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Contents 1 Overmountain Extreme Pictures 2 Overmountain Extreme Info 3 Overmountain Extreme Maps 4 Overmountain Extreme Website 5 Overmountain Extreme Results 6 Overmountain Extreme Reviews 6.1 Jack's Take (Support Crew) 6.2 Jordan's Take 6.3 Joanna's Take 6.4 Chris's Take

Overmountain Extreme Pictures

Overmountain Extreme 2008
TA1 just outside of the ski resort	Jordan at TA1	Joanna at TA1	Chris at TA1
Drive to Serenity Farms Bike Drop	Drive to Serenity Farms Bike Drop	Serenity Farms Bike Drop	Serenity Farms Bike Drop
Serenity Farms Bike Drop	TA2 at Blowing Rock Elementary	Ride to TA3/TA4 at Horse Camp	Cloudy Mt on way to Horse Camp
River on way to Horse Camp	River on way to Horse Camp	Ruins at Horse Camp	Jordan/Chris coming into TA3 at Horse Camp
Passport punch at TA3	Joanna coming into TA3	Horse and Carriage outside Horse Camp	River on way to bike pickup after TA3
River on way to bike pickup	River on way to bike pickup	Early Morning Canoe	Canoe Final Stretch
Keep paddling	Almost there!	4LPH4 1337 Team Finish

Full Album

Overmountain Extreme Info

• Date: Sept 27th - 28th
• Location: Morganton, NC (Pisgah National Forest)
• Event Points Category: USARA Nationals Qualifier Expedition Race.
• Team Registered: Jordan, Joanna, Chris

Format:

• 32 hour supported modified rogaine including mandatory/optional CPs within defined legs over 85-115 miles:
  • Race start at 7:10.
  • Ran up ski slope to top of mountain gathering numbers on the way. They had to report the total of all the numbers to get their bikes. Rode bikes back down ski slope and out to the town for transition 1. This section took about 55 min. Left TA 1 at 8:10.
  • Now headed for Grandfather Mountain trekking section (treacherous with ladders and ropes involved). ~8 miles Expected time for this section is about 4 hours. Due to the change in course this year they have to climb up the mountain and then back down.
  • TA 2 is Blowing Rock Elem School--the next time I should see them. Expected time around 12:30. There is a short bike section (7.5 miles--30 min) from Serenity Farm to the school. Then resupply with food at TA2. 18 mile bike to TA 3--expected to take 2.5-3 hours. Mostly downhill.
  • TA3 is BRHA horse camp (blue ridge horse camp). See me again for refueling.
  • Go another 7 mi and then drop their bikes on Roseborough Rd. (FS-981) Then trekking section. For optional CP and 2 mandatories. Est. 5-6 hours. Finish back at same horse camp.
  • More biking. From horse camp to Linville Boat Access with optional CP along the way. I'll see them at TA 5 off Hwy 126 at boat access. Fastest 2.5 hours if they skip stuff.
  • Boating from TA 5 to TA 6. ~18 miles (5 hours) Boat take-out at Lake James State Park. This is the finish area.
• 2pm cut-off for race finish

Overmountain Extreme Maps

Overmountain Extreme Website

Overmountain Extreme Adventure Race

Overmountain Extreme Results

• 4th place Co-Ed division, 8th overall
• Complete Results

Overmountain Extreme Reviews

Jack's Take (Support Crew)

Overall, a great race by the team. Spirits remained high despite the rain, and Chris really pulled through (that IT band was swollen bad). Now for some opportunity for improvement (aka Tough Love):

• Transition times need to improve
• Cooking should be a last resort, limited to one meal per 30 hr race, as this increases transition times--especially, when everyone wants something different
• Practice/Train with Ensure Plus or other liquid carb drinks to "ensure" you can stomach it. Ensure is a much faster way to load up on carbs--and has the recommended ratio of carb:fat:protein for longer races.

Jordan's Take

Rationale: Last year this race beat me. A killer mountain bike that resulted in me running out of water with hours to go killed me. I came back to get revenge.

Background: Before OME none of us had ever raced together. I had done a short mock race with Joanna at Bear Creek, but I'm not sure that counts. I met Chris last year when he did OME solo, and then bumped into him again at Soar Highlands.

Synopsis:Personally, I think I was 100% tougher this year than last. The fact that there was a longer trek and the bike segments were broken up resulted in a race tailor made for me. Our team fought through some serious adversity and made this race fun all the way to the end. Joanna and Chris made up a great team, and I'm sure they are tougher afterwards than they were before.

Random Thoughts:Quick transitions and food are key. I only recently discovered Ensure before OME and it provided me with tons of efficient calories throughout the race. The Digital Hero interferes with frequent clothing changes and got ditched early in the race. Dry feet are overrated, but clean feet are important. Changing socks/shoes gets rid of all the sand that is in your shoes from the 20 river crossings.

• The Race

The start was rather uneventful. We hiked up Sugar Mountain in a roundabout way, to our bikes which were staged at the top. We got to the bikes in second, but took a conservative route down to avoid any quick race exits. We biked down and then back up to the first TA where we transitioned to the hike.

I had never hiked up Grandfather or seen the Profile trail, but I assumed it would be relatively tough. Needless to say Grandfather didn't let us down. Last year when we started at the top and hike the ridge we made if off the mountain in 2 1/2 hours tops. This year we almost doubled it. The hike wasn't especially difficult, but it did get the quads working and was relatively long. Yet again Grandfather refused to give us a view due to the inclement weather.

After 4+ hours on Grandfather we finally made it down to Serenity Falls and our bikes. The ride to Blowing Rock was amazing. Mostly downhill we were able to speed all the way to TA3. We refueled decently well at TA3, which resulted in me only shivering slightly in the rain and cold. We all bundled up for the icy downhill mudfest ride that awaited us.

Mountain biking was a welcome change from all the trekking on Grandfather, at least the downhills were. We soon made it to CP5, and the first single track section, which the Trails Illustrated listed as "Moderate difficulty". I'm not sure who that trail was moderate for, but certainly not me. I think I was the only one to notice that the CP flag wasn't the "Maxxis" reflective tape that we were promised. Back on the hike-a-bike, I must have lost a half gallon of sweat while hike a biking up. During this point Joanna's brake caliper on her front wheel broke and we had to disassemble her brake so it wouldn't rub. We did some towing while pushing bikes until the climb was too steep when combined with the clay. We welcomed the jeep road at the top, only to leave it moments later for more single track. Another transition back to Forest Service Road, and then back to single track and we road up quickly on CP6. Plenty of people had trouble with this, but we arrived at a point that matched the terrain on the map and there were bikes everywhere. We investigated and grabbed the point quickly and continued on the single track. We had a bit more hike-a-bike before we exited back to the Forest Service Road.

Nixing our plan to jump back on single track, we took the longer but "easier" Forest Service Road route. We had a couple long steep climbs before we ended up at CP7/TA4 and Jack. After a bit of a long transition, we rode back out and up to the start of the trek. The ride to the drop had some serious elevation gain along with crap muddy roads. My poor posture on the bike left my shoulders killing me at the end of the climb. Luckily we had hours or trekking ahead.

At CP8 and the bike drop, we started off on our trek on the "infamous" Mountain to Sea Trail. We only hiked for 50 meters before we had our first and then second river crossing. It appeared that our trek had us crossing and then recrossing every river East of Asheville. At CP9 we got a glimpse of why we shouldn't trust the USGS map. Only the most general features looked similar. We ended up crossing two rivers before ending up on the proper bank climbing through the Rhodo to get CP9.

We had decided to nix the long trek to CP's 10 and 11 at the Falls and Cliffs (not just because I got stung by a Yellow Jacket there last year). Chris's IT band was pretty bad and we knew that we wanted to optimize our time on foot. We headed on the MTS trail, then turning onto the MTS trail and then back onto the MTS trail. It seems like every trail and it's brother is named Mountain To Sea (MTS) in that area. Luckily the Trails Illustrated map had the trail numbers as well.

CP 13 was the biggest blunder of the entire race. We thought the directions we received at the TA pertained to the trail to the south of the CP, not the trail leading to the CP. Due to this, we spent and hour and a bit trekking a knob to the North of the trail, instead of to the South. Finally, we figured out our mistake and Jerry (from Crossroads) and myself blitzed South up to the CP. I'm not sure I should say blitz, since there was no trail and there was more Rhodo then anyone ever wants to see. I was pretty upset once we reached the top and got CP13. On the way down I took out some of the rage on the Rhodo and made my own trail down. I'm pretty sure I only killed a couple bushes.

Only partially demoralized from the wasted hour and a ton of wasted energy, we dropped back on the MTS trail heading South. Finally we hit the intersection of the MTS trail and the Orange Blaze trail that would lead us to CP 12, 14 and 15. We followed the trail across the river, and the trail disappeared. We spent 10-15 minutes scouting before we decided to hit CP16 and then go West to hit CP15/CP14 if we had time.

One the way to CP16 we knew we were looking/listening for the waterfall. Being overeager to find the point, we (Mike from Crossroads and myself) would bushwhack down to the river whenever we heard a good rumble. This got old after the first couple times. When we finally hit the falls we knew it. Again we didn't catch the additional information from CP7 that the point was not down at the base of the falls, but rather was up off the access trail. We dropped down the slippery rock/rope down to the falls and scouted around for a while. Trying to get closer to the falls we decided to go back up to the access trail and scout for another trail closer to the base of the falls. At this point the Moab came in handy as we spotted the Maxxis tape. We attempted to help Spider Pig but our flashing headlights did nothing more than confuse him. Since neither Mike or myself really wanted to climb back down to the river, we left.

Another short hike and we came to the T in the road. East took us back to TA and our bikes. West took us to CP 15 and 14. At this point Chris's knee was a serious problem. He was tiring out his arms using his trekking poles as crutches. We reasoned to go on to the TA and get back on the Bike. we could make up the trekking points on the water.

Amazingly, we were one of the first teams out of the trek section. Many of the teams that went on to CP 10 and 11 at the falls and the cliffs spent upwards of 12 hours in the woods. We all had some warm soup and jumped on the bikes headed down to Lake James. We had resolved not to hit CP20 off the bike since we had convinced Chris and Michelle to leave all 5 Canoe OCP's as part of the course. Joanna somehow got stronger on the bike after 9 hours trekking, and we definitely needed it. The bike back to the main road had some brutal elevation gain. Luckily once we were on the main road we blazed back to civilization.

Another year, another race, and again we missed the turn to go the direct route to Lake James. Luckily this year we didn't go up Pea Ridge Road, which has serious elevation gain, instead we went down further to Gwaltney road which took us to NC126 with only minor pain.

We transitioned well into the water without much yelling. Once on the canoe we were golden. Joanna fell asleep a couple times before she was rescued by No Dose. I made a couple wrong turns at the very end near CP 24/25, but was sound other than that. I definitely never claimed to like Nav on the water.

Joanna's Take

Chris's Take

The 2008 version of OME was the one race that I was targeting all year. It is such a beautiful area and a great race that I really had looked forward to it all year. I was very excited this year given that I would be racing with two new teammates - Jordan and Joanna from team 4LPH4 1337. I knew Jordan from bumping into him in last years race as well as talking to him at SOAR this year. My first meet and greet with Joanna was on the car ride up to Banner's Elk. In addition to racing with two new teammates, I was also going to be relying on another member of team 4LPH4 1337 for support, Jack. In the weeks leading up to OME, the team really didn't have any opportunity to train together and I was a little nervous about this, but getting to spend the entire day together really wiped away any apprehensions I had.

After arriving in Banner's Elk and settling into our hotel, we made it to check-in after traversing several different roads to the lodge. We checked in, signed all the forms and received our maps. I quickly glanced around the room to see which teams were already there. I noticed a lot of familiar faces, not the least being team Lisa. We settled in and started plotting right away as a team. As the course slowly emerged, my first impression was that this was going to be a very doable course. As he did last year, Chris allowed for plenty of route options along the way. Going into the race there seemed to be a lot of apprehension about the bike section, given the experiences last year and the fact that it was still raining. This year's bike section seemed to be just as long, but it also felt like we could definitely do it. After analyzing the map closely, map wheeling approximate distances and talking strategy, we decided that the only place we would probably forgo points, was during the Trek section. I felt that the time it would take us to complete the section would really hurt us on the last stages of the race. With the plan set we finished the meeting, grabbed something to eat and made our way back to the hotel.

That nights sleep was about like any other's that occur before a big race. Joanna's sound machine helped, but her turning up the heat in the room caused Jordan and me to have to pop e-caps during the night :). The start of the race this year wasn't as great as last year, but it was definitely different. We had to ascend 1500 vertical feet in a little over 1.5 miles to gather our passport at the top. This was in addition to finding 5 numbers along the way that we had to sum up and present to the race ambassador at the top. I believe we were the second team to the top. We rode down the black diamond slope, checked in with Chris and made our way to the first TA, which was only about 2 miles away. We arrived at the TA where we left our bikes and transitioned for the long trek up and down Grandfather Mt. My goal this race was to keep ingesting as many calories as possible, so I grabbed a PB&J and shoved it in my mouth as we ran to the trail head. The trek up GFM was great and it's really hard to convey how cool it is at the top, so suffice it to say that I think Joanna had a good time up there. My problems started on the trek down. My IT bands are prone to flare ups at times, and luckily I haven't had any issues this season, but the trek down really caused me some issues. By the time we exited the trail to Serenity farm, my knee was screaming, but at least I was switching to the bike.

We now headed towards Blowing Rock (7.5 miles) in the pouring rain. I stayed back with Joanna to provide support and also use my 1 arm tow system for the times that she needed it. We made it to blowing rock and transitioned as fast as possible. Jack was taking care of each of us, making sure he filled our bladders and made us eat. We all started to shiver so we left as soon as possible. My knee was still bothering me, but I was still on the bike. As we headed out of Blowing Rock, we transitioned onto a dirt road which took us down a screaming downhill. I had the map case attached to my handlebars and I had flipped it over to prevent it from flapping in the wind. Unbeknownst to me, when I flipped the map case over, I dislodged my bike computer. This really sucked as I had mapped wheeled the exact distances to each of our bike checkpoints. Oh well, we kept riding in mud and rain and made it to our first bike CP. The CP was actually just flagging tape and it seemed too obvious, but Jordan prevailed and we decided that it must be the CP. From here it was rough going as we had to hike-a-bike for about 2.5 miles. Joanna also lost her front brakes during this section. In looking back, this could have been a disastrous situation, but we got lucky and were able to move on. Slogging my bike on foot didn't help the knee, but I was determined to keep pushing as hard as possible. We made it through the hike-a-bike and headed for our next bike CP. The map indicated that it was on a trail that shot off from the main trail we were on. When we got to the general vicinity of where the CP was, we didn't notice any trail, but we did see a team. Jordan jumped off and went down where the team was looking. He ended up finding the CP very quickly. From here we took the main FS road to the next TA which was the horse farm.

We made it to the horse farm and back to Jack. Jack took care of us quite well. I started my typical "not wanting to eat mode", but Jack and his Ensures kept hovering over me. I succumbed to the pressure and drank one while restocking my other food as I knew the next section was going to be the killer. We still seemed to be in good position based on Jacks analysis, so I think the team was still motivated. As we were leaving the TA, Michele informed us of a waypoint that might help us on the trek. I wrote the coordinates on the bottom of the map, but when Michele said that if we had the TI map we would be fine, I stopped listening. This lack of attention to detail would later cause great problems during the trek. We left the TA for what turned out to be a pretty tough climb to the next TA. I recorded that it took us about 1:10 to travel the roughly 8.5 miles. Half of that mileage was all uphill. I was really having some soul searching discussions with myself during this bike leg as my knee was really bothering me and was starting to swell. I wanted to do the best for Jordan and Joanna, so whether it was a good decision or not, I kept a lot of this to myself. It's tough when you're asked by a team to race with you based on your past merits, and your starting to slow down due to injury. I sucked it up and kept moving, but during this section I was not able to help Jordan very much when he really needed help the most. Luckily we had been racing with Mike and Jerry most of the day, and we hung together during this section. Jordan has explained this section pretty well, so please refer to his write up of this section. I will say that this years trek was considerably more difficult than last years trek section. Regardless of the condition of my knee, I think it was the right decision to skip CP 10 and 11 due to the increased distance.

We made it back to the horse farm and were the first team out. I was shocked that no other team had made it out yet. I wasn't feeling particularly well, but Jack fixed me up with some half spilled chicken soup and an ice cold coke. We took about 40 minutes, but it seemed that every team was taking a lot of time due to the brutally hard trek. We found out that Chris was going to cancel some of the boat CP's and Jack started to question him on this. We really wanted to try and get the CP's as we had missed a couple on the trek. After some negotiation, Chris let us know that the boat OCP's were still in. We were stoked leaving the TA and heading for lake James. For me this elation lasted about 1 hour until we started to do some serious climbing on our bikes. This seemed to go on for quite some time, but we eventually made it to asphalt. We took in the long downhill back into town. Somehow I missed our turn and this caused us to take an alternate route to the lake. This didn't hurt us too much as we adjusted and took the new path. I think we were all feeling a little down coming to the lake, but Jordan wasn't letting anyone dwell on this too long. Somehow, Jack convinced me to suck down another Ensure (thank God I did), and Jordan had us in the boat in no time. Joanna and I were pretty sleepy getting into the boat, but Jordan was amped up on Advil and nodoze. My sleepiness lasted until the sun rose and after that I felt like a new person. Joanna continued to try and shrug off the sleep monsters for most of the paddle, and finally got rid of them towards our last OCP. We really did a great job paddling given this was the first time in a boat together. We made a few mistakes on the nav here, but it didn't really hurt us at all. We ended up jointly agreeing to go after all the OCP's and we ended up getting them all. We hauled ass to the finish with Jack waiting for us.

I enjoyed racing with Joanna, Jack and Jordan. We never got mad at each other and I thought we communicated quite well. Jordan did a great job of pushing the pace, while Joanna was impressive on the bike. Jack was excellent in his support and motivation. The injury did slow me more than usual, but such is the life of team adventure racing. Thanks for the experience.

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