Sat morning, December 6th, 4 am. Wake up time for the Bonk Hard Castlewood 8 hr Adventure Race. Ken, Jill, Marc and I all stayed together the night before the race, packed our packs together, and plotted the checkpoints that we had already received. When I took a peek outside at 4 am, I saw a very light dusting of snow covering the lawns, streets, and houses. Oh boy. I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say that thoughts of, "What in the H*%^ am I doing this race for?" didn’t pop into my head...... And stayed there for a while.
We headed to Castlewood at 5 am, and passports and additional maps were given out at 5:30 am. We staged our bikes near the Race HQ pavilion and were informed that we were all going to be bused to a remote unknown location. The buses arrived at 6 am and proceeded to take us on a drive out I-44. It seemed like the bus ride was 40 minutes long. I was halfway expecting to see a highway sign reading, " Rolla, 20 miles."Fortunately, we exited in Eureka, took some backroads and arrived at the race start area about 6:40. While many racers from STL may have had an idea where we were, our team had no clue where this bus trip just took us. We stood for the national anthem, and then Marc lined up to run out to two designated volunteers and brought back our clue sheets and UTM coordinates for additional plotting. Ken plotted the CP’s onto the map and off we went on a short trek to the first leg of the race, a paddling leg at 7 am with freezing temperatures.
We headed to Castlewood at 5 am, and passports and additional maps were given out at 5:30 am. We staged our bikes near the Race HQ pavilion and were informed that we were all going to be bused to a remote unknown location. The buses arrived at 6 am and proceeded to take us on a drive out I-44. It seemed like the bus ride was 40 minutes long. I was halfway expecting to see a highway sign reading, " Rolla, 20 miles."Fortunately, we exited in Eureka, took some backroads and arrived at the race start area about 6:40. While many racers from STL may have had an idea where we were, our team had no clue where this bus trip just took us. We stood for the national anthem, and then Marc lined up to run out to two designated volunteers and brought back our clue sheets and UTM coordinates for additional plotting. Ken plotted the CP’s onto the map and off we went on a short trek to the first leg of the race, a paddling leg at 7 am with freezing temperatures.
This paddling leg ended up being about 8-10 miles I believe. There was an orienteering course mixed in there too. We did it without any major problems.
Once we pulled over to the takeout, we had a mandatory gear check, and then transitioned to trek, hitting CP’s 6 through 13. We were doing well until we moved from CP 7 to CP 8. We had major problems finding CP 8, which turned out to be right inside a tunnel going under the RR tracks in a remote area of Castlewood State Park. I won’t go into all of the details of the "CP 8 fiasco," but it cost us time, A LOT of time. Once we finally found CP 8, we easily and quickly hit CP’s 9 through 13. But we were morally defused at that point. It was a defining and testing moment for our team to say the least. Frustrations were setting in, having teams that you were way ahead of begin passing you, etc. Every adventure racing team has dealt with moments like this, and it really tests the team factor to see what every individual is made up of, as well as testing the collective team unit itself. We responded by sucking it up and trekking faster and harder. We noticed some teams beginning to walk and were ‘hitting the wall,’ but we pressed on pretty hard and we all felt pretty strong still.
We arrived back at Race HQ, transitioned to the mountain bike and hit CP’s 14 through 29 pretty much without any problems. We then went out on a final trek to find as many CP’s as we could before the 5 pm race cut-off as there was substantial time penalties for being out past 5 pm. We took off and found seven CP’s, one of which was on a beautiful bluff overlooking the Meremac River at sunset, and it was awe inspiring. We made it back to the Finish line with a little time to spare.
Once it was all said and done, we finished 10th place in 4 person co-ed out of 21 teams. We were disappointed in not having a more respectable showing, feeling capable of finishing in the top 5 if we had raced to our capability, but we raced for 10 hard hours and learned a lot about ourselves and the team. Another race under our belt is always a good thing.
By Bryan Greaser
Next up: Bonk Hard Chill, February 2009
Once we pulled over to the takeout, we had a mandatory gear check, and then transitioned to trek, hitting CP’s 6 through 13. We were doing well until we moved from CP 7 to CP 8. We had major problems finding CP 8, which turned out to be right inside a tunnel going under the RR tracks in a remote area of Castlewood State Park. I won’t go into all of the details of the "CP 8 fiasco," but it cost us time, A LOT of time. Once we finally found CP 8, we easily and quickly hit CP’s 9 through 13. But we were morally defused at that point. It was a defining and testing moment for our team to say the least. Frustrations were setting in, having teams that you were way ahead of begin passing you, etc. Every adventure racing team has dealt with moments like this, and it really tests the team factor to see what every individual is made up of, as well as testing the collective team unit itself. We responded by sucking it up and trekking faster and harder. We noticed some teams beginning to walk and were ‘hitting the wall,’ but we pressed on pretty hard and we all felt pretty strong still.
We arrived back at Race HQ, transitioned to the mountain bike and hit CP’s 14 through 29 pretty much without any problems. We then went out on a final trek to find as many CP’s as we could before the 5 pm race cut-off as there was substantial time penalties for being out past 5 pm. We took off and found seven CP’s, one of which was on a beautiful bluff overlooking the Meremac River at sunset, and it was awe inspiring. We made it back to the Finish line with a little time to spare.
Once it was all said and done, we finished 10th place in 4 person co-ed out of 21 teams. We were disappointed in not having a more respectable showing, feeling capable of finishing in the top 5 if we had raced to our capability, but we raced for 10 hard hours and learned a lot about ourselves and the team. Another race under our belt is always a good thing.
By Bryan Greaser
Next up: Bonk Hard Chill, February 2009
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