| Team 50-Somethings Wins Coed Division at AWAR 2003 - 10/25/03
By Zach and Cathy Doppel
We had been looking for a new, faster team member. Having Bill
join us turned out to be a good choice, since we had our best
ever finish
in this race; third overall and first ever premier division win,
first coed team. The race was in the Altamaha River Wildlife
Management Area
near Hazlehurst, GA. Yes, we were in the swamps.
It was a great day for a race. The weather was perfect. The race
started at first light with an eight mile trail run with the first
mile through
a swamp. Before the run ended we had crossed several creeks without
getting wet. At the last creek we had to plunge through up to our
knees, much higher on Cathy. Sooner or later the shoes will get wet.
Then
we stopped long enough to pick a little cotton for Jenn’s fifth
grade class. By the end of the hour and a half run we were in eighth
place.
We have always been fast in the transitions and this race was no
exception. We did stop long enough for a picture before we started
the paddling
section. The paddling was down the Altamaha River in small four
person rafts. The paddle section on the river was 17 miles
on the map start
to finish. The paddling was something to just get through as fast
as possible, since the raft was not going to be comfortable. Zach
made
the four hour raft entertaining by changing positions ever minute
trying to get comfortable. By the time we were half way through
Bill was wondering
what he got himself into by teaming up with us. Fortunately, we
were not in the raft the entire time. There was a two mile
trail portage
and eight other opportunities to get out of the raft and portage
across sand bars. All-in-all we were able to portage four to five
miles cutting
off seven or eight miles on the water. By the time of the last
portage the raft was getting very heavy, but fortunately all
we had to do
at that point was cross the river to the transition. By the time
we finished
the rafting we had dropped to 17th place.
The next section was 11 miles of orienteering with 17 checkpoints.
We planned on about five hours of travel time during this leg.
Most of the checkpoints were not difficult to find. It was more
important
to strategize the sequence of travel to optimize time and distance.
One of the best parts of the orienteering was when a truck with
race volunteers came by passing out Red Bull and Gatorade to racers.
We
skipped three checkpoints because we felt the time penalty would
be less costly than the time it would take us to find them. As
it turned
out it was a good strategy, because we moved from 17th to the top
five in the standings in the five hours we were orienteering and
unknown
to us at the time, we would not have finished the bike section
because of a time cutoff.
When we hit the final transition we were told that we had to complete
the bike by 8pm or be disqualified. It was a quarter till six and
we flew through the transition to start the bike. We had to ride
the 20
miles of trails and find the three checkpoints within two hours.
We pushed as hard as possible to the farthest checkpoint arriving
in 25
minutes. Then Bill found a short cut on the map to check point
two but we had to travel through some heavy duty swamp and cross
a pretty
big black water creek to get there. When we reached the swamp area
Cathy’ was reluctant to cross but being the trooper she is, she
did. We soon ran into team NADS and we traded directions to checkpoints
with them. After finding the second checkpoint we started heading back
and ran into another team that said the next checkpoint was not far
away. Once we found that checkpoint we had 35 minutes to get back.
We made it in 20 minutes. We probably had the fastest bike section
of the race and were one of only five teams to complete it.
The race was great! The race directors Charlie and Gary did a super
job! The volunteers were the best! Third place overall with a first
in the coed division
topped it all off.
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