Team Name:
NADS-Cycleworks
Team Members: Al Grub, Jan Andrews, Pilar Rom, and
Carlos Garriga
Result: 1st two person Team,
2nd overall (see results)
Race report: (Monongahela National
Forest, West Virginia, May 29-31, 2004)
The venue for the inagural running of the Potomac Highlands
Expedition Adventure Race exceeded everyone's expectations, and many
agreed that this area has the potential to host the finest multiday
adventure race in the East. Upon the arrival, most races were
immediately awed by the magnificient sight of Seneca Rocks looming over
the Princess Snowbird Campground.
The race briefiing got underway on Friday evening with John Zimmerer of
Eagle's Nest Outfitters scaring the sh*t out of most racers with hi
description of "...six foot standing waves", and "...at least three of
you probably won't make it out tomorrow". Despite his warning the river
was at an ideal 4.5' for the start of the race and many commented later
that it was the best water they had ever paddled in a race.
The race started with very fast pace 11 miles run-hike over Seneca
rocks mountains. After two miles of trails, teams had to reach the peak
navigating straight up following a river creek, and then, they had a
very fast 7 miles decent to the South Fork of the Potomac River. The
paddling section requiere teams to paddle 30 miles of whithewater on a
canoe. The river has some pretty good sized rapids near the start with
a fairly constant class II with several class III rapids. Some teams
choose to portage their boats to avoid the class III rapids. The water
level of the last 10 miles was a bit low, so teams had to paddle very
hard.
The day got better as the race progressed up onto Dolly Sods, after a
45 miles biking section. Dolly Sods has very spectacular vistas of a
unique landscape. Some were treated to a moonlight hike across this
beautifull area before descending into Timberline ski resort for the
bike leg south to Durbin.
Team New Balance/Odyssey Gold was either leading or in the front of the
pack for most of the way up to this point and were the first to come
upon a washed out section of trail at Gladwin. After making attempts to
safely get around the damaged trail, they opted for the safe route and
took a gravel road around the bad section. When they arrived at the
next CP, they informed the race staff and all the rest of the teams,
save two, were diverted around the washout.
It was section between CP7 and CP8 that caused everyone so much
trouble... instead of 3 hours of railtrail, it turned into a 10-12 hour
hike-a-bike nightmare for most teams. Team
New Balance/Odyssey Gold opted to bypass
this section and took a substantial (12hr.) penalty. Team
NADS/Cycleworks (Team JAJA) found an easier trail, and made it through
in an amazing 6 hours, but it was penalized 6 hours for taking the
wrong route. The rest of the teams struggled through as best they
could, but when they arrived at CP8, many weren't very happy.
By the time the race director showed up to straighten things out, not
much could be done. Some teams' support crew had gone to CP9, so those
racers had no choice to continue onward. Other teams, knowing they
would now not make the 5p.m. cutoff at the mysterious Sinks of Gandy,
were ready to quit. Others has still not made it through the
"bikewhacking" section. All that had made it that far were invited to
continue on an abbreviated route, skipping CP9 and travelling directly
to CP10 at the cave. Team Wachovia Securities was the only one that
decided to continue, among the ones that did not make it. Those who
needed to travel to Cp10 to rendezvous with their support crews were
given the option of restarting the race on Sunday morning.
The 12 hour biking section was followed by a 18 miles hike to the Sinks
of Gandy. Team
Nads/Cycleworks to a convervative approach and use an alternative route
that was 4 miles longer. The cave was 3/4 of a mile long, and have very
cold water. Teams were requiered to carry a spare of flash light for
emergency purposes. The water level of the cave was very high after
several days of continous race prior to the race. Portions of the cave
had chest water levels.
The result of all this shuffing was teams on three
or four different routes, making it nearly impossible to tell who was
ahead of whom and by how much. The only thing that was clear was that
Team New Balance/Odyssey Gold was ahead of everyone else, with Team
NADS/Cycleworks about five hours behind. Team Wachovia Securities was
actually racing in third place, and would be one of the three teams to
complete the abbreviated course, but they had skipped a substantial
portion of the course between CP8-CP10. The rest of the teams were
eventually stopped at either CP9 or CP10.
After the caving section, the two remaining teams had to ride up to the
top of Spruce Knob the highest point in West Virginia, followed by a
blazing 14 mile downhill ride to the via ferrata. Team
NADS/Cycleworks had to go through the via ferrata at night using their
flashing lights.
A 24 mile long section of the North Fork Mountain Creek was shortened
by about half, and Team New Balance/Odyssey Gold dropped down into
Seneca Rocks at 1:22 am Monday morning with a final time of 43:07. A 12
hour penalty gave them a final time of 55:07. Team NADS/Cycleworks
finished at 8:27 (50:12 + 6 hour penalty=56:12).
Official Ranking (team #):
1 Team New Balance/Odyssey Gold (1)
2 NADS/Cycleworks (21)
The following teams all completed a modified course. They are
listed by team number and oterwise not ranked as there is no way to
compare them
3 Carolina AT DreamQuest (2)
4 Carolina AT XLR8 (3)
5 Carolina AT Speed (4)
6 Don't Look Back (5)
7 Triangle ART (6)
8 Unsuspected Depth (7)
9 NorthCoast (8)
10 Enterprise Adventure Racing (11)
11 Team Tygart (14)
12 North Dakota Nobodies (18)
13 Wachovia Securities (18)
14 Team Broke (19)
15 Team True North (20)
The following teams stopped prior to CP8
16 I'm In (9)
17 Try Hard (10)
18 Trail Whiz (12)
19 9-11 We Remember (13)
20 Life is Good (15)
21 Pennswood.net (16)
