. I guess he was practicing for the rapelling section at Nationals.



The trek went so well, we were running right to each checkpoint without any problems at all, we saw others wandering around, it made us think we were really on our game.



We got checkpoint after checkpoint then after CP11 we headed across a floating bridge and off to a mystery event. We turned a corner and saw it, a giant rock climbing wall. One team member had to climb the wall and then rappel down. We decided it would be Chuck because he has longer arms and legs and more arm strength, so he put on the climbing harness and climbed the wall like spider man.



When Chuck came off the wall, we grabbed our packs and headed to CP 13 which was the bike drop, but still we weren’t going to bike, we were told to map a new point using some coordinates that were on the table. We used our normal method of reading and plotting and were done so fast we passed several teams here. As Chuck finished the map coordinates, I took off my arm warmers and put them in my pack, then I grabbed some cookies, oh and they were good cookies, Oreo’s with one side chocolate and one side white, I’m not sure if they were that great or I was just starving, but I thought I was eating a gourmet meal.

We took off running up that same big hill we did to the first checkpoint. We turned right into the woods and headed up the hill, we came out at some kind of climbing thing, but did not see a checkpoint. We were looking for the usual orienteering flag, but it was really a mystery event. I saw a Porta John and ran in, too many people to just stop in the woods to do my business. As I came out of the Johnny, Chuck yelled to me and pointed, there was a very tall pole with a zip line connected, it was the mystery point. Since Chuck did the first mystery event, I was up for this one. I’m a little afraid of heights, so this was a bit scary for me. I climbed up hoping I was going to make it to the platform before one of the pegs failed and I fell to my death.



I know, it was probably perfectly safe, but it’s hard to be rational when you are scared. By the time I made it to the platform, my whole body was shaking, then the guy on the platform with me gets me all hooked up and tells me to sit down and scoot out to the edge with my legs hanging over. I thought, he has to be kidding, he wasn’t. Finally after taking my death grip off the pole, I made it to the edge of the platform, I closed my eyes and just went, as soon as I started moving I opened my eyes and realized that I wasn’t going to die. I was actually having fun. Chuck said I talked the entire way, I probably did, but didn’t remember, until he showed me the video he had taken on his camera.



Once out of my harness, I pulled on my pack and we ran back to CP 15 which was bike drop. We started pulling off pants and changing shoes, when I realized my pack was open and my jacket was falling out. Then I noticed my arm warmers were gone. I hate losing things, and was so upset about losing them, that I first forgot to pull out my sunglasses, then forgot to get my gloves out of my pack and then forgot to put my shoes in my pack. As Chuck waited patiently, I pulled my pack off one last time to put my shoes in it and guess what. I found my arm warmers, they were in a different zipper compartment. Good thing too that would have bothered me the rest of the race. Chuck seemed to be enjoying my arm warmer frenzy, he just kept laughing.

Finally we were on the bikes and none too soon for me, my foot was really aching from all the running on it, I really wanted to get my weight off it. My hip was starting to hurt from limping. Chuck was in perfect shape, nothing hurting, and I know he was going slow so I could keep up. It seems that every race we learn something, and this race was no different. Coming off such a good trek with no mistakes, we were feeling a little too sure of ourselves and not concentrating as much as we should have been. The bike started with an uphill that just wouldn’t end. If you have ever ridden Matson hill, well put 10 Matson hills together and you would get the first part of our bike leg. As we pushed our way up miles of never ending hills, we started to realize that we might have missed the turn into the woods for CP 16, the first bike CP. Well Chuck was right again, we had missed the turn, so we turned around and rode back downhill and found the CP, but all that energy was wasted the first time up the hill, now we had to go up it again. UP, UP, UP, it seemed like forever, then we found CP 17, and finally we turned into the woods onto some single track.

It felt so good to be off that road and that never ending uphill. We rode about a mile or so and a four person team passed us going the other direction, we decided they must be a 36 hour team, right after that Alpine shop blew by us, another 36 hour team, then the Bushwhacker team came by also, we knew they were a 12 hour team and very good, they never make mistakes, so we started to doubt our skills. Soon we stopped to drag our bikes over some huge downed trees, we ran into about 5 teams all looking for CP 18, some going the other direction. We decided to turn around, having some self doubt about our route. Well that was a mistake, we went back about a mile ran into more teams, discussed the issue. Finally I said to Chuck “If we had not seen any other teams here, where would you have gone” he said the way we were going in the first place, so that’s what we did and low and behold there was the checkpoint. This is a lesson we have learned over and over, don’t worry about what the other teams are doing, even if we know they are good teams, follow our plan and trust in it. With that mess over we rode right to the CP. Then we made a good shortcut by bike-whacking to the road and was on to CP 21. We were concentrating on riding the rough single track and rode right past the CP, we went about a half mile and decided we needed to turn back, just a couple minutes down the single track and there it was right on the trail. At least we only wasted about 10 minutes on that mistake and we helped another team find the checkpoint also.

We blew through the next couple CP’s and made it to the river. We dropped our bikes, ran through the gear check, grabbed a canoe, paddles and life vest and headed down to the water. When we hit the water, Chuck noticed he that he had left the map clipped onto his bike handlebars, he ran back up to gear check and unclipped it. Going into the water we were told we were the 5th co-ed team and 20th overall. We were paddling like crazy trying to catch the co-ed team in front of us, we finally caught sight of them. We passed two guys, we told them we were trying to catch the co-ed team, so the guys said, let us pay you back and gave our canoe a big shove forward. They were the two guys we helped during the bike leg. We then paddled until our arms went numb and our shoulders were screaming, but it was worth it, we passed to co-ed team with gusto and left them to try chasing us. We passed another male team and kept paddling looking back frequently to see if we were dropping the co-ed team. Soon we were at the low water bridge. Chuck said get ready to get out and pull the canoe over the bridge, I said, we can make it under, so we laid down flat in the bottom of the canoe and floated under the bridge, we only had about an inch clearance, but we made it and it gave us a big lead. The next stop was CP24 and Wendy and Jim Davis were manning it, she said we were about 4 minutes behind the 3rd place team. We were paddling so hard that we weren’t doing a good job of steering, so we kept running into the bank, trees, logs, and rocks, then it would take us forever to get moving again. Looking back, we should have slowed down and worked more on steering, just another lesson learned. As we paddled down the river, Chuck pulled out the camera to try and take some pictures, and as he was trying to get the camera out he dropped his paddle into the fast river water. It was 20 meters behind us in a split second



He told me to paddle backwards. I said, “That won’t work, jump in and get it!” He wouldn’t do it, and said “Give me your paddle” and he held us still until the paddle floated to us. Of course the teams we passed were starting to catch us again. We once again had to paddle like crazy. We finally saw the CP and canoe take out, but no other teams, we didn’t catch the 3rd place team. We pulled our canoe up on the bank, punched our passport and ran to the finish line. We finished in 9 hours and 34 minutes. It was our fastest 12 hour race ever.



Looking back, we made mistakes, but probably only lost about 30 minutes, so we can’t complain. And hey win or lose, we still look great in our Honey Stinger/Trek jerseys.

As for POW/MIA, I know you are wondering, well they finished, and I know they have stories that will last for the rest of their lives. They did fantastic and made it back alive.

Chuck edit: This was another one of those races that make you see how important teammates are in adventure racing. We saw a four person team yelling at their navigator “Hurry up! Pick a direction! Where do you want to go! Make up your mind!” When I was having trouble figuring out why teams were going the other direction at CP19 and second guessing myself, Robin hit me with the perfect line at the perfect time: “if no one else was here, which way would you go?” And her broken foot? I could see it was hurting and just adjusted pace to match, especially on paved areas, but there was no whining, no complaining, she just sucked it up and did what had to be done. There was no blame for dropped paddles, lost arm warmers, leaving maps, or being afraid of 80 ft telephone pole climbs, just little problems that needed quick solutions. These are the things that end up making the best stories and laughs anyway.

IronMan Louisville 2010

This Mountain girl decided to hit the road one more time this summer, just so I could say I did. I wanted to tackle something big and what could be bigger than an IronMan, I mean nothing is as big as the National Adventure race championship, but this comes very close. 10 months ago when I was considering doing an IronMan (if you don’t know what an IronMan entails, it is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run), I asked around and two friends Jeff and Krystal said they were interested in doing one as well. We all decided on competing in one of the Ford IronMan series races and we were looking for late summer early fall race and something close enough that we could drive to it. So Ironman Louisville fit the bill, who knew that it would be 97 degrees with a heat index of 107 on race day.

Training times didn’t always work out for us as a group, I still have younger kids at home and my free time between work and kids activities is sparse.



So Jeff and Krystal worked out a lot together, I joined when I could, but most of my training was done with my friends, Mark, Jenny and Chuck. Mark did a lot of long rides with me and then I would run after for the bricks, Jenny waited for my slow butt on many long swims plus my early morning runs, and Chuck did long runs and some long bricks with me, plus we did a few 12 hour adventure races. I don’t know how I would have got through the long training without them. Also, my friend Mike let me swim in his lake, so when I couldn’t make it to Krystal’s lake I had someplace to swim.

I was on the 25 week training plan for the race and when I made it to about 20 weeks I was really getting tired of the long training days every weekend, but I kept trudging along. By the last week of training I was starting to doubt whether I could do it or not. I was really worried about making the swim cutoff time and finishing before the 17 hour cutoff. Nervous was not what I was, I was scared out of my mind, worrying that I didn’t train long enough or fast enough. I questioned everything I had done to date, I almost made myself sick thinking about it. Every word out of my mouth that last week was about the race. My kids would say, “what’s for dinner” and I would say, “I don’t know how I’m going to make it out of the swim on time”. I was almost crazy with worry.

Finally the race weekend came, just in time to keep me from going over the edge of insanity. You read that right, yes it is an entire weekend, we had to check-in on Friday afternoon, attend the pre-race dinner, and meeting, which worked out well because I was able to ask questions and get more information on how the day would go.



Saturday was gear check-in, so before we checked in gear, we rode our bikes along the river and looked at the swim course, on one hand it helped me to know the course and on the other hand, it looked like a really long distance to swim. The known is always better than the unknown though. We checked our bikes in and the volunteers took each of us through transition, showed us where to drop our bike and run bags, where to take our bike and run special needs bag which would be available at the halfway point of the bike and run, and what to do with our race day bags. We were each walked through the transition area and tent, told exactly what to expect and reassured that things would be fine and race day would be full of excitement.





Race day finally came, I woke up at 4:30 and headed out to the Great lawn to check my bike one more time and drop off my special needs bags. It was so early the parking lot guy didn’t have the tickets so Rob sat in the van and got the camera ready while I ran to transition to finish last minute race preparations.



When I came back we headed down to the race start where we had to line up and wait. I had 70 minutes until the first person went in the water, and was thinking I would get a good spot in line, but the line was over a mile long when I got there and I wasn’t last in line. Rob stood in line with me, camera ready, hoping his shutter finger didn’t cramp up with all the pictures he was going to be taking. Soon Jeff and Krystal came along the line, I let them in with me, many people were holding spots, so no one complained.



So we talked for a while then at 6:50 am we heard the gun for the pro start, then the line started moving as spectators left their athletes in line for the start, the line was moving pretty fast and I had to go to the bathroom one more time, so I ran ahead and got in the bathroom line, as I watched the swim line moving, hoping I could get in and out of the bathroom before Jeff and Krystal got to me. Just as I walked out of the stinky, disgusting Johnny that had been used at least a million times already, I saw my team and jumped back in the swim line. We moved faster and faster, when we got to the ramp, we started running in a little maze to get to the docks.



As we approached the dock, the volunteers yelled now, as each person jumped in the water. The water was like being in a blender with all kinds of stuff hitting you, arms, legs, even people swimming over your back. It was scary, yet exciting all at the same time.



I felt pretty good the entire swim, and at one point, it was about ¾ miles into the swim, I could see heads bobbing next to me, I took a second look on the next breath and could see a bunch of people walking, and we were in the middle of the river. So I put my feet down and could touch the bottom, the water was only up to my chest, but as tempting at it was to walk while I had a sandbar under my feet, I decided that it would be slower and more effort on my legs to walk, so I kept swimming. The sandbar only lasted about a hundred meters, but it was nice knowing that I would not drown right there. So I made it around the island, past the barges, under the next three highway bridges and to the finish.



Well, there was one issue at the finish, a few athletes for some reason saw the finish and decided they would sprint to it, so there I was again, getting kicked, hit and swam over by another athlete. My theory for the swim is a slow and steady pace, no sprinting, I’m like the turtle of swimming, it may take me a while, but I will get there. Then I made it to the steps coming out of the water and two volunteers grabbed me by the arms and practically lifted me to the pavement. As I ran to transition I heard them announce that Robin Rongey from Edwardsville, IL has made it out of the water, then I heard some spectators yell, “go Illinois”. The feeling of being out of the water was so great, that I almost started to cry.

Through transition I went I was handed my bag as I ran through, and headed for the tent. As soon as I hit the tent, it was amazing a volunteer helped me with everything, brought me water, sprayed sunscreen all over me, made sure I had everything and collected my stuff. She told me good luck and sent me on my way, she was fantastic. I had a hamburger in my bag and ate it while I ran to my bike, I grabbed my bike and headed for the bike mount line, jumped on my bike and was on the road in no time. I saw Rob with the camera taking pictures and I yelled, “I didn’t drown”. He told me later everyone started laughing and then he said “well I guess I won’t be getting the insurance check after all”. The spectators were lined up along the roads and cheering for everyone, it was really motivating.



Before I go into the bike and run, I have to first say that this was the part that had the most possibility of going bad. I had been wrestling with planter fasciitis for months and had tried everything, rolling my foot on a tennis ball, on a frozen water bottle, changing pedals on my bike, changing bike shoes, nothing worked, so I had to just go with what I thought would give me the best chance of having the least amount of pain. My bike now had my mountain bike pedals on it and I was wearing a pair of tie up Lake mountain bike shoes because they were the loosest shoes I owned. My fear heading into the race was that at 2 or 3 hours my foot would start hurting too badly to keep pedaling. My only defense was to work within the conditions. I soon found out that working within the conditions was my only choice.

40 miles into the bike, my right foot started hurting, nothing I couldn’t deal with, but it hurt, at 70 miles I was riding with tears rolling down my face because my foot hurt so bad. While I tried to spin an easier gear to take the pressure off my foot, my left foot started to hurt from compensating for the right foot. To top it off I was going through water and Gatorade faster than ever, in fact I went through 21, 20 oz bottles in 7 hours, plus 16 enduralyte tables. I had on black bike shorts but they were almost white with salt by the end of the ride. To make things worse at 75 miles my quads started cramping, If I stood they would turn into a giant charley horse and lock up, so I had to stay seated. Don’t get me wrong, although I was having issues out there, I told myself I will finish and I had some really great experiences while doing it. My race number had my name on it and as I would pass people or they would pass me they would always call out my name and say good job, or your doing great, a couple pro riders on the their second lap even rode next to me and told me I was doing great, every athlete was such a motivator. Oh, and as I was going up a long climb, who but the devil came running up next to me and he was all decked out, I wish I would have had a picture of that, I felt like I was in the Tour de France. Finally at 90 miles my foot went completely numb, this gave me some really great relief, but too bad that it only lasted for 10 miles and I was back wincing with every pedal stroke. I was watching my Garmin for mileage and was keeping a 16.1 average for the ride, not counting water stop time, and then when the Garmin hit 108 miles the battery died. I knew I had 4 miles to go, but I needed to know where I was, so I kept riding next to people and asking for the mileage. The last guy I talked to before I went into the bike finish, said don’t worry, you can walk the marathon and make the time cutoff, you have a good cushion. I was not as sure about it as he was.



As I went into the chute I saw Rob with the camera, but didn’t have enough energy to smile, I just wanted to get my feet off those pedals. I made it to the dismount line, got my leg off the bike, but couldn’t walk, my legs were completely locked up. A volunteer took my bike and I started to walk, he asked me if I was ok, and I was not going to tell him no, there was no way I was going to give him any reason to pull me off the course. I had already seen so many people being carted away in an ambulance. I would guess it was heat exhaustion in most instances. I finally got the legs working, was handed my bag and ushered into the tent where another volunteer just about dressed me, she pulled off my clothes, pulled on my dry clothes, put my shoes on, sprayed me with sunscreen, got me water, and made sure I had everything I needed. I can’t say enough about these volunteers, they were all just amazing.

So I ran out of the chute eating a hamburger, I saw Rob taking pictures, I yelled to him that my feet were hurting bad and he said, just walk when you have to.



I was running and thinking about how I was almost finished with my first Ironman, all I had to do was run 26.2 miles. Easy right, a mere 26.2 miles to go. I ran up on the bridge looking down at the Ohio River, I was thinking wow, I just swam in that river. I made it to mile 3, which is where the double loops starts, so my thoughts were, just two laps and I’m done. I was actually in a good mood, and my foot felt much better now that I had on running shoes and wasn’t pushing against the small pedals. The problem was I could feel my legs starting to cramp, so I just kept running slow, walking through the aid stations, taking the enduralytes I had in my race belt. I tried eating pretzels to get more salt, but they were too hard to get down, then I tried chicken broth, it went down a little easier and didn’t seem to upset my stomach as much, but I don’t think it gave me much energy. I had sport beans in my belt so I started eating those every few minutes, but soon my stomach couldn’t take them either. By mile 12 I could feel the cramps getting worse, but I kept running, walking only through the aid stations. I was grabbing a couple cold sponges at every aid station, putting one in the back of my sports bra and squeezing the other on my head and legs, that helped for a few minutes, but didn’t last until the next aid station. I had about 5 miles to go on the first lap when Jeff caught me, he was on his second lap, He asked how it was going and I said, I was really cramping up and was out of enduralytes, he gave me the extra ones he had and kept, running, he was running a great pace.



With 4 miles to go until the second lap, I saw Krystal on her second lap, she looked tired but was running ok. I made it to the 14 mile mark and saw Rob, I told him I was going to have to walk most of the last 12 miles, every time I started running, my legs would just lock up from the cramps, but I could walk at a fast pace and they were ok.



As I made the loop past the finish line Rob was at the corner, he had timed my last mile and said I was walking a 14 to 15 minute pace. I calculated the time until the cutoff and found that if I kept that pace, I could easily finish under the 17 hour limit. It’s funny, I had it in my mind that I would finish between 14 and 15 hours, but due to circumstances out of my control, that wasn’t going to happen. I knew that I would finish, even if I had to crawl across the line, I was finishing this race, so now I had to deal with the hand I was dealt and use the best option available. So I walked, and I watched my mile times, they were all between 14 and 16 minutes. So many people were yelling, “you go”, I was walking and they were running and I was passing them. The thing is, I was tired, but that wasn’t what was slowing me down, it was the cramps that turned into painful charley horses as soon as I started running that was making me walk. So I walked and I watched the time, I ate grapes, oranges and chicken broth, those were the items I could keep down. I watched as athletes fell to the ground all around me, as medical personnel and police, picked people up off the course, as people were all over the side of the road puking, and crying, and I just kept telling myself you are going to finish this. As each mile passed I talked to everyone around me, we all complained of leg cramps, but we all had one goal in mind, we were going to finish. As I neared the finish, I was talking to a guy that was doing this race for the 4th year and he said this was the worst it had ever been and his time was hours slower than previous years, he thought it was due to the extreme heat. He told me to make sure I enjoy my finish to run into the finish slow and listen to all the people and the excitement and make sure to smile when I crossed that line. He said there are no words to explain the feeling you are going get. So I ran down that last straight, hoping my legs would go, and the crowd was cheering, it seemed like there were thousands of people. The music was playing, the people cheering were high fiving me all the way down the line, yelling “YOU'RE AN IRONMAN” I ran across that line with a smile on my face and a feeling of accomplishment that I have never felt before. That guy was right there are no words to explain what it felt like, you just have to be there. As soon as I crossed the line a volunteer, put a medal around my neck and guided me though the finish area, stopping for an IronMan picture, giving me water, getting my finisher shirt and hat and asking me if there was someone waiting for me at the end. He walked me all the way to the end of the finish area and stood there until we saw Rob, then he said “Congratulations, IronMan” and went on his way to help the next finisher. Krystal and Jeff finished before me, but I finished, this was not a competition for me, it was to see if I could do it, and I did.

There are a couple things I need to say, first I have had 3 children and having a baby is a piece of cake in comparison to finishing an IronMan. The quality and organization of this race was perfect, these race directors know what they are doing and I think a big part of that is the volunteers, I would have never finished this race without the assistance of the volunteers they were fantastic, I can not say enough about how hard they worked to make this an experience I will never forget. I also have say Thank You to the St Louis Cycling Club and Metro Tri Club for the great support.



Let me answer your question before you ask… Will I do this again…. You better believe it, I will do it again, but next time it will be in a cooler climate.