Team Ragged Glory – Adventure Racing, Multi Sport, Friends

The 2004 Indy AR was once again held at Eagle Creek Park and the surrounding area. Eagle Creek is a great place to play outside with your friends and other like-minded adventure seekers. The weather could only be described as awesome. The water level in the reservoir was pretty low but the lack of any significant wind made the paddling conditions ideal.

Michael Sapper and company once again did an excellent job of designing the course and organizing a well-run AR. A big thank you must also go out to Michael’s wife Debbie for her help and support. I know from experience how important it is to have a supportive spouse when organizing a event like an AR. I must also thank all of the volunteers that made the race possible. Listing the familiar faces that I saw out on the course in no particular order: Michelle Folz, Tom Adams, Greg Grossart, Tony Coulson, Frank Baukert, Paul Sapper, Michael’s brother-in-law Howard, and Michael’s two nieces that sang the national anthem! A few quick words about Frank Baukert: He is always there when you need him! If he is not racing, he is donating his time helping out at the races doing anything that is asked of him. The central Indiana AR community owes a great deal to Frank. I’m sure that there were others that helped out and I apologize for not being able to remember and acknowledge everyone that helped out.

Event sponsorship is another key to providing a quality AR for the participants. I would like to thank the Extreme Outfitters for their involvement in the Indy AR. They were not only involved by sponsoring but I saw them out on the course and at the start/finish area helping out. Co-owner, Jane Burwell and one of her employees were running the canoe put-in/take-out CP. Jane’s husband, Dean Barkley, was busy at the finish line delivering the paddles and PFD’s that had to be transported back to the finish line. They probably did much more that I wasn’t able to see but our team for one really appreciates their involvement in the sport.

I raced as a member of the newly formed Ragged Glory Too (RG2). This team is a offshoot of the veteran AR team from Indy called Team Ragged Glory (TRG). The original TRG was back together and racing with team members Doug Theis, Steve Kincade and Leslie Thompson.

RG2 would be racing together for the first time with team captain Bob Mueller from Westfield, Julie Nor from Wisconsin and myself, Greg Arnold, from Greenfield. Bob and Julie have raced with TRG in a few races. The three of us had never been in a canoe together. Bob and I run with Doug on Wednesday evenings but I had never done any training with Julie. My teammates have raced well in past races and I knew that they were very strong and capable. I had mixed feelings about how well we would do in the race as I had not raced to try to win in over two years. Finishing in the top three seemed possible and would qualify Bob and Julie for the USARA National Championship race.
RG2 planned to arrive individually at Eagle Creek Park at around 1pm for the 3pm start. Maps and course information were to be handed out at 1:30pm. Julie was already at the beach start/finish area, along with TRG, when I arrived at 12:50pm. Bob arrived shortly after 1pm. We busied ourselves with gear preparations until 1:40pm when we picked up our map and course information. It turns out that we would know very little about the course until after the race started. We were only given one set of UTM coordinates to plot for checkpoint #8/9 (CP8/9) where we were in for a “special test”. This CP was located at the southwest end of Eagle Creek Reservoir and was about a 5 mile bike ride from the start area. First we were instructed to report to the start line and were told to bring along the sealed envelope that was given to us with our maps. We knew then that we would be starting on foot for a orienteering (O) segment. At the pre-race meeting we were told that they expected the winning team to finish in about 10 hours, or 1am.
At the starting line we wished our friends and acquaintances well. After a hug and a pep talk from my wife Cathy I was ready to race. Doug Theis led TRG and RG2 in a pre-race prayer and we awaited the start. Race director Michael Sapper informed us that we would be orienteering and would have to find 4 out of 5 orienteering controls. We would be plotting the rest of the coordinates after finishing the first O-segment.

After Michael’s nieces sang the national anthem the start horn was sounded at 3pm. We opened our envelope and found a Eagle Creek East O-map with CP#’s 1 though 5 marked on it. We quickly found the first two CP’s. On the way to the third we realized that we had punched the passport in the wrong box so we ran back to punch in correctly which cost us about a minute. We found the other two CP’s and were back at the start area at CP6, and handed in our passport. The O-segment was about 1 mile long and took us about 9 minutes. At CP6 we were given the balance of the course and UTM coordinates. We plotted the 10 sets of coordinates very carefully and were picking up our passport at CP7 about 17 minutes after we handed it in. At this point we were in second place about one minute behind two time defending champions Global X Racing Pro.

The 5 mile ride to CP8 went well considering it was the first time that the three of us had ridden together. We arrived at CP8 and were told to hand over our passport in exchange for a new O-map of a nature area that I didn’t even know existed. Global X was heading into the woods as we were changing out of our bike shoes into running shoes. As we left our bikes we ran into my friend Jerry Lyons and his team, Global X. He had taken the wrong trail and ended up in a dead heat with us. We ended up navigating together realizing that neither one of us would be able to separate from the other. The course ended up being about 2 and a half miles long. It had a lot of heavy vegetation (fight) that was not indicated on the map and we found it all! The map was an incomplete draft but the O-course was still a lot of fun. We finished the O-course at CP9 and picked up our passport about 50 minutes after dropping it off.

Next were we back on our bikes for a 30 plus mile tour of rural Indiana. Global X took the lead after I made a navigation mistake less than a mile after leaving CP9. It cost us about 2 minutes and Global X was only barely in sight. After about 10 miles we could no longer see them anywhere up ahead. CP’s 10 through 16 took us out near Brownsburg, up through Whitestown and down along the rails to trails through Zionsville. My thoughts at the time were: how far are we behind Global X and, some of the stronger cycling teams should be reeling us in at anytime. We stopped at a water fountain to refill our water bottles which took us about 2-3 minutes. As we were just leaving the water fountain, the team People’s Burn Foundation (PBF) stopped to refill their water bottles. Now the pressure was on. PBF is a great local team that has a reputation for being very fast on their bikes. After finding CP16 in Starkey Park we headed back north on the trail and met PBF on their way to CP16. I judged that we had about a 2 minute lead over them at that point. Our next CP was the canoe put-in site just off of Lafayette Road, north of the bridge over Eagle Creek.

Somehow we beat PBF to the canoe put-in, CP17, by about five minutes. Here we found out that we were in first place. It was now 6:35pm and we had been racing for 3 hours and 35 minutes. Global X had not arrived yet and must have had some type of trouble out on the bike course. At this point in the race I did not expect to be the hunted and was not looking forward to having PBF and Global X breathing down our necks. However, Bob and Julie appeared to be very relaxed which made me fell a lot better and helped me to stay focused. The canoe course was essentially two out and back loops. The first loop had us heading upriver to the 86th Street bridge, CP18. The creek was very shallow and we had to get out of the canoe 6 or 7 times to pull and/or carry the canoe to deeper water. Looking back several times I could see PBF was still a few minutes behind us. At the bridge we turned around and headed downriver towards the canoe put-in site. Along the way we passed PBF, Global X (in third place, about 10 minutes back) and two other teams as they were headed for the bridge. Global X looked very strong and it was getting dark. I wondered if we would be able to hold the lead until the canoe take-out.

CP19 was on the west bank of the reservoir a couple of miles south of the canoe put-in. It was much easier to get into a rhythm paddling in the open water even though it was shallow here as well. In a one mile stretch we had three fish jump into our canoe! They weren’t keepers so we threw them back in. When we arrived at CP19 we quickly dumped the water out of the bottom of the canoe. We had at least 5 gallons of water in the boat due to accumulation from getting in and out so many times in the shallow water. CP20 was our next destination and it was about 2 miles back north to the canoe put-in/take-out site. As we headed north we could see the headlamps of PBF coming our way. It appeared that we had gained a few minutes on them and several minutes later we saw Global X heading towards us. We saw two more teams who were in fourth and fifth place before we made it to the take-out at CP20 just after 8:30pm.

After changing back into bike shoes we were ready for the short 3 and a half mile ride over to CP21 which was the start of the orienteering section on the Eagle Creek West map. CP21 was actually the same location as CP19 which was the southern end of the canoe course. This CP was dutifully manned by Tony Coulson and Frank Baukert. We spent a few minutes changing shoes and preparing for a few hours of playing in the woods which happens to be one of my favorite pastimes! We were desperately trying to get deep into the woods before any other teams arrived. After turning over our passport, Tony gave us the orienteering map and clue sheet. We would have to find 12 control points in order with an interesting twist. Five of the controls were “split” and marked A and B. This meant that we had an option on five occasions to go after either the A or B control. The order that we attacked them in was 1,2B,3,4B,5,6,7B,8A,9,10,11B and 12.

Heading to control #1 we crossed an open field and had to cross the trail that we had just ridden on to arrive at the O-start. Expecting PBF to arrive at any moment I was watching for their headlamps and we saw them coming down the trail. We turned our headlamps off and waited in the dark for them to pass by. From there we headed to our attack point that was about 100 meters from control #1 and found it with no problem. After finding the control, nature called and one of us who will remain nameless had to take care of something and it cost us 3-4 minutes. On our way to control #2B we saw PBF heading towards us and we waited again with our headlamps off, this time in a dry creek bed, until they passed by on their way to control #1. At control #6 we crossed a big open area at the Eagle’s Crest and we did not spot any headlamps behind us so I knew that we had at least a 5 minute lead. It was then that we realized if we didn’t make any mistakes we had a great chance at winning the race. The rest of the O-course was pretty straight forward and we found all of the controls without much trouble except #8A which took us about 5 minutes to find once we were in the control area. After we arrived at the O-finish we knew that the only thing that could beat us would be a bike accident or flat tire on our ride to the finish line. Our night-O time was 2 hours and 2 minutes and we were back on our bikes at 11:06pm.

Our 5 and a half mile ride to the finish line was fun but uneventful. As I glanced over my shoulder while we crossed the 56th Street causeway I didn’t see any other teams headlamps so I knew we had the race in hand. Crossing the finish line in first place with Bob and Julie in our first race as a team was pretty exciting. It was a pleasure racing with them and I couldn’t have asked for better teammates. Our official finishing time was 11:33pm, 8 hours and 33 minutes after the start. Not bad considering the estimated winning time was 10 hours!

Global X finished second, 13 minutes after we did and PBF finished 27 minutes after Global X at 12:13am. Bob and Julie were going to wait around for our friends of Team Ragged Glory to finish but I needed to get back home to Greenfield. I waited around for my paddle and PFD to be transported back to the finish and left for home at 12:30am. I was showered and in bed by 1:45am with the alarm set to go off at 8:00am. I had promised to help move furniture from Greenfield to Brownsburg and this was my last “special test” of the weekend. Adventure racing beats living in the real world every time. Oh, and TRG finished at 4:12am in ninth place. I love those guys.