Races || Checkpoint Zero 30-Hour
March 8-9, 2008
Hiawasse, GA

Race Report by Miguel

First paddle (~6.5 miles) tot=0

The paddle started at 8:00 am and the start of the race was heralded by a fresh bout of snow fall and a renewed westerly wind. The clouds were racing fast and ragged letting through a veiled sun from time to time making for a very interesting play of lights and shadows. The wind kept pushing the boat off course and the first couple of miles were hampered by a lot of side to side motions and speed robbing ruddering. As our paddle progressed it got easier. We made up a few positions in the water. I still need to figure a good way to keep up drink/food while paddling. I am considering having a smallish pack with dual bladders that have extended hoses so that I can rest on the bottom of the boat. (One bladder would have liquid food while the other one would have water) As we got closer to the transition point the current picked up and we were forced to walk the canoe. I am of the opinion that we could have ferry across the current and eddy at the other side. If we get a chance we should practice this at NC. I was very glad I had the wetsuit on, since I went deeper than my waist on the water, and I suspect that I would have been very cold otherwise.

First Transition tot = 6.5 miles

Well, as luck would have it first transition took place in the middle of a mini short lived blizzard that covered everything in a snow dusting. I felt the truck made for a poor transition vehicle and wished that I had managed to have the suburban down here for this race. (This would not be the last time this thought crossed my mind) Despite a cold transition we did a fairly good job of getting ready and getting going.

First bike (~17 miles)

The bike leg started well. The roads were just wet even though it was snowing and the navigation was straight forward. We must have been doing a good 15 + mph on the bike, then we turned off the main road and started slowly climbing. Took a short bad turn, corrected and got off the pavement. As we ascended the snow started to accumulate on the surface and the mud/snow/leaves started to adhere to our bikes. Soon enough we were using number1’s to thaw gear mechanisms to allow us to switch gears. We kept moving very well, riding most of the uphills, and walking the bikes on the more technical aspects of the climbs (loose rocks and mud) I noticed difficulty wrapping my mind around the distances in the map, and I was surprised by the turn off to what at first I thought was the fire road, but turned out to be the road making a sharp turn which did not show well in the map. It was good that we were a dubious about this since we had not seen the AT as we had expected. Soon enough we found the trail and took the fire road turn off. I noticed that we started a game of leap frog with some teams, but we still moved up a few spots in the standings. I felt that all three of us moved well, and I was particularly elated that for the most part I managed to keep up with the rest of the team.

When we got to the end of the fire road we took about 2 minutes to drink and eat, but the fairly cold wind forced us to move on the quick to make sure that we did not let ourselves get cold. We took a small road/4WD trail that we had seen in the way to CP2, and that had been obviously transited by teams ahead of us. The trail took us to a field and then we proceeded to do about 1 mile of bike/bush whack a bike. That eventually led us to a trail. The trail ended in the map but thankfully it continued in the real world taking us directly to CP3. The downhill was somewhat gnarly, and we were somewhat confused by some teams that were going back up thinking that they had passed the check point. We did a double take on the map, but decided to forge ahead, and continue loosing elevation. We were rewarded with CP3, were thanks to double teaming of #1’s managed to get Andy’s bike switching gears again. From that point on we descended most of the time with a number of substantial water crossings. Riding through them was a good way to keep the feet dry, though one of us almost lost it while crossing one of them. At some point I started to wish for an uphill to warm back up. Thankfully the sun had come up and it helped warm me up some. Finally we broke into pavement again and rode to meet our support team.

Second Transition: Total Distance = 23.5 miles

Second transition felt a bit chaotic, catch up with water, catch up with food, change gear, put wetsuit on etc. How did Kathy and Mary ever manage to keep it all together? I was somewhat miffed that the race organizers had not allowed more space for transition. They had been forced to make camp in a sub prime area, and felt that they both got a raw deal here. In not too long we were ready to go. In the way out we saw a team return form the water, literally running to get some kind of warmth from his support team. He had icicles hanging form him.

Second Paddle: (~15 miles)

We started the paddle on nice calm sunny day. I suspected, and I would prove right, that in the middle of the lake the wind ran unchecked and that there was a good deal of wave action going on. By this time all three of us were catching were well together and the boat moved forward smartly and with out nearly the trouble that we had had earlier. We did a great job of discussing our route choice and of anticipating the fact that following seas would try to turn us abeam, and that we would need to paddle harder on one side than in the other. If a wave had turn us sideways we could have very easily swamped, which would have been a real problem in water that was less than 50F (average time to onset of hypothermia is about 40 min. In any case we did good, but I made a bad navigation mistake in the way to CP 5, were we turned behind the island instead of the cape. I was drawn by the other teams that made the same mistake, and though I did not find some of the landmarks, we continued on. I concentrated too closely on where the check point was, and tried to fit that with what I was seeing. The whole episode lost us about 15 to 20 minutes. Which as it would turn out were crucial.

By the time we bagged CP5 we were, I thought, on our way back to CP7. It was then that I learned that our plan was still CP6. This was a breakdown in communication, because I confused a conversation about contingency. I was rather happy to hear that we were still shooting for CP6, since I felt that in PQ we will not have the freedom to give up on CP’s just because they are hard. And hard this CP was. A wicked north wind kept our progress to about 1 mile per hour, that combined with the waves the splashing and the setting sun made the whole experience very cold. We tried to hug the shore to have some shelter from the wind, but it was to no avail. In hindsight a better route choice would have been to hug the opposite coast then jut across the lake, though judging from the other boats doing that, they had about the same forward progress as we did. Furthermore, hugging the shore and presenting our bow straight on to the waves was probably the best way to stay relatively safe. On some spots the waves were almost two feet up, with white caps. Icicles started forming on us, the boat and the paddles. I noticed that as soon as the sun set, I started to get quite cold. Michelle started saying as much. Thankfully around that time we were able to turn into the inlet and away from the wind which really helped. We were pretty beat up though, since it had taken us a good amount of time and energy to make it to this point. We found CP6 with little problem, but Michelle was not able to get out of the boat because she was so cold. I had to get out of the boat because I had lost feeling on both my feet, and had to move around or I feared I would get frost bite (which I did) So I got out of the boat, and after some struggling with her globes we managed to get the passport and got it punched.

This was a crucial moment for our race. Michelle and I were going hypothermic, So either we stopped and got assistance from one of the very plush houses that we saw around us, or we got going right away and hope we had enough warmth/energy to see us back to the transition area. Well let me tell you we got out of CP6 like at warp speed 6 or 7 with an extra tempo which very slowly brought back warmth to my extremities. The sun had set but there was still enough light on the horizon to guide us and to discern some of the features to guide ourselves by. The flashing red light was had to miss. I had never attempted to orienteer in a water craft at night, and it was somewhat disconcerting. If we had to do that in Montana at night, there might not be any navigation beacons to help us. I will have to train on that.

Well the evil goods of weather finally decided to take pity on us and at least the lake crossing back towards CP7 saw almost no winds and a much calmer water. Nevertheless I felt that my energy was quickly waning as we approached the transition area. Hands and feet had lost their feeling, and the deepening chill in the air was making everything become covered in ice. I had done a horrible job of eating and drinking and I could tell that my throat was becoming parched towards the end of this paddle. In PQ I would end up paying dearly for this oversight. In this race, I had enough reserves to see me through. When we finally came up to the transition point, we bolted out of the boat to the cp, were we found that Michelle’s zipper was caked in ice and could not be opened. This was not very important though, because as soon as the EMT saw us (I wonder what we looked like) he walked us to our support crew to make sure that we were warmed up. In fact they allowed us to use their car to get warmed up (Darn I wish we had the suburban)

Third Transition Total Distance = 39 Miles

Well it took a real feat of self discipline to get oneself out of the nice warm cars and back out. Bladder hoses kept freezing, bike gears were still lazy to shift, and finding all the gear that we needed was hard. I felt that we left our support crew down by not pre-coordinating our gear organization a bit better. However they pulled through even though we had wakened them from deep sleep. In about 1 hour and 10 minutes we were ready to go again.

Second Bike: (~28 miles)

The start of the bike leg was very tough, but warmth came back and soon we were marching forward. My seat kept going down on the post every half mile or so my quads would start to burn as the angle of the pedal got steeper and steeper. It pissed me off and in hindsight I should have found a good spot to stop and tighten the post so that it would not keep dropping. Considering the fact that most of our way was going to consists of an uphill it would have paid good dividends. I also noticed that my bike light was somewhat weak. It is an old system and I suspect that it is nearing the end of its useful life (I will need something else for PQ) Nevertheless the LED light was enough to see me through, since the ride itself was very non-technical. The navigation was not so much tricky as it was guess work. The roads had names but not numbers, which meant we were mostly left to guessing the geometry of road intersections to decide, where we were.

Finally when we got to CP8 were they had a nice fire going, I got a chance to tighten the seat post. At this point we decided to skip the rest of the bike check points because we knew we were getting pretty tight on time, and that if a derailleur broke or someone had a mechanical problem, it would be a very long distance to walk back. Besides our main point behind bagging this point was that many of the teams had gone directly to the hike after the paddle, opting to skip the second bike leg altogether.

The way back to the transition was far quicker than the way there. We did not have to second guess our way any in the way back.

Fourth and last transition tot= 67 miles

It did not take as long as it had taken us to get ready for the bike, but soon we were on our way to our hike, and in particular to CP13. Mary and Kathy had filled us with warm soup, food, lots of water and had thawed my bladder hoses so that I was able to drink plenty again. I started the hike feeling warm, dry and well fed.

The Hike (~20 miles)

The hike ended up in to two parts. The first was an attempt at check point 13th. We found the trail with little difficulty, but when the trail split we went to the right side of the river (since that’s were the check point was supposed to be) The trail was good at first, but then it turned into a fight with rhododendrons and other trees, taking us up and down impossibly steep trails. At some point we decided that we were only about 200 yards south of the check point and that we could either give up on it, or literally go up the hill (it had a flat top) and then drop from there to the check point. The effort was hard, but the geographic features made sense. However as we dropped towards where the check point was, we found an area that was simply to steep to descend safely with out a rope. (note to self, make sure we have a rope ~ 40 feet for PQ hiking) I truly think that we were forced to stop with in 80 to 100 feet of the Check point but going down would have been too much of a gamble. So we turned around and decided that we would take the long way around to CP 14 (we really had had it with rhododendrons by them) The long way around was 14 miles to CP 14, that is after we had spent about 3 to 4 hours groping around in the dark for CP 13.

Just before sunset sleep really grabbed at me, and I go 4 minutes of sleep. After that with the fresh daylight of a bright blue beautiful day sleep was not a factor anymore. Keeping up with Michele and Andy however was. They both pushed hard, and I have never been a very fast walker. After it became clear that I was not doing a good job of keeping up with them we took a 5 minute break at this point I drank a ton of water on my trail’s end bike bottle water, ate 2 Carbboom gels, and transferred some of my items to Michelle and Andy, who were happy to get the weight in exchange for additional speed. This little break was a rallying point for me, since I had to work hard to keep up with these two, but basically managed to do just that for the rest of the leg.

We grew quiet during this leg. The day was incredibly beautiful, the mountains were still devoid of leaf covered, and it afforded great views of the place. We passed a could of teams in this leg (to my amazement) a team seemed to have given up altogether and was heading back to the transition area by the lake, another was sleeping on the side of the road, the other team we leap frogged for a while and eventually dropped.

Andy had the very good idea of breaking down the remaining path into chunks with discrete easy to achieve goals, so at some point we were concentrating in getting to CP 14 in the next hour and 30 minutes. We started jogging on and off. I knew that the downhill jogs would hurt tomorrow, but the race end was in sight so It was ok to trade future comfort for present speed. We got to CP14 and continued moving on.

Then suddenly Michelle who had stopped to get something out of her pack looks at us and utters a profanity. She though that she had forgotten the passport at CP14 (now 2 uphill miles behind us), I am brimming with pride to report that at that point I did not though of recriminations or of which ever pain the extra distance would cause, but simply that I was willing to turn around go get it. Luckily as it was she did have it and we were ok after all.

So we hiked on the side of the road. Andy towed me some, which really helped our speed. Michelle started to lag, because she had lost a toe nail, we were kind of ready to push through the finish line.

In the last mile my right knee had started to hurt excruciatingly I suspect due to the use of a single hiking pole to help me walk faster. Well, let just say that there was not a lot of running left on the tank when we got back to the race finish. After having done just shy of 90 miles distance.

After the end

Well, eating a whole bunch of chocolate cake and pizza is not the best diet right after a race. When we got back to the hotel I had passed out in the car, and when I got out I was feeling really dizzy and dehydrated. Next time lots of water and not so much pizza.

The end...thanks for listening :)