[LabRat]

Team GLR had a great time at Odyssey's Wild, Wonderful 24 hr AR this weekend. I couldn't think of a better way to spend the weekend than in West Virginia's water and forests. This race was just Jim Kelleher and myself: two person single-gender category.

This was our first Odyssey race and Ronnie and crew did as professional and organized a job as their reputation said they would. The volunteers were great and very organized, the staff was helpful and fun. What more could you want. And the course...well...

We started with a white water raft race down the New river. Our guide was Eddie and he was very competitive - the boy wanted to win. We worked pretty good as a team on our randomly assigned boat with six other racers. The best part of the paddle was hitting the class V rapids dead-on and seeing the front of the raft almost vertical then falling down and paddling like crazy to keep it bottom-side-down. fun, fun, fun. We battled another team in our wave of 5 boats, caught the first wave of boats, and ultimately got passed by that boat with 7 people in it. Our time was 1:15 in that portion, a quick 6 minute TA got us moving again. I did some quick math and i think we came in 3rd fastest behind the two boats with only 7 people (thus they were lighter = faster).

Then the race started for real. We had been surprised to find out that we had to stage our bikes and packs (!) the night before the start. That was a twist that we had not expected and we scrambled to pack everything but the clothes we'd wear on the water. No food, no water, no map, no compass, nothing. I felt naked.

There was a long trek to the bikes, up from the river, back down to the river, across the bridge below the New River Gorge Bridge, back up the wall. We initially went into the wrong trail head from the road - follow the leader mostly. We immediately turned around and went the next 50 feet to the correct trail and popped out in a neighborhood in Fayetteville. Only a short time on the road to the park and where the bikes had been carefully arranged on the grass, grouped by team number. Nice touch, it was just one of the nice things the volunteers/staff did for us all day.

Then we hit the single track, down Fayetteville Trail to Kaymoor Top trail head. Fayetteville trail had some fun switchbacks, short power climbs and racing downhill runs. Then down the (unmarked) road to Craig Branch road. We then got on Kaymoor Trail to Cunard (where we launched the boats from earlier that day). The trail from Cunard to Dunglen was pure, flat old railbed that we did a very fast, big ring cruise down. We made decent time to CP3 in 2:35. We had a 38 minute TA to eat and change gear then onto the trek orienteering section.

The trek started with a very steep, hard climb up into the Garden Ground Mountain area. We admit that the squiggly, cauliflower looking areas on the map didn't make sense to us at first. We guessed it was elevation but had never before encountered strip mining on a map. We found the OP A with Racer's for Christ and Calleva (solo female). It usually takes me a CP or two to get into rhythm on a course and this race was no exception. We initially overshot A (both elevation and distance), but i quickly righted myself and nailed it right out on the point like the map showed.

Then on to OP D, it was very similar to A but kinda hidden behind a rock. We decided to bushwhack to E at this point. This was just over a Kilometer on the map from point to point, as the bird flies. We trekked a good bit further than 1k. We never did find that trail on the map. We saw a waterfall. Yes, Ronnie there is water up there, it was cool.

We initially came out on the access road almost on top of the CP, but thought we were north of it. After a first unsuccessful attempt at the wrong stream, we backtracked and it all made sense. The flag at E wasn't too much of a problem, but i think my plot was off a bit. We got out and on to OP N then to the power lines.

We found OP L, then back on the road to M where the views were very cool over the New River Gorge. We took the road to the trail then up the NW side of the steep hill to G. We came off G down the even steeper SW side hill. Our initial plan was to go get H, but it was getting dark and we were worried about making the cut at CP6 by 7:00 am so we didn't go for it hoping our 7 OP's would be enough. We went quickly on road and then back down the 800 or so feet to the TA. We had been out there 7:16, 42 minutes later we were back on the bikes.

We were in our element and busted a move on the road, crossed the bridge and started climbing on the gravel McKendree road. There were portions of very fun downhill and long, boring up hill climbs. CP5 times are not posted yet, but i think we made good time, rested 5 or so then headed out. Oh, and the push up from hwy 41 to Tank Hollow was brutal at that time of night, after all else we'd been thru. In general all of Tank Hollow road just plain sucked. And i mean that in the nicest possible way.

We got to CP 6 around 6:05 am-ish (no split times up yet). We had gotten turned around and missed the turn for the shorter route up in Chestnut Knob area. We ended taking the trail to the west that gave us more strip mines instead of the direct route down CR 19-35. We think that added an hour to our time. And that is why we didn't go for another OP on the trek course (margin for error)!

The hike to CP7 was mostly uneventful except running into a team that swore the Narrow Gauge trail and bridge didn't exist. They were wrong. We hesitated a little during the transition to Manns Creek Gorge Trail, but stayed the course, got the CP and jogged much of the way to the finish. We got there at 8:10 am after 23:03 minutes of West Virginia fun. I did a little jump over the finish line but nobody was looking.

The unofficial results put us 3rd in our category (2 person single gender) and 10th overall. Not too shabby for a couple of old guys.
_________________
I'm not really lost...I'm just sightseeing.
jeff papenfus
Team GLR

[Karin]

Hell! Not too shabby at all!!

Congratulations to you guys!

[berylfarmer]

Great job Jeff. I was there too, with my teammates from Nashville. Not sure what Odyssey was thinking with the bike transport, may have ruined our race. My computer was missing and I had a bent spoke. Todd's drivetrain was screwed up, causing a broken chain. I think all in all 3 of us had flats, I had two. All that aside, we completed the race with 3 OPs. Glad we gave ourselves time to get to CP6, turns out we needed every minute there. Looks like about 30 teams DNF'd that race, so for the 20 or so of us that finished, kudos to us. Also, congrats to CPzero/inovate for clearing the course and winning. Peter raced Mix the week before too...what a stud.

[berylfarmer]

Oh. I forgot to mention...we were in the raft that passed you...thanks to my Dragon boat training, we called out all the strokes and took 1st place in the paddle...Jim is not impressed and thinks I should have looked at the bigger picture and not wore my team out at the front end of a 24 hour race...but, what does he know.

[jackforester]

[eischman]

[berylfarmer]

you know, my shifter stuck too...just thought it was due to riding in the rain so much lately. i have rapid rise, so I kept pressing with my index finger and pushing it back open to shift...my bike's headed to the shop this week.
Make sure you fill out that race review that Odyssey sent out and make a comment about bike shuttles being crappy.

[jollespm]

[eischman]

[quote="jollespm"]

[jollespm]

[jforest1]

[John F]

I dont know but to me that would stink as a nav man. To look at one thing and have the map say another is no fun.

[LabRat]

i wish i lived closer, i would offer to go collect the bags just to see the 8 CP's we didn't get to go to.
_________________
I'm not really lost...I'm just sightseeing.
jeff papenfus
Team GLR

[Jim K]

Well it was Wild and Wonderful for me! Jeff kept us on track and challenged my old arse!

[quote="berylfarmer"]
Oh. I forgot to mention...we were in the raft that passed you...thanks to my Dragon boat training, we called out all the strokes and took 1st place in the paddle [quote]

To funny we send our young stud "Phelps" on the run/swim and gave us a good jump at the start. Then that anoyaning cadence being called out from behind us!! Our Skipper Fast Eddie knew the water and the lines. Pretty wild how both of our boats hit some of that stuff head on side to side. You folks did real good and when you got by us for the last time we just couldn't get it back. A fun way to start the race. The pace really quickened when we had the first wave in our sights and the range was closin'.

The rest of the 24 was just to much fun and look forward to more Odysee races

I could go on and on. There was just to many good things that went on during the race for us

Jim K
_________________
"We do not stop playing because we grow old; We grow old because we stop playing"

[jeremy]

Odyssey traditionally designs o-courses that will really show who the top 3-4 teams are in any given race (or 1-2 teams in this race). This course was a pretty good example of that. I liked the o-course, it was challenging, but I think it was inappropriately difficult given the varied experience levels of the racers. If this was your first 24hr AR...wow that o-course knocked you in the teeth.


We got out on the o-course 4th (~2:30) and by 7:30 - 8pm we had 8 of the points... Once the sun set it was a whole different game out there. We ended up spending an hr looking for J, attacking it from the road to the south. Ultimately decided we really needed to hussle back. Picked up L and N, and tried trucking it in with 12 points. The "truck" in was quite a bit longer and harder than we thought it would be, ended up at CP 4 at 3am and left about 3:15. We just didn't have enough left in the tank to make it to 6 in time, pulled in there at 8:25am. I'm proud as hell we made it in 5 hrs. We had a 15min credit from the raft....so we missed it by 70 minutes. I'm banging my head against a wall for not bailing on j sooner. Dropped us from 3rd overall to 23rd overall.