2008 Checkpoint Zero

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Contents

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2008 Checkpoint Zero Pictures

Pictures
Plotting Course
Josh setting up canoe (Photo by Mike Bitton)
Jack Joanna Josh Prerace
Joanna Eric Josh Prerace
Starting Line
Start of First Paddle
Josh pulling canoe (Photo by Mike Bitton)
Portaging to TA1
Eric Joanna Portaging to TA1
Eric Jack at TA1
Josh Eric TA2
Eric Joanna Start of Second Paddle
Joanna Thawing at TA3
Eric Strong Guy
Joanna Josh Hike To Finish
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2008 Checkpoint Zero Maps

2008 Checkpoint Zero Map
Enlarge
2008 Checkpoint Zero Map
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2008 Checkpoint Zero Website

2008 Checkpoint Zero Website

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2008 Checkpoint Zero Results

Results 

SPOT Messenger tracks in Google Maps|Google Earth
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2008 Checkpoint Zero Reviews

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Josh's Take

We were trying out Eric, a recruit, and our strategy from the start was to race at our own pace during the race and try not to get caught up in all the competition. I enjoyed coming in 26th off of the first paddle, a swift transition at TA1 (9 minutes, would've been less but Joanna's eye shadow was in the bottom of her bag instead of on top where it should be. Razz)

Everything that could go wrong did on the 1st bike section. Joanna and Eric were in single speed, ice buildup in Joanna's back fork was prohibiting travel, neither Joanna nor Eric were feeling good on the bike--and when they did it wasn't at the same time. 2 miles into it, I broke my towing system so no way to pull them through it, Joanna fell in one of the water crossings completely, I had a blowout and spent at least 30 minutes trying to get my last-minute-purchase bike pump to work. Finally broke down and borrowed one (THANK YOU TEAM 26!). We fell back from 26th to 52nd on that leg. Definitely not 1337.

Out there in the middle of the lake on the second paddle 40mph gusts came through. 2 foot swells and exhausted paddlers = capsize and hypothermia/death (see Team Bear North's survival story. We probably were going 1 mph into the wind, which I hear was sustained 20mph. Good call by Paul to close that section. Ironically, the wind calmed down right after he did. I'm not saying it was Tony...I'm just sayin'.

Anyway, it became apparent to us after the 2nd paddle (see above), that this was a war of attrition, so we focused on heat management. TA3 was spent with me curled up in a ball in an 85 degree Xterra shivering uncontrollably. Joanna said coming back from check in she was fighting back the tears. Eric's morale seemed pretty high, probably from surviving...

110 minutes later we set off for the bike, to realize that despite the maintenance Jack had performed while we were growing icicles on the paddle, Joanna still was riding a single gear bike and Eric's rear hub was frozen solid. He pedaled and his back sprocket just spun without affecting the wheel. To get Eric's bike out of neutral, we tried some quick fixes to no avail, at which Peter Jolles (working the race), good man that he is, offered us a wheel off of his bike. We considered the fact that Peter's rear wheel probably cost more than Eric's bike, and resigned the responsibility of returning it in good order. We also decided such because there was an opportunity to get more checkpoints on the trek in the same time as it would take to get the 4 bike CPs. So we turned around and transitioned to the hike.

CP13 on the trek was confurrrsing! We found it after 3 hours, and I'm still beating myself up for losing confidence and walking back down the correct path. The bushwhack from CP13 to CP14 took us another 3 hours as the mountain rhododendron in that area was pervasive and route-finding was difficult. Added to the difficulty was that the snow was freezing into ice as the night went on, so footing degenerated. By the time we got to CP14, we spent 30 minutes deliberating on whether to go for 15,16,17 before the finish. We were physically in good shape and were comfortable temperature-wise. I knew it was an opportunity to pick up some places, but estimated 9 hours for it and we only had 9 hours before race cut-off. In the later stages of the race, I know that my estimations can be optimistic, so we decided to go ahead and finish, even though we'd still have a ton of time on the clock. If I had the extra 2 hours from CP13, it would've been an easy decision, but that's how it goes sometimes. To make up for all the suffering we missed out on by choosing the safer route of not being disqualified, we ran/hiked the last 9K in 1:30 for fun while the sun rose over the mountains. It was the first time we saw the sun in twenty-two and a half hours.

Despite hearing an earful about cold-weather AR from those in the community beforehand, I was shocked to learn how much clothing it actually requires. To quote Tony Berwald at the captains' meeting before the race, "this course has more water crossings than any race I've seen." I think that might have affected things, but even without all the crossings, I'd have gone through all the clothes I brought twice. Even more surprising, however, was the small things that you don't think about. For example:

  1. taking off a racing jersey when it's bonded to your PFD by a quarter-inch sheet of ice is a challenge.
  2. zippers and zipper tracks can freeze and become layered in ice, causing an already challenging task of getting into your bag while shivering to become a special challenge.
  3. even blowing air back into your fluid bladder tube doesn't guarantee the bit left in the bite piece doesn't freeze.
  4. frozen powerbars are GREAT lollipops on a trekking section.
  5. a $500 moab lighting system becomes worthless if you can't press the on button because its shielded in a quarter inch of ice.
  6. pvc pipe doesn't flex well when it's frozen. take note if your bike towing system is pvc-based.
  7. making bike adjustments that require putting an allen wrench in a hole become challenging when the hole is filled with ice.
  8. the support crew is/are the most critical team member affecting the success/failure of the team. hats off to Jack for doing such a great job.

I also wanted to mention that we were the most technically advanced team out there.

  1. Helmet camera with 30GB capacity and over 8 hours of video footage.
  2. Waterproof camera.
  3. SPOT satellite tracking/emergency device.
  4. Google Earth pre-race fly-through of the course in 3D.
  5. Support crew (Jack) had 2 laptops with cellular broadband tracking us via SPOT and keeping up with Checkpoint Tracker. Also emailing friends personal updates.
  6. One laptop had extra battery, one had power converter so it could work off of the car battery.
  7. Tons of Eco-Challenge and Primal quest DVDs for support crew to watch.
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Joanna's Take

I have to say that this was the most challenging race I’ve ever been in. Even without the intimidating conditions, it would have been a challenging course, but the weather was definitely what made the race so difficult for me.

The biggest mistake I made was not paying heed to the weather.com predictions and believing that I was impenetrable to the cold. I came to the race ridiculously unprepared and ended up regretting my lack of foresight. I still don’t understand what made me think I could survive the race with just one pair of shoes. Fortunately, my mom and I have the same shoe size, so I owe the fact that I still have all 10 toes to her.

The snow began to fall the second they had us lined up at the start. Even though we were paddling in the snow, the first leg wasn’t too bad until we reached the point where we were paddling up the river against the current, making no progress. Josh leapt fearlessly out of the boat into the waist deep, icy water and started hauling the canoe upstream. I avoided the inevitable for as long as possible, but I eventually had to join him, at which point the current almost swept me over (which was also when I realized that not only would my shoes be soaked, but so would the only warm jacket I had). Fortunately, Eric risked his own warmth & dry skin to save me with his paddle, and pulled me over to the shore (and I must note that he had also let me borrow his waterproof pants for the paddle so that my own pants were dry for the bike leg, not mention that they enabled me to perfectly color-coordinate with my fuchsia poncho). When we got into the TA, Josh had to save me from the lure of the fire and drag me over to our gear. As I was shivering uncontrollably, my mom handed over her dry shoes along with some nice, thick socks and bravely slipped into my cold, soggy pair of shoes. Then I attempted to cram some food into my mouth as Jack handed me his own dry pair of gloves since mine were thoroughly soaked from bailing during the paddle.

The first bike leg didn’t start off too bad – I even refused Josh’s offer for a tow (a few minutes before the tow system ended up disconnected from his bike). After a bit, I started to lose confidence in my ability when I felt I had to exert double the effort to make it up a hill. I finally looked at my bike and realized that I wasn’t rapidly losing my strength as I had feared, but that blocks of ice had accumulated on nearly every part of my bike and were creating resistance against my tires as I tried to pedal. Because of this, I had to walk up every incline since I spent more energy trying to pedal up than it took to hike. Fortunately, our team had caged pedals, but a lot of other teams all had to walk their bikes as well, since their clips were covered in ice and they couldn’t clip in.

By the end of the bike, the air had warmed up and I started the second paddle feeling much warmer, finally enjoying myself. After we hit the first CP and were halfway through the paddle, battling massive gusts of wind and watching the sun set, things took a severe turn for the worse. There were so many waves, I felt I was canoeing across the ocean. Each time we hit a bad patch of wind, the gust would catch my paddle and make it difficult to switch back to the other side. Every drop of water that landed on me crystallized into ice the second it hit, so I was covered in a thin layer of icicles within minutes after sunset. By the time we found out the paddling section had been closed, I was completely miserable and severely dreading the second bike leg, fighting off total despair as we headed back to the TA. I was shivering uncontrollably as we checked in and was fighting back tears as we stumbled to our gear, wondering if I would survive to see the sunrise. Jack, being the awesome support that he was, already had the truck warmed up for us, so that was where I spent the next hour and a half as I tried to work up the courage to face the cold again. Every time I opened the door, I’d immediately leap back into the truck, but I somehow finally made it outside and geared up, ready to face my death.

We made it about 3 yards down the road when Eric realized something funky was up with his bike. As I turned around to see what it was, I discovered my bike had been converted to a single speed due to a frozen derailer. As we realized that there was nothing to be done for his bike, I actually got excited at the fact that we might have to skip the bike leg - considering that Murphy’s Law had already taken effect on our first ride, I felt we were receiving direct orders from above not to go on the second and would be idiots if we did. As we started considering the option to skip the bike and go immediately to the trek, we wondered why it hadn’t occurred to us to begin with, so we checked back in, and prepared for the last leg of the race.

Since the only long pants I had brought were my padded bike pants, I was stuck wearing those for the trek. I piled on as many layers as I had and was ecstatic about heading onto the course on foot since I had been so terrified of going back out on the bike leg. On our way to CP13, we found a summer campground instead of the trail and attempted to bushwhack our way to the CP. After a lot of fighting our way ahead making no progress, we realized we had to cut our losses and go back in search of the trail. Josh led us back to a branch off he’d noticed before, which led us directly to the trailhead we’d been looking for. At the end of this trail, we spent another couple of hours going in circles following multiple game paths, crossing and re-crossing logs, until we gave up on ever finding CP13. It was at that point that we realized we’d somehow miraculously ended up on the right trail which took us directly to CP13. After that, we bushwhacked our way towards CP14, reached the CP, and made the decision to head directly to the finish instead of risk missing cut off time by going after a few more checkpoints. As we headed back, I realized this was probably a good idea since the cold I had started the race with had completely taken my lungs hostage and I could hear myself wheeze every time I breathed.

Overall, I was pretty miserable during this race, but I’m really glad I chose to persevere through it, seeing it to the finish. Not only do I feel like I can pull through any future race no matter how tough, but I also learned that you can leave gear you don’t need behind at the TA, but you can never make gear that you don’t have materialize out of thin air when you need it (unless, of course, you have an great support crew and an awesome mom who don’t mind letting you borrow their stuff).

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Eric's Take

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Jack's (support crew) Take

Josh, you made the "front page" pic of this guys set of pictures!

Josh showing off his nicehat:

Cool shot of a bike water crossing:

Okay, I went through all 669 photos of the guy they hired to take pictures. Looks like they only paid him through mid-night, as I don't see any pictures of people trekking or finishing. Complete with commentary:

Team on 1st canoe section in water pulling canoe upstream (look at the expression on Josh's face--that water was cold!):

Eric asks, "Where's Joanna?"

Eric giving Joanna (in pink) a tow with his paddle (kidding, that water was fast and trying to sweep Joanna back into the lake):

Hunter, from the shore, asks Josh, "Where's your team?!?" Josh answers, "This water is COLD, every man for himself!!!":

Josh, "Yes! I'm making it all the way across this river on bike. I love the water!"

Joanna, "If I go fast enough, I can ride on water!"

Steady, Joanna, steady:

Eric, "Just keep peddling..."

Eric, "Who needs a trail, when I have this perfectly good stream to ride up?"

This is where I make sure everyone's bike is clean and full of ice, in case those stream crossings weren't enough! No one really wanted to do that second bike anyway...

Was the second canoe section cold? Let's ask this guy:

Or these guys (yes, that's grey hair, think this is a master's division team):

Not all teams got all checkpoints (we did not). ~30% of teams dropped out of the race.


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