Red Energy 18 Hour - Recap

Okay, so we started the day out about 3am meeting at Mike's house. Finally got all the gear loaded and off to Apache Lake around 3:45am or so. Showed up at the Start/Finish line around 6am. Note that I said Start/Finish line and not the transition area. The transition area today would be our floating kayaks.

So 6:30am comes and goes and the Pre-race meeting started about 7:05am. Ran through the basic stuff and laid out the race a little more for us. We got a little more information about how we should be packing our gear. Then we hit 7:25am. Time to start the race.

So we start out paddling about 2.5 miles to the area where we would do the orienteering course. Unfortunately Ryan's kayak was the same quality as the other 3 that we were using. We learned very fast that we need to be towing Ryan to help balance out the kayaking. Around 8:30am we got to the orienteering course. Took about 5 minutes and switched out of paddling gear and grabbed our gear for some trekking.

We headed out to the 11 orienteering points. The first 5 or so came fairly easy to find. Then we got to point 9 and wouldn't be a true adventure race if the point wasn't at the top of the hill. So we trekked up it. Took a good 20 minutes of vertical climbing. From that point we could actually see the next point and then we wrapped up point 11 and headed back to the kayaks. This section was about 5 to 6 miles of orienteering.

Sterling and Ryan immediately start transitioning back into paddling gear. Mike and I started laying out the next points. Sterling quickly came over and helped plot the points as soon as he was ready to allow me to start getting ready to paddle. 5 more paddling points. Out we headed.

Paddling was very slow. We had about 8 miles of paddling before we finished up that leg of the paddling section. Finally got to the next transition point. Here we knew we would be leaving our kayaks and floating transition area for a long time. We knew we needed to pack as much fuel, water, extra clothes and our climbing gear. As we got to this transition point we got a new map that we had to plot 4 more new points.

We headed out on foot to trek. The first point from our transition area was about 6 miles away. We hit that point finally. Lots of trekking and very little jogging, but we made it. Luckily at this point there was water as we were able to top off again. About the time we left this checkpoint was when we hell started.

Trekking up and down through creek beds. Then we finally got to the next checkpoint, which was the turning point in the canyon. We were pushing the time cut off for the canyoneering section of the race at this point. We had about 1 1/2 hours to make it to the canyoneering section and about 3 miles to go. I would say all but about 1/2 mile was all up hill.

We finally made it to the top. Reading the map and a description of the canyon that we were heading to we took a wrong turn. This is the second part of hell kicking in. We were rapidly approaching sunset and the time cut off for the canyoneering section. Well the description was completely wrong and we never made it to the next check point.

About 6:45pm we started heading back to the last manned checkpoint. We got there about an hour or so later. The downhill was just as tough as the uphill.

Upon getting to the manned checkpoint we were done. 14 plus hours later and we did not finish. This was tough. Tougher than the last 12 hour was. If we would have made the canyoneering section cut off we would have finished I think around 6am Sunday morning. Many many lessons learned.

For more pictures click here.

Final Week of Preparation

As Saturday rapidly approaches I wonder exactly what I and the other 3 members of Madness are getting into this coming weekend. For the past week it has been in the in the mid 60's and we have gotten almost 3" of rain in the valley.

60's don't concern me if this was only a sprint race (8 hours), but we are 18 hours. The water in the canyon's concerns me with that much rain fall and with the race director telling me that more than half of the race will be canyoneering. These are two concerns. Then we throw in there the possibility of paddling on flat water in the dark in 50 degree weather and there is no transition areas, so all gear is carried the entire race.

Look for the post race report next Monday the 1st of February. If there isn't one than we didn't make it.

Time to Prepare for 2010

Well as I rolled out of bed this morning at 4:30am to head out and hit all of the early Black Friday specials I thought to myself how nice it would be to stay in bed and sleep. Then I remembered the past 20 days or so since my first mountain bike race and the last time I got out of bed instead of sleeping and trained.

So while out shopping with the mad crowds this morning I made sure I picked myself scale (because that Thanksgiving dinner went somewhere) and a new alarm clock. Hoping that this will help me I also decided to stop and spend some time working on my training schedule for the next 60 days.

Why 60 days you may ask? 2010 is less than that. You are correct, but my next big race is Red Energy Adventure Racing Series - Apache Lake . I have committed myself to the 18 hour course. Time wise this will be the longest race I have done, but from their calculations not my longest by distance.

I will continue to keep you all apprised to my training. I will also put up a spot on the side for how it's coming on losing the Thanksgiving dinner.

Gilmore 2009

Gilmore is maybe the most anticapated race that Madness looks forward to every year. This year was no different. All 11 of us met in Prescott at Olive Garden for some final carbs and just to do a little more team bonding.

Saturday morning comes and we all get to the TA to drop kayaks and set up the TA before the long course meeting. As the race starts Shane, Sterling and I head out on foot to get the map and really see how the race is going to unfold. After about 2 miles on foot we get 2 short quick checkpoints and we ge to see how it is going to layout. Bike, paddle and then free land nav.

So we hopped on our bikes and go. Burned through about the first 3 miles to the first bike checkpoint. At that point we were handed an additional map with 8 additional checkpoints. Shortly after bike checkpoint 3 Sterling started to cramp in his calfs. It only got worse for him and moved up to his thighs as we were burning up and down the trails. I could tell he was hurting and as we were on our way back to the TA and getting one final checkpoint I offered to tow him to relieve some of the pressure off his legs.

Once we hit the TA we switched into foot gear to race out to a mystery event. The event was good. Each team member puts an arrow on an 18" x 18" square. I went first and took one shot to hit the square. Sterling and Shane weren't as good of a shot as me though. About 20 arrows later were heading back to the TA again.

From the TA we went directly to the kayak drop to get the paddling going. At this point Sterling was doing much better. I had mapped out the boat points they had to be gotten in order. We went from one end of this small lake to the other and then back again. I think we probably did 4 miles on water.

Got out of the water and raced to the finish line. What a day. Seems like every race is just as trying and hard as the last.

First Mountain Bike Race

As I started my first mountain bike only race I thought it's only 14 miles I can do this with my eyes closed. Which on most training days I could. Unfortunately after breaking my chain last week in training I only bandaid fixed my bike and around mile 7 that bandaid gave in and I was done. On the better note Mike and Ryan did well and did finish.


Lesson learned: Don't bandaid fix your gear before a race.