I arrived in Van Buren about 5:30 on Friday and met my teammates for the first time ever near Race HQ. I was never concerned about racing with people I don't know, and after meeting them, I was even less concerned. I knew everyone was cool, prepared and easy to get along with. We signed in and then took our bikes to the trailer for the race management to haul to an undisclosed location. We continued getting some gear together, then went over and ate at the pasta dinner, then off to the pre-race meeting to find out exactly what this thing was all about.
The pre-race meeting was at the Landing which is right beside the Current River and almost under the Hwy 60 bridge. Here's a shot of the pre-race meeting:
Very cool place. It was outside and weather cooperated. Jason began explaining things, and most importantly finally disclosed that the 36 hr race would start at 11 pm Friday night, just hours away. He then said that we would board buses beginning at 9:30 and the bus ride was an hour away. So it was getting to be 8 pm. How would we have time to drive back to Race HQ, pack our gear, and plot so many CP's before 9:30? Well, that question was answered when he then revealed that the entire course was pre-plotted and every CP was already on the maps! Wow, that was a first. It took the UTM plotting completely out of the mix, so there was no chance of anyone mis-plotting and searching in the wrong area for mis-plotted CP's. We also learned that we would have some disposable sacks to stash a food cache and anything else we might need later on in the race. These would be encountered much later in the race and provided the much needed opportunity to refuel.
So we stuff our packs to the gills, including our breakdown paddles, and we boarded what had to be one of the smelliest buses I have ever been on. We turned on the headlamps and looked over the course maps and highlighted our agreed upon route choices. This worked out very smoothly between me, Mike and Bill, and we discussed different routes from each CP to CP, pros and cons of each, and then by committee came up with our agreed upon route. They all turned out to be pretty much 'spot-on' for this initial nighttime 17 mile trek.
So we arrive at riverside and get dropped off, warned about wild horses on the trails, and off we went into the dark of night. It was really foggy at times too, expecially with the scattered hue from our headlamps.
We had no significant problems at all finding these CP's. There were several times we had to cross knee to thigh high deep creeks, but nothing any deeper than that. We had very minor problems finding two particular CP's. We wandered for a bit looking for CP 7, then we decided to go up to the peak (a known point) and shoot a bearing to the CP. We headed off in a southwesterly fashion and began dropping down the hillside and sure enough, we hit it. It was there that we encountered the Iowa Wolfpack and kept running into them for many, many hours to come. We also refilled our hydration packs several times with Mike's water purifier which did a bomber job. The creeks were clean and water tasted just fine. It was super nice to never have to worry about conserving water, we had so much clean water around us at all times.
Night trekking:
The good thing about the terrain is that there were almost always jeep trails running along the ridge tops which didn't show up on the map, but nonetheless were there. Sometime about 3-4 am we came to a clearing and we all marveled at the clear sky and the stars. While I don't by any means live in a metropolitan area, it is big enough to have city lights which inhibit such killer views of the dark night skies. It was truly phenomenal. I think it was also about that time that we discussed hallucinations and sleep deprivation, and somehow this resulted in us singing the song to the Muppet Show under a canopy of stars. But I digress......
We made our way towards CP8, crossed a creek and found the correct hollow and began following it, waiting for it to turn westerly, then began looking for the second reentrant on the left which should have CP8 ready to welcome us. We finally came to the second one, but the downfall was very thick, so the movement was very slow. Mike started scrambling up the reentrant in the lead and finally shouted out that he had found it. We were thinking that it shouldn't have been up the reentrant that far off of the creek, but we found it and continued climbing out of the hollow and back to ridgetops to head to CP9. As the sun began to come up, Karin's knee was really beginning to bother her greatly, especially from the brutal terrain. We did what we could, but ultimately, when we came to CP11 and prepared to transition to the canoe leg, she made the tough decision to pull out. I knew she was in pain, and selfishly I would have loved to see her continue onward with us, but when a knee begins hurting that badly, no good can come from pushing onward, especially with what still lied ahead of us. She could have done some serious damage to it had she continued. Due to having lost a teammate, we were now considered an "unranked" team so we were only racing for pride from here on. So we bid her farewell and we took off in canoes for the 25 mile canoe trip. Mike made like Rambo and said he would prefer to paddle a canoe solo rather than three of us in one canoe, and that was a solid decision. He managed his canoe very well down river. If Bill and I pulled ahead a little bit, I used the opportunity to get some 'shut-eye' and practically fell asleep in the canoe for a brief few minutes. Here's a shot of what the river treated us to all morning and early afternoon on Saturday:
Once we pulled into the riverside TA, we finally arrived at our first re-fueling station. We chugged Monster energy drinks, scooped our fingers into a jar of peanut butter, and pretty much ate and drank to fill the ole tank as much as we could, then threw some of the food into our packs and took off onto what would be another trekking section, this one about 12 miles. Once the three of us took off, a pretty chubby rain began to fall but it cleared out after about 15-20 minutes. We made a small navigational error here but we realized it fairly quickly and righted ourselves just fine and it was of no real consequence.
We hit CP13 & CP14 nearly perfectly, passing GoLite and DFW Hounds, then came to the infamous CP15. From CP14 we followed the reentrant down to a creek/hollow, and followed that creekbed into Sugarcamp Hollow which brought us to a crossing with the Ozark Trail, and then came to the base of the looming Barnett Mountain straight ahead of us. With no obvious trails up and around it, we just went UP, and kept going UP, through a large boulder strewn course. We started at 600 feet elevation, and ultimately the peak was nearly 1100 feet. It was a very strenous 500 feet of elevation gain. Towards the summit, the downfall was utterly insane. I don't know if this was due to higher winds up there, lightning strikes, or the recent devastating ice storms that the region sustained, but the peak of Barnett Mountain was awful. It was the only time all day that I saw a snake too, and I nearly stepped on it. And there were many false summits as well. Yes, I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't been there, but it seemed so many times it was about to plateau and peak out, but just kept going on and on. Finally the three of us came to the CP, took in a super awesome view from the top, shot a bearing and took off down a spur to where we would descend the mountain and intersect with the Ozark Trail. The descent was not any easier than the ascent with navigating through the downfall and bushwacking. And to top it all off, the gnats that were swarming us at the top of Barnett Mountain were awful too. They tapered off as we came down the side of the mountain though.
Finally we came to the bottom and intersected with the Ozark Trail. From here at least we were on a trail finally and no more bushwacking, and we were to follow this to CP16 & CP17/TA where the bikes were waiting.
This hike on the Ozark Trail was a big relief but took longer than we had expected. There were several little shut-ins type areas with small waterfalls, etc. We agreed that Rocky Falls (our destination) would have to be pretty impressive to be better than these spots. It was...
We finally came to Rocky Falls probably about 6:45pm or so. It was still daylight. The CP was in a spot that you really had to scramble up alot of rocks to get up to it but the falls were spectacular. Once we punched the CP we followed the creek and came to CP 17 and the bike transition area where we would get additional maps with the bike course. Here's a shot from the TA with the race volunteer laying out our new maps while we pondered life....
When we hiked into the TA we could see that there were many, many bikes still there, which is always a comforting sign to know that there were still alot of teams behind you.
Many teams were transitioning in progress also. We began fueling again as this was a second food cache that we had with our bikes. Prior to coming into this TA we were all having foot issues with wet feet non-stop, and unfortunately Mike was suffering from some severe chafing in his nether regions from just trekking 30 brutal miles in cycling shorts with a chamois. That does have a tendency to rub you the wrong way if you get my drift. Despite applying generous amounts of Bodyglide on several occasions, he was in major pain. He tried to sit on his bike seat to test the waters, but the pain was too much. We were staring at a 65+ mile biking leg ahead of us all through the night, and he made the decision to pull out. I didn't doubt for a second his pain and discomfort, as I had just raced along side iwth him for nearly 24 hrs, and it was clear to me that he was a warrior and a very strong racer, never complaining about fatigue or soreness, etc. I knew that he still had energy and strength in his legs, but if you can't sit on a bikeseat, all the strength and energy in the world can't compensate for that. Bill and I changed into dry socks which felt soooo good as our feet were killing us with wet socks. When I took off my shoes I was prepared to see something out of horror movie, they felt that bad. I thought the soles had split open on me. There were deep fissures and swelling but nothing beyond that. We dried them and rubbed them back to life.
So Bill and I put on our bike gear, I looked over the new maps and highlighted our routes, and we took off into the dark of night with lights burning. We hit CP18 pretty easily, and then we were off to CP19. This was the very first time all day long that somehow, someway we could not get the right road to connect us from 18 to 19. We tried several different jeep trails/fire roads, but none of them were the right ones. We would ride one for a mile or so and it would be a screamin' downhill, only to come to a deadend and have to spin back up and climb back out of there. I knew we couldn't keep doing this or our legs would be zapped.
A straw that broke the camel's back was when I went through a large puddle in the road that turned out to be deeper than I thought, and the mud stopped me in my tracks. I had to put my foot down and the water went up to my ankle. So much for the dry socks and shoes now. I was back to having feet issues again.
After never finding exactly which trail connected to CP19, I suggested to Bill that if we continued to wander, and even eventually came to CP19, we had so much left to do, and if we pulled the plug later on we would be that much further from that last TA where there were volunteers and potential to get a car ride back to Race HQ. Since we were only about 8 miles from that last TA where we took off on the bikes, we made the call to turn back and return to CP17 and hope to get a ride back to my van. It also made a difference, at least mentally, that we had dropped two teammates at this point, and I believe that we would have been more likely to push onward had we still had a full team. Nonetheless, Bill and I pulled the plug after having raced about 24 hrs. I have no regrets. Even though we were an incomplete team at that point, we made it much further than alot of other teams who had pulled into CP17 and decided not to go out on the bike leg at all. They all got DNF's but will still rank ahead of us since they never dropped a teammate, even though Bill and I in reality went farther and longer than many of them did. But that's the way the game is played, and rules are rules.
Parting thoughts: This was a remarkable race and I had a great, great time racing with Karin, Mike and Bill. Ultimately the dropout and DNF rate was extremely high, evidencing the brutality of the course. In fact, all three Colorado teams that came in for this race didn't finish either! That should say something! Morale was high throughout the race generally (with a few lows but nothing that spoiled the race by any means). Morale certainly hit a low point on Barnett Mountain. I suspect that teams who summited that at night were demoralized beyond comprehension. That would not have been pleasant.
I never had a single cramp, never bonked, and overall felt very strong throughout. My legs felt super strong when I mounted our bikes Saturday night. My feet hurt alot from the long treks but that was the extent of any pain that I had. I really feel like I have had some good races this fall that are preparing me for some good racing next year. And I am very fortunate to have had the Mid-Rivers gang invite me along to race with them since my normal beloved Cyclewerx comrades could not do it with me due to schedules.
What a great weekend, man, just great. All told we trekked 30 miles, paddled 25, and Bill and I covered 20 miles on the mountain bikes. And I came home to a beautiful loving wife and beautiful loving little daughters, and I was once again reminded that I am the luckiest guy in the world......
Post by Bryan Greaser
