The Musings of a First Time Adventure Racer at the Appalachian ìNot-Soî Extreme Adventure Race

By Jason C. Grech

Like a lot of adventure racers, I got my first taste of the sport at a Hi-Tec sprint race this past summer in Atlanta.  I was hooked.  I had a great time at the race, but decided that I wanted to try something a little more adventurous (i.e., a longer course with navigation).  After a thorough search of the Internet, I discovered the Appalachian ìNot-Soî Extreme Adventure Race which was held on October 13, 2001.  The race appeared to be the perfect event for a beginner such as myself.  It was a 12-hour race (6 a.m. to 6 p.m.) that promised the ì[s]ame quality and challenge of [the] 3-4 day Discovery Channel World Championship Adventure Race Qualifier, the Appalachian Extreme, but NOT-SO Extreme (or, more appropriately, NOT-SO LONG!).î  Like most adventure races, the race would involve a mixture of disciplines, including paddling, hiking/running, mountain biking, and navigating.  According to the organizers, the ìcourse is designed to be achievable for the novice racer, while challenging for the seasoned racer as well.î  Even better, it was in a convenient location in Western North Carolina, about 3 hours north of Atlanta.

Now that I had found a race, the next step was pulling together a team.  I soon learned that keeping a team intact can be almost as hard as the race itself.  The race rules required a three person co-ed team, plus a 1-2 person support crew.  I initially asked a few friends who had expressed an interest in adventure racing.  The three of us met up and agreed on team goals and training schedules.  We even came up with a team name--Team DíOh (think Homer Simpson).  Unfortunately, things fell apart quickly when both teammates were injured during separate mountain biking sessions.  It was now the middle of August, less than two months before the race, and I had no teammates.  Luckily, my wife, Michelle, put me in contact with Sabrina Gatlin, an MBA student at North Carolina.  Sabrina was also able to convince a fellow student, Kathy Burns to join us.  With less than a month to go, we finally had a full team (assuming no one else got injured).

Although it was recommended that the three of us train together as much as possible (to identify any personality issues), we were only able to meet up once before the race at the Tsali Challenge (an individual race in North Carolina made up of a 4 mile paddle, 5 mile trail run, and 12 mile mountain bike ride).  The three of us therefore barely knew each other when we arrived at Fontana Village on October 12, the day before the race.  After checking into our rooms, we met up to discuss the race.  We agreed that our primary goal was to have fun, with a secondary goal to finish the full course.  Meeting those two goals would make us very happy.

The three of us collected all of our gear on our beds and went through the mandatory gear list to make sure we had everything we needed.  We also started sorting out our race food and putting it in zip lock bags.  (I highly recommend a concoction of white chocolate covered pretzels, M&Ms, gummi bears, and chocolate covered bananas).  We also had bagels, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, about six jugs of PowerAde, and at least twenty different flavors and types of energy bars and gels.  Looking at the mess on the floor, we realized we had brought way too much grub.

After registering for the race, signing all the necessary waivers and releases, and getting our team photo taken (one of the race organizers told us, half-kiddingly, that theyíd need the photo to identify our bodies if we got lost out on the course), we headed to dinner.  Unfortunately, the mystery meat at the hotel buffet was not exactly the pasta carbo loading I had hoped to have.  After dinner, our support crew (made up of my wife and one of the original injured teammates) arrived, and we attended the mandatory pre-race briefing at 10 p.m.  Learning that we had to be at the race start location by 5:30 a.m. at the latest, we headed back to our rooms to get whatever sleep we could.

The next morning we nervously packed the car and headed to the start area.  Although the forecast had predicted rain, the weather appeared to be cooperating.  At 5:45 a.m., the 28 teams (a number of additional teams had registered but did not show up at the start) had to send a support crew member to the race officials to receive the instructions and maps.  At 6:00 a.m., our support person came sprinting back to us with the race packet and the race was on.

In the weeks before the race, we had been stressing about the orienteering we would have to do.  None of us had much experience in using a compass and navigating on a map.  Furthermore, none of us had ever plotted UTMs (Universal Transverse Mercators) before.  Now, we had to mark those points on the map and find our way to them.  Sabrina and I plotted the UTMs as quickly as we could, while Kathy and our support crew got our bikes and gear ready for the biking leg.  After about half an hour, we strapped on our head lamps and headed out on the course.

The first leg was on paved roads and fire roads up a mountain.  We reached the top and Check Point (CP) 1 at 7:13 a.m., and were excited to learned we were in the top 10.  Unfortunately, immediately after we left CP1, I banged my back wheel on a rock and my back tire went flat.  We quickly changed the tube, pumped it up, and were on our way again.  About three quarters of the way back down the mountain we found the path to CP2 (which we had noticed on the way up--a lot of teams never found this trail).  Incredibly, as we started down the trail, my back tire went flat again!!  However, this was the ìhike a bikeî section, where we had to carry or push our bikes along the trail, so we decided to wait and change the tube later.

After checking in at CP2, we found a clearing and starting working on the tire.  We were afraid that my rim had been damaged and that any tube we put in would pop.  Luckily, a passing team mentioned that I might have a thorn in my tire, and a quick inspection showed that that was the culprit.  After busting one of our spare tubes and running out of CO2 cartridges, we finally got my bike in working order and on our way again.  We all crossed our fingers that no one else got a flat, as we had used all three of our spares.

We soon reached CP3 and started down an overgrown fire road to CP4 when I crashed my bike after slipping on a wet log.  We were forced to break out the first aid kit and bandage my elbow, which was bleeding profusely (now a proud ìbattle woundî).  After patching me up, we pressed on, but ended up missing a turn and climbing most of the way up a mountain.  We soon realized our mistake and headed back down (passing another team that continued on up).  After getting back on track, we found CP4 and 5 and headed back to the start/transition area.  We quickly ate some food and changed clothes for the paddling and hiking sections.  Upon leaving the transition area, we were in 10th or 11th place.  After a short hike to the boat put-in area, we picked up our inflatable kayak/canoe.  After getting the boat down the steep shore and into the water we hopped in and started paddling--only to start going around in circles.  After about five minutes of bickering (we were all getting frustrated), Sabrina suggested we head to the shore and re-position ourselves.  I moved to the front of the boat and Sabrina moved to the back, and amazingly, we could paddle in a straight line.  We then started sloughing ahead at a slow pace, having been passed by three teams.  (Every time a team went past us, weíd have to remind ourselves we were only there to have fun.)

The paddle section was great--for about half an hour.  The scenery was absolutely amazing with the leaves changing colors.  But soon the tediousness of paddling up river while sitting in two inches of cold water dampened our spirits.  Thatís what you get in an overloaded self bailing inflatable kayak, I guess.  By the time we reached CP7, we were all cold, tired, and hungry, but still had half of the paddle left.  The second half proved even worse, as the wind picked up and blew directly in our face.  At times it was blowing so hard we had to paddle as hard as possible just to keep from going backwards.  Eventually, after a little over 3 hours, we reached CP8.  At the check point, I asked a race official how we were doing as far as the cut-off.  We knew that if we didnít reach certain CPs by certain cut-off times, we wouldnít be permitted to finish the full course, but we didnít know what those times or CPs were.  The official, however, assured me that we were fine and that we were in 15th place.

We were glad to be done with the paddling (definitely our weakest area), but anxious about the next test--a swim across the river.  As we plunged into the cold water, our bodies immediately tightened up and started shivering.  We slowly made our way across and through the foot deep silt until we reached the bank on the other side.  There we wrung out our socks and dried off and warmed up as much as possible.  We then started on the hiking section up along a stream.  At 1:45 p.m. we reached CP9 and were informed that we were ìluckyî because the cut-off at CP10, which apparently had been 1:30, had been pushed back to 2:00 p.m..  That gave us less than 15 minutes to get to the next checkpoint, and we had three different trails to choose from.  We picked one, decided we would try to run as much and as fast as possible and hope for the best.  Luckily we had chosen wisely and reached CP10 at 1:59, with less than a minute to spare before the cut-off.  Incredibly, we had covered the distance between CP9 and CP10 faster than any other team.  We were all excited as we realized that meant we would able to finish the full course.  (The rest of the teams were placed on a shorter course to the finish.)

As we hiked down the mountain on the way to CP11, we ran into another team, Team Over the Bars, heading back towards us.  They informed us that they had been looking for the trail to CP11 for an hour along with several other teams, but could not find it.  It so happened that we were standing next to a jeep track that seemed to head in the right direction, so we agreed to try that together.  Less than five minutes later, we had found CP11.  Realizing how lucky we were, we repeatedly thanked Team Over the Bars, and started the long, steep climb to the top of the mountain.  After reaching the top, we knew we had to find a trail along the ridgeline to CP12.  Unfortunately, we missed the trail (which was mostly overgrown and very hard to see) and started down the otherside of the mountain.  Realizing that we had probably done something wrong, we stopped to rest and wait for Team Over the Bars.  They soon came down the same path, which made the matter worse because we doubted that all of us would miss the right trail.  After some further exploring down the mountain, we decided we were on the wrong track and started the long climb back up.  Of course once we reached the top, we immediately found the right path.

The three of us were all still in good spirits and felt pretty good.  By the time we reached CP12, we had been racing for 9 hours and 45 minutes.  However, we had been very disciplined about eating and drinking on a regular basis.  We all picked up the pace as we followed the ridgeline for several miles to CP13 and CP14.  When we reached CP14, there was a gear check, where race officials made sure we were still carrying several pieces of our mandatory gear.  After passing the check, we headed down the trail and made the final turn towards Fontana Village and the finish line.

We ended up reaching the Village roads at the exact same time as Team Over the Bars.  We collectively decided to run to the finish line and end in a tie.  As we jogged up to the softball field, our support crew met us and took some pictures.  We reached the finish banner at 5:15 p.m., exactly 11 hours and 15 minutes after we had started.  Not bad for a bunch of novices.  At the awards dinner later that night, we learned that we had finished in 10th place overall, and that only 13 of the 28 teams had been able to finish the full course.  Although I feel badly for those teams that did not finish the course, the fact that less than half the teams finished made me even prouder of our accomplishments.  We even won some prizes--I got a nice pair of trekking poles--and were greeted with a chorus of ìDíOhs!î when our team was announced.  Overall, we had a great time.  The race course was just what I had been expecting--tough but fair.  We had discovered that despite our worries and lack of experience, we were actually pretty good at navigating.  Most importantly, we had met our goals--we had fun and we finished the race.

Overall, the race organizers, Norm Greenberg and Tracyn Thayer, did an excellent job, and the race went smoothly from start to finish.  (Somehow they even stopped it from raining.)  It was also great getting to meet Norm and Tracyn, who are two of the best adventure racers in the world, having just finished in 9th place (out of 50 teams) in the Discovery Channel World Championship Adventure Race.  They were both extremely friendly and helpful, and thanks to them for a great race.  Weíll definitely be back next year.