From 4LPH41337.com

Contents 1 2009 Odyssey One Day Info 2 2009 Odyssey One Day Pictures 3 2009 Odyssey One Day Map 4 2009 Odyssey One Day Website 5 2009 Odyssey One Day Results 6 2009 Odyssey One Day Reviews 6.1 Josh's Take 6.2 Laura's Take 6.3 Joanna's Take 6.4 Stefanie's Take

2009 Odyssey One Day Info

• 2009 Odyssey One Day
  • Date: July 25th - 26th
  • Location: Roanoke, VA
  • Event Details: 24 hours, 70-90 miles
  • Event Description: The 20th Edition of the Odyssey One Day Adventure Race will be fun and challenging, but a doable 24 hour adventure race for the novice and advanced adventure racing teams. The Odyssey One Day will challenge athletes physically and mental as teams of 2 and 4 along with soloist will push their limits as they mountain bike, hike and paddle through the beautiful forest of the Blue Ridge Mountains of VA. The experience will be exhilarating and adventurous!
  • Event Points Category:
    • USARA Point Series Day Race
    • Checkpoint Tracker Day Race
  • Team Registered: Josh, Laura, Joanna, Stefanie (recruit)

2009 Odyssey One Day Pictures

2009 Odyssey One Day
Camping out	Stefanie on Bald Mountain	Team on Bald Mountain	Crazy Bridge
Laura crossing bridge	Josh & Joanna on bridge	Josh snaps into a Slim Jim!	Joanna & Laura gear check
Stefanie rolling in	Joanna rolling in	Josh & Stefanie loading canoe	Josh stuffing maps
Stefanie Snacking	Joanna & Laura shoving off	Josh & Laura paddling	Laura punching CP10
Josh trying to recover	Laura & Joanna finishing paddle	Josh & Stefanie finishing paddle	Team consulting maps
Team saddling up	Team rolling out	Team rolling out	Joanna heading out of Fincastle
Josh Joanna Laura on road	Team at the Finish	Team at the Finish	Team accepting prizes with Ronny

2009 Odyssey One Day Map

2009 Odyssey One Day Website

2009 Odyssey One Day

2009 Odyssey One Day Results

Official Results

• 3rd place in 4-person coed division out of 9 teams
• 4th overall place out of 52 teams

2009 Odyssey One Day Reviews

Josh's Take

Odyssey One Day, our revenge on the course. I came into this race with two slights that needed to be resolved:

1. 2008 Odyssey One Day, at which we missed the canoe cutoff and were shuttled ahead—we carried kayak paddles the entire race having never even touched the water with them.
2. 2009 Odyssey Wild, Wonderful 24, at which we missed the final race cutoff after spending a top notch effort on the O-Course, whose effects would ultimately be erased by the failure to make the final race cutoff.

So we came back to have a good showing, and we achieved that goal.

With Michael out due to a knee injury a couple days before the race, team recruit Stefanie Newsome was in. The team consisted of three ladies--Laura, Joanna, Stefanie--and me (I know).

We started off the race at 4:30am. Why? Who knows. It was going to be interesting, though, to see how I would hold up during the night sections of the race after 3 hours of broken sleep.

The weather was as good as it gets for July—85F highs with 65F lows. We had some refreshing thunderstorms roll through at night, which aptly drenched everyone. This was a stark contrast to last year's Odyssey One Day, where the effects of upper 90s during the day retarded most of the teams during the night.

The race flow was as follows:

• Prologue run/hike around camp trails
• Tough bike over Bald Mountain (CP1,2,3)
• Trail trek over Rich Mountain (CP4,5 & OP6,7)
• Bike to James River Put-in (CP8,9)
• Paddle with bikes in canoe (CP10,11)
• Long bike over Broad Run Mountain/Price Mountain pass to Patterson Creek (CP12,13)
• Orienteering course around Patterson Creek; minimum 2 CPs required (CP14, OPA-OPK)
• Bike to finish

With the likes of Wedali, HTO/Trakkers, two TeamHalfwayThere.com teams, Shake-A-Leg Miami, we knew it was gonna be a fight for the podium.

We started of very conservative, trying not to run at all during the prologue, as we saw no reason to (no foreseeable bottlenecks). We made our way to the bikes, and started to peddle. I was quite frustrated with the towing system, which I had connected to my bike incorrectly the night before. The screw from the hose clamp was digging into my thigh and it was not until the top of Bald Mountain that I took the time to turn it around. But when I did I did not fully screw it back on. Sigh. It pulled back and disconnected, dragging behind my bike. I stopped yet again to screw it in, this time tightly. At the same time as all of this was happening, I was getting familiar with my new set of gears.

Rewind three weeks. I went for a ride in the Bull Mountain area. Never had a chain break in three years. On that ride, I broke three chains in frustration. Turns out my rear hub was a bit loose and the added torque caused the breaks. No problem. Fixed it, new chain. Then I went out again and broke the new one twice more. What gives? No idea. Must have been a bad chain? Okay, replaced the chain. That was right before the race. But I had some gear issues now.

Back to the race--no problem, just got to figure out which gears I had—-trial and error stylio. I kept getting chain slip and throwing the chain. Until I got to CP3, I was still figuring out what gears I had. At the top of Bald Mountain at CP2, Laura gave me some instructions on adjusting my limit screws on the rear derailler, which helped moderately, but unfortunately did not solve the problem. Granny gear works in the back but the two next to it do not (no matter what front gear I was in). So I lost six gears. After figuring out which ones I still had, I focused on staying in those. Up until that point, I was sweating bullets about breaking a chain. While I had a chain tool and was now well versed in fixing a broken chain, it was not the dark cloud I wanted to have lingering over a race with ~70 miles of biking in it. So the first bike leg was troublesome.

Apart from the mechanical worries, the first bike leg was rough. We were picking off teams, probably not as fast as I would have liked, but still moving forward. We wanted to take it relatively easy up the big climb, and sat in 37th or so place by the time we reached the top. Getting to CP3, there was some confusion as to what the actual intended mandatory route was, which we debated could be two possible routes. In the end, we took the non-mapped one, then double-backed when we figured the intent was to keep us off of the paved road as much as possible. This probably cost us time, but in the end we figured it kept us honest.

Off the bike and on to Team ROC Gear/4LPH4 1337's strong suit-—the trek. We decided after a slow start, it would be a good idea to bypass OP6 and OP7 in favor of having more time on the orienteering course later. Given our strategy for the orienteering course, we needed to ensure we had enough time to at least clear the five southernmost points. And as we are no strangers to nighttime bushwhacks, we thought our time would be better spent there. I believe I heard a werewolf during this section, but that was likely due to the 4:30am race start time after getting three hours of broken sleep. CP4 was at a swimming hole in a creek, and Laura discovered a carbon fiber paddling shaft. They decided to go ahead and carry it out and we joked about offering our emergency cash for the other parts once we found the owner so we could score a nice paddle. So we made our way up Rich Mountain, going a bit far east before deciding to bushwhack up. We did so, and enjoyed the wonderful view. At the top, we found the paddle's owners—-Team HalfwayThere.com, who were quite relieved to get the shaft back. After our rendezvous with the top of the world, we decided to go directly back down, but ran into some cliffs, which we skirted around to make our way down. The downhill was a bit treacherous, as the rocks hidden beneath the leaves were big and loose, but we thankfully avoided any ankle turns or the like. We ran most of the trail back down, picking up a small black dog who joyfully followed us. When it was time to refill our bladders in a mountain stream, the dog plopped himself directly above where we filled up. We joked about how he was probably urinating in the water as we filled them up. It was the girls' first experience with iodine purification, and none complained. I personally love it, but I also intentionally do not clean the mold out of my bladder drink tube because it tastes better, so who knows.

Off the trail and onto the bikes, we hammered it to the canoe put-in. We wanted to pass a few teams and we did, although we may have stretched the 100 meter rule a bit along the way. I remember towing Joanna forward, then dropping back and towing Laura forward to regroup, and I also got a well-deserved lecture from Laura about making sure we were following it after we had gotten too far ahead a time or two. At one point, Joanna was hooking onto the tow while were were going a bit too fast to do so. She lost balance and we collided a bit. Somehow she recovered from it without crashing, but not before she pinched her rear tire between her thighs, earning a nice rubber burn on her legs—-YIKES!

At the paddle TA, we already had our strategy for putting our bikes in our canoe, thanks to Don Childrey's 2007 Gold Nugget. We got on the paddle and it was starting to heat up. I was thankful the weather was unusually cool for this time of year, but you generally go as fast as you can without blowing up, so we were still hot. It was mid-80s and the first half of the paddle we were moving ahead steadily, picking off five or so teams. Joanna and Laura ended up getting hung up on a pretty big rock, so we lost our spots, but then leapfrogged the teams once more. HTO/Trakkers came along, paddling handily with their double blades right past us—-that was the last we would see of them on the paddle. Leading the pack again, we hit the only class II rapid of the river. Stefanie and I managed the pick the absolute worst line, and took a lot of water on doing so. Signaling back to Laura and Joanna to go to either side of it, they thought I was suggesting they zig-zag from one side to the other. Luckily, it was the correct path, and they fared much better than we on it, taking on no water at all. As Stefanie and I bailed our canoe, we watched the teams we had passed twice re-pass us! By this time I was not feeling so good. Nausea is common for me around 6pm or so, as the hottest part of the day takes its toll on me. So I knew what was going on, but I also knew it would be 2-3 hours before I fully recovered, and with the longest section of the bike as the next leg, I'd be out of commission for towing. Nevertheless, we managed to re-pass all but one of the teams that we had been leapfrogging before the take-out.

At the takeout I managed to puke my guts up and clear out all the fluids that were lingering. This made me feel better initially, but I knew it was going to be a chore to get back to good.

The next leg was long, but extremely beautiful. The Virginia rural countryside was as breathtaking as the mountain views earlier in the day. We decided to head south off of the map, believing correctly we could connect to the town of Fincastle, going off of the MyTopo map for a few miles before returning to the National Geographic map. In Fincastle, we stopped at a pizza joint to grab some soft drinks. Stefanie had been craving a Red Bull since the paddle, so we were sad to hear the gas station in town was a couple blocks up a prohibited route (220N). We settled for Cherry Coke, Coke, Sprite, and Sweet Tea; did not have time for pizza. We continued on from there and made our way through the mountain pass climb. It was not easy, but we all began to move together more strongly. Joanna was trucking it along, without break, up the hill. At the top, we punched CP12 and then began our screaming decent down the paved road as the lightning in the distance began to flicker. We turned on to Patterson Creek Rd. in the pouring rain and proceeded with deliberate caution—-there were a lot of roads not on the map during this section so I was glued to the compass. Turns out it was relatively straightforward. However, we (and by we I mean Stefanie) got a quick lesson on the stream crossings in the area. There was one such crossing that looked like the usual Georgia stream crossing-—mud with deep bike tire ruts from other racers. But the ruts were crevasses and the mud was a huge rock slab that merely looked like mud in the tumultuous rain. Stefanie's tires stuck into a small crevasse and she was guided into a wheel-pincher. Her bike abruptly halted, and she fell to the side, the impact shooting straight through the right side of her body to the left. This was part of the not-so-gentle initiation into adventure racing for our newbie recruit.

Arriving at CP14, we enjoyed some dinner before continuing on. The girls (sorry Laura...LADIES) were tired of my nagging about staying away from the fire and ignoring the cold, so they decided to start hiking. Our strategy for the orienteering course, was to commit to the five southernmost CPs (CPB, CPH, CPA, CPE, CPK). With 6.5 hours for the course, we would figure out what to do after getting these. But the basic idea was that we would do the Price Mountain climb, as there it would be silly to only get one or two of these and then have to bail out due to time. The bushwhacks proved quite painful—-my thighs had escaped my sun screen lathering before the paddle, and were quite burned; most of the bush and rhododendron was thigh height, so it was constantly scratching my sunburned legs as I waded through it. Kept me awake! We approached CPB from the NW tongue, then south to CPH. We dropped down via the tongue until we were below it, then down into the reentrant to head back up. After hitting it, we climbed the reentrant to the top again, then headed west towards CPA. After a bit of confusion about our position, and after five minutes or so of deliberation, we discovered we were 100 feet from the CP! From that known point, we climbed yet another hill from the saddle to CPE. Then further up to CPK. From CPK, the plan was to drop back down the Price Mountain trail, which we decided after thirty minutes of searching, did not exist. So now it was time to find our way back down the mountain in some very steep terrain with low visibility. I knew it would be difficult to pick the correct reentrant/tongue from the top and in the dark, so we proceeded slowly. I must have decided for and against a route three or so times as we went down. Then finally, we committed to tongue that headed NE along where the Price Mountain trail was marked. From CPK, we had 2.5 hours so we contemplated getting CPF and CPC. We went down a western reentrant that fed into the NW reentrant east of CPF. The thought was we could hump over the tongue separating the two reentrants. But the tongue on our side was quite vertical and covered with a rock-like sand. Yuk! We decided to gain some altitude by heading back south before crossing over, but it was still quite difficult and the last big push of the trek. We were lucky there was a ton of rhododendron on the other side of the tongue, as we were all ready to fall over after that sandy climb, and the sand would not have caught us on our way down if we did. We made our way down a creek bed to CPF, and finally followed it to the road. With not much time left, we decided to bypass CPC and head back to CP14 with six orienteering points.

Coming into the TA at CP14, we heard rumblings from a lot of teams about spending a lot of time on the course and ending up with only the minimum two checkpoints. I believe the sleep deprivation from the night before was getting to some folks, and thankfully we were not badly affected by it.

We headed out for the final bike. Our team was physically pretty beaten down from the orienteering course, and gave ourselves about 30-45 minutes of margin. I am glad we did because I made two boneheaded mistakes on the way in—-firstly, we managed to miss the turn toward Camp Easter Seal and secondly the turn across the river on SR614! We did correctly make the final turn, but our margin had dwindled by 15 minutes in the doing, so we approached the finish line with 30 minutes to spare. In what was a truly embarrassing moment, at the turnoff into the finishing area, I managed to hit a gravel patch and my bike slipped out from under me. I managed to catch myself on my hands, in the middle of 20+ adventure race onlookers. Yes, that was me making a fool of myself. Stefanie thought it was pretty funny also.

We crossed the finish line after laying it all out there. After finding out we got 3rd place, we were both surprised and happy. These girls (LADIES) are legit.

Laura's Take

I should start by saying that writing my race reviews is not one of my strengths. Regardless of my good intentions, it is usually written well after the fact and the information contained in here should only be trusted if some of the other reviews contain similar content! :)

This was a great venue for an adventure race. We drove up on Friday with our new team trailer and got there safely. We watched a multi-day race DVD on the way up there, so we were well pumped for this event.

This was probably the most hectic time I have ever had before a race...with us waking up about 45 minutes before we had to be moved out of the lodge, stuff loaded in the trailer and at the starting line. Typical of the race director, Ronny, we had a horrible start time and we ended up starting this race with less than adequate sleep. But, it ended up being just fine. :)

The 4:30AM start had us running around this loop on the property where the event was hosted. Then we got on our bikes for one of the biggest climbs of my life. I think that the map showed about 3000 feet of elevation gain. This of course was much more fun for me than the downhill that followed. We got to the top and it was a beautiful sunrise, and I should note at that time, I helped Josh fix his limit screws...thanks Mike for the lessons.

I got downhill just fine and then we continued to bike our way to the trekking section. We crossed a swinging bridge but then determined that we had made an incorrect turn. So, we backtracked ever so slightly and started down this grassy/dirt road. We saw a team coming toward us on that path, and I think that they may have advised us to turn around, but we persisted. We came to a "road closed/bridge out" sign and did what all ARers do...we continued anyway. At this point, we helped hoist our bikes over the sign and walked carefully across the bridge. There were large gaps in between the remaining structural supports. We carefully got across, and only Joanna and I got stung by bees. We then got to the end of this road and had to crawl under a large gate after dropping our bikes over the top.

We arrived at the trekking section and decided to just get the mandatory checkpoints. We got these, and again had a great view after some pretty steep climbs. We had lunch along the way--yummy tuna! (Oh I should note that I was nervous the whole time that I didn't have enough food. I was trying to determine if I had enough and I'm still trying to learn what I want to have on these 24 hour races. So, I had a note card of all the food that I packed and while putting all the food in, I was encouraged to take out a few things. So, at the front of this race, I was super hungry and I was eating more than once an hour till about 2PM). At the first trekking check point, the person punching the passport noticed that there was a paddle piece there. So, we picked it up and I added it to my pack. We finally found the owner. He was wearing a Mizzou shirt the night before at the race briefing. I was glad it belonged to such a nice person. We were about out of water at this point...Stef had her watch set to beep every 20 minutes to remind us to eat and drink and she did a great job keeping us fed and watered. So, we drank up all we could and found a "running/dribbling" stream. We had picked up a sweet doggie who was following us on the way back out of the trek. The dog promptly sat down in the river right upstream from where we were getting out water! We added iodine tablets and all the ladies had our first Iodine treated water drinks. It was actually fine...even with all the stuff floating in my bladder! :)

We decided to not get the extra check points here and we continued to the transition area to get our bikes and then go to the canoe put in. We had a mandatory gear check and we thankfully passed it...they checked for everything! This biking section ended up being shorter than we thought. There were some uphills, and Stef just kept flying up these hills. We got to a more populated driving area where we had to be on a main road briefly. At this point, I almost feel off the small shoulder of the road and over corrected, right into the oncoming traffic's lane. Fortunately, the truck coming at me saw this crazy biker and watched out for me. Whew...my heart rate was going then for sure!

We got to the canoe section and I was so excited to see the car that Mike as driving there and his chair. The guy assured me he was there and gave me some of the trail mix he makes...yum yum! We got our bikes disassembled and into the canoe using the provided single bladed paddles. The people with double bladed paddles definitely had an advantage, but we made up time in other areas, so it was fine. Jo did a great job steering us through some class I rapids and we got the one checkpoint on the water. We got to the take out just in time for the sky to fall out and tons of rain to start. This continued for a bit and we got going back toward the starting area. Oh, I should note that I got a biking computer Thursday and it was a great help. We used this to ensure that we were close to the roads that we were thinking were on the map. We stopped and asked a man for some water out of his hose after finding an old church without any outdoor water supplies. He was so nice and we rode our bikes up his driveway and got to use his well. We got rid of the iodine water and ended up not having to refill water anymore after this.

We rode our bikes through Fincastle and stopped at some small pizza place and got some cokes. That was the best Cherry Coke I have ever had. We continued through some stout hills and down some hills too to get to close to the next trekking section. We arrived there at night and in some rain and they had a fire going. I had another tuna pack and then we set out. The rain continued through the evening, but it was actually refreshing. Josh did a great job navigating up to this point. Even during this part, he did a great job...but he got more creative. At one point, the hill he was asking us to climb seemed impossible to me. But, if you just keep putting one foot in front of the other, you will make it up, and so we did. Please read Josh's section here to find out what type of creative navigation he used, but it worked well and we had 6 of the optional points (you had to get 2) on our way out at 4:15AM.

We arrived, after making a few wrong turns at 6:05AM to the finish line. After dropping our bikes, we took a picture on the lodge steps and here I finally fell...which I hadn't done the entire race (if you don't count mine near encounter with the car).

There was breakfast after a cold shower and I was a bit sore. Mike was there to drive us home, and that was great! We ended up getting 3rd place and got some sweet glasses and $150.00 each toward another Odyssey race.

We drove home, via a IHOP of course, and arrived home about 7 PM.

Things I learned.

1. These are possible races. After completing my first 24 hour race and surviving, I really wanted to stop here and not attempt another one in case the outcome was different. But, when you have a great team, it's just like going out in the woods and hanging out with some friends for a long time.
2. I had enough food, though I only had about 2 things left, maybe 3, it was a good amount.
3. A smart wool top would be smaller to pack and carry in my bag than a fleece.
4. I don't want a Butterfinger at 3AM, regardless of how good the idea was when I was packing my food.

It was a fun race, great job team! :)

Joanna's Take

I have to say that I really am impressed at how great of a race the Odyssey team was able to pull together after discovering they had to change the course design due to nesting birds at the last minute (the exact avian culprit remains unknown). The course covered a lot of beautiful, scenic areas and included the challenging terrain and course design the Odyssey races are notorious for. The new course design meant that the race changed from one with transitions to one with none, meaning we would have to carry all of our food and gear for the entire 24 – 26 hours. It also meant that the course became very bike-heavy with significantly less trekking, which was an advantage for the teams who are strong on the bike and a challenge to those whose strength is in the trek.

Start
The race start was scheduled for 4:30 am Saturday morning. Need I say more?
(This being after a preceding week of 12 hour work days and a lack of sleep).
It made for an interesting concept though, seeing that teams would get to see the sunrise twice during a one day race. The race started (in the dark of course) with a short prologue that consisted of jogging a loop around the camp and returning to the start to grab our bikes and head off. After last year’s mistake of dashing off during the prologue and attempting to head up the pack, we made it a point not to start the race off too fast and to only approach the prologue as an easy pre-race warm up. Back at the start, we transitioned into our bike gear and headed toward the road, only to have to stop and fix our first (and not last) bike issue. From here, we began a slow and arduous climb to CP1.

Bike Leg 1
I don’t really remember how long this climb lasted or how far it was, I just remember it was LONG. I’ve never been too great of a climber, but ever since I gave up my gym membership which included spin classes, my climbing ability has gone downhill (no pun intended!) Fortunately, Josh had his tow system hooked up and Laura and Stefanie were just pedaling away like they were on flat ground, so Josh dragged me up the slope a good part of the way. When we reached the overlook where the CP was, we were greeted by a beautiful panorama of the sunrise over the landscape which we’d be traveling in for the next 24 hours. After making a few fixes to Josh’s bike, we continued to CP2 and CP3. I was steadily losing steam at this point since it had been a long time since I’d competed in a one day race without transitions and was not used to the extra weight in my pack. Fortunately, Josh was still feeling strong, so he was able to hook the tow up when we hit the climbs, and we just continued steadily forward. At CP3, we dropped the bikes in order to attack our first trek.

Trek 1
As always, it felt great to get off the bike and begin the trek, but as we started the 5K climb to the top of the mountain, I could feel my body rebelling against the idea. It may have been the combination of the long bike climb ruining my quads along with the extra weight in my pack as well as the fear of how my knee was going to perform since it had been in pretty bad shape the week before, but whatever it was, I was rapidly starting to bonk. I quickly became convinced that this race was going to become about just getting me across the finish line as I started feeling dizzy and nauseated. I tried to concentrate on just putting one foot in front of the other and to not think about why the heck I put myself through these crazy races. CP4 was pretty simple to find, with CP5 being a bit tougher with a bushwhack to the peak. At this point we could either proceed to the optional CPs 6 and 7 or return to our bikes in order to gain more daylight and have a shot at obtaining additional optionals on the O-course. Since I was already a bit slow on the bike and didn’t believe I was going to get any better, we chose the later option in order to ensure that we wouldn’t be pushing any cut offs.

Bike Leg 2 & the Paddle
The second bike leg was a straight shot to the canoe put-in and flew by pretty quickly (after a couple of near disasters with me almost burning out on the pavement and Laura almost taking out a car). We were able to get our bikes into the canoes pretty quickly and began paddling downstream to the next CP. The river was flowing at a nice, leisurely pace and there were a lot of locals floating out on the water enjoying the beautiful day. Josh guided one canoe with Stefanie up front and I was in the back of the other with Laura in the front. The class-I rapids were pretty easy to navigate (except for the two where I got us hopelessly stuck on some rocks) and we made it to the take out without much incidence.

Bike Leg 3
This was a pretty long one, down 630 (where we stopped a guy on a lawnmower to ask for some water, and he led us down his very long driveway, past some emus, and to a spigot at an empty shack), into Fencastle. We chose this route even though it took us off map for a little bit because it was the flattest route we could take to CP12. At a pizza shack in Fencastle, I filled up my water bottle with some sweet tea (yummy!) and the rest of the crew grabbed some sodas, riding off with their cups in hand. After CP12, there was a LOT of climbing, followed by a very fast downhill ride. On the way downhill, we were greeted by lightening and thunder, and as we reached the base, the clouds burst open and it began pouring rain. The road we were now riding on was quickly becoming a muddy one, and I spent most of it dodging the toads that were soaking up the rain in the middle of the road (I could only imagine a poor, helpless toad squashed into a nasty mush under my tire and then flying up into my face). Along the way, my bike lamp sputtered out (with a full battery, guess the rain broke it), leaving me dependent on my weak, crappy headlamp. I subjected myself to riding alongside Stefanie and Laura, forgetting about the toads, and instead trying to dodge the potholes without ramming my teammates off the road since I had to ride right next to them to see.

O-Course
We approached the O-Course with our main strategy as “get as many as we can and head back with enough time padded in to make the 6:30am cutoff.” We ambitiously went for B first, approaching it up a very long, steep hill. From B, we circled clockwise to the next two O points and then proceeded to K - Josh's nav was spot-on the whole time My quads were still shot so I was having a tough time making it up all the steep climbs, but I was thankful that the sleep monsters weren’t attacking me yet. I think the knee-high shrubbery we were walking through that kept ripping at the exposed layer of skin on my knee was doing a pretty good job keeping me alert. From K, the plan was to take a trail to the road and then the road to the reentrant F was in, but apparently the trail was not where the map said it was and we chose to bushwhack down a tongue to get to F. Well, let’s just say it was a good idea in theory, but not in practice. After a bit of wandering around the woods trying to avoid the steep drop offs, Josh somehow miraculously managed to get us over to F. Only problem was it was on the other side of a VERY steep hill. We climbed (literally) up the sides of this steep, sandy slope and finally made it to F’s reentrant. Time was quickly ticking down, so instead of taking our chances and cutting it close by attempting another O point, we returned to the TA, grabbed our bikes, and headed to the finish.

Final Bike Leg
After we got off the forest service road, most of the way back was paved and I was congratulating myself for finally having made it through a 24 hour without falling asleep in motion. Josh hooked me up on tow so I could keep up with the team and I suddenly found myself quickly becoming hypnotized by his spinning tire right in front of my eyes. For the rest of the ride to the finish I had to keep slapping my face as I tried to doze off, constantly reminding myself that we were almost finished. We had a couple of wrong turns on the way back, followed by a river crossing, and finally the finish!

Summary
It was a great, challenging race, made unique in it's own way due to the 4:30am start time and double sunrises. The scenery was magnificent and breathtaking and I'm glad I had the chance to give this race a second shot and experience all that the Odyssey staff provided us. Josh's nav keeps getting better and better every time I race with him so that I'm almost always 100% sure about his decisions now. This was my first 24 hour race with Laura, and she is by far the most encouraging and motivating person I have ever raced with and is such an asset to have when everyone's morale starts to drop in the wee hours of the morning. Stefanie wowed me with the exuberance and endurance that she showed during her first 24 hour race, pushing on through everything and staying strong right through the finish. At some point during every race, there's always a moment that I find myself wondering why in the world I'm out there, and during this race I was actually wondering this the entire time, but the permanent gains and rewards of having finished and knowing that I did the best I could have done always outweigh the temporary aches and pains that follow.

Stefanie's Take

This was my very first 24 hour adventure race as well as my first time racing with Team Roc Gear so my expectation level was very simple - not to die. Thanks to some amazing teammates - Josh, Joanna, and Laura - I survived and actually felt pretty good at the end. Since I have nothing to compare it to with regards to organization, terrain, etc., I will just speak of my thoughts and feelings during the race (internal thoughts not expressed at the time out loud will be in parenthesis).

We arrived in VA around 5:30 pm and were given 3 maps (2 were larger than me). Josh and Joanna went to town plotting points as I stressed about what to place in my bag. How do you know what you will be hungry for during the next 24 hours? Joanna and Laura did a great job of keeping me calm during this and helping me pack. At the race briefing, it was determined we would get a bonus 2 hours to race bringing the total to 26 hours (fantastic, why am I doing this again???). After spending the next few hours strategizing we got about 3 hours of sleep before the 4:30 am race start. At the start I was very calm. I am not sure why, but I just knew it was all going to be ok. My biggest concerns for the race were the following:

• I did not want to disappoint my teammates
• I did not want to burn my legs out too quickly so I decided on a strategy of walking my bike up large hills since I am more efficient on foot
• Not getting bitten by or seeing a snake
• Not keeping my feelings to myself and always being honest with my teammates about how I was feeling (keeping quiet while in pain could lead to terrible things)
• Not going out too fast and killing myself early on

The first 15 - 18 hours of the race were great for me. We biked, trekked, canoed, biked some more, ran, biked again, and so on (Lots of biking). My body held up beautifully. I did have one low period while canoeing between 2-3 pm. I just got tired. This happens every day no matter what I am doing so this was no surprise. I rallied pretty quickly. Next time I will bring a Red Bull to help me out. It started pouring down rain at the end of the canoeing section but it only lasted a few minutes. It actually felt refreshing. The bike ride after the canoe was very long but a quick stop at a pizza parlor for Sprite helped ease the pain. As dark came, I could tell in the back of my mind that I was mentally fatiguing a little bit. This is why the wonderful race director positioned the optional navigation section as the very last thing. On the bike out to this section (did I mention it was pouring down rain and lightning?), I boldly followed Josh over what appeared to be a pile of mud (lesson learned - do not follow Josh boldly anywhere except during the navigation section). This "mud" turned out to be hard pavement in the middle of no where and I wiped out completely. I was 100% sure at the time my left hand was broken along with my hip or knee. Once again though here comes the amazing team - Laura had my bike off of me in 2 seconds flat and Josh plopped me up on my legs and said start walking (meanwhile my head was wondering how long it would take a helicopter to get there to carry me away to a warm bed). With their encouragement, I hopped back on the bike but lost a little self confidence.

The nav course started out with Josh telling me it was not necessary to put on layers of clothes even though I was shivering and standing by the fire in my sports bra trying to get warm without wet clothes on. I ended up not listening (big mistake) and layered up. 10 minutes later I was shedding clothes as Josh thought "I told her so". The optional navigation course was the toughest part. Josh was a navigating machine, but I felt useless since I did not know how to read the map. Josh and Joanna along with the altitude readings by Laura led us directly to 5 checkpoints. It was amazing how accurate they were. Josh did lead us up a cliff covered in sand for the very last CP and I was fairly certain he kept his distance for a reason (Jo, Laura, and I probably would have beat him if we could have caught him up the hill). I have to hand it to Laura, she kept me calm during the navigation section and helped me push through the mental block I was having. I do have plans on hunting down one species of yellow moths and destroying them all. It loved my head lamp and kept landing on me. The funniest thought I had during the whole race happened on this part. I found myself now praying that a snake would bite me so they could airlift me out of there.

Once the nav was complete we headed back for the final bike ride home. My stomach really began to struggle during this part, but Joanna stepped in to save the day with Pepcid and Josh towed me on the bike (teammates are the best - love them). We had some minor trouble finding the finish, but coasted in to a third place finish. Josh did not exactly coast, but slid in the gravel landing in a heap in front of all the AR racers who had previously finished. It was pretty entertaining.

Overall, I felt the area in VA was a little piece of heaven. And for anyone who is not sure if there is a God or some higher power out there, I suggest they do an adventure race. He is everywhere - the mountains, streams, sky, storms, and most importantly, in your heart and mind. I stand in awe at the beauty of this sport. While we may have looked like crap when we finished, it brings you a little piece of clarity that you did not have before. God is great and he placed us on this Earth to do great things. For some that may be helping others through charity or planting trees or simply smiling at someone. For me, it is becoming a better person by stretching the mind and body to a place where it has never been before. This race made me a better person in so many ways - listening to my teammates, listening to my body, listening to my heart and just stopping to notice all of the wonderful things nature has to offer (some might call this stopping to smell the roses). I hope I can take this part of adventure racing and apply it to other areas of my life.

I cannot express my gratitude enough to Team Roc Gear and exspecially Jo, Laura, and Josh to allowing me the chance to experience this. It was truly a blessing.

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