[Lisa R]

This was copied from my blog..so its just my take. We drove back to ATL during the middle of the night, so not sure what the official results are.

Another one bites the dust! Well, at least I don't have to make the decision about going to Dubai...unfortunately its too early to tell if I'll be on the starting line at Nationals...

Most of the race was not very navigation intensive...not really my kind of course...no bushwhacks allowed on the trek sections, lots of paved road riding, and of course the real mountain biking wasn't until AFTER I hurt myself so it was just completely miserable and tenuous.

We had a prologue run that one person had to do...apparently a volunteer directed some folks the wrong way - fantastic, off to a great start! We had Jay do the prologue while we stood around. Once he returned, we portaged our canoe down to the lake.



We were on the water in second, right behind Dart-Nuun and trailed them for much of the paddle until near CP1, when we arrived there first as Dart appeared to be confused and didn't see the channel between the islands. By the end of the two hour paddle, we were again tailing Dart and came off the water right behind them, transitioned, and then hopped on bikes about a minute behind them as we had to return to the TA for some running shoes...D'oh!





The bike was a 14 mile road ride to Table Rock, and it was pretty intense. Jay took us from 0 to 27 mph in about 4 seconds so I was hurting. We caught Dart-Nuun and rode into Table Rock with them. We took off on the first trek just in front of them.

Again, the pace was high up Pinnacle Mountain and I overdid it, as my stomach felt pretty bad for the next 6 hours until I finally...uh...dropped some weight. My legs were so worked on the uphill so I felt wobbly on the descent. We lost a couple of minutes here running right past the CP. I was too far in oxygen debt to notice it.

The next bike was another road ride, and I was completely wasted. I had no power and still hadn't recovered from the previous two legs, so we were moving pretty slow. (ok, I guess that's relative) We dropped our bikes and took off on the second trek with one of the CPZ teams.

We did the first part of the trek with CPZ until we realized we had overshot the trail intersection we were looking for. We all missed the trail because there were about 15 boy scouts all standing in front of the trail intersection signs...we thought it was a campsite, but when we crossed a creek, the warning light went off in my brain and we backtracked. We continued on the trek, picking up the next CP easily, and as we're jogging down the mostly downhill Coldspring Branch Trail, my footing gave way, and CRACK!!! I went down as my right ankle gave way beneath me. Oh, it hurt, but the pain subsided and I was able to walk on it and eventually was able to start jogging again. What really sucked, was that I was FINALLY feeling good again, and my stomach had settled.

When we reached the rocky Jones Gap Trail, I kept tweaking it on the uneven footing and was pretty much reduced to gimping along by CP11. When we arrived there, we found that we were the first full-course team there..WTF??? How does this happen? Physically I was having one of my worst races, and then you add in the hobbling...where did the other teams disappear to? This gave me some adrenaline and encouraged me keep gimping along. We climbed up to CP 12 and didn't see the CP at the falls. Our elevation there was lower than the plot, so we continued up the trail, losing it at times, but didn't see the CP as we reached the road. We debated whether we should go back to the falls, and started heading down, but after seeing so many other teams come back up empty handed, we took our chances and moved onto the TA.

The Camp Greenville TA was happy and sunny during the day...





But when we arrived, there was a 30 mph sustained wind and it was cold and miserable. Our gear was blowing around and it just wasn't the sanctuary I was hoping for. Chris taped my ankle, we downed some food, and took off for DuPont. I was hoping the biking was easier on my ankle, but it actually was worse. The stiff bike shoes were killing me and pedaling was actually more unpleasant that walking. Every bump made me cringe.

We picked up the first three CPs, spending considerable time scratching our heads near CP16, but unfortunately led Dart-Nunn to CP16, which they may not have found as their navigator did not agree with where we were looking.

After realizing that I wasn't going to be able to ride fast, and knowing that the last trek along the Jones Bridge Trail would likely cripple me, I had to make the call to bail, and hope that I could get myself healed for Nationals in less than two weeks. I have no idea what the doc will say tomorrow, but right now its looking pretty bad...

[Jay Curwen]

Sorry about the ankle Lisa...that's a bummer way to end a race...Even w/ some of the physical issues, we were going pretty good...and it felt like we were getting stronger...

Hope it bounces back for Nats...Stay off it and rest...

I stuck around and saw Dart, Numa and Inov8 at the finish...Sounds like 16 was a bit tough for some of 'em...Numa ended up not getting it...

Top 3 as I know it:
Dart (clean)
Inov8 (clean)
Numa (No 16)

Congrats to everyone...What a beautiful course...

Nationals is going to be a heck of a horse race!

[LabRat]

Team GLR had a great time and loved the race. We came off the course last, i think, with a full 45 minutes to spare and all but 3 cp's!

Yak, Tim, Alexa and all of the volunteers did a great job and can't get enough praise for their hard work and friendliness.

My only criticism is merely a personal preference (in agreement with lisa) for rogaine type AR's - I like how we attack the cps and the order choices are more strategic versus an all out race from point to point.

For this race Team GLR was Jeff Papenfus (me), Jim Kelleher and Michael O'Grady. We also had John Capelle run with us, i'll explain later. this race i also got to meet Luther Papenfus of Odyssey, he and i are related somehow.

The starting prologue was a little confusing with the mis-direction thru the obstacle course of exhibits at the Keowee-Toxaway museum. But we made it and I came out mid-pack from the run, best i could hope for.

Happy to have our excellent portage wheels we took the 'red devil' Dagger Reflection 17 canoe to the put-in quickly and got to work paddling for the single cp. We hung with our general group during the paddle, not too fast, not too slow. i think we were at the front of the mid-packers. it was fun to see the elites coming out of the fog after the cp turn-around. it seemed like something out of a movie.

We transistioned to the bikes and were off down highway 11 for a short, fast ride to Table Rock state park. The bike drop went well and we were on foot to the top of Pinnacle mountain. we chose to take the pinnacle trail (ie the 'hard way') up to the summit, where the Isotopes caught up with and passed us. Then we took the mostly level, ridge-line trail east to the Panther gap. both cp's were easy to pick up and it was a big circle-loop around to get them. back to the bikes and the support crew for food and liquid replenishments.

The bike ride up from the park to the fire station was uneventful and a grind, but not too hard. Jim had a few cramps at this point which he was able to quickly overcome and we headed out on foot up 276. We had to jump out of the way of many speeding idiots coming down the highway. or maybe we were the idiots walking up that twisty road? My favorite was the boiled peanut guy goading us along by shouting that "3 women just ran by. why are you walking?".

I'm pretty sure we must have been the last team to enter the pinnacle trailhead in the daylight and we worried that other teams wouldn't see the sign post laying on the ground marking the trail. As we headed up that trail to the cp 8 at the natraland (sp?) trail intersection we got to see a very nice sunset. By this time i was already feeling the cold and had to stop and pull out my long-sleeved warm shirt.

We had previously decided to NOT get cp9 at Raven Cliff Falls - since it was so far out of the way and Jim's recollection of the trail was not favorable to us making good time. We headed straight over 276 to CP10. We did not bushwhack like we would have had we not been told "do not go off trail". the best route was to go from 10 to 11 via the trail #7 and a whack up the hill. But no worries, we had a good longer hike and arrived unscathed at cp11 to candy, fire and a welcoming crew.

The hike up rainbow falls to the missing cp12 was tough (but not as tough as the second time we had to do it). We only spent 20 or so minutes looking for the cp as we were certain of its location and it was not there.

The TA5 at camp greenville was windy and cold and we wanted nothing more than to get the heck away from it even though our support (my wife and jim's wife) were kind and brought us hamburgers. We picked up the aforementioned john capelle here. his original teammate Bill Burgess (team 7) had to drop out at cp10 (that's another interesting story), but 19 year old john wanted to go on and requested to run with us. feeling very charitable i readily agreed and off we went as a 3 person +1 team.

bear in mind that this was john's first AR. a very comendable but silly idea to start with a 30 hour ordeal. The kid was strong with a wonderful attitude and i hope he sticks around the sport in the future. (and gets some clipless pedals on his bike!)

As we biked to Dupont up 276 i felt myself falling asleep a bit and hit an espresso goo and then felt fine. Dupont is one of the areas we like to ride so both jim and i were confident going in that we could successfully find any cp we tried to get. we entered across from the manned cp at the corn mill shoals access parking lot. headed down corn mill shoals to the cp at bridal veil falls. then down conservation road to the intersection at Joanna mountain road. We biked up joanna to the short trailup to the cp at the top. we ran up on dart nuun and then numa sports optics came in, we talked with both and found out they had had some trouble with cp16. this was important as we based the rest of our night on that intel. we had earlier put off going up cedar mountain to the cp at the top because i was cold and couldn't face the wind again. my plan was to come back in the am after sunrise to get it while warmer...the cp16 intel played into that as we added it to the post-sunrise list.

we came off joanna mountain, down trail 17 to buck forest road which we rode to the intersection at jim branch. we rode jim branch trail to the cp at the horseshoe bend and then back up. we got the manned cp at the parking lot at the Gulon parking area. then down trail 33 (hickory mountain) left onto white pine (89) then righ onto to hooker creek (37) to get the cp down at the river/stream. i scared myself and jim behind me when i had an endo in the new, not quite finished soft trailway on hooker. i popped up unhurt and declared that it was finally time to unlock my front fork!

we had a blast barrelling down ridgeline trail (65) on the way back. if you didn't go that way you missed the best trail at dupont...2 or so miles of fast, rolling downhill fun. especially in the dark. we came out at lake imaging parking lot, up staton road to the cp at the horse barn.

we ended up staying almost an hour at this manned cp (23 i think). the fire was warm and the company good as we warmed our cold bodies and ate some hot dogs. mike took a nap and i paced the whole time with all my gear and helmet on muttering that we needed to go back out but knowing that my team needed the short break.

after finally loading onto our bikes we braced, bitched and moaned all the way down in the wind on staton road to the Buck Forest parking lot and cp16 that had been put off until daylight. we went (mostly) straight to the stairway and the bottom of the falls where we hiked down. we eventually (after looking only a few minutes) found the bag mostly hidden. i was happy with the decision to NOT go there in the dark based on the wet roots on the approach and hard to locate cp.

we then rode back to cedar mountain and climbed the slick rock to the cp, came back down the long way (oops, so much for being locals!) and left to dump the bikes at sylvan sports. the guys at sylvan were very nice and had hot coffee which we all consumed.

the hike down to jones gap trail did get mike a little startled when a passing truck with those big rear-view mirrors brushed up against him. a little scary. we initially missed the trailhead because it wasn't marked and we were looking for a sign. after a little backtracking we were on it, got cp26 and moving quickly to cp27 and back up the hill at rainbow falls.

by the time we got in to the finish almost all the teams were long gone, but we had 45 minutes to spare and got all but three cps (#9, stone mountain and wintergreen falls)! We all finished in good physical health and the bikes were in good shape still.

all in all a good race on a well designed course.
_________________
I'm not really lost...I'm just sightseeing.
jeff papenfus
Team GLR

[jollespm]

There isn't a whole lot to say that hasn't been said already, but I figured this ode to the race fit our experience pretty well.

http://www.checkpointzero.com/teamBlog/2008/10/gambling-at-upstate-adventure-race.cfm

[Lisa R]

LMAO!

[Paul C.]

Kenny Rogers called. He's going to sue:
http://www.menwholooklikekennyrogers.com/gallery01.html