Forum Dental Adventure Racing

2011 Bonk Hard Chill Map

2011-02-27T23:56:00.000-08:00

Below is Forum Dental's route at the 2011 Bonk Hard Chill along with a vertical profile. There were a few bike route choices and we always chose the routes with the least amount of hill climbs even if it was a bit longer. I am not sure we saved a ton of time with those routes, although we did seem to get in front of a few teams that we were behind at the diversion. It is always funny to see the "where did those guys come from" looks on faces as you come in from a different direction. Forum Dental is a "down and around" style team instead of an "up and over" team. The Marines can keep the latter strategy.

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2011 Bonk Hard Chill report

2011-02-27T17:48:00.000-08:00

For the Bonk Hard Chill this year we were back to searching for a fourth teammate for Forum Dental since my wife and I moved to WV. I was able to coordinate my work schedule to be in Missouri for the race but of course Kari had to stay back in WV and hold down the fort. I have to say that one of the hardest parts of AR sometimes is filling out a team. At the Forest Service Dave and I work with Shawn who is a former army paratrooper, is in the air national guard, has quite a bit of outdoor experience, is tough as nails and is a super nice guy, all the makings of a good teammate. When I asked him to do it he refused on account that he didn't think that he was in good enough shape, hasn't done much biking and just didn't think that he had it in him physically, blah, blah, blah... Well if I couldn't find a fourth teammate, I was going to have to sit out and watch Dave and Judd run the race since 3 person teams are not allowed at any Bonk Hard events. So I told Shawn that an adventure race is probably run at a slower pace than what he is thinking, there is not much running, the biking isn't so tough....... So after checking to see that his life insurance was paid up and that at least a few of us knew CPR, he decided to give it a go.

We packed up, attended the pre-race meeting got the entire course map and checkpoints and headed to Steak and Shake to plot where we paid an obscene sum for some milkshakes which turned out to be gut bombs and some nasty radio active cheese frys which, were they not ingested by Dave, would most likely have sat in a landfill for the next two hundred years with nary a color change to the unnatural pale yellow hue. You know that the milkshakes are sub par when Judd later complains that he wasn't sure that the ice cream was such a good idea. I mean have you ever seen Judd eat ice cream? Well actually me neither because I am pretty sure that his rate of consumption is faster than the human eye can detect. But I have seen the empty DQ blizzard containers before you even pull away from the take out window. So if Judd says that the milkshakes were not a good idea, they must have been poor indeed. We finished plotting, strategizing, analyzing and everyone hit the sack and I kept on analyzing, strategizing, planning. Then I hit the sack and kept right on analyzing, strategizing, trying to sleep, analyzing.....I probably netted about two hours of sleep, so pretty decent I'd say.

The weather forecast looked terrific for the race, mostly sunny highs in the 50's, we got up went outside and what!?? Rain?? Argggg and I was thinking that this years Chill isn't going to be chilly. Oh well. The rain stopped, we bussed to the start, played the national anthem and go. The race started with a 3.5 mile road run and of course everyone headed out with their pants on fire. I could tell Shawn wasn't really enjoying the brisk pace so I asked him what motivates him, does he like positive encouragement or the kind of in your face motivation like a drill sergeant. He responded that what motivates him when he is struggling is Schadenfreude or taking pleasure in the misery of others. So long as someone else is feeling the pain, he is fine with his. Well ok, must be some weird paratrooper thing.....

We are trucking along and Judd stops because his pants are soaked. Judd is past 40 but I figured he had at least a couple more decades before he has to hit the Depends isle but who knows, I mean Dave has already attained grand puh bah status in the Rotary organization so maybe 40 is the new 70??? (I am sure that those last comments will deserve a reminder of exactly who came in ahead of who at the Murder Rock half marathon last year, and it wasn't a member of Forum Dental in their 30s) Anyway Judd's bladder had sprung a leak (not the anatomical one). We stop, like a true enginerd I try to throw some duct tape on it but no luck, so Judd empties the thing. Lucky for us Judd is like a camel. I have seen him go a 24 hr race and still have half his bladder full at the end without refilling.

Now lets review, Shawn is motivated by taking pleasure in the misery of others and Judd's bladder that he filled the night before suddenly springs a leak, hmmmm......

So we charge back into it but are now in the back of the pack, but a couple of minutes are not going to lose the race. However it is kind of frustrating to be at the back so quickly. We hit the canoes and paddle about 5.5 miles down the river which has tons of logs and rootwads to negotiate and is pretty fun but hard to make time on anyone because the river is kind of congested. We get out and hop on the bikes for about a 10 mi bike on gravel roads. We navigate cleanly and head back to the TA where we get a small break from the bikes for a quick 3 cp 2.5 mi trek. I urge everyone to transition quick because it is a short trek and we need to make up time where ever we can, so we blast through the transition as if we were never there......

We head on and nail the first two CPs when Dave comes back to me and says hey we punched 9 and 11 and are headed to 10 but where was CP 8. I say "oh 8 was the TA" and I see the realization come across Dave's face as he whips out the passport with a big old blank in the #8 box. We were in such a rush to transition fast that we forgot to punch. The rules are that you have to get the points in order unless otherwise specified and anyone missing a CP will be ranked below any team that gets all the checkpoints. On the one hand we figured that we might be hosed since we didn't follow the CP in order rule, but on the other hand the passport is just there to prove that you visit every CP and since it was obvious that we were at CP 8 being a manned CP and since we didn't get CPs 9, 10, and 11 on our bikes maybe Jason would give it to us. So we proceeded on like we were still in the hunt.

We transition back to bikes for a 7.5 mile gravel road ride. I can tell Shawn is pretty well sick of the bike by now, but he knows that Judd is out of water and Dave is deeply immersed in self loathing about CP8 so his schadenfreude scheme is working perfectly and doesn't complain a bit. We head off on the 13CP orienteering section where we can skip a checkpoint (I have never come across that before) and have a pretty clean run when the skies open up and start dumping on us. We all throw on the rain jackets, but we are soaked in no time and now wet and with lower temps we are frozen when we go to get back on the bikes for the nearly 6 miles to the finish. Our hands are so cold that we bumble through the TA at a snails pace and it takes a yoda-esque force of will to get our thumbs to operate the shifters. It is a short ride mostly on pavement with no real monster climbs and we get that burst of energy that comes when you know you are heading to the finish and we truck along pretty good and cross the finish line in 8:45. A pretty respectable time, so I try to bribe Jason, the race director, with his favorite bag of chips, but to no avail since he didn't give us credit for CP 8 and we are therefore ranked last in our division. We have no problem with the decision since those are the rules and it was our own dang fault for not remembering to punch in the TA. Dave is still kicking himself, but to be honest all of us usually remind him to punch at TAs and NONE of us remembered so in reality it was a team mistake and no one is mad about it. In fact Dave is always so rock solid at every race, he never bonks, never feels like poo, never leads us astray when I need help with the map, never gets pissed or grumpy or whiny, has the aerobic capacity of Lance Armstrong on meth.... In short he is just about the best teammate anyone could have, so in a weird sort of way it was kind of a relief have Dave mess up for once. All in all it was one of my favorite courses that Bonk Hard Racing has put together in some time and we had a great time running it.

Bike Map Holder

2010-12-01T23:09:00.000-08:00

My friends from Team-Virtus are clamoring for me to post some photos of my super high tech rotating bike map holder.

I used to be known on the team for great nav through the woods but you put me out on a road on a bike and bad things happen. A few examples include: During the Mission 18hr in 2009 we hop on our bikes and head off down a road through town to a river and the paddling section. We are cruising along and we run into the interstate!?! Oops, I had put the map away and went left when I should have gone right and 2 miles later we are at the interstate instead of the river. During the LBL Challenge in 2009 we transitioned to our bikes, headed off down a gravel road and down a huge hill. After about a mile I was thinking "hmmm.... we should have hit that blacktop road by now" so I pull out the map and sure enough, wrong way. Back up the hill we go.

As the teams navigator one of my least favorite things to do is say "Uh guys......I think that we went the wrong way down that hill......" Then everyone turns around and looks at the hill they just had fun flying down and starts silently cussing. No one ever says anything out loud, except for me. I used to be plagued by those moments until I made my bike map holder so that I could keep in contact with the map at all times during the bike section.

AR and Orienteering specialty gear websites sell these things for like $80, and no doubt they are superior to mine but mine costs around $1.50 and works for me.

It basically consists of a 12X12 notebook cover for the board, those big paper clip/clamp things to hold the map in place, a bunch of steel and rubber washers, and a round wood block to put some space between the handlebars and the board and a plastic round clamp thing that I got off a bike lock holder.

The clamp is the hardest piece of the puzzle, basically it could be anything that can clamp down on a round handlebar that you can put a bolt down into. I am sure there is lots of stuff at the hardware store that would work, I just happened to have a bike lock attachment on hand that fit the bill. Here is another look at it

I use one of those locking nuts on the bolt that goes down through the whole thing so that when you rotate the board, the washers just slide against each other instead of unscrewing the bolt. Putting a piece of rubber between the handlebars and the clamp is also essential to keep it in one place. Also, my handlebars are tapered instead of round so I used some electrical tape on the handlebars to build them up to compensate for the tapering.

For the board I used a binder notebook cover because it is a bit flexible and pretty water resistant. At first I used a fiberglass clipboard but after a pretty good wreck it shattered leaving jagged pieces everywhere and wasn't too safe. I used to just slip the map into the clear plastic sleeve, but I found that clamping it on with the paper clips is easier.

I have been using it for about a year now and since I have had it, I don't think that I have made any real big bike nav errors. In my opinion riding down a gravel road one handed while reading a map is just asking for trouble. For me the map holder works great, it keeps me in contact with the map and I don't have to take my hands off the bars to read it. Another benefit is that it keeps some of the mud from spraying up into your face.

There are tons of these homemade jobs out there. If you have a different design or suggestion, comment to the post and let us know about it.

Scott

Photos from Moab

2010-11-06T18:46:00.001-07:00

2010 Checkpoint Tracker Nationals 2010-10-29 002, originally uploaded by Scott R Young.

I've uploaded some photos that I took during the Checkpoint Tracker National Championships in Moab to Flicker. Check them out Here

2010 Berryman Adventure and a bit how it all started....

2010-10-01T19:09:00.000-07:00

Ahhh it was two years ago that Forum Dental AR began with the 2008 Berryman Adventure. In that first ever race we finished in 14 hrs but cleared the course(the last team to do so). It is pretty funny to think back on the stuff we did on that first race. It all started when I had just heard of a thing called adventure racing and navigated to Bonk Hard Racing, showed it to Judd who grabbed onto it like a pit bull. We signed up and toed the line knowing only a few scraps of info about AR that one digs out of blogs like this and were off. We all probably had enough food in our packs to feed every team there for 48 hrs, we carried sandals and big heavy dry bags so we could cross the stream without getting our socks wet. I ate beef stew and a can of tuna while we were paddling (mind you it was only a 12 hr race not Primal Quest).

Like an idiot had told everyone "oh yeah I can find these CPs, I'm an engineer for the Forest Service so I look at topo maps all the time." We were off and I had no idea what I was doing, mostly followed the herd but every once in a while I would realize I knew where we were and would drop to the ground whip out the map and calculate a bearing. Meanwhile the herd kept running in the obvious direction of the CP. We figured it out as we went and by some miracle found them all, albeit very slowly with lots of going in the wrong direction. We had to cross the river to get to the canoes, so we went through the process of stripping down to our skivvies, donning our sandles, putting our crud in a dry bag, crossing the river and then put back on all our gear (at least a half hour process). For the float trip (not paddling leg) we meandered down the Current River coming in just before the canoe cutoff where the beef stew and tuna caught up to me so I dropped trou in some tall grass while Dave fulfilled his main roll on the team by attracting all the Chiggers away from me to him (to this day it his main roll). We hopped on the bikes and got into a pack of racers who then all started following me of all people, I guess I had them fooled. Then Judd, after not having removed himself from his couch for a good month or so nearly died. Metaphorically speaking, the Berryman ass kicked him right in the jewels and he bonked hard (the ass is the official mascot of the Berryman Adventure). He kept going although I never knew that a bike could go so slow and still remain upright. We coasted across the finish and were hooked for good.

Fast forward two years and we are preparing for both USARA and Checkpoint Tracker national championship races and sign up for Berryman 12hr for some practice. Chris couldn't make it down from Idaho and Kari had to stay back in WV with our kids, so we recruited Steve to run with us who had never run an adventure race before, but is an accomplished endurance athelete. Our goal was simple...to win, not our division, not all the 4-person teams, we wanted the overall win. We knew that it would be tough, the Berryman always draws a large pool of racers from far and wide so the competition would be good. We noticed Bushwacker had a team in the 12hr. Cyclewerx is a solid team, some teams with people from St.L Orienteering Club and a few others that we recognized. We knew the overall win was possible, but we were going to have to have a very clean race.

Dave and I attended the pre-race meeting where Dave gave an absolutely thrilling 2 minute speech about the Mark Twain National Forest and National Public Lands Day and.....OK that is where I stopped paying attention, but he had the crowd for a good 5 seconds at least. He would have to settle for catering to his true fans, the ticks and chiggers, during the race. We went back to Rolla, which was a first for everyone going back to their houses (except me of course) and plotted the course....Hmmmm...The overall win was not looking so attainable. The course was designed so that we ended on the paddle, which is our weakest discipline, and it was pretty apparent that it was going to be a track meet the whole way. The trekking section had plenty of CP's but they were pretty close together, many on trails and the nav wasn't going to be hard. My delusions of us running through the nav section like crap through a goose while everyone else wandered around in the woods, hours behind us, wasn't looking all that probable. Our strategy was to put as much time on the field as possible and try not to lose it in the paddle. I did my usually tossing and turning for hours in bed before a race until at 2 am I resorted to my last option and reached for my scriptures..zzzz...the next thing I know Dave is rousting me at 4 am to get up, two hours sleep, oh well good practice for the 24hr nationals.

In the morning Jason started the race and we ran up a big hill on the road and the track meet began. We got to an intersection and took a left, straight into the woods which took Steve by surprise. Come to find out that he thought it would be just trail running and stuff so he didn't bother to bring long pants or gaiters or anything to protect his legs. Luckily there was not a whole lot of thorns in this race, in fact none that I can remember, but then again I had on pants. There was a heap of poison ivy that I think had him a bit freaked out. He did a couple of funny things like follow Dave right up to the flag to watch him punch and stopped to get some debris out of his shoe when we were like 150 meters from the TA where we were all going to stop and change into bike shoes, but nothing compared to our first race. As planned, we did blast through the nav section and emerged in 1st but Bushwacker, Out2Play, and Lost but Found were only minutes back. We hopped on the bikes for plenty of gravel and single track fun and kept going back and forth with Lost But Found. Then Betis Construction came out of nowhere and caught up to us near the end of the bike. On the way to CP 22 Betis Const. and us took the paved road out of Berryman campground down to highway 8 and over to the trail intersection. The volunteers were perplexed and thought we should have taken the trail down. I remember the night before checking three times whether the clue sheet told us we needed to take the trail but there were no route restrictions. Frankly I had a pretty strong feeling that Jason intended everyone to take the trail and we thought it looked like way more fun but singletrack is never faster than pavement unless it is a LOT shorter. From reports from other teams the singletrack was a lot of fun, but when you are in a battle you're always going to go for the most sure, fastest route. We got to the canoes tied for the lead with Betis Const. We graciously offered to accept their surrender so we wouldn't have to humiliate them on the paddling leg but they weren't buying it. We mounted the canoes and they got a bit in front right from the get go. Then all of the sudden this 7 ft dude comes running up stream full bore, crashing through the shallows. Deranged, he batted a few river drunks out of the way, capsized one of those huge rafts loaded down with coolers, then reached down and bit the head off a snapping turtle. We recognized him as one of Betis Const team members and I think to myself, "no wonder they were so fast on the bike, this guy was on meth the whole race and now he is tweaking and has gone into a rage." We were as good as dead, he was going to kill us all for sure. At least Kari didn't race this one so she can care for the kids in my absence....Then we passed by his team mate in their canoe and find out they left the passport back at the TA. Wow! well after that display of raw power and determination we knew it probably wouldn't be long before we were seeing the back of them. We gave it all we had, but they caught us quickly and came in 10 min in front of us for the win. The rest of the canoe we spent feeling like sitting ducks, looking over our shoulders paddling away. No other teams were in sight for the remainder of the paddle, which was a lot of fun except for the feeling like sitting ducks part. I guess Dave was looking a bit worse for wear after gutting out the bike section with rubbing break pads because some river drunks threw him a jello shot. Turns out that psycho-7 ft-I workout running upstream in the Mississippi-guy qualified for the Ironman 70.5 world championships the week prior. So if your going to be beat, might as well be by someone good.

We are happy with second, especially since this race didn't really play to our strengths much. We are just not a powerful sprinting team and this race was a track meet. After the race I mentioned to Jason that the race was a little short, to which he gave me an annoyed glance which I took to mean "you know Scott, I do offer a longer race this weekend. I think it is time that you guys start racing with the big boys now." Which he would be totally right and we would have loved to do the 36 hr, but I had to be back in WV by Monday morning and I just didn't see that happening after finishing a 36hr race Sunday. I have to say though that all in all it was a terrific race, we got some great prizes (Bonk Hard Races are the best), and we kicked a little butt as well. It doesn't get much better than that....unless you take home the Kuat Rack, which the top team always takes and we have been salivating over for the past two years.

There were something like 10 or 11 teams from Rolla there this year and to my knowledge all of them cleared the course except one team that had bike problems. It has turned out to be a pretty big hotspot for adventure racing for such a small town. Nice job everyone.

2010-07-02T21:24:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I need to update the blog. We have heard from our fans...er fan... and so coming soon are our harrowing tales from the Mission 18hr, XTERRA Eureka Springs, Dave's dominance of the Volkslauf 10K and our first overall win at Planet Adventure 24hr. In the meantime enjoy the belated report of the LBL Challenge

LBL Challenge Map and Report

2010-05-11T20:43:00.000-07:00

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Pics with comments are HERE

The LBL Challenge last year was one of Forum Dental’s favorite races last year, so we were all chomping at the bit for the race to come again this spring. Bonk Hard Racing just does an exceptional job at all their races, but in our opinion the LBL and the Berryman are the best. One of the best things about the LBL is the racing venue, the Land Between the Lakes is a HUGE Forest Service recreation area that is sandwiched between two lakes which is nearly all forested and with no private land. This means there are no out of bounds areas for the race director to work around and loads of logging roads, trails and lakes to work with. Jason (of Bonk Hard Racing) is not kidding when he says it is an adventure racer’s paradice. Also there are miles and miles of some of the most fun single track mtb trail that I have ever been on. Now on to the race report.
Thursday we got all of our crud loaded up and headed out. I think that there is some kind of strange and magical phenomenon that occurs with gear. It seams to just grow and expand and accumulate the longer you do races. Last year we took a Nissan Xterra to the race and didn’t have problems, this year we took Judd’s full sized Suburban and it was still packed full. At the race site we saw a team that had kind of Mercedes mini-bus pulling a trailer loaded with gear. At our current rate of gear accumulation we will need one of those setups before the end of the year.
One of our goals for this race was to get some sleep pre-race. For the majority of the races that we have done, Judd is the only one that gets any sleep. Dave, Chris, and I are usually up messing around with the map, analyzing the course on gpsvisualizer.com, and fiddling around with packs and gear till well after midnight only to wake up at 4:30. We hoped to take the advice of Jason Bourne and use “sleep as a weapon” Well it wasn’t meant to be, I was still up past midnight and when I laid down and tried to sleep I found once again that I was so jazzed up that I could literally hear my own pulse, so who knows what time I actually got to sleep. Come 4:00 a.m. my mind decided “enough sleeping for you, it is time to start thinking again about the race” and I woke up and that was it. Of course nature was calling, so I tried to sneak to the restroom but the beds were so creaky that starting up a chainsaw might have been a bit more quiet, and so Dave was bright eyed and bushy tailed a couple of minutes later. Oh well, sleep is one weapon that we would just have to leave in the holster today. We geared up and towed the starting line, the 12 and 24hr races started at the same time, so there was a huge crowd. Looking around it is intimidating to see all of these people all geared up and looking fierce, but our race strategy is to not worry about other teams, just do what we do, go as hard as we can, have fun and we will end up were we end up. It started with a four CP nav section through some really stickery brushy woods, and I was just not really on my game with the navigation. I didn’t really blow any points, but it wasn’t a super clean trek. As we headed back to the bikes at race HQ we passed a guy that had made the mistake of wearing shorts who looked like his legs had been sprayed with catnip and locked in a room with 100 addicted strays. At HQ we were told that we were in third place and both were four person teams so we headed out for a long bike section with a mix of single track, logging roads and a little pavement. We went back and forth with a couple of teams until CP 7 where everybody was stopped looking for the punch. It was plotted at a road/trail junction so it was pretty obvious we were in the right spot and we started to get a little nervous that maybe it had been stolen. After a minute or so Dave spotted it on a tree about 50m back up the trail, he punch and we told the other teams were it was as we mounted up and headed out. We fired up the after burners for the long stretch of road biking and didn’t see those teams again. It is funny because Kari hasn’t been biking long and claims that she is not good at it, but I bet if you asked those two 4 person all male teams who ate our dust after that CP they might give her a different answer.
We got to the Canoe put in and were still in third overall with two 4 person teams ahead of us. As we paddled to CP 9 we saw one 2 person team in pursuit after punching in a cove and coming out we saw that it was Team Brewer Science who are also from Rolla. We were excited for them because there were no other teams around so we thought that they had a great chance at winning the 2 person division. We could see the two teams quite a distance in front of up in a neck and neck battle for first. As we got out of the canoe the volunteer informed us that we were about 22 minutes back. 22 minutes is a substantial lead, but there was a lot of race to go and anything can happen. As we headed out on the second and longer trek section our legs were stiff and sore so we settled into the survival shuffle pace till we got to the woods. Then we got our nav groove on and just swept through the orienteering points about as clean as possible. I was seeing the terrain well and just we just flew through the course, Well we went through the woods as fast as our tired legs would go. Getting back to the bikes, Jason told us that the 2nd place team had just left. Unsure of how many minutes that entailed we transitioned and headed out for the bike back to the finish. Most of the bike to the finish was gravel road and just a bit of single track. Our legs were tired but we pushed hard. At cp 20 we crossed a creek and realized that the punch was on the other side. Let’s just say Dave was real excited to wade another creek. We cranked on and on, I felt like I was working pretty hard when I heard Judd and Kari behind me just chatting away about the value of vegetables and Dave turns to me and joking says, “You know, I don’t think that they are working hard enough if they can just be chatting away like that” I then tried to turn up the pace which had absolutely no effect on the chatter so I must not have turned it up much. I must say I was feeling the burn on every hill. As we headed down a last single track section with about a mile to go we caught sight of a team in front of us. Dave and I smelled blood in the water and went barreling down the hill after them and just about caught up to the girl at the back of the team and realized that the rest of our team was not with us, oops. We took a couple of breaths and told Judd and Kari that there was a team just up ahead. The team was Iowa Wolfpack so we came out of the single track and poured it on with about a ¾ miles to go. The Wolfpack saw us coming and cranked it up as well. There were two small hills to the finish and we were gaining. We dug in, with our legs on fire, our muscles swimming in lactic acid and seeing red but we ran out of road. They crossed the finish line 15 seconds in front of us. Imagine racing 7.5 hours and the finish comes down to 15 seconds! After we crossed we shook hands with the bewildered Wolfpack team members who wondered where we had come from. They had been battling team Follow No One the whole race who came in just three minutes in front of us and couldn’t have been more surprised to find us breathing down their necks in the end. We were actually pretty surprised to have caught up so much ground as well. So we finished in third place just three minutes separating the top three teams. Incredible! We were ecstatic with our performance and of course will be counting the many places where we could have made up three more minutes for weeks to come.
After reliving the race with the Wolfpack and Follow No One for an hour or so we went back to the hotel and got cleaned up for the awards ceremony. When we came back we found out that the other teams from Rolla all did extremely well. Team Brewer Science who had some nav errors after being only three minutes back from us off the canoe and came in 3rd. Teams Won’t Win and That’s Going to Leave a Mark from Rolla came in well under 12hrs although I don’t know how they placed in their division. Chris from That’s going to Leave a Mark decided that he was going to be sure to live up to the name and made the mistake of wearing running shorts through the trekking, yeeee ouch! At the awards ceremony Iowa Wolfpack left early so we got to pick from the prizes second and let me just say that NO ONE gives out better prizes than Bonk Hard Racing. I am talking a $250 Kuat rack, $100 North Face windproof fleece, $90 North Face Sleeping Bags, and bunch of gear from Alpine Shop. Bonk Hard puts on an amazing race and you can’t find a nicer race director that knows adventure racing than Jason and Laura. You don’t want to miss the awards ceremony, that is unless you finish before Forum Dental.

LBL challenge report from race director

2010-05-10T20:39:00.000-07:00

Jason of Bonk Hard Racing gave the following report of the 2010 LBL Challenge in his newsletter.

The LBL Challenge 12-Hour and 24-Hour adventure races took place on April 10-11 at the Land Between the Lakes, in western Kentucky. The weather was absolutely beautiful with the high at 72 degrees and the sun was shining the entire weekend.

The 12-Hour and 24-Hour racers both started at 7AM on Saturday morning. Race Headquarters was located at Birmingham Ferry (on Pisgah Bay), and we had the entire backside of the campground reserved for the race.

Nearly 200 racers lined up at the starting line for the playing of our National Anthem and some last minutes notes. 24-Hour teams and 12-Hour teams were headed in different directions at the start, but they all had the same goal – to do the best they could and have fun doing it.

12-Hour racers started with a 4 mile running and orienteering leg, and had to find 4 checkpoints along the way, before returning to Race H.Q. The four CPs could be found in any order. The 4-Person team, The Juggernauts, finished this leg in a very fast 56 minutes! The were followed very closely by the team Iowa Wolfpack, who finished one minute behind them. It was a battle for first place, and with the top 3 teams finishing within 4 minutes of each other, it would be a battle the entire day!

Once teams returned to Race H.Q., they started a 15 mile biking leg. This biking leg included about 6 miles of fun singletrack. The rest was jeep roads, gravel roads and paved roads. This biking leg led teams to Taylor Bay Campground where canoes were waiting for them. The 4-Person team, FollowNoOne, and the 2-Person team, Brewer Science, recorded the fastest times on this biking leg, completing the 15 miles in 1 hour and 45 minutes. This put FollowNoOne in a dead-even tie for first place with Iowa Wolfpack at Taylor’s Bay. Teams dropped their bikes, grabbed their PFDs and prepared for the upcoming 7 mile paddle on Lake Barkley and Energy Lake.

Teams paddled south on Lake Barkley for about 4 miles, getting a CP in a cove along the way, and arrived at the eastern boat ramp of the Energy Lake Dam. Teams had to portage their canoe across the dam to the western boat ramp, and continue paddling another 3 miles on Energy Lake. Team FollowNoOne posted the fastest paddling time, finishing the 7 mile paddle in a time of 1 hour and 38 minutes, putting 7 minutes on Iowa Wolfpack. Teams would now face a 4.5 – 5 mile trekking leg back to Taylor’s Bay Campground.

It ended up that team Iowa Wolfpack finished the trekking leg 7 minutes faster than team FollowNoOne, in a time of 1 hour and 26 minutes, which put them – once again – in a dead-even tie for first place at Taylor’s Bay! But the big news was the 4-Person team Forum Dental, who finished the trekking leg in 1 hour and 17 minutes, and closed the gap on the top 2 teams. Forum Dental arrived at Taylor’s Bay a mere 7 minutes behind the top teams. They knew they would have to push extremely hard on the final bike leg to have a chance at catching the top 2 teams. They had no intention of slowing down on the upcoming 15 mile biking leg, and they had every intention of making FollowNoOne and Iowa Wolfpack earn it.

I can only imagine how hard these top 3 teams were pushing each other on this final biking leg. And in the end, crossing the finish line 7 hours and 31 minutes after the race started, was the 4-Person Co-ed team FollowNoOne! Three minutes later, team Iowa Wolfpack crossed the finish line taking 2nd Place Overall! Only one minute behind Iowa Wolfpack, team Forum Dental crossed the finish line for a very solid 3 Place Overall! A huge congratulations to Laura Scherff, William Scherff, Ken Debeer and Joe Perry, of the team FollowNoOne, on winning the LBL Challenge 12-Hour!

12-Hour : 4-Person:
1. FollowNoOne – 7:31
2. Iowa Wolfpack – 7:34
3. Forum Dental – 7:35
4. Guinness for Breakfast / Trace Bikes – 9:14
5. The Juggernauts – 9:22

12-Hour : 2-Person:
1. American Flyers – 8:41
2. Cuttahotha – 8:45
3. Moose Knuckles – 9:14
4. Team Brewer Science – 9:19
5. That’s Gonna Leave a Mark – 9:43

St. James Missouri Mountain Bike Trail Map

2010-05-09T13:43:00.000-07:00

A trail map and profile for the new (May 2010) St. James mountain bike trail is below. Click on the trail head for driving directions.

Nice work Route 66 Bicycles in Rolla and everyone who worked on getting this trail built and open to the public.

To get the full experience click View Large Map

View Larger Map

Bonk Hard Chill Report

2010-04-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

Team Forum Dental did as well as we could expect for the 2010 Bonk Hard Chill at Lake of the Ozarks State Park!

The Thursday prior to the race I got a frantic call from one of our team members. “I’m sick on my deathbed – I can’t do the race”. WOW the phone lines lit up around the Midwest. EVERYONE we knew had something going on that weekend. It was almost comical.

We finally did the unthinkable. We decided to go coed. This is not a slight to our coed-ness, but it basically threw us into the mix with Alpine Shop and Bushwhacker. This is an arena that we were not prepared to compete in. As hansom as Dave is, and as chiseled as Scott’s physique is, 3rd is basically the best we could do.

Friday night - Pre-race meeting at 8:00pm
I spent a small fortune at the bike shop, and really liked my odds of winning the kayak. Didn’t happen. Fortunately it was not a precursor of our performance at the race. We got the location of bike drop-off, map and instructions. Jason was working on a pretty raspy throat, so the meeting actually was brief and to the point.

Hoping to get to bed early, Dave, Kari and I dropped bikes off in a park in Tuscumbia, MO, while Scott plotted our attack back at HQ. We had a new strategy for bikes this time. Rather than have water and Heed in the bottles, we went with Yoohoo. Yoohoo is the official post-race drink of Team Forum Dental. I’m working on some additional sponsorships from manufactures like Cheetos, Gogurt and Slim Jim – but I digress.

We decided to put the calories in liquid form and take them with us rather than wait for after the race. We figured the race was so long, that we needed multiple recovery drinks. I think this Idea was birthed from prior races when we would leave cans of Yoohoo at the bikes. We drank them and crushed and carried the cans. Jason was clear that we were not to leave anything with the bikes except bike gear. This produced the Yoohoo in the bike bottle idea. Simply Genious!!!

We set tire pressures to 38psi, adjusted seat height, and were headed back to HQ.

Our plan of being in bed by 11pm somehow got thwarted. It’s just not a race if we get in be before 1am.

Saturday:
Wake-up was 4:15. I’m the only one who feels it is necessary to take a shower prior to a race, so I jumped in the shower and woke myself up. Anything prior to 8:00am is rough on me. We got to the start point at Camp Clover Point, only to wait while the buss’ tried to find their way there – Good thing the drivers weren’t navigating for the race!!! Jason had to go find them and lead them to the right spot. We all loaded up and headed to the true start out east of Osage Beach.

So we get to race start, and there is a rush to the bathrooms. There tend to be more men than women at these races, so the line to the bathroom looks like the woman’s bathroom at a sporting event. After about 30 seconds, anyone not takes a duce winds up nourishing the local plant life. There was a large group of guys “admiring the view” at the riverfront. One girl was standing behind the firing line looking out over the river when a racer turned and mentioned to her that everyone was really just urinating, not looking at the river - she quickly turned away quite embarrassed.

Jason apparently forgot his iPod, which means we butchered the National Anthem. Still pretty cool that we do that before these races though.

So everyone has their rain top on, because a slight drizzle is coming down. There I am in my bright yellow Frog Tog top – thanks Scott. Everyone has these cool, lightweight rain coats on. Scott picked up some lightweight Frog Togs for us over a year ago. They are great to pack for adventure racing because they work, and they really are lite. But his is a casual tope color. Mine - Banana Yellow.

7:10am and we are off and running. We started with a 3 mile out and back run. Surprisingly, this really does spread the group out a bit. CP1 and CP2 down. Into the canoes we go.

We see several people we know. Say our polite hellos, but this is a race where we know the best we can do in our category is 3rd, so we become all business. I’ve lost about 25 lbs since Castlewood, so I’m about 15lbs heavier than Dave now. With me in the front, and Dave in the back with his an my pack, the boat is fairly balanced.

Canoeing is not our forte, but we busted it out during this section. We actually passed a few teams during the 11 mile 2 hour paddle. We reached CP3 and made a fairly smooth transition to the bikes. Plenty of bikes still there, so we knew the race was going well for us. By this point we had doffed our rain jackets, so I no longer looked like a giant bumblebee.

We started out by crossing a poorly maintained bridge over the river with plenty of traffic. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few teams looked at the bridge and decided to throw in the towel. It was long and uphill – the first of many. Our towing system – a dog collar with some surgical tubing – worked great, and thankfully we didn't stay on pavement very long.

Scott was taking us right to the CP’s. Many of which were just red cables wrapped around a pole or sign with the orange punch there. Tough to spot while flying down the road! We passed a few more teams here.

We were climbing up a hill to a CP, and saw a team up ahead. I’m a pretty lighthearted guy, and was jokingly going to ask if anyone had a cigarette. I opted not to, and then realized that one of their teammates was actually smoking a cigarette. That would have been the big foot in the mouth. But it does raise two questions. 1. What the heck are you doing smoking during an adventure race? 2. How the heck did you get in front of us after a run, paddle and bike section, with the lungs of a smoker? Maybe it was time to pick up the pace.

About 2 miles after CP5, and some fairly difficult climbs, a team asked us if we had found CP5. Sorry guys, it’s about 2 miles back. Ouch.

Scott’s $1.99 bike-map-holder-thing-a-ma-jigger worked great. During the whole biking section. I don’t really understand how people can wear the map and navigate at the same time. As an added bonus, it works like a fender, so while the rest of us have mud flung up in our eyes and mouth, Scott is looking as pristine as ever – Pretty Boy.

CP7 was at an Osage Beach gas station. Everyone had a $1.50 credit at the store. I was too focused on passing teams that were waiting for Gatorade, pizza, hot dogs and beer. I wanted to treat this like any old CP. What do I care about $1.50. Alas, the bathroom called out as a safe haven to a few of the teammates, and you couldn’t deny that a toilet seat was better than a squat in the woods. We busted out of the gas station, and realized that on the bike up to that point, we had passed about seven teams.

We passed our first strip club, next door to the VFW, promptly followed by several churches. “Where you going honey?” “I’m swinging by the VFW to hook up with some old pals, and then maybe catching sermon.” - Yea right. It reminded me of a Bar in Prescott, AZ named The Office, and one in Phoenix named The Library. “Where are you?” – “I’m at the Office.” “Are you going to be out late dear?” “Yea, I’m going to be at the Library.” It’s all about marketing.

CP8 was on a cabin at the top of a hill. At this point, those of us who read the directions knew that the paved road that did not rip your quads apart was off limits. You were supposed to attack this CP from the hilly gravel road. Needless to say, we saw other teams approaching the CP from the off-limits road. This sport has honest people in it for the most part. I’ve seen a few exceptions to this rule. Basically a limited number of folks who blatantly leave teammates behind to go a few miles and get a CP, or take easier routes that are off limits. These racers are few and far between. We knew the guys who approached on the road. Good guys, who obviously were not out to cheat, but just didn’t read the rules of travel. We mentioned it to them. Didn’t turn them in. Don’t know if they turned themselves in. It’s always nice to have a good reputation, so that people assume the best about you.

CP9 was the check-in for some single track. The people there had Oreos for us, and were really upbeat. It’s great to have volunteers that enjoy what they do. This was the trailhead, and CP's 10-12 were down some muddy trails.

This is not single-track that you love. More of a horse trail. Scott did us some favors here. We initially passed the proper turnoff on this trail. About 3 other teams of aggressive mountain bikers were right on our tails. We stopped to reorient, and they went smoking by us. Never saw them again, but they were going in the wrong direction. We walked our bikes back up a muddy trail and found our missed turn. Off we went, never to see the other teams again.

The route from 10-11 was basically un-rideable with extremely steep, rocky, muddy terrain. Dave probably could have handled it on his Specialized, but since the rest of us had Gary Fishers, we decied to push our bikes.

We picked up CP12 and then were off to Camp Pin Oak. “Scott, how far to Camp In Oak?” “It’s just down the hill, up the hill, down the hill and up the hill again.” - Thanks Scott

CP13 was at Camp Pin Oak where we received more points to plot. Kari and I took care of the incidentals of the transition, while Dave and Scott plotted. I dumped my water at this point, because I knew the end of the race was near, I wanted to cary as light a pack as possible, and my water was tasting quite foul. I must not have let the water run at our dive of a hotel, because it was nasty.

Off we ran. The rain was beginning to fall again, making the leaves on the forest floor quite slippery. However, with the leaves on the ground, rather than the trees, spotting checkpoints from 200 yards away, was much easier.

I’ve recently taken up the job of pace counter. I also have an altimeter that keeps track of distances. I have to say, I finally feel useful. 25 pounds liter allows me to get up hills faster, and move through the forest more quickly. That, and my pace counting duties really gave me a since of pride. I don’t really know if it helps that much, but it made me feel good. I think we move through the woods a lot faster now. For one or both of these reasons.

We busted through this section almost flawlessly. We botched one checkpoint, which cost us about 45 minutes, but otherwise this was a smooth run. Even botching just one CP was good for us. We headed back to our bikes, and saw a few teams just leaving. Some of us were not feeling 100% at this point (probably because the Yoohoo was gone), so we knew with the monster hill in front of us, that we would not be catching these two teams on our way back to Camp Clover Point.

Scott’s legs were shredded at this point from doing all of the towing. I looked over at him to offer words of encouragement, but realized I’d better be quiet, and let him focus. Then I hear Kari, his wife, say “you can go faster if you want to”. Smack!!! Get it move’n buster, this ain’t no night train.

It was daylight and we came up to the finish line with Cowbells, yells, air horns blowing with a time of 9 hours 7 minutes. About 2 hours behind Bushwacker and Alpine Shop – but a solid 3rd place in the elite coed division. I might add, that we finished a good 30 minutes ahead of the first place All-Male team. Double Smack!!

What did we learn.
1. Yoohoo and Ensure in the Bike Bottles – It’s all about the liquid calories!.
2. We can hold our own in the coed division. Not with the elite teams, but certainly with many teams.
3. We found a new war cry “you can go faster if you want to”

A bad influence

2010-04-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

Ha Ha Ha.....After 10 years I am starting to have some success. All this time I have been tempting my wife ever so slightly to come to the dark side and I believe I have made some serious progress. Of course a few months ago she began mountain biking, then adventure racing and she keeps coming back or more which is excellent. Then a few days ago she asked me to fix a picture frame that she was having trouble getting to stay up. I take a look at it and find that she had applied a ginormous amount of duct tape (see pic above) to the back and I knew then that her journey to the dark side is nearly complete, it won't be long before I'll have her not bothering to throw the dirty clothes in the hamper (I mean why have so much floor space if you're not going to use it), hocking lugies during races, and just wiping her nose on her sleeve like every other adventure racer (Ok MALE adventure racers).....Ha ha ha

Bonk Hard Chill 2010 race map

2010-03-28T14:05:00.000-07:00

1 week after the whole missing CP fiasco at the AdventureMax we were able to redeem ourselves at the Bonk Hard Chill 12 hr. We placed 3rd in the 4 person Co-ed division and 3rd overall of the 4 person teams. The only 4 person teams that beat us were Alpine Shop and Bushwhackers who are both nationally ranked teams and are really in a different league all together. We originally intended to run it as a 4 person male team but one of our teammates was flat on his back with the flu on Thursday, so Kari had to sub in. Turned out great though, she really hammered the whole race and we feel we are really coming together as a co-ed team. It was kind of drizzly and cold the whole race, but we felt great the whole way. We feel that we have found a breakthrough in adventure racing nutrition. We have always loved YooHoo (that deliciously tasty chocolate drink) for post race recovery. Studies have shown chocolate milk to be the greatest recovery drink ever invented (google it). We always struggle to get in calories on the bike, so I thought "heck I am going to fill one of my bike bottles up with the stuff." It was like NECTAR FROM HEAVEN! so tasty and packed with just the right amount of carbs, and protein, we felt like we could go for days drinking the stuff. YooHoo is now the official bike fuel of team Forum Dental. We don't know if YooHoo sponsors any sporting teams but we would like to be first in line. Anyway, I think Judd is writing up a full report so stay tuned. Oh and if you are reading this and are in a future race against us, disregard all the YooHoo stuff, it really sucks, keep choking down Cytomax or Perpeteum YUM :-)

Scott

See the map below for the Bonk Hard Chill 12hr race map

To get the full experience click View Large Map

View Larger Map

AdventureMax 8hr race map

2010-03-21T13:42:00.000-07:00

See the map below for the AdventureMax 8hr race map

To get the full experience click View Large Map

View Larger Map

AdventureMax 8hr report

2010-03-21T12:52:00.000-07:00

The Adventure Max 8 Hour was put on by Ultramax and it was their first adventure race. We weren’t sure what to expect, but we had high hopes. We arrived at the Innsbrook Resort and lined up for the gear check. The course designer laughed at Nav’s ball compass and asked if we were seriously going to use that compass. We assured him that we were and it worked great.

The pre-race meeting kicked off at 8:00 pm. The race director attempted to build some tension around the race start time by telling us it would begin between midnight and 10:00 am and there was a reason headlamps were on the required gear list. Then came the announcement. The race would begin at; you could feel the tension in the freezing air, 6:00 am. There was a collective gasp from the crowd, well not really. Pretty much all the races we have done start about the same time. This time of year the sun is coming up by then. So much for needing the headlamps. After listening to the usual “can I leave my bike shoes with my bike at the bike drop” questions we headed out to find a hotel nearby after figuring out the links on the Ultramax website put us about a half hour from the race when another town was much closer.

The next morning we dropped our bikes at 5:15 am and headed to the start. I picked up the passport and timing chip, we listened to the National Anthem and off we went at 0600. The first section was a long run that spread out all the teams. Thanks to our expert, Nav, we nailed the first orienteering section and cruised into the canoes in 3^rd place overall.

Having Judd (the missing link) in the front of a canoe on an icy lake has its advantages. Even though he has lost twenty pounds doing P90XXX, he is still the big man on the team. That finely honed Demi Moore-like physique came in pretty handy for busting ice in front of the canoe. We had to do some icebreaking to get all the check points on the lake, but still came off the water in third. Holding our place was a stunning achievement for us in the canoe, where we are not always at our best.

We dashed back to our bikes with a couple of teams hot on our heels. The bike was going great until the first of what seemed like endless low water crossings. Every time we rode through water splashed on our legs and our shoes were filled with water. Invigorating on a frosty 30 degree morning.

We were cruising on the bikes when Judd decided to take a tight corner on a low water crossing. I was right behind him as his bike slid out from under him and he slipped gently below the surface of the water. I had to stop to keep from hitting him and soaked one of my feet while standing there waiting for him to get up and get going. He was fine, only wet on one side, so we kept going.

We didn’t fare quite as well on the bike as the canoe as we were passed by two 2 person teams and a 4 person co-ed team. We were right behind the 4 person team heading into the transition area from bike to orienteering when Kari snapped a chain on her bike. At this point Kari was given her one and only chance to say sorry, even though it wasn’t her fault. She was giving it all she had to stay with the team ahead of us and the chain gave up. She claims she isn’t much of a biker, but with power like that everyone else better watch out.

So, we have a broken chain and I know just what to do. I dig into my saddlebag and get out a quick link. This repair will take seconds, in theory. Judd gets his chain tool, we take out a link, I put in the first plate of the quick link and realize the other plate is gone. I must have dropped it in 6 inches of dried grass. Lots of profane words went through my head and a few escaped my lips as we searched for the missing link (not Judd this time). Missing half the quick link, I removed another link and in my haste to get going I pushed the pin all the way out. More profanity. The pin gets dropped and we try to get another one in when I realize, there is something hanging in my lips. I looked up and asked the team, “What is in my mouth?” There was the missing quick link. I was holding it in my lips so I didn’t drop it. After that screw up, I put both links on the chain and I got my only sorry of the race. We were off to catch those other teams.

We were off following Nav running on lead legs. In the time it took to get the chain fixed our legs tightened up. Then we realized we were going the opposite direction we had planned. We convened a team meeting to consider our options and decided to take the orienteering the opposite way we had planned. Nav nailed checkpoint 19 and we headed to checkpoint 18. We arrived at the narrow ridge and found a couple of other teams milling around looking for it was well. The clue was ridge and that was what we were on. No one could find it. Now, the race director had stated in the pre-race meeting that if you couldn’t find a checkpoint and you know you are in the right spot, don’t spend too much time looking for it. Skip it and move on. It won’t count against you unless another team after you finds it. We hear this in every pre-race meeting we attend. In the Mission 18 hour race there was a missing control and we got credit for getting there. Nav was 100% sure we were in the right spot so we decided to move on to 17 and skip this one. 17 proved to be a little more challenging than it should have been, but once we got it we blew through the other two and headed back to the bikes. When we got back we asked the guy at the TA if other teams had found 18. He said everyone had.

Well crap. We didn’t want to miss a checkpoint, which was a 5 hour time penalty, so we headed out to try again, this time attacking from a different direction. We passed another 4 person co-ed team headed back to the bikes and they said they had 18. Nav worked the map and we headed for the checkpoint. We ended up on the same ridge as the first time. Must have missed the checkpoint down there. Down the ridge we went and found nothing. When we came back off the ridge we ran into Team Cyclewerks. Their navigator also agreed we were in the right location. They had spent the last 45 minutes looking for the control and found nothing. We decided to bag this one and head back to the bikes. The guy at the TA put a big circle on our passport on 18 and we headed for the finish line with a much reduced sense of urgency.

We biked in to the finish and found out there was a challenge to be completed before we finished the race. We had to pick up bags, go to a beach about a mile away and fill the bags with no less than 30 pounds of sand and pack it back to the finish where we would crawl under ropes dragging our bags. We complained all the way to the lake, but once we got the sand and put the bags on our shoulders, it wasn’t too bad. On our way back to the finish we ran into Team Cyclewerks headed to the beach. They said they finally found 18, but it was not in the right spot. We dragged our bags to the finish line and ended the race in about 8 and a half hours.

At the finish we talked with the race director and told him we thought checkpoint 18 was in the wrong location. He told us that he had heard from some teams it might not be right, but others told him it was exactly right. As we dined on the post-race meal, which was a great potato bar with chili and cheese and all kinds of fixin’s, the race director announced there was some controversy on checkpoint 18, but 90 percent of the teams had found it and the first place team told him they nav’ed right to it. Nav talked to some other team navigators that also thought it was located incorrectly, but they found it by accident. We decided to leave before the awards since we knew we were out of the running, but before heading out Nav talked to the race director and asked if we could GPS the location of the actual control to establish if we were off or if the control was. He told us to go for it and if we were right he would give us half off next years race.

We headed out there and ran into the course designer taking down the controls. He had just pulled 18 so Nav hopped on his 4-wheeler and they went to check it out. When they got back, Nav was smiling and the course designer confirmed what we thought. Control 18 was located in the wrong location. It was on a hill, not a ridge and south of where we were looking. We had closure, until the race results came out and they said “After further review CP #18 was in fact placed the wrong location. It was very close, but still in the wrong location. We applogize (sic) for the mistake! In the end, we did have the far majority of the teams find CP #18.”

They still counted 18 and we got a 5 hour penalty for missing it. In the end, Team Forum Dental came in 23 out of 33, but we had fun getting there. Next time we get a five hour penalty we are going to bring a lunch, a couple of fishing rods and do a little more lolly-gagging so we feel better about earning it.

Dave

A little extreme training

2010-01-07T19:06:00.000-08:00

Special D - a.k.a. big boss man of the Mark Twain N.F. made me drag my sorry rear out of bed go to work today in light of the BLIZZARD conditions. OK, maybe just a cold wintry snow shower, but the kids were off school and since I didn't feel like going to work I thought I would "stick it to the man" and run to work in protest. So I donned some tights and wind pants on bottom, base layer, fleece and windbreaker up top, facemask, hat, gloves and woolly socks and headed out.

It was 7 degrees with winds steady at 20 mph and gusting 26 which made the wind chill a balmy -14 degrees. I have to say with temps and especially with wind that cold it soon becomes apparent where you are insulation deficient. I could feel the cold seeping though to my legs at the start of the run (3-4 miles) but I hoped that they would warm up once I started generating some body heat. As I rounded the corner and headed up Soest road by the middle school the wind just absolutely blasted me. With snow blowing all around, the wind blasting me in the face and trudging through the snow, I felt I was starring in some journey across Antarctica documentary. It was excellent!

As I was running up Pine St. to RMU I began to have a small problem. You see, my legs, by that time had begun generating heat and felt fine along with the rest of me except for one little thing...The Captain had began to get a bit of a shiver in the timbers. That's right, I had failed properly shield Captain Winkey from the Arctic conditions and he was starting to protest. In fact he was down right causing me pain. When I got to RMU and was standing there paying my utilities I found that if I held myself it felt quite a bit warmer. So I just said to heck with it and while I was waiting for my payment to be processed I stood there in front of a bunch of old ladies, with face mask, hat and sunglasses looking like I was ready to go on a covert-op, holding myself like a 1st grader who is destined to forever be known as Scotty Potty.

I headed back out feeling a bit relieved, crossed the golf course, made snow angels on one of the greens and in front of the office then went in to stick it to "the man." Who of course could have cared less about my protest and probably wished he came with me. I didn't really do it to protest, just wanted to have a go at it cause doing stuff like that makes me feel alive.

Is there such a thing as a Willy Warmer or am I going to have to put that to Forum Dental Adventure Racings R&D department?

The Best Adventure Racer Ever...

2009-12-25T10:12:00.000-08:00

So I was thinking last night (Christmas Eve) that Santa has to be the best adventure racer ever. I mean how many checkpoints and miles is that anyway? In less than 24 hrs!! Even with a flying reindeer powered sleigh that is pretty incredible, he must have some wicked nav skills. Anyway I set out to catch a peek at him in action to try to find out some trade secrets. See the movie below to see what I got.

How can a man of his size move so fast? I wonder what his training routine is...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Castlewood 8 Race Report

2009-12-16T07:09:00.000-08:00

It's supposed to be an 8 hour race. Translated, this means that Team Alpine Shop will finish in just about 30 minutes. For the rest of us mere mortals, this means hopefully coming in under 10 hours.

Team Alpine Shop is the standard for adventure racing in my book.

Now I know that there are other great teams out there, (WEDALI cracks me up, and they LOVE to race) but Alpine Shop are in our own backyard (St. Louis), so as far as I’m concerned, they are the gold standard. They won the 2009 USARA point series. The youngest person on the team is 41 y.o. (very inspirational). Not only that, but you would be hard pressed to meet a nicer group of racers. And as long as Dave Frei is putting the Zanfel where it is supposed to go, they will always be in contention for the title.

Jeff Sona was fresh off an ultra marathon (100 mile trail run in under 30 hours), so it’s understandable if he was a bit banged up. Maybe slow the team down by 30, 35 seconds. Totally acceptable.

The reason I’m mentioning Team Alpine Shop, is because The Castlewood 8 race is sponsored by Alpine Shop. An outdoor gear store in the St. Louis area. They have a great store, and supplied a lot of the swag for the race. I think everyone came away with some sort of goody at the awards ceremony. My hats are off to both the store and the racers.

As for team Forum Dental. We usually race as a 4 man team. My use of the term ‘man’ is subjective here, but suffice it to say that we each have at least one X chromosome, and one Y chromosome. Chris “Klinefelter” Wehrli moved to Idaho, and was not with us for this race. So we opted to jump to the elite category, and took to the internet in search of a female race partner. After an exhaustive search, and several interviews from applicants from around the globe, we opted for our strongest applicant - Kari Young. Fortunately for us, she happens to be the spouse of teammate Scott Young, so it didn’t make for any awkward sleeping arrangements.

The night before the race we were fortunate enough to be going to bed early. Usually Scott is up until 3am plotting routes. Then, once he is in bed, he fidgets around for hours trying to get some sleep. With no pre-race maps, and his wife on the team, he was in bed at 8pm ready for some sleep.

Dave and I slept fine too. Rest assured, there was no snuggling going on in our bed though.

At 4:17am the prostate gave out, and I made the “I’m 40 years old now; I have to get up in the middle of the night to go potty” trek. For me, that was it as far as sleeping. Over the next 30 minutes, everyone made the trek to the bathroom for the same purpose. I’m the slowest one on the team (the weak Link), so it was fitting that I was the first to give in to the calls of nature.

Once we got on the bus we started joking around with some of the other races. I’m always saying dumb stuff just to see the reaction of some of the racers. “OH crud, we're supposed to bring our own food?”. “I didn’t realize we need to bring our mountain bikes”. “We’re going to be in the woods!??”. You get some stunned looks until it sinks in that you are only joking.

Over 100 teams signed up for this race. I think 96 actually started the race. Some very stiff completion. A top 5 finish was going to have to be earned the hard way. When we reached the starting area we received our maps and got ready to go.

This would be a good time to mention that the temp was 17 degrees.

A week before the race it had been around 70 degrees, so 17 degrees was a real wake-up call.

We started out with a run to pick up our passports. This was a brisk winding uphill run. We got to the passport station to find volunteers standing near a roaring fire and our passports. Scott had already plotted our course, so we were off like banshees. This is a new approach for us. We used to start out slow and work up, but a few races back, we decided to just go for it from the start. It’s been working fairly well for us, so we stuck with it.

Checkpoints 1 thru 11 could be gathered in any order you wished, while #'s 12 thru 15 had to be found in order. Not very many teams plotted the course the same way we did, so we were essentially on our own for a bit. As usual, Scott took us directly to the 1st CP.

At CP 6 we started to run into some of the other race teams. A few were scratching their heads, wondering if they should try and follow other teams and abandon their maps all together, while others were beginning to enjoy the warmer 22 degree weather as the sun came up.

Scott was doing his usual fabulous job of making sure we got to the correct location as quickly as possible. About the only problem we ran into was that our water supply lines from our hydration packs kept freezing up. We had to keep them tucked under our arms to heat them up so they would flow properly. Ever sucked on the end of something that has been tucked under a sweaty armpit? Yea, it’s as bad as it sounds.

Getting from CP 14 to CP 15 was a snap, and I was wondering how the transition over to our mountain bikes would go. Biking has historically been a section were we pass a number of teams. The unknown was our newest team member. Kari XX Young. She is super fit. Super fit as in I can only joke around with her so much, because if I cross the line, and she decides to “Bring It” and open up a 6-pack of booty smack on me, I’m in trouble. I can’t even run away from her, because she is faster than I am. The few times I have crossed the line with her have ened up with me in fetal position sucking on my thumb asking for my mommy.

Anyway, Kari has only recently taken up biking (3 weeks ago). Not just mountain biking, but “how do I use the gears and breaks” kind of biking. She is a competitor though, and has dedicated heart, soul and body to learning to mountain bike. She has the bruises to prove it.

Some mid-race stats.

We were the 14th team to reach the Bike Transition. This means we were doing fairly well out of the chute. The fastest team did this section in 1 hour 35 minutes. The slowest team did this section in 5 hours and 52 minutes. Our time was 2 hours 9 minutes.

Transitions are notoriously slow for us. We had the 40th fastest time in and out of the transition area. Not sure why this plagues us every race, but it is an area that we need to work on.

With frozen solid water bottles, we started on the bike.

The first several miles of the bike leg were going to be on paved roads and the CP's looked pretty easy to find. There was one just brutal climb though.

Usually we love going up, because it means a fast downhill after. In 22 degree weather, after building up a slight sweat from the climb, this downhill freeze is not quite so welcome.

After we punched the passport at CP 16 it was time to make our descent to CP 17. It was all downhill and very fast. My bike computer was set to Km rather than Miles, so when I looked down and saw 55, I almost fainted. I quickly made the conversion to mph and figured we were going about 33mph. Did I mention it was 22 degrees? At the bottom we realized what it must feel like to have Botox our faces had literally frozen into huge numb cheesy grins. Special D commented that it had taken years off my face….. I’m thinking of scheduling an appointment.

We got to CP 19 from our bike transition in 42 minutes. That was 14th fastest on the day. Forget those fears that Kari had only been biking for a few weeks. We were crushing it here.

Heading to CP 20 we got off course a bit. I don’t think it cost us more than a few minutes, but the local signage was a little messed up. It was clear that some other folks took the same route. These ‘other folks’ were in front of us, so obviously they were fast, and had a very good idea of how to read a map.

This single-track leg took us out of our game a little. We were not going very fast, and it was not really difficult terrain. For us it was an out-and-back, so on the way back, we knew what to expect as far as what the ride would be like. It was flat, a little muddy, and we all had a ton of energy. It should have taken us about 27-28 minutes. It took us 42. A good 10 minutes of that was a chain repair…but still, we were not on our game for this leg.

Chain repair – let me tell you we handled this with an expertise that you might only find from a local bike shop mechanic. First of all, we got a chain wrapped around the crankshaft. NOT just wrapped around the crankshaft, but wrapped around the crankshaft SEVERAL TIMES. I don’t know how this is possible. We could not do it again if we tried. To this moment, it is still baffling to everyone on the team. The only way we could think of reproducing this picture, is actually taking a link out of the chain, wrapping it around the crankshaft, and then putting the link back in.

Seriously, it was that bad. However, Special D whipped out his tools, and in less than 10 minutes, we had some bad links (torqued beyond use) removed, chain unwrapped, and we were back in the saddle.

We ranked 42nd in this section. Not our finest hour, but one more section down, and on to the canoes. (Read on to discover how this “slow” section and chain difficulties ended up being a blessing in disguise, and actually saved our entire race).

Getting to CP 23 presented its own challenges.

We had to load our bikes into a canoe and then paddle upriver. This requires a balancing act. The CP was at the far end of an island, so rather than paddle upriver even further; we parked the canoe at the near end, and ran for it.

Now I would choose to do this again, but in retrospect, it might not have been the wisest thing to do. The mud on the island was thick. We jumped out of our canoe and were up to our shins in thick, ice cold mud – with our bike shoes on. Did I mention that it was 22 degrees?

So we get to the other side of the island to bring our mistake into full realization. The CP is hanging on a tree - out over the lake. You could paddle right up to it and punch the passport in a canoe. Dave thought about shimming out the tree and punching the passport, but there was a big branch sticking straight up out the side of the tree. If anything went wrong, SPLASH into the river – Race Over.

We realized that we had three choices: A) run back to the canoe, paddle upriver to the CP (10 minutes at least) B) risk the shimmy and possible full body douse (Race Over) or C) plunge into the river knee deep (Dave is 6’2”), and deal with the cold (22 degrees out)

It took Super Dave all of 0.03 seconds to go charging down into the water and punch the passport. We got back to the canoe, and took off down river towards the take-out, and the final leg of the race.

We maintained a solid, sustainable rowing pace despite the cold wet feet and frigid temperatures.

Dave and I have made the mistake in past races of just throwing our bikes on the canoe and strapping them down and going. Only to realize later that the handlebars were in the water acting as a rudder. Or one of the wheels was shoved up my backside, or sitting on Dave’s lap. Worse is the “off-kilter” set, that puts you in full on pucker mode for hours as you try to compensate for the poor weight distribution.

This is all much more difficult to get right than it seems. Taking your time is important, but even then, it is impossible to tell how things are going to end up until you are in the water and going. If you get it wrong, it’s not like you can stand up in the canoe and start making adjustments. It is always a crapshoot.

This race, Pluto lined up with Saturn’s third moon, and Dave and I got our bikes “right”.

Scott and Kari had a little more trouble. Because of the set of their bikes, Kari could only paddle on one side, with a partial stroke. Scott could only paddle on one side with a – reach out over the bike tire and stroke – type effort. Fortunately this was not a 4 hour paddle, and we actually made it through this section 14th fastest.

Later we found out that one team flipped their canoe. Did I mention that it was 22 degrees out?

We all handle adversity differently. For the most part, I’m the slowest person on the team. I’ve come to accept this. It’s not easy, but it’s either enjoy being with friends, and realize I’m going to be the deciding factor in how fast/slow we go, or not race at all. Scott and Dave are like Gazelles going uphill – on foot or on bike. I weight about 60 lbs more than Scott, and am several inches shorter than Dave. I just don’t go up hills very fast.

I’d be lying if I said that being the slow guy was not discouraging – but I live with it because it is a ‘constant state’ for me. My teammates live with it because they know someone has to be the slow guy, and if they had a different teammate that was faster than them, they would be the slow guys, and would probably have a total mental breakdown.

Now when Scott or Dave do something that causes the team to ‘err’, it is not only unusual, but as a team, we are usually unprepared to deal with it. Basically the only way for this to happen is for the navigator to make a wrong turn or something like that. While this used to be more common when we started racing, it is actually fairly uncommon any more. Usually it is more of a post-race ‘ahh, knowing what we know now’ type of thing; we might have made a different route choice.

Every team out there has missed a CP, decided they took a bad route, or been momentarily lost at some point during a race. It happens, and happens a lot.

In the past, if Scott made a navigation error, he would get ticked at himself, go into a little trance, and bust a move to get us back where we were supposed to be. Silence was an absolute necessity. Part of the ritual is putting the head down, mentally beating himself up, and about 5 – 10 minutes later everything is fine. No one on the team really cares about the error, because NONE of us want to shoulder the burden that he does by taking on the task of navigator.

When I leave my bike stuff back at the hotel, and we have to go back for it, run tight on time, and end up carrying it with us instead of being able to drop it off with the bikes, I just feel stupid. It does not really slow me down trying to shake it off, because I’m already the slowest.

With this lead in, Forum Dental had a completely new experience this race.

We get to the canoe take out, and there is a mandatory gear check.

Dave and I fly through this like a hot knife through butter. We take both canoes up to the loading area while Kari and Scott are pulling out their gear. We are moving.

No problems – except that Kari does not have her whistle. At a Bonk Hard Racing race, this does not result in a time penalty, or a CP penalty. It results in a DQ. Basically the death penalty. A DQ is mentally very different than an “unofficial time” or even a “DNF – Did Not Finish”. A DQ, DisQualified, is a – you broke the rules, you cheated, you otherwise are not allowed to complete the race and receive a finishing time and ranking.

This being Kari’s first race, being Scott’s wife, and otherwise not knowing much about the “Required Gear” list – Scott took it upon himself to make sure she was packed and ready to go.

By the way, the Young’s own three whistles. They brought every one of them to this race. They had each of them on the bed the night prior as we meticulously went through the gear list. There are any number of reasons how one got left back at the hotel, and was not put in the race pack. No Whistle = DQ’d.

It is hard to say how I would have felt had this been me. I’ve slowed us down. I’ve caused us to come in dead last. I’ve thrown up, I’ve cried, I’ve bent my derailer (had a spare one), pushed my bike up a mole hill when I had absolutely nothing left in me. I’ve dealt with these emotions. DQ’d when we are one hour from the finish of the race – I’ve not had to deal with that one yet.

Let me be honest here. This is when your mind, in its cold tired state starts to play tricks on you. “how important is a whistle”? Is it worth compromising my integrity and “borrowing” a whistle from a teammate that has already been checked? Believe me, as a teammate, these same thoughts are running through your head. These races are expensive. It’s a silly whistle for goodness sake. But it’s the rules. We all know the rules in advance, and we all play by the same rules.

I’m proud to say that we maintained our integrity – and were blessed for it.

The Volunteers (bless their hearts) relentlessly asked each team that came to the gear check if they had a spare whistle. Now some race packs have built in whistles. Ours don’t, but some do. So up wonders a racer with a pack with a built in whistle. Not knowing this counts, he had also packed another whistle – ahh, a spare. We’re back in business. A huge shout out to this racer that saved our entire race.

By the way, if we don’t have the chain malfunction that I mentioned earlier, we don’t get this whistle. Had it not slowed us down, we would not have been in the right place at the right time to get this whistle. While the chain was no one’s fault, it certainly makes you feel better about it if it happens to you.

Now I’m a big believer in Karma. This was some good Karma. We owed someone big time.

This cost us 10 minutes. Shake it off, water under the bridge, let’s go.

Well, easier said than done. Down goes the head. “Shake if off Scott, we’re in business”. Only time is going to heal the crushing feelings that Scott must have felt when he thought he might have cost us the race. Non-the-less, we are back to racing. Not busting it out like we might otherwise have been doing, but back on the road.

We’ve now been passed by a few teams, an unusual situation for us when we are on bikes – no big deal, we are still in the race. Back to the single track, and up the hill we go. CRUNCH. Scott’s chain in munched between the crank and the bike frame. His eyes look like they have been soaked in acid. I thought he was going to chuck the bike off the mountain. We decide to walk the bikes to the top of the hill and fix it there. Man when it rains it pours.

On the way up the hill Special D sees some “trash” and bends over to pick it up. This is no ordinary trash. This is team 118’s passport. No passport, and you don’t finish the race. Your passport is the only proof that you found every checkpoint.
Karma. Scott’s chain does not go CRUNCH, and maybe we just ride on by like the four teams in front of us, and don’t bother picking up the “trash”. That’s the way I see things at least. More on this later.

We get to the top of the hill, and the chain fix takes a few minutes. Nothing big, and we are ready to go. It appears that Scott has fully shaken off the whole whistle thing at this point. I can see in his eyes that he is back in it.

This last mountain bike portion is fairly routine, though quite hilly including the psyche-crushing energy-void known as Cardiac Hill. We end up doing this section with the 34th fastest time. No one passes us after the chain fix, but we also don’t pass anyone before we come across the finish line.

Two things happen during this bike ride.

First the funny one. Remember Kari, the “newby mountain bike rider”. Well, up to this point, she has really been holding her own. Of course she has used up all of her allotted “I’m sorry” statements at this point. You get one per race. We gave her 10 because she is new. She used them, and was done. Not only that, she was a good sport about it.

I’m bringing up the rear, making sure everything is good. Scott is leading the way with the map, and Kari comes to a rough patch of ground. She comes to a stop and tries to put her food down on the ground on the downhill side of the bike. This time of year, there are a lot of leaves on the ground in Missouri. Sometimes they get caught up in logs and are much like a snow drift – meaning they are several feet deep. Well, Kari went to balance on one such “leaf drift”. I’m watching in slow motion as she starts to go down the hill over the log, dragging the bike with her up and over her head. I reach down and grab a wheel to try and stop the slide. No one got hurt. But it was funny as anything – even to Kari. We were still cold and exhausted; maybe you had to be there.

The second one was touching. We passed a Father and Son who were out on the trails running together. The boy was probably 5 y.o. It was really neat to see a dad out in nature with his boy getting some exercise, and having some fun.
Karma, we finish the race. We hand in Team 118’s passport – you’ve never seen a happier team. They had the wherewithal to punch their map after losing their passport, but without the passport to prove they had gotten to the first 24 CPs, they are DNFs. Whoever was responsible for their passport is thanking the heavens.

Super Dave saves the day. In the process Team 118 (Diesel Manpower) goes from DNF to #2 in the 4 man team division, and 16 overall. Obviously we place one spot higher if we don’t find, or turn in the passport – good sportsmanship and a love of the sport rule out, we’re here to have fun. We return the whistle, and feel like all is right in the world.

We end up 5th and 6th in our respective 2 man and 2 person coed divisions. 20th overall with a race time of 6 hours and 25 minutes. A great race.

Alpine Shop wins the overall race with a time of 4 hours 39 minutes. They are in a league all by themselves. Might have been 38 minutes if Jeff had not run that 100 mile race a few weeks ago.

For various strategic reasons, we raced this race as two teams, but ran together. In 2010, Forum Dental will race as a 4-Person Co-Ed team.

2009 closes with Team Forum Dental winning the 4-person Adventure Division of the Bonk Hard Racing Series. We’ve come a long ways baby.

A special thanks to Henry Antolak and Forum Dental for sponsoring our team.

Scanned Castlewood maps

2009-12-13T13:59:00.000-08:00

Ok, Below is the scanned version of the Castlewood 8 hr Adventure Race maps and the route that Forum Dental took. The little maplet window below does not display the maps properly so you have to click Here to get the link to download and open up the maps in Google Earth.

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2009 Castlewood 8 hr map

2009-12-10T22:31:00.000-08:00

It seems that I left my set of race maps at the restaurant Saturday after the race, so I did this map by memory. Once Special D gets back from Milwalkee I will snatch his maps and scan in the real maps, but until then this will have to do.
Click Here for the full size map. Also click on the little arrows at the end of the tracks for the mileages of the different legs of the race.

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Castlewood 8 hr splits

2009-12-08T19:22:00.000-08:00

I took the clock times from Jason's splits and broke out the actual time splits and rankings. The spreadsheet is HERE

Turkey Orienteering meet, Babler St. Park

2009-11-29T20:46:00.000-08:00

Paul and Ginger Joyner, and Anne (from Forum Dental Too) went up for the Turkey O meet at Babler State Park. The meet is a Score O format (get as many checkpoints in three hours). I felt I ran a great course, I finished pretty well in the overall standings with 560 points out of 790 possible with 5 minutes to spare. I didn't have any major nav errors and was just about beat after three hours. In fact I wasn't sure I was going to make it up that last hill to the finish. One guy swept the course, Incredible!! It was great weather and the woods were super open. Paul, Ginger and Anne scored 300 pts.

View Larger Map

The CP had point values CP 1-10, 10pts; 11-20, 20 pts; 21-30, 30 pts; 31-34 50 pts.

For some reason my GPS track always shows up under the map when viewed in Google maps, for the best results, to see my route on top of the map click HERE to download the .kmz file and view it in Google Earth (you have to have Google Earth installed on your computer). You may have to right click on the link and save it to your computer.

Run for Strong Kids Half Marathon 09, Holister MO

2009-11-29T12:29:00.001-08:00

Owing to the fact that the Castlewood 8 is on the same day as the Memphis Half Marathon and Kari likes to do a half marathon this time of year, I searched and found another half to run. I came across a little race in Holister MO and thought well it is probably going to be hilly, but it is really cheap and close so we decided to do it. I just didn't realize how hilly.

Judd, Stephen Kofoed, Dave and Kari and I headed down on Friday. Kari and I stayed the weekend in Branson since it was our 10th anniversary. After making a quick QT stop and calling Chris for a little nostalgia we made it to Branson. Met Judd, Dave and Stephen and headed to Olive Garden where we saw the rest of the Rolla people that were going to run. After dinner we left Judd back at his hotel and went to preview the course. It was quickly apparent that this was going to be no stroll down Beale St. We followed the rough directions and found our way up a HUGE hill to an aptly named place called Murder Rock. I tried to console myself thinking that maybe I missed a turn or something and we weren't in the right spot when Dave pointed out a sign that pointed to the 10th hole on a golf course which was part of the rough directions, Rats well we were in the right place. Looking around I saw a water tower far below us that we had passed earlier along the route and thought oh man what have I gotten us into, I think Kari was ready to switch to the 5K at that point.

Next morning we arrived at the race, the place was chaotic and it was apparent that it was not going to start on time. After a long delay we finally headed off. My usual race strategy (or stupidity) is to go out hard, get some fast miles in and then just try and gut it out when I run out of gas for the last few miles. I figured with the Murder Rock torture fest in the middle of the race I had better hold back and save some. Dave, Stephen and I went out together with a handful of people ahead of us. Kristine from Rolla went out like a rocket and was way up on us. We passed a few people on the way out and had most everyone in sight. Stephen, seeing that he was being beaten by a girl(Kristine) kept wanting to push the Nitro button and pass everyone. Dave and I kept telling him that this is no 5K, we have Murder Rock to contend with, and we have plenty of time to real them in. Finally, at about mile 5 the piss and vinegar was about up to his eyeballs, and the hormone crazed teen could no longer stand to see a girl in front of him so we told him that if he was feeling it, go ahead and have a go. He was off, charging down a hill at a speed that would have destroyed Dave and my knees but hey, he is 17 what does he know about sore knees (I think he found out the next day). Dave and I held our pace and passed the water tower that we knew we had to be looking down onto before all was said and done.

I would like to take a moment to describe the climb up to Murder Rock. You start out passing the water tower and getting psyched out thinking that I have to essentially run to the top of that thing, then you go shooting down into a valley at a sharp decline that absolutely destroys your quads. Oh well you don't need those to climb right? Then you start your assent, winding your way up a just ruthlesly long, moderate incline which is just steep enough to push you to your aerobic threshold and sap your legs of all endurance. All the while the climb gets steeper and steeper as you go up. Then you pass by an aid station which is staffed my EMTs (wise move race director). After splashing water and poweraid all down your front because you are breathing too hard to drink anything, the road decides it is done taking it easy on you and earns the title Murder Rock. With no legs, out of breath and swimming in lactic acid the incline shoots up to like an 89 degree angle, ok it is probably like 45 but it feels like almost 90 so if you are not some sort of mountain goat/human mutation you just crawl up it to the top or your heart explodes and Murder Rock claims another victim.

The view of Murder Rock hill (its more impressive in real life)

Now I am sure that Dean Karnazes, Lance Armstrong, the entire Alpine Shop team, and anyone from the Rockies would call it a molehill and laugh their butts off, but there ain't nothin' in Rolla that compares.

Kari looking out over the precipice at the top of Murder Rock (note the water tower)

Your reward for making it to the summit of Murder Rock is to make the turn and come right back down. See, at that point you "ok the worst is over" and start your decent. Murder Rock then takes one more attempt to do you in. It didn't succeed at blowing up your heart on the way up but since you have no legs left you essentially are a car with no breaks and due to the now severe decline, it is everything you can do to keep from careening out of control and cartwheeling to a bloody demise. I can't be sure, but I think I glimpsed a large pile of skulls and bones in the valley at the bottom of the hill, and what were all those large birds circling around us for?

At about mile eight Dave and I started up another sharp incline (the one that destroyed your quads prior to Murder Rock) and I decided to walk up the incline while Dave proclaimed "I'm takin it!!" and then began walking about 15 yards in front of me. That small separation was enough though, and I couldn't reel him back in. He came in 1:20 in front of me. The rest of the race I focused on reeling in one person after another. On one of the super long uphills I noticed Kristine running and then walking and then running. When I went by her I tried to give her some encouragement to stay with me but she had blown herself up by going out too fast without knowing the perils of Murder Rock in her future. I wonder if Stephen would have made the same mistake had Dave and I not held the reigns on him for a while. The last 3.5 miles I focused on reeling in a couple of guys running together between Dave and Stephen and I. I really didn't want Stephen and Dave to go 1 and 2 and then me come in 5th. So I kicked it up a bit and passed them while they were at an aid station with 1.5 to go. They kept me honest though and I could hear them behind me for the rest of the race. I came in at 1:40:10 (7:39 min/mi.) my PR for a half which is just insanity considering the course.

After catching my breath and getting some water I went back to wait for Kari and to run the home stretch with her. Judd came barreling around a corner at the bottom of a hill at top speed and almost took out a traffic cone. I saw a cop with his radar gun out, start to turn on his lights before he realized it was someone on foot. You see Link(Judd) trains to be a "downhill specialist" which means that he likes to store as much "potential energy" as he can so that he can really build momentum on the downhills. Just after Judd blasted by me carried up the last slight incline from momentum alone, Kari rounded the corner and we ran in together. She had enough of the ipod and gps watch and unloaded all of the gear to me. She asked me if she could make it in under 2:05 and at 2:03:30 I said she could make it, but she had to get moving. She then dropped the hammer and took off which induced a cramp in my calf and I hobbled along after her. She sprinted in the finish at 2:04:42. Not a sub 2hr but a very nice time on a challenging course.

In the end the Rolla Stormin' Mormons went down to Branson to show those boys how to run hills and swept the overall men's division with 1st overall going to Stephen Kofoed (1st half marathon and longest run of his life) 1:36:52; 2nd overall Dave Whittekiend (PR) 1:38:49; 3rd overall Scott Young (PR) 1:40:10; 9th female Kari Young 2:04:42; 1st Varsity Girls-Judd Boehme 2:03:23 (1st half). Now don't get me wrong it was a small race but we are ecstatic with the results. I'll post the vertical profiles later. Official results are Here

Kari and I at Murder Rock

Stephen on his way to victory

Look like I'm really enjoying myself there

Dave bringin' it home thinking Ha! Kari is going to owe me some ice cream!

09 Berryman 12 hr splits

2009-10-16T18:31:00.000-07:00

Jason posted the splits for the 09 Berryman, however he didn't really break out the splits, he just gave the clock times at the different TA's. So being the enginerd that I am I took the liberty to break out the actual splits times for the different legs and rank them against the field. Have fun analyzing, I know I will ;-)

Download the splits HERE

Scott

URGENT RESPONSE...

2009-10-12T00:43:00.001-07:00

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My proposition to you is to seek your consent to present you as the next-of-kin and beneficiary of my named client, since you have the same last name, so that the proceeds of this account can be paid to you. Then we can share the amount on a mutually agreed-upon percentage. All legal documents to back up your claim as my client's next-of-kin will be provided. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this transaction through. This will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from many breach of the law. If this business proposition offends your moral values, do accept my apology. I must use this opportunity to implore you to exercise the utmost indulgence to keep this matter
extraordinarily confidential(whatever your decision),while I await your prompt response. Please contact me at once to indicate your interest through my private email:
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Best regards,
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09 Berryman 12 hr Elevation Drofile

2009-09-29T19:29:00.000-07:00

I had forgotten what it was like to race in that kind of terrain. The elevation profile shows just how much up and down and the total distance there was. I know, I know.....I am achieving a whole new level of geek here but oh well.

Scott

2009 Berryman 12 hr Race Map

2009-09-28T20:15:00.000-07:00

Well one thing is for sure the Berryman Adventure 09 lived up to its slogan this year. We are still waiting for the results and the full story on what happened to all the teams. The last word we got was Jason saying that there would not be an awards ceremony because there were so many teams still out on the course and they were working on getting everyone in safe. Life flight had to be called in and we saw it fly over while were at the finish. We didn't hear any other details and pray that everything ended up OK.

Unofficially, we are pretty sure that we came in 2nd of the four person teams and really don't have any idea of our overall ranking, though I would wager it is in the top ten because I don't think many teams got all the CPs. We had an awesome time and I for one am still feeling the high from this last weekend, and am still feeling the sore muscles and fatigue as well. I love adventure racing, there is just nothing quite like it.

There were tons of teams from the Rolla area and we are anxious to see how everyone fared. If you are reading this and did the Berryman, please comment and let us know how you fared and any crazy experiences you had during the race. We would like to see your route as well, you can map it by going to www.gpsvisualizer.com/draw paste these coords (36.79520,-91.33123) into the address box. Then in the upper right drop down box switch the map to US/Can MyTopo and then zoom in using the scale on the left. Then use the drawing tools to plot the CPs and tracks of where you went. When done click to download the gpx or kml file. If you email me the gpx or kml I will post your map, or you can go to www.gpsvisualizer.com and click draw a map and do it yourself to get your own map.

As for us, by examining the map below you will notice that we had a little trouble with CP 9 which costs us about an hour, the bike whack from 13 to 14 was also a pretty insane adventure by riding into weeds that were over our heads then careening down a hill without a trail. Our race was almost over when Judd's bike decided it needed some extra fiber for lunch and ate a stick into the derailleur. It would have cost us the race had he not been packing his spare derailleur hanger. It's a good thing he does all that reading and research on AR, maybe we should listen to him more. By the way when bike whacking it is a pretty good idea to stay off your bike, kinda hard to whack and bike at the same time. Later in the race Chris decided to give my bike map holder some extreme beta testing by slamming it (and the rest of his bike)into some boulders while gracefully pirouetting his body in mid air to softly land pack first onto the rocks with nary a scratch to show for it. My bike map holder was not so lucky and it will be back to the drawing board with that one. Link was having some fatigue issues most of the race which Dave and I don't suspect had anything to do with his level of fitness or capabilities because he has kept up with us many times in the past without problem and he was dragging pretty early on. We are wondering if he had some dehydration/nutrition issues or was just coming down with something. Well this is turning into a full on race report which I didn't mean it to be since we don't even know the real results but anyway the map is below, ENJOY!

To get the full experience click View Large Map

View Larger Map

Bike map holder and racing secrets

2009-09-13T13:23:00.001-07:00

Subject: Bike map holder
------------------------

Although Chris-one-handed-wheelie-while-holding-map-guy is very talented, I have tasked the Forum Dental AR R&D department to come up with a bike map holder. The prototype is being constructed and should be ready for alpha testing soon. The beta version should be race ready for Berryman. Dave has been involved in part of the development process and has been sworn to secrecy. Paul Joyner keeps trying to bust into my...er the R&D's cubicle to steel racing secrets.

Scott

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I can tell that this is going to require a photo and a post to the blog.

Judd

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The RMC AR Team advancing on Forum Dental AR R&D Lab. Look at us navigating. Paul

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From: Paul & Ginger Joyner

Another RMC AR team member speaks up...... I do believe the word went like this, tell Scott Young that us tri geeks already have map holders on our bikes and we will be putting aerobars on the mtbs for the Berryman. hummmm

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Paul,

If you figure out how to put aerobars on the canoe, please let me know. I'll pay anything!!!

Judd

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I know we have a don't help other team rule but sorry everybody, I have and will continue to divulge our secrets to RMC AR team. The thing is, when Paul comes by my cubicle he is packing heat, and a tazer, and mace, and a beater-club-thingy, and handcuffs, etc. And even if he wasn't, he could still break me in half. My only hope would be to out run him, but he may be very fast in short bursts, then again he is training for a half iron-man so out lasting him might not work either, so I will continue my assistance to RMC. Our only hope would be if Dave would go all Forest Supervisor on him, but wait I think law enforcement isn't under the Forest Sup. so we are hosed there too.

Scott

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Team RMC would like to thank Scott for all of his race hints; an official topo race map of Stoddard county, carry lots of rocks in your pack when you cross the river, yell real loud "I found it" at every checkpoint, and the most crucial information is still to come.

Only 23 days till the Berryman.

Paul

Try and explain it like this.

See, with magnets, opposites attract. So when the little Needle points to the N, it's actually pointing to the South Pole. So actually that is South. That is why so may people get lost using a compass - because they don't actually know how to use it.

Judd

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I probably could name request a specific law enforcement officer be in uniform and present for this race. That may work to our disadvantage if the LEO believes we look suspicious and has to use the tazer, mace or beater-club thingy on us. Maybe we need a fifth racer to sacrifice while we scamper into the woods. Paul, that is another one of our secrets. Start with five and you are generally guaranteed to end with four.

Dave

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There are actually twelve people on the team. We send eight of them to hide in the woods the night before and we just take turns getting CPs. If we are behind we just radio ahead and tell the next group to get going and we'll catch up. It works out great unless someone realizes you punched CP 20 in record time and before you hit CP 10 (that guy is no longer on the team).

Scott

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So what I am ready is that even though we are registered as separate teams, we all are part of RMC and we can form a union/team work. Especially if we all are wearing the same jerseys.

Here are some of our race secrets we will share with Forum Dental AR:

We have found it is easier to mount the map holder on the paddle and not so much onto the canoe. We also thought of saving weight on the canoe, by drilling 1 1/2 holes in the bottom of it and covering the holes with plastic wrap. This should allow us not only to shave some weight, but time also.

Paul

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May need to bring in the LEO from Salem as back up. I'll talk to the new patrol captain when I get the chance. I think if the LEO needed to manage this event we could justify sending him to law enforcement MTB training. Perhaps that LEO could clear the way for the forest supervisor's team.

Dave

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Since we are sharing secrets, I figure I will share that one of the keys to our success is our training program. Check out the video below for a glimpse of a typical Forum Dental AR trecking/nav training session.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hWCBssvIDQ

Scott

Dave you might want to share a typical mtb training video.

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Dusk 2 Dawn 12 hr Race report

2009-08-30T13:50:00.000-07:00

Geez, after reading the report that I wrote earlier today I realized that it is just kind of long and boring. I could have really used an editor on this one. Oh well here is the short version...

The race was a lot of road biking at night followed by trekking on a barely navigable trail while being followed by a train of hitch-hikers. The canoe was painful, then a short running section where I almost heaved, then more road biking followed by a ROCKY singletrack. Laid the smack down in a race to the finish and won our division, third overall 4 person (only beaten by two nationally ranked teams). 60+ miles total, awesome race.

Now the long version...

The Dusk 2 Dawn is a race run in July at night in order to beat the summer heat. Luckily July was very mild in the Midwest and we had great weather to race in. It was our first attempt at a night race and I think that we were all a bit apprehensive about the endeavor. I don't know about every one else, but for me the experience of racing all night is kind of surreal. Even now it doesn't seem like we raced all night long, it kind of felt like we woke up in the morning and raced for a normal day, only it was dark (don't know if that makes any sense, but you just have to experience it to know). I had to keep reminding myself that it was 2:00 A.M. and all other sane people were in bed.

We loaded up Chris' "Red Dragon" and made our way to Perry Lake, KS. The trip was pretty uneventful and we were mostly concerned with not repeating the mistakes we made on our way to the Mission 18hr (i.e. dinking around too much and missing the pre-race meeting). We arrived at a fairly deserted race site in the afternoon. We checked in and only noticed one other team lying on some picnic tables trying to get out of the heat. We decided that laying around in the heat was only going to sap our energy and went to the Motel 6 for a few hours rest in the A.C. When the four of us got to the hotel and asked for a room the guy looked at us and said you know we only have rooms with two beds. I replied "oh no problem, we don't plan on doing much sleeping" He gave us a kind of OK, don't ask, don't tell kind of look and handed over the keys.

We got everything ready and made our way to the pre-race meeting where they gave us the maps and clues about a half hour pre-start time. We planned out our attack and it looked like it was just going to be an almost all on trail endurance fest. After the national anthem Jason blew the horn and we were off. We started with a small 3 CP orienteering section to get everyone separated out. CP 3 gave us a little trouble but nothing too bad and we made it back to the TA in front of quite a few teams. We also realized that the "trails" were not always well defined and the brush was very thick.

After the TA I handed the maps to Chris since it was all road riding and he drove us in most of the roads. I also have a terrible habit of taking us on "detours" when navigating by roads. Chris rocked the bike nav and set a blistering pace where we passed several teams and got to the bike drop off with only a few teams in front of us.

After we dropped off the bikes at CP 7 we headed off on a "trail" run. The trails were super hard to follow and it was nearly impossible to bushwhack with the thick brush. We had some trouble finding the right trail and my stress level went to critical. I really did not want to be lost in the dark in the thick brush. We found CP 8 and I told everyone that we couldn't really run because I could not keep track of us on the map, and if we lost track of our position in the dark it would be very costly to try to find our place again. We got a pretty good system where Chris would keep us on the trail so that I could keep thumbing the map and just watch his feet to step over roots and rocks. One team went running by us, but we saw them a little while up the trail looking for a CP about a mile out of place. About halfway through the trail run Chris told me to look back and I saw a train of about 20 headlights just following our lead. At one point we tried to lose them by punching fast and taking off across a field to the next trail entrance. The hitch-hikers punched and sprinted across the field, then lined up right back behind us. It was pretty funny. We finally finished the trail run and decided to take a less traveled bushwhack to our final trekking CP. We passed by a bathroom to make a few deposits and to fill up Chris' camelbak. When we got the the next CP we were surprised to see all the canoes. We had misunderstood and we thought we were running back up to the bike drop to hop in canoes.

The paddling section was BRUTAL. Judd and Dave were having some kind of paddling disfunction and were having a hard time keeping up with Chris and I which never happens. Usually Judd and Dave hand us our lunch in the canoe and we struggle every stroke to keep up with them. The lake was only a few feet deep in some places and it was like a maze getting through the trees and branches sticking up out of the mud. Most of the time I was thinking "man I do not want to run aground and have to step out into the mud" It was pretty spooky in the middle of the night. We felt we had a terrible paddle but our splits weren't too bad.

We had another small orienteering section where I started to feel the nausea set in. After having concentrated on the DAT so much I had neglected my training and was now feeling the effects. After trying to choke down some shot bloks I nearly blew chunks and decided I needed to walk a bit or I really was going to heave.

We got back on the bikes and made our way on the last part of the journey. The sun came up and thankfully we got to do the singletrack in the light. The singletrack trails were as good for biking as the previous trails were good for running. The trails consisted of more rocks than dirt and it was impossible to get up any speed. It was hike-a-bike up every hill and white knuckle going down. As we came out of the singletrack we had a couple miles to the finished when we came up on the now two man team of Wounded Warrier who have been our rivals in the series. At this point I was still feeling like dung but when Judd asked me to dig deep, the adrenaline kicked in and we destroyed those guys on the hill. We came zooming across the finish line like we were in a sprint finish in the Tour de France and found out we were the 3rd four person team and the first all male team. After dismounting my bike the quads rebelled by cramping up and leaving me rolling around on the pavement. It was great!

The race totaled over 60 miles in all and we had a great time. There were a lot of DNFs and making it in under 12 hrs put was quite an accomplishment.

Dusk 2 Dawn 12 hr Race map

2009-08-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

Had to take a different approach to getting the race map online this time since Jason didn't use MyTopo. I scanned in the maps and overlaid them in Google Earth and published them. The scanned images are kind of big so it might take a while to load. Also, in the map below and when you click on View Larger Map, sometimes the maps don't draw in the correct order (i.e. some of the smaller maps are "under" the overview).

The best way to view the map is to download the kml file and open in Google Earth. The images are still going to take a bit to load but once loaded you should be able to turn them on and off and browse around no problem.

View Larger Map

XTERRA Logansport 09 Off Road Tri

2009-08-16T13:53:00.000-07:00

Photos of the race are HERE

Results with pace and rank calcs are HERE

Chris, Erik, John Bird (a coworker of Chris and Erik), and I went to compete in the XTERRA Logansport off road triathlon this past weekend. Chris, Judd and I did this race last year while it was Erik and John's first tri. John's overall goal was to not have the emergency medical service put into action on his behalf while I was wanting to improve over last year's mark and Chris was on a mission to once and for all determine who is the off road champ between him and the 5 month pregnant woman that handed him his lunch last year. Sure he had one of the most spectacular high speed, stick in the spokes, over the handlebars wrecks that caused him to hike-a-bike for 3 miles, but still, losing to a 5 month pregnant woman under any circumstances cannot be overlooked by your racing buddies.

We drove up on Friday and stopped in Effingham for some Big Az Biscuits and got to registration early enough to give the course a preview. While we previewed the bike trail, John decided to give us a demonstration on how to properly tip over on your bike when you can't get unclipped, after we got back to the hotel Chris adjusted the clips and he was good to go. It was the exact same course as last year, small bit of technical riding at first followed by a bunch of just all out fast rolling trail.

Saturday we got the TA set up and were ready to roll. I was of course full of piss and vinegar while John, Erik and Chris seemed like they were getting ready for a funeral. I asked what was up, John and Erik just had some first tri nerves going on while Chris said he just hadn't been feeling all that great. A half mile swim looks a lot more daunting when you see it all laid out in a lake instead of just 35 lengths in a pool. I lined up and noticed about a 13 year old kid to my right and knew that he was going to blow me out of the water (little kids always take me to school in the swim). They blew the horn and I began a my half mile journey of inhaling water and flailing all while watching the people in the survivor wave pass me. It felt like the worst swim of my life.

After the swim I hopped on my new Gary Fisher X-Cal 29er and started ripping up the bike. I knew that I had a lot of ground to make up so I just pushed as hard and fast as I could go the whole way. Man those 29" wheels roll fast!!! I passed a boat load of people and had a great time. John and Erik got out of the water in respectable time for their first tri in front of Chris, who like me put on a splashing and thrashing clinic and actually admitted to fearing for his life at at least one point in the swim (his time wasn't all that bad though). Chris overtook John and caught up to Erik on the first lap. Chris and Erik raced the remainder together. Erik and John both ate dirt on the bike and came back with some bloody legs which if you don't eat dirt at least once on your first off road tri it really doesn't count.

I made it back to the TA, stashed my bike and gear and headed off for the run. My legs felt a bit jelly-like, but not too bad. About a mile into the race a dude went flying by me like a gazelle. I asked him what lap he was on and he responded it was his second. He was the overall winner and it reminded me just how much of a pretender I really am. Overall I ran a 7:40 min/mi pace, that guy had to be going about 6 min/mi!! I spent the rest of the run pushing hard and giving encouragement to the first lap racers as I went by them on my second lap. I finished feeling like I had pushed hard and had a great race except for the swim. My overall time was 1 hr 36 min which is 11 min faster than last years time. I was 16th overall and 2nd in my age group so I am super happy about that. My swim split was 18:01 for the 1/2 mile including the transition time which is my PR!!! I am still trying to work out how that came about, I felt like I had a terrible swim and I must have drank about two gallons of lake water so who knows?! Erik and Chris came in at 2:06, the announcer's call as they approached the finish line was "Here come two guys that are trying to come in at a TIE!!" It was kind of funny. I don't remember what time John came in (like 2:12) but after he crossed, he felt like he was going to pass out. After getting some water and sitting down he came back to life and was thrilled that he had made it without having been administered CPR at any point in the race. This was the first time I met John and he is a real stand up guy, I hope to race with him again sometime.

After the analyzing the times the verdict is in.....CHRIS "Razor Legs" Wehrli, has snatched the off road title away from the pregnant lady....of course she sat out this year because she was 8 months pregnant.

My race map of the bike and run from my GPS watch color coded by speed (I know fancy smancy huh) is below. You can switch to topo map with the buttons on the right.

To get the full experience click View Large Map

View Larger Map

Quail Run Tri - Aug 09 Results

2009-08-11T20:38:00.000-07:00

Results from the first Quail Run Tri held in Rolla MO in August 09.

To see the results in a full page click HERE

Info on publishing an excel table to blog is found here (so I can remember the next time I want to do it)

2009 Mission 18 hr Adventure Race Map

2009-06-22T21:58:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh....The Mission 18 hr. Did you ever have one of those days when EVERYTHING seemed to go into the toilet. That was the Mission 18 hr for us. In fact the whole weekend was an exercise in blundering. We didn't even make it to the pre-race meeting the night before because we forgot about the time change going from central to eastern. We did have a great time and hopefully learned some lessons under the tutelage of Hard Knox. The map includes comments on most of the debacles that occurred during the race

To get the full experience click View Large Map

View Larger Map

Ohio River, Mission 18 hr

2009-06-13T15:19:00.003-07:00

539211110_dino mission 5-16-2009 429, originally uploaded by Scott R Young.

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from this muddy port,
Aboard this tiny Ship.

Ohio River, Mission 18 hr

2009-06-13T15:19:00.001-07:00

539210795_dino mission 5-16-2009 428, originally uploaded by Scott R Young.

The mate was a mighty paddlin' man,
The Skipper brave and sure,
Three passengers set sail that day
For an 18 hour tour.

An 18 hour tour [ sound of thunder: crack! ]

Ohio River, Mission 18 hr

2009-06-13T15:17:00.001-07:00

Closeup_dino mission 5-16-2009 431, originally uploaded by Scott R Young.

The river started getting rough,
The tiny ship was tossed.
If not for the courage of the fearless crew,
The race would be lost.

The race would be lost.

Ohio River, Mission 18 hr

2009-06-13T15:15:00.001-07:00

539211087_dino mission 5-16-2009 430, originally uploaded by Scott R Young.

So this is the tale of our castways,
They're here for a long, long time
They'll have to make the best of things,
It's an uphill climb.

Other race photos from our running of the Mission 18 hr Adventure Race are located on flickr at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kariandscott/sets/72157619612120425/

Most of these photos were take by the event photographer and can be found and purchased at
http://www.pro-action-photo.com/

2009 Bonk Hard Chill, Not for the faint of heart

2009-04-21T06:41:00.001-07:00

This is really long. By long I mean like my mother, who actually likes to read this stuff because I’m her little Judd E. Pie, would consider it long. Long like l…o…n…g long. But hopefully enjoyable.

I must give credit where credit is due. The Author of this “outline” is an individual that raced and posted on Red Wheel Bike Shop blog. The original post can be found in their archives for Feb. 2009 at the following link. http://www.teamredwheel.com/ the original post was so funny and so real to our experience that I opted to plagiarize and change the thoughts, feelings, names and experiences to reflect our team. If I were as eloquent as my brother-in-law’s Jeremy or Uillame, I would not need someone else’s words to help me out. Alas, it’s not to be.

The following events occurred between 6:00am and 6:00pm February 7^th, 2009. Events occur in real time.

How can I possibly summarize 12 hours of adventure racing into words that would do it justice? It has long been my opinion that the words "epic" and "surreal" are so grossly overused that their meaning is lost. I'll break one of my own rules right now by saying this race was epically surreal....or was it surreally epic? Who knows, but the fact remains that the race is worthy of both words.

Jason and Laura, (Bonk Hard Racing www.bonkhardracing.com) put on a race that tested its participants' athleticism, intelligence, and character. This was Team Forum Dental’s 2^nd Adventure Race. The first was The Berryman 12 hour race in September 2008. That is another story…

From the moment we walked into the pre-race meeting it was evident that this was a very well organized race. Volunteers were everywhere, all having very specific duties to which they tended with enthusiasm and attention to detail.

At the meeting we met Jason and Laura, whom comprise the brains of Bonk Hard Racing. The enthusiasm these two have for their sport is intoxicating. There was a raffle for a ton of free stuff donated by the sponsors. We didn’t come away with anything, but fortunately that was not a predictor in how well we would fair in the race. We had a good time meeting the other racers.

After being given our maps and clue sheets, Nav., Special D., Crack and Link (these are our super secret, super special, super cool code names for each other. Kind of like we were in the military or something like that) jumped into the "Red Dragon" (code name for our vehicle) and headed off to our luxury spa resort (snicker, snicker). HQ was a pretty pimpin' little dive in Osage Beach. With lightning speed and surgical precision, we plotted the checkpoints on the map, did a final gear check and were off to bed about 1:30am.

In case anyone was wondering, yes we are cheap, and yes we only got one room (with two actual bedrooms), and yes we shared beds. Hey, you’ve got to get your sleep, and we are grown men and know our boundaries. How does the old saying go… Pole to Pole, Hole to Hole….whatever. We were just fine. I did hear some strange noises from Nav. and Crack’s room, but I’m not one to ask questions.

When the alarm went off at 4:30am I think we had gotten about 20 minutes of sleep. We indulged in the wholly inadequate continental breakfast offered by the hotel and headed out to drop off the bikes and get to the starting line. I had just purchased a totally pimped-out headlamp. I don’t know exactly the wattage or lumens or candle power or whatever else light is measured by. Suffice it to say that I could have lit up a movie premier in Hollywood. Everyone around me at the bike drop had to have been suffering from light envy. They were all thinking “I wonder where they are ranked nationally? Look at that dude’s light. Did the sun just rise and we missed the start of the race?”

We all made friends around the outhouses as we tried to shake off the nervousness and began to feel the diuretic effects of caffeine. There were actually dudes warming up for the race by running up and down the street....What The Crud?!?!?...Like you're not gonna "warm up" in the first 2 hours of the race??? Freaks.

Two years ago at this race the temperature was Seven. Seven degrees. As in 7. As in days of the week, as in average number of teeth someone from Arkansas has, as in the number of commandments – No Wait…

They said GO and everyone took off. Some people ran and some people walked...we did more of an "old-lady working-out-in-the-mall-pumping-her-arms-and-swinging-her-tush" walk. Man we're sexy.

We were employing the “it’s 12 hours, don’t wear ourselves out in the first hour strategy”.

Checkpoints one and two came pretty easily, and it was interesting to see the incredible pace some of the other teams were holding. These dudes weren't here to play games; they had to have been running at an 8-minute mile pace thru the woods. With no desire to kill ourselves, we pressed on at our endurance pace; run the flats and downs, walk the hills.

Not long after checkpoint 3 or 4, the teams were already very much spread out. The 4 of us trudged along, watching the faster racers lumbering ahead of us.

My 1st brain-fart of the day came about an hour or so into the race. My strategy of wearing “sock liners” backfired and I had blisters on the heels of both feet. I’m thinking “no way am I going 11 more hours like this.” No duct tape and nowhere to turn, I let my teammates know that I was already in trouble. Fortunately Nav. had the foresight to bring along some Moleskin. Five minutes later I was off to the races and had no problems the rest of the day. Moleskin has been my friend ever since.

On the way to checkpoint 5 we passed a firing range. It was pretty dang funny, because they had a plywood cut-out of a car door. I’m thinking what? Are they practicing for drive by shootings? We stopped for some photos.

We realized that there were VERY FEW teams behind us, so we were looking to make up some lost time. We were looking for ways that we could be more competitive. I use the term competitive lightly here. We had no idea what lay in front of us. Our first race, we were given a map and ALL of the checkpoints (23 or so). This time we were given a map and some of the checkpoints (22 or so). I figured we would receive 3 or 4 more checkpoints to plot. Little did I know that Jason had much more planned than I had anticipated.

So at this point I was thinking “this race is going fast” we need to start moving! There was a road-route we could follow to get to CP 7, or we could bushwack our way thru some furry woods and cut out some distance. After careful deliberation we decided to pick up the pace, and take the road route. There are several calculations that you can make to help determine your path. We used the old reliable “gut” feeling. That and we didn’t want to get lost.

We made good time, and to my memory we got CP 7 & 8 without any further problems.

From CP 8 to 9, we were on our mountain bikes carrying all our required gear plus the extra food/water for the paddling leg. A bit awkward riding w/ only one hand, but this was a quick section mostly downhill to the canoes, so no problems there.

Upon arriving at the canoe station, volunteers checked our passports and sent us to the boats.

Canoeing is not a natural sport for our team. It is so unnatural for me that I actually carry some knee pads and a butt pad to try and be more comfortable. I’m not allowed in the back of the canoe, because it is s “skill” position. I’m also not allowed to move in the canoe, because I’m most likely to tip a canoe over. Basically I sit there the whole time and wonder how much longer we have to be in a canoe.

We always debate whether or not certain items are necessary. My response is always, “the pros wouldn’t use them if they didn’t help” - what do I know? We have this debate about clipless peddles vs. cages. Big powerful headlamps vs. the $3.00 Wal-Mart special. Waterproof shoes vs. non-waterproof. Basically Nav. is unwilling to spend more than $1.23 including tax on any racing gear. He is ALWAYS telling me “I could have made that for you”. I’m always like “well, this works great, and was only $19, so I’ll just stick with it. Maybe next time I need some racing shoes made out of a paperclip, and avocado and some plumbers’ putty, I’ll give you a call.”

On the way to the race we had been debating the use of double paddles (Kayak) and whether or not they were really worth having. (the race provides canoe paddles. If you want Kayak paddles, you bring them. And sometimes this means carrying them too)

The subject came up about 100 yards off shore. Just as we were about to begin the debate, a team with Kayak paddles went sailing past us. They didn’t even look like they were paddling. Here we are dragging our paddles through the water getting nowhere, and Team Swan Lake goes gliding by with what appears to be little to no effort. We all kind of looked at each other and in unison said “Looks like they probably do help.” End of debate. Now we just need to see if Nav. can make some out of some old bailing wire, some duck waders and a used flashlight.

It wasn't cold at all that day, but it was windy as crud on the water. It seemed like we were always paddling into the wind. I was feeling wholly inadequate with my canoe skills as I watched another team pass us like they were on a leisurely canoe trip. This was not a 4 MAN team like ours. There were 2 boys, and 2 GIRLS. As I began to work up a sweat trying like the Tasmanian Devil to catch up to this team, all I could think was how the heck are they pulling away from us. Have they found some secret, ancient underwater current in the Lake? Is the wind over by them somehow blowing the opposite direction as the wind by us?

Fortunately for me, Special D. is a master at piloting/powering a canoe, so we made the most of my second-rate paddling. Every now and then some goon in a motorized boat would go flying past us throwing a bunch of huge waves. I nearly "deloaded" a few times, but we made it thru alright.

When we got close enough to the land-based checkpoints, one racer was required to stay with the canoe while the other trekked landward to find the checkpoint. When it was my turn to run after the checkpoints I did everything I could on land to make up for my run of the mill paddling on the water. It seemed that we would find land usually around the same time as 2 or 3 other teams, and that really added a sense of urgency to finding the checkpoints. At one point Crack smashed his knee on a rock and got a nice little gash. He didn’t admit until the race was over that it had really taken its toll on him. The blood running down his leg totally made him look like a professional racer. I think the rest of us were secretly jealous and I could tell it intimidated the other racers......either that or they thought he was a clumsy dumbcrud. Either way, I’m sure he’ll have a pretty cool scar. (chicks dig scars)

At some point I was griping about what a horrible paddler I was, and Special D. decided to lay some wisdom on me. He said, “it’s all about your core. Use your core". I nodded to act like I understood, but it was obvious that fatigue had taken its toll on his brain and he was spouting gibberish. I sucked down some Perpetuem and tried to focus. About an hour later I was still thinking about WTC he meant by "use your core” – Nothing. I’d like to say it made sense, but it didn’t. We had managed to pass the Casual Co-ed team, but only because I think they wanted us to so that we would not find the ultra secret underwater Lake Current that they obviously knew about. As for Team Swan Lake, they were nowhere to be seen.

Other teams' canoes could be seen in the distance, they were not growing in size, and we were not reeling them in. Our six-pack of whoop-butt would have to be opened on the bike. At one point I looked over at Nav. and Crack and they were actually paddling their boat backwards. Dude, are we actually in this race. You are paddling backwards. Nav. is a real life engineer and I’m thinking to myself “what causes a person with some obvious mental capability to think that paddling backwards is actually faster than forwards?” I was concerned about their nutrition.

Their boat actually had a hole in it, and they were sitting pretty low in the water. All of their stuff was soaked. I was looking at the flair gun on Crack’s pack thinking we may actually need to use this thing. The water temp was around 40 degrees.

As we paddled into the gale force winds, we actually began to close the gap on another 4-man team. My first thought was to use the flair gun to take them out of competition, then I decided to use the patented "Scott Young maneuver". This is when you engage your opponent in conversation and attempt to have them believe that there is dissention on their team. We paddled up next to one of the canoes and whispered “your teammates over there said you were the weak link on the team. If it weren’t for you, they would probably be in 1^st place.” It worked beautifully; 30 seconds of conversation had these jokers arguing like school children and wondering what had just happened. Exhilarated and re-energized from this small victory we sludged onward thru the growing wind and waves.

We hit dry land again for the next transition. Our new objective was to securely fasten our bikes into the canoe and paddle an estimated mile (?) to the biking section. We did a pretty decent job of balancing the boat, but realized that our transition time was about as speedy as a man in the bathroom with a newspaper.

I was in the front of the canoe w/ the top-tube of my mtb crawling up my hinny when we were suddenly hit crossways by a wave and a gust of wind at the same time. All I could think was how is it that the wind is blowing in the wrong direction only for our team? I’m sure Special D. was thinking “who cares about this race, my bike better not end up on the bottom of this Lake.”

We hit land, and I thought “thank heavens the canoe portion is done”, and the very kind Volunteer said “I’ll see you again later”. A not so subtle hint that the canoe was not over, and that I might have a second chance to cause Dave’s bike to end up in Davy Jones’s Locker.

Now it was time for the cycling leg of the race. After being in the canoe for that long I couldn't wait to get out and crank some pedals. The first part of the bike leg to CP 18 was a monster climb. Since there had been so much rain lately, there was zero single track riding for the bike portion; it was all gavel roads. There was certainly no shortage of quad shredding climbs tho, and we found ourselves gasping for air at the top more than once. There were even some climbs that had people pushing their bikes to the top.

I think I speak for everyone when I say one hill stood out among the others. This hill was an absolute soul-crusher. The higher you climbed, the steeper it got and the looser the gravel was. Towards the top the road turned into a quad shredding washboard of pain before finally leveling off into a gloriously flat hilltop. The view from the top overlooked a beautiful Missouri landscape.

As we pressed onward, Mother Nature obviously thought we were going too fast. She took it upon herself to pimp-slap us in the faces w/ a strong, gusty headwind. The rest of that bike-leg is a bit of a blur. Mostly we just rode into the wind and watched the miles tick by. We held a solid pace and began unleashing the 6-pack by passing a few teams.

Then came the church. This pit stop was loaded with teams.

Now we are not notorious for quick transitions. During our first race we took over 30 minutes getting our buns in gear on the bike; however, this was different. Nav. and Special D. had a foolproof checkpoint plotting system. I was convinced that by sitting there and keeping my mouth shut, that I was shaving a good 20 minutes off of our transition time. Let’s be honest. Sometimes the best way to contribute is to be quiet.

Many of the teams were lulled in by the kindness of the volunteers who had prepared sandwiches, cookies, lemonade, and a host of other amazing foods and drinks. They were a jovial group of people and I hope they know how much we appreciated their service. I have found that an all liquid diet works for me during the race. I get my nutrition from a liquid supplement from Hammer Nutrition called Perpeteum. During our first race I ate the wrong thing at the wrong time and paid for it the rest of the day.

A HUGE part of adventure racing is coordinating your nutrition. It sounds easy, but it’s not. You forget to eat. You overeat to compensate. Something does not sit right. Sometimes you only have one hand to grab stuff. It is an art that we are trying to perfect. With that said, I watched as my teammates ate 5, 6, 7 sandwiches and handfuls of cookies. Apparently they were so good that stopping was not an option. I just hoped that the other teams were feeling a little too comfortable.

We got our new list of checkpoints and coordinates. Then the magnitude of the race hit us. We thought it was going to be a fast race. Our new list of checkpoints consisted of another 20 checkpoints. All I could think was what were the race directors smoking? I thought there were going to be 3 more. We had our work cut out for us.

UTM and Sharpie in hand numbers were flying. We were all business. No chatting or small talk here.

With our bellies and our camelbaks full, we set out to kick some more butt. We were jumping on our bikes thinking we had passed a few teams at this checkpoint, and I saw a little bleb on the sidewall of my tire. WTC? A sidewall blowout, but my tube was still holding air. Do we stop and take the time to fix it, or just forge on and deal with it if it becomes a problem. We decided there was no time to waste and to deal with it if it became a problem.

While I was in total support of this idea, I couldn’t help but think that while there was no single track to punish my tire, we were moving very quickly on some gravel roads. A quick turn, a blowout, and I’m hamburger.

Heading northward we covered approximately 13 miles and a few checkpoints to the next transition. Bike tire still hanging in there, this was not as easy as I make it sound, and I should say that with ferocious tenacity, we passed 6 or more teams on this leg of the race. Having fun, and being competitive might actually be able to coexist in the same race.

The next checkpoint was a transition into a ROGAIN. ROGAINE is also a backronym for "Rugged Outdoor Group Activity Involving Navigation and Endurance". This is where you have a certain number of checkpoints, and you are allowed to get as many or as few as you want. You can also get them in any order you want. There was one catch – be back by 5:00pm, or lose 1 checkpoint for each minute after, and possibly be disqualified. Nav. and I competed in an SLOC (St. Louis Orienteering Club) event back in November and learned this lesson the hard way. Time management was our biggest concern.

Fortunately Scott is great at navigating – thus the nickname Nav. This is where we felt we could make up some ground. Little did we know.

It was about this point that another team pulled in to the transition area. The volunteer went over the rules and someone on the team joking said “just give us the fastest time that anyone has completed this section, and we’ll beat it”. The volunteer responded with a very serious “I don’t know, no one has come back yet”. We joked about this statement, but something told us that this was going to be more difficult than we thought. It was kind of like heading into the black abyss.

The earth was completely saturated in this area, basically turning it into a spongy sloppy mess. We blew out of the TA on to our first CP, only to be slightly lost. Here we were thinking that we needed to do this with pin-point precision, and we could not find the first CP. Delusions of grandeur were washed from my mind, quickly replaced by an overwhelming sense of failure as we listened to another team admit that they had already been out in the wood for 2 HOURS and only found 1 CP. I had already started trying to figure out how I was going to explain such an epic failure to my friends and family.

Seriously. Think about this. We are 10 minutes into this ROGAIN portion of the race and can’t find our CP. We hook up with a husband and wife team named Little Debbie & the Snack Cake that has been adventure racing for 7 years and has already been in the wood for 2 hours and only found 1 check point – the one we can’t find. This is our second race, not our 7^th year. We just got here, they somehow got here 2 hours prior to us, so they obviously are some real butt kickers and actually know what they are doing. We are way out of our league.

So we soak in the fact that the scale of the map has thrown us off our senses, and we are a ridge or more away from our intended CP. Rather than go back, I suggest that we move on and get it on the way back if we have time. The team agrees. It’s all about Time Management at this point.

Then Nav. points to what seemed like the North American Continent’s answer to K2 or Everest. “We’ve got to get to the top of that” he says. I’m thinking “surely you jest”. I looked at the map, looked at the mountain, looked at the time and thought. No way in this lifetime are we doing that in the next 2 hours. Not only that, but surely the race directors did not intend for us to go that far away. We must be reading the map wrong again. I don’t even know if I could see the top of the peak through the cloud bank.

Well, off we trudged with Little Debbie & the Snack Cake in tow. Our new found friends and coconspirators. The thought process was that more eyes on the map would certainly make things go faster.

We quickly learned that Little Debbie & the Snack Cake were 2 parts of a 4 part team. Their Navigation guy was nursing a cold back home in Kansas. This revelation made things clear for us. Rather than become discouraged, we realized that we actually had a chance at this. With the scale of the map firmly under control, and the knowledge that while Little Debbie & the Snack Cake had plenty of experience and were endurance animals, their being lost in the woods was perfectly understandable.

This lit our fire. Now that we were feeling confident, it was time to do something bold. In order to save time and distance we decided to make a straight line to the top of Half-Dome, by crossing a creek and going up a steep embankment. This part was truly epic, we were basically grabbing small trees and roots and climbing the embankment like a ladder. This was the real deal, and it felt good when we got to the top.

We located CP29, checked the time and decided to move on to the next CP. With surgical precision we found several checkpoints and expertly managed our time. At one point Team Alpine Shop – our heroes – went cruising by. WOW, maybe that lady back at the TA was being serious about no one being back yet, surely if anyone would be done with the ROGAIN, it would be Alpine Shop (the eventual winners). In truth, they were probably on the way back after having finished this section, and we were just hoping to get a few checkpoints and get back by 5:00pm, but it was still inspiring.

We are now about 9.5 hours into the race, and it was beginning to take its toll. Right before Crack hit ground Zero, we pulled out the special weapon. The 5 hour energy Shot........and some drugs. With a handful of pain-relievers and a hefty dose of caffeine he was a brand new man.

With a renewed spirit, a fully healed mangina, and a mouth full of "Sport Beans" we began our assault on our next checkpoint. Nav. pulled some Macguyver maneuvers and whipped out his handy dandy watch-o-compass-o-matic. We would slash our way thru the woods for a while and then he would shoot another bearing. We repeated this until we found ourselves at the next checkpoint. It was soon clear to me that Scott Young is the Michael Jordan of orienteering....maybe not as bald though.

We had to be back by 5:00pm, and we were several miles away in some thick bush. We put the moves on, and made haste. Along the way back to CP39 we passed several teams. Some looked lost, some looked beat, and most were probably wondering why they didn’t take the time to put some pants on after the bike before heading out into the woods. Seriously, what were these dudes thinking heading out into some serious bushwhack country in bike shorts? Serious lack of IQ there. That darn rump pad ride’n up like it was an elevator at the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Legs that looked like they lost the battle with about a dozen alley cats with razor sharp claws.

Back at CP39 it was 4:36pm. We were on our bikes with no time to chat, so we rolled off on our way back to the canoes.

We were kick’n some serious Bahooki at this point, passing yet more teams. We could see that unless we wanted to be on the water in the dark, it was time to pull some serious MMA and Kung Pow Chicken this leg of the Canoe. We got the Mercedes Benz of Canoes. I had no idea that they had canoes with actual butt formed seats. Somehow I accidently grabbed a paddle that worked. I thought back to Special D’s statement and felt like Obi Wan Kenobi was with me “Use Your Core Luke”.

We were firing on all cylinders at this point. Forget the tie downs, the bikes were on and we were gone. We really embrace the pain, covered a lot of water in a short period of time. What took us a slothful 34 minutes in the canoe on the way to this point earlier in the day when we supposedly had more energy went by in a blistering 21 minutes.

We beached the canoe and climbed onto our mtb's one last time. No time for fiddling around, we needed to get out of there and up the road. I was certain my sidewall would give way any moment. Maybe even 100 yards from the finish – but it didn’t. Amazingly it held up, only to go flat on the trip back to Rolla – thank the stars.

The path leading out of the transition area that had been such a pleasant downhill earlier in the day was now a steep-uphill carnival of pain. A 4-person team about 40 yards ahead of us had begun the climb and were looking pretty haggard. By way of mental telepathy, we as a team decided to crush these punks. We reached down to places that no one likes to talk about and began mashing the peddles. My bike had decided not to shift at this point, so I was basically single-speeding it up this hill and all the way home. No time for sissies in this race. We swung around our prey and easily overcame them.

Basking in the glory of our triumphant destruction of yet another co-ed team, we sighted another 2-man team struggling with the next climb. These jokers would be next. Everyone clicked up a few gears (except for Mr. Singlespeed) and began the charge.

Restricted to my singlespeed, I ramped up the rpm's and we took turns pushing the wind. In no time we were right next to them, but they weren't giving up too easily. We decided it was time to pull another "Scott Maneuver", so I leaned over to the guy up front and said something about how "we were just using him to draft". When the dude turned to look at us, all I could see was hate and fatigue in his eyes. He seriously looked like he was on day 5 of a cocaine binge w/ no food or water. I knew that at any minute he would either keel over and die or pull out a machete and start killing people, so we simply passed them and mashed the pedals until we had enough of a gap that they would not be a problem later in the race. I don’t know if they ever finished, or if he is up on manslaughter charges.

Reality was beginning to set in that we were going to finish the Bonk Hard Chill in less than 12 hours. The finish line was getting closer; we could already hear the cowbells and smell the spaghetti & baked potatoes. No one could be seen behind us, we passed a few more teams along the way. Including one team that deserves a shout out. We came up on this team of 2 men and 2 women. The guys were holding on to the girls backside and kind of pushing her along. Very awkward. As I cruised by I told them if I had a tow rope that I would give it to them, but I didn’t. They said they had been doing this since about 5 miles into the first bike section. Doing what I wondered. Then I realized that the girls peddle had broken off. How do you do that???? Frig’n do 30+ miles on a bike with no peddle on those hills??

Our sympathy ended there and on we flew. There was no one to be seen ahead of us. I thought, "Jehoshaphat Trigger, this is really going to happen."

And it did. We crossed the finish line and our race was over. 11 hours and 5 minutes had passed since we had first begun that morning. We found/had time to find 37 of 42 checkpoints.

At the awards ceremony we were shocked to find that our team finished 2^nd behind Wounded Warrior Project. We were totally shocked to say the least. But the best was yet to come.

A few days later, the Final results show "Forum Dental" as finishing 1^st of 9 in the 4-man team division, and 13^th of 52 overall. Wounded Warrior Project, actually ended up 6^th of 9 in our division, and 34^th overall. We surpassed our own expectations by far, and had an awesome time doing it. The race may be over, but the feeling of pride for finishing this race will remain with us indefinitely.

LBL Challenge photos

2009-04-14T15:39:00.001-07:00

2009-03-05 005, originally uploaded by Scott R Young.

Our finish photo of the 2009 LBL Challenge. Other photos taken during the race are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kariandscott/sets/72157616774762540/

2009 LBL Challenge Map

2009-04-09T00:51:00.000-07:00

Below is the course we ran for the LBL challenge. A race report with all the steamy details will be forth comming (hopefully written by one of the other members of the team). The map will be best viewed in full screen mode by clicking on the view larger map link below.

View Larger Map

How to Create a course map with MyTopo background

2009-04-08T22:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, After making the map I need to get down the steps that I took to make the map with the mytopo overlay so that next time I don't have to figure out how to do everything again (I was up pretty late last night).

Make the map in Google Earth. Create a folder in myplaces.kml add the checkpoints, then add the routes as paths. Remember you can hold down L. mouse button to just draw a path instead of clicking point to point.
To get the lengths of the paths (you can't just get it from the properties of the track or anywhere in GE) use the super duper length getting tool at E.M.A GE Tools . To use it; in GE highlight the track, right click, select copy, then go to the length tool thingy and paste in the box. click calculate and whammo you get the length. It is in km so convert it to miles.
Edit the descriptions of the tracks to show mileage in GE.
Save the folder as a .kml file on the hard drive.
Go to www.GPSVisualizer.com, set the parameters for the map (Choose Full Screen Mode and initial map type as MyTopo.com). Then in the input file boxes browse to and upload the saved .kml file, then draw the map
Now is where it gets a bit dicey. After it draws the map, use the link to save a copy to the hard drive (just the html, not complete web page or anything). Name it something better then the default random number file name assigned
Now you have to edit the html code to insert your Google Maps API key, so open the html file in notepad or wordpad. Scroll down to where the GPSVisualizer guy says to insert your API key and place it between the quotes. The API for my web space is ABQIAAAA8oz96BYc9hjnVqzo6ONlsBQSWU31P9IJypDiPbpk_Swiys_4VRRNXJ5MZHj7MxOyFORb973D1c6a0w I know no one cares what my API key is but like I said it is so I can find it
While you are altering the html file you can change things like the zoom level and the center of the map by altering some of the values under // basic map parameters:
Upload the altered html file to the web server
Log into Blogger and create a post. go to Edit Html and insert code for an iframe. Not like I really know what an iframe is, so I just copied the code that google maps uses when you embed a map into a website. You can also google iframe and copy some code or the guy at GPSVisualizer.com has put something in his FAQ on it. Important thing about the iframe code is to insert the URL where you put map between the quotes in the src="http://". Here is a copy of the code I use

Fwd: Bonk Hard Video

2009-04-01T18:26:00.000-07:00

I have enclosed a link to a video of the Bonk Hard Chill. Team Forum Dental is in two of the scenes. Check it out. Dave

http://www.gojim.tv/Videos.html

Chris' Official Team Document, i.e. last will and testiment

2009-04-01T18:25:00.001-07:00

As you all know I will be doing some traveling to the Caman Islands then on to Australia. I do plan on doing some risky and somewhat questionable activities while on my trip---such as swimming with sharks and sting rays-- all of this a tribute to Steve Erwin aka the cocodile hunter. I have checked my team forum dental contract and find these activities to be in line with things I can do and still maintain my standing as a team member--- I will have you know that I hired my own attornies to review my contract so the interpritation might be bias. In saying all of this I plan on returning on the 5th of April, however, If something happens and I do not return I had my attornies draw up a will (sp?). If by chance I do not return---there will be a meeting on the 6th of April at 6 pm outling in more detail what I wish to happen to my adventure racing gear.---

First and formost My truck----I feel that since we have deleniated the Nissan as our official team transport vehicle there is no better place for it to be used than for the team----I have set aside some monies and a design for a sticker kit so you all can tavel in style (a picture of me will be placed on the hood)

2nd--- My bike -----let see which one of us needs a bike???? oh that is right, to Scott goes my bike even though it is a Gary Fisher

3rd---- My pack-- I know my pack is small but what it lacks in size it makes up in spirit. It can Carry 100 x its weight and 100 x the weight of the person carrying it.( I know it doesnt make since but just go with it) so to Erik goes my pack may it serve you well. Erik when you use it they will try and tell you that you have the heaviest pack too.

4th-- my new teva shoes. just so you know I love these shoes. in the last few weeks we have developed a great bond-- so much that they have tried to become one with my feet and make a permanent bond with my feet but in the process something went wrong and in the end I lost some skin secondary to blisters----- To Dave goes my shoes, so that when he losses his again he will have a spare.

Lastly--- To Judd ( I know Judd already has everything) goes the team first aid kit, my compus, my rope, the flare gun with four shells, my small dry bags, my fire starting kits, and everything else I carried in my pack. (this is my attempt at making someone elses pack heavier than mine)

I also as a last wish would like to see my bike rack blown up in memory of how well it works and the ease in which we put on and remove the bikes.

Anyway it is late and this email is becoming lamer and lamer if I dare us such appropriate and correct terms.

In all seriousness just wanted to drop you all a line wishing you all a fun and safe race. I will miss being there but know you all will do great. Good luck have fun and I will see you when I get back.

Chris

2009-03-29T17:21:00.000-07:00

The route that Forum Dental AR team took at the Scout O Festival

View Larger Map

Nicknames cont.

2009-03-11T11:09:00.000-07:00

So in light of us wanting to employ nicknames, I figured I would upload some pictures to go with our given nicknames. Let me know what you think....he, he, he...

NAV

Toc

Erik your name will most likely need refining after this race, since we haven't raced together yet this will have to do.

Special D

As in Specialized Dave (Need I explain more?)

I didn't really feel that Crack's name needed another repost of the photo (butt for all interested click here)

Link

Sorry Judd you said we couldn't call you "Load" or "Fattie" so what was I supposed to do? (I just couldn't resist)

Bonk Hard race series competition and nicknames

2009-03-10T20:14:00.001-07:00

On Fri, Mar 6, 2009

A few other things about this. I don't know if they use the same racers all of the time. You can only have 6 different racers on a team, so that may disqualify them over the course of the year.

I think by the end of the year, we could beat them in a foot race, but maybe not right now. It certainly is going to be interesting. Especially as we tweak our strategy.

Remember their cool names like Hammer and Stick.

I think we each need to come up with names. Scott, yours is Nav. Kind of a cool GI Joe type name. Maybe even Gage as in the compass is a type of gage, AND you gage how fast we go. Dave, yours should be something like Doc. Due to the fact that you are in charge of the documents (passport). Mine is Link, as in "the weakest". Chris can be Buns. If there are any questions as to why, I'll refer to the necessary photo. I suppose Crack would work too. Erik, yours can be Tic or Toc, referring to your new responsibility to keep track of the time. This is very important as you can tell from Scott's email. We won the last race due to our time management skills.

Any other suggestions?

By the way Load as in "wide load" and Fattie as in "you are huge" are names that I personally would not like to be called. So if you OTHER suggestions, that would be great.

Judd

On Thu, Mar 5, 2009
Right now looking at the teams that are registered for LBL it looks as though our only competition for the series are Wounded Warriors ( that is a cool name by the way, I have name envy but they have earned it). And if I am totally honest I am not so sure that we can beat them in a race without time management or them having a blowout or getting lost or something. BUT looking at the series as a whole we don't really have to beat them in any more races, just as long as we come in only one place behind them in the division. If we take second to them for the rest of the races, with our 5 point lead we still win the series.

It is going to be a fun year!

Scott

Forum Dental Jersey, Speedo Racing cont.

2009-03-10T20:01:00.001-07:00

Aaaarrrrrgggg!!!!!

Ok just forget it, get me the speedo so I can go with the original plan. If that is not possible bring home some surgical masks and I will figure something out with those and duct tape

XXS on the speedo please

Scott

On Thu, Mar 5, 2009

so i'm confused.. did you want an XL?

Judd

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009
No, I don't want a Med. I need a Large

Henry had mentioned to me that he was going to get me a med for the club champ tri and I didn't know if this was the same thing so I was just confirming that I need a Large. Unfortunately, it seems that I just confused you.

just a final word, I want a large, L, grande

Scott

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009

I told Shelia to get me 6 larges - based on everyone's order size for shirts at the various races we have been to. ( 1 extra in case we end up needing to pick up another teammate)

I'm sure we can get a Med., or maybe Shelia didn't change sizes. I can find out. What size did you want.

Judd

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009

Judd, did you order me a large? The only reason I am asking is cause I was talking to henry about that Club Champ. tri and he said that he had me down for a M.

Scott

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009
I was actually thinking the same thing, but I guess I'm more familiar with reality.

I believe the Jerseys are $53.00 to produce. They were designed with the Multi Sport Club in Rolla. I believe everyone could purchase one for $27.00. So I guess the sponsors pitched in about $26.00 per jersey. I believe they have orders for around 35 to get the price break (otherwise they were in the $70 range to produce fewer).

Henry is buying ours is my understanding. Well, he is buying one for everyone that went on the trail run tonight, so i'll end up with 3, you guys are on your own.

Judd

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009

Que bueno! Son muy hermosos. Vamos a correr muy, muy rapido con estos.

That would be Brooke's response to our cool jerseys. I'm hoping she didn't hit on you or insult anyones parentage. So does this mean we are sponsored by all the additional groups on there? Can we get free stuff from Route 66 bikes? Are we able to train for free at the centre? I'm just trying to ask the questions that came to Scott's mind. Dave

here is a prototype of the Forum Dental Team Jersey.

I don't think they will be ready for the race. They got ordered yesterday 3/2, and take 30 days plus 4 days shipping. Looks like they might be here the Monday or Tuesday after the race. They are trying to push them along.

Judd

Run in the Dark

2009-03-10T19:57:00.001-07:00

probably the banana peals. Try Plantains.

Judd

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009

I have actually rigged something up with exactly those ingredients. See I throw them all in a blender and turn on high. Once blended you can dip your shoes in it to create a durable, waterproof, breathable, acid proof, tick and chigger resistant, poison ivy neutralizing, bruise preventing, ingrown toenail curing, blister soothing, kinetic energy returning coating on your shoes. The formula is currently out for beta testing and unfortunately it has been shown to cause sexual side effects in lab rats, but I should have that worked out by the race.

Scott

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009

Went for a Lion's Club run last night in the dark. Somehow shaved 5 minutes off my time from Monday. Must have been running scared or something.

No snow, but very muddy. Shoes worked great. Got home put them in the sink to wash them off under running water - about 5 minutes to clean them up so I could wear them to work today. not a drop of water on the inside. They really are waterproof.

I'm hoping to be able to get around Lion's Club twice in a row before our next race. Hopefully in 70 minutes or so. it is 3.7 miles per loop, so that would be a pace just under 10 min. miles. That is probably the best I can hope for right now. I guess we'll see.

How are the Teva's working in the water?

Scott, you've probably rigged up something out of Duct Tape, banana peals and paper clips to keep your feet dry - is it working, and did it cost more than $2.00?

Judd

Team Red Wheel Bonk Hard Chill Race Report

2009-03-10T19:52:00.000-07:00

To go right to the race report

http://gumbobottoms.typepad.com/team_red_wheel/2009/02/bonk-hardchill-or-be-chilled.html

OK,

i'm headed to Jeff city tomorrow rather than the race. i'm hooking up with the Red Wheel dude to fix my bike proper.

also,

if you read the red wheel blog on the Bonk Hard Chill, it will have you laughing for hours. It is fairly long, and has some comic foul language, but it is non-stop laughter.

http://www.teamredwheel.com/

Judd

Re: Water crossings

2009-03-01T13:31:00.001-08:00

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 12:47 PM, Judd Boehme

As long as the speedo is not cotton (poor performance fabric).

That picture of Chris at the Berryman proves that someone can be practically in the buff and still do just fine.

Judd

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 12:08 PM, Scott Young
Excellent!! because I was looking for an excuse to go minimal for my racing clothing. See I was going to see if Henry would order me a Forum Dental Speedo and I was just planning to go Speedo, pack, shoes and gaiters (for the thorns). I will just streak through the forest like some naked Aborigine. I would go loin cloth, but I think I may need some support for a 12 hr race. Who's With Me!!!!

Scott

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 9:46 AM, Judd Boehme

I read in my Adventure Racing book last night, that most of these guys actually wear their pants through the watter crossings. They literally don't stop when they come to water. They keep everything in dry bags (kind of like Chris did), line their pack with a garbage bag inside and just leave it on their back and go. The clothing they wear is chosen for it's ability to dry quickly.

Don't know if anyone cares, Just thought i'd pass along the info.

Judd

Re: Shoes and Water

2009-03-01T13:30:00.001-08:00

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 5:02 PM, David Whittekiend

I don't think it will be that big of a deal. If it is a pretty hot day and we have to cross a river even the gore tex shoes will probably dry pretty fast. You carry a pair of socks or two much more easily than an extra pair of shoes for crossing. I'll bet we could test out how fast our shoes dry in the very near future and if someone has a pair of shoes that don't work for them they can look at replacing them. I'm sticking with my current shoes until they cause me a problem. I'll bet Dave Frei does the warmer weather orienteering races in barefeet. Those guys are animals.

I think waterproof shoes in conditions like we have right now, during The Chill, or like we had on the Eureka Springs race.

I think total submersion (like a river crossing - Berryman) the non-waterproof shoes would be best. While they get wet, they must dry quickly too. Considering we would not have a total submersion unless the weather were much warmer, I bet they dry in a mile or two, or less than 30 minutes. Due to liability, no race is going to ask us to cross a river unless the weather is nice enough to ultimately dry the shoes quickly.

My other problem with no shoes in the river (it's not the 5 minutes it takes to take them off and then put them back on) is if someone steps on glass, the race is over for us.

Thoughts?

Judd

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 12:51 PM, Scott Young
I have also done some research on this, not necessarily from AR people, some people love gore-tex and some people hate them. I guess it comes down to how much you mind wet feet. These are my thoughts, I have non-waterproof shoes that are extremely well vented and are great when it is dry, if I get them wet they dry fairly quickly. However, I went for a run on lions club a couple weeks ago in the mud. Every time I steped in the mud which was every 100 ft or so, the water flowed in and my feet were clammy, pruned and miserable after 4 miles. If we do a race in wet conditions, I will want waterproof shoes. Since we do races in Feb, Apr, Sept. and Dec. chances are we are going to have at least one race where we are going to have wet muddy conditions. So I ordered waterproof shoes, if it is dry I will wear my dry shoes, if it is muddy I will wear my mud shoes unless my mud shoes are just as comfortable as my dry shoes then I'll just wear them all the time. Remember, we were only a week from slogging through the slush for the whole race (oh wait you don't remember because you were on the beach). I really don't think that taking five minutes to take my shoes off if we have to cross a river is going to make or break us. I may have a different outlook though since I wear my shoes for the entire race.

Scott

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 12:10 PM, Judd Boehme
OK,
I emailed Dave Frei about shoes and wetness etc. Here is his response.
We usually assume that our feet will get wet numerous times in an AR, so we just go full speed ahead and don't worry about wet feet (choose good synthetic socks).

We just go and don't worry about it. If a race was more than 24 hours this might be a problem.

Though, they didn't worry about it during the 36 hour Berryman race - probably because it took them less than 24 hours (maybe because they didn't worry about it).
If you note in the river crossing picture the Bushwacker team did not have shoes tied to their packs either. They probably had them on.
So this makes me wonder if the Gore Tex shoes are a bad thing to have. For puddles OK, but if water gets inside of them, does it not "get out", or dry very well. Maybe if the shoe is going to be fully under water, it's a bad idea to have the Gore Tex shoes?
Leaving shoes on would make the river crossing faster, more stable, and alleviate the need for stopping to put shoes back on wet feet in the dirt. It would also alleviate any possible pictures that need censoring.
I want to know what you guys think.
Judd

Windows Live™: Discover 10 secrets about the new Windows Live. View post.

Fwd: Ride tomorrow night?

2009-03-01T13:28:00.001-08:00

I'm up for a run. I'd rather be mooned repeatedly by Chris than run on a treadmill. I have no problem running at a group pace. That is what being a team is all about isn't it? We could run on the roads around here if we don't have a remote isolated country road to get lost on. Dave

I'm up for about anything, but my 11 minute mile is probably too slow to interest anyone. I went 5 tonight, in 9:23 miles. I'm working my way down, but it's not coming very fast since it is not my main focus right now. I could go for a trail run. Any trails over by the country club? Dave Walton might know of some.

I'm happy to head over to The Center too. I actually don't mind running on a treadmill that much. then I can do my slower miles while Dave tries to do his 5:30 miles.

Judd

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 6:50 PM, David Whittekiend wrote:

I think we need to give the trail at Lions Club a break. I received a message recently on the Route 66 list serve that there are some pretty good ruts in the trail and there are some afraid of losing the trail access because of damage. Perhaps a run of about 5 miles or so? Dave

Anyone up for a ride tomorrow night after YM?

Judd

Fwd: Training Plan

2009-03-01T13:27:00.001-08:00

Enclosed is a spreadsheet with the plan I used to get ready for Berryman. The September tab is pretty much the program I followed. The January is what I was recording prior to the Chill. After a point I quit putting it on this spreadsheet. It worked pretty well for me. It is easily changed to accommodate any program you are interested in. Dave

It's the same Hotmail®. If by "same" you mean up to 70% faster. Get your account now.

Bonk Hard Chill 2009 course map

2009-02-21T19:44:00.000-08:00

I made a map for our running of the Bonk Hard Chill 2009 for all to see and be amazed. If you want to get the full Google Map experience click on the view larger map link

Scott

View Larger Map

Photos from my disposable camera

2009-02-21T13:05:00.000-08:00

Cold Nose-O orienteering meet

2009-02-21T12:09:00.000-08:00

Bonk Hard Chill 09 Photos

2009-02-21T11:47:00.001-08:00

Photos from the 2009 Bonk Hard Chill Adventure Race.

Scott

Chris' Medical Status

2009-02-21T10:50:00.000-08:00

Chris.....First let me start by telling you that I knew that you would be upset, (imagine somber music in the background while you read this) but I want you to know that I HAD to take the photo. You see I feel, just like the rest of the team, that an intervention was needed. I did not take the photo to make fun of your big white hairy moon....no...nothing could be farther from the truth. The fact is that I took the photo so that I could submit it to the A.R.S.E. the Asperger's Research and Study Establishment because we all believe that the Asperger's that you have may be life threatening. But there is hope, the people at the A.R.S.E. have run a GADS a Gilliam Asperger's Disorder Scale test (a real acronym by the way) and they say that with extensive psycotherapy and numerous surgeries you may live a normal life. Chris...I want you to know that no one knows Aspergers like the people at the A.R.S.E. I hope that one day you will forgive me, and you will come to realize that this truely was for your own good.

Scott

On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 2:28 PM, Chris Wehrli

All right who took this pic. I am extremely upset. I can't believe you guys would portray me in such a way!!!

On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 4:18 PM, Scott Young
A few photos from my disposable camera from Berryman and the Chill and the orienteering meet are on my facebook profile. Judd you need to sign up for facebook, you can ask your wife how it is done since she is one of my friends. Oh yeah and I have attached one other photo that didn't get posted to the profile ( didn't think the young men should see the first counselor in the bishopric digging in his crack...oh I mean pack, way at the bottom :-)

Scott

Re: Urban Assault Adventure Ride

2009-02-21T10:40:00.000-08:00

On Fri, Feb 20, 2009

Dang, I hate that SO many races in Missouri are run on Sundays. The majority of tri's are run on Sundays here which is why I have never done a tri in this state. The Sunday race thing seems to be a Missouri thing, sure other states have races on Sundays but not the majority.

On Fri, Feb 20, 2009
We have done race much like this in DC. It was fun. This one is slightly different. The St. Louis date is on a Sunday. I think Chris will be in Australia.

Judd

On Thu, Feb 19, 2009
I don't know about anyone else but this looks like a blast.

http://www.urbanassaultride.com/inside.php?page=stlouis

Fwd: Adventure Racing Updates

2009-02-21T10:30:00.000-08:00

Well I for one don't mind one bit racing the Dusk to Dawn, in fact it never crossed my mind. I don't know what or if there is Church policy on this but for me the Sabbath starts when I wake up Sunday morning. I have never been one to stop an inappropriate Sunday activity at 12:00 AM, I personally have never had any qualms going to the store after midnight or anything like that. The Dusk to Dawn will probably start at 9:00 Saturday night and end 5:00 am Sunday morning, which is fine with me. That is just my opinion though and I don't know if it is right or wrong so I respect anyone who feels otherwise.

As for riding together, I think that Wednesday nights after YM is a good time for us to all get together on a regular basis, sure it will be dark, but we will be racing in the dark in the future. I am all up for some Sat. morning rides and such as well.

Scott

Here are some updates.

Dave will be joining us in the LBL. I believe Erik is stepping in for Chris who will be in Australia. I spoke with Erik yesterday, and he seems to be staying in shape, and is planning on getting a bike. Scott, you may want to come up with a bike workout for Erik, which should include some hills.

As a team, we should go ride Lyon's Club or some more aggressive trail once or twice in the coming weeks.

I was looking at the photos from some of our races (on BonkHard's website). None of them are great, but everyone is in some of them. There are no pictures as good as the one Scott sent, but they are worth taking a look at.

On a more serious note:

One thing that may help us pull away in the point series is competing in every event. Any team that does not do this, will be seriously hampered in their quest for the title. Unlike Xterra events that use your best three scores, BH uses all of them towards the total.

With that said, the Dusk to Dawn is obviously a night race - which we should practice for. I believe it runs from Saturday Night to Sunday Morning. This creates some possible dilemmas for some. Honestly we could still make it to a Sacrament meeting over in KC, though I don't think that is the point.

I know that I personally have a general rule not to race on Sundays, though I don't have a huge problem with it. At this point in my sporting life, I have never competed on a Sunday that I can remember. I have spoken with my wife about Sunday racing, and she has always said that a time may come where I felt it was necessary to race on a Sunday, and she was OK with that. Honestly it was a surprise to me, but she said "who knows, there might be a good missionary opportunity sometime, so don't rule it out". While I don't believe there is a good missionary opportunity involved in the Dusk to Dawn, I'm up for racing if everyone else is. If we can't put a team of 4 together, I won't race and will be perfectly OK with it. Realize that we are going to run into this issue if we ever decide to do a 36 hour race, or even a 3 day race.

I know that DtoD is not for several months, but I would like to start making plans now if possible. Any input? Any comments? Any Feelings?

Thanks,

Judd