2011 LBL Challenge

For the 2011 LBL Challenge I raced with Fredrik and Rachel Goransson and Gregg Pattison of team Bushwhacker.  They finished third place last year within thirty minutes of both the first and second place teams so it seemed like a fair bet that the pace would be pretty solid.

The majority of my body would argue that "pretty solid" was a bit of an understatement, but more on that in a bit.

Rachel (kinda) smiling before the start

Despite a little April Fools trickery on race director Jason Elsenraat's part, (He made a good attempt to pull off, "you're starting at midnight and here are your first 40 CP's' that you have to plot", but our team had already discussed the likelihood of something like this so we weren't too convinced.  That being said I think we still kinda believed him...) it was pretty standard pre-race prep.  We got the maps and the first 40 CP's and had them plotted before midnight for the 7am start.  All in all not too bad as we got at least a few hours sleep.

The race temps at the start were cool, but we could tell it was going to get warmer than most of us were used to in a while.  Especially Gregg, who still had 3-4 ft. snow drifts at his home back in Minnesota.  Nothing like your first warm race of the season being a 24 hour AR!

Hey Mike, come here!

The opening leg was a quick three point orienteering course.  A couple minutes before the start Fredrik came over to me, quietly handed me the map, gave me a shaky smile and said "here you go Mike".  Then he walked away.  I turned to Rachel, "Does this mean I'm navigating?"  She shrugged, "I guess so."

(Fredrik tends to get a bit of the jitters before races.  This was just a last minute manifestation of that nervousness and didn't bother me in the least.)

 So, I spent the next 90 seconds or so trying to "get in to" the map.

A split second after Fredrik handed me

the map, right before he turned and

walked away.

(It honestly wasn't as bad as I'm making it out, I'm just building up my weak defense for flubbing the first control of the race.)

As we lined up for the start we were informed 15 seconds before the gun that the only mandatory gear we needed would be our cell phone.  Unluckily for us it was buried in the bottom of Fredrik's pack.  Since he was the one that decided to put it there we made him carry it for the entire first section.  (Actually, he volunteered to do it and turned down any offers for assistance carrying the load.)

This photo captures me apparently aging

about 15-20 years as I try to sort out the

map.

Jason said go and we were on our way.  I'd like to say that I was spot on and nailed that first control but I didn't.  Overshot it by a good 90 meters.  Considering I ALWAYS screw up early in a race this wasn't too bad and hopefully I was done screwing up.  (Considering I was only responsible for three controls though I guess you could say I screwed up 1/3 of the controls I was responsible for?  Eh, I like 1 out of 49 better...)

The terrain was a little tricky but nothing crazy for the midwest.   We knocked out the remaining two controls and finished with a "spirited' jog back to the TA to transition to the bikes

You want to know how to set a really solid pace on the bike?

Follow up a brief section of pavement with some solid sweet trails and put your snow-bound single-track crazed Minnesotan who hasn't seen actual dirt in months at the front of the group.

Trust me, it's very effective.

I've never pushed quite that hard of a pace on single track in a race but it was a complete blast and the trail conditions were fantastic.  Unfortunately, I had never pushed quite that hard of a pace on single track in a race, and I ended up at near red line for the majority of the time.  Within a few miles I knew I was going to be paying for the effort.

One of the few instances I was in front 

of someone!

I'd like to put a lot of blame on the fact that I was the only one on the team with a fully hard tailed bike (and aluminum no less, not exactly known for it's "supple" trail feel), and I'm sure that was a small part of it, however the reality is that I was not going to be having a good race.

The nav was pretty straight forward through the single track, with a number of route choices.  Based on where we saw teams coming from and going to, I think most of those route choices were used.

The single track ended and we had a short shot to CP11 where the monster 18+ mile trekking section would start.  Although my legs felt a lot better on the road, AR is no place for ego and I quickly grabbed a tow off of Gregg, hoping to let the legs recover a bit prior to the trek.  The bike was short and fast though and in no time we were checking in, (and out, fast transition) at CP11 and hit the O course.

We spent more time on the o-course route on Friday night than anything else and I think it paid off.  Fredrik nailed the first couple, which got the confidence up quickly.  In addition to our solid planning, our freakish streak of having two maps for orienteering/trekking sections of races when the two of us race together was kind of extended thanks to some significant overlap of the two maps right where the O course was.  So, when I wasn't fighting off leg cramps, I could back up on the nav.

Unfortunately for me I spent a LOT of time fighting leg cramps.

Fredrik apparently trying to show us all a clip from his pack...

This was the beginning of 10 hours of an ongoing struggle between my brain and my muscles.  The quads were the major offendors but I also had some really sweet simultaneous cramps of my calves and anterior tibials ("shin muscles") at the same time.  Anyone who has ever had their quads and hamstrings cramp at the same time know how awesomely fantastic it is to have two opposing muscles freak out on you simultaneously.

By the time we got to the third or fourth control I knew I needed to get on tow, and quick.  As I crested the hill where everyone was waiting for me (a very persistent theme for this race) I made a bee line for Fredrik's pack and the tow hanging there while Rachel delicately asked if I might want a tow.  Between my quick actions and strong verbal response (possibly peppered with some light vulgarity) I think it was pretty obvious that I was not concerned with preserving my pride, my ego, my manliness, whatever.  AR is a team sport and I was ready to use my teammates.

The next 4+ hours we pushed the pace to what we felt we could handle, and had a near flawless navigational performance.  I can only think of one actual mis-step that cost us maybe 5-10 minutes.  Fredrik was on fire AND he was practically dragging me through the woods while doing it.  I was thanked multiple times by Gregg for "taking one for the team" and stepping up to slow Fredrik down.  I assured him that I was not only comfortable with such sacrifices, but felt truly obligated.

Despite the tough pace, Gregg was able to look calm and

relaxed and do a great underwear model pose...

To be honest, I did my best to seem as positive as possible but that was pretty much the lowest I've ever felt in a race.  It sucked.  Had I been by myself, I'm not sure what I would have done, but I'm pretty sure it would have started with sitting down.

I prayed for a little mercy as we finished the trek and came in to the TA at a walk.  Apparently the powers that be felt pity for me as Gregg had a flat that cost us a few extra minutes.  I did my best to hide my relief at the delay as I couldn't get my bike shoe on without the arch of my foot cramping.  I mean, I know there are muscles in the foot but they can cramp?  Really?  Yes.  REALLY.  And it's not in the least bit comfortable.

We eased our way out of the TA for all of 500 meters before hitting a solid hill climb.  JUST what I needed for my legs to recover.  Or, maybe not.  I did my best to use the muscles that hadn't cramped yet but I couldn't figure out how to pedal with my eyelids, so I just kind of pedaled with this freaky looking "cowboy in the saddle all day" pedal stroke.  Might not have been pretty, but it worked.

This bike section was probably the lowest for all of us as a team.  Despite my best efforts to slow Fredrik the heck down, the pace he pushed on the trek had put the hurt on both Rachel and Gregg.  The heat had really caught up to Gregg and he was suffering a sweet dehydration headache.  Rachel, normally full of enthusiasm, had gotten really quiet and was just grinding out the miles.

Despite feeling the pain we managed a solid bike leg and were in pretty good spirits coming in to the next transition.  We dropped the bikes and bike gear and took off on the relatively short trek back to the start/finish area, and the end of the first clue sheet.

I'll be honest here folks.  Part of me was really, really hoping that this would be the end.  We had heard that the 12 hour teams had some really sketchy paddling due to extreme winds, so my fatigued brain was hoping that they would have cancelled the paddle for us too.  My logic here was less than shaky though as there was ZERO wind and the water on Kentucky Lake was like glass.

Fredrik and I plotted out the remaining points while Rachel and Gregg reloaded us all on food and water.  It wasn't the fastest transition in the world but we were out of there and on our way on foot to the boats (which were now about 2 miles away thanks to the nasty water conditions forcing the 12 hour teams to an early take out) in a respectable amount of time.

We shuffled our way to the water and prepared for what we figured would be a 2.5 to 3 hour paddle.  Unlike the less fortunate 12 hour racers, our paddle was awesome.  Largely because the water was smooth as glass and the stars were out in full force, but also because I didn't have to use my legs.  After 13 or so hours of racing I finally had a chance to give them a break.

No worries though as my fingers quickly took over with the cramping as my body attempted to force some kind of permanent "kung-fu grip" thing on me.  Thankfully the pace was such that I could eat, drink and take electrolytes CONSTANTLY for three hours.

We steadily pushed through the paddle feeling pretty good about how we were doing.  I was slowly getting rid of the cramps and Rachel and Gregg both worked themselves out of the funk that had crept in on that last bike and was just hanging around.

I think Fredrik was still warming up...

The paddle was basically a series of "in and outs" in three large coves and coming out of the second one we caught sight of the glow sticks of another team paddling in.  Our best estimate was that they were anywhere from 30-60 minutes back, but all I could think was "awww man, I'm going to have to hurt some more".  Fredrik acknowledged that he saw them too, but we didn't say much else about it.

After beaching our boats we all shuffled our way out of the TA shivering to varying degrees.  My cramps were finally gone but unfortunately the 10+ hours of seizing legs had left me pretty sore.  But, soreness is far easier to deal with than cramping.

We took an aggressive and direct route (with nearly flawless navigation yet again) to the final three trekking points and made good time back to our bikes for the final transition to the last leg of the race.  Despite the fatigue our spirits were up as we knew that we were less than an hour from the finish.

There were two distinct routes to the finish, a slightly longer route that appeared to be mostly gravel roads, or a shorter, primarily single track route.  Originally we anticipated taking the mostly single track option (Gregg had been talking about it for most of the final trek), but when the time came we opted for the "road" option.

Unfortunately a lot of the "roads" were rutted out and not as much of a cake walk as we had hoped.  But, even with the poor road conditions and one small (and quickly corrected) wrong turn, we still managed a very respectable split on this leg (second fastest overall, although not by much).

The only thing that kept that last leg from flying by was my misguided decision to forgo my bike shorts in the interest of a faster transition.  I saved 60 seconds or so but it was totally not worth it.  Again with the aluminum hardtail...

In the end we finished in 19hrs and 26mins.  Thirteen minutes behind the winners, WEDALI, in second place.

Did I forget to mention that we were largely neck and neck with them the entire race, never falling more than 30 minutes or so behind?

Huh.

Must be because we honestly didn't concern ourselves with where they were hardly at all during the race.  I mean, you always talk about "racing your race" and not "worrying about what  other teams are doing", but it's rarely a successful effort.  It's human nature to alter your behavior based on what's going on around you.  You see a team in front of you?  You go faster.  You see a team behind you?  You go faster.  You see a bent stick in the woods after not seeing anyone for hours?  You go faster.  Well, some people do.*

*True story.  Apparently Justin, navigating for WEDALI, was having these "back woods tracker moments" where he'd see a broken stick and proclaim "See!  Bushwhacker's been here!  We've got to go faster!!"  Eventually I think his teammate Molly effectively told him to be quiet and just read the map.  Although it's nice knowing that we got in the heads of the eventual race winners, I would really have rather NOT had him motivated so much to push his teams pace due to seeing our "ghost" out in the woods.


But I can honestly say that we did a great job this race of just doing what we could as a team to race the best race we could.  Turns out our best was not too bad.

It occurs to me that since I hardly said a word about what other teams were doing throughout the race, it might be worthwhile to include a link to the results, including splits for the geeks.