Land Between the Lakes-18 Hours

 

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 16^th. 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 5^th 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 2^nd in our division behind Team Alpine Shop and 3^rd 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 2^nd and Bill Langton’s team on 3^rd 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.