On Friday, October 23, Scott (Erl), Molly, and Justin made the trip to Pilot Point, Texas to represent WEDALI in the 2009 United States Adventure Racing Association (USARA) National Championships. The pre-race briefing held a bit of a surprise, as much of the course had to be adjusted within the last three days due to the 5-inches of rain this area had recently received. Reports were that the reservoir in the area had raised several feet in a 24-hour period. Things sure looked to be a sloppy mess!
The race started with a 200 meter LeMans run to our bikes, then a road ride around the reservoir from Lantana Lodge to Ray Roberts Lake State Park. Lots of pace riding and a little bit of tire rubbing. Someone apparently dislocated their shoulder less than 1/4 mile from the start - that's a bad way to start a race.
We transitioned to a tough open water paddle on the reservoir. A fair bit of wind created a white-capped lake. We bypassed CP5 with Nuun and Bushwhacker, and got it on the way back (after doing a 1.5 mile portage, getting CP4, and another 1.5 mile portage - most sections were Score-O format). Steering the boat in these conditions was especially taxing. We brought 3 double bladed kayaks for this section, but Biz only ended up using half a kayak paddle on the same side of the boat for 90% of this section just to keep us going in the right direction. We didn't lose too many spots, but we were a bit worried about our earlier portage. In retrospect, it likely saved us a few miles of paddling, which felt better in the long run.
We then biked around a finger of the reservoir to complete a short trekking section. This orienteering leg was on a peninsula in Ray Roberts SP. We made some pretty good time and caught back up with the leaders despite the scratchy/thorny terrain.
We completed one final three point O-section before heading back on our bikes to the finish. We ran into Granite Gear AR 1 & 2 (current race leaders) on this section at our 1st CP, their 3rd. Knowing that we were close gave us a bit of go-juice, but they warned us of some fairly significant vegetative problems ahead. Unfortunately, our crew had difficulty finding the 2nd control, circling the wrong location in thoroughly dense, gnarly, and prickly veg. The lack of visibility and undefined reservoir edge gave us some problems, and we lost about 30 minutes to most other teams. Pretty crazy for us to spend 4 hours on a 3-mile straightline trek, even if it was in the middle of the night.... We later found out that we were passed here by ImOnPoint.org and dropped from 3rd to 4th place.
Not knowing how close the next team behind us was, our bike back to Lantana Lodge/finish was done with haste despite the muddy conditions. We came into the line at ~6:40am, with a racing time of 23:40 for a very respectable 4th place of 67 teams.
Good race for us overall, but the thick vegetation and tough paddle took it's toll. It was awesome to see a lot of other teams out there throughout the race, even if it wasn't under the best circumstances for either of us at any given time. Congrats to Granite AR for rocking the course.
We all agreed that it would have been fun to see what the course would have been like without the rain two days before the start - this course was understandably heavy on biking, with a total of 108 miles for us.
Trekking sections will be remembered for the gnarly conditions and the open water paddle for the blowing wind. The stiff competition and Texas itself won't be something we'll "mess with" anytime soon, but we were happy to come away with a great experience. Thanks to all of those who followed us throughout the 2009 season!
The race started with a 200 meter LeMans run to our bikes, then a road ride around the reservoir from Lantana Lodge to Ray Roberts Lake State Park. Lots of pace riding and a little bit of tire rubbing. Someone apparently dislocated their shoulder less than 1/4 mile from the start - that's a bad way to start a race.We transitioned to a tough open water paddle on the reservoir. A fair bit of wind created a white-capped lake. We bypassed CP5 with Nuun and Bushwhacker, and got it on the way back (after doing a 1.5 mile portage, getting CP4, and another 1.5 mile portage - most sections were Score-O format). Steering the boat in these conditions was especially taxing. We brought 3 double bladed kayaks for this section, but Biz only ended up using half a kayak paddle on the same side of the boat for 90% of this section just to keep us going in the right direction. We didn't lose too many spots, but we were a bit worried about our earlier portage. In retrospect, it likely saved us a few miles of paddling, which felt better in the long run.
We then biked around a finger of the reservoir to complete a short trekking section. This orienteering leg was on a peninsula in Ray Roberts SP. We made some pretty good time and caught back up with the leaders despite the scratchy/thorny terrain.
Another road bike to a short O-section on a private property ranch. There was a barbed wire fence through a portion of the ranch that threw Biz off the nav for a few minutes, but other than that a pretty clean run with no noticeable time gained/lost. Click on the video below to see our shout out to the WEDALI Army going into this section.
Another decent road ride ensued to a one trek CP at some ruins on a peninsula. It got dark on the trek leg and so we took our bike lights with so as to not have to break out the emergency headlamps. Upon return, we hammered the night ride back to Lantana Lodge (the start/finish/TA). After a modest transition, bathroom break, and cheering/snacks from none other than AR superstar Robyn Benincasa, our crew hit the bikes again for a mix of mostly two-track and horse trails from Lantana Lodge to the southern part of Ray Roberts SP and the dam for the reservoir. We biked south along the outlet to I-380 and back, getting on and off the bike for a few short trekking CPs.
Not knowing how close the next team behind us was, our bike back to Lantana Lodge/finish was done with haste despite the muddy conditions. We came into the line at ~6:40am, with a racing time of 23:40 for a very respectable 4th place of 67 teams.
Good race for us overall, but the thick vegetation and tough paddle took it's toll. It was awesome to see a lot of other teams out there throughout the race, even if it wasn't under the best circumstances for either of us at any given time. Congrats to Granite AR for rocking the course.We all agreed that it would have been fun to see what the course would have been like without the rain two days before the start - this course was understandably heavy on biking, with a total of 108 miles for us.
Trekking sections will be remembered for the gnarly conditions and the open water paddle for the blowing wind. The stiff competition and Texas itself won't be something we'll "mess with" anytime soon, but we were happy to come away with a great experience. Thanks to all of those who followed us throughout the 2009 season!
To begin the event, racers were transported by bus from race headquarters in 
We made a quick transition to our bikes for an off-road section of trails, mostly ATV and OHV. Doing this at night added to the technical element. Biz did an endo over his handle bars at one point, for which Scooter gave him a 10. We passed the Gnome Hunters on this section, but we knew they were hot on our tails. We then popped out onto the Gandy Dancer gravel trail, which took us northeast out onto pavement at Patzau.
We knew we had lost a bit of time on the paddle, but more so we realized that we would have to keep up a strong pace to finish well. We passed Orion on our way back to our bikes, further emphasizing the competitive nature of the top teams through the race thus far.
After getting the three O-points to the north, we caught up to Beautiful People since they had just headed out on the southern O-section less than 7 minutes ahead of us. That being said, we figured our lead was slightly under an hour over the next teams, as we knew the Gnome Hunters would be right behind BP and would be likely to do the O-section faster. With their strong navigation and faster run pace, we knew nothing was a given and had limited room for error. After clearing the orienteering section in a little under 4 hours, we were relieved to find that no other teams had come back to the TA. 
We hopped back onto our bikes and rode west from Jay Cooke back out to Munger Trail and State Highway 210, finishing at the Black Bear Casino Resort in a total time of 17 hours and 15 minutes.
This race definitely pushed our limits, and it was a team effort to come out on top. We had a bunch of issues to deal with, but stayed tough and got 'er done. We were definitely impressed with the Minnesota teams that showed up to race - truly a competitive event. Hopefully more teams from out-of-state will join the mixer in the future. Rumor has it that this race will be part of the Checkpoint Tracker series in 2010....
