On last weekend in October, the Odyssey Adventure Racing – ImONPoint.org race team of Jen, Charlie, Mark and I all converged in Moab to race in the inaugural Checkpoint Tracker Nationals. This was our final race of the year, and the best teams in the US were showing up to go head to head for 28 hours of racing. When the dust had settled, the punches reviewed and times tallied, we were crowned the 2010 Checkpoint Tracker National Championship race winner.

Wow, what an awesome race. The venue alone was worth the trip. If you have not taken the time to ride, run, hike, climb, paddle or just take pictures in Moab, UT – do it. This place definitely meets the “bucket list” criteria. The Race Directors Will and Jenny Newcomer from Gravity Play Sports put together an unforgettable event. The course had riverboarding, paddling, trekking, a Tyrolean traverse, rappelling, biking and epic Slick Rock trail riding.

This was a modified rogaine course. Checkpoints had to be collected in order with the exception of two sections where the racers could choose the order that they obtained the points within that section. On the second section (Slick Rock trail) racers were also given the option of trekking or biking to the points. I like this format for races, you get to see other teams throughout the race, and it is interesting to watch as teams use completely different strategies to obtain the points.

Pre-race, the atmosphere was festive. The Red Cliff Lodge was an awesome place to host the race. Spacious, rustic suites with gorgeous views gave us plenty of room to spread out our gear. Leaving your room and walking around outside, we caught up with old friends and made some new ones.

From the word “go” at 8:00 am we didn’t stop (except in the queue at the Tyrolean traverse) until we crossed the finish line 21 hours and 19 minutes later. Throughout the race, we worked extremely well as a team. Jen was an absolute animal, paddling with her we may have been the fastest thing on the Colorado River. Watching Mark and Charlie work together on the navigation was extremely impressive; working with multiple maps (both topo and aerial) they constantly kept us headed in the right direction. During the race we had the opportunity to see a lot of the competitors and were fortunate enough to race alongside some impressive teams and individuals. Thanks to all of you for the memories.

My highlight from the racecourse has to be the experience of riding the Slick Rock trail at night. Our helmet and bike lights illuminated a seemingly monochromatic landscape of rock and shadow. It was absolutely stunning and completely surreal. The best way to describe it would be to imagine riding on the moon at night.

From Charlie, “The CPT Nationals race was everything that an adventure race should be. There were sections that tested your technical running and biking skills, and others – like the 4,000ft hill climb towards the La Sals – that put your endurance and overall speed to the test. I especially enjoyed mountain biking the Slick Rock trail at night. I remember downhills with my weight so far back that my butt was almost rubbing the tire, my brakes fully applied, tires losing traction, and hoping that Mark didn’t crash or stop in front of me, because I would have run over him! There was no way I could have stopped. That was some fun stuff!

When you add in the challenging navigation, riverboarding, two ropes sections, and the spectacular scenery of Moab, its hard to imagine how they could have made the race any better. The bar has been set high. If next year’s race is even half as good, it will still be one that racers should not miss!”

Mark’s observations, “CPT Nationals started like no other – with a river swim. It was quite a scene with 150+ athletes all in wetsuits, fins, carrying river boards and jumping off the Red Cliffs Lodge dock like lemmings into the cold Colorado river. It was a great start to a great race course that included paddling down the windy Colorado river as well as orienteering around on the mesas above the river. We ascended from the valley floor on a via ferrata set up by the race organization. After a few hours of orienteering, we descended by zip-lining across a 350ft wide canyon and then rappelling back to the valley floor. The rest of the race involved mountain biking on some of the classic Moab trails (Slick Rock) and then ascending 4000′ up a jeep road to the foot of the La Sal Mountains only to bomb back down Castleton Valley to the river (15 miles in less than 30 minutes!). It was a great race. We held off Dart-Nuun on the last ascent and managed to pass Team Gortex on the last descent. It was a wildly competitive race and we loved every minute of it.

For me, the high point of the race was cycling out of the last orienteering section on the Slick Rock trail. With all the points obtained, we raced back to the transition area in the early morning hours before dawn. The lights of other teams were all around us like fireflies; it seemed like there was a team on every mesa and hilltop looking for CPs or heading back to the TA. Some were on foot; some used bikes. Racing down the Slick Rock trail in the dark was truly an unforgettable experience! The darkness made us far more daring than we would have been in the light when we could have seen all the long treacherous drops from the trail down into the rocky ravines below. I only wish we could have done it a second time in daylight!”

Jen added, “Every part of this race was so gorgeous, and yet so painful, just what I like. What an amazing course! This was my first experience riverboarding, and it was in the COLORADO! How cool! Literally! We also had a 20+ mi flatwater paddle in duckies, which I’m sure tested every racers’ mental strength. I was happy to have Shane paddling with me controlling the boat and finding the moving water. On foot, the guys rarely stopped, running, climbing, and leaping all over the rock. Mark was really pushing the pace here. I really enjoy technical riding and I’ve never seen anything like Slick Rock before, what a prize. The last bike leg included a 20 mi+ climb over 4000ft into the LaSal Mountains, which I only made since Charlie was feeling like an ox and was able to pull me. This was by far the most difficult race of the year for me, but the scenery in Moab was amazing and well worth it! I’d definitely go back to race again. Of course, I have the greatest teammates ever, so I’d race anywhere with them. :) ”

As always, check out our sponsors on the right. Their direct support allows us to race at the level we do.  Ronnie and the Odyssey Adventure Racing crew, thanks for all your assistance this year. Please, visit the On Point Foundation at ImONPoint.org.  You can directly affect the lives of disabled service members with a donation.

See you outside,

Shane

Even though the Atomic was billed as a 24hr race, it had been announced a few weeks prior that it was going to be in a stage format.  The race directors were predicting that the lead teams would finish the first stage and have a break of “up to six hours” before the race was restarted for the second stage.  This pretty much meant we would be racing two back-to-back sprint races, and that the pace would be intense!

I was to meet my teammates immediately when registration opened, so we could get our maps and start planning early in the day.  However, Jen had lost her wallet, or keys, or maybe wallet and keys, so they ended up being a couple hours late.  No big deal, we still had plenty of time and breezed through the check-in process since no one was left in line at that point.  Then, we were off to check-in to our room for the night and plot the maps.

The pre-race information had said to bring a 1:24k grid tool for plotting, but none of the maps for the first stage were on a 1:24k map!  We had a trails illustrated map, with its standardly non-standard scale somewhere in the 1:70′s, and a couple of photocopied sections of USGS quads of an unknown scale.  I assumed that I was missing a map or something, and proceeded to cuss like a sailor while estimating general locations on the maps with a marked-up piece of paper, and matching them up to the clues.

Later, after the race brief…a very, very long-winded race brief…I went to ask about my “missing” map.  I was informed that I already had all of the maps and was offered a brief instruction on folding a piece of paper to create a makeshift ruler for plotting.   Well, that was nice I guess, but totally missed the point.  What I really wanted to know was why in the heck was I told to bring a 1:24k plotter that was useless on these maps, then given more than 20 UTMs with precision down to 1 meter, and then being told to plot with a makeshift measuring tool on 1:70+k scale!  Additionally, I was pretty sure that the maps were on different datums.  Not that it probably mattered due to the lack of precision in my plots.  Even as I sit here writing this a couple of weeks later, I can only shake my head and wonder what in the world the RD’s were thinking. We went back to the room to finish packing and planning.

Since she had arrived, Jen had lost her wallet a second time (and possibly a third?), and also a large sum of money that had somehow gotten separated from the wallet.  We decided that Jen was forbidden from carrying the passport, and the responsibility for keeping it would go to Eddie.  I almost suggested that Jen should not even look in the direction of the passport, but decided that might be a little extreme.

Jen and Eddie both continued to do an excellent job of ignoring my loud and continuous complaining about the maps, and scales, and plotters, and we eventually settled in for some rest.

The next morning, we dropped the bikes, and made our way to the starting line.  The prologue was a short run of less than a mile, that only one team member needed to complete.  Somehow that team member ended up being me.  I went out somewhat fast, because I wanted us to avoid a large traffic jam on the singletrack up to where we had staged the bikes.  I came in very winded, and my fresh teammates took off up the steep trail at a blistering pace.  I wasn’t able to catch my breath and was red-lining all the way up the hill.  We made a quick transition and headed out on the bikes.

At the first biking CP, we caught up with the leading two or three teams and proceeded as a big group down to a waterfall CP off the road, on a little side trail that appeared to end before reaching the point.  We immediately came upon a creek crossing and all the teams dropped bikes except us.  There was a sign with a “no motorbikes” symbol, but nothing about mountain bikes, so I convinced the team to ride while everyone else ran.  A heard a couple comments about us riding, so I stopped and asked a hiker if bikes were allowed.  The hiker thought it was fine, so we continued on.  We didn’t gain much time on the other teams because we couldn’t really pass them, but saved a ton of energy.  They were all breathing hard and we were just cruising!

Then, it was on to pick up 5 of 6 checkpoints on some singletrack trails at Bull Mountain.  These could be gotten in any order and route choices were many.  I was afraid that we’d lose time to teams with local knowledge, but I made some good guesses and we came out of this section with almost the same time gap as when we entered!

Some more biking carried us over to the canoe put-in, where we began a boat-abusing low water paddle through mostly class I and II- rapids.  As we started, the TA staff informed us that the volunteers were not at the mandatory portage point yet (around a class IV rapid), and we’d have to find it ourselves.  It was relatively easy to locate due to the horizon line and noise, and we quickly portaged and continued down the river.

As we paddled, I lost count of how many times we scraped the boat over nasty, low-water rocks, and began wondering if I’d need to patch it and/or put on some skid plates when the race was over.  Well, the answer to that became a definite “yes” when we hit an underwater rock that stopped the boat dead in its tracks, threw us forward off our seats, and put a good size dent in the bow.  Arghh!

We continued on down to an optional underground tunnel along the river.  The tunnel was supposed to have been previously used for mining purposes and, besides sounding really cool to run,  shortcut a bend in the river.  We cracked our glow sticks, Eddie (in front) turned on his headlamp, and we entered the tunnel after getting a thumbs up from the safety staff.

The tunnel was very narrow and dark.  I could not see anything at all from the stern, and could not really use my paddle except for pry or draw strokes.  We sort of just pushed off the walls to keep ourselves straight and everyone did a great job of leaning in the correct direction when the currents pushed us into the sides of the tunnel.  We were having a great run until we hit another underwater rock which, again, stopped the canoe, nearly threw us forward out of the boat, and left a second dent in the bow.  $@#$@!  We took on water but finished the run upright.  After emptying the boat we continued on to the takeout.

Unfortunately, the last section of river was not on our maps.   We were paddling blind, with only the knowledge that we’d be taking out under a bridge.  After passing several bridges I started worrying that we might have missed the take-out.  Did another volunteer not make it to their assigned location?  Was the flagging missing?  I wasted several minutes obsessing over maps and trying to look for catch points but eventually just decided we had no choice but to continue on.  Eventually we got there and left the TA in first place for a short hike/run to the end of the first stage.

The RD’s had refused to tell us if there would be water available at the end of stage one.  However, along the way, we knew that we would pass a fire station that was gracious enough to supply water to the racers.  We were more concerned about stopping the clock, and keeping time on the other teams, so we passed right by without stopping.  We finished the stage with team WEDALI only 2 minutes behind, and the CP0 teams approximately 15 and 45 minutes back.  Since the time differences were divided by two for scoring purposes, we only had between 1 and 22 minutes over the other top teams…a nice, but not very significant advantage.

We now had almost 8 hours to burn until the midnight restart of the race.  Our drop bags had not arrived, so we had to wait a while to get our food and change of clothes that we were expecting to have access to.  In the meantime, Eddie and I decided to start the couple mile hike to the fire station to get water.  On the return leg, we found an old skateboard and a car tire that we decided to bring back.  Turning in trash earned teams extra raffle tickets for the post race drawings.  We didn’t know that a car tire was worth so many tickets (50 perhaps?), Eddie just thought it’d be fun to roll it back!  We both had a great time kicking and rolling the tire down hills,  like a couple of kids with nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon.  Until the thunderstorm rolled in, that is.

The storm brought severe lightning which made me very nervous, and heavy rains that would continue almost until the midnight restart.  Luckily, Jen had partnered up with another team and put our tarps together to create a decent shelter.  We had intended to bring a tent, but the drop bags provided by the race were ridiculously small.  Many teams made their tents and sleeping bags fit by stretching the hell out of the bags, but we hadn’t been that creative and daring.

We rested and plotted maps, but never really slept.  We also had plenty of time to eat, and I’m wondering if this is where things went wrong for me.  We had been told to pack microwavable dinners, because microwaves would be available.  I’m not much of a microwave dinner guy and just picked up some kind of Asian noodle dish at random.  Due to the rain, it was going to be a lot of trouble to actually nuke that thing, so I decided to eat it cold.  It was a little chewy and didn’t taste very good, but had a lot of calories.

I think that the crappy dinner didn’t get along at all with my digestive system, because when the race started again at midnight on a trekking section, I immediately started feeling bad.  Eddie and Jen helped me keep moving up the hills at race pace, and we were soon back in the same large group of lead teams.

We all came upon a stream crossing that was supposed to be knee deep, but was now raging along and at least chest deep due to the heavy rains.  At first, our team locked arms and tried to cross but the current was too strong.  Next, we linked up with CP0/ATP and made another failed attempt that ended in a lot of people yelling “swim for it!”.  There were one or two folks that decided to scream like they had just tripped and sprained an ankle in the final seconds of a horror movie, just before someone gets eaten.  But, everyone worked together to get across and to also save the screamers from impending doom.

The leaders remained in a tight group for most of the trekking leg, and I continued to silently suffer the entire way.  At the last CP before transitioning to bikes, I took our team in a different direction than the others.  That time, perhaps, I should have followed along.  They had seen a bushwhacking shortcut that I missed, and which cost us 10 minutes or so.

At the transition, we started on what should have been an easily navigable biking leg.  My stomach had been rejecting food for a while, though.  I was nibbling littles pieces of food and trying not to puke them back up.  I was starting to bonk significantly.  I guess this is why I missed an obvious turn and lost another 40 minutes in the process.  Our measly little time bonuses from the first stage could not make up for those mistakes.  We continued on to the next orienteering/rogaine section which was at the top of a long, grueling climb.

Jen and Eddie had a short break while I knocked out a quick rope ascent and rappel in a tree, and we took off at a quick pace to clear the last significant leg of the race.  This is when things got really bad for me.  I was so spent that Jen was carrying my pack and Eddie was towing me up the hills for most of this section.  It was hard to believe how strong they both were, and how physically crushed I had unfortunately become.  They dragged my suffering carcase all over that section without complaint, and at a pace so fast that I thought I might cry.  As we ran back to the TA, we even passed a team who was riding up the hill on bikes!

The ride back to the finish went very quickly, but we were given one more task to complete. We had to hike another mile or so to the parking lot above Amicalola Falls.  This hike included two staircases with 600 steps combined.  I think Jen and Eddie were tired of towing me, so they slowed down a little while I forced my body up one last hill, fueled by nothing more than willpower.

In the end, we finished 4th overall and only 47 minutes behind first place, which is approximately the same amount of time we lost from my navigation mistakes.  Considering how much time and effort my teammates spent helping me during the second half, that really shows just how strongly they were racing!  I’m still amazed that we lost no additional time to the other teams due to my bonking. Thanks again guys for being such great athletes, awesome teammates, and making it a great race!

I decided to replace the existing luxeon LED with a CREE P4.  The CREE isn’t an exact fit with the optics, so the beam is more floody and has some annoying rings, but it is much brighter.  I later discovered that an SSC P4 would have been a better choice, and is used in the newer version headlamp which is gray in color (mine is blue). I will be testing out the CREE at the Endorphin Fix 50hr adventure race this weekend.  If I don’t like it, I’ll probably swap it out with an SSC.

Here’s a very quick overview of how to make your old light as good as new for only $4, instead of buying the new model for $85.

Tools and parts needed:

• T-6 torx driver
• soldering iron
• heatsink compound
• new LED “star”

Time: less than 30 minutes

The first step is to get it apart.  Removing four torx screws and prying apart the housing easily gets you to the internals.  From there, gently pry off the metal heatsink/plate.  Next, the whole assembly of driver board, buttons, and LED can be wiggled out of the housing.  Look at everything as you do this, because you want to put it back together the same way it came apart.  It’s pretty dang easy, but since I’m not posting detailed pics, I just thought I should remind you.

The LED star can easily be removed with the soldering iron. Just heat up the contacts and pull it away.

I put a couple of dabs of solder on the new star before soldering to the existing wires.  Be sure to get the polarity right!  The star should have + and – markings.

At this point you can put in some batteries and test the light to make sure it works. If it doesn’t, I have no idea what you did wrong…sucks to be you!

Finally, start reassembling in reverse order.  Be sure to put some heat sink compound on the back of the star before attaching the metal plate.  Push the thermal resistor(?) up against the outside of the plate and squirt some heatsink compound around there too.  Put the housing back together, screw the screws, and voila!..new and better light.

Here are before and after shots I took.  The LED was set to medium, with the diffuser lens off/down. Both pics were taken at the same setting: 4 secs at F4

Other thoughts:

I’m not sure if the tiny heatsink in this model light will be sufficient for long runtimes while on high. I normally only use the medium setting anyway, so it should work for my purposes, especially with the increased output.

I have no idea what the long-term reliability will be like.  I will try to post an update after a few months of use.

While looking for technical info on the newer, gray model headlamp, I found a post at candlepowerforums with a much more detailed tutorial of doing this mod.  If any of this seems complicated, look there for more info.

I had originally planned to skip this race (as a solo) and focus on the Benton Mackaye speed attempt instead. But when Checkpoint Zero lost a teammate and asked if I’d like to join them, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to race with a strong, competitive team.

However, in the time-honored tradition of mentally bludgeoning a team before they reach the starting line of a multi-day AR, fate still had a couple of more blows to deliver.  With only a week to go, another teammate was lost.   Meanwhile, a nearly identical beating was be delivered to team ROAM/Inov-8, who had replaced a team member only to lose another one with mere days remaining until the start.

A last minute decision was made to combine the teams and race as a “six-headed monster“.  Officially, we will be separate 4-person and 2-person teams, but plan to stick together and race unofficially as a 6-person team.  Keeping six folks together over 3+ days of wilderness racing is going to be a challenge, for sure, but should also be a fun and interesting experiment.

And not to be done yet, fate delivered one more kick to the nads last night when I discovered that my CatEye LED light for the bike was missing, and my big-daddy MOAB HID had given up the ghost.  After some tinkering, I finally put the multimeter on the battery and measured a dismal 0.05V.  Far from the 11.1V it should’ve been.  I ignored the warnings of fire and explosion in an attempt to open the casing, but it was a rugged sucker and I gave up before getting out the power tools (it was getting late anyway).  Hopefully the LBS or REI will have a decent, cheap LED that I can pick up this afternoon.

So far, the weather looks relatively nice for three days of playtime in the woods.  I’m hoping the water sections will be as fun as previous Beast of the East races, or the EFix a few years ago near Seneca, WV.

You might be able to view our progress at the Checkpoint Tracker site.  But so far, Odyssey hasn’t really updated it and has warned that comms won’t be great across the course.  So, updates may be few and far between.  I’m sure there will be a report or two following the race, though.  Heck, I might even write one…maybe…probably not, but it could happen…