Life Is An Adventure Race

by Jim Farmer (farmerjp@bellsouth.net)

The winter months are behind us and my adventure racing hiatus is finally over. I had taken the winter off for several reasons, the most important one being trying to get my life back in order. You know, finally paying attention to things like my wife, our dilapidated house, my oft-ignored career and the like. That, plus the fact that I wanted to concentrate on training for the upcoming season rather than constantly being in recovery mode. I even hired a coach to help get my butt into shape. I hadn’t been coached since high school and the thought of once again hearing expressions like “Lift up your skirt when you throw that powder puff pass Farmer” and “I’m gonna be on you like ugly on ape” was not entirely endearing to me. Luckily, Mark doesn’t buy into the “Fear Factor” coaching tactics. Mark Fasczewski runs Fit To Win Training Solutions and he follows a much more scientific method that coincided very well with my left-brained approach to everything. I came out of the winter better…stronger…faster (insert Six Million Dollar Man music here…OK, I’m just dreaming).

My first race was going to be the Double Dog Dare Adventure Race just west of Nashville on March 20^th. As a warm-up for this race and to further hone my navigational skills I decided to participate in a couple of the nav trainings put on by the Atlanta Chapter of the TrailBlazers Adventure Racing Club. Both of these were held at Red Point State Park in Cartersville, GA, the first one being a daytime training and the second one taking place at night. The latter was being held the week before the Double Dog Dare and I was ready to flex my new adventure racing muscles. Unfortunately, the muscles that got flexed were not the ones I planned on using that night.

Earlier that day, my Little Brother and I had been riding our bikes out at the Battlefield. On our way back we decided to grab some lunch. I preferred Arby’s but Hezzy insisted on Wendy’s. I caved in and settled on a mundane grilled chicken sandwich (it’s hard for me to even type those words). Within an hour the volcano, also known as my innards, began to show the first signs of the impending doom. My trip to Cartersville took much longer than expected as I surveyed one gas station bathroom after another (the men’s room at the Shell station in Calhoun is quite nice by the way). When I arrived at the start I reevaluated my situation. No fever, check. Plenty of liquids, check. Extra TP, check. Might as well go for it after coming all this way I thought. My friend Tony said that he wasn’t feeling too hot either so we decided to team up for the nighttime stroll through the woods figuring that at least we wouldn’t die alone.

Before starting, I chewed up a couple of chalky Pepto-Bismol tablets as a short-term solution to my problem. Apparently, Pepto-Bismol works for exactly two hours. Up to that point, Tony and I had been kicking butt on the course, quickly gobbling up one checkpoint after the other and setting a blistering pace. I had to slow up every now and then as my stomach went through periodic spasms but for the most part I was able to tough it out. My own personal Vesuvius was starting to bulge uncontrollably and I had to loosen my shorts to accommodate it but the Pepto-Bismol had been doing its job containing the magma up to that point. We were about two-thirds of the way through the course when the volcano finally erupted all over the side of a hill we had just begun to climb. Tony’s only comment after witnessing the streams of lava flowing from my mouth was “Cool!” I let Tony go on while I continued to purge myself of the evil spell that a harlot named Wendy had cast on me, foul temptress that she is. I limped back to the finish a beaten man and headed home. The Stalinistic purge of my insides continued relentlessly on the drive home and all through the night. A nice night in the woods had turned into a nightmare but, I have to admit, I’d probably do it again given the same circumstances. It was fun while it lasted.

I didn’t have much time to recover since the Double Dog Dare race was less than a week away. My teammate Patricia from Maryville was chomping at the bit and we convinced my buddy Jon from Atlanta to come along for the ride. His only request was that we race under the name Team Tally-Ho. Those Brits can be pretty pissy some times so we didn’t want to make a fuss. We knew that we had put together a strong team of experienced racers and had an excellent shot at taking a podium spot. I just had to get my stomach back to normal and top off those glycogen and electrolyte stores before race day, especially since it ended up being a very balmy March day. The week went by like a blur and we were feeling strong as we hit the starting line early on Saturday morning at the Harpeth Narrows State Park.

This six to ten hour race was put on by the Nashville Adventure Racers (Nashvar) group, including my two teammates from the Beast of the East, Todd and Erik. I knew that they would put on a well-organized race, and they did, but I also knew that they would have a few tricks up their sleeve. My hunch was right as teams were given a box at the start line as the gun went off. We quickly raced back to our gear and dumped the contents of the box onto our folding table. Typically, you’re given a map with UTM coordinates on it at the beginning of the race. However, the Nashvar folks decided to convert our first map into a jigsaw puzzle just to mess with our heads. We made quick work of it though. Jon and Patricia pieced it together while I laid out strips of duct tape to create a sticky frame for our masterpiece. We were the second team out of the gate and quickly worked our way into the lead on foot.

The first three checkpoints contained lifejackets and paddles that we picked up one set at a time on our way to the put-in for the paddling section along the Harpeth River. We entered the water alongside two other teams and began paddling upstream to the next checkpoint; however, in our haste, we failed to analyze the entire paddling leg in advance. It turned out that the following checkpoint was on the other side of the oxbow in the river about five miles upstream. We were separated from the other leg of the river by a hundred-plus foot ridge and the only cut through the ridge was back downstream a few hundred yards. We had wasted precious time and energy paddling upstream unnecessarily, but most of the teams had made the same mistake so we didn’t lose much. However, our weak paddling skills pushed us back into third place as we exited the river after an hour and a half or so on the water.

We quickly raced back to the start area on foot where we were given our next set of maps. We saw the frontrunners leave as we approached the transition area so we knew how much time we had to make up. A quick transition onto our bikes and we were off. After a couple of navigational bobbles we made it to the next transition area where we ditched our bikes and started off again on foot. We were in third place as we got to the edge of the ridgeline overlooking the river and donned our rappelling gear for our trip down the fixed ropes. We made quick work of the ropes and had the second place team in sight. Unfortunately, Team Litespeed, another group of Chattanoogans, had closed the gap on us in fourth. Things were getting tight but we overtook the team in front of us on the last mile or two of the navigation section and put more time on them as we got back onto our bikes for the last leg of the race.

Before every adventure race there is a pre-race meeting, either the night before or the morning of the race. For the first ten minutes most people pay attention. After that the race director begins to resemble a flight attendant showing everyone how to put his or her seatbelt on. It’s pretty standard stuff. The one thing that every race director inevitably says is “read your passport thoroughly.” The passport contains checkpoint information, coordinates, clues, rules, required gear lists, etc. Essentially, it’s everything you need to know to complete the race. In the heat of battle though, everyone uses the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading technique since it’s tough to read the fine print in the transition area when your competitors are leaving the pits ahead of you.

{If this story is made into a movie then you would be hearing dramatic music right now as the dark clouds roll in and the camera pans out to show our heroes approaching dire straits. The typical Hollywood doom and gloom stuff.}

There were only two checkpoints left before the finish line and we were comfortably in second place. The first one was quick and easy but the last one took us through some tough terrain, requiring precise navigation and hiking our bikes over two steep ridges. As I mentioned earlier, the passport contained clues and other information regarding each checkpoint. These clues were in the form of icons or symbols with the definitions of each on the back of the passport. Because we were strong navigators we mostly ignored these clues until we were close to the checkpoints since our skills with the map and compass would get us close. As we approached the last checkpoint we pulled out the passport and looked at the clues. One of the symbols resembled a railroad crossing sign with an ‘X’ inside a circle. All three of us were devastated as Jon read the definition on the back: “No penalty for skipping this checkpoint.” We had just wasted forty-five minutes getting an unnecessary checkpoint. Oh, the humanity of it all.

The ride to the finish was fueled by Hammer Gel and expletives. We ended up in fifth place overall, but the kicker was the fact that the winning team had made the same mistake we made. Yep, that means that we would have waltzed into victory lane if we had just read that %$^!#*@ passport. I really wasn’t very upset though. That’s just adventure racing for you. Your team has to be clicking on all cylinders, both mental and physical. We were one of the strongest teams out there and it was a great race over some great terrain. We just made one BIG mistake. Live and learn I guess. It’s just good to be back out there again and I’m looking forward to another fun adventure racing season that I’m sure I’ll be writing about again.

P.S. If you think this sounds like fun then give me a shout and I can get you started. You can check out our club website at www.TrailBlazerAR.com or email me at farmerjp@bellsouth.net.