Team Ragged Glory – Adventure Racing, Multi Sport, Friends

All photographs by Gail Henricks. Gail’s full gallery of the race can be found here.

John McInnes and John Farless, course designers of the 2011 Planet Adventure 30 Hour Challenge, stayed true to the original format by staging a single 100+ mile race course for all participating teams. The race’s published start time was “sometime after 9 pm” on Friday night, June 17. The race would continue for 30 consecutive hours into Sunday morning. Disciplines included mountain biking, trekking, paddling canoes and some ropes.

Team Ragged Glory decided early in the year to participate in the event. Our planned team was a threesome including Bob Mueller, Nancy Gawrys, and me. We signed up an invited fellow TRG member Julie Nor to race with us as a foursome. Julie joined up in March. Then Bob Mueller bowed out in April after being diagnosed with a hernia. His surgery was scheduled for the morning of the race. We asked fellow TRG member Eric Henricks if he would take Bob’s place as the navigator, and he agreed. Then, during the week preceding the race, Nancy bowed out with an aggravated IT band and collateral quad problems. She had to make a difficult call, but it was the right one. Rather than look for a fourth team member, the remaining team members decided to race as a threesome: Eric Henricks, Julie Nor, and me.

Past experience told us that a 30 hour course would be somewhere between 90 and 120 miles long. We knew that John McInnes, chief course designer, was a veteran adventure racer and has done many long, unsupported races. We therefore assumed that we would be carrying most everything we needed and that we would probably have little or no access to additional food, water and gear along the way.

This race means a lot to me. My second adventure race ever was the original Planet Adventure 30 Hour Challenge (PA30) back in 2001. TRG has raced in all but one PA30, and we volunteered at the one we missed. We love PA30 because it has always been as a racer’s race. A racer’s race is an event where the cost of entry makes sense, where the course and the event are designed to be fun and challenging for the racers, where an average team has a chance to finish.

On Friday evening, we arrived at Paoli Peaks around 5pm and unpacked.

We received directions and maps at 7:30 pm Friday night and found out that we would begin at midnight. The course was long and heavy on paddling. We read the race directions and plotted the coordinates. The course and our route choices would have us doing these disciplines and distances in this order:

• Paddle about 2 miles
• Trek on foot in the woods roughly 16 miles, hitting 8 checkpoints
• Paddle about 10 miles to Transition Area 1 (TA1)
• Mountain bike around 13 miles
• Rappel down a 150 foot cliff
• Mountain bike another 35 miles, hitting 3 more checkpoints to TA2
• Paddle 4 miles
• Trek on foot another 5 miles, hitting 5 checkpoints
• Paddle 2 more miles to TA3
• Mountain bike18 miles, hitting 3 more checkpoints
• Cross the finish line

We were allowed to tape our bike shoes and helmet to our bikes for transport. We also were allowed to pack a single box of additional gear, food, water and clothing. The race directors would take the bikes to TA1 and the gear to the TA2. We estimated we needed to carry enough food, water and clothing to last us 14 hours until we made it to our gear box at TA2.

The start line was a 45 minute bus ride away from Paoli Peaks at a boat ramp on Patoka Lake. All paddling sections would be on this huge reservoir. We readied our gear and got on the buses at 11pm for the ride to the canoe put-in.

Once we arrived at the start line, we were told that there would be a short swim in PFDs (life vests) to get us started (and wet). The gun sounded, the racers swam, and we jumped into the canoes to paddle two miles to the first trekking/orienteering section. Julie kept an eye on the map while Eric and I paddled. Eric later said that Julie’s help was hugely important; it helped us make sure we that didn’t commit any early navigational errors in the dark on the water.

For the first trekking section, the checkpoints we had to visit were on a huge plot of land separated by a wide creek. We decided to split the section into two loops connected by a short paddle. We had a little trouble with the first control, so we decided to catch it on the way back. Eric immediately dialed in and we found all eight checkpoints like clockwork. At about 3 am the lightning and rain rolled in and it stormed continuously for about four hours. Our route covered eighteen miles, enough distance that we hiked into the dawn. The storms delayed the first light of day, but when it finally came, it brought new life to each of us.

After finishing the first trekking section, we got back in the canoes for the longest paddling leg of the race, a ten mile circuitous route to the Little Patoka Boat Ramp. The storms had subsided and the wind was light as we enjoyed the beautiful scenery along the way. About half way through the paddle, Julie asked me if my knife was handy. I gave it to her, and she proceeded to cut off her underwear! We had all been soaking wet for hours and she had decided that her underwear was chafing her enough that she was going to get rid of it without stopping the boat! Julie accomplished this amazing trick and we continued on, with the wind picking up near the end of our paddle. At the end of this long boat ride was TA1.

Seeing the race directors, our teammate Nancy Gawrys volunteering, and Gail Henricks taking pictures at TA1 was a welcome sight. We changed into dry clothes, ate some food out of our packs, and spent about twenty minutes preparing for the long mountain biking section that was ahead of us. This bike leg would prove to be the most difficult section of our race.

We stopped just after we left the boat ramp to buy a gallon of water at a convenience store. Eric’s bike developed a flat on the rear tire shortly thereafter, and we stopped again to repair it.

About 13 miles into the 48 mile bike loop, we arrived at the ropes section. The rappel was down a spectacular 150 foot concave face called Hemlock Cliffs near Mifflin, Indiana. The view on the way down was amazing, with the wall many feet away from the rope after the initial descent. The climb back up was perilous in bike shoes. But we made it, got back on the bikes, and headed out for the remaining 35 miles.

The bike route was almost all paved and gravel roads. We stopped by the English Reservoir to investigate a shortcut, but opted to ride around rather than bike-whack through some pretty thick brush that we later learned was private property. Julie fell one on elbow, then fell on the other. We had been racing almost 18 hours and we were all running out of gas. The team decided to rest for a while in the yard of an empty home near CP5. We catnapped for about 20 minutes and resumed our ride.

The bike went on forever. The hills were unending. We rode through the town of English and decided to rest again. Julie and I went to the convenience store and picked up some water, Fritos, Cheetos and a Coke. We headed back to Eric, who was resting, and we all feasted on the junk food. A few minutes and a few hundred calories later, we set out revived for TA2.

Arriving at TA2 was a huge milestone. The TA2 location was at the same boat ramp as TA1, but now we had access to our food, water and gear. Even though each of us privately considered quitting during the bike leg, we confirmed with each other that we were in the race to finish it. We ate Arby’s Roast Beef and Taco Bell Bean Burritos that tasted like steak and lobster. We spent a luxurious 42 minutes offloading climbing gear, fixing our feet, changing our clothes, eating, and repacking for the final three sections.

Leaving TA3 as the sun set, we evaluated the maps of final trekking section, which held five checkpoints surrounding a large inlet. Doing the whole section on foot would involve miles of backtracking. We decided to drop our packs on the near side of the inlet, paddle and park the boat on the far side, and swim with PFDs back across the inlet to our packs. This strategy would let us walk a line back to the boat picking up controls along the way. This would minimize our effort and time on foot. The plan worked perfectly, and Eric’s navigation was incredible, in spite of our fatigue. We got a little help from another team on the last control. We then found our way to the canoe and paddled to TA3, which was located at another boat ramp just a few miles away.

Arriving at TA3 we found that we were in sixth place. We learned of a surprise optional six checkpoint swim navigation section that surrounded the boat ramp’s inlet. We also learned that the final three off-road bike checkpoints were optional as well. We could choose to skip up to nine checkpoints, ride our bikes straight to the finish line and be official finishers. We talked as a team and decided to skip all nine optional checkpoint controls and head for the finish line.

We had heard that the ride to the finish line was about 12 miles, but it tuned out to be 18. The ride was very hilly, and as the early hours of the morning passed, we ground out mile after mile to the last hill before Paoli Peaks and the finish line. We hiked our bikes up the steep hill, then rode together to the finish, elated to completed the course and be official finishers.

Words cannot express how critical Eric’s navigation was to the success of our race. His innate ability to watch the land forms and feel the distance allowed us to travel straight down the center of the course. It is so easy to want to quit when you’re lost; Eric never gave us that option.

Julie’s positive attitude, her life experiences, stories, and her amazing transparency makes her a perfect teammate. Her ability to bounce back in the midst of adversity is second to none. The team dynamic couldn’t have been better.

And even though we’d rather have her racing with us, seeing our teammate Nancy at transitions gave us energy and moral support. Gail Henricks’ amazing photography skills and encouragement made this amazing race even better.

Crossing the finish line of this race was big for me. I hadn’t finished a PA30 race since 2003. Three DNFs in past years weighed heavy on my mind in the days leading up to the race. I thank my team for working together and making our goal a reality.

Congratulations to the top three finishers: Alpine Shop, Bushwacker and Climb4SMA. Great racing on a tough course. Thanks to Planet Adventure organization including Matt Jourdan and James Nichols, and to all the volunteers. It was one of the great races of my career.

Eric put together a MapMyRun of our course here.

Here are all the pictures of Team Ragged Glory from the race. 2011 Planet Adventure 30 Hour Challenge – TRG photos

Planet Adventure did a fantastic job on the 12th installment of this classic Midwest adventure race. The course was heavy on paddling and hilly as it could be in Indiana. We started at 12:00 am on Saturday morning and raced until 5:00 am Sunday. Words cannot describe the great teamwork, the fun, the difficulty and the elation of completing the course and hitting the finish line.

Gail Henricks took some amazing pictures of the Planet Adventure 30 Hour Challenge.

Planet Adventure also took pictures. You can find them here.

Here is the Team Ragged Glory gallery, a combination of TRG team photos from Gail Henricks and Planet Adventure:

It’s people that make races awesome. The Planet Adventure Race organization, directors like John McInnes and John Farless, and volunteers like Frank Baukert and Nancy Gawrys made Planet Adventure 30 Hour Challenge a racer’s event and kept it true to the eleven year tradition that Greg Arnold began.

Just got a text from Steve Kincade, one of Team Ragged Glory’s original members! Steve finished 50 miles at Dances with Dirt in Gnaw Bone yesterday in fourteen hours! Amazing! More details soon.

Nancy Gawrys and I (Doug Theis) ran the 500 Festival Mini Marathon today. We had a chance to use a couple of race bibs from folks who decided not to race. I was a 24 year old girl from Westfield named Stefani. Nancy was a 40 year old female named Ellen. Hope we made the two ladies proud!

Team Ragged Glory Fossils’ 2011 @PlanetAdv Sprint traveled a route of 28.8 miles, 18.2 on bike and 10.6 on foot.

Here’s the MapMyRun diagram of our routes from Eric’s GPS logger.

Eric Henricks, representing Runners Forum Team Tenacious, joined Doug Theis and Nancy Gawrys of Team Ragged Glory to compete in last Saturday’s Planet Adventure Sprint Adventure Race in Brown County. One day before the race we completed our roster by recruiting veteran endurance and AR icon, Dave Tanner.

Nancy arrived at our house at 0615 to load her gear and we headed to Doug’s south side home with our perennial favorite team photojournalist, Gail Henricks, and our trusty AR dog, Stella. As we left Doug’s house en route to I-65 we got a call that roads approaching the Maumee Scout Camp from the east were impassable due to flooding. We turned around to take IN-37 to Bloomington and called Dave to tell him he didn’t have to drive himself to the race as we would now collect him at his Bloomington home.

I was anxious to get to the race early enough that we wouldn’t risk making the mistakes that sometimes occur when one is rushed. Unfortunately, Once we got off IN-446 onto Tower Ridge Road Tanner was navigating from the back seat with an inadequate map while I was pushing the envelope with our van. We made a few wrong turns and the van was forced to go through some wash out rutted gravel roads a little faster than one would like. More than once I had to reassure the team that “I got this”. I may have knocked something loose under the van as now I think I hear a louder exhaust noise than I heard last week.

We arrived at 0900 along with about 30 other teams and assembled our TA, then checked in with the race director, who gave us three topo maps, a punch card and a set of race instructions. We were told that one of the checkpoints had been eliminated to keep the race from going over the 10 hour time limit as trail conditions had deteriorated significantly from when the race was originally designed. We also learned that we would not get the map for our first two checkpoints until the race started at 1000. One of our team would have to run to a designated place a quarter mile away to get that map and bring it back to the rest of the team who would then figure out where those first two checkpoints were and how to get to them. Of course we selected our fastest runner, Nancy, and she did not fail us.

CP1 was just under a half mile away on the lake shore through the woods and we had to get there on foot. While most of the teams went one way we went a slightly different way to make sure we didn’t get caught in some sort of flood plain. We arrived at CP1 in about 5th place I estimate. We then ran back to the TA to get on our bikes and head for CP2 which was 3.5 miles away on one of the trails of the Hickory Ridge trail network north of the scout camp. Again, we went a different route than most of the other racers in order to ride more on gravel roads than on muddy trails. This proved helpful as we were the first team to arrive at CP2. CP3 was 5 miles away at the north end of the southern part of Combs Road that leads from Maumee over the ridge towards Elkinsville. Along the way we were passed by four teams that were riding faster than we could manage. One of the streams we had to ride through in this section was well above the bottom brackets of our bikes and flowing quite quickly. Gail took a great picture (attached) of our alpha female leading her three hurting men by a good 50 meters on the bikes as we approached CP3. If you look carefully you can see the box turtle we had to avoid hitting in the road.

We departed CP3 on foot in fifth place for a trek to CP5 two miles away on Browning Ridge. CP4, to have been reached by canoe, was deleted due to flooding. Navigation in this section was a bit tricky and we soon found the teams that had beaten us to CP3 were now all following us to CP5 and to CP6 another mile beyond that. Another mile and a half after CP6 got us back to our bikes in second place as one of the teams following us, Team Dark Side, sprinted past us in the last 100 meters. I guess the other teams decided not to follow us. Team Dark Side were strong cyclists and they disappeared from our view down the road never to be seen by us until the race was over. In fact, we saw only a couple more competitors after that point.

We had to ride another ten miles on a variety of roads and trails to visit two more CPs before returning to the TA to start the final trek section. We learned we were 18 minutes behind Team Dark Side. The race directors estimated this 5.5 mile trek circling Lake Tarzian would take 1.5 hours, but it took us 2.5 hours to get through it. One of the stream crossing we had to make was nearly waist deep and flowing fast enough so that we had to hold onto each other to make sure no one got washed away. As Dave was pulling me from the creek I for a moment feared I was going to pull him in the water with me since I outweigh him and he didn’t have a good grip on the shore. When we finally finished we weren’t surprised to hear that Team Dark Side had finished an hour before us. We were happy enough with second place, so were ecstatic when we were told we were being kidded and that actually we had finished first. Team Dark Side arrived a few minutes after us with another team just minutes behind them.

I think it’s great that AR allows older folks who aren’t as quick as they once were to still be competitive if they keep their navigation accurate. And I am grateful for the team fellowship of the sport. Our team would have been incomplete if any one of us hadn’t been there, as each person made a valuable contribution to the effort.

Dino Series‘ Tecumseh Trail Marathon is a tough race. 26.2 miles of trails through the hills of South Central Indiana. December weather. Frequently changing conditions. Team Ragged Glory members Steve Kincade, Nancy Gawrys and I (Doug Theis) made the decision to run it together and give it our best. We even laughed about bringing our on-foot towing system that we use in adventure races so we could have a little fun with some of the other racers.

In the days leading up to the 2010 Tecumseh, Nancy had to bow out because of a scheduling problem. And the weather forecast became threatening. The temperatures looked like they would hold steady at around 30 degrees. The weatherman called for 2-4″ of snow and sleet starting at 8am, 2 hours before race time.

Steve and I talked the night before the race about what we should do. We decided to make the decision the morning of the race. Neither one of us was thrilled with the weather forecast. I was especially worried about getting cold and wet. Since the race is a point-to-point, there isn’t much chance to bail out if you get in trouble.

On Saturday morning at 5am, the sleet/snow combination was falling steadily. The radar looked like it would be a full day of precipitation. If Steve wasn’t running, it would have been over right then for me. The bed was nice and warm. We could stay in Indy and run with Nancy early, then help her with her move. I was assembling a sophisticated list of reasons to skip the race.

But I called Steve, and he was willing to do it, and guilt is a powerful thing. So Steve picked me up and we drove down to the finish line at Yellowwood Lake to check in and board the buses for the start line. The roads were slick but passable. The snow and sleet were steady, and as always, looked a lot worse from the inside of a warm vehicle traveling 50 miles per hour.

We got to Yellowwood and checked in. Brian Holzhausen of Dino announced that the roads were too treacherous for the buses. This development transformed the race into an out-and-back on the south half of the course. This is the hillier half of the Tecumseh trail. I got a little comfort from the idea of being able to bail out or turn back early, once again planning how I could quit. I decided to carry a pack and take extra clothing to better protect against the cold.

We saw many adventure racing buddies at the start line: Eric Henricks, fellow TRG member, many of his Team Tenacious partners, Phil and Kim McNealy, and Angelia Kniesly were all there. The gun sounded and were were off.

The sleet had fallen for a couple of hours before the race. It caused the snow to stick to the trees. The course looked like something from a story book. The first section was narrow single track, so we were able to run with our faster friends until the trail opened up. the pine forest at the north end of the trail was looked like a painting in a museum.

The course was soft and surprisingly dry. Aid stations seemed plentiful and a few had hot drinks. Fig newtons and Cheezits tasted like steak and lobster. And although it was a little dicey when the leaders turned around and created two-way traffic, the decision to make the course an out-and-back was the right call. The turnaround seemed to come quickly. Halfway done, we headed south to complete the course.

Steve and I finished in 6 hours 15 minutes. I would guess we walked about 55-60% of the course, including most of the uphill and much of the last four miles. Crossing the finish line with Steve was awesome. I’m proud to have completed it. This was my second longest on-foot event ever, and the experience was beautiful and amazing.

Afterward, I told Steve that I would’ve never showed up if he wasn’t there. He said likewise. The power of a team is that 1 plus 1 equals more than 2. A person could have no finer teammate and friend that Steve Kincade.

Lessons learned:

I wasted a ton of worry on this race. It reminds me of Mark Twain’s quote: “There has been much tragedy in my life; at least half of it actually happened.”

I carried a pack with extra clothes that I never used. I would do it again. The extra weight was worth the peace of mind that I was prepared if conditions changed or if one of us got in trouble.

I can do nearly anything when I’m on a team.

Forty nine teams braved the rain to race the 11th annual Indianapolis Adventure Race on September 11, 2010. The event that Greg Arnold started has grown into a tradition of adventure racing excellence that also generates thousands of dollars in charitable donations.

Dave Tanner, Nancy Gawrys, and me (Doug Theis) raced together, representing Team Ragged Glory for the 10th consecutive year for this even.. Indiana University’s Bradford Woods property in Martinsville, Indiana was the place. The race had plenty of challenges for a sprint: flatwater paddling, hike-a-boat, river paddling, paint ball, a tough couple of bike sections, and a beautiful orienteering section on foot in the Bradford Woods deep stuff. The last checkpoint had us paddle boarding, and it was great fun.

Thanks to Nancy and Dave for a great race. We finished 7th overall and 4th in the coed division. Ryan Burke handled the transition to race director seamlessly. Thanks to the volunteers, and congrats to the Tenacious Lemmings, John McInnes, Mike Garrison, and Jayne Prater for a big win.

18 teams and 62 racers hit the trail on Friday night for the 10th Planet Adventure 24 and 36 hour expedition races in Paoli, Indiana. Nancy Gawrys and I (Doug Theis) volunteered this year because we couldn’t stand the idea of missing this race.

At 9pm, the maps were distributed to the teams. Racers would start with a run, then a paddle, then a bike ride to Abe Martin State Forest with a six-point orienteering section on foot. After the first o-section, they would do a long bike with both roads and trails to the second o-course on foot at Natchez. The second o-course included a rappel. After the Natchez o-couse, the final bike leg would take them back to the start/finish line at Paoli Peaks ski resort.

The heat on Friday was oppressive. Nancy and I set a couple of controls late in the day and helped prepare for the 1am race start.

More to come.

Last weekend, six members of Team Ragged Glory packed up and headed to Nashville, Tennessee to give the Columbia Muddy Buddy race a try. The windshield time with TRG, the race itself, our hosts and their hospitality made for a super fun weekend.

Here’s a shaky pre-race interview with Julie Nor and Steve Kincade:

The Muddy Buddy is a “ride and tie” style race: two people, one bike, and four transition areas where the racers navigate an obstacle (high wall, balance beam, rope climb, and low crawl) and switch from mountain biking to running. At the end of the race, teammates must crawl together through a mud pit to cross the finish line together.

The race was fast, the course was hilly, the mud was spectacular, and the event was extremely well managed. Hats off to the Muddy Buddy operations people and all the volunteers.

Here’s a YouTube video of the mud pit:

Bob Mueller and Julie Nor took first in their division: coed 76-85 (the sum of their ages) in 53 minutes flat. They were the ninth overall finishers and the second coed team to cross the finish line. Click on the picture of Bob and Julie for more photos.

Steve Kincade and I (Doug Theis) took first in our division: male 96 and over with a 1:02:53 finish.

Our host Andy Gullahorn and his teammate Mark Deering (The Captain and Tennille) took 16th in their division: male 56-65 with a 1:04:56 finish.

Nancy Gawrys and Maddie Gawrys-Strand took eighth in their division: female 66-75 with a 1:13:50 finish.

Results are here.

Cool memories: Driving down in the rain, the ticket that Nancy got on the way to the park, seeing fellow Indy AR guy Greg Grossart before the race, the downhill mud slide in the second leg of the race, the Gullahorns’ amazing property, and fish tacos with awesome conversation in the afternoon.

I told our host Jill that Team Ragged Glory is “one big love.” Thanks to the Gullahorns and all the members of TRG for a fun weekend.