We had so much fun racing together at the last Castlewood
8hr Adventure Race in December, that my adventure racing team, Off the Front Racing, decided to put several races on our calendar for the year. Land Between the Lakes was our next adventure
race and was held in Kentucky on February 16th. This was an 18 hour
non-stop adventure race put on by Bonk Hard Racing which consisted of orienteering with map and compass on
foot, mountain bike, and canoe on the largest inland peninsula in the United States with over 170,000 acres of land. The race director, Gary Thompson, informed us a
few weeks before there would probably be no way you could finish the course
early and to plan on being out there the whole 18 hours. To me, this meant
there was going to be at least one section that had so many checkpoints (CPs) to
get that it might be impossible to get them all.
The Team
I feel it is so important to be on a team with folks who you
really enjoy spending a lot of time with and share the same competitiveness you
do. These qualities are different for
everyone and every team. For me, I like to race with folks who are competitive,
funny, and are team players. The longer the race, the more important these
qualities are to me. My teammates, Zdenek
Palecek, Todd Dohogne, and Dave Hagen, are all super strong athletes, very
competitive, and so fun to be with. Zdenek is really good with reading the land
and navigating so he was our lead navigator for the race. All four of us can
navigate too and were ready to put our head in the maps to help if needed. All three boys are super strong, smart, and racing machines!
Pre-race
We arrived the day before and stayed at the Kentucky Lake
Dam Village where race headquarters were. We spent the day before preparing our
packs, gear, and food for the race.
However, we had no idea what the leg orders were yet and the length of
time we would be out there before seeing food and water again. I decided to
carry all my own personal gear and not give it to the boys unless needed. We
had a bike tow set up on Dave’s bike and body tows for the runs if needed.
Mandatory team gear was dispersed among the boys.
Where did all of our time go? Before we knew it, it was time for a little dinner and the pre-race meeting at
7pm. I always try to be prepared at pre-race meetings by bringing paper, pencil, and race info. I knew by the time we left the meeting, it would leave us little time to plot maps and perfect our gear/food
before we had to be at the race start. But, whoever really sleeps the night
before an adventure race anyway?
Gary handed out 2 USGS maps to every team. He then announced
the checkpoints could be done in any order and my any mode of travel with the
exception of 3 checkpoints that must be done by canoe. Wow…of all the adventure
races I have done, I have not seen this idea before. I loved it!
Once we were released from the meeting, we quickly headed
back to the lobby where big tables were to begin plotting the 45 checkpoints
and decide our strategy to get them. We
thought about our strengths and figured out a good plan to attack them. We were
awake almost till 1:00 AM with alarms set at 3:30 AM in order to pack up and to
be race-ready at start at 5:00 AM.
The Race
We had about a 15 minute drive to the bike drop and another
5-10 minute drive to the race start. It was a chilly start with temps in the
mid-20s and highs in the 30s for the day. One of the racers did an incredible job singing the National Anthem
and then, the race started.
We started off on foot with our running shoes on and bike
shoes in our packs. We knew we wouldn’t see water and food again till the
afternoon so packs felt heavy at the start. Our first two checkpoints weren’t as smooth as
we wanted. We saw a few other lead teams perhaps making the same mistakes. Once
our nerves settled, it seemed like we started getting into a groove. We arrived at the bike drop and transitioned
into our bike gear and shoes. We quickly
took off hoping to gain some time back since we feel our strength is on the
bike.
We arrived at the canoe put in and we were greeted by
Suzanne Renner and Jackie Dozier who are awesome women from St. Louis I know
who came to volunteer. I normally will choose to use kayak paddles in the canoe
if we are given the option. However, we felt it would be more of a hassle to
carry our kayak paddles the whole race and decided to use the canoe paddles the
race provided. The winds on the water were ripping from the North at 10-15 mph
with gusts up to 20-25mph. Two coast guard boats were on the water to look
after racers. We took off immediately into strong side winds and large swells which
felt like we were on white water. I was getting pretty wet in the front of the
boat which left my hands freezing even with 2 pairs of gloves on. Luckily, Todd, who was
doing an incredible job steering the back of the boat through the brutal
conditions, had an extra pair of awesome Craft Siberian gloves which saved my
hands. I loved them so much I purchased a pair for myself after I got home. 
We nabbed the mandatory paddle checkpoints and grabbed 2
additional points which were close to shore. We felt this would save us time
later trying to grab them by bike or foot. After portaging our canoe over a road and into a pond to grab the 5th point, we decided to put the
canoes over our heads and carry them approximately a mile down a paved road back to our canoe drop. We figured this would be quicker than battling the head
winds back up the lake to get there. This was probably the hardest part of the
race for me. Those canoes with our packs on were not light.
We continued back on the bikes trying to quickly grab as
many cps as we could before it got dark. Since we choose to attack these cps
mostly by bike, we would either ride our bikes as close as we could until we
were forced to run into the woods. Sometimes, we even bushwhacked our bikes
through the woods by riding them or pushing them by foot. We finally decided it was inefficient to keep
changing out our running and biking shoes so, we decided to ride with our
running shoes on for most of the race. Maybe putting platform pedals on for this race would
have been a good idea?
Zdenek did a fantastic job with navigation. He was so good
at getting us as close as he could by bike in the middle of nowhere then, we
just had to go another 150-400 meters by foot to nab the cp. Did I mention this was
his first time as primary navigator in an adventure race? Amazing!
We arrived at our food drop later in afternoon and we were
greeted by one of my favorite female adventure racers and friend, Carrie Sona.
She normally races on the Alpine Shop team but, was volunteering due to an
injury. We refueled and then, we were off on our bikes again.
As we approached the evening hours, we realized we were not
going to be able to get all 45 cps. We looked at the maps and came up with a
new strategy to get as many CPs as possible before the cut-off time at 11pm or
18 hours. For every minute late after 11pm, you would lose 1 CP. For example,
if you come in at 11:15 PM you would lose 15 CPs! Since we feel we are faster bikers, we
chose CPs which were closer to roads or single track.
During the night, I was having a lot of problems with my hands
being cold when we were riding on the road sections. I decided at the last minute before the race to not carry the extra weight/bulk and could manage with the 2 lighter
pairs of gloves I had. I didn’t want to
stop to warm them so, I put my fingers in food and bar wrappers I had to
protect them from the wind which seemed to really help.
Around 10:15 PM, we
had to decide if we were going to grab one more CP or head in to the finish
line. We figured the CP would of taken around 15-20 minutes on foot once we got
there. It looked like the single track back to the finish line would take approximately
35-45 minutes. But, what if we got a
flat, mechanical, or took longer finding the CP? We had 31 CPs at this point
and had to make a decision. Would it
change our current standings by getting one more CP or could it destroy
everything we worked so hard for if we were late?
The Finish
We decided wanted a little cushion with time and crossed the
finish line at 10:31 PM with 31 checkpoints. We were greeted by cheering volunteers and cow
bells. We still had no idea how we placed among the other teams in the race at that point
but, I had a good feeling about it. We jumped at the opportunity to join the
hot tub party around the fire pit and devour the tasty warm food Bonk Hard
Racing provided us. We still had over an hour until the awards ceremony so we
climbed into our car with the heat cranking at 90 degrees and fell asleep. We magically
awoke 5 minutes before the awards ceremony and headed over there. 
We were excited to hear
when they announced we placed 2nd in our division behind Team Alpine
Shop and 3rd overall. We were very happy on our placing especially,
since we just started racing together last December. Congrats to Team Alpine Shop and their solid finish collecting 41 of 45 CPs. There were other teams we
knew who also did very well. Congrats to Scott Kiefner’s team on 2nd
and Bill Langton’s team on 3rd in the 8 hour race too. As always, Bonk Hard Racing always has awesome swag to give away.
Afterthoughts
It was such an awesome feeling to cross the finish line with
a team who I feel are incredible athletes and friends. I had such a good time
with them and felt we worked well together. We have been training really hard
together for the past 3 months and will keep pushing for ways to help us get faster and stronger as a
team.
Up next, Todd Dohogne and I will be racing the Innsbrook
Off-Road Triathlon this weekend. This will be a short race for us but, we will
be up against some super-fast triathletes. On March 24th, Todd D., Zdenek, and myself will be heading up to Mt
Carroll, IL for the Lightning Strikes 8 Hour Adventure Race. This
will be a qualifier for USARA Nationals which will be held in beautiful Brown
County, Indiana this year.
