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.

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).


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!).
2 comments:
I like your use of the descriptive term "gingerly." This is also the first that I heard of the multiple trips to the memory map. Wonder why Damon didn't mention it...
Love the mismatched paddles.
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