This is the first race report I have written, and I
have never excelled in English so bear with me on this one. Reading
time = a lot. Plan accordingly as you will not be able to leave your
seat once you start this. :)
We left Kansas City around 4:30 for the Sooner state. The trip down
took us a little more than 5 hours (this becomes important later), including
a trip by Wal-Mart to pick up some life jackets. The trip was fairly
uneventful, at least for me, because I slept through most of Missouri
and Okalahoma. Apparently we went past/under the world's largest McDonald's.
That's what I was told anyway.
With some great navigation moves, we made it to Greenleaf State Park
right around 10:00 in the p.m., just in time to register. We registered
our teams (we were racing as a 2-man team and a 3-man team since we
had 5 people that wanted to race). After registration, we set up our
home base and unloaded the canoes in it, and took off for our cabin
we had rented about 20 minutes away. If you read Daron Bennett's RR,
you'll know that it was raining pretty good on Friday night. It was
really nice to be able to go to a cabin and stay dry, and sleep on a
bed...and have some running water and get a bite to eat. We did some
prep for the race and talked a little strategy, and got to sleep around
1:30 or so.
The alarm went off a little before 5
,
we got our stuff ready and headed out for the park. Everything went
very smooth that morning and for once none of us felt rushed. We had
the pre-race meeting and found out that the order of the race would
be trail run, canoe/kayak, mt. bike and finish it off with the orienteering
section. After the race, we had about 5 minutes to get our stuff ready
before the start of the race. We decided to not take our packs on the
run (because it was only a few miles), and put them in the canoe for
the next section of the race. Not sure who's idea this was, but they
deserve a case of beer and a ho-ho for this, because this turned out
to be about the best move we made in the race.
So five minutes past and the race started from the main location in
the park. The run started out with a hill (why do they always do that?).
Anyway, according to Daron's race report this was a "nice little
hill." According to my race report this was Mt. Rainier. The run
was pretty uneventful, and we finished somewhere around 15th place.
While Mat Maynor and Deron Graham were getting our passports checked,
we found out we either had to run one of our bikes up a hill, or jump
in the water and swim to a canoe and get a token in order to get our
next coordinates for the canoe leg. Well, we decided to swim to the
canoe and get the token. This was both a good and bad idea. Aaron Luffman
and I stripped off our shoes, socks and outer shell and jumped in the
water while everyone else was getting the canoes ready for take off.
HOLY CRAP!! It wasn't just cold, it was freezing!! Aaron and I were
both pretty pissed that someone would even think of this little event
in the type of weather we were in! (Aaron Luffman, Mat Maynor and Brandi
Resa all did the North Georgia race and Aaron and Mat got a bad case
of frostbite in January.) So I was worried that either Aaron or myself
would possibly come down with some frostbite. Fortunately, we were both
fine. After getting our token and getting back out of the water, Aaron
asked the guy standing there, "Did you think of this, because if
you did I'm going to throw you in the water!" I got a pretty good
laugh out of that while we were putting our clothes back on and plotting
our next checkpoints.
Since we didn't have to worry about getting our packs ready (since we
put them in the canoes before the race started), we were able to launch
in first place for the canoe section. As were were taking off, I think
all of us were amazed that we were not only leading the race, but we
had a pretty demanding lead! We paddled to the first checkpoint, and
we lost a little ground on everyone else once we hit it. We had to portage
our canoes over the dam to the other side of the lake. We didn't realize
we had to do that until Deron Graham and I ran over the dam and checked
our passports. By the time we actually portaged our canoes, there were
teams right on our back. That's when we kicked into high gear. We paddled
our arses off for a good couple of hours and ended the canoe section
still in the lead.
Out of the canoes and to our home base for our transition. Good job
to Mat Maynor and Aaron Luffman for quickly and accurately plotting
our next checkpoints while eating food and changing socks. We had a
pretty good transition and headed off on the bike. Again, first thing
we did was went up Mt. Rainier. And again, it sucked. The bike section
was really sloppy. I was cranking pretty hard at certain points and
found myself going about 5-7 mph. We made it about a mile or so on the
bike in the lead. After a mile or two into the mt. bike, one of the
members on our team wasn't feeling well. We were passed by a few teams
by the time we hit the second checkpoint on the bike. Aaron decided
that to hit the next checkpoint, we should do some bushwhackin' instead
of riding the trails. We bushwhacked for a while, and found the checkpoint
with relative ease. This turned out to be an excellent navigational
move as all the other teams that took the trail couldn't find the trail
that went back to the checkpoint. Mat got a flat tire on the way out
of this trail, and we were able to quickly change it and I believe we
only lost a couple of minutes because of this. Now, we were off to the
obstacle course.
We finally made it to the obstacle course and quickly hopped off our
bikes and changed into some dry socks and running shoes. The first event
was called the 'Confidence Climb.' Or, if you were in the Marines it
was called the 'Stairway to Heaven'. This was about a 3 story climb
up and over logs. It was pretty windy so once you got to the top of
this sucker it was swaying pretty good. Anyway, Aaron, a.k.a. the Monkey,
was up and over this thing in a matter of a second. It took the rest
of us a little longer but we did make it over. Next obstacle was a high-step
over some logs, which was pretty easy. We had to do a couple of other
things like jump over an inverted 7-8 foot wooden wall, do the over
and under of logs in which you couldn't touch the ground (which was
actually pretty difficult), scale a 15 foot wall with a rope along with
a few other things. For the most part we did pretty good and maybe only
lost 2 places on the OC. After the course, we hopped back on the saddle
and headed back to the TA.
Once we got back to the TA
,
we had another great transition into the trek because of Mat and Aaron's
ability to quickly plot our next couple of checkpoints. (We were to
get the next coordinates at checkpoint 12, which was only 2 checkpoints
away.) So we grabbed our headlamps, filled up our water, grabbed a quick
bite to eat, changed socks and shirts and headed off! We went into the
bike in first, and came off the bike around 15th place, so we had a
pretty bad bike leg of the race and we all knew we had to make up some
ground on the trek. So we took off running. We ran a short trail to
the first checkpoint, and one of our teammates still wasn't feeling
very well, so I decided to take their pack thinking we could move a
little quicker, which I think we did. Once we made it to the next checkpoint
we got our coordinates for the rest of the trek. Aaron, Deron and Mat
were able to quickly plot these coordinates. I noticed that we had caught
a couple of other teams in the process and ended up passing them. Our
next checkpoint, #13, was pretty tricky. It was all the way up and under
a cliff. We spent quite a bit of time looking for this checkpoint, but
I'm pretty sure we passed a few other teams as they were having a very
hard time finding it. After this, we trekked up a pretty good climb,
and once we got to the summit we took a couple of minutes to drink some
water, grab a bite to eat and figure out where we were headed. We bushwhacked
for a while until we found the road we were looking for and took off
running. Serious kudos to the person on our team that wasn't feeling
well for running with us and doing a great job of keeping up even though
they were feeling really bad! We ran for a while and we saw a bunch
of other teams running down this huge hill on the main trail. Here,
Aaron thought we were supposed to bushwhack to the east until we ran
into a trail. We ran back into the woods and we stopped and discussed
it for a few minutes. We decided (except Aaron) that we should continue
on the main trail until we see the trail that we were looking for meet
up with it. We went back out to the main trail and saw a team running
back towards us. That's when we realized that Aaron was right all along,
and we took off through the woods. We bushwhacked a ways and found the
trail that led us straight to the checkpoint. Great job to Aaron for
putting us on the right track. At the checkpoint, while we were trying
to figure out the best way to bushwhack to the next CP, one guy was
down at the checkpoint yelling to his team, "IT'S DOWN HERE! HEY,
IT'S DOWN HERE!" Everyone on Gravity Matters were not very happy
(translation: pissed) that this guy was announcing to the whole world
that the checkpoint was right there. So, the next time you're at a checkpoint
and you're team isn't with you please don't yell as loud as you can
to your team!! Anyway, onward we go. We bushwhacked to our next checkpoint,
and about half-way there we came over a hill. At the bottom of this
hill we saw a beautiful stream going down this valley surrounded by
huge rocks! It was a wonderful piece of scenery. It was Lord of the
Rings-esque. Absolutely beautiful. This one piece of scenery made the
whole race worth it to me, and I couldn't stop singing the Lord of the
Rings theme song. I was walking over these big boulders down the stream
singing this tune, and I looked up and everyone on my team was way up
on this hill about 200 or more feet away from me. I thought to myself,
"Get yourself together Jason and stop singing Lord of the Rings
and get your head back in the race." So I hauled butt up the hill
to catch up to the team just to go back down the hill a few minutes
later. We found the next checkpoint very easily thanks to Aaron's great
navigation and headed off. At this point in time, I was playing the
role of point man, and I asked Aaron which way we were headed. He pointed
to the top of the biggest hill in site and said, "That way."
Great. Off we went. We pounded our way up the hill and hit the checkpoint
right on. Our next checkpoint was back in a cove at the Greenleaf lake.
We bushwhacked the whole way, and everyone was starting to really wear
down at this point except Brandi, a.k.a. The Machine. She was pushing
all of us along at a pretty good pace. I know we passed a couple of
teams on the way to the next checkpoint, because we were coming down
a hill and we saw two teams race past us (that we know were ahead of
us) on one of the trails. Once we got to the checkpoint (which was manned)
they said no one has been there for about 20 minutes or so. We all knew
that we were pretty close once we got back to the lake in which we canoed
in earlier in the race. We hit our last checkpoint without much of a
problem, and started to head back towards the finish line.
Guess I should start a new paragraph. Seems like a good time to do it.
On the way back to the finish, it took everything we had to run at this
point. Again, with the exception of Brandi, a.k.a. IronWoman. Brandi
pushed us, and once we hit the point where checkpoint 12 was (the swinging
bridge) we saw a team coming down the hill towards us, about 200 feet
behind us. We asked the guy at the swinging bridge how many people have
been through here (headed back) and he said 6 other teams. We couldn't
believe it! We couldn't believe that we actually made up 9 spots on
the navigation! Again, such a great job by everyone, especially Aaron,
for hitting most of our CP's right on! The guy said that one team was
only a few minutes ahead of us. This gave us renewed energy, and we
all took off at the highest speed we could muster at the time. Deron
didn't quite understand why we were in such a hurry after 11 + hours
of racing. He thought the guy at the swinging bridge said we were in
sixteenth place, not six teams had been through! Once we cleared that
minor misunderstanding he was ready to kick it also! We ran the majority
of the way back, trying to catch the team in front of us. The extra
pack was really taking a toll on me, and I was doing everything I could
just to keep up with everyone else while we were running. Once we got
out of the trails and on to the last stretch of highway, we saw some
headlamps bouncing up and down on the trail that ran to the finish line.
We made one final push to catch them, but realized it was no use. We
continued to look back and see if that team that was only a couple hundred
feet behind us was making any ground, but they couldn't match our ferocious
finish. ;-) We kept up a good pace until we got off the final trail
into the actual park where the TA was. We jogged the rest of the way
and Gravity Matters and Gravity Matters Too crossed the finish line
at exactly the same time, 11 hours, 10 minutes and 39 seconds after
the start of the race, in a tie for 6th place overall. Gravity Matters
finished first in the 3 person co-ed division, and Gravity Matters Too
finished 4th (I think) overall in the 2 person division, although we
started and finished the race as a 5 person team.
I would personally like to say great job to everyone on our team! This
was Deron Graham's first race, and he did an excellent job! Just like
we expected he would. Great job to Aaron for all the wonderful navigation.
Brandi, a.k.a. The Freak, for pushing all of us at the end of the race
and Mat for pushing it the entire way as well! At least we can all say
we've led a race for a couple of hours.
Overall, this race was much harder than I thought it would be. Also,
much more fun than I thought it would be. I would give it a strong 3-4
stars. After the race we all slammed down about 14 Mountain Dew's and
ate about 4 lbs. of spaghetti that they had in the park cabin. We hung
around for a good 2 - 2 1/2 hours after we finished, and there were
about 15 teams that still hadn't come in...and it was close to 10 p.m.
We decided we should head back to our cabin and drink some frosty, ice
cold booze. Thanks a bunch to Daron Bennett for giving us a 6-pack of
beer! We really appreciated it, especially Brandi, a.k.a The Boozehound.
We did have to stop and get some more though. :) To all the guys on
my team, I won't say anything about how Brandi drank more beer than
all of us combined. I promise I'll keep that a secret! :)
We woke up pretty early (thanks to Mat:) and got on the road because
snow was supposed to start coming down soon, and coming down hard! Well,
that's exactly what happened! I think it took us about 12 hours to get
back to Kansas City compared to the 5 or so hours to get down there!
It was a mess. I bet we saw more than 50 cars that were either wrecked
or in the ditch. Us being one of them. Yeah, I happened to side swipe
a steel exit sign beam (sorry again Brandi). Everyone was alright, but
the adventure definitely didn't end at the finish line of the race.
Congrats to Daron Bennett's team for coming in 2nd (very well deserved!),
and all the other teams that did this race and finished as it was definitely
more difficult than we thought it would be! You better believe that
we'll be training hard for the Ozark Challenge, and hopefully we'll
see everyone there! Thanks for reading my race report. I better get
back to work now. :) The End.
Happy Training,
Jason Elsenraat
Gravity Matters
