Team Ragged Glory – Adventure Racing, Multi Sport, Friends

Planet Adventure posted the results of the 2012 10 and 30 Hour races, and Team Ragged Glory placed first overall. We were the only team to hit every single checkpoint on the course before the deadline. I had a great time with Bob, Julie and Nancy. Thanks to Planet Adventure for the tough course.

Heather’s race report is hysterical!

http://heathersyapcrap.blogspot.com/2012/05/planet-adventure-challenge-30-hour-ar.html

Because too much adventure racing is never enough, I mapped out each leg of our ten hour race using Runkeeper:

Paddle

http://runkeeper.com/user/runrep/activity/85388984

Trek

http://runkeeper.com/user/runrep/activity/85749217

Mountain Bike

http://runkeeper.com/user/runrep/activity/85752718

Road Bike

http://runkeeper.com/user/runrep/activity/85753662

Tell City, Indiana. The place where a Northwest Airlines plane crashed in 1960. The place where, in 2007, the most brutal Planet Adventure 30 Hour Challenge took place. Reading the location of the 2012 Planet Adventure Race conjured up a cramp in my stomach. What were we getting ourselves in to? The answer: brambles, endless poison ivy, the remnants of a forest fire, and a rappel into a gravel pit, mountain biking, road riding, and huge amount of fun.

Julie Nor, Bob Mueller, Nancy Gawrys and I (Doug Theis) planned to race together. I like racing with four; it helps keep the team dynamic positive and it puts an extra set of eyes on the team. Julie and Nancy had not raced together, but the four of us had been racing with each other as Team Ragged Glory in different combinations since 2004. The 30-hour event and the 10-hour event were to be held on the same weekend for the 12th edition of this great Midwest adventure race. That meant one less race in our 2012 schedule. We decided to do the 10-hour course.

The weather forecast was all over the place and kept changing in the week leading up to the race. Race day we expected strong storms, a low of 54 and a high of 70. It would turn out to be a little different from what we had planned.

Saturday morning, we packed our bags at the hotel in Tell City and headed to the start line at Mano Point on the Ohio River in Derby, Indiana. At 8am, we received the maps and the race directions. The race would begin at 10 am play out as follows:
• Short paddle
• Huge trek/orienteering section with a rappel
• Mountain bike
• Another Trek
• Bike roads to the finish line

There was a hard cutoff of 8 pm, or ten hours of racing. Teams would lose one checkpoint for every minute they arrived after 8 pm.

At the pre-race meeting, after we were briefed on the race, Nancy announced to the group that it was Bob’s 52nd birthday. All the racers collectively sang Happy Birthday to Bob.

We planned, marked maps, dropped bikes and readied ourselves for the race. Nancy would carry the passport, Bob would navigate, and I would manage the race directions. Nancy and I would be in one canoe, and Bob and Julie would be in the other. It seemed warm, but we all packed plenty of clothing, expecting strong storms and a wet race.

The gun sounded at 10:06 am. The temperature was 61 degrees. We grabbed our canoes, and put them in the Ohio River. We paddled on the Ohio for 200 meters, long enough to get to Little Oil Creek and paddle upstream. Race Director Mike Garrison eliminated paddling checkpoint CP1 from the race, so we skipped the originally planned portage, picked up a punch at CP2, and paddled to the take out at TA1. This first leg took us a little less than two hours.

Looking at the map, the first trekking section didn’t look too challenging; seven controls in a hilly wooded area about 2 miles wide by 3 miles long. We had to swim back across the Little Oil Creek about half a mile into the trek, wearing our PFDs . The temperature was 73 degrees, much warmer than we expected. The sun was shining and there was no sign of rain.

But as soon as we crossed the creek, the brambles got thicker. We crossed a large area where there had been a forest fire, climbing over burned fallen timber, slowing us down even further. But the control placements were cool. CP4 was down under an overhang in a deep reentrant, only visible from Nancy’s point of view as we passed it. CP6 was hanging from a tree accessible only by climbing a 20 foot boulder. We were all bleeding from the brambles that seemed to be everywhere. Poison ivy looked like carpet. We found the fourth of seven controls in the trek section and headed to the rappel at CP9 on the edge of an old gravel pit.

Skirting the north edge of the gravel pit was rough going. We shared the trail with Brian Schaffer’s 30 hour team JAMBS and arrived at the ropes together. We were the first 10 hour team to the rappel! Great news, but there was plenty of race left. Going down the ropes was fun, but the snake grass, the heat and the crazy hills at the bottom of the excavation started to take their toll on my body. The temperature had risen to 80, and the air was still and humid. I was heating up fast and the climb out of the gravel pit took most of what I had. Nancy, Bob and Julie all gave me a little helpful advice and kept me going as we headed towards the final control in the trekking section.

All along the course we had seen fellow 10 hour team Dude Where’s My Car. As we approached the final trekking point CP10, we approached from the high ground, and Dude approached from the low ground, converging at the same reentrant. Neither team could find the control. The area was overgrown and there were multiple small parallel reentrants that al looked the same. Bob and I decided to reset from the trail and take one more run at it before skipping it and heading to the bike transition at TA2. When we got back to the area, Dude had done the same thing, resetting from the low ground. We were again in the same area. Julie decided to check one more reentrant and found the control. We punched CP10 and headed to the bike transition. The temperature was holding steady at 80.

We got back to the bikes, refilled our water containers, ate a little and changed out of the long pants that had heated us up but protected us from the poison ivy. The next section was a mountain bike leg that was being cut short to just two controls, CP 12 and CP 16, roughly six miles total. The race directors also were cutting the second trekking section because the first trek was so difficult it had taken more time than estimated. Also, the cutoff rule was changed so that teams arriving late would only lose a maximum of two checkpoints. So a team that wanted to complete the course would have that option, albeit in the dark.

So all we had to do was finish six miles of mountain biking and about 12 miles of road riding, picking up a total of four more controls along the way to the finish line. We left everything that wasn’t mandatory at TA2, and headed out to the Mogan Ridge Bike Trails. The trails were a combination of single track, fire roads, gravel roads and horse trails. We had plenty of downhill and big rocks to negotiate. We kept moving and saw Team Wales as we picked up CP16. One of my great joys is seeing our friends racing with us side-by-side on the course. Wales’ Dana Fielding and Dave Tanner are old friends; they were the only team on the course with a higher average age than Team Ragged Glory. We old racers stick together. As we finished the mountain bike trails, we picked up our gear at TA2/TA3, and rode out for the final bike leg. We spoke to Aaron and Chase of Dude; they had failed to find either mountain bike checkpoint. If we could pick up the final two controls and finish the race, we had a good chance of finishing first!

The final twelve miles of the race was relatively flat with a couple of big climbs. The temperature had dropped 9 degrees in first part of the ride. The wind seemed against us. Bob towed me, then Nancy, helping both of us to recover as we picked up the final two bike controls and headed back to Mano Point and the finish line. In the final few miles, we passed Dude and another team. We finished with 45 minutes to spare, the only team to gather all the controls on the course.

Here are some comments about the race from the team.

Bob: The swim was great; at first it felt bad and then it was refreshing. I’m glad we went after CP 10 again and ended up getting it. All in all, it was an awesome birthday!

Julie: I loved the CP6 on the boulder and Nancy’s climbing skills to go and get it. Bob’s navigating skills were once again impeccable. Love the fellowship of the trail with TRG and also the teams we bump into.

Nancy: I always love the water, and in this race the creek swim was cool. I loved the fact that we reset on CP10 and found it.

As for me, I’m proud to have teammates who are friends. They helped me when I was weak. We race well together because we are friends. We win because of great navigators like Bob Mueller.

The biggest thanks go to Planet Adventure and the race directors, John Farless, Mike Garrison, and John McInnes, and all the volunteers. Even though the volunteer pool was small, the group pulled off a great race.

Variable forecasts, poison ivy, brambles and a monster trek section didn’t hold Team Ragged Glory back from finishing the 2012 Planet Adventure 10 Hour Challenge. The course was the toughest sprint race we’ve ever done; 1.5 hour paddle, about 5 hours in the woods on foot, and another 2 hours on the bike.

Photo by Arbors Edge

Thanks to John Farless, Mike Garrison, John McInnes and all the volunteers for continuing this amazing and historic Indiana adventure race. We’ll post more shortly!

Nancy Gawrys, Bob Mueller, Julie Nor and I (Doug Theis) are registered for the 10 hour Planet Adventure race in Tell City Indiana on April 28. We look forward to seeing our racing friends again soon! We’re training every Saturday and Sunday at 7:30 am out at Fort Harrison in Indy. Times may vary, so call me if you’re thinking of joining us.

Come join Team Ragged Glory help the Hoosier Mountain Biking Association January 14, 8:30 am, at the Lawrence Creek Trailhead in Fort Harrison State Park.

If you haven’t been on the Fort Harrison bike trails, you’re in for a huge treat. Mike Hufhand, trail boss, has coordinated the construction some of the best trails in Central Indiana.

We’re running from the same trailhead at 7:30, if you’re looking for a little exercise before the exercise.

See you Saturday!

Nancy Gawrys, Bob Mueller and I (Doug Theis) are running the Dino Series Tecumseh Trail Marathon on December 3. Saturday with trained with friends Phil and Kim McNealy and Eric Henricks, running both 10 mile loops at Morgan Monroe State Forest. The weather was nearly perfect. If you’re considering doing the Tecumseh, it’s sold out. Sorry for the bad news. Many of our adventure racing friends are running, including Paula Pearson, Rachel Moir, and Mike Garrison.

Looking forward to running in the woods with my friends.

My favorite diversion is adventure racing. A group of friends and I have been doing adventure races since 2001 as Team Ragged Glory. This year we did four races and finished well in each :

Planet Adventure Urban Sprint – 1st overall
Planet Adventure 30 Hour Challenge – 6th overall
Planet Adventure Urban Sprint Race – 2nd all male division
Indianapolis Adventure Race – 3rd overall

Our success this year was due to a combination of factors: experience, navigation skills and good team dynamics. It’s the people that are the key ingredient to the fun we have every year. I raced with some incredible teammates in 2011:

Eric Henricks – Exceptional navigator, calm thinker, great all-around athlete. Eric knows how to lead.
Dave Tanner – Endurance legend, incredible swimmer, cyclist and navigator. Dave is kind, gentle, and relaxed during every race.
Nancy Gawrys – Energetic, positive, focused, competitive and fun. Nancy is probably the best athlete on the team, and the easily the most fun.

More of the blog post from Doug Theis at DougTheis.com

by Doug Theis
September 25, 2011

Team Ragged Glory loves the Indy Adventure Race. We’ve raced it every year since 2001. We’ve seen it go from a grass roots two-course event created and run by Greg Arnold to an charity fundraiser with a single course run by Michael Sapper and Indy Rootstock.

This year, TRG was made up of Nancy Gawrys, Bob Mueller, and me. Bob had planned to do four races this year, but an unexpected hernia surgery cut him back to just this one.

An adventure race consists of many teams navigating through a course that is unknown until shortly before the race. Most races include mountain biking, paddling, and navigating on foot. Teams must travel together as a unit visiting each checkpoint along the way. The teams use race-provided course description and maps to understand the course, plan routes and navigate. The passport is the most critical document. The passport is a waterproof small sheet of paper with grid of squares, one for each checkpoint. Each team carries a passport and uses a unique paper punch at each checkpoint to punch the passport and prove that they completed the course.

We received the course description, three maps and our passport at 7:15 am.

We also received a sealed envelope with instructions not to open before the race began.

Our team is good at navigation, paddling and fast transitions. We looked over the course description. A few details of the course were on our mind:

• We would not return to the start/finish line until the end of the race, so we needed to carry everything we needed.
• The first section would split teams up briefly, which is unusual in an adventure race. We would send one teammate (Bob) to an unknown point with a phone. A sealed envelope with a map remained with us. When the starting gun sounded, we would open the envelope, call Bob and direct him to three points on the map from the envelope, so he could punch the passport at each control before returning to us. We would need to be fast if we wanted to get out in front of the pack.
• The next navigation section on foot was the longest on-foot section of the race. Doing well in this section would be critical to finishing well overall.
• The paddle section at Geist was longer than usual, somewhere around five miles.
• The stop at Sunnyside Elementary would likely be using the ropes course there.
• We would ride the new mountain bike trails at Fort Harrison near the end of the race.

We marked our maps with the routes we would take between points.

Nancy wrote the clues from the course description on the passport and we were done with our navigation planning.

Each racer on Team Ragged Glory has a different role. Nancy would carry the passport and punch each checkpoint or write down the answers. Bob would carry the maps and navigate. I would carry the race directions to double-check clues and keep an eye on the overall course.

We packed our gear, Bob went with the group to the unknown starting point, and we waited for the starting gun.

The gun sounded, Nancy and I called Bob. The race directors had taken them to the middle parking lot north of the sledding hill at Fort Harrison. We described to him where the points were and he ran to each point and punched the passport.

We were able to direct Bob fairly quickly, and he made it back to us in just a few minutes. Bob gave the passport to Nancy and we headed out on the bikes.

We rode for about five minutes to the first on foot navigation section in the Northwest corner of Fort Harrison. We got to the checkpoint and received the map with the points we needed to get:

Bob picked up the map and we took a clockwise route through the points. We had a couple of misfires on the course, but found all the points quickly. We put this new map in a map case about half way through the loop after it started to disintegrate in Bob’s hands. We grabbed the last few controls, traveling with another team, Shrimp Cocktail, and returned to our bikes to head towards the paddling section.

A twenty minute ride took us to Fall Creek Trail at Geist Reservoir, just west of the dam. The aerial map showed a checkpoint in the woods across Fall Creek. We ran this section, punched at CP-8, and headed out of the south end of the woods section to 79th St. There were two good route choices from that point to the canoe put-in, one via Courageous Drive and the other via 79th St to Sunnyside Rd to Fox Rd. Nancy was familiar with Courageous Drive because it’s in the Geist Half Marathon. She suggested we take the 79th St route, and we ran to CP-9, the canoe put-in.

This year the race provided aluminum canoes with only two seats. The race directors were kind enough to transport all teams’ paddles, lifejackets and team optional third canoe seats to the beginning of the canoe section, so we grabbed our gear and headed for the boats.

After a short special test of team coloring (with crayons, we climbed in canoes and headed out. The paddling section was long, but we were able to see the teams ahead of us. We figured out that we were in fourth place, with Rootstock/Bushwacker in the lead, Kiss My CompASS in second, and Tenacious just ahead of us. We put some distance between ourselves, Dino and Flatlanders on the paddle and held our position with the teams ahead of us. The take out and portage were uneventful, and we climbed back on the bikes for the final big bike leg.

We rode north around Geist Reservoir, punching or recording answers at the checkpoints along the way. After rounding the east side of the reservoir, we headed to a Lutheran Church property near Sunnyside Dr. for a short navigation section. We received another aerial map, took off and punched each of the controls before leaving on the bikes for the ropes course.

The short ride to Sunnyside Elementary put us right on the heels of Team Tenacious. We hit the ropes course and climbed into harnesses for the four-segment zip line course. There was no waiting as we went one at a time through each segment. After finishing, we climbed on the bikes for the final road riding section back to Fort Harrison and the new mountain bike trails.

We entered the mountain bike trails knowing that Tenacious was just a few minutes ahead. The trails form a 3.5 mile loop, and we were told that we would find two punches along the way. We rode steady and I fell behind a little. We punched at one control, then Bob and Nancy caught up with Tenacious, and as soon as I caught up with the group, Tenacious let us by. With less than two miles left in the race and were now in third. Nancy punched the second checkpoint on the bike trail and we headed to the final checkpoint.

The final checkpoint was marked as a special test on the south side of Delaware Lake near the start/finish line. We rode to the south side and realized that the test had been moved to the north side. Thankfully, Tenacious didn’t catch up to us by the time we hit the challenge. Each of the three team members had to paddle a paddleboard out to a log in the middle of the lake and return. One paddle board, three teammates, one at a time. Tenacious showed up as Nancy finished the first leg. I went next, then Bob, and we maintained our lead. We finished, climbed on the bikes and rode the final few hundred yards to the finish, placing third overall and second in the coed division. Congrats to Rootstock/Bushwhacker and Kiss My CompASS for a great race.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this event a great one. A special thanks to those of you who help every year. It’s always a good race, and the course this year was great. And Kudos to Michael and Debbie Sapper, Ryan Burke, Greg Grossart, Dave Kauffman and all the individuals who worked to make this race happen in 2011!