AR Ramblings

I thought that the Primal Quest Utah 2006 website was gone forever, but tonight I somehow stumbled upon a copy of it hosted at the design firm who created it. I really enjoyed revisiting my teams page and reliving some of the moments and experiences through the pictures and videos on the site. PQ Utah was one of my favorite races of all time, and I was able to race it with one of my favorite teams of all time.

Ernie, Pete, Beth, and I only had the opportunity of racing together twice as a full team. Once at a 3-day event in Texas where we took first place, and at PQ where we managed a respectable 21st out of 89. Since then, the distances from each other and various other circumstances have kept us from all competing together again. I think we had a lot of potential and hope to eventually get those guys together for another big event some day. I really miss all of those team bonding experiences at Denny’s, the debates over whose WAG bag smelled the worst, and learning how to be a pipeline manager (you had to be there to understand).

To 24Seven: I miss you guys! I hope you are all doing well! When are you all going to move closer!!!

Do you ever forget about things in your race pack and then find them a long time later? Me too…

Here is the latest gem I found while searching for spare batteries for the Pitchell adventure run tonight.  Can you guess the ingredients that made up this tasty morsel?

Pros: small size, elastic band for wearing on your arm, good accuracy in open spaces
Cons: Cumulative distance can be way off on twisty trails and/or under tree cover, uncomfortable to wear on your wrist.
Overall Rating: 5 of 10

If you’re looking for a small, basic GPS at a low price, then the Garmin Foretrex 101 may deserve a slightly better rating than I gave it. Although I didn’t buy it for athletic training purposes I was hoping that it might serve a dual purpose. If you primarily run in a straight line in open areas or along roads then it works pretty good for recording distance ran or biked. However, here in the hills of western North Carolina the cumulative distance counter was significantly off the mark on almost all outings.

My testing was done on mountain trails with roughly 1500ft of elevation gain/loss and under tree cover, though all of the leaves had fallen and the only thing blocking a signal would have been the bare tree limbs. I don’t know how often this unit records position for determining distance traveled, but I can only guess that it is missing the many turns encountered on an average singletrack trail. I ran and biked the same trail and recorded a distance of 6.75 miles with the Foretrex, while my bike computer (recently calibrated) showed nearly 8 miles. Additionally, based on my usual training pace, the 8 mile result seems more accurate. That makes the Foretrex result almost 20% low! While biking along relatively straight forest service roads, the difference was closer to 10%. One thought is that maybe it is not computing the added distance created due to elevation gain and loss? I’m not sure, but the discrepancy is too much for me to consider using it as a training device.

When used strictly for determining coords while standing still, I can’t find any faults with this unit. The only negative thing I can say is that I’ve never seen any benefit to the WAAS mode. It is supposed to allow much greater accuracy, but it has never worked during my testing. I guess I’ve just never gotten the signal for the WAAS in the areas I’ve used it.

Although it is designed to be worn on your wrist, I found it to be uncomfortable at best. When bushwhacking through the forest it became very painful when I had to put my hand down to brace myself. The unit extends beyond the wrist and digs into the back of your hand when your wrist is bent back. The additional elastic strap for wearing on the upper arm was much better. The bike mount is very secure and seems bombproof.

The 101 model uses two AAA batteries, which allows easy field replacement. Rechargeable AAA’s seem to give me about 4-5 hrs of continuous use.

My primary use for this gadget has been navigation training and confirming CP placements for training/mock races. It works just fine for these purposes, but not much more.

Well actually, I wasn’t racing this time, but it infuriates me just the same. A CP at the USARA Nationals race was mis-placed by approximately 400m from what I’ve read (See the Enduraventure Blog and the TrailBlazers forums). It wasn’t stolen. It wasn’t missing. It was mis-placed! And even more mind-boggling, it was manned!!!. How the hell does this keep happening? GPS’s are cheap. Could they not verify with one when they got there? And if a GPS wasn’t available, the course director should have marked the area with flagging tape (or equivalent) to allow the volunteers to verify their position. Or, they could have been escorted to the location or had someone check on them later. There is no reason why that should have happened. None! No excuses. I’m not listening to anyone who says otherwise. Those teams paid big money to race, to qualify to race, to travel to the race, and probably spent countless hours training for the race. It was the National-freaking championship even! The results were ruined and should be thrown out. However, throwing out the results wouldn’t make anyone happy either, so some worthless post-race decision (or rule in this case) gets applied as a contingency plan. For those potentially affected by this f**kup, however, it does nothing to make them feel any better. I’m sure the winners worked hard and are great athletes, but no one can say for sure who would have won, if the race promoters had done their job correctly. No matter what anyone says or thinks, a mis-placed CP causes pure luck and chance to become a part of the competition. If I want to test my luck, I’ll blow some money at a casino.

What a disappointment and let-down to everyone whose ranking was potentially affected. Sorry guys. I feel your pain, disappointment, and frustration. That sucks. If there is one thing that will kill this sport (for me at least), it is the problem of mis-placed CPs. AR has a horrible track record with this. I’ve only known of one Orienteering meet to have this happen, and their points usually require much more precise placement than AR. That O-point was only 30m off. The Nationals point was 450m, and I’ve done races with points as much as 2km off! Come on AR directors! Get your sh** together or don’t even bother to hold an event….or one of these days myself (and maybe others) will just stop bothering to show up.

Ok, I think I’m finished ranting for now. Maybe. Yeah, I’ll stop here

I don’t know what else to say. I was there, though you wouldn’t know it from watching. You also wouldn’t know that approximately 85 other teams raced either. I guess that is almost normal for these types of events though. What is really sad is that I don’t think the coverage really was able to communicate the difficulty of the course. The intense, brutal heat of the first two legs and all 4 canyons (did you even know there were four?) was not effectively shown. Most of the mountain section was skipped over, and the coverage of the ropes sections totally sucked. That ropes course was absolutely amazing and the TV helicopter was still getting shots of it when my team came through about 1.5 days after the leaders. So where was all that footage? In fact, none of the coverage of any ropes section really showcased how huge they were. There were no good perspective shots. Awful. Just awful.

Perhaps the video production could never be what I would hope for. Maybe film can’t even come close to capturing the real-life experience of being there. I think maybe the idea was to market it more as a race than as a reality show like some of the previous Eco-Challenges were made to be, but in doing so a lot of the real-life suffering, drama, and triumphs that are inevitably a part of any expedition race were lost. I think the public would have been more drawn into the race if more of it had been shown. And I promise there was a lot more going on out there than just what was shown of Team MPGear.

I think covering it either purely as a race or purely as a “reality show” would be equally disappointing. I think PQ tried to provide a little of both, but the end result was a bit lackluster. I’m probably a little biased, but I’ve heard from several others that also thought it was terrible.

It was an amazing race, but I guess no one but the participants and volunteers will ever know that.

I think that UPS hates shipping my bike box. It’s been on a few flights with me and made it through those trips with nothing more than a small scratch or two. I’ve seen the baggage guys loading it on the plane before, and they don’t exactly “handle with care”. I can’t even begin to imagine what kind of mood the UPS guys must have been in.

After the Adventure Xstream race I decided to ship the bike back home to save some cash. It made here on time, but looked like it had been dragged behind the truck by its straps. The UPS shipping label was partially gone due to the box being dragged across the floor (I assume). I suppose they didn’t notice that it has wheels. The metal bar for the locks was bent and required pliers and a bit a muscle to fix. Also, one of the rubber feet was torn off. All that was left was the bolt that had held it on, and it had been bent beyond repair. It will have to be cut off. The delivery guy didn’t even bother to knock. I just happened to find it outside the door. I have this image in my head of the box being dragged behind the truck with a quick release, and as the driver makes the turn near my house, he pulls a lever and the box slides up into my driveway

I’m glad Trico makes a sturdy box. Maybe bike box manufacturers should start rating their products as UPS-proof!

Our team, Checkpoint Zero, had high hopes for the three-day Xstream Expedition in Moab, UT. Most of us had been in the area 3 months earlier for Primal Quest 2006 with daytime canyon temps exceeding 120 degrees F. We were looking forward to nice fall weather while exploring the area for a second time. Mother Nature can be a cruel bitch though. As the race started, she was gearing up for what would be called the 100 year storm. Before it was stopped, we endured rain, cold temps, high winds, rain, lightning storms on exposed mesas, flash floods, roads that were washed away, river take-outs that were washed away, more rain, more cold, more wind gusts that nearly blew us off the roads and sometimes pushed us up hills and stopped us on the downhills. We pedaled over 70km of hilly, mushy dirt roads that made it feel like pedaling with two flat tires. We saw huge waterfalls in the desert. Oh, and did I mention the rain?

The race started from the Red Cliffs Adventure Lodge with a bike ride up Castleton Road and a steep fireroad climb to about 8300ft in the La Sal mountains. From there we received additional maps for a Rogaine section that took us over 11,000ft at places. We made a strategic decision to skip two points that we believed would have taken longer to find than the two hour penalty we’d get for skipping them. Then it was a quick ride back down to the starting area to switch to inflatable kayaks. We paddled for about four hours down the Colorado river to the Gold Bar recreation area and boat launch. There were a few fun rapids, but it was mostly calm water paddling which is pure hell in those boats. I sometimes think that paddling an innertube with a cooler of beer in the center would be just as fast. As we got to the takeout, the winds picked up and rain started tearing through our support crews tarp. We took shelter in an extremely smelly pit toilet to stay warm until it died down enough to transition into our hiking gear without soaking everything we had with us. From there, we did a short 2km hike to the rappel site where we had a short so-called via ferrata section protected by a couple of crusty pitons. The sandstone was falling apart due to all the rain and I’m glad no one “tested” the holding power of those manky pins. Much to my relief, the actual rappel was protected by some 1/2″ bolts, though you could see where the rope was *quickly* wearing away at the soft stone. A large dictionary-size chunk of stone broke away under my foot as I was rapping down the face. I learned that I was not the first one to yell “ROCK” either. Yikes!

From there it was back to the TA to start a grueling bike leg up Long Canyon Road to Gemini Bridges, around the Gold Bar trail to Poison Spider mesa and back to the same TA again. However, just as we were preparing to leave, we were informed of the first weather-induced course change. Less than 20 hours into the race, the course was modified due to roads and trails being washed away and reports of huge car-sized boulders falling from the cliffs above. Our team, Checkpoint Zero, had decided to take it easy early in the race and put the hammer down on days 2 and 3. However, the weather caused our strategy to work against us, as we missed this unknown, weather-imposed cutoff by mere minutes and were forced to continue on a shortened course.

That was a huge motivation killer, but we got it back together fairly quickly and started a fast paceline back through Moab and up Sand Flats road. At the beginning of the Sand Flats climb, Beth noticed rain back in town and suggested we put on rain gear. At first we hesitated, because it was an extremely long climb and full rain gear would be too hot. But before we could look back a second time, fierce gusts of wind hit us, followed immediately by sideways rain. We could barely get our layers on fast enough and I was freezing for the next several hours, despite the multiple layers and continuous ascent. We climbed that open road for hours while lightning storms occasionally raged around us and scared the **** out of me. There was no shelter to be found and we were barely moving due to the soft, washed-away road surface. I think we all kept checking our tires, because it felt like riding uphill through mud with two flats. This was very mentally draining. Eventually, we hit La Sal Mountain Loop Rd and made it to CP 25. There we learned of another course change and were told to proceed directly back to the lodge.

The storm had completely destroyed the race course, causing the entire event to be shut down and racers sent straight back to the start/finish from wherever they happened to be at the time. We were disappointed that our 3 day race had been reduced to one day and knew that ranking teams would be a huge mess due to the different courses and the earlier rogaine section that allowed teams to make strategic decisions of going after difficult and time-consuming CPs or taking penalties which may have proved beneficial in the long term.

Despite our disappointment, we realized that race management did what was necessary to ensure the safety of all the racers. I also know that they were being pressured to rank teams despite the fact that there was no fair way to do so for most of them. Any decision they made would be protested by someone. The last I looked we had been ranked 7th place, though I don’t consider it to have any meaning due to the circumstances.

The following day, after resting, the entire team spent the day hiking at Arches National Park. Ironically, the weather was beautiful and we all had a wonderful time. The scenery was absolutely spectacular. Hopefully I’ll have some pictures to post at a later time. We saw numerous rock arches and attempted to boulder to the top of several. I had to help Ernie downclimb one particularly sketchy section by standing on an old, fallen tree that was wedged into a small slot canyon and let him use my body as a ladder :-). He eventually did manage to get to the top of a couple of arches however.

Beth made the point that as racers living in different parts of the country, we never get to just hang out together. All of our time together as a team is spent preparing for races, racing, and recovering. It was nice just to hang out and enjoy the scenery without rushing and suffering though it. “It is what it is” was what we told ourselves. Kind of Zen-ish, and kind of a reminder of the need to slow things down sometimes. It’s too easy to always get caught up in the competition and miss all the cool things happening around you.

I think we all made comments about not racing for a little while after this one, but I don’t think that feeling will last. Adventure racers quickly forget about all the pain, suffering, and any disappointment that occurred during a race. I think we’ll all be ready again in another month or so. So when is the next big race guys? We better start preparing for it!

About three weeks ago, I found out that I would be joining Paul Cox as a member of Team Checkpoint Zero to compete in the Adventure Xstream Expedition Race in Moab, UT. With team members in Texas, Georgia, and the opposite ends of North Carolina, we have relied almost exclusively on email to prepare for the race. Things like arranging flights, rental cars, hotels, and gear have filled up my email inbox with over 150 messages in only 3 weeks!

The same thing occurred before the Primal Quest race this year, but this race is only 3 days instead of 10 and has far fewer gear requirements. I bet the emails sent in prep for PQ were in the hundreds to thousands. Absolutely insane. I think pre-race prep for an expedition length race consumes just as much (or more) time than the race itself.

It seems like I would be used to this by now, but for some reason it never ceases to amaze me.