2008 Adventure Jam at West Point Dam
From 4LPH41337.com
Contents |
Adventure Jam at West Point Dam Pictures
| Pictures | |||
Unloading Gear |
Find The Number Start |
Judy Makes Her Move |
Run |
Canoeing Fast |
Headed Downstream |
JoEllen "Snack Break" Ruf |
Balance Beam |
Wine Rack |
Slippery Ramp |
Slide |
Swim |
Bike Finish |
Mystery Event Finish |
Team Feeling Good Post Race |
Team Podium |
Team Post Race |
Special Thanks To Red Bull |
Road Bike in AR? |
Adventure Jam at West Point Dam Info
- Team: Jack, Judy Schneider, JoEllen Ruf (Name: Jack's Jills)
- Date:
- 9/13/2008, but the race occurs on the second Saturday of September, according to officials
- Weather:
- Start: 74 degrees (90% humidity)
- End: 83 degrees by noon, feels like temp was 94 degrees (89% humidity)
- Format:
- Mystery Event at start, run, canoe, obstacle course, bike with swim and mystery event, mystery event to finish.
- Zero compass or map work. Zero navigation. Marked course with volunteers directing you
- Bike trail crosses private property, so the path from the race start to the loops up by the lake (along the power line path), should not be ridden during a practice ride. Some people were met by property owners packing heat the week before the race. No issues on race day.
- Overall, great beginner race!
Adventure Jam at West Point Dam Maps
2008 Adventure Jam at West Point Dam Map
Adventure Jam at West Point Dam Website
2008 Adventure Jam at West Point Dam Website
Adventure Jam at West Point Dam Results
Finished 3rd overall and 2nd co-ed out of 31 teams with a time of 2:50:59. Second place had a prize of $200 cash!!
Adventure Jam at West Point Dam Reviews
Jack's Take
Still trying to determine what abuse my tendon injury in my foot could take, I decided to do this race with a couple of friends (Judy and JoEllen) who were totally new to the sport (first adventure race ever!). We trained for about one month before this race. Neither of them had any mountian biking experience on trails, but had a solid aerobic fitness level from running and spin classes. I had them concentrate on getting trail experience on the bike for that one month, and we canoed as a team twice (once in the high winds of hurricane Faye remnants) during that time. Most of the mountain bike training was on what I'd classify as beginner trails in Central Park (Cumming, GA). A couple of weeks before the race, I took them over to the Chicoppee Trails in Gainesville, GA for a "next level up" trail -- what they called the "come to Jesus" ride. I think this was a good move, because the trails at Adventure Jam were much easier than Chicopee, and gave them more confidence on the race course.
The race started with a mystery event to thin out the herd. It was a 100 yd relay to find three of your team numbers at the other end of the football team. Once we had all three numbers and the nails used to secure them to the ground, we started on the run. I think we were in the top 1/3 of the pack at this point. We passed a team or two during the run. JoEllen (with 5 marathons under her belt) was running strong, but we were spreading out a bit, so I hooked Judy to JoEllen via tow rope. This evened out the pace and allowed us to run more as a team--slowing down JoEllen a touch, to a speed that I could sustain, and speeding up the team overall.
Next we hit the canoe transition area (off 7th street), passing one team at the put in, as they took a bit too long getting their PFDs on. We passed another team, who obviously did not have much experience steering a canoe. The first paddle was upstream to some rocks in mid river. When we got up there, most teams were portaging in to the checkpoint (amongst the rocks), and portaging back out. We followed the trend with a twist. After portaging up stream to the manned checkpoint, and stepping into a waist deep hole and scraping my knee, we decided to take the 60 ft paddle out of the rocks (perpendicular to the stream flow) over to the chute of water and blasted downstream. Another team behind us chose the same path, but we managed to get ahead of at least one team using this method. The portage was pretty sketchy, but for getting upstream, it would have been almost impossible to paddle up the chute we went down, so portage was the right decision for the upstream battle. Now it was a downstream paddle, past the put-in, to another rocky area with a manned checkpoint, then back upstream to the takeout. This river (Chattahoochee) is dam controlled, so if you are here in the evening during a dam release, you may be intimidated, but there was no dam release during the race, so it was pretty slow moving water.
After the takeout, we ran back to the starting area, where we encountered an obstacle course. You were required to carry one egg through the entire obstacle course. I tossed it into the outer pouch of my Lobo Camelbak. First an 12 foot, inclined, slippery wall, where JoEllen braced against the wall at the base. Judy climbed JoEllen and laid on the wall, standing on JoEllen's shoulders. I climbed and hung from the top of the wall. JoEllen climbed us to the top, Judy followed, then I got over the top. After that, it was over and under 2x4 beams of varying heights. Then several balance beams and posts, followed by a large "wine rack" that you had to climb through, and finally a slide.
After the obstacle course, we ran to the transition area to get on the bikes. I'd already drained about 50oz of a 72 oz bladder, so I figured I needed to refill before the 10-12 mile bike ride. We probably spend a couple of minutes in the transition area (would have been faster with a pre-filled bladder to just swap out). The bike trail was nice and smooth with rolling hills of doubletrack out to the lake loops, where it switched to some very new looking singletrack. I'm glad I didn't go with my dark sunglass lenses, or it would have been hard to see the trail (dark dirt against surrounding leaves). At times, it was hard to tell were the trail went more than 20 feet out, but we managed to stay on track. At the first manned checkpoint, they told us we were in 9th place overall. Towards the end of this first section, I was fighting some calf craps, so I stopped for a moment and popped three electrolyte pills (guess my Cytomax was a bit weaker than it needed to be). Out of the woods, we hit pavement (and a road bike race) on the way to the swim challenge. We passed several teams before we got to the swim.
All three team members had to take two bikes around the lake inlet or "finger". JoEllen volunteered to run, and I rode JoEllen's bike and Judy rode hers. I then swam across the "finger" back to where I left my bike. Judy and JoEllen had to do a mystery event, which involved a bean bag toss for points, that determined how many bricks they had to carry for a ~3/4 mile run. They managed to do good (or bad) enough to only have to carry 3 bricks. They must have been pretty fast, because I didn't have to wait very long after my swim before they were back. We passed one team during this section.
Back on the road, we were making great speed, then the trail transitioned to the more technical section (twisty loops on the west side of the map). Aside from some dips and one large drop, it really wasn't that bad, but we managed to pass a few more teams (most of which had stopped to catch their breath or address cramping). My calf cramps subsided just as we exited the single track. We passed one team on the way back to the start via the powerline trail. Back to the transition area, drop bikes, and run to the finish.
Wait, one last mystery event. All three team members had to cross the finish line, but only 4 feet could be touching the ground for the last 50 yards or so. Judy almost immediately jumped into our arms, and we fireman carried her across the finish line. Later, we saw other teams just carrying one member "piggy back" style, and I wondered why we didn't think of that.
We found out that we finished 2nd in the elite co-ed division and 3rd overall!! We were also the first to finish with the most females on the team.
Later, they had another 2nd place co-ed team on the board. Apparently, one of the volunteers steered a few teams down the wrong path. Most teams immediately realized they had gone the wrong way, but this one apparently spent several minutes going down the wrong path, and since they were in second place at the last manned checkpoint before that turn, the race director thought they should maintain their 2nd place position. We were a bit confused at that intersection, but chose the correct path (confirmed about 20 feet down the path by the volunteer directing traffic--after the intersection!). Luckily, the race directors handled this well, and we didn't lose any places, nor any of the prize purse. They came up with another $200 for the incorrectly directed team and also gave them 2nd place.
Overall, a great race for beginners! I recommend it for anyone looking to start adventure racing, but are maybe hesitant due to their lack of navigational experience. No navigation in this race, so it's a great introduction to adventure racing.
Judy's Take
For all you “first timers” out there, this race is for you. It was well organized and the trails were great. It had just enough straights, flats, and technical “stuff” to allow those of us who were new to AR to finish in one piece! We were challenged but our lives were never threatened! There was no navigation/orienteering work required for this course. The race consisted of a relay, trail run, canoeing, mountain biking, swimming, running with bricks and a fun obstacle course. Our team consisted of 1 experienced racer and 2 first timers! I trained a little over a month for this race. My training consisted of weight training , mountain biking, running, and canoeing. A great time was had by all!
JoEllen's Take
Going into the race, I felt we were as prepared as we could have been. The biggest challenge was of course the mtn biking. The race was well organized and perfect for the beginner, trails well marked, mystery events were less than challenging, but fun.
The race start to space teams out was on football field -100yd dash p/u race# and relay back to team until all 3 numbers were found, place in bucket. Didn't seem to spread teams out all that much. The trail run was initally flat with wide track to accomodate multiple runners. Approx 1 mile in it became a single trail, so difficult to pass. Our run ended out of woods, across sidewalk, along street, under bridge to canoes. The canoe portion was straightforward. Jack did great job navigating and leading us with right decision to canoe once we got our first token (instead of portaging back thru crowd --mostly I think he didn't want a hole in his canoe!) We managed to pass other teams at this point. After we turned in tokens at checkpoint, we ran back to park, participated in obstacle course, the climb over the 12 ft wall was anticipated and we had planned well for it, the hurdles and balance beams hardly slowed us down. Next we went to transition area, Jack refilled bladder, Judy and I grabbed bottled water (not to use up our camelback fluids) Since Judy and I had ridden a portion of the trail the previous week, we had an idea of what to expect and we were pleasantly surprised by a majority of the mtn bike being double track, rolling hills with some longer climbs and even a good portion on the paved road (beautiful view of river and dam). Midway thru bike the swim/mystery event was taxing only because some fatigue may have been setting in, so we gu'd up and met Jack on other side of swim. The last portion of bike was most technical, but still very doable (thanks to prev ride at...."I never knew it could be like this".chicopee) I regret that I chose not to ride out a downhill that I suffered a significant endo the prev Fri--next time! When we came out of the woods and back to double track--I felt we were home free, so was able to go fast once again. The final mile we found out we were the 3rd team to pass that checkpoint, really pumped, however, thinking dont make any mistakes, dropped the bikes at transition area, one final mystery, before I was able to finish reading the directions, Judy had willingly volunteered to be carried 100yd to the finish, yelling and screaming all the way! We had the best experience and I am so thankful for the learning and the camraderie of our most excellent team. Thankyou.
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