Adventure race on the James, Part II

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Longtime blog readers might remember last October, when I told the tale of my first 24-hour adventure race.
   
My team completed 45 miles of a 100 mile race, and the hardest part was sitting on the bottom of a canoe for five hours as we paddled a stretch of the James River near Buckingham County. (Never let anyone tell you that three people can fit comfortably in a canoe.)

(I didn't bring a camera and couldn't find any good pictures of the race from anyone else)

Well, I was at it again two weeks ago, this time a bit farther west on the James, and the canoe got the best of me yet again.

The Odyssey One-Day adventure race started in New Castle, Va.

New Castle is one of the most remote spots in Virginia, in a county that’s almost half national forest. The lush mountains frame the one-stop-sign main street. The Craig Creek winds 30 or so miles through low-lying farm land until it pours into the James River.

The race started Saturday, but camping out on Friday we got almost no sleep.

The gun went off at 4:30 a.m. And 200 adventurers from up and down the East Cost (I bumped into teams from Florida, Atlanta and Maryland) were off.

After a two-mile jog, biking up and down a 3,000-foot mountain (and by biking, I also mean walking my bike up hills), and hiking to find checkpoints 4 miles apart, my teammate and I got in the canoes.

But before we could push off, we had to strap down our mountain bikes into the canoe. The key was to take off the front tire.

I steered from the back, but when you have your food and your mountain bikes in the canoe with you, the rapids are more stressful than just a summer paddle.

Then the thunder started. And then several canoes passed us. And then I opened my backpack to grab my lunch, a PB&J sandwich. Note to self, in future races make sure Ziploc bags are zipped tightly. Same with the little bags of Wheat Thins. They filled with James River water.

But when you’ve biked for 6 hours, hiked all day and are hitting the 12-hour mark, your brain starts misfiring. Hence eating soggy Wheat Thins that went for a spin cycle in the James.

And a few hours later, I started seeing things in the night. A tree looked like a goblin. The forest road seemed to veer one way but then when I got up close, it clearly went another.

At that point we had been up for two days and were trying to get to the finish line by 4:30 a.m. And we did. We came in third in the coed division after carrying our bikes across one final creek.

Several of the racers also do three- and five-day races. That sounds crazy to me.

But most people think the 24-hour race is crazy.