Land Nav Gun Run 2023

Land Nav Gun Run was back for 2023!  It was my favorite Gun Run from last year, since it was longer, had more shooting stages, included land nav, and felt more like a real adventure and less like an "inside the box" competition.  It does take a lot more planning work and volunteer RO support to put this on, but it's well worth it for the grateful competitors who get to take part.  SB and I made sure that we got a spot for the event.

We met up to carpool over.

We attended the 10:30am brief for our 11:44am run time, which was on the later side.  They have to start early to get the runners through this long format race before it gets too late.  

The stage brief was similar to last year's.  There's an asphalt road that separates all the nav portions from all the shooting portions, to help make sure that nobody accidentally wanders where they shouldn't go.  It's a very good concept for how to execute this kind of event.  Same as last year, a missed land nav point would incur a 1 hour penalty.  

With so many shooting stages, we loaded up.  I tried a chest rig for the first time (HPG rig with an LBX pouch attachment), so that I didn't have to carry a full plate carrier, since that got hot last year.  With a 65R/45P minimum round count, I went with 6 mags of rifle (3 on belt, 3 on rig) and 9 mags of pistol (7 on belt and 2 in the rig), which is 3x.  I actually used 65R/66P.  SB is our primary rifle shooter, which is part of the reason my rifle usage rate was low, and I try not to miss on pistol, so 3 mags may be overly conservative based on my skill level now.  

Nav A:

Our first land nav point took waaaaay too long for us to find.  We had a good idea, which was to go along the main road, then follow a trail to the first point.  The mistake was that the dashed line wasn't a trail - it was a stream, which we didn't realize until way later.  We ran across another team who realized that we were struggling, and pointed out that the power line was a big landmark that we could've been looking for.  I hadn't even thought of that, despite having gone along that last year.  We backtracked quite a bit to go back the correct way to get point A and made our way along the powerline, which got muddy towards the second half.  Once we found the point, we punched, and read the instructions to go back to the CP, where we got instructions to go to the shooting area across the parking lot to do stage 1.  Another team or two were shooting when we got there, but we were the last team to shoot that stage.  I was very excited by now to finally do some shooting, since we had spent a lot of time and covered a lot of distance with all that ammo.  I wanted to get lighter and actually start the event.

Stage 1:

At stage 1, there's a rifle target at 100yd and 2 pistol targets at 20 and 35yd (12x18" reduced IPSICs).  Each person must hit each target 5x, but you can't go for the same target simultaneously, so you have to coordinate or have a plan for that.  At any point, a team member can go grab an ammo can and bring it back before the time ends.  

I suggested that SB go for rifle first, while I start on pistol, and then we'd rotate clockwise.  Rifle can take a little longer to set up if you go prone.  Whoever finished shooting first could grab the can.

As I started shooting, I encountered malfunctions, which was not normal.  I thought it might be from some of the the Blazer 115gr that I had brought, since I typically prefer 124gr or more.  They'd keep coming periodically, and then I noticed that the bad round that came out was orange, and I realized that I had thrown my dummy round mags into my stash to bring to the event!  I just dealt with the dummies as they came (they did highlight my flinching), and kept shooting... so I guess I didn't actually shoot 66 rounds, since maybe 6-ish of them were dummies.

I still got through the pistol targets and then moved on to rifle, and since I was finished first, I went to grab the ammo can, and came back in 119s, which made us 27/27 of the passers, where 27/56 teams passed.  Phew!  I'm proud to have worked through the malfunctions!

As we ran off, I started de-loading the other mags to clear out the dummies.

Nav B:

Next, we went back to the CP for instructions on where to find point B.  Point B had us go to the Rally Point, where we were told to go to Stage 2.

Stage 2:

At stage 2, we had to pick one rifle to use, and we went with SB's, since she's most comfortable with that, and we'd have her be the rifle shooter.  We had to decide on that before hearing the stage brief, though.  It turns out that we'd both be shooting her rifle, but that's OK.

She'd work on hitting 2 diamond targets with rifle, while I ran further down to shoot 7 little pistol knock-over targets.  I had 1 miss but knocked over 2 at once another time, so I still only needed 7 rounds to finish this, before I had to search a dummy's body for "intel" and carry a heavy Alice pack with 50# over to SB.  It felt too heavy and akward to shoulder, so I dragged it, along with the "rubber ducky" fake AR.  

Then, I had to shoot the lower/right rifle target, and SB gave me the perfect hold (bottom), which made it easy.

35/56 teams passed, and among them, we were 32nd, with a time of 117s.

Stage 3:

Stage 3 was next door.  We had to go into a little fort and shoot through two different port options per person, at targets across the water, which were located around fake car cut-outs.  We each had a particular sequence of targets to hit, listed on a piece of paper.  We could work simultaneously on our set of targets, since there were two spotter ROs.  If one of us finished early, we could help each other out, if we kept to the proper sequence.

I struggled to get my first target for a guy who was in the window of the car.  I couldn't even see him with my eyes, so I shot at the window, and adjusted based on the calls that the ROs helped with.  

Other targets were supposedly challenging to hit because a tree was directly in the way, so I chose to use the other port, and shot from seated.  The tree was no issue from that position.  I did shoot the wrong target once, but everything else was OK.  

SB finished first, but based on the angle that she had, she wasn't able to really help me before I ended up finishing.  She did have to deal with all of my brass flying her way, though.

We finished 31/44 among the passers in 66s, and 44/56 passed.  We got to watch Andrea and her partner shoot this before we did, and they crushed it.  She's amazing at shooting and doing physical stuff... top notch.

Stage 4:

A bit further down was Stage 4, which was going to be fun.  We'd both start prone, and then one shooter (we were lucky to have picked SB blindly as primary) would shoot rifle at 2x65yd targets, 4 hits each, then remove the mag to leave 1 round left, and shoot 1 shot on either target.  If she hit, good.  If she missed on that last one, I'd have to apply a TQ later in the stage.  Prone wasn't an option based on the vegetation, so seated/kneeling was the way to go.  The 4 hits each should've allowed her to get a good sense of the proper hold, but she didn't connect on that last shot.  

Next, we both ran forward, me with a little foxtail ball to mimic a grenade that I had to throw at the fort.  It turns out that you'd get a raffle entry if you got the foxtail into the fort, which I didn't know.  I didn't make it, but I got close, with the roll.

I went into the fort first, going through a series of little trench tunnels before getting to the end, applying a TQ to an arm, and shooting one-handed with the other hand (fortunately, I'm decent at that, at least strong hand).  I had 2 circle targets to hit, and once I finished, I could yell at SB on the other side of the fort to re-engage the rifle targets with pistol this time.

53/56 passed, and we were 31/53 among the passers, finishing in 119s.

Nav C/D:

Back at the RP, we got coordinates for 2 points, which we could do in either sequence.  We decided to go for the farther one first, in case we wanted to grab the closer one on the way back, vs making 2 distinct trips out to get the points.  

Point C was interesting because the map showed a clearing that we wanted to look for, but I noticed that the pine trees looked young and intentionally planted in rows.  That was actually part of the clearing, so we overshot it by a bit and covered a little extra distance because of it.  Once we were back on track, the point was farther than we expected with pace counts, but we did find it.  That place had a cache of shotgun shells for us to grab for a future stage, which is something to look forward to. 

SB wanted us to try hitting D directly from C, but the vegetation was thick, and landmarks are not so easy to find, and bearings are hard to keep to in that situation, especially when the landmark is a stream, which means more vegetation, and streams are typically not mapped 100% well because of offshoots and the potential to change over time.  We ended up cutting our losses after 45 min and went back to the main path to re-attack from the main road.  

Even that main road attack wasn't easy... we bushwhacked in (on a deer trail that had maybe formed from others with the same pace count-based idea) and followed the bearing we want.  We looked around and couldn't find it, looked around some more, ended up back at the RP somehow, and re-attacked from there.  We eventually found it, when SB decided to go search a little bit further than where we were originally looking.  We had actually been pretty close at one point when we had attacked from C, but it's so hard in that kind of vegetation.  The route from the RP was a lot more clear than the bushwhacked one from the road that I had originally tried, but it wasn't obvious from the map that such a route existed.

We had eaten up lots of time, but at least we hadn't missed a point yet.  Plus, in more exciting news, we still had a 100% completion rate on the shooting stages so far.

Stage 5:

At the RP, we were told to go to Stage 5.  In the past, SB has been the shotgun person, but this time, we swapped so that I got a chance at it.  After I breached, SB went in with rifle to make 4 hits on each of 4 cardboard targets.  Making sure you get all 4 and don't miss and DNF for a silly reason is most important.  

Once she was done clearing the room of immediate enemies, I went in with pistol  and shot at 4 targets with 4 hits each.  

We got it done in 36s, finishing 33/46 passers, with 46/56 passing.

Stage 6:

Further down was Stage 6, where our RnG friend Dana was ROing.  One shooter would hit targets on the dueling tree with pistol.  Once I finished, I went up to grab intel, and SB and I would climb up the ladder into the tree house, where she'd use her rifle to shoot the target sequence and hit counts that I read out.  She used the ladder to brace, and we knocked it out in 103s, finishing 32/54 among passers, with 54/56 passing.

Nav E:

Back at the RP, we were given an image of where to find point E.  We didn't use phones, but the sat image was enough of a match with what we could see with our eyes and figure out through our maps, to find the side of the building that we wanted.

At that side of the building, we punched and saw another map with instructions on where to go shoot.  Some teams actually missed the punch, probably too distracted by the piece of paper, haha, and had to go out with Ellis to verify that it was really there because they just couldn't believe it.

Stage 7:

We couldn't believe that we still had a 100% completion rate at this point.  The location of this next stage was where we had struggled on our land nav last team match, though, as we shot across the water in an area with high vegetation.  At least there wasn't fog this time, further obstructing our view.

For this stage, there were 3 gongs of 8" targets and 1 silhouette at 180yd.  One person would make a plate rack hit, and then the other person would shoot 3 on the torso.  Since the gongs were smaller, SB did that, and I listened for the ping so that I could fire off my 3 quickly.  

We destroyed that stage in 39s, finishing 9 out of the 47 passers, with 47/56 passing.  The RO was really impressed.

We were 8 for 8 so far!  But the last stage would prove to be very difficult. 

Stage 8:

SB carried a 68# duffle bag from stage 7 to 8.  I was moving much slower than she was by then, so I was grateful.  We then did bounding towards targets.  There were 2 targets to hit from each position, with 3 hits required on each target each time.  

SB started since the first person to go would ahve 3 total positions.  It was tough making the hits on the small targets, and getting the right holds.  It was inconsistent for me.  These were 12x20" (2/3 IPSICs) at 200yd, which is the most challenging distance for me.  Most of the 65 rounds that I used were at this stage.  I ate up a lot of time, so we ran out of time before SB got to finish at the last position.  It would've been hard anyways with the visibility of the target from that spot.  We had failed bounding the last 2 times, too, and have only ever passed it once, during our first team match at Ellerbe in 2021.  It's fun, but sometimes, it can be hard.

After that, it was a matter of returning to the start.  It was funny, because SB had to pace off of me, because I was slower.  

Learnings:

We did well playing to strengths on shooting (her with rifle, me with pistol), which led to us having our highest pass rate yet.

I should've studied the map legend before making route choices.

Don't bring mags with dummy rounds!

I still need to work on rifle stability and holds.

The rig worked fine, but I definitely need to use thread locker on all my plastic pistol mag holders, because the screws came out again.  Fortunately, the screw was still jiggling around in the plastic, so I could re-attach it when I got home.

Rankings:

25/58 overall, 39/56 run (could've done much better), 28/56 shooting.  Yay, we've made it to being average!  And with a better run, our overall result could've been even better.  We love seeing the progress we've made, though.

We definitely got our money's worth of mileage!

Bosco made nice patches as finisher awards for the event.  We love patches!

Krate Tactical also made a special edition of their knife that had a topo design on it, with the RnG guy... sooooo cool.

Rev3 50 Hour Endurance Challenge Adventure Race

BACKGROUND

This would be SB and my second expedition-length (>24hr) adventure race, and 4th AR overall.  We have endurance backgrounds (particularly with rucking), and have picked up orienteering recently.  We like especially enjoy challenges that test us not only physically, but mentally, too.  We're not the biggest and strongest, but we can make up for that by making good strategic decisions and leveraging our strengths.

We got to know the Lung sisters through rucking events, and they are actually the ones who helped inspire us to give adventure racing a try.  There was a period where the Eco Challenge on Amazon Prime piqued everyone's interests in adventure racing, including those in the rucking community.  Most never did anything with it, but when we saw that and saw the Lung sisters conquer the Sea to Sea 72 hour race in Florida in 2021, we decided to dive in in 2022.  Their advice was helpful as we prepped for that event.

The two of them are physical powerhouses, already have a good team dynamic between them (they are sisters, after all, and know each others' strengths and weaknesses and communication styles).  They also have quite a bit of AR experience built up in the last couple of years.  SB and I complement and work together well, too, and don't have as much raw strength, but we really enjoy the "smart ranger" aspect of events.  

When we saw the Rev3 AR advertised, we decided to see if the sisters were interested in teaming up to make a team of 4.  SB really likes the idea of being part of all-female teams that can show the world what we're capable of, and it's not often that you can find a team of 4 women who are crazy enough to do this kind of thing, so this would be an awesome opportunity.

We set up a call  in Aug 2022 to discuss the idea, and determine if the 4 of us would be a good fit.  When you form teams, it's important to be aligned on goals.  You don't want some people to be gung-ho about winning, while others just want to finish.  Fortunately, we were aligned on focusing on finishing, hopefully clearing, giving our best effort but not necessarily killing ourselves over it.  We've done rucking events together and know that all of us can push hard and are good team players and people who can lead or follow and contribute.  

We also discussed strengths and weaknesses, for transparency.  You don't want giant surprises during the event.  I explained about how I'm not super talkative, which they probably already knew from doing other events with me, so I wouldn't be able to help boost morale in that way.  3/4 of us had about equal skills and confidence levels on bike, and 1 had more confidence, which is a good thing.  It's nice to have someone who does have more skill who can be a crutch to lean on for the others, or who can take on extra responsibilities during the bike portion, like bike nav.  3/4 of us were also fans of navigation, which was excellent.  Usually, the limiting factor in team formation is finding a navigator, and we had 3 who felt comfortable with that skill!  Like I said, we all know how to lead, but I nominated SB to be TL.  We'd end up dividing up nav responsibilities, with Meg doing bike (she was the most confident on bike, so it was natural), SB doing water (she had wanted opportunities to refine that skill after the ridiculous paddle portion of Sea to Sea), and me doing land (Meg is actually waaay better at reading topo than me, but I can use a compass and pace count all day - I find it mentally soothing to count, which often leads to a dead reckoning strategy, but it works).  Jenni would be in charge of gear (her and Meg's oodles of food ended up saving me from a pretty bad spot).  I did the logistics plan, to estimate durations per leg and gear needs.  That plan would end up going out the window during the very first leg... out the window and to the next universe, but that's kind of typical at events.  No plan survives first contact, which is why you also plan for contingencies, although what ended up happening even blew my conservative estimates out of the water.

We communicated some during our training lead-up.  SB and I were very focused on Mammoth until January, which we made clear up-front, but we were able to get more focused on Rev3 once that was over.  I'd post about bike or orienteering-related practice sessions and share what I learned from them, to help myself stay motivated and absorb the lessons, but also try to motivate everyone else to keep training, too.

LEAD-UP WEEK

Monday, May 8:

Open Yoga Flow with Jason Kierce at the USNWC.  He was very different from the other instructors who have come... he was fun and whacky.  I do hope to see him again.

Tuesday, May 9:

Packing...

For this race, every 2 people got to pack a 27-gallon bin for the transition areas.  We'd only be accessing the bin mid-race and at the end, when we'd also have access to our cars, too.  We got an overview of the general sequence and estimated distances of the legs ahead of time, which gave us the opportunity to plan how much food and gear we needed per leg, and in the bin vs on our persons.

I made a calculator that took our estimated paces per discipline, to estimate how long each leg would be.  I had conservative and more aggressive estimates.  We also allocated time for transitions.  At this race, we'd have to remove wheels from bikes to put them in canoes, and re-install them back on land.  That's not something I've ever done before, so we needed extra time for that activity.  Leading up to the race, SB had asked everyone on the team to practice this skill, and also do a functions check on our bikes and lights.  Bike issues can decimate race plans if they pop up.

CHECK-IN DAY

Thursday, May 11:

Made the drive up to Woodstock, VA...

It's a small town with a nice new park called 7 Bends.  It has two entrances.  We went to the one where the race was not starting, before seeing no evidence of a race and going to the other one.  It was good recon, though, since we'd be in the area for the race later.  There are quite a few cool bridges around.

We were there a little early, so we got our bearings, and found the riverside and riverside trail.

We saw some sample canoes that we'd have to stuff our bikes into, although they wouldn't necessarily be replicas of the ones that we'd be using.  Some people started experimenting with how we might do this.

Our teammates, the Lung sisters, arrived.  We got our mandatory gear together for check-in.

We got the official pre-race brief, with an official demonstration of how one might fit the bikes, given by the Rev3 sponsored team.

Since this was an official North American AR series event, we got individual and team pictures taken, too.  We felt semi-professional, haha.

We got dinner at a Mexican place, and then went back to the hotel, with SB and I plotting points and route planning, while the sisters did final prep for their gear.  Divide and conquer!  It's good to have a team.  

It's a blessing and a curse to get maps early (the evening before is early, compared to Sea to Sea, where you get maps right before the bus ride to the start).  You get to plan, but then you feel pressure to stay up as long as it takes to get the planning done.  It's easier to do it from the comfort of a large, climate-controlled, clean space, with all the nav gear you want, than to do it out in the wild, though.

I was very mentally fatigued that night.  It was hard and slow-going, plotting points.  I'm glad that SB was there, to help cover down and help me through it.  She was much sharper that night.

We reviewed the general plan with the sisters once we got back upstairs.

We took pictures of the rules of travel, maps, plus any outside maps we wanted since that was allowed, as backups.

We started going to bed some time around midnight, with a wakeup at around 6am.

Pre-Race

We dropped our bins and bikes off before the start.

Prologue

The race would start with a trek, to spread everyone out before a bunch of people rushed out of the park on bikes.

It was only like a half mile out to the first point, with the team moving together.  After that, one rabbit per team was allowed to go alone to the next point, while the rest of the team could go and get bikes ready.  I was the rabbit, which was perfect, since I'm the only one on the team who says that they enjoy running.  The others are plenty capable, too, but don't enjoy it as much.

We didn't go out hard... we ran at the very beginning, to show our enthusiasm, but then we switched to a fast walk.  It's a 50 hour race, not a sprint, after all.

When I got back, among the last to return, the girls had already gotten our bikes, so I switched into my bike shoes, put on my helmet and gloves, and we set off on our adventure!

Leg 1 - Trek

The first leg seemed pretty straightforward, nav-wise.  Teams shared ideas about how to approach it.  Just a few turns and milestones on our way to a trail to go up to an overlook to snap a selfie for our first virtual CP.  There was a lot of uphill, though, as one might expect for a route that goes up to an overlook.  We walked our bikes a lot, and used low gears often.  Based on your bike and body, you figure out whether you're better off spinning fast and rolling slowly, or walking.  I tended to prefer spinning, since I could at least sit the whole time, and didn't have to bear the weight of my ruck on my legs.  It wasn't a super heavy ruck, but I did bring a lot of water, because I didn't want to have to find and purify random water if I could avoid it.  We took a few breaks along the way, as needed.

We finally got to the trail, and then we had to make a decision - bike it or walk it?  We were going to walk it, but we came across some other teams, who said that the biking wasn't actually as bad as the beginning of the trail with its rocky-ish and steep-ish uphill made it look.  We decided to go for it and were glad that we did, because it really wasn't that bad... challenging at times because of the rocks and steepness, but not terrible (still upper green level by my standards, which is about as much as I feel comfortable doing).  It ended up being a lot longer than I expected, too, so we were fortunate to not be stuck on foot the whole time.  Eventually we did drop our bikes, at a pretty good point, because the trail did get pretty unrideable after that.

I didn't think that the walk would be that long, so I kept my MTB shoes on.  I also kept my helmet on, since it didn't bug me much.  It ended up being a decent walk, on some rocky ground, but the shoes were fine, fortunately.

Near the top, we came across official race photographers.

At the top, we were met by Alana from the Rev3 staff.  She took our picture for us to get credit for the CP.  She's an adventure racer herself, which is awesome.

We made our way back to our bikes, and rode them back to the road.  We had a little retrieve-the-ruck detour, but got through that, always working together!

Leg 2 - Paddle

It was a short jaunt down to the river, where we now had to disassemble our bike, secure its components well, and set off on a decent paddle.  By this time, we were quite a bit behind schedule vs the original plan.  A big unknown was how fast the river would be, though... if it was fast, we'd make up some time.  We'd have to see!

There were mile markers on the water, so after a few miles, we figured out our average pace.  It would not be a super speedy paddle, so we were going to be in it for a while.  

I was in a boat with Meg, and Jenni was in a boat with SB.  That worked out well, since each boat had a strong paddler in the front.  Meg was more experienced with reading the water and pointing out rocks and which way to turn.  SB did that for the other boat.

Jenni's probably stronger than Meg, and SB is stronger than me, so their boat was typically ahead.  They took a break a couple times while we caught up, but once we caught up, they'd get moving again, so I got flashbacks of Team Assessment, having to roll from one evolution to another without breaks, as "it pays to be a winner".  Endlessly paddling hard.

SB did a great job keeping track of the turns, so that we knew where we were at all times.  We knew where to stop to get points along the way.  We came across one team who had blown past one of the points by 2 miles or something, and had part of their team go back on foot to get the points... that's a long way to bushwhack on the very slanted and uncleared riverbank!  But more power to them for wanting to continue clearing the course.  The RD had designed the course to be clearable and expected almost every team to be able to clear it, so we were going to keep that goal alive for as long as possible.  Course clearers would earn a belt buckle, while non-clearers would get a more generic medal.

We kept paddling, and it was getting a bit later as we did our first on-land boat detour.  These more land-oriented ones along the paddle route were placed by the RD to give us a chance to walk a bit and give our sit bones a break.  There were a couple of options on how to approach the point.  We decided to go the more sure way, using trails.  It was longer, but you always have to weight risks vs rewards.

The point took a bit of extra searching, but we found it.  We also came across another team that had taken a more direct route.  The gamble had paid off for them.

We pushed on, wanting to make it past Compton's Rapids before it got dark.  We were warned to stay on the far right side, to avoid the risk of having the rapids tip our canoes over.  Some boats didn't listen and lost their bikes at the bottom of the rapids and had to drop out of the race because they had no way to continue!

We went through very cautiously and slowly, and made it.

The next point was nuts... a bunch of team struggled with it.  It was difficult even finding the right boat landing point.  Once we figured that out, it was still hard.  It was at an abandoned campground, but with lots of odd trails in the mix, and many opportunities to miss turns, at least at night.  The RD didn't disallow phone use, so that got some teams through.  You'd think that a place with man-made structures would make it really easy, but it didn't.  We at up a bunch of time, but we were still on track to clear.

We finally got to the end of the canoe leg, where we had the more challenging task of re-assembling our bikes.  The chain part makes it difficult.  It was dark now, too.  The intention had been for everyone to be off the water before dark, which is why they completely removed the second paddle leg, but quite a few teams like us were still on the water after dark even during the first paddle leg.  My waterproof pants had completely shredded during the course of the paddle, somehow, so I tossed them.  We had been racing for about 12 hours now, too, which isn't nothing, so that fatigue also affects your mental state as you try to do something challenging like putting together bike wheels and executing your priorities of work.

Leg 3: MTB

We went to the boat house to fill up on water, and then began our mountain bike leg.  We had a pretty good plan for how we wanted to tackle the points.  We didn't have the full plan mapped out, because some of it would be dependent on how dense the vegetation looked and how bad the terrain was once we were there.

We were tired, but we pushed forward, knocking out one point at a time.  Nobody ever complained, and we all worked together well.  We went on gentler routes when we had the option, to match our bike skills.  One team gave us a park map, which was helpful.  

We did spend a while on one point, which we're pretty sure based on where we eventually came across it, was mis-plotted.  

We ended up finding a good, safe spot for a nap in the early hours of the night, which was a good time for it, since you want to be able to wake up as the sun rises.  There were no restrooms here, which was the only downside.

Like with GORUCK events between events, it's very difficult to will yourself to get up when you're tired and only got a couple of hours of rest.  You do it anyways, though.  The team is counting on you.  It's always better with a team.... more motivation to not quit.

We kept going, trying to wrap up the points on the MTB course.  We came across another team trying to do the same thing.  They were much better MTBers, though.   There are some very impressive racers out there.

We went on foot completely, for one section where we knew that the way up and the way down wouldn't be rideable for our skill level, which was a good move.  

Back to the whole food thing... with my original race plan, I had accounted for 16.5 hours of food to get through the prologue, bike, paddle, bike, and bike, as I had planned to get to TA1 by 3am the first night.  I had started rationing my food when I was still on the paddle leg, at the abandoned campground.  I had been living off of crumbs from a packet of freeze dried cheese since the beginning of our MTB leg.  

We were now about 6 hours past where my food plans had stopped.  I asked the team how everyone was doing on food.  Jenni and Meg both still had healthy supplies, fortunately, and were more than happy to share honey mustard pretzels and some kind of bar with me.  It was the most amazing thing ever, and kept me going until we were able to get to TA1.  I think I could've squeaked through to TA1 if I had to, but it would've been a close call, because I was running on fumes, so they definitely saved me!

At the very end of our MTB journey, we found a nice and flat riverside trail that we probably should've taken much earlier during the leg, too.  At least we were taking advantage of it now.

We took a quick break, and even got to use the boathouse's real restrooms, before we set off on the next road-based bike leg.

Leg 4: Paddle #2 Removed

Looking back, it's now crazy to think that anyone could've done Legs 1-3 plus an additional paddle leg before dark on the first day!

Leg 5: Bike

We were glad to be off the MTB trails, and making our way to the TA.  Pete would be meeting us there, and based on the original race plan, had been waiting since the previous day.  The poor guy is the most patient and faithful and persevering man ever, not knowing at any minute whether we'd be coming or not, when we were really like a whole day away.

We ground through the steep roads leading to TA1.  Since we were moving away from the river, it was largely uphill.

TA1:

At last, we reached TA1, where Pete and our bins were waiting for us.

I devoured a bunch of food that had never tasted so good before, and changed into fresh clothes.  

We completed mini-challenges to get CP credit.  We divide-and-conquered, with SB and me doing the tangrams challenge while the sisters did the water bucket challenge.

We said goodbye to Pete for now, and then set off on our trek adventure.  We were glad to be off of bikes and on foot again.  Trekking is my favorite, since I come from a running and rucking background, and feel more in control speed-wise.

Leg 6: Trek

Now it was my turn to navigate.  Pressure's on!  You don't want to mess up, since it means that the whole team has to do extra distance.  SB and I came up with a good plan, though, where we'd tackle some easy ones first, and then go for the harder ones based on time.

It was a little tricky finding the trail into the first point, but once I found it, it was a confidence builder.  We came across another team who had given up on it and turned around, but I knew that we hadn't gone far enough yet, so we kept going and found it!  I'm glad I stuck to my guns on it and didn't get influenced by them.  They later turned around when they realized that they probably didn't go far enough.

We continued on, getting a point on a bridge that didn't have a trail leading up to it like that map had suggested, but we bushwhacked our way in.

We followed a trail that ended up going directly through a water crossing!

We crossed a road to get to another point which ended up being very mind-boggling... real life didn't match the trails on the map.  It did give us a little bit of recon for where we'd be going later on bike, but we did eat up a lot of time looking for point G.  

We went for one more point, before deciding to give up on clearing the course and move on, since we had to get to the finish line before 50 hours, first and foremost, and if we weren't going to clear, we'd maybe have a better time vs points ratio at the later part of the event than we did in this forest terrain.  It started raining, too.  The "easier" points had already taken a long time, and the other ones were supposedly much more challenging.

Leg 7: Bike

We decided to take a rest now, before making a big push overnight.  This spot was known, had water sources, had shelter and civilization, so it was a good decision.

We woke up a little while later, and got ready to go.

We'd be riding on these service roads.  It was nice to not have to deal with traffic, and the roads were gravel, but pretty well-maintained.  We had to stay vigilant for points, to not miss them as we were screaming past on our bikes.  As usual, Meg did a great job with bike nav.  In my mind, bike nav was like air force, paddle nav was like navy, and land nav was like army.

The service road did turn into a trail at some point, and it was narrow and rocky, so we walked it.  There were some really cool stream crossings.  It felt like a real adventure, as we carefully carried our bikes over the rocks that gave us a land bridge.  This was my favorite part of the event.

There was also one part of the trail with a downed tree, and it was cool to see the team automatically know what to do to help each other get all the bikes over.  Nobody I'd rather have around than GRTs!

There was one point that we blew past, but when we stopped to reassess, SB thought to go back to the water crossing to check, and spotted the point!  That would've been sad if we had missed it!

There were some strange areas that we went through, even stranger at night.  It was like an old mining town, with houses along the gravel road, and people actually live there.

We were finally getting close to the tower, which we'd climb up to snap a selfie for CP credit.  It probably would've been an interesting sight during the day, but we were there at night, so the selfie had less of an impact.  We did see fog and some lights in the ground below, and it was peaceful for the few moments we stayed up there, taking in the view.

We came across another team when we were at the fire tower.  They were struggling physically, and with equipment (no working bike light for one of them, I think?) and morale.  They asked if they could follow us down the mountain, which we were fine with.  We were only miles away from the start/finish/TA2 now, where the final orienteering leg would take place.  

The way down involved a crazy descent on a road with lots of switchbacks.  I rode my brakes hard, the whole time.  I wonder how scary it is at night vs in the daytime.  Maybe it was easier to go down at night, since you couldn't see how fast you were going as easily.  It was quite an experience!  We all made it down safely, and rode the last couple miles into the TA.

TA2:

We checked in some time in the middle of the night, did another tangrams challenge, and then decided to get a couple hours of rest before our final leg.  Car access was fair game at this point, so we changed clothes and slept in our cars.  It always goes by really quickly, and before you know it, it's time to wake yourself up again.  It's chilly and you're tired, but you must go.

Leg 8: Orienteering Trek

It was my turn to take point on nav again.  Fortunately, my mind was very sharp and turned on at this point.  I had a plan mapped out for getting easy points, before taking on different possible sets of far points based on how time was going.

The trails were pretty straightforward and accurately mapped.  Pace counts worked out, and we found every point pretty quickly.  It always helps at night when the points are reflective, and you have a powerful light that can help you see the point from far away.  As one fellow racer said in her Youtube recap of the race, "they sure like their bridges in this town".

The sunrise meant that we'd no longer benefit from the reflective material, but it was pretty.

We did go on quite a trek with a decent amount of distance and uphill, but the plan was to bag as many points as we could before time was up, so everyone powered through, despite the fatigue.  You don't know how many points the competition has, so you keep doing the best you can...

Near the end, we had some fun points to get... we felt pretty good about time management.  We had 2 water points that Meg grabbed by kayak.  She was feeling good and didn't mind getting wet for the team.

We backtracked a little bit to go for point R, since we had a bit of extra time.  We searched for quite a while on a steep spur, but no luck.  It turns out that it was ground level, by the stream.  The MACV2s were doing very well, though!

We were in very good moods as we got our last point and made our way back to the start.

We crossed the finish line, with an hour to spare, which I'm good with.  We need to cross the finish line before the 50 hour mark, first and foremost.  

We hung out at the end, swapping stories about the race experience with other teams.  Pete and his son were there to welcome us in and help us as we recovered.

We were psyched to learn that we placed 1st in our division.  

Our willingness to keep going until the very end and get every point that we could within the time limit, got us to the top.  

I'm so proud of this team, and to have been a part of it.  We each come in with different strengths, but the same kind of stellar work ethic and grit, and an ability to work together through whatever situations we came across.

The next day after I got home, I put together a video recap of the experience, while the excitement was still very fresh in my mind:

Another team's experience... it's fun to see what other teams went through during the same journey... Each team has their own dynamics, but we're all athletes and humans, going through similar physical and mental struggles...

THE END