Checkpoint Zero/Inov-8 in association with Trailblazers Adventure Racing Club is pleased to announce the 2009 Checkpoint Challenge.

Building upon past years successful partnership at the Trailblazers Midnight Rush adventure race, we are again offering individuals who have never competed in adventure racing the opportunity to train and race with members of the Checkpoint Zero/Inov-8 adventure racing team in the upcoming Siege on Fort Yargo adventure race.

As part of the Checkpoint Challenge, six selected individuals will be paired up with Checkpoint Zero/Inov-8 team members who will mentor and accompany them through training, race preparation as well as the actual race itself. This is an excellent opportunity for people looking to make their debut in adventure racing but are unsure of how to start.

This years Siege on Fort Yargo adventure race will be held on June 20th at Fort Yargo State Park in Winder, Georgia. The race will feature mountain biking, trekking, rappelling, paddling, and of course, navigation. The approximately 20 mile race will start at 9 AM and take racers up to 5 hours to finish, giving teams the opportunity to experience adventure racing without having to sign up for a.

In order to be selected for this unique opportunity, please send an email to to the selection committee ([email protected]) with a 200-400 word essay with the reason(s) why you think you should be selected for the 2009 Checkpoint Challenge. To be eligible, we ask that applicants have an interest in adventure racing but never have competed in an adventure race before.

Entries must be received by June 1st. Selection will be completed and winners will be notified by June 5th.

Sorry about the short notice!!! It’s Yak’s fault :-(

Odyssey Adventure racing has long been known for putting on some of the toughest races on the east coast, and the recently run Odyssey One Day Adventure Race was no exception. Checkpoint Zero / Inov-8 sent two squads to this classic race and came away beaten, battered and deep fried. Or was that the shrimp we had for dinner? I forget. Our first squad consisted of some of the usual suspects, Michele Hobson, Hunter Orvis, Allen Mc Adams, and Tim Abbott. The second squad consisted of myself and 3 hired guns, Paul Humphreys, Julia Radmann, and Daniel Jesse. Our plan was to race as an 8 headed monster, as we were all about the same speed.

The race started off with a prologue run that had the racers guessing at how long it would actually take. We had been given a hand drawn map of Camp Bethel, but there was nothing to indicate the scale or trail lengths. More surprisingly, once we started, we noticed it was devoid of all contour lines, and didn’t clue us into the straight up and down trails we were to run on. It turned out to be a relatively short, just enough to spike those heart rates before we got on our bikes.

Once on the bike we started the long arduous climb out of the valley up towards the Blue Ridge Parkway. We weren’t supposed to see the parkway, but we missed a fairly non descript trail that split off from the main trail and we rode an extra kilometer or so to the top. Realizing our mistake, we rode back down, passing at least 3-4 other teams that were making the same mistake, but hadn’t realized it yet. This put us behind a bunch of teams, which we then had to squeeze by on the narrow single track leading us to the town of Buchanan, VA.

By the time we reached Buchanan, we had rode through the hottest part of the day, and had drank everything our Inov-8 packs could hold. Luckily, just before the transition to the paddle, we came across a small gas station well stocked with many cold beverages. We split up and had several of us filling our bladders from the spigot outside, while a couple of us ran inside to stock upon some Powerade and 2 liter bottles of Coke. With bottles in our arms, we trotted across the street and clamored into our boats, downing most of what we had just bought in a matter of minutes. Our paddle along the James river was largely uneventful. There were a few class II rapids we encountered, but the mostly flat water mad for a senic paddle. Or plan to carrying our own kayak paddles probably bought us a little time on this section, but as we would later experience, I’m not so sure it was worth it as the race director made us carry them the entire race from start to finish.

As we pulled off the river, the sun was beginning to set, and we had enough time to bushwack 800′ straight up to reach our first trekking checkpoint. As we reached the top, we were treated to the sun setting in the beautiful Virginia mountains. It was also here that Allen started to feel a little ill.

As the trek progressed, Allen felt worse and worse. We finally decided that it would be best to split our two teams apart, so Paul, Julia, Daniel and I proceeded onward, leaving the others to follow behind at a much slower pace. By now it was the middle of the night, and we were getting close to the end of the trek when Julia stopped suddenly and shouted out “SNAKE!”. If she didn’t say that, it was something close to that, I was in a bit of a fog at the time as the sleep monsters were knocking on my door. What prompted her cry was that she had come dangerously close to stepping on a 4′ long rattle snake!

A little bit shaken, we made it into the next TA where we found out we had closed the gap to the leaders by 20 minutes from our last time check, although we were still about an hour behind. This bit of good news energized us, until we found out that my bike had a flat tire. Jeez, how does a bike tire go flat just sitting there? A quick tube change later and we were rolling back towards Buchanan. When we got there, we were delighted to find out that the same store we stopped at earlier was still open, and we ducked in for some more cold beverages. As we stepped back outside the store, we came across a duo that had obviously seen better times. We spoke with them for a few minutes and found out this was their first long race, they had made it this far, but they had called it a night and were waiting for a ride back to the start finish line. Paul somehow got on the topic of food and calories, and mentioned he had probably consumed about 15000 during the race so far. When asked what they had eaten, they said a couple of Gatorades and a bar or two. Before we took off we mentioned that they should try to eat significantly more next time and they would easily make it to the finish line.

As we climbed out of town back towards the single track that would take us to the start, and to the final leg of the race, we were all in good spirits, and ready chase down the leaders. Little did we know what the trail had in store for us. During the first climb on the single track, a tiny, thinner than a pencil, little stick got kicked up into my derailleur and decided to rip it right off. I couldn’t believe it. Of all the things to happen, this was the last straw (or so I thought). Having tried to make a single speed out of my bike before and not being able to get it to work because of the suspension design, I was consigned to pushing my bike along for the next 15 miles or so. It wasn’t so bad on the up hills, as everyone else was pushing, but on the flats I was much slower. The downhills, however, were coastable and I was determined to make the most of my momentum and take some pretty aggressive lines to conserve speed. I’m sure you can imagine where this is headed.

I can’t quite remember exactly how it happened, but I do know this, somehow my front wheel was forced off the trail. What ensued was a short trip over the handle bars, followed by a somersault in the air, ending in a face plant in the leaves. As I took a moment to check for broken bits, I felt a sharp pain at the end of my finger, and realized I had just pissed off a bunch of yellow jackets and they were out for blood. I think I managed to get away with only a couple stings, but man, it hurt. I suppose the upside was that the pain kept me awake. I wish I could say the remainder of the ride back was uneventful, but I managed to perform the same maneuver again about a mile down the trail and managed to rip my tire off my rim. On the bright side, at least I didn’t get stung again.

By the time we got back to the final TA, it was just starting to get light. The last section was a large orienteering course, over which we could get up to 20 additional check points. Knowing we were down one bike, we decided we would set out on foot, grab the points closest to the finish. We ended up getting 11 of the points and decided it was enough. Trying to bushwack through the underbrush with our paddles still strapped to our backs was not the easiest thing to do and there was no way we could realistically get many more points without a lot more effort. We acknowledged we were giving up any hope for a first or second place, but after all we had been through we lost our motivation and were just ready to go home.

As it turns out, the we managed 3rd place in the coed division, and 4th overall. Not bad considering what we had to overcome. The other squad was not so lucky. By the time they finished the trekking section and got to their bikes, Allen hadn’t gotten any better and they decided it would be best if they stopped racing to avoid any serious issues. While it is never fun to have to pull out of a race, sometimes it is the best thing to do.

After all is said and done, we had a great time out there and thank Odyssey for putting on another fun and challenging race. Of course we wouldn’t be there without the help from our generous sponsors Inov-8, Numa, and nuun. Next up for us will be the Moab Xstream Expedition. Can’t wait to head west again!

Checkpoint Zero/Inov-8 in association with Trailblazers Adventure Racing Club is pleased to announce the 2008 Checkpoint Challenge. Building upon last years successful partnership at the Trailblazers Siege on Fort Yargo sprint adventure race, we are now offering individuals looking to move from sprint races to 12 hour races the opportunity to train and race with members of the Checkpoint Zero/Inov-8 adventure racing team in the upcoming Midnight Rush adventure race.

As part of the Checkpoint Challenge, six selected individuals will be paired up with Checkpoint Zero/Inov-8 team members who will mentor and accompany them through training, race preparation as well as the actual race itself. This is an excellent opportunity for people looking to take their adventure racing to the next level, but are nervous about going at it alone.

This years Midnight Rush adventure race will be held on September 13th at Lake Russell in Clayton county, Georgia. The race will feature mountain biking, trekking, rappelling, paddling, and of course, navigation. The 14 hour race will start at 10 AM and take racers well into the dark, finishing at 12 AM giving teams the opportunity to experience adventure racing at night, without having to stay up all night long.

In order to be selected for this unique opportunity, please send an email to to the selection committee with a 200-400 word essay with the reason(s) why you think you should be selected for the 2008 Checkpoint Challenge. Selection will be done and winners will be notified by August 16th. To be eligible, we ask that applicants be a current member of the Trailblazer Adventure Racing Club, familiar with adventure racing, but never have completed a 12 hour or longer adventure race. Entries must be received by August 1st.

The Seige on Fort Yargo is billed as a beginner sprint race, the kind to get newcomers introduced the sport and show them how much fun adventure racing is. Nonetheless, many of the top regional teams sign up to duke it out and have some fun along the way. This year, Paul and I took my fiance Carol along with us, mostly to have some fun. Of course it never fails that once those numbers get pinned on, the competitive spirit comes out in us, and we just have to go for broke.

The race started off by having the team split up. One member was to swim about a quarter mile in the lake, while the other two collected three checkpoints on foot. All team members would then meet up at the canoes. Carol was nominated to do the swim, while Paul and I went to collect the CP’s on foot. The run was pretty straight forward and Paul and I got out in front quickly to avoid the stampede of folks making their way to each CP. Luckily, the race directors had thought ahead and had hung 4 punches at each CP to make it as painless as possible. Meanwhile, on the swim, Carol discovered that I had been the last one to wear her PFD and it wasn’t adjusted properly. (Note to self, check the gear before the race start.) The vest was coming up around her head making it difficult to swim. Eventually, she made it out of the water, but not before most of the race had passed her by.

As we all got into the canoe, we started paddling hard. Paul has been doing a lot of training for the Yukon River Quest, a 450 mile paddle race, so I knew he’d set a strong pace in the front of the boat. I think we could have let him paddle the whole way and we still would have done well. By the time we got the first CP we had passed over a third of the teams that were ahead of us. Paddling towards the first of the 12 optional CP’s in the race, we saw a large number of boats on the shore, obviously folks looking for the point. We managed to slip in between a couple boats, disembark, find the CP and get back before most teams even found the CP. Back on the water we had moved up to about 10th place overall. After getting the last 2 CPs, we were in 6th place, and looked to be about 3rd place co-ed.

We quickly transitioned from the paddle to the bike and took off towards the first CP. Along the way, another racer turned and looked at Paul and asked him where his helmet was. In our haste, Paul had forgotten it so we had to rush back, and grab it before we could continue on. Once we corrected that mistake, we started making our way through the multitude of teams that had skipped points on the paddle and had gotten off the water before us. It’s never fun to pass on single track, but we took our time, and I don’t think we elbowed anyone into the woods.

After getting all the mandatory and optional CP’s on the bike we got back to the TA to set out on the last section, the run. We figured we were in good shape, and were going to try to get all the CP’s on this section, but we knew it would be tough. After getting the first couple, we realized that it would be wise to skip the furthest out point, instead focusing on the points that were closer to the finish. As we debated this, we ran right by another of the optional points. Looking at the watch and trying to estimate the time it would take to get to the finish, we decided that we would have to blow off the one we missed as well, and hope for the best.

As we collected the last of the mandatory CP’s on the run, we were given the choice of swimming across the lake back to the start, or running all the way back around. We knew we wanted to swim because that set us up to collect the remaining few optional CP’s on the way in. With time ticking down, we grabbed the last of the CP’s and started to head to the finish. By chance I took a look at the rules then, and realized that there was something we completely missed! We had to portage the canoe from the take out back to the finish line! Luckily we were still close to the canoe and Paul and I hoisted it above our heads and jogged to the finish. We crossed the line with 10 minutes to spare, but had no idea where we placed.

When they got to the awards ceremony, and announced the first place co-ed team we were shocked when they called out Checkpoint Zero. We had guessed that at least one other team had gotten more points than we did, but in the end, most teams had problems with several of the points like we did.

All in all a great race. This race was a great showcase for our Inov-8 shoes as every time we got them wet, they seemed to dry out in minutes. Even the swim across the lake wearing our shoes wasn’t bad. I also learned that my PFD will, just barely, fit in the Race Pro 30 pack. Certainly made carrying the PFD a lot easier as it didn’t flop around at all. One suggestion for the Inov-8 pack designers though, put some drain holes in the bottom of the pack. As I finished the swim and got onto dry land I realized I had about 15 lbs of water in my pack and had to turn it upside down to empty it. I’m guessing they probably didn’t plan on anyone doing lake swims while wearing a pack!

-Peter

Pop quiz. What is the number two industry in West Virginia in terms of income brought into the state? If you said white water rafting, you’d be right. It is second only to coal.

This one of the few interesting tidbits we picked up this weekend from our white water rafting guide Ark (like the boat) from Class VI River Runners during the Odyssey Wild Wonderful 24HR Adventure Race. Other things we learned were that West Virginia is pretty much covered in poison ivy and stinging nettles, and not all things are as easy as they may appear.

The Wild Wonderful would be our second foray into West Virginia in a little over a month and the team was hoping for a much better result than our previous race in the same area. We knew it wouldn’t be easy as the competition would be strong. Teams such as Eastern Mountain Sports, Calleva, and Berlin Bike would all be there vying for a top finish and points in the Checkpoint Tracker series.

Before the race even started we got our first taste of what the competition was bringing. In the pre-race gear check one of the required items was a trowel. Most racers know they will never use a trowel, and subsequently try any number of angles to try to carry the smallest and lightest “trowel” they can. Depending on the race, I’ve seen people get away with a disposable plastic spoon. Not wanting to get caught on a technicality, we usually bring one of these, with the handle cut off. At about an ounce, it’s not too much to carry. So, back to the gear check. The team behind us breaks out their trowel, and I kid you not, they whip out an entrenching tool! Even Ronny the race director said that they should try and find something a little smaller. I’m not sure if they ever did, and I’m impressed if they made it the whole way carrying that hunk of steel.

Just like E-Fix, the race started out with a rafting section down the New River Gorge. Boats were assigned by lottery, with teams starting in one of 4 waves. The later waves would receive time credits so there was no penalty for starting later. Checkpoint Zero drew a spot in the last wave, which was fine by us, because we didn’t have to worry about any teams finishing 5 minutes behind us and beating us on overall time. The challenging part to the rafting wasn’t making our way down the river, we thankfully had guides for that, but rather each team got paired with some of the competition and you had to work together to get to the end of the paddle as fast as possible. We got to share our 8 person raft with a team of soldiers from Ft. Bragg. After we got talking to them, two of the four said they had done this race a while back in Georgia. Turns out they had survived the infamous Checkpoint Zero Adventure race, so at the very least, we knew we could count on them helping us to get to the end of the paddle section.

We managed to finish second in our wave of boats and came to the first TA where we saw a majority of the teams making the transition from rafting to trekking. We made an effort to get in and out quickly, and in that TA alone we probably passed 3/4′s of the teams. Knowing we had a long climb out of the gorge, we set a quick pace up the road and continued to catch teams from earlier waves. By the time we got to the second CP, we had moved into the top 10 overall and were already taking time out of the EMS, Calleva, and Berlin Bike, all of whom started in the first wave.

As we moved onto the trail that took us along the endless wall, we kept our pace strong. At this point we figured we had a little bit of an advantage over some of the teams, as we had just used this trail 5 weeks back, albeit in the other direction. This really came in useful when we came across a CP hanging off the trail, but it was no where near where anything was plotted on our race maps. We quickly realized that the point was left over from E-Fix, and simply hadn’t been taken down after the race. There were several teams with us at that point, and I assured them that this point was not part of the days race and we all continued on to the real CP. Unfortunately there were other teams behind us that hadn’t done E-Fix and ended up punching that flag thinking it was the right one.

We finally climbed our way out of the gorge and made it to Beauty, WV. Beauty was the site of one of the E-Fix TA’s, although this time we found Susanna from Odyssey and our bikes in someone’s front yard. We hadn’t seen anyone biking out yet, but soon saw the three teams ahead of us head out. We had cut a 15 minute gap to less than 5 minutes! In our rush to get rolling, I managed to cut my thumb pretty badly on the lip of a soda can. Fearing the worst, I called out for a bandaid and clutched my hand trying not to bleed all over the place. With out first aid kit in the bottom of one of the packs, our resident Dr. Hobson (Michele) offered up a piece of duct tape which I applied to my wound. I’m sure it wasn’t the most sanitary of dressings, but I figured once the bleeding stopped we could clean it out and dress it properly.

Hopping on the bikes we were in hot pursuit and quickly caught up to Berlin Bike. Unfortunately one of their teammates had gotten some debilitating cramps and had come off the bike trying to ease the pain. Just ahead we caught a glimpse of Calleva, and soon caught up with them. We ended up riding together a bit, chatting and commenting on the beautiful weather we had before parting ways. With only EMS ahead of us we knew we had our work cut out for us, we knew we didn’t have to catch them, but stay within 15 minutes and we’d be in good shape. We were able to track our gap because each CP had a sign in sheet where teams had to sign in and leave a time.

Our bike ride took us north east to the Gauley River NRA, much along the same path as E-Fix. We were to take the same rail trail as we did earlier, to the site of the infamous E-Fix CP5. This is the CP that many teams had trouble finding, several spent 10 hours looking for it. In response to the problems experienced, Odyssey stepped up and provided regular 1:24000 closeups of the area that showed the trails that were not on the main map we were given. Had they done this earlier, E-Fix would have been a different story. But I digress.

Making our way on bike back to Camp Washington Carver, we made the transition to to foot for a trekking section. We had slowly watched EMS start to pull away from us, and by the time we started on foot, they had about a 30 minute lead. Calleva was just behind us, and pushing us hard. The first trekking loop was pretty straight forward, just a long decent back into the gorge and a tough climb back out. At the top of the final climb we started hearing voices, and saw a few cars parked around a cabin. The trail we were on split and one fork took us towards the folks, and the other appeared to go in the direction we wanted to go. As we paused, we were noticed and the people started shouting at us, beckoning us to come over their way. As we got closer we realized they were having a big party complete with a huge bonfire and ample amounts of beer, plenty of which had already been consumed. I think we were quite a spectacle to them, tromping out of the woods decked out with headlamps and spandex. They said that the team ahead of us (EMS) had come through a while ago and that we’d better hurry up and catch them. They offered us a beer and moonshine, and for a moment I actually considered taking them up on their offer. Had we not had the orienteering section ahead of us, I would have for sure.

The last section of the race was an orienteering section, where all the points were optional. We knew that the winning team would have to collect them all and looking at the map before we head out I had roughly estimated 3 hours or so to do just that. Boy, was I wrong. What ensued was the most brutal orienteering course I think I’ve ever done. There were briars, rhododendron, massive logging, and more briars out there waiting to flay the skin from our bones and force us to our knees as we attempted to crawl through them. Starting off in a roughly CCW direction we managed to get two of the points before becoming completely disoriented. We ended up coming across a series of homes tucked away in the woods that were not shown on the map at all. After much deliberation and guesswork, we made it back to the camp and got our bearings. It was here we bumped into EMS who were restocking their packs and getting ready to re-attack the course just like us. The only difference, they had obtained all but 2 points so they were well ahead of us. After we greeted them Chad Denning and pointed to a couple of points on the map and said “this here is really fun.” I thought I caught a bit of sarcasm in Chad’s voice and figured the already difficult course would get worse.

True to the warning, the route got tougher with the addition of a large swamp tossed into the mix of everything we had encountered before. We took some time picking our way around and through it, and were rewarded with another series of steep climbs to get the next couple points. About 2 hours before the sun came up we again got turned around and this time I was fed up. I suggested taking a 2 hour nap before knocking off the rest of the course. The always encouraging team mates of mine convinced me to take one more stab at finding the next point and that was all it took. We got rolling, found our next target, and finished picking up the rest of the points.

We got to the finish line and saw EMS, showered, and packing up their gear getting ready to head out. Before we even “finished” the race we went over to congratulate them on an excellent race and for getting first. Much to our surprise they congratulated us and said they never found the two points they went back out after. We had managed to find the two troublesome points after the sun came up, which certainly made it much easier to spot them and follow the terrain. I know how hard the decision is to stop looking for a point and I can only imagine how close they were and never realized it in the dark.

All in all I have to thank EMS for making us work hard and setting the bar a little higher for us. We also want to thank Calleva for pushing us along, even though just after we saw them the last time one of their team members got violently ill and they were unable to finish the race. Of course I’d also like to thank our generous sponsors, Inov-8, nuun, and Numa Sport Optics for the fantastic support we get from them.