Eco Lonestar Extreme Adventure Race

Location: Sam Houston National Forest (North end of Lake Conroe)
Team Name: Light & Momentary Troubles (LMT)
Team Members: Kirk Zeringue, Damon Pourciau, Sara Welch
Temperature (start/high/finish): 68/81/74
Results: 17/18 Coed, 25/28 overall

Pre-Pre-Race
On Wednesday evening, I was walking from my house to start an 8 mile run. While walking (it always happens while walking, never while actually doing something athletic), I was making some adjustments to my iPod and I rolled my ankle. I know, some of you are saying “what else is new?!” Normally, I would agree with you, but this time the sprain was obviously worse than the ones I‘ve been getting monthly (at least it seems that frequent) for the last 6 years. It was pretty embarrassing because I stumbled to the ground in the middle of the road, jumped up and started my normal routine…step, skip, EXPLETIVE…step, skip, EXPLETIVE… Apparently the fall looked bad enough for 2 cars to stop and make sure I was OK. One offered me a ride home, which I declined since I was a mere 2 houses away from my house. I hobbled back home…immediately concerned over whether or not I could (should) do this race in 3 days.

Pre-Race
We left LaPlace at 9:15pm (yep, I decided to race, albeit with a fairly immobilizing brace on) on Friday which put us at the TA around 4:15am on Saturday morning. The race was to start at 7am. We took about an hour nap once we got there and the started setting up our TA. TA went up pretty quick and all 3 of us were able to attend the pre-Race meeting (that doesn’t always happen with LMT)! If you do the math, we were about to attempt this 12 hour race very sleep deprived (less than 2 hours in the previous 24), which was actually part of the plan. Damon wanted to see how he (we) would respond under those conditions since we plan on doing even longer races this year. There weren’t any real surprises in the pre-race meeting, just typical stuff except the passing mention of mountain biking in the sand. This immediately caught my attention, since my previous attempts at biking in the sand were less than stellar (stop laughing Lori and Paul!). We were also informed that one team member from each team would do a short sprint to retrieve the maps and first set of coordinates at the start of the race. We were also reminded that the race cut-off was at 7pm (with a 1 CP penalty for every 5 minutes you were late).

Leg 1 (Trek)
The race started around 7:15am (after the start of the 2 hour sprint race going on at the same time). We gathered at the start line where we noticed the overwhelming majority of teams had gaiters on over there lower legs. Apparently we didn’t get that memo (not that it really mattered because none of us own gaiters anyway). This was an obvious sign of things to come and that we would likely finish the race with cut up ankles and shins. Damon sprinted away to go fetch our maps. He returned about 2 minutes later barely able to breathe…I guess it made him feel good to be with the leaders at the beginning (that would be the last time all day). I was happy he got that sprinting out of his system because I knew our pace on foot the rest of the day would be pretty slow (due to my ankle). We plotted our first 2 CPs, grabbed our packs, and took (hobbled) off. We were allowed to get CPs 1 & 2 in any order…we opted to get CP1 first. We ran (I run-limped) about 3km down a couple of paved roads, turned off on a sandy trail, downhill to the creek where CP1 was located.
We followed the creek downstream about a kilometer to the intersection of the creek and a trail where CP2 was located. We jumped in and out of the creek, depending on what obstacles were in our way. The first entry into the creek was hilarious. The bank was about 4 feet higher than the creek bed, Damon jumped (stumbled) down and ended up face first in the water. Sara and I had a far less amusing entry …although I did almost hurt myself from laughing at Damon so hard. Minutes later we were trekking through the creek and down goes Damon again…backside first this time! Sara had one minor slip along the way, but kept her footing…she did bang her shin pretty hard though. I, on the other hand, with the gimp ankle didn’t fall at all. Still laughing at Damon, we finally reached CP2. We then followed a trail most of the way back to the TA. This leg took was about 9 km long.

Leg 2 (Paddle - Trek - Paddle)
We plotted our coordinates for CPs 3 – 5, made some gear adjustments and were in and out of the TA in about 10 minutes. We headed to the boat staging area, picked up our canoe, and portaged it for about 1/4 of a mile to the water’s edge. We were instructed to get the CPs in order for this leg. The first 10 minutes of paddling was pleasant…think of a calm winding bayou. The next two hours of paddling was hell…think of paddling uphill in a pinball machine. We were paddling in Lake Conroe or as I musically dubbed it…”Stump City” (sung in the style of Tower of Power’s “Bump City” from their song “Down to the Nightclub”…listen here - around 0:35).

There were visible and submerged stumps everywhere! Add to that the 20 – 25 mph headwind, and needless to say, it was a long paddle. It took us an hour to get to CP3, and another 20 minutes to get to CP 4. At CP 4 we were instructed to get out the canoe with our packs and were handed a “special test” titled “Memory navigation.” We were to navigate to 3 checkpoints…CP A, B, and C. At each location, there would be a map mounted on a stake showing our current location and the location of the next CP. We were to use the map to come up with a route and then navigate to the CP using our memory. We glanced at the map and darted off. A minute or so later, I asked Damon a few questions, to which he didn’t really no the answer, so we went back to study the map this time. The guy manning the map gave us a hint as to how he would do it, and we took off. Same routine, I asked questions…no answers…we ran back to the map. On the way back, I suggested we take notes this time…quick check of the rules to make sure there wasn’t one preventing taking notes…there wasn’t. As we arrived back at the map, someone (I think Sara) asked the guy if we were the first team to come back twice…he said Yep! But he also said we were the first team “smart enough to take notes!” We may have been in second to last place at this point, but we took great pride in being smarter than any other team in the field (if only momentarily). Twenty minutes after we started this debacle, we had made zero progress. We took off again, notes in hand, along Damon’s planned route. Fifteen minutes in, our route was no longer mirroring Damon’s notes, we weren’t sure that we were where we thought we’d be. A lot of “what do you think…are you sure…nope” conversing took place. We finally agreed that if we went due west to the top of the hill, we should run into an old logging road and the CP should be at the top of the hill on that road. We bushwhacked for about 500 meters and sure enough, there was the road…whew! Just prior to this, I couldn’t help but remember the last line of our instruction sheet … “If you are lost, head east and you will eventually get to the lake. Then jump in!” Admittedly, that option was starting to look good. We followed the road to the top and there it was, CPA…Yay!!! We studied the map to CP B, which was located in a creek bed. Our plan was to head on a bearing that would intersect a draw, follow the draw down to the intersection of the creek and turn left at the creek leading us to the CP. I convinced Damon that we should overshoot the bearing to make sure we end up on the side of the CP we intended…made sense at the time. One problem, we unknowingly missed the draw, so when we hit he creek bed, we thought it was the draw ….followed it down stream until we hit the creek. After we bushwhacked downstream for a few hundred meters, we realized the error of our (my) ways and figured out that we had been in the creek bed (not the draw) all along…sorry guys. We turned around, headed back upstream straight to CP B. We found CP C with no trouble and headed back toward our boat. After 2 hours of traipsing around in the woods, we finally made it back to the boat…punched CP 4, and started the paddle back. I guesstimated we had about a 45 minute paddle remaining (turned out to be 55 minutes).

The winds shifted a little causing a crosswind skewed to our boat. Paddling in our intended direction resulted in a feeling like we could tip the boat at any moment and it just seemed like we were going nowhere fast. We decided to paddle perpendicular to our intended direction in order to get the wind in our favor. We fought the wind for about 10 minutes and then made the turn…worked like a charm. It was great having that strong wind at our backs until we re-enter Stump City. Before we knew it, we found ourselves on top of a stump…we fought to break free, but to no avail. We were stuck! We tried everything we could think of (short of jumping out of the boat). Eventually, the wind swung us around and somehow we broke free. (I was on the verge of suggesting we vote who has to get out of the boat to set us free… of course I had an argument prepared why Damon should be the one…he was already soaked from falling in the creek twice…fortunately for Damon, it didn’t come to that because I know Sara would have sided with me) More stump dodging followed and we finally made it back to shore. Our reward…we had to portage the boats back to the TA. This time the portage involved a few breaks because our arms were whipped. We ended up paddling about 12km and portaging about 1km. Back at the TA, we received our next set of coordinates which was to be a bike leg.

Leg 3 (Bike)
We took our time in this TA…plotted CPs 6 – 13…traced our route…re-fueled…ate…40 minutes later we headed off on our bikes. I know I said earlier that we would never see the leaders again…I was wrong….we saw them heading out on their final trek leg while we were just leaving on the bike leg…Ouch! I estimated the bike leg to be about 34km which didn’t seem too bad at the time…little did we know that most of it would be on sandy trails. The first 3km was on paved roads…followed a sandy trail down to the creek for about 2km to retrieve CP6. We followed a series of sandy trails to CP7. It was pretty slow going between CP 6 and 7. It took us about an hour to go 7km. It was 4:30pm leaving us 2 and half hours before the race cutoff at 7pm. CP 8 was located at the farthest point from the TA so we decided to skip it to ensure we make it back before the cutoff (saved us about 8km of what we thought at the time would have been sandy trail riding…studying the maps a couple days later revealed that our sleep deprivation must have been affecting us because we chose routes through trails when roads were available…once again, ouch!) CP 9 was located under the middle of a road in a culvert barely large enough to crawl in (wish I had a picture of this)…thanks for getting that one Damon! Fast forward through more dreadful sandy trail riding and we punched CPs 10 and 11. At CP 11, we decided there probably wasn’t enough time left for us to get CPs 12 and 13 (even though they were pretty close by) so headed back to the TA which was about 6km away and paved the whole way (that was nice). Some of you may be wondering if you’ve ever read a race report from me that didn’t involve me cramping…well I’d hate to let you down. Eleven and a half hours into the race, on one of the last climbs, 1 mile from the end, both thighs knotted up bringing my ride to a halt. Damon and Sara patiently waited for me to overcome the pain (thanks) and I gingerly pedaled the last few minutes back to the TA where we punched CPs 14 & 15 and crossed the finish line with about 15 minutes to spare…granted there was still another trekking leg that we had no interest in attempting because of the penalty associated with missing the cut-off (1 CP per 5 minutes). We ended up covering about 29km and we all took some nice spills in the sand.

Leg 4 (Trek)
Did not attempt...this would have been the final trek leg.

All in all, I had a great time (I think we all did). My ankle held up pretty well. Sure, we came nowhere near clearing the course, but it was definitely great training for the next race. I learned a lot in this race and can’t wait for the next one (12 hour Natchez Trace Adventure Race in Tennessee, March 21!).