Zach stated checking the weather forecast two weeks before the race. We didn’t want a repeat of the minus temperatures from two years ago or last year’s rain. We were hoping that the mild temperatures of early January would prevail for a few more days. It was not to be. The Thursday before the race a cold front arrived and temperatures dropped over 20 degrees, so we were looking at 15-40 degrees during the race. The good news was no rain. Also, arriving on Thursday before the race was a cold for Cathy, so she wasn’t at full strength for the race.
Our teammate for this race came from Kansas. We had never met Mark Alft before the race but he had good racing experience and fit the over 50 requirement. He and Zach spoke on the phone a few times and exchanged some e-mails before the race. As in the past NGARs, Jeremy and Brian were our support crew.
We had gear check and the pre-race briefing on Friday night. After the briefing we received the race maps and then it was back to the hotel to plot the maps and pack our gear. By the time we finished it was after midnight and we had to get up at 4am to get to the race start at 6am.
At 5am Zach locked the keys in the Tribute with the engine running. Brian and another guy who was on the support crew for another team desperately tried to pick the locks. It didn’t work. At 5:45am, Mark called the local Blue Ridge locksmith and fortunately he was able to respond quickly and was able to get the car unlocked quickly. But the damage was already done; we arrived at the start 45 minutes late and were the last of the 85 teams to leave.
In a 30 hour race 45 minutes is not that significant, but it still bothered us. We had raced the two previous NGARs and five Blue Ridge Mountain Adventure Races in the area, so we had some knowledge of the trails and roads the race course would follow and hoped that would help make-up some time. It didn’t.
The first section of the race was a 15-mile trek from the start to Stanley Gap to Deep Gap and then on to Lake Blue Ridge for the paddle section. There were two checkpoints along the way, nothing difficult to find, but it was a long hike up and down the two mountains, Rocky and Davenport, which were between the two gaps. Five hours later we arrived at the lake. We were still in the back of the pack but had edged up to 80th place.
We arrived at the transition around noon and Jeremy and Brian had the kayaks and all our other paddle gear ready to go. Fortunately, we had the wheels for both kayaks and were able to do the third of a mile portage rather easily. When we started the paddle Zach had estimated the 20 miles would take about six hours. It ended up taking about six and a half hours. Mark and Zach were in the tandem and Cathy was in the single attached with a tow rope.
We started on the west side of the lake and had to paddle to the north side near the dam to the first CP and then paddle a short distance to the east side for the next CP. Then came the hard part of the paddle section, a three-hour leg down the lake and up the river to a stop near Sandy Bottom. Near the end of this leg of the paddle our bodies were screaming for a break. Just when it seemed like we’d never arrive, we pulled into shore and Mark and Zach made the two mile run to the CP. While they were gone Cathy prepared the kayaks for the trip back to the transition. Actually, she laid down and took a nap. The return trip was back down the river the same way we had come and then a return to the paddle start point. It took about an hour and a half to return with the last hour in the dark. It’s difficult navigating on water in the dark but we were able to find the right cove without a problem. We arrived at the takeout and portaged back to our transition area where we ate and changed clothes for the monster bike leg.
The 70-mile bike leg was going to be mostly in the dark. There were many mountains to go up and down and a lot of single track trails. We are not the best of mountain bikers and unfortunately the first two legs of the mountain biking section were on single track. Single track is hard enough for us in daylight but almost impossible for us at night, so we ended up doing a lot of hike-a-bike. On the first leg up Green Mountain we missed a turn on the trail and wasted about 45 minutes looking for it. This was the first CP on the bike leg and when we arrived we were in 60th place since a large number of teams had already dropped out.
On the second leg, Zach was not thinking and we road right past our turn. We went a mile in the wrong direction before we realized it and had to turn around. This leg was up Davenport Mountain and was quite difficult for Cathy. When we came off the mountain we were not exactly sure where we were and again went in the wrong direction when the CP was only a short distance in the opposite direction. When the road turned from gravel to paved none of us picked up on it and we kept going in the wrong direction. We eventually figured out we were wrong and wasted another half hour before arriving at the CP. This is what happens in races when we’ve been up all night and start getting tired and cold. We don’t always thing clearly and make mistakes we normally wouldn’t.
It was now about 5am and we had to be at the finish by noon. We still had to go to CP 17 about four hours away, CP 18 and 19 another four hours, and return to CP 20 the end of the bike leg and finish which was another hour ride. We had about nine hours of biking and only seven hours to do it so we decided to skip CP 17, 18 and 19 and go straight to the finish. Besides that it was 15 degrees out and we were getting cold. Once we decided to ride straight to the finish we stayed at the CP about 40 minutes to eat and drink and warm up. Zach’s clothes were very wet and he needed to dry them out before we continued. After we warmed up we made the two hour ride back to the finish. It was important to us to get to the finish line, even though it was not one of our better races. It started out bad and didn’t get much better but we did cross the finish line and still ended up in the top 40 teams which was a lot better than when we started.
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