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Life is an Adventure
Race
2002 USARA National Championships & 2003 NGAR
By Jim Farmer
In my last article I talked about my masochistic jump into the world
of twenty-four hour adventure racing. Well, I’m hooked. My
teammates from the Big South Fork Adventure Race had qualified for
the United States Adventure Racing Association (USARA) Adventure Race
National Championships and invited me along for the ride. Who
was I to say no. The race was held in mid-November in Sapphire,
North Carolina, and was put on by the Odyssey Adventure Racing crew. This
meant that it would be a high quality race but it also meant that it
was going to be tough, especially since the course was designed by
Don Mann himself, the masochist’s masochist. It was a
full day of mountain biking, trekking, navigation and rappelling
without
a flat section in sight.
Well, that’s not entirely true. There was a flat section
of the course: The fifteen-mile flat-water paddle. Unfortunately,
or maybe fortunately depending on how you look at it, we never touched
the water. The grueling bike leg had taken its toll and we missed
the paddle leg cutoff by fifteen minutes. That meant that we
would not finish ranked in the Pro Class but in the Adventure Class
instead. It was disappointing to not finish with the elite teams
but we were just happy to be there anyway. Also, after almost
twenty-four hours of racing we were not looking forward to sitting
in a canoe for six hours. Instead, we went to the Glenville Country
Store, right next to the marina, for the best-damned breakfast we ever
had. Sure, we still had about fifteen miles of biking left to
get to the finish, but boy those pancakes and hash browns hit the spot
after a cold night in the mountains. This is my adventure racing
tip of the month: Always bring money. A twenty-dollar bill
can patch a tire and buy you breakfast. Unfortunately, it can’t
do both at the same time.
Speaking of cold nights in the mountains, January 17th was the coldest
night in the Suches, Georgia area in three years. Hey, what a
perfect time to start the first annual North Georgia Adventure Race
(NGAR). The eighty-two teams that signed up for this madness
in the North Georgia mountains knew that they had to be prepared for
unfavorable conditions, but four inches of snow and ice and thermometers
dipping below zero were not on the agenda. But that’s what
wegot. Needless to say, the required gear list for this race
was quite lengthy and I was worried that my Camelbak TransAlp wouldn’t
be able to hold it all. It ended up that the size of the pack
was never a problem because I wore all of the required clothing plus
several more layers and was still cold. At one point in the race
I had five layers on my torso. My toes are still hurting, not
from frostbite, but from being crunched up in my biking shoes that
were not designed to fit my feet plus two layers of thick socks.
The gear check-in and pre-race meeting were held on Friday evening
at the Woody Gap High School in Suches. Getting in and out of
the parking lot and carrying our gear on the icy walkways were enough
of an adventure. As usual, very little detail of the race was
revealed during the meeting but several speakers lectured us on the
dangers of the elements, including a lengthy dissertation on the signs
and treatments for hypothermia. At that point we all knew that
this “race” had quickly turned into a “survival test”. Knowing
that the race started in the dark at five the next morning reaffirmed
this conclusion.
Promptly, at 5:00AM on Saturday we were given five 22”x27” quad
maps of the Suches area and a booklet full of UTM coordinates for the
seventeen checkpoints that made up the course. This first leg
was biking so I crawled into one of our support vehicles to do my job
as lead navigator while my teammates got the bikes ready. One
of our support people called out UTM coordinates while I sifted through
the maps trying to pinpoint their locations. Although I had a
1:24000 UTM grid with me I didn’t think to bring a straight edge. This
would have been very helpful given the fact that the only grid lines
on the map were various property and forest boundaries that only helped
to complicate the matter. It took nearly a half an hour to plot
out all of the checkpoints and double check them, never mind laying
out routes. I conferred with my teammates and we agreed that
I should lay out the entire course, complete with approximate distances
and visual cues before we ever left the start line. This would
allow us to start in the light rather than in the dark and would hopefully
provide us a few needed degrees of warmth. It was a smart decision,
and given the number of racers still sitting in the school parking
lot when we left, we were not the only ones playing it safe.
It was after seven when we finally mounted our bikes but it was still
bitterly cold. The first major test was making it up the hill
out of the parking lot that had turned into a solid sheet of ice. There
were a lot of people urinating on their bikes trying to loosen up frozen
derailleurs and cables. Riding through the snow and ice made
it slow going for the teams at the back of the pack as well as for
the front-runners. The race officials expected the elite teams
to hit the bike-to-paddle transition area (TA1) around noon. When
we hit Checkpoint 2 (CP2) at one in the afternoon we were told that
team Adventurers Anonymous, in first place, was nowhere near TA1. We
were also informed that Lake Blue Ridge was frozen over and the paddling
leg was being cancelled. As with the USARA Nationals I was not
overly upset with skipping the paddling leg. At least this time
it wasn’t because we missed a cutoff time. I hate being
late.
Unfortunately, our team never made it to TA1 and never got to tackle
the trekking section of the race. We, along with six other teams,
were huddled by a fire we hastily threw together at CP3 when we radioed
in to race HQ that we were calling it a day. A bonking teammate
and the rapidly descending sun made it an easy decision to make. Unfortunately,
we were twenty-something miles from anywhere and had to wait a few
hours for our support crews to reach us. Although I was very
disappointed in our result, I have to admit that I had a darn good
time thawing out around the fire sharing food and stories with a dozen
or so adventure racers from all over the country. It’s amazing
to see the variety of comfort foods adventure racers bring with them
to make it through the day. We had everything from Gummi Worms
to Tootsie Rolls being passed around the campfire.
We were not alone in our failed quest to complete the course. Only
eight of the seventy-nine teams that started the race finished before
the official cutoff time of 11:00AM on Sunday. If they had included
the paddling section, I don’t think anybody but Adventurers Anonymous,
the eventual winners, would have finished on time. Winter racing
is definitely in a class by itself. Although we didn’t make
it very far, the experience was invaluable. Even the slightest
details become major chores when you’re racing in those conditions. I
probably would not do it again right now, but I’m sure I’ll
be chomping at the bit come next January.
Congratulations to Team Haas Binns from Chattanooga for finishing
in sixth place overall at NGAR. Team Haas Binns consisted of Star
Affolter, Andy Meyers and Steve Underwood. Also, a big round
of applause for Chattanooga’s own Brenda and Lee Simril of Team
Litespeed for finishing first in the USARA 24-hour National Championships. That
means that we have national champions in our own backyard folks. This
area is chock full of great athletes and is a perfect place to train
for adventure racing. Keep up the good work.
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