South Fork Sampler 2024

TRAINING LEAD-UP

Monday, Apr 22:

I did another recon ruck in preparation for the South Fork Sampler.  New trails can and do get built over time, so it's good to see what has changed in the past year.

I started at the Boathouse and just went along the trail to the gazebo, and then did a little walk around the neighborhood to complete a Pokemon Route.  I discovered some historic marker signs in the neighborhood.  It's hard to imagine that historic events happened right here, since nothing may seem special about the area at first, but I've discovered all kinds of signs like these in all kinds of places.

I covered 5.5 miles in 2:19:39.

Tuesday, Apr 23:

I continued to try to get the optic-cut Glock 19C upper to find a lower that wouldn't cause malfunctions.  I tried different combinations and took notes.  No combos worked for me, though... I still kept getting failures to eject.  

After trying every combo, I gave up and went back to my original Austrian-made one with iron sights and shot that.

I did some new house recon for my parents afterwards.

Wednesday, Apr 24:

18A "Lower Body Prep" in 19:59, then "Ketllebell" in 38:00 in the work gym.

3RD ANNUAL SOUTH FORK SAMPLER 

SB and I have done the South Fork Sampler each year.  The first two years, 1st place eluded us, for reasons beyond our control.  The first year, they ended up throwing out one of the checkpoints after the event, because it had been misplotted.   Some teams had spent a lot of time trying to find it at the wrong spot, although we had found it quite easily at the top of the path to the tower in the clue picture.  The second year, the way the bonus points were implemented favored the slow teams, who were still at the start line when the bonus point locations were announced, and that year, unlike in the first year, they were allowed to grab the bonus points on their way to other points and didn't have to make dedicated trips for them.  SB was very determined to win this year.  We ended up being the only team in our division, so that wouldn't be as hard, as it turned out, although we still wanted to make a good showing in the overall rankings and like always, needed to get back to the start in time.

At 8am, the event started in a fun, unique way.  For the prologue, you had to successfully toss a bottle cap into a beer bucket from a distance.  Each time you missed, you had to run another lap around the main square in Cramerton, though.  It could end up being a long day if you were unlucky.  Each team member can make a toss after each lap that they complete, and only one team member had to make the shot, which helped teams.  SB got the shot for us after we had run maybe 5 laps (so maybe a mile), and afterwards, we set off on foot.  

We had to be on foot for the first hour, so we made a plan for what we'd target in those first few hours to make the most of the on-foot time before we could get to bikes and boats.  We decided to go for a little Northeastern loop with a potential add-on.  We hit Yeti, which I have come across on the disc golf course at Goat Island before, followed by Lakewood with a straightforward trip up the road.  We did explore the possibility of getting Pond on foot, but after trying (maybe for too long), we scratched that and went on to Riverside, before heading back to the start.  The timing worked out pretty well.  We were back a little early vs the bike/boat start time, but we needed time to use the restroom and change into bike shorts anyways.

One special rule for this year was that we only got one map page at a time.  The first page that we got had the close area to the South and East, plus Poston, which was way up north.  We had to get at least 8 points from among those, before we could get the second map with the rest of the points.  We decided to go for all of the land ones, and skip the water ones, initially.

We didn't have the map that would tell us how to get to Poston, but this is an event where you're allowed to use your phones to navigate, since it's meant to be beginner-friendly.

Once on bike, after grabbing Church, we decided to go North, which is the less predictable part first.  It's farther away, there's traffic, and there are some long lights to wait for.  We got Mushrooms, a classic stop in this event, followed by New Town.  

After that, we cruised up to Poston, where we got Wall (the last bit on foot, since we're not technical mountain bikers), followed by Plunge (good name, picture wasn't an exact location this time, but it was close... the name was the better clue), and "#2" (we're proud of our nav on this one).  It was nice to get the more technical biking ones banked by around 11am.  

We had 8 points now, 3 in Poston, plus the 5 land-based ones from the detailed map, so we could go back to the start to get the second map.  It's a good way to make an event last longer, even while working with a confined area.  It helps to make sure there's less double-dipping for treks out and forces more mileage.

We now had the second map, with the Northern detailed area, plus Rocky Branch Park.

With the second map, we went back up north, doing a detour to get New Town, followed by Rock Creek (an event favorite, an unexpected bridge on the far side of a neighborhood in McAdenville), then River Room.  

While at Boathouse, we checked out the possibility of getting Portage on foot rather than by boat, since it was far upstream from the start point, but it didn't really look like an option.

We looped back around to get Charger.

Next, we went to Rocky Branch, to get Border and Trailhead.  

Bonus points were worth 2 points, as opposed to 1 for a normal point.  You had to take a selfie for those, and it had to be a dedicated trip.  We asked about the bike one while we already had our bikes out.  It was at a school just beyond the church.

It was now time to get on boats.  We didn't have a ton of time.  We paddled up to Pond first.  It was much easier by boat than by swimming.  Paddling wasn't that slow (even with me taking the occasional picture).

Island was a long island, and we looked all over the near end, then all over the far end, then the middle.  We almost gave up on it, but SB managed to find it right before we were going to give it up.  We had paddled a long way to get there, so it was good that it wasn't for nothing.

We decided that we'd try asking for the water bonus point, rather than trying to go upstream to the northern water points.  It wasn't far away, which was good.  

We finished about 30 minutes early, but that was a very reasonable decision, based on the risk involved in the other points that might leave us stranded out on course after time had ended.

In all, we covered about 3.5 miles of hiking, 32 of biking, and 3.5 of paddling.  

We were happy with our strategy and execution.  Less pictures this time... more business, but we got it done.  We did get first (and only) in our division and were happy with the number of points that we got.

It was good to see AR friends out there, too.

Always a fun event!