How to Finish Dead Last in an Adventure Race

North Georgia Adventure Race – Jan 16-17 2004

Map of Course

This Map was provided by Team Engine and shows all of the checkpoints as they should have been done.  Use this as a reference when reading this report. 

Video from Race

Video courtesy of Neal Radford.

Overview

Team Shackleton consisted of Walt, Bruce and myself (Kier).  I have raced in two 12-hour races in the past with Walt and we also work for the same company so I knew that our temperaments and paces were going to be OK.  I’ve also raced with Bruce for part of a 24-hour race and we were teammates for the 2002 Florida Coast-to-Coast race.  We have very similar paces and temperament (aka easy-going).

Bruce is an AR organizer in his home country of Trinidad, where he flew up from to do this race.

This would be the first cold-weather race that any of us have done but we had plenty of long-course experience and were proficient at all the disciplines.

We were also joined by our very organized and diligent support guy, Adam, who supported Shackleton in the last Coast-to-Coast.

The Start

We came prepared to race.  We had our card table, straight-edge, highlighters, etc.  All of our packs were ready to go.

Someone came running by to their team yelling that we were paddling first so we started to unleash the canoe.  Then Adam showed up with our Maps and Instructions.

Everything seemed clear cut from the beginning.  We started reading the instructions and pulled out the Blue Ridge map.  Step one:  make UTM boxes on the map so that we can plot the checkpoints easier.

What is this???  There are no tick-marks next to the UTM numbers on the sides of the map to show us which points to draw to.  Some of them had marks and some of them didn't, which was even more confusing.

Plot UTM’s???  As they say here in the south, “I ustacould”.

It also didn’t help our plotting-challenged minds that the Start, CP1, and CP2 were on three separate maps and were, in reality, very close together.

We plotted out the whole canoeing section and opted to plot the next section when we got to the first TA.

We set off across Hwy 60 with canoe in hand where we met with several other teams.  Up Church street we went and at the first intersection we meet several other teams checking compasses and maps trying to find which way to go.  We took the road less traveled to the right and ran into a car along the way and got directions to the boat ramp.  On our way there we had the fortune of seeing other teams putting into the lake through an open field which we cut across and put our canoe into.

Checkpoints?  We don’t need no stinkin’ checkpoints!!

…Apparently nobody told the people at checkpoint 2 our philosophy because they said that we needed to check in at CP 1 before we could check in there.  From the looks of the list they had we would have been about twentieth into CP2.

Now I had to go break the bad news to Bruce and Walt that we had to back-track.  We were all very surprised that no one thought that we might have to check in.  I think we were still excited about finding the shortcut and we wanted to push our advantage.

Sooooo away we go…  Luckily we weren’t the only team to just put in and go but it didn’t make us feel any better about it.

“Audacity has an Even Chance” – Napoleon

Knowing that we had gotten far behind with the CP1 snafu we decided a daring Ian Adamson-like trek across the peninsula in Blue Ridge Lake from CP3 to CP4 instead of the paddle around it to try to make up some time.  Reality Check: You are not Ian Adamson.

Our plan was to zip across to CP4 and get back to our canoe then paddle directly to the west to get CP5 then head to the Transition.  Part of our reasoning was that the general location was given as “Antioch Cemetery” which was shown on the tip of this peninsula.  That, to us, enforced our idea that the CP was where we plotted it on the North Beach of the peninsula.

Mistake #2:  There were actually two “Antioch Cemeter's”.  One on the tip of the peninsula and one on the other side of the lake where the CP was.  The longer I looked at the map while we hiked up the good roads to the CP the more I realized that there was no way that it could be where we plotted it.  We stopped and re-plotted it and discovered that we had to trek an extra mile or so around the edge of the lake to get to where the CP really was.

We also lost the benefit of paddling into the channel to view land features coming in.  The lake was very low, with most docks and boat ramps sitting on the sand.  We went to where we thought the path to the Antioch Cemetery was but couldn’t find it.  We wandered around for a little while until we stopped and asked a lady who told us exactly how to get there.

It turns out that the path was almost directly in front of where we crossed the lake from the other side L

On the hike back we were trying to come in as close to our canoe as possible so we stayed on the good road until we thought we would fall directly to the south onto it.  WRONG!!!  We popped out on the north point of the peninsula and instead of doing the smart thing and backtracking on the road we started coasteering to the south.  This took forever and it was on that bad, off-camber sand that was tough to walk on.  We kept hoping to see our canoe around every bend but it was never there.  Roughly an hour later we finally made it back.

We double-checked our plotting of CP 5 before heading out and found that it was also wrong and north of our original plotting so our whole reason for the trek was completely unfounded.  Once we had CP 5 correctly plotted we didn’t have too much problem finding it and then it was just a paddle to the Transition Area.

When we pulled out of the water we were in dead-last place.  77th out of 77 teams.

We were actually pretty fast but speed didn’t help our problems.

Rain, Rain, Go Away !!

We got in at about 4pm.

Adam had everything out and was waiting for us.  He quickly reloaded all of our bladders and food supplies while we plotted, and double-checked all of the checkpoints for the bike section.

He informed us of the cutoffs so we saddled up and took off at about 4:30pm.  We were just intent on not making any more mistakes and just ticking off the checkpoints as quickly as we could.

Going to CP7 was a big confidence booster because we had no problems finding it. 

Going from CP7 to CP8 on the Green Mountain Trail had a lot of elevation gain and loss but we were fairly happy that all we had to do was keep moving on the trail because it was a required route.  Our bikes were acting a lot more like luggage instead of a conveyance but we were moving in the right direction.

As darkness slipped in so did the rain.  When we were in the forest it didn’t affect us much because we had the trees filtering it.  In some areas the mud was pretty thick from the other teams that came before us.  We 'Flatlanders' were not used to riding on real mountains at night in the rain but we did our best to move as quickly as possible.

CP8 to CP9 through Stanley Gap was another one where it seemed like we just kept going up, up, up.  My calves were burning as I pushed my bike up the mountain.  The wind whipped up pretty good there but we made a point to keep moving so that the cold couldn’t set in on us.  On the last quarter mile down to CP9 I attempted to jump over a fallen sapling laying on the trail but my front tire caught it and flew out from under me.  Walt came up from behind and said that he though I had broken my leg because it was bent into an unusual position but luckily it was only my pride that was hurt a little.  I had the ‘Pig’ (our sleeping bag) in my pack for some extra cushion on the fall.  I saddled back up and we descended to CP9.

We checked our maps for CP10 and set off.  The route to CP10 contoured along the Tacoa River, and then took a road to the east to the general vicinity of the CP.  We triple-checked this one and it was off the beaten trail.

Unfortunately for us we would have an impossible time finding the road leading to the checkpoint.  The rain was now coming down heavier than ever and the road turned east which it wasn’t supposed to do.  We spotted a guy and hit dog outside a cabin and went back to try to determine where we were.  After consulting his street map we found out that we were in Dial which was a little past where we wanted to be.  We headed back and started probing each of the roads on the right that we came to and none seemed to go North and then directly East as the map indicated.  Every time we stopped and started it became more difficult to start going again.  Our gloves and pants were soaked through, and hypothermia was beginning to set in. 

We eventually came upon CP21 at Sandy Bottom which indicated that we had gone too far in the other direction.  The fire was very warm so we sat down for a minute to figure out what we should do.  The signs of hypothermia were getting worse and even if we got to the general area of CP10 we weren’t sure we would be able to find it, much less CP11 which looked even trickier.  All of this with the cutoff times looming, we decided to call it quits at around 12:30am

Epilogue

Nik and Mike at CP21 were great.  They made up some hot coffee for us and had the race personnel get a hold of Adam and give him directions to where we were.  They allowed one of team to use their tent and sleeping bags to get warmed up, and provided some great conversation until Adam arrived.

We decided not to drive back that night so we checked into a hotel, had some hot showers, and hit up the Waffle King for some greasy food while we filled in Adam about what happened.

None of us were fatigued, or injured in any way; the cold and the rain just got to us a little too much to where we could not move forward effectively without taking excessive risk of our health and possibly putting us into a position where a rescue would be difficult.

Walt and Bruce were great teammates.  Always positive and determined to keep going even after the early setbacks that we had.  I still don’t know how Bruce sat on the wooden crossbar in the middle of the canoe for the entire boating section without falling in. 

We’ve got the Swamp Stomp in two weeks and hope to redeem ourselves.  We loved the organization and the course itself, and only wish we could have gotten to the trekking section.  We learned a lot and will take this knowledge on to the next race.