Having been raised in NY, but spent much of my adult working life in the south, I’ve not had a chance to do any adventure racing in the north east. When Eastern Mountain Sports approached me to join them at Untamed I jumped at the opportunity, not only to race in a new area of the country, but with some of the best and most experienced racers I have the pleasure of knowing.

The race started with paddles on a series of lakes connected with portages of varying difficulty. We got off to a reasonably quick start, and got off the first lake in about 15th place, but a quick transition to portage mode, we passed most of the teams as they struggled to load boats onto wheels and balance gear. The first portage turned particularly heinous very quickly, turning from a nice paved road to a hiking trail I’d be hard pressed to ride my mountain bike on. Trees were so close together in places the boats had to be tilted sideways to get through. In others, we had to lift them over stumps, through mud, up and down over steep embankments. Nothing like starting a 3 day race with a red lined heart rate.

Water pouring from the dam we were let across

Patsy sleeps on a ride

I had some wee company on my Saturday bike ride this week. My daughter, Patsy, 2, was a little more relaxed that I was as we pedaled our Atlanta neighborhood route. I was sweating while she was sleeping.

At one point I glanced back to see why she was so quiet. I saw her snoozing. Then it hit me — the key to our sleep strategy in next week’s adventure race in Costa Rica.

We can just bring three bikes and a trailer along on the night rides. Then take turns sleeping in the trailer while somebody pulls it. That way we can keep moving! Of course, Peter and Paul H. are probably too big, so it looks like Jenn and I will be the only ones sleeping this race. I think we can fit.

Now, how to pack that trailer on the plane …?

- Paul C.

Every team needs a mascot, and for this year’s Untamed New England adventure race the mascot has been found. During a last  minute training ride this Sunday, Jennifer Shultis and I came across this lonely fellow just looking for some adventure.  He was one of a small tribe of castaway misfits at a roadside yard sale, and with very little persuasion we got him for free and we knew we were going to show him the time of his life.

We realize he hasn’t trained much for this race, and may not even make it the whole way,  but rest assured, he’s promised us he won’t complain at all, no matter what happens. If only I could say the same for myself.

Stay tuned for updates at the Untamed New England web site, the action starts Thursday at 11:30 AM with some paddle orienteering and and a 35 mile paddle leg.

After three days of racing, ImONPoint’s Jennifer Moos took home the womens title of Ultimate XC Full Solo Champion. Australian Lucy Eykamp was second.

The mens award ceremony was long complete before I got to the line and I don’t think the results have been posted online yet.

As I sit at home in my own bed, waiting for the muscles to heal, I can safely say that the last three days have been some of the most physically challenging I’ve ever faced. For anyone who wants to truly challenge themselves physically and mentally, this race is the place to do it. I can’t say I want to go back and try again right now, but check the start list next year and I might have forgotten the pain and suffering and be willing to give it another try, who knows.

Even though the first 70 km was not so bad, there was plenty of bad stuff to go. This shot is of one typical part  of the 1+ hour climbs that took us from bottom to top.I’m sure the guys who finished several hours ahead of me rode the whole thing, but I was on and off the bike quite a bit. My stomach was still hurting from the night before and I was trying to eat and drink as much as I could, but it’s hard to keep up in an event like this. Just try to eat 5000 calories in a day, but make it all gels, pb&j, bananas and oranges. Not that easy is it?

The gnarlier sections of uphill I didn’t even stop to photograph. My arms and legs were so tired I just wanted to get it over with. If you want to see those sections, check out this video from the race director. We went up and down those trails, giving the entire body a workout trying to maneuver the bicycle around all the obstacles. Ordinarily, I’d have thought that the ride wasn’t actually that bad, as a one day event. But as the final leg of this three day suffer fest, it was brutal.

The last day of the Ultimate XC brought the most fear with it. We’d survived the previous two days of torture, and the finish line was only 100 km away. The day started on some brilliant single track on private property that burned up the first 25 km of the day. If I hadn’t have been so tired from the run and paddle, I would have been a bit more aggressive with my pace, but I knew the last 30 km was to be the hardest and had to save something. Luckily, the first 70km or wasn’t too terrible, there were even a few flat spots that were used to connect the maze of cross country skiing, snowmobiling, and single track.

As I started the last 7 kilometer downhill I was caught, and promptly passed by Jen Shultis. She was on a mission to catch the female just ahead of her, which she was able to do. I think Jen finished 4th woman of the day, and first among the full solo women. She may have been able  to put enough time into the Aussie girl to take over first place, but we’ll have to find out tomorrow for certain.

Tomorrow’s bike rise will be absolutely hellish. We ran, or shall I say walked, sections where the 56k run overlapped the bike course, and there is going to be a ton of hike a bike. I didn’t talk with anyone who was actually l ooking forward to hopping on a bike as this run took a lot out of everyone.

Check out more photos from the day here.

Believe it or not, the run actually went through here. For several long sections of the course we were bushwhacking through areas just like this, no trail except what got trampled down. The course was very well marked with flagging tape the yellow arrows seen above. Over all it was a very scenic, but difficult course, going up and down the mountain 4 times (~900 meters elevation each time) which meant slow climbs and quad pounding downhills. The top finishers completed it in about 6:30. Allen, Jen Shultis, myself, and Jen Moos finished in that order between 8:40 and just over 9 hours.

Today’s 56k run quickly lead us to the river run section. It was a couple kilometers long and started by the racers plunging waist deep (on me) into a cold mountain stream. The stream got shallower and turned into the shallow rocky creek shown above. We were told we had to run up the creek, not on the side, or face strict penalties. For some, this was the toughest part of the race, for others like myself it was a highlight.

We had 4 portages today, the shortest being about 100 meters. The next two were 250-350 meters. Jennifer Moos is  shown above negotiating her boat on the longest of the three short portages. The longest portage of the day was a claimed 3.5 km (with a disclaimer of “If it’s 5.2km, $#!% happens.”). Luckily our boats were transported for us on the long one. The little run between lakes gave us a taste of what we will see tomorrow, steep climbs, heavy undergrowth, wet rocks, roots, not unlike what we’d see in north Georgia.

At the end of the day, Allen McAdams finished in 2nd  place, less than a minute down. Jennifer Moos was the second female in, less than 10 minutes back. Jennifer Shultis of EMS was 3rd woman in, another 10 minutes or so back. Me? I was over an hour behind Allen, which for me was my goal for the day.

Check back tomorrow for photos and stories from the 35+ mile run.

Poor borrowed boat…After paddling 9k across a scenic lake, racers entered a narrow river filled with dead fall, sandy bottoms, rocky shoals, and some true rapids consisting of classes I-III.  At the first rapid, as Allen McAdams was about to drop in, he was distracted  by a French speaking man waving and shouting frantically atop a boulder along river right.  Unfortunately, this caused Allen to high side a large rock on river left, capsize, and lose all his food-and nearly his bladder filled with clean Canadian water.  Upon coming up for air, a plastic wave hopper pressed his head under again and put his backside firmly on a large rock in the midst of the rapid.  The bilge pump was actuated, and within five minutes of arm cramping pumping, Allen was back in the race, having dropped several places from the lead.  Next time, he may consider wearing a helmet.

It was and early start, 4:30 AM, but all smiles this morning before we started the paddling section on Day 1 of the Ultimate XC. With a claimed 34 miles of paddling ahead, we new it was going to be a tough day. At the race  briefing the night before the race director said “Anyone who knows me knows I’m not good with distances” so we weren’t really sure if that was an accurate estimate or not. After the day was done, several folks with GPS’s measured 40 miles. I hope the distances for the run and the bike aren’t off by that much.

The late afternoon brought a stiff breeze towards the Tremblant village. Along with the wind, 1 foot rolling waves turned the lake into a challenging venue for testing out the borrowed and rented boats. I could barely hold myself steady while Allen powers through the waves trying to surf towards the beach. Meanwhile, the kite boarders were carving large arcs back and forth enjoying what I would only presume to be great conditions for a wind powered sport. Many thanks to my sister Karina for letting Allen borrow her boat, and for EMS friend, and sometimes foe ;-) Jennifer Shultis for bringing it to us.

See more photos from Day Zero here.

Before any boats are allowed onto the lake they must be washed to prevent foreign invasive species from getting into the beautiful lakes in the area. Five minutes with a pressure washer seems to do the trick.

After an adventurous journey to Mont Tremblant we woke this monring and found our way to registration. Driving in we saw a huge banner along side the road advertising the race. Most normal folks have only signed up for one of the three events, or possible the hafh challenge. Only the truly nutty, such as myself, have signed themselves up to torture themselves for three days and over 160 kilometers.

Charlie Kharsa, Matt Hayes, Mari Chandler, and Kyle Peter of Team Tecnu Extreme/StaphAseptic were off to Covington Virginia for the 2010 Equinox Traverse 2 day adventure race.  Looking at the course layout and number of CP’s (19 mandatory, and 21 optional) the night before the race, Kyle predicted we would finish within 36 hours.   We talked to the course director Chris Caul and he predicted the winning time to complete the entire course would be about 40 hours, we wanted to prove him wrong.  This race was unsupported and with the exception of paddling gear, we had to carry everything we would need for the entire race from start to finish.   We were a little concerned about the 83+ degree temperature and 90% humidity, but it would be the first race this year that we would not be freezing cold and wet at any point which would be a nice change of pace.

The race started with a 30-k bike ride.  Unfortunately after fixing a flat tire we over shot the 2nd CP and spent about 1.5 hours looking for it and re-attacking the point.  The CP was ‘optional’, but knowing we needed every point to win it was not optional for us to skip.  Kyle and Matt worked well together and were able to finally get us to the control and we were back on our bikes, slightly frustrated, and in last place motivated to put the hammer down, and make up the time, and catch the front-runners.

We did catch one team at the final CP before getting to our canoes for a 65-k paddle.  The first half of the paddle section was in Lake Moomaw followed by a 5-k portage down a paved road to the Jackson River for the remaining 28-k.  While we were at the boat takeout we were told we were 1 hour and 53 min behind the lead teams, which was somewhat of a shock as we were not accustomed to being that far off the pace.  We entered the river at 9:30 pm and the warm air mixing with the cold river water created a thick layer of fog over the water which was kind of eerie, and quiet, and we stealthily gained on some teams . We had been told earlier that there were class I rapids down the length of the river.   What would normally be tiny little ‘ripples’ in the water during the day time sounded like raging white water to us in the dark and our headlamps were almost useless in the fog.   But after we ‘survived’ the first few rapids we got comfortable running the river ‘blind’ and learned to navigate the small rocks.   Earlier while on the bikes we had crossed a bridge over the same river and Matt had noticed that there were 2 gnarly strainers on opposite sides of the river hanging out over the water where the water was moving fast.   He reminded us of this which was very helpful and we were able to maneuver around the strainers in the darkness without any trouble.  Unfortunately 2 teams did not do so well, and had caspsized in the fog.   We saw a team standing on shore and we asked them if they were ok, and they said they could not find their boat.  A few seconds later we saw their boat upside down with another team’s boat also upside down and pinned against it into a large rock.   We immediately pulled over to the shore to help them.   20 minutes later we had both boats on shore, and made sure they had all of their gear gathered back up and we were back into our boats and continued on our way feeling good to have helped out some fellow adventurers in need.    Shortly after 1 a.m. we left the river and were off for a 25-k trek.  We knew we had our work cut out for us as we were still 2 hours behind and were all motivated to let fly our feet and close the gap.   We set a strong pace throughout the night working very well together, and by day light we had passed several teams and at the next TA we were told we were only 25 minutes behind EMS and ImOnPoint, the 2 lead teams.

After fixing another flat tire, we were back on the bikes and with our spirits high we hammered out the next 25-k bike section.  We caught sight of EMS on an out and back section and knew we had closed the gap a bit more. We were now back in the hunt for the win, and we were excited to be racing once again.  At the next TA we were able to unload some weight out of our packs as the this section was a 10 point optional orienteering section and we would be returning to the same area to pick up our bikes and gear again.   With the heat of the day coming on strong, and starting to take its toll on all our competitors, we took off on the O course about 10 minutes behind EMS and ImOnPoint had not checked in as of yet.  Kyle’s spot on nav and great route choice brought us back to our bikes with all 10 points and into the lead. We would NOT relinquish this lead, and wanted to push hard and stretch it out a bit.  We were in the home stretch but it wasn’t over yet and we transitioned quickly and were off on our bikes.  We had 28-k to go with 3 CP’s and a monster 3000′ foot climb ahead of us to the last CP at a look-out tower high up on the ridge and then a short rappel right as the sun was setting.  What a beautiful sight and a welcome, albeit short respite off our feet.  Once we finished the rappel we had a short hike back up to our bikes and were off for the final 25-k to the finish.

We hammered the final stretch, and we finished the race at 10:13 pm, with a race time of just over 36 hours (as predicted by Kyle…..) and our first win of the season after so many trips to the podium, finally a first.  Yeah Tecnu Extreme/StaphAseptic!  We had a great time at this event and take great pride in our ability to work well together as a team despite having a terrible start, and having to recover, we were able to rally and push on for the win.   Thanks to Doug and Chris for putting on a great race.  Thanks to EMS and the other east coast teams for great competition. As one of only two 4-person co-ed teams to complete the course, we are excited by the way the team is gelling going into the second half of the season.  We are fit, experienced, and have some great races ahead.  We are looking forward to seeing you at there Tahoe Big Blue in july and the Untamed Adventure race later in the season.  It’s going to be a epic battle.

First class that is. With a minor scare about being delayed, it turn out that our flight was oversold. We didn’t have seats but we did take them up on American Airlines offer to reroute us. We are delayed a couple hours but scored first class seats the whole way.

If nothing else, we’ll score some free drinks on the way.