Hiking at Clark Creek Natural Area

Lori, my dad, and I took a drive up to the Clark Creek Natural Area (Tunica Hills) in Pond, MS this past weekend. We basically hiked the primitive trail and improved trail loop. The terrain was pretty severe which made for a wonderful workout (my butt and Lori's calfs are still sore, not sure how my dad feels). We saw several waterfalls, a couple of deer, and a couple of world record trees (maybe). It took us 4:45 to complete (we took our time) the 5.25 mile trek. Here's our route and some pictures:

Snow at the Zeringue house!

We had a surprise freak snowstorm in LaPlace this morning. Here's a picture:

Mississippi Coast Marathon

November 29, 2008 - Stennis Space Center, Waveland, MS

Two days after Thanksgiving, I set out to complete my third marathon (I have a secret goal of doing a marathon in all 50 states). I mention Thanksgiving because I think it played a major role in my performance. On Thursday, I ate to the point of unbelievable discomfort 3 different times. I always planned on treating this marathon as basically another long run. I wanted to be at miles 16 and 21 by a certain time and the rest didn’t really matter to me …even if I just walked a lot the last 5 miles. I also didn’t want to screw up my ankle any further, so I planned on being very protective of it (I rolled my ankle pretty bad two weeks earlier).

The race started about 15 minutes late because of the delays associated with entering a federally secure facility. There was a half-marathon and 5k going on as well…probably about 400 hundred runners altogether. It was 71 degrees at the start of the race and 100% humidity…less than ideal marathon conditions. As usual, I went out too fast on the first mile, but this was negated by my port-a-potty stop just after the first mile marker…ridiculous, I know. My fan, Lori, was extremely amused by this because she just happened to right there, camera in hand!

By the end of the 3rd mile, I was hurting pretty bad and slowed up considerably. The sun was now peaking out from behind the clouds and we had a slight breeze at our back. The kind of breeze that not quite strong enough to help you, but enough to make the air seem stagnant. I felt very heavy, very slow, and was sweating buckets already. By the end of the 5th mile, I decided to walk for about a minute. I saw Lori again and she could tell I was struggling. It was pretty demoralizing to have to walk 5 miles in to a marathon, but I pressed on. By the end of the 8th mile I had settled in to a pattern of running 9 minutes and walking 1 minute. This continued through mile 11, which is about where the half-marathoners split away from the full marathoners. I spent the previous mile trying to decide whether to call it a day or continue on. I decided to continue on because I thought even if I walked/trekked a lot the rest of the way, at the very least it would be good training for longer adventure races…right? It got pretty sparse once we left the halfers. Content with my decision, I see Lori again around mile 12. She was by a lady who was very enthusiastically cheering the runners on. She kept yelling “you’re half way finished!!!” I immediately took offense to this because we weren’t half way finished. It was only mile 12. Then, for a split second, I thought maybe she was right and somewhere during the misery, I blacked out for a mile. That conversation went on in my head for about a mile and then I saw the 13.1 mile marker. I knew she was wrong …and rude (obviously, this was a much bigger deal in my head than it should have been, but I was hurtin’). As I passed the actual halfway mark, I decided to walk again. My first half clocked in at 2:13…ouch.

As it turns out, that would be the last time I walked for the next 10 miles. During mile 14, it started raining. I immediately felt a lot better and picked up the pace. I saw Lori again between mile 15 and 16, standing in the pouring down rain (actually I could see her bright HBP pink umbrella about a mile earlier!). I think she could tell I was finally feeling better. Over the next 9 miles, my pace hovered around 8:30 (+/- 10 seconds) and I was actually passing other runners. My Ipod shuffle eventually died during mile 19 from all the rain. Normally, not having music would slow me down considerably, but not this time. Apparently, all I needed this day was the beat of the skittles shaking in my back pocket. I remember thinking during mile 22 that I was really having fun. There was absolutely no fun associated with mile 22 in my previous two marathons. Then, I start doing the math. I spent the next couple of miles trying to figure out what I need to run to set a half-marathon PR during the second half of this marathon. My previous PR was 1:54:30 during the first half of the Mobile marathon last year. I finally figured out that I could definitely beat that time. Here comes Lori again between mile 24 & 25. She seemed amazed at how good I looked and how fast I was running. I was feeling a little cocky at this point and I told her to get to finish line and get her camera ready because I’m gonna PR on the second half. She zoomed off on her bike (OK not really, by this time there was a pretty good headwind and it was still raining, so she wasn’t moving all that fast). As she headed off, the first calf cramp hit me …hard! In all the excitement of the last few miles, I completely forgot that I might start cramping. I ended up having to walk a fair amount in the last mile and half due to the cramping. In some instances, I stood still for 10 or 15 seconds. There was a final turn before the last 0.3 mile stretch to the finish line that I knew was coming. Since I was (am) embarrassed that I had to walk just before the finish line in the last two marathons, I was determined to make it through that stretch without walking. No cramps and I actually kicked a little! My time on the 2nd half was 1:56… no PR, but I’m still pretty proud of mile 14 through 26.2. My total time was 4:09. While it’s not my best time to-date, I am definitely more proud of this marathon than the other two.

Notes to fellow and future marathoners: There were about 100 people in the full marathon. The course was ridiculously flat. If you take away the aid stations, there were less than 15 spectators on the whole course. Bottom line….BORING course and event. My recommendation would be to not consider doing this particular marathon.

Ocean Springs Adventure Race

September 20, 2008 - Ocean Springs, MS

Team Name: Hefner Bunny Pie (HBP)
Team Members: Paul Engeriser, Lori Zeringue, Kirk Zeringue

Since the race was postponed a week due to Hurricane Ike, Matt Abbrecht was unavailable to race with HBP. Therefore, Paul and Lori gave me a chance to redeem myself from my previous sub-par performance racing with HBP in the 2007 Mobile Urban Adventure Race.

The race started with a run to retrieve CPs 1 – 3. Lori and Paul are both faster than me so I did everything I could to keep up during this initial sprint. We then jumped on the bikes to get CPs 4 &5. I immediately noticed something wasn’t quite right with my rear wheel. It appeared the tire was rubbing on the inside of the bike frame. I only really noticed it around turns and when I pedaled very hard. I tried not to let it slow me down. After CP 5 we biked back to the TA where we were to complete a mystery challenge. In short, it was a challenge requiring all three people to have good balance... Paul and I proved that we were balance challenged. Eventually, after falling off the beams one time, we completed the challenge and biked to the canoe put-in. We were to paddle and retrieve CPs 6-10. It appeared we were the 4th team to get our boat in the water. This canoe leg proved to be one of the physically hardest paddling legs I have ever done. We paddled in and out of a bay, up and down some winding bayous. The high winds made paddling and steering extremely difficult. In the end, we passed up one team and were the 3rd team out of the water. Next was a bike leg that began with biking on the beach…in the sand. I really struggled with this section. At first, I thought I just sucked at it. Then I realized that my rear tire was rubbing on the frame pretty badly making the pedaling even more difficult. I was moving so slow that I though I could move faster by just pushing my bike. So I did. Other teams were easily passing us (me), so Paul offered to switch bikes with me. That helped a little, but I was still moving slower than the average person. In the end, I decided that my bike was partially to blame but I really just suck in the sand. We finally made it off the beach and could return to pavement. We caught a break while biking to CP ??? when the teams that passed us on the sand crossed went to the wrong side of the river to find the CP. We stayed on the correct side. This allowed us to make up the time I cost us in the sand. Yay!!! I was pretty upset about my beach performance, so this made me feel a little better. We were now back in the race. We finished the bike leg (this proved to be the last ride for the yellow Diamondback, RIP!) and took off running for the final 3 CPs. At this point, we were slightly ahead of Team Without a Paddle. HBP really needed to beat them. My chance at redemption would come down to the final 2.5 mile run. We (I) did it. We (I) held them off by 25 seconds. I say “I” because I was the slowest one on the team, so all Without a Paddle had to do was pass me. They couldn't and HBP came out 2nd in the Coed division and 4th overall, which is exactly where they would have finished had Matt done the race. Redemption!!!

2008 No Sweat Adventure Race - 12 Hour

August 24, 2008 - Parrie Haynes Ranch, Killeen, TX

Team Name: Light & Momentary Troubles (LMT)
Team Members: Dane Welch, Damon Pourciau, Lori Zeringue, Kirk Zeringue

I was very nervous and excited leading up to this race ….excited to be racing with my wife again and excited to be competing in my first 12 hour race (little did I know that it would be my first 18 hour race as well, but we’ll get to that later)…nervous to be competing in my first 12 hour race (my teammates all had at least one 12 hour race under their belt) and nervous about the conditions – Texas hill country in the middle of August!

Pre-race
We arrived at the ranch just before dark on Friday. We checked in, brought our boats to the boat drop, ate a hamburger or two (except for Lori who was only eating crackers because she had been sick in the stomach for the previous 24 hours), and brought all of our gear to our assigned cabin. The cabins were surprisingly nice with air conditioning, so we decided that it made more sense to set up our TA at the cabin instead of outside in the heat. Damon and Dane still needed some supplies for the race (the most important missing items were their 10 canned goods needed to qualify us to skip a check point at some point in the race) so we all took a ride to the closest town (Killeen, TX) which was about 10 miles away. Upon returning, we went to sleep knowing we had a lot to do in the morning before the start of the race at 8am. Maps were handed out at 7am. We received a topo map, a set of trail maps, and were instructed to copy the borders of the areas that were off limits for the race. Things were pretty hectic leading up to the pre-race meeting at 7:30am. Dane and I got there at 7:35am…Lori was back at the cabin, in and out of the bathroom…Damon was also at the cabin doing something?!? After the short meeting, we hustled back to the cabin to grab our gear and our teammates. At this point we’re still not certain that Lori is going to race since her stomach/nausea issues had not subsided at all. She was determined to race regardless. At 7:59am, Damon was finally ready so we ran to the pavilion where the race start was located.

Mystery Leg – River Boarding (not really)(~1 mile)
Just as we got there, all the other teams took off running. We weren’t sure where they were going since we didn’t get any instructions or CPs to plot yet. After standing there for a minute or two in confusion, one of the volunteers told us to just follow the rest of the teams…so we did. Apparently, sometime between 7:30 and 7:34am, the instructions for the first leg were given. As it turns it out, this would be a “river boarding” leg. We hurried in the direction of the other teams which lead us to the boat drop. We dropped all the gear that we didn’t need, threw on our PFDs, grabbed our river boards (boogie boards), followed a trail along the river, and jumped in. The boogie boards weren’t very effective since there wasn’t much of a current and the river was pretty shallow in some places. We got out the river at the boat put-in and headed back to the TA. Our extremely slow start resulted in us being one of the last teams out of the water, but there was a whole lotta racing left to do!

Leg #1 – Paddle/Trek (3 mile paddle, 2.5 mile trek)
We received our first set of coordinates, plotted them, and headed to our kayaks. At the put-in, we saw some teams going right and some going left. A quick second look at the map confirmed that we needed to go left. We paddled and pulled (some parts of the river were too shallow to paddle trough) our boats downriver for about 3 miles to CP1. We dropped the boats at CP1 and followed a marked trail (to keep us off of private property and protect us from being shot…that’s what they said at the portion of the pre-race meeting we actually attended) to a road and ran/trekked back to the TA.

Leg #2 – Bike/Trek (15 miles)
We quickly took the next set of coordinates to our cabin, plotted them, and headed out on our bikes.

This would prove to be our “fastest” transition for the rest of the race (10 – 15 minutes). There were 6 CPs on this leg. We could get them in any order using bikes or on foot. Damon and I decided we would get them in the following order: 2, 7, 6, 5, 3, 4. It made sense to us at the time, but probably not the best plan of attack. The trail was pretty loose and rocky on our way to CP2 which made the climbs a little more difficult and the butt a little more soar. I remember thinking that this would be a long bike leg if the trail conditions were like this everywhere. The trails are primarily used for horseback riding, not mountain biking. We found CP2 at Rattlesnake Junction (Lori wasn’t too thrilled about the name of this area). We continued to CP7 and CP6 pretty easily. CP6 was where the trail crossed Gann Branch. In an attempt to take a “short cut,” we decided (we all agreed) to leave the comfort of a marked trail in search for CP5 (we didn’t realize at the time, but this was obviously the first instance that the heat was affecting our thinking…have I mentioned that is was extremely hot by this point!) We carried our bikes down a dry creek bed full of large boulders until we hit the spot we thought we needed to try and meet back up with a trail that would take us to CP5.

That spot had pretty steep walls on either side of the creek so we left our bikes in the creek and continued the search on foot. We finally met up with the trail, but we weren’t too sure where we were on the trail…do we go right or left? We ended up sending Dane and Damon in different directions, while Lori and I just hung out looking at the maps. Eventually, Damon found the checkpoint (yay!). In the end, I am now certain we would have found it much faster had we stayed on the trail and ridden our bikes the extra mile. We trekked back to our bikes, which were exactly where we left them (during this trek, I questioned whether it was a good idea to leave our bikes unattended in the middle of nowhere). We mounted up and headed up a series of trails en route to CP3. We were moving pretty well. It was super hot, but everyone seemed to handling it…we all felt pretty strong.

We rode right to CP3, punched our passport, and started figuring out how to get to CP4. All of sudden, Damon (who looked great 15 minutes earlier) wasn’t looking so good. The heat and dehydration seemed to hit him like a ton of bricks.

He insisted he was fine and just needed some water. All of our camelbacks were either dangerously low or empty by this point, but we knew there was a source of water at the Equestrian Center, which was on our way to CP4. When we got to the EC, it wasn’t very obvious where the water source was. We eventually found a faucet poking out of the ground. Lori, Dane and Damon were a little hesitant to drink out of this unmarked faucet, but I was thirsty. I drank some, didn’t drop dead, so they drank as well and we topped off our water bottles. We continued to CP4 which we thought would be pretty easy to find. On the topo map (where the CPs were actually plotted), it looked like CP4 would just of f to the right of Maxdale Road. There was also a horse trail that paralleled the road. We opted for the smooth, paved road (our butts needed a break from the bumpy trails). During the search, which seemed to take an eternity, Damon was deteriorating fast. We told him sit down, rest and drink while we looked for CP4. A couple of minutes later, turned to check on Damon and he was laying in the road. I yelled at him to get out of the road. He said it was fine because there’s no traffic (first sign his mind wasn’t right). I insisted he get out of the road…he did. Within 2 minutes, a large 4x4 truck came screaming down the road. More searching for CP4...Damon looking worse. We eventually found CP4 (yay!). We then found a little shade down the road and rested. We were pretty concerned about Damon. He was getting frustrated that we had to wait on him and started trying to convince us to leave him there (second sign his mind wasn’t right). Obviously, that was not an option. Eventually, he felt well enough to ride again (or so he thought) so we started heading back to the TA. Luckily, we would be on paved roads the entire way back. However, it was also a pretty hilly ride and ended up having to walk most of climbs (for some reason, Damon’s body could tolerate walking better than riding). It was pretty slow going, but we didn’t mind at all. Our only goal at this point was to get Damon back to the cabin at the TA where he could cool off and hydrate. We arrived back at the TA to find out that a couple of teams in our division were merely minute ahead of us. This was surprising, and motivating. We got our coordinates for the next leg and headed back to our cabin. Damon immediately crashed on bunk bed. We decided that we would take advantage of the air condition, take our time and eat, drink, rest. It was pretty evident that Damon could not continue on with the race, but we wanted to give him plenty of time to cool down, rehydrate, and rest, jus t in case he felt better as quickly as he started feeling bad. After about an hour, Damon decided he couldn’t continue and wished us well on the rest of the race. We stopped at the pavilion on our way out to ask the race directors to go check on Damon. They assured us they would.

Leg #3 – River Board/Trek/Paddle (6.5 miles)

Since we were now “unofficial,” our goal was simply to finish the race. This leg was pretty straightforward…grab the boogie boards, head back down the Lampassas river a few miles to where we left our kayaks in Leg #1, paddle back upstream a few miles back to the TA. We had to stay between the banks of the river at all times and the water level was too low to float on our boogie boards, which meant we basically carried them as we trekked through water ranging from ankle deep to knee deep. I struggled a lot during this leg. I just suck at trekking through water. For some reason, it really takes a toll on me. I had the same problem in the Baton Rouge Off-Road Adventure Race a couple on months earlier. Lori and Dane didn’t seem to have any problems whatsoever (which was very frustrating!). To make things worse, I kept getting rocks in my shoes. I constantly struggled with whether or not to stop and empty the rocks (at the risk of falling behind the two workhorses in front of me) or just dealing with the pain/discomfort. I have very sensitive feet, so I stopped a lot! We finally made it to the boats, punched CP8, and headed back upstream in our kayaks. In most places the water was deep enough to paddle in, but we (Lori) had to get out and pull us through the shallower sections that seem to come every 100 yards or so. I made a few attempts pulling us through the shallows, but getting in and out of the boat was causing me to cramp up a little and I was pretty weak as well…the heat was definitely getting to me. I am somewhat ashamed to say that Lori pulled me most of the way up the river. Dane (who now was paddling/pulling his tandem kayak by himself since Damon had to drop out) seemed pretty amused and very motivated knowing that Lori was having to pull me around. He wouldn’t dare complain about how he was feeling or let Lori beat him up the river while towing me….so he practically ran upstream. Finally, we made back! We had to carry our boats up a path to the boat drop. I was feeling really weak and had a hard time even holding the back of the boat up. Lori, on the other hand was strong enough to carry the front of our boat and the back of another team’s boat at the same time. Once again, Dane was thoroughly amused by this! We checked in to receive our instructions/coordinates for the next leg. The race director told us that Damon had been taken to the hospital. We were all pretty worried about him, but they assured us he would be OK. They said the doctors were giving him fluids and running some tests, but he would be OK.

Leg#4 – Bike (9 miles)

We received the coordinates for the 4 CPs in this leg and headed to our cabin. Once again, we took our time in this transition to rest, re-fuel, and cool off. It was getting pretty late in the afternoon so we decided our main goal would be to finish this leg before it got dark. Luckily, we had not used our “skip point” yet, so we decided that we would use it on this leg. One of the CPs was noticibly out of the way (and on top of one of the Ivy Mountains) compared to the others, which made our decision quite easy. We had no trouble finding CP10 & CP12.

We got a little turned around when we got to the water trough. There were a lot of trails intersecting in this area…some of them matched up with our maps, some didn’t. After a little bit of backtracking, we figured out the correct trail and moved on. We found CP pretty easily and headed back toward the TA. Up to this point in the leg, we had basically been climbing. So, we knew (and were excited) that most of the ride back would be downhill. My excitement quickly went away when we hit the rocky section of the trail. My butt was taking a beating for the next 2 miles. I kept thinking to myself that there’s no way to train for a rocky, offroad, downhill ass whoopin’ back home in Louisiana. We eventually made it back to the TA where Dane hesitantly admitted to me that he didn’t think his butt could taking anymore pounding….that made me feel better about my pain! Surprisingly, Lori didn’t complain about it at all….hmmm? Anyway, we achieved our goal and finished that leg right at dusk.

Leg#5 – Trek/Ropes (8.5 miles)

We received the coordinates for the 4 CPs in this leg and headed to to our cabin to re-fuel. I was pretty nasty by this point (we all were) so I decided to change clothes, socks, and shoes (I also re-applied Body Glide)…. great decisions! I immediately felt revived and we headed off. It was a relatively quick transition (at least, for us). We headed off into the darkness in really good spirits. It was nice not having the sun beat down on us anymore. We headed to CP 14 where we were each required to climb a 30 foot wall. No troubles there. When then navigated our way straight to CPs 16 & 15. We were all pretty excited about how easily we found these two CPs …especially since we were using Damon’s pace chart (who was no longer racing). Lori, Dane and I are noticeably shorter than Damon so we made a small adjustment to his numbers and it worked out well. We only had one CP left which was back in the vicinity of the TA…about 3.5 miles away from CP 15. This would turn out to be the toughest CP for us to find…technically we never did! The clue was “top of draw” which matched where we plotted the UTM’s. The draw intersected the road right heading into the TA so we decided to enter there with the intention of just following the draw until we ran into the CP. As we headed up the draw, the vegetation got very thick, very quick. We frequently found ourselves on all fours crawling (reminder…in the dark). We all agreed that we should have easily gone far enough in to have reached the CP, but never saw. We spread out to search…no luck. After about a half hour of searching, we decided to go back to the road and start over. We really concentrated on pace counting this time even though the terrain/vegetation made it very tough. The pace counting put us right back where we were the first go around and still no CP. We decided that maybe we hadn’t gone far enough in so we crawled farther up the draw. It got so thick that we decided there was no way it was up there. We searched some more…finally, we all agreed that we should just head back to the TA. We were tired, sleepy, and had been racing for nearly 17 hours (in a 12 hour race)…and we were unofficial. It sucked to have searched for a CP for well over an hour and never find it! As we made back to the road, we ran into one of the teams competing in the 24 hour race. We voiced our dismay. He seemed amused that we struggled with this CP because his team took a trail straight to it. We couldn’t believe what he was saying…THERE’S A TRAIL HEADING STRAIGHT TO IT! Apparently, when I transferred the boundaries from the master map to our map, the marker I used was so fat that it covered a trail…sorry guys! Anyway, he lead us straight to the CP which ended up being about a 10 minute walk from where we originally started our search. We thanked him (admittedly, I was a little embarrassed) and headed back to the Finish Line.

I finished my first 12 hour adventure race in just under 18 hours….woo hoo!!! Here's a map of our route: