Kirk's Free Time

Ankle Roll 11-13-2010

2010-12-10T13:27:00.000-06:00

IRONMAN training set to begin!!!

2010-06-04T10:38:00.004-05:00

Fresh off my dominating swim performance (see video below) at the Spread Your Wings Adventure Race this past weekend, I decided that maybe I could be an ironman.

Gotcha Paul!

Spread Your Wings Adventure Race Weekend

2010-05-25T14:16:00.000-05:00

Team CACAR in the form of Kirk and Paul will be participating the in the 24 hour version of the 2010 Spread Your Wings Adventure Race near Rocksprings, TX at Camp Eagle (AKA middle of nowhere). Lori will be joining us on the trip (and maybe a trekking leg or 2) and also serving as our support crew. Pending any kind of cell coverage, I may be able to convince her to post some blog updates during the race. The race is part of the Checkpoint Tracker Series and the race directors will be using CoverItLive.com to provide updates during the race. Here's what they said:

"Checkpoint Tracker: The 24 hour Adventure course as well as the 12 hour Sport Course is proud to be part of the new Checkpoint Tracker Series. You must register your team prior to the start of the race to receive points. SYW will have updates on Coveritlive. We will try to update racer/team status every couple of hours. Tell your family and friends to tune into the Checkpoint Tracker site every so often for news of their favorite teams."

In summary, here is your potential race update sources on Saturday starting at 8am:
kirksfreetime.blogspot.com
CheckpointTracker.com
CoverItLive.com

Also, you can read last year's race report.

Collarbones and Crawfish

2010-05-12T08:03:00.002-05:00

On Saturday we had a full day planned. Matt, Paul, and I were going to get 4 - 5 hours of paddling, mountain biking, and running in at the Spillway followed by a crawfish boil. Lori was planning on getting in her first trail run/trek since breaking her collarbone 7 weeks earlier. We paddled to the end of the suction and back (around 6 miles) in about 1:15. We then transitioned to the bikes. We then headed into the trail and a few minutets later I hear the sounds of a crash. Rounding the corner revealed Matt sprawled out on the ground obviously in pain. I immediately had flashbacks to Lori's spill and I'm sure Paul did as well. Matt managed to get to his feet. We asked the usual questions like where does it hurt and how's your head. His shoulder was main source of pain. He was able to move his arm and shoulder pretty well which we thought was a good sign. He looked pretty dazed though and asked to sit down. He proceeded to lay down in a blackberry bush (he didn't notice though). He sat back up and compared the feel of each collarbone with both hands which convinced him that something wasn't right. I was convinced when I realized that he was feeling his right collarbone in a completely different location than his left one. Not good! We started walking back down the trail toward the parking area and came across Lori just getting into her run. She thought we were pulling a very bad joke on her, but assured her we weren't. We all 4 made it back to the vehicles and Lori drove Matt to the Urgent Care facility in LaPlace. The x-rays confirmed what we all feared/knew that Matt had broken his collarbone. The doctor put him in a sling and told him to go see a specialist on Monday. We then headed back to the Spillway to commence with the crawfish boil plans.

My dad and I boiled 2 sacks of crawfish for the cew consisiting of me, Lori, my parents, Matt, Matt's mom and sister, some of Matt's friends from New Orleans, the Pourciaus, Jamie, Paul, and Paul's wife and son (did I miss anyone?). The crawfish turned out pretty good and the company was even better. Despite Matt's rough start to the day, I think he had a good time while trying to disguise his pain and discomfort (yeah we could tell). Here's some pictures Scarlett provided (Thanks).

Mmmmm!

Open you mouth when you smile, it looks like your having fun...

...but you still have to smile or it looks kind of creepy.

Stella noticed the size of my post crawfish stomach and offered me a Diet Coke

Cracked And Companionless Adventure Racing

2010-04-17T17:44:00.003-05:00

On Saturday, April 10, I raced in and around Coldspring, TX in the 2010 version of Texas Quest which is a 12 hour adventure race produced by Texas Adventure Racing. I raced solo since the rest of our group all had conflicts that weekend. My one goal for this race was to cross the finish line without losing my passport along the way (I lost my passport near the end of my only previous solo race attempt). I convinced my dad to come on the trip and be my support crew.

We arrived at the boat drop just before 6am in order to stage my kayak, pfd, and paddle near Indian Creek. It was a little chillier (46 degrees) than expected so we moved quickly. We then drove about 15 minutes to Double Lakes Recreation Area in the Sam Houston National Forest where the main TA was located. Parking near the TA was extremely limited so we ended up parking farther away than expected, which meant multiple trips of hauling gear to/from the TA. Race check-in went smooth. Everything appeared to be very well organized (always a good sign). We claimed our spot in the TA and set up quite efficiently. The pre-race meeting started at 7:35am…no surprises at the meeting. It was pretty crowded since there were 85 teams between the 3 races (2-3 hour sprint, 6Hr, and 12Hr). The RD told us we (all 3 races) would be starting the race with a run on a marked course followed by a bike on a marked course. I immediately got a little frustrated by this because mixing the sprint racers with the long racers on marked courses probably meant that I would get stuck behind a pack during the marked bike course. Oh well. We were given maps and the first set of instructions. After some final preparations, everyone convened at the Start line. Ready. Set. Go.

where's Kirko?

As expected, the “sprinters” took off. My strategy was to maintain a comfortable jog and not get too aggressive on the opening run for 3 reasons: No. 1, we didn’t know how long the run was going to be; No. 2, I still had 12 hours of racing ahead of me; No. 3, I’m not a sprinter! About 10 minutes into the run, I eventually started passing all those people who predictably get too excited at the beginning of races and run way too fast, eventually causing them to have to walk…happens every time. The run ended up being about 2 miles. I checked in at the scorer’s table (we had to wear tyvek bracelets with bar codes on them that were scanned after every leg of the race…it was nice not having to remember a team number) and received instructions for the next leg.

We were to follow a flagged bike course and punch CP’s 8 & 9 along the way. I somewhat quickly transitioned to the bike (onlookers may dispute that claim) and headed to the trails. The biggest drawback of not sprinting during the first run was getting stuck in the pack during the singletrack biking. While I knew this would happen, I didn’t expect it to bother me quite as much as it did at the time. Fortunately and unfortunately, my attention quickly shifted away from the (what seemed like) sloth-like biking pace to the sudden extremely loud creaking/cracking sound coming from my crankset. It was unbelievable how loud it was. I pulled off the trail to check it out and noticed my crankset seemed a little loose. I got out the mandatory bike multi-tool and attempted to tighten it but it wasn’t budging. Nothing appeared to be in eminent danger of catastrophically breaking so I biked on. As I approached the back of bikers, I sincerely apologized for the terribly annoying and loud sound coming from my bike and convinced them that letting me pass them up would end their misery sooner (but not mine). Everyone I propositioned eventually gave in. I came across CP8 about 20 minutes into the bike (note: the CP numbering was random throughout the race).

Shortly after, there was a couple of large trees blocking the trail. I lifted my bike and climbed over the trees and while planting my right foot back on the ground, yep, you guessed it, I rolled the ankle (let’s face it, a Kirk Zeringue race report wouldn’t be complete without an ankle sprain). It hurt like hell and some expletives came spewing out! One of the coed teams witnessed the event and was very concerned. I convinced them that I would be OK and that it was a regular occurrence. As they rode away, the girl on the team, in a motherly lecturing tone said “you should really wear a brace when you race!” She’s right and so is my actual mother everytime she tells me that… and my wife… and my father… and my teammates. You would think I’d learn my lesson. Hmmmmm? Anyway, back on the bike. More single track. More loud cracking…with an occasional painful moan (from me, not the bike). More being stuck in the pack. More apologies. More propositions. Punched CP 9 and headed back to TA. Scanned in and got the next set of instructions.

Back at the TA, I expressed my displeasure to my dad about the creaking bike and the ankle (now throbbing). I popped a few Aleve and put my ankle brace on (I know I don’t always wear it, but I always have it with me, that counts for something, right?). I plotted the 2 checkpoints for this leg of the race and hobbled off. My planned route would be mostly along paved roads with occasional short jaunts offroad to find the CP's. The first 100 meters or so down the road was spent walking limping while studying the map.

Once convinced of my route, I attempted to run. That lasted 3 steps. One good one (left). One incredibly stiff and painful one (right). One to keep from falling (left). Back to limping/walking. As more teams run past me, I try to run again...no luck. The girl from earlier in the race mocked me as she ran by..."oh, now you have a brace on!" I finally reached my attack point for the CP and pace counted down a trail. As I neared my targeted distance, I heard more and more voices shouting...apparently having trouble spotting the CP. I then shot a bearing and followed it through a barbed wire fence into a small clearing and directly to the CP. I exited the way I entered at which point a couple of teams noticed me and how quick I was in and out. They immediately started yelling at their teammates (all the people who passed me on the road) that the CP had to be located where I came out (note to self: don't exit where you entered). Back on the road, it wasn't long before all those teams who passed me earlier, but couldn't find the CP, were passing me again. Another attempt to run...failed. I reached my next attack point and followed a dry creek bed for a few hundred meters and spotted the CP. I then followed a trail along the north side of the lake back to the TA. I scanned in and received my next set of instructions which would be a bike to paddle and bike back to the TA.

I plotted the 5 CPs on this leg. I talked with my dad and a couple of his new friends he made at the race, inhaled an 8oz. Coca Cola, ate a fudge round, and then creaked/cracked away. It was about a 7.5 mile ride on paved roads to the paddle put-in. There was one CP we had to punch along the way located in a gully just off the road. There were enough features on the map to where it should be pretty easy to find the right gully. About a half mile before I expected to reach the correct gully, I came across about 8 bikes on the side of the road. They were being guarded by one of the female racers while the rest of the people searching in the woods. While I was pretty convinced this was the wrong place, I stopped to check the map to be sure…definitely the wrong place. I showed the girl where they were on my map and she immediately got very upset because apparently she told her teammates that they were in the wrong place from the beginning but they didn’t listen to her. She was pretty funny and decided rather than yell at them to come back out and show them the err of their ways, she would just let them search in that spot all day. As I rode away, she jokingly (I think) asked if I wanted a teammate. I rode ahead to the correct gully (obviously correct gully), ditched my bike in a tall patch of beautifully blooming bluebonnets (alliteration?), climbed down into the gully and followed it straight to the CP. Back on my bike, I screamed downhill on the road and down to Indian Creek. My dad was there waiting, I punched the CP, awkwardly got in my kayak and headed off towards the lake. It looked to be about a 9 mile paddle mostly in Lake Livingston. On the bike over, I couldn’t help but notice how windy it was so I knew that relatively calm conditions in the creek/cove would soon change for the worse once I reached the lake waters. Lake Livingston is a pretty large lake (about 6 miles wide and 20 miles long) and quite infamous for its windy conditions (see DBAR race report…oh wait, I haven’t posted that one yet :-). The serene creek quickly turned into a choppy cove and finally a violent lake. The first CP was shared by both the 6 hour racers and us 12 hour folks. It was the 6 hour racers only paddle CP. To give you an idea of how bad the conditions were, I saw several teams turn around a mere 200 meters from the CP (in sight). As I approached the first paddle CP, I heard some screaming behind me and spotted a flipped canoe. Luckily, they were pretty close to the shore and a small pier, which made getting back in their canoe much easier.

The first CP was along a steel bulkhead. I mention this because being pounded by waves against a steel wall while trying to punch a passport kind of hurts and is quite difficult. I vocally declared that a mystery event and then wondered (aloud) if I had been vocalizing all my thoughts during the race…remember I’m racing solo. This kept me occupied for a while as I rehashed the first 4 hours of the race until my focus was jarred back to the awful conditions with the help of what I’ll call a rogue wave. If you’ve ever seen the show called “the Deadliest Catch” about Alaskan crab fishermen, in terrible conditions they can have a “rogue wave” that is massive and comes from a random direction and completely engulfs the ship, often times sinking it. Well, imagine a kayaking version (instead of a 100 foot wall of water, think 3 foot wall of water). I have no idea how I stayed upright, but somehow did. Now drenched and sitting in a puddle of water, my thoughts shift to the idea of abandoning the remaining paddle CP’s. Since I was getting pretty close, I decide to at least get the next CP and then re-evalute. This CP was hidden off to the side of a sandy beach next to a boat launch. There was one team on foot, who had apparently passed it up and decided to trek back to get it, and another team tangled up in some fishing line. I quickly punched the CP and backtracked a tad to avoid the fishing line booby trap. I met up with previously tangled 2-person team and we both expressed our concern over the conditions. I was the first to confess my thoughts of abandoning the final paddle CP which was at least an additional hour of paddling to and from. They confessed to having the same thoughts. We agreed to press on and stay together in case one of us got into some trouble. While having another boat nearby to assist if needed was comforting, the best part about the deal was having someone to talk to (not that my conversations with myself weren’t riveting). 40 minutes later we approached the last CP and were attacked by bugs who seemed to like the taste/smell of me much better than the other team. They decided to stop and eat and looked pretty tired. I could tell they were having trouble keeping up with me so I started the paddle back (with their approval). It took about an hour and a half to get to this point so I was facing at least an hour paddle back to the put-in (wind aided). I know what you’re thinking; poor Kirk is now paddling alone again. Nope, I had a couple hundred fleas/nats/mosquitoes to keep me company for the next 45 minutes. The wind was definitely helping with my speed, but it certainly wasn’t any less treacherous with it at my back. I was sweating a lot more, which the fleas/nats/mosquitoes loved, so I decided to take a couple salt tablets. The lake water was pretty cold and refreshing so I scooped a couple of handfuls to rinse off my face and arms…felt wonderful, but apparently I was far less appetizing to the fleas/nats/mosquitoes after this. As I re-entered the cove and then the creek I came across some of the more, shall we say, inexperienced paddlers from the 6-hour race which provided some entertainment for those last 10 minutes of paddling. My trusty support crew (a.k.a. Dad) was at the put-in to greet me. I jumped back on my bike for the 7.5 mile return trip to the main TA. Back at the TA, I scanned in again and was given instructions for a mystery event.

The mystery event involved a slack line stretched between 2 trees that you had to walk across with one hand on a volunteers shoulder (earlier teams had another line overhead to hold onto but someone broke it). My ankle didn’t like this very much so it was pretty slow going for me, but eventually made it across. We then had to follow a rope (while attached via carabiner) that was wrapped and tangled around trees and other obstacles, which required me to contort my body in ways it hadn’t done in years. Upon completion, I scanned in and received my next set of UTMs.

The good thing about the slack line (while painful) was that it loosened up my ankle tremendously so I attempted a jog back to my tent…success (onlookers might dispute this one too)! I quickly (again, could be disputed) plotted the next set of UTMs, shoved some food and drink down my pie hole, shared some pleasantries with my dad, popped a couple more Aleve, and headed off on the trek.

We could get these CP’s in any order. My intial plan was to get them in the opposite order of what I thought most teams would get them for 2 reasons; I’d get to see more people that way (sometimes teams just offer up tips and info for no reason), and I might come across the lead team getting what would appear to be the hardest CP last (first for me). I trekked across the dam and followed the Lonestar Hiking Trail south looking for where it made an abrubt turn to the west. It never seemed to do that and just continued due south. There were small unmarked (not on the map) trails weaving in and out all over the place which was confusing. Knowing I had gone too far, I decided to learn a lesson from the last race (see 2010 Natchez Trace AR race report… oh wait, I haven’t posted that one yet either). I headed back to the start and changed my plan to doing the CPs in the other order.

That little hick-up cost me about 20 minutes. The first CP was the other direction along the Lonestar Trail and the clue was “fallen tree.” I reached the area of the CP and came across several disgruntled racers who had apparently been searching for awhile. The confusion stemmed from the fact that just about all the trees in the area had “fallen.” They pointed out all the places they looked, which confused me because there was only one “fallen tree” that crossed the trail and surely they check the base of the tree, right? Nope, they hadn’t. We followed the tree to the other side of it’s now exposed root system and their was the checkpoint. They emphatically thanked me. The next CP was further down the LS trail in a creek just off the trail. I gave running a try and it was tolerable discomfort so I managed to run the whole way and found the CP with no trouble. The next CP was about 700 meters of bushwacking away. I shot a bearing, pace counted and nailed the CP. That was fun. I punched out to nearest road, and followed a couple of dirt roads to the where I thought the next CP should be. It looked pretty easy on the map and the clue was “side of trail.” It was an old clearcut so it was pretty thick, but after some pretty thorough searching, I found nothing. 2 more teams joined the mix and they both agreed we were in the right place. We all had it plotted on the west side of this old road on the map. One member of the group wandered over to the other side of the road and saw a team come barreling through the brush. Further inspection revealed a narrow foot trail. We all converged and quickly spotted the CP. We were all a little confused and mad about the actual placement of the CP and how it relates to the map and how it put those of us without homefield advantage at a disadvantage. Anyway, after about 30 seconds of complaining, we all moved on. It took me about 40 minutes to get the first 4 CP’s (after the re-start) but had already heard rumblings of the difficulty of finding the final CP from others who had bailed on the search. A female soloist, myself, and another 2-person team agreed to team up for this last CP. The clue was “bushwack.” We decided to follow the trail (not on map) north until we hit a pipeline. After a couple hundred meters things started looking very familiar and I realized I was back on the trail that confused me at the start of this leg. We hit the pipeline and follow it for 250 meters to our attack point, shoot a bearing that I would follow while the other 3 fan out on either side of me at about a 20 meter spacing. According to the map the point should be no more than 75 meters from the pipeline. The only problem is that the visibility was only about 5 meters. Thick crap. There are teams everywhere and people screaming names. At one point, I counted at least 15 pairs of eyes in about a 100 square meter area. More searching. Nothing. I bust back out to the pipeline. A couple of teams are there voting whether to skip the CP. Both of them abandon the search. More teams arrive to join the search. Still no luck. A couple of people thought I was the CP because of my jersey. I assured them I wasn’t. After nearly an hour of searching, I bailed as well. My temporary teammates decided to stay out longer to search and I wished them luck and headed back to the TA.

Once back at the TA, I questioned the race officials on whether people were actually finding CP 10 and they said only a couple people found it…pure luck if you ask me! There was another mystery event waiting for me. I had to use a straw to transport a pile of smarties into a cup with my hands behind my back. That sucked (hee hee...get it?). Actually, it was easy. Now 15 jumping jacks. OK. As it turns out, the ankle doesn’t like jumping jacks very much either. Done. Now inflate this balloon. How much? As much as you want. Is that enough? Sure. Now carry it without grabbing it over there like this (resting on arm). Easy enough. I ~~lucked out~~ was smart enough to not overinflate my balloon which made the carrying a lot more stable. The people after me were not as ~~lucky~~ smart and had a lot of trouble keeping their balloon from floating away. Now pop the ballon and do what the message inside says to do. Spin 15 times. 1, 2, 3….6, 7…Oh crap!...8, 9, 10…watch out!...11, 12…can I sit?....13, 14, 15. You’re done now go scan in. Hey scanner lady, here I come!!! (smarties were good!)

The next leg was a bike leg with 5 CPs. I had about 2.5 hours left before the race cut-off. Plotting the points revealed that I would be making a big loop around the west and south side of Double Lake. Chugged another Coke. Got some TA updates from my dad and headed off. My plan was to go clockwise to get the more strenuous trail and gravel road riding out of the way first in case I started cramping (which I’ve been known to do) later in the bike…I’d be on easier paved roads for the last third of the leg. I quickly had to abandon that plan because I couldn’t find (or so I thought…more later on this) the dirt road I needed according to the map. I followed a camp road that seemed correct, but it abruptly ended and became a winding single track trail. Rather than risk getting turned around in the maze, I just headed back and hit the paved road first instead. I followed a couple paved roads to the entrance of a forest road, punched CP??. More paved road to another gravel forest road. Droppped the bike. The clue was “thicket.” Found a small path into the thicket and punched CP??. Down another gravel road where a trail intersected. The clue was “follow fallen tree.” The point was plotted directly in between the gravel road and the trail. I guessed the fallen tree would be on the trail so I left my bike (no biking allowed on the Lone Star Hiking trail) and followed the trail but didn’t find a fallen tree. I ran (no witnesses to dispute it this time) back to my bike and rode down the road a little farther and spotted the tree. I shot a bearing in line with the orientation of the tree and followed it about 100 meters through nasty thorny crap straight to the CP. On the way back to the main road, one team stopped me to ask if my bike was OK. I had actually completely tuned out the awful noises it was making. I’m not sure why, but I told them to stay on the road and not take the trail…then got mad at myself for providing unsolicited help to competitors. After a short stint back on the paved road, I turned onto another gravel road. I crossed paths with the female soloist from earlier. They never found CP 10. I asked her if she had any trouble with CP 16 (assuming she had just punched it) and she said she was heading there now. I told her she had to have passed it up because I just turned off the paved road and I still have a ways to go before I get to the creek where the CP is. After some joint map inspection, she agreed and we continued toward CP 16 together. We came upon a team looking in a creek and assured her that wasn’t the right creek either so we just rode past them. That made the little light bulb in their heads go off. We finally reach our creek, follow it in about 100 meters punch the CP…she thanked me and we went our separate ways again. More gravel road riding followed by some old dirt road riding, followed by steep decent (on foot) down to a creek and a had punched the final bike CP. Now I’m hoping I can find the other end of the road that I couldn’t find at the beginning of the leg. There it is. It quickly became singletrack and everything looked very familiar. Crap! Had I only gone 50 meters more down this trail earlier, I would have run into the road. Oh well. I followed the trail back to the TA and scanned in to receive my final set of instructions.

premature ride across finish line

I had 32 minutes until the race cutoff at 8:01pm. There were 3 CPs but only one set of UTMs. The next set of UTMs would be located at the first CP. I plotted the CP and the clue was “love shack.” It looked like a little more than 1.5 miles roundtrip.

"Mr. Race Director, do I have enough time?"

"Uhhh, maybe...maybe not!"

"Hmmmm???"

Convinced I should be able to cover the distance and be back before the cutoff with a little cushion, I took off running. I was surprised by the ovation I received from the scorer’s table and volunteers when they saw me running (maybe an overstatement…it was more of a fast limp and hobble) off down the road. I’m not sure they were as convinced as I was, but the encouragement was nice. I followed the road, then trail, then road down to a creek where there was an old shack. Punched the CP. Checked the watch. I had twice as much time to get back as it took me to get there so I knew I’d be safe by at least 3 or 4 minutes…plenty of time! I crossed the finish line with about 6 minutes to spare. Handed in my passport. Yayyy! I didn’t lose it…mission accomplished. My dad was little nervous about me cutting it that close. He gave me a couple of post race hotdogs and I was thrilled to find out I finished 2nd in the solo division and 6th overall (out of 17 teams).

All in all, it was a great race, put on at a great venue, by a very well organized Race Director, with a phenominal support crew (huge thanks Dad!). I would definitely recommend this race to others in the future.

Team CACAR's first podium finish!

Disney Marathon Weekend

2010-01-16T11:34:00.120-06:00

Obviously I've been falling behind on these blog updates again, so in an effort to catch up, the next few post won't be nearly as detailed as they probably should be...sorry!

In the days surrounding the weekend of January 10, Lori, Matt, and I spent 4 wonderful days (albeit really cold and sickly for some of us) in Walt Disney World. The main reason for the trip was to run the Disney Marathon. This would be Lori's 1st marathon, Matt's 3rd, and my 4th. The main reason we chose this marathon was because of the relatively (to the rest of the country) mild conditions in January... normal high's in upper 70's and lows in mid 50's. We didn't want to take a chance at a location with the potential for being much colder because Lori's body doesn't handle the cold very well.

Day 1 - Friday

Cold, windy, and light rain (off and on). After flying in, and checking in at the Wilderness Lodge, we went to the race expo at the soon to be renamed ESPN Wild World of Sports (which is a pretty cool complex) to pick up our race packets/goodies. The expo was huge, crowded, hot, and a little overwheming. After coordinating our watches, we split up and a did some expo perusing/shopping. Once re-united, we each had some things that peaked our interest and wanted to make sure the others had seen them. One item that we unanimously were attracted to were these paper thin tyvek coats and pants. You see, the forecast for race day was mid 20's with a wind chill in the teens (obviously the basis for our decision months earlier was more than slightly incorrect). We knew we would have to be outside in the elements for over an hour and a half before the race started...at 10 bucks a piece we couldn't resist and neither could thousands of others. We headed back back to the Lodge mainly to drop my sickly self off. I had been sick all week leading up to this with a plethora of symptons, but mainly I just just felt like crap. Lori and Matt headed to Dowtown Disney while I took what was supposed to be a short nap. 14 hours later, I finally wake up, feeling slightly better but still crappy (and hungry).

Day 2 - Saturday

We woke up to a colder, windier, and rainier (is that even a word...I know it's a mountain) mixed with sleet morning. We quickly realized that the half-marathoners were racing in these conditions and were thankfull it wasn't us...yet. We headed off to spend the day at the Animal Kingdom. i think the highlite of the day for me was riding Expedition Everest (oh, and the massive Tree of Life was pretty cool). It was literally freezing cold which added to the experience... that Disney magic is something else! Lori's favorite part of the day had to be the parade, or was it the giant turkey leg she ate, hmmmm? Not sure what Matt's favorite part was. The creepiest, oogiest, most uncomfortable part of the day for all of us had to be this strange padded, dark, booth-like room where we listened to and "felt" a rainforest for what seemed like an hour.

Day 3 - Sunday

Race Day! We woke up around 4am because we had to be on a bus by 4:30am to get to the start line. As expected, Lori looked nervous...I'm not sure if it was the frigid weather or the race that had her more nervous. One step outside and we knew it was as cold as the weather channel said it was... 26 degrees with a windchill of 16! After a short albeit warm bus ride, we were forced back out in to the elements to play the waiting game for over an hour. There were racers by the thousands looking for any possible shelter from the wind. I even stood in line for the port-a-potty just so I could get out of the wind for a couple minutes. A half hour of standing and shivering later we followed the masses for the mile long walk to the starting corrals where we would stand shivering for another half hour. I was amused at the thousands of racers (in cluding us) in white tyvek suits. It was as if we were about to run a marathon in a recently contaminated Disney World. Then I was amused at the racers who hadn't gotten the memo. Then my thoughts shifted back to how cold I was.

Eventually the race started with a bang! Multiple bangs from the fireworks show...really cool! Yes, it was still dark and would be for at least another hour. And we're off! Ok, we walked for the first 3 or 4 minutes because it was so crowded. The first mile was entertaining watching (and participating) everyone shed layers and launching the clothes through the air. The ground was covered in clothes (note: all of the clothes were donated to charity, I wonder if they washed the 50,000 pieces first?). By the end of Mile 1, my removable layers were gone. By the end of Mile 2, I was sweating profusely, coughing continuously, and felt terrible. 2 Miles in and I already knew that this might not have been a good idea. The sweating reminded me to drink early and often, which I did. Unfortunately, the water and powerade at the first aid station was freezing...literally. There was a layer of ice on top! By mile 4, I couldn't take the continuous coughing anymore and it was really hard to breathe at the my goal pace of 8:55, so I accepted that today was not the day to try and break 4 hours. I settled into a pace (around 10:30) that allowed me to breathe and minimize the coughing and my focus shifted to mearly finishing. It was tough having those thoughts only 5 miles in to a 26.2 mile race. Several frozen aid stations and a visit to Epcot and the Magic Kingdom later, we reached the halfway mark.

I enjoyed a frozen banana at mile 14. Miles 16 thru 18 took us throught the Animal Kingdom which was surprisingly hilly (OK, hilly might be an exageration, but 18 miles in you really start to notice the slight uphills/downhills). The coughing returned with a vengence as we ran past Expedition Everest so slowed the pace even more. I zoned out for the next few miles (love when that happens) but snapped out of it at the aid station at mile 21 where I took my first sip of water all day that wasn't frozen. Apparently, the temperatures had soared into the mid 30's over the last few hours. Mile 22 - 24 took us through Hollywood Studios. As I exited Hollywood Studios I realized that I was in danger of not even breaking 5 hours. My pace over the last 6 miles or so was a little too comfortable. I immediately picked up the pace as we entered Epcot for the last couple miles. Within 3 minutes, I was coughing uncontrolably again and was forced to walk until the spell subsided. Oh yeah, that's why I was running so slow! This little run-cough-walk-run-cough-walk-etc routine continued to the finish line where I was greeted by Mickey Mouse in a blistering 4:58!

I met up with Matt and Lori who both had great races clocking in at 3:20 and 3:57!!! Here are some pictures of them.

We made our way back to the lodge, cleaned up and ate. My sickly self (look familiar) only wanted to lay down and sleep again so I did that for about 6 hours while Lori and Matt went to Hollywood Studios. Now extremely stiff, I hobbled to Downtown Disney to meet them for supper. This is probably a good time to mention that we ate a lot that weekend!

Day 4 - Monday

We spent Monday at the Magic Kingdom doing all of the things you do at Magic Kingdom the most "memorable" of which was riding Space Mountain. You see, when you're stuffed in this tiny tube riding a roller coaster the day after a marathon and everything is stiff and soar, the screams and painful yelps leave lasting memories. The Carousel of Progress was a far more pleasant ride... you sit in a comfortable padded seat while the carousel occasionally rotates smoothly and slowly. We finished the day watching the fireworks show which is amazing (especially to Lori) how they are able to time the explosion exactly with the music.

Day 5 - Tuesday

Epcot day. Did all the Epcot stuff capped off by another spectacular fireworks show. It was slightly warmer that day which was nice.

All in all, great trip! I highly recommend the Disney Marathon. It was neat running through the parks...between the parks sucked a little, but the entire course was littered with spectators and Disney characters. Between the 2 races there over 50,000 participants!

Below are some candids from the trip that amuse me. They are in no particular order. Briefest description possible as follows: I'm famous for U-turns; Matt found his hat...fitting don't you think...get it, fitting; Swiss Family stairs post-marathon; Post-turkey leg; monkey at heart; that was close; straight up gangsta; he is alive!; terror; Matt's so tall; Look, it's Lori's bike chain!

Christmas Eve/Day!

2009-12-27T14:38:00.002-06:00

Here's a brief overview of our Christmas...

Christmas Eve

2:30pm - Open presents and eat 3 bowls of seafood gumbo in Grand Point at my Nanny Nee's house (dad's side of family).
5:00pm - drive down River Road to see what non-traditional bonfire the Gramercy Fire Dept built this year...a Fleur De Lis...hmmm? I wonder why?

5:15pm - Open presents and eat (not gumbo) at my Maw Maw Gloria's house in Paulina (mom's side of family). Here's a picture of me and my godchild Claire. I think the background of the one after that is pretty funny... someone looks full!

7:15pm - Drive to Prairieville... i tried to take a picture of a bonfire that had been lit, but the camera on my phone didn't quite capture the beauty that my own eyes had witnessed. Instead, it captured this giant glow!

7:45pm - arrive in Prairieville to open gifts and eat (yeah I had more gumbo) at Lori's Aunt Fae's house (her mom's side of family). Here's a picture with my godson Luke.

9:45pm - get Lori's car stuck in mud while moving it to let some other vehicles out.
9:46pm to 10:10pm - get teased repeatedly by everyone!
10:11pm - teasing dies down enough for the guys to help nudge the car free from the mud.
11pm head home to LaPlace.

Christmas Day

8:00am - open presents at home with Lori and the munchkins (our cats). They got a new bed. Ellie Mae hasn't really taken to it yet but Hunter and MJ seem to love it. My gift to Lori was so romantic that... well, just ask her next time you see her!

10:30am - ride into New Orleans with my parents and my sister for our traditional Christmas brunch...this year's location was the Hotel Monteleone.

2:00pm - exchange gifts at my parent's house.

3:00pm - 1 hour nap.
4:30pm - open presents and eat (uh huh, 3 more bowls of gumbo... why won't Lori just stop me?!) in Reserve at Lori's dad's house and watch the Roussel family's favorite Christmas movie, A Christmas Story. We actually planned on playing the Christmas Story board game that Lori gave her dad last year, but even though the box said it was for ages 8 and up, no one could understand the rules so we never got to play. Maybe the box was supposed to say "8 and under"
7:30pm - over to Big Maw's house to visit with Ms. Sylvia (Lori's grandmother), Big Maw, Darryl, and Noel.
10:00pm - back at home...Merry Christmas!!!

Shake your groove thing yeah yeah!

2009-12-22T08:25:00.004-06:00

As usual, we had another full weekend. Friday night we went see the Hornets beat the Denver Nuggets (Thanks Matt!) and after the game, Lori was tickled pink to get to sit in the same seat that Deion Sanders sat in earlier. Neither Matt or I had any idea she was such a fan of "Prime Time."

Saturday morning, we met the crew for breakfast at the Ho Ho Hole (Donut Hole in LaPlace). Lori and I have missed the last several gatherings due to races so it was great to see the gang again. We then hustled over to Commander's Palace for my sister's annual birthday lunch with her and my parents. After lunch we stopped over at my parents hotel room to open some gifts and they recommended we check out the ginger bread streetcar at Harrah's so we did.

We then wlaked over to the French Market to do some Christmas shopping. After 3 hours of shopping we grabbed a table at River's Edge Restaurant in Jackson Square to eat and watch the beginning of the Saints game. It was fun being in the city on game day with all the excitement going on with the Saints. Notice I said watch the "beginning" of the game. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, considering the outcome of the game), a couple of months ago my mom got tickets for all of us to go see White Christmas at Le Petit that night. Before picking that date, none of us realized that the Saints game was on Saturday that week. Nor did we have any idea that they would be 13-0 at the time. It worked out well in the end though because we got to see a great show with my family and didn't actually have to sit through the game only to see them lose. Of course, I checked my phone for updates the entire time.

We were up bright and early Sunday morning to go run the Ole Man River Half Marathon at City Park. We both had to do our last long long run before the Disney Marathon in 3 weeks so we decided to just do this race and keep running after. We were a little concerned about how things would go because we had been walking all over the city the day before... not really what you want to do before a long run. We both had a pretty good run though... I ran 21 miles and Lori ran 22 miles. Disney here we come! Lori was thrilled that there were still some pancakes left from the post race party.

Next we hustled home to clean up before heading to Reserve to celebrate Christmas with Lori's dad's side of the familythat evening. We had a great time. There was one small incident though. Lori got her Paw Paw some pajamas and Saints hat for Christmas... appropriate gifts right? Well, half right... when he opened the Saints hat I though his head was going to explode. Apparently, he HATES the Saints! Everyone else seemed to know this but Lori and I so as you can imagine, the laughter was hysterical. I'm not sure he talked to Lori the rest of the night.

Monday, work. Monday night we went to the Celebration in the Oaks with Matt and his mom.

At one point, Matt got tired and needed to rest (he did a long run on Sunday too), but unfortunately we were in Storyland at the time so this was the tallest bench he could find.

Of course we had to ride the Carousel.

We also had to eat and while eating we sat down to enjoy some of the local entertainment. There was a group of dueling senior citizen tap dancers that kept us thoroughly entertained. Here's a short clip.

All in all, we had a wonderful weekend. Here's one last picture that was on my phone... it's 2 of our 3 munchkins, Hunter and MJ.

32 degrees, wind chill of 23... what would you do?

2009-12-06T06:55:00.002-06:00

Go canoeing right! OK most sane people would say stay in inside...not us! Of course, many (most) of our friends and family have questioned our sanity when it comes to our adventure racing addiction. We decided to squeeze in one last paddling workout before our big race next weekend in Texas...the Dave Boyd Adventure Race. It will be the longest race any of us have attempted at 41 hours. It's also going to be the debut of our new team for the 2010 season...Team CACAR! We paddled for about 2 hours and 40 minutes before the cold got the best of us.

last trek closed/canceled

2009-10-24T10:54:00.000-05:00

Apparently no one told HBP at the last bike drop that the last trek was canceled. They could've biked back out to where they just came from (an hour away)to try to get some more CP's, but quickly declined! Great job HBP!!!

HBP finishes!

2009-10-24T10:41:00.000-05:00

they just crossed the finish line! I think with 26 CPs.

HBP spotted

2009-10-24T09:59:00.000-05:00

just saw HBP on horse trail...looked strong, muddy, and determined!

mudpit

2009-10-24T09:19:00.000-05:00

my first checkpoint!

2009-10-24T09:08:00.000-05:00

I decided to hunt for a checkpoint while waiting for my next encounter with HBP... checkpoint 17. Teams had to bike thru a horsetrail (aka mudpit) to get here. I trekked.

BTW, HBP had at least 21 CP's when they headed out earlier this morning.

And their off...again!

2009-10-24T07:40:00.003-05:00

HBP headed out for more punishment about 25 minutes ago. Their plan is to get 6 or 7 more CP's before the race cut-off at 1:07pm today. Their little nap helped with sleepiness, but made them stiffen up. Dry clothes, socks, and shoes made them feel a lot better as well. Still smiling, well maybe not so much in the picture below, but trust me, they're having fun!

2009-10-24T06:25:00.001-05:00

They're sawing logs here at the TA!

HBP back in TA

2009-10-24T05:40:00.000-05:00

HBP is back from TA. They were falling asleep on the bike in so they took the safe route and decided to walk there bike for a while. They're gonna sleep here for about an hour before heading back out there at day break.

cold night

2009-10-24T04:40:00.000-05:00

just spotted HBP on bikes about 8 miles from the TA. They looked really cold, but still spirited. The O-course gave them a little trouble (nice way of saying they got lost again).

HBP is finished trek!

2009-10-23T21:17:00.000-05:00

There off on their bikes now to CP 13. they got a little lost on the trek but perservered. They still haven't missed a CP.

a little nervous

2009-10-23T20:25:00.000-05:00

HBP is now one of the last 2 teams on this trekking leg. Hopefully they come in soon!

here's the pic

2009-10-23T17:18:00.000-05:00

Stealing Wi-Fi

2009-10-23T17:02:00.001-05:00

I know I owe y'all some pictures, but bear with me...

After HBP left the boats, I stuck around to see if teams would miss the 3pm cut-off, and yes they did! It was hard to watch as the race folks informed them that they would be penalized 1 cp for every minute they were late. In other words, the teams who more than five minutes late were now back down to 0 checkpoints! Ouch! It was hard to watch so I left.

I got lost on my way to the next bike drop because I lost my map (good thing I'm not racing!). I stumbled across a team on bikes so I just followed them in to the bike drop. As I pulled up, there were the pink jerseys (and yes, HBP is the only team here with pink jerseys). They looked a lot warmer and happier now as you can see in the picture. They picked up 2 more CP's along the way and are now headed off on a relatively short trek.

Oh yeah, I'm without cell phone recption right now but have managed to find a wi-fi signal coming from "Big John's House" out here in the middle of nowhere...no sign of any civilization....hmmm? Thanks Big John, wherever you are!

HBP off the water!

2009-10-23T15:00:00.000-05:00

HBP is off the water and had a great paddle. They look like the wind got the best of them, but still smiling. They are in no worse than 24th place. There is still 22 boats on the water.

3pm cutoff!

2009-10-23T14:18:00.000-05:00

No sign of HBP at canoe take-out yet. Wind is pretty brutal. A lot of teams skipped paddle CP's just to get off the water. Teams must be off the water by 3pm... gonna be tight!

HBP clears paddle CPs

2009-10-23T12:59:00.000-05:00

I just spotted HBP shortly after punching CP4. They're still smiling and have finished all the paddle checkpoints. Now the long paddle back to their bikes. BTW they are ahead of Vignette! Pictures soon to come!

lunch

2009-10-23T11:56:00.000-05:00

eating lunch at Betty's Cafe which is completely decorated in Lucille Ball stuff/junk/artwork.

update #4

2009-10-23T10:29:00.000-05:00

HBP was the 35th team (out of 67) to take off in the canoe. They looked great... all smiles.

Update #3 - Race start

2009-10-23T09:30:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the delay, hectic morning...
Woke up around 4am. Temps in low 40's and breezy. Teams received maps and all UTMs at 5am. They plotted points til about 6:15 am. They were instructed to bring their bikes to the end of the road so the race could begin with a short sprint to to their bikes. Last few details were announced just before 7am. Race actually started 7:07am with a cannon boom (very loud). Here's a shot just before the start.

HBP's plan was to stay near the back of the pack to avoid the stampede. They safely mounted their bikes and headed off without incident. Here's a shot of the galloping headlamps.

A couple of teams weren't so lucky and crashes ensued. The girl on Team #44 appeared to have the worst crash when another biker clipped her handlebars. The medics were tending to her a mere half mile from the start. Here shoulder/arm was obviously in severe pain.

The pack headed off on a 25 mile bike to CP1 and the canoe put-in.

National Championships update #2 - Pre-Race meeting

2009-10-22T20:39:00.002-05:00

Pre-race meeting is over. There was a great vibe in the room...full of energy. I admit, I really wish I was racing tomorrow. Lori was pretty excited after the meeting because Robin Benincasa (adventure racing icon) gave her some Starbuck's coffee packets. Below is a picture of Robin talking to the field.

Hefner Bunny Pie (referred to as HBP from here on out) is now making some gear adjustments based on some of the info revealed at the meeting along with a final gear check. They appear to be pretty excited and a touch nervous. The race directors have been making numerous last minute course changes today because of the 5 inches of rain in the last 24 hours. The weather has passed and the next 2 days should be perfect race weather...well, maybe a little windy. Here's a shot of tonight's sunset.

Maps and checkpoint coordinates will be handed out at 5am tomorrow (Friday). Cgeck back then!

National Championships update #1 - Mystery event #1 ????

2009-10-22T18:37:00.002-05:00

They're all checked in and ready to race. The pre-race meeting starts at 7pm. More later...

Lori wins 2009 Fontainebleau Adventure Duathlon!

2009-10-20T13:52:00.001-05:00

This past weekend Lori and I headed to Mandeville to participate in this year's edition of the Fontainbleau Adventure Duathlon. This race was part of the Greater New Orleans Northshore Adventure Weekend. There were five different events to choose from on Saturday and Sunday. We chose to race in the duathlon on Saturday morning. The course was in perfect condition for an offroad race...wet, muddy, and cold! Lori tore up the course and won the female division (she also finshed 7th overall...male and female). Paul finished 6th overall and 3rd in the "guys named Paul" division. I also had what I consider to be a succesfull race and finished a little more towards the front of the middle of the pack than usual. Congrats to Lori and Paul! Here's a post race picture:

After the race, Lori and I stuck around to volunteer for the Kids Adventure Challenge Experience. We hasd a great time watching the all the kids do events like paddling, scavenger hunts, fun run, trail ride, inflatable obstacle course, mystery events, and a rockwall. We both highly recommend the KACE...it is a wonderful event for families.

Lake Charles Adventure Race (8/29/09)

2009-09-17T15:19:00.010-05:00

I know this post is a little overdue, but better late than never, right. Actually, I was planning on just putting a link to one of my teammate’s (Scarlett Pourciau) blog since she wrote the race report, but I felt the need to make some corrections/commentary to her post and add some pictures. So, the words below are hers and my comments are in red.

August 29th, 2009
Team: Light & Momentary Troubles
members: Damon & Scarlett Pourciau, Kirk Zeringue
Results (place/#of teams): 9/24 (co-ed), 25/66 (overall)
Time: 3 hours 11 minutes 46 seconds

With "No Sweat" out of the way, we set our sites on Lake Charles, part of Gulf Coast Adventure's "Racing to N'Awlins" Series. This time our team was comprised of Damon, Kirk, and me. Jamie tagged along and was sweet enough to watch Stella during the race. The Sharbono family was there, with multiple generations racing and cheering. Nathan's dad was trying his hand at adventure racing for the first time, Nathan had an all-male team, and the cutest Sharbonos were our cheerleaders and Stella's playmates for the day. Hefner Bunny Pie was also there to dominate everyone, of course. We left later than we wanted to Friday night and caught a few hours of rest at a nearby hotel before heading to Sam Houston Jones State Park. (Lori, Matt, and I camped Friday and Saturday night)

The first leg of the race was a trail run, and Damon sprinted out in front with the passport (despite our previous conversation minutes before the start). Kirk and I followed at a nice pace. (probably around 9 minute miles) Back at the TA, we caught our first glimpse of Damon since the starting line when we all jumped on our bikes.

The first bike was on very congested single track, and we were stuck behind many inexperienced cyclists. Seems our "nice" pace had put us in the back of the pack behind folks who needed to stay on the pavement. They literally were hopping off their bikes for every obstacle, and Damon and I were getting irritated when we realized that Kirk was not with us. Damon, the almighty holder of the passport, instructed me to slow down and wait for Kirk while he fought on ahead and grabbed the checkpoints. I did, and discovered that Kirk had become roadkill not once but twice when rude cyclists tried to pass him and instead just mowed him down, bike and all. (Actually, the first time I was stopped at a pile-up in front of me when another biker plowed into my back…that hurt. The second time, a biker tried to pass me on singletrack without letting me know and our handlebars got tangled leading to a nasty spill…that hurt more! I calmly expressed my displeasure to him…yeah right, I chewed him out…then his teammates tore into him too!) We reunited and easily road the rest of the trail thinking that we would meet up with Damon at the end. Kirk, the almighty holder of the map, navigated with ease. When we got to the end of the trail the race director snapped our photo, and was polite enough not to inquire about the location of our third teammate. Perhaps he realized we were racing with Damon and knew that this was just par for the course. Anyway, when we arrived at the end of the trail and the first mystery event, Damon was nowhere to be seen (for at least 12 minutes). Turns out he had followed another team that took a wrong turn and rode about an extra mile through the forest.

where's damon?

there he is!

Reunited (and it feels so good) we completed the mystery event which was a bike and hike. This is where two team members run and one bikes. I let the boys bike since I knew they would soon be paddling and I would not.

After collecting the rest of our bikes, we headed to the canoe put-in. My two boat motors did an excellent job on the paddle, even if they did almost come to blows over Damon's ridiculous resistance to Kirk's plan to refill his water bottle at the boat drop (I got a little irate about this…justifiably so, fresh off the heals of a race where I cramped for 12 hours straight).

After navigating the rough waters of disagreement, we were back on the bikes for more single track, then back to the TA for our second mystery event. (this mystery event actually took place about an hour earlier after the first bike leg) Normally, I am great at mystery events, especially the ones that require balance. This one did not require balance and in my opinion, it sucked. We had to use a bucket with three ropes attached to it with loops on the end and touching only the loops fill a larger bucket with water from the nearby lake. I did not take the time to read the instructions, depending on my teammates to keep me up to speed and this resulted in me touching the rope, us losing an entire bucket of water, and me getting yelled at (by Damon, not me…I touched the rope too). Whatever (ditto).

After that was over, we set out for the final run. We found the checkpoints easily, only really going out of our way once on accident (not sure when this happened). We finished in a little over 3 hours, and were able to spend time visiting with friends back at the TA.

Hefner Bunny Pie collecting their winnings for 1st place!

2009 No Sweat Adventure Race

2009-09-03T14:24:00.002-05:00

A couple of weekends ago Lori and I headed west with our respective teams (HBP & LMT) to participate in the 2009 edition of the No Sweat 24 Hour Adventure Race. Here's a link to a race report written by one of my teammates, Scarlett... http://astreetcarnamedstella.blogspot.com/2009/08/no-sweat-race-report.html

Here's some quick stats:

Date: August 22-23, 2009
Location: in and around Lake Travis (near Austin, TX)
Team: Light & Momentary Troubles
Team members: Kirk Zeringue, Dane Welch, Damon & Scarlett Pourciau
Results (place/#of teams): 12/15 (overall)
Time: 23 hours 13 minutes
Trekking: 32km (20 miles)
Mountaing Biking: 50km (31 miles)
Swimming: 1km
Kayaking: 22km (13.5 miles)

Here's some pictures:

finished setting up the TA

normally Lake Travis...now just the Colorado River

open your mouth, it makes you look like you're having fun!

Awww!

Team Light and Momentary Troubles (LMT)

Team Hefner Bunny Pie (HBP)

"No, we're right here Damon!"

it's getting hot!

I obviously haven't started my 12 hours of cramping yet! Actually, according to the map, we are walking on water in this picture.

TA 2

The best Checkpoint in the race. I'll never forget you CP 10!

We were in Texas.

20 hours into the race.

Geaux Tigers!

2009-08-27T14:37:00.005-05:00

Janie (Lori's cousin) just sent another adorable picture of my Godson Luke and I got all excited about the upcoming LSU football season. I took some liberties and doctored the picture a little bit (sorry Janie...and whatever professional photographer took the picture). Anyway, Luke and I say "GEAUX TIGERS!!!!"

Lori finishes 3rd overall in Rocketchix!

2009-08-18T11:57:00.002-05:00

Lori and I drove up to Woodworth, LA this past weekend where Lori participated in a duathlon at Indian Creek Recreation Area. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and I went for about a 7 mile trail run while Lori set up the tent and studied. We then drove into Alexandria to pick up some supper and headed back to the park. For the first time in months (maybe years) we were both ready to got to sleep by 10pm! The only problem was that it was still 86 degrees outside with a heat index in the 90's. Needless to say we were hot and sticky even though we were practically naked in that tent. We jockeyed for position near the little fan with and occasional "don't touch me!" thrown in. It was pretty miserable. It eventually cooled off enough so we were able to fall asleep...but we both woke up a lot during the night. Alarms went off at 6am on Sunday morning. The race was staged within walking distance from our tent so that made things very convenient. As we walked up to the TA, we heard the announcement that the swim portion of the triathlon was canceled and the race was now going to be a run-bike-run duathlon. Apparently, someone had drowned the night before in the lake after their boat sank and they had not yet found the body. Out of respect for the saerch and rescue operations, the race director decided to cancel the swim. Of course, the racers were dissappointed but obviously understanding.

The race was pretty exciting. There was a professional triathlete there so she obviously spanked the rest of the field, but lori was in a battle the entire race with about 6 others for a top 5 finish. In the end, Lori finshed 3rd overall and 1st in her age group. We were both pretty excited. Here's some pictures from the race:

After the race, we drove down to Chicot State Park near Ville Platte to do some kayaing and mountain biking. After the kayaking, the weather turned bad pretty quickly so decided to scratch the biking and start the 2 and half hour drive home. All in all, a great weekend.

Catch-Up Post #3 - All Shook Up Set Construction

2009-08-10T21:00:00.002-05:00

ALL SHOOK UP Set Construction
July 26th, 2009

I spent most of my free time this summer spearheading the construction of the set for St. John Theatre's summer musical - ALL SHOOK UP! Last night was closing night of the show so I thought I would add some photos that show off the Darryl Clement designed set. Some of the highlights were:

2-story set
light boxes, arch, and walls that change colors
a 20' fireman's pole
the orchestra (12 piece...I think) was on the second story of the set behind the records

Thanks to all my fellow volunteers who helped make Darryl's vision become a reality!

Catch-Up Post #2 - BRUAR

2009-08-08T08:22:00.008-05:00

Baton Rouge Urban Adventure Race
July 25, 2009

At the end of last season, I vowed to not participate in any more urban adventure races. I'm pretty miserable the entire time in the urban races because my teammates are faster than me on the run, so it takes everything I have just to keep up. I now know that if I have to race for that long with that amount of intensity, then I'm probably not having much fun. So, no more urban races for me, right. I kept my vow through exactly one race...Mobile Urban AR.

My dad expressed some interest in trying out adventure racing at the end of last season and we all thought it was a great idea. So, we encouraged him to start training. After 6 months of training and hard work, he was ready to give it a go. I thought it was best he attempted an urban race first, which means I had to break my own vow. I was pretty confident, however, that there would be no sprinting involved. We need a third person...my sister. Well, that was the plan, but she was having some knee troubles in the week leading up to the race. So she decided to not race rather than risk further injury. In the end, it was the just the two of us...father and son...58 and 32...Team Meringue with a "Z".

That morning, my dad was obviously a little nervous because he wasn't talking nearly as much as usual. My mom (the nurse) was probably the most nervous. I assured her he would be fine because I knew he had trainined appropriately. The race started with a running section. We hung towards the back so all of the srinters could get out of our way. We arrived at CP1 where there were still a ton of teams confused over whether or not it was CP1 (mislabeled). We just punched it and headed to CP2 near the Quad. Shortly after punching CP2, Hefner Bunny Pie (eventual winners) came running by. We were amazed...could it be? Yes, we were ahead of HBP through 2 check points! We made it back to the TA and transitioned to the bikes. Surprisingly (to me), my dad was able to run the entire first leg of the race! His training was obviously paying off.

The 2nd leg of the race was a bike leg. We way would ride our bikes from LSU to dowtown Baton Rouge collecting CP's along the way. Once again, my dad was quite impressive...faster than I expected. In fact, I had to hold him back a little on the bikes because I knew there was still a lot of race left. We got all the CP's without any trouble and made it to the bike drop. Leg 3 was a run around downtown to the YMCA, USS Kidd, fountains, and Arsenal Museum. Here's a picture of us doing the mystery challenge at the YMCA. My dad ran most of this leg as well...wow!

Leg 4 was a bike back to LSU and the TA with a few more checkpoints along the way. My dad was equally as strong on this bike leg as the first. We then had to run (with intermittent walking...the heat was starting to take it's toll) to BR Beach to the canoe put-in. We ran into HBP along the way and they snapped this picture.

The canoe was also quite impressive on my dad's part (common theme). We collected the 3 CP's and even passed a couple of teams on the water. We ran back toward the TA on our way to CP18 where we were faced with a mystery challenge. We basically had to climb up, over, and through a huge spider web (working on getting pictures of this). Anyway, once again, and to the amazement of onlookers (sister, mom, HBP, etc.) my dad had no trouble with the web. We hustled back to the finish line. I was a little overcome with pride and gave my dad a big hug and told him how great he did. Man was I proud, and still am! He's already talking about his next race!

Catch-Up Post #1 - Beach Volleyball Birthday!

2009-08-04T12:01:00.004-05:00

I apologize to my readers for the infrequent blog posts lately but I haven't had enough "Free Time" to update kirksfreetime.blogspot.com. So, I'll be playing catch up over the next week or so.

Beach Volleyball Birthday!
July 15th, 2009

Today was my 32nd birthday...wow....hmmmmm....I'll leave it at that. Anyway, I had a pretty good day with plenty of B-day wishes. Thanks to all of you! The day capped off with a great evening of volleyball at Coconut Beach (we play every Wednesday night) with my teammates from PHAZZE 6. Lori surprised me (somewhat, she always does something like this on my Birthday to make me feel special...and a little embarrassed) with party hats and 2 trays of chocolate chip cookies from subway.

We all wore our party hats during the game and our referree even joined in on the festivities. Even though we lost our game that night, I couldn't have been happier because I got to spend another birthday with great friends. Thanks again!

Scouting for CACAR

2009-07-18T14:52:00.004-05:00

I spent yesterday at Clear Springs doing some course scouting and putting out some checkpoints. I started the day paddling the Middle Fork of the Homochitto River and it was a struggle. The Middle Fork is normally pretty shallow requiring frequent pull sections, but I thought with the amount of rain they had up there the previous 48 hours that it would be a lot more conducive to paddling. Well it was certainly deeper in most areas, but the current was also a lot stronger. The result was a brutal mere 1 mile paddle (half mile downstream/half mile back upstream) in about a hour and a half! So I'm now re-thinking the paddle section of CACAR whick means it will be flatwater paddling (~9 miles) instead of river paddling.

After paddling/pulling, I spent about 4 hours biking/trekking though the National Forest around Clear Springs. A few observations to note for CACAR...

The heat and the terrain make for a dangerous combination making dehydration a real possibility if you're not careful.
I highly recommend using gaiters for the trekking sections (or high socks at the very least)
the roads/trails are drastically different when wet

July 5th Celebration - Mentos and Diet Coke

2009-07-08T10:01:00.003-05:00

CACAR FAQs

2009-07-02T15:02:00.005-05:00

Q. How do we register?
A. Send me an e-mail at kirkzeringue@gmail.com with your team name, team members, and which course (short or long...6hr or 18hr).

Q. Is there a waiver?
Click here for more...

CACAR set for August 1st!

2009-06-17T10:40:00.011-05:00

Spillway Adventure Race/Crawfish Boil

2009-06-15T12:39:00.000-05:00

I had a great time this past weekend at the Spillway AR in Norco. The original LMT (me, Scarlett, and Damon) was re-united for this race. While we (and I stress we...it's a team sport)did repeat a couple of the same mistakes we made 2 years ago in this race, all in all, it was fun! We finshed 8th out of 23 teams in the coed division.

After the race, my dad and I boiled a few sacks of crawfish for everyone (LMT, HBP, B&tB, family, friends, Dave, etc.) and did our best to stay in the shade. Rather than me posting all the same pictures as Scarlett, check out her photo race/day report at http://astreetcarnamedstella.blogspot.com/2009/06/saturday-at-spillway.html

Spread Your Wings (SYW) Adventure Race

2009-06-01T13:51:00.031-05:00

Written by Lori (in black) with comments by Kirk (in red)

May 23-24, 2009
Location: Camp Eagle (near Rocksprings, TX)
Team: Captain Pie
Team members: Kirk & Lori Zeringue
Results (place/#of teams): 5/6 (2-person coed), 21/30 (overall)
Time: 18 hours 34 minutes

Pre-Race Report Notes
Some things I think the readers should know ahead of time...
Lori and I both did an 18 hour race in Kentucky the weekend before (separately) and it only took about 10 minutes to feel the lingering effects of that race.
Camp Eagle was located in an extremely remote part of Texas and we were totally cut off from the rest of the world.
If you race with Lori, you should know that she will have to go to the bathroom everytime you return to the TA.
At the pre-race meeting, one of the race directors referred to a hill we would ascend and descend multiple times as the "Death Hill!"
When you look at the topo maps below of our tracks, keep in mind that the contour interval is 40ft.
My jacked up ankle (bad sprain a week before the Mission AR...2 weeks before SYW) didn't handle the terrain very well and prevented us from running.

Leg 1 – Tubin Relay (19 mins)
The race began with a tube relay. This was the funnest race start yet! We were to run down to the river with our inner tubes, cross the river with them 4 times, receiving poker chips for each crossing, return to the TA, and exchange our poker chips for next leg’s instructions. We started in the back of the pack knowing we wouldn’t be running all that fast downhill. Our inner tube was one of, if not, the largest out there as some people were only carrying inflated bike tubes. Prior to the race, Kirk was nervous about the water activities and decided he wanted a tube large enough for him to ride (handles and all) if necessary even if I had to tote him around in it. (I adventure race because I don't swim!) I attached a cord to my pfd which could also attach to the tube thinking I would swim while towing the tube behind me. Countdown 5-4-3-2-1 and off we go! (actually, we did 2 countdowns...not sure why) Once there, we assessed the situation and determine the racers making the best progress across the river were those riding their inner tubes and kicking. Water shoes off, flippers on, I jump on the inner tube and off I go. With the flippers I was making great progress with little effort and passed most of the swimmers and people with much smaller tubes. I handed off the inner tube to Kirk who was also making great progress. A couple more exchanges and we had our 4 poker chips. Flippers off, water shoes on, back to the TA. Kirk was very excited about our performance since he was very nervous about having to swim (I was equally excited that I didn't have to actually swim, yet).

Leg 2 – Sweet, Sweet Mountain Bike – CP 1 (1hr, 52 mins)
We took some time in this TA considering we didn’t have any points to plot, but we did have to change shoes and gear up for biking. This leg was following a marked bike course through about 10 miles of single track with CP1 somewhere towards the end of the course. This course was along rocky trails up to the top of a (big) hill and winding down. Ride-push uphill-ride-push-push-up-up-up-windmill-down-ride brake-down-down-ride brake-down-mud-push-squeaky brakes-down-down-down to river rock-CP1!-back to TA. (My brakes weren’t working all that well, so I rode the steepest section with one foot off the pedal in preparation of jumping off the bike)

Leg 3 – Water Sports – CPs 2, 3, 4 (27 mins)
From previous race videos, we’d seen the various water activities thrown at racers during the SYW races, and the recommended gear list for this race included goggles, snorkel, and fins, plus the required inner tube. Kirk had been dreading this part of the race since we signed up and I could sense his anxiety about being in the water each time the subject came up. Not being a swimmer, he’s not entirely comfortable in the water (that tube was comfortable). We changed into our water shoes, put on our pfds, grabbed the fins and goggles and headed out to the start of the water sports with the instructions of punching the passport and each of our wristbands (to ensure that each racer completed the leg) from the top of the iceberg and 2 buoys. From the top of the cliff, we could see other racers swimming and climbing this big inflated iceberg below, and decided no shoes and fins would be best. To begin there was a huge water slide down into the river below (look in the background of the picture in leg 1). Kirk immediately decided that I should go first in case he needed assistance (rescue) at the bottom, which the volunteer monitoring the slide found somewhat amusing. I slid down going much faster than expected and hit the water pretty hard. I quickly move out of the way and start off toward the iceberg knowing Kirk was coming right behind me. Kirk comes shooting out of the slide holding his nose and landed flat on his back. I chuckle and wait to make sure he was OK, which he was, and now we’re both off toward the iceberg (swimming sans tube). This iceberg has handles spaced out for climbing to the stop on 3 sides and 1 smooth side to slide down. There were consistently 5-10 racers climbing up/falling down the iceberg at this point, so I pick a spot to climb. Just as I was about to grab my first handle, some guy comes falling down above me. I was able to move aside just enough and he landed on my shoulder instead of my head, but OUCH! Too many people on this side, I’m moving! Once on a different side I start to climb up, but now I was close to the side with no handles. Kirk joins me on the same side and starts to climb too. I thought it best to let him finish the climb first so he could begin swimming to the next buoy. The guy just above us was now trying to get down without taking me with him. After a quick glance at each other, I told him to try to get his momentum to the slide side and I would push him over once he let go. He did and it thankfully worked as planned or he would’ve knocked me off completely. Kirk reaches the top, punches his wristband and climbs down. I finish the climb and another racer waiting for his teammates was nice enough to punch my wristband and passport for me. I start to climb down and realize I can’t move over enough to the slide side without falling on Dane (of team Light & Momentary Troubles...Dane, Damon, Julie, and Joe)(hopefully they do a race report!). So I climb down just a bit more, warn Joe, who hadn’t started his ascent, to "look out below!" and dropped back into the water. Kirk was just about at the first buoy when I started swimming toward it, really excited to actually use my recently acquired swimming skills. I was passing people! Kirk punched his band and continued to the last one, while I punched mine and the passport. We punched at the last buoy and then off to exit the river. Kirk had been sporting this backward breaststroke technique which seemed to work for him with the assistance of his pfd (I passed 2 people who were swimming freestyle...ok, both had tennis shoes on, but whatever). We climbed the stairs back to the top of the cliff, during which Kirk was in disbelief of how dizzy he was from the swim. We retrieved our fins and shoes and headed back to the TA. Kirk was super excited having completed the water section and admitted he was foolish to be so worried about it (that was the dizziness talking).

Leg 4 – I want to ride my bicycle, bicycle - Bike/Trek – CPs 5, 6, 7, 8 (1 hr 44 mins)
This was the first set of CPs in the race that required plotting, which I started while Kirk put his ankle brace back on. While plotting, we started hearing thunder. Ah man, it’s gonna rain on us again (see pre-race and Mission race report (yet to be published...check back soon!). We determine our route and order for CPs to be 7-5-6-8 and head down a dirt road where 7 and 5 were located. Clue for CP7 was “Bridge” which we should pass along the road. We cross a couple of creeks without seeing CP7 until I think we’ve gone too far. We decide to continue to 5 and once there, a couple of teams were standing on a creek crossing with culverts underneath. The clue for CP5 was “Culvert” so this must be it. The CP was actually located inside of the culvert, and Kirk was kind enough to volunteer to climb in to punch it. No refusal here, I quickly handed him the passport. Back up the road to find 7 and we still don’t see a bridge with the CP. Now what? We continue down the road and see several team members standing on the side appearing to be waiting for other teammates. Kirk notices bike tracks down an opening beside a creek and decides the bridge must be that direction. Along comes a racer running from that direction and seeing our hesitation, recommends riding our bikes down the path toward the bridge. Great! Off we go down the path of rock and soon see an obvious wooden bridge. There it is! The bridge was right off of the gravel road, but was hidden behind trees. CP6 would be on the top of the hill, clue “Overlook”, directly on the other side of the bridge so we cross it. This side of the hill was a straight up sheer cliff so we rode around to find a place we could climb the hill. We started up a trail, quickly realized it would put us on the wrong hill, and reversed direction. We saw another trail going up the correct hill, but it was super steep and rocky. Knowing CP6 would be at the very top, we decide it would be much, much faster to trek to it without our bikes than with them. We drop our bikes in the creek bed, climb to the top and punch CP6. Just then the rain starts along with thunder and lightning so I want to get down ASAP. I coax Kirk into running a bit (<100m) and we decide to continue in the same direction while climbing down toward the creek below where CP8 was located. We can see trails below us so we zigzag down into the creek. A little farther up the creek, being very careful not to slip on the rocks as it was raining much harder now, and we punch CP8. Trek out of the creek and bike back to the TA through a couple sections of flash flooding for the end of this leg with all CPs. The rain would stop just as we stepped out of the TA for the next leg.

Leg 5 – Can you dig it? - Trek – CPs 9, 10, 11 (2 hrs, 46 mins)
There were only 3 CPs for this leg, one consisting of a special test, so plotting was quick. After a change of clothes and gearing up, we decide to tackle them in order and complete the special test first at CP9. We set out just after team LMT who was jogging to CP9. After a couple of minutes we could no longer see them on the road ahead. Where did they go? We were walking so maybe they were running faster than we thought and are beyond the curve in the road? Wait … what’s that noise behind us? There they are. They took a slight detour (polite way of saying wrong turn), but jogged past us down the road. The clue for CP9 was “Dirt Hill” and once passed a curve in the road we see a big hill of dirt to our left with people on top, “There it is!” Kirk and I start towards the hill and realize LMT had disappeared again. They had gone just passed the hill and seemed to be deliberating whether or not this was the where they needed to go. We reach the CP first where each team member had to ride a scooter one at a time down mounds of (now wet) dirt and around a (wet) dirt road back to the top of the hill. I go first, “Wheeeee! This is fun!” Until I get to the bottom and a glob of mud flies in my eye. “Darn it, I really hope I don’t lose my contact.” So I continued with one eye closed for a while. The mud stopped my momentum rather quickly so the next part consisted of running beside the scooter as much as riding it, then running it up the hill. Kirk and I made a switch of scooter for camelbacks and off he went down the hill (I just remembered that I actually ran up the hill with the scooter...yay!). Test complete, punch passport and we’re off again. We continue down the same road and soon turn off onto a trail toward a big hill where CP10 was located. We continued to check our direction and map along the way to ensure we weren’t going out of our way until we come to 2 fences. The clue for this CP was “Hole in fence”. We see fences, but no hole? Luckily these fences were on the map and after determining their direction picked a fence and walked down toward CP10. We discuss strategy for attacking CP11. We wanted to minimize the up and down climbs so our first approach kept us on the same ridge rather than following the other fence up and down a few hills (Plan A). After about 50m towards CP11, we decide it was a bit too thick for the distance and ended up following the other fence for a while instead (Plan B). After going down and up once, we decided to cut in to try to find the draw where CP11 was located rather than go down-up-down again. We easily find the draw after only a few minutes and came upon another team following the draw upwards. They informed us they hadn’t seen the CP in the draw and were continuing up to look for it. This confused us. One of them kept climbing and Kirk and I figured if he was going to look for it up there, we’d wait the few minutes and let him determine if it was there or not. After a few minutes, Kirk was certain it was not that high so we went off down the draw. Sure enough a few minutes later, “There it is!” How did they miss it? (and they had 4 sets of eyes) We continued out of the draw and followed some trails and roads back to the TA with all 3 CPs.

Leg 7 – Bike/Trek – CPs 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (6 hrs, 31 mins)
Due to the weather, leg 6 which included the ropes course was postponed until after leg 7. There were 8 CPs for this leg and after plotting, we knew this would be a pretty long leg for us. CP22 included a special test with a cutoff and was also closest to the TA so we decide it was a good place to start our long loop of CPs. For Amazing Race fans, this special test was like a Road Block. We had to choose between a mental challenge and a physical challenge. The mental challenge was a puzzle solved by rotating rows of letters painted on long blocks of wood to complete a sentence. The physical challenge was to push 2 giant blocks across a field and arrange them to spell CAMP on one side and EAGLE on the other. We thought we should at least attempt the puzzle. After turning the puzzle blocks a few times with nothing jumping out at us, we decide to go for the larger blocks. Together we got both blocks to the other side turning them over-and-over, World Strongest Man style. We maneuvered them to spell CAMP EAGLE, although it took longer than it should have since we both had our own idea of which way we should position them (we were both right). One of the camp volunteers pointed out the camera in my back pocket, “Thanks!” I took a couple of quick pics before moving on.

We took the same jeep trail toward CP21 as we did coming back from CP11 so we were familiar with the area. The clue was “Draw/Fence Intersection”. There was a clear path in the general direction of the CP so we took it on foot until finding the fence and followed it down to CP21.

CP20 was up next and on the other side of the hill. We continued biking/pushing up the jeep trail toward the windmill we had passed on the bike much earlier… or so we thought. We were actually following a different jeep trail (we had no idea at the time), not on the map, which split off of the jeep trail we should have followed. We should’ve realized our mistake, but at this point in the race, we just trusted we were on the trail. We kept on going toward the windmill until we merged into another jeep trail going the direction we expected. We could see the windmill, also in the expected direction and determined we were right where we thought we were. Boy, were we wrong. The windmill was actually an entirely different windmill! There were so many similarities in the trails and windmill location of where we thought and actually were that we never realized (until much later that night) that we were way off. There were 3 other teams out there with us, also looking somewhat confused. (we all agreed where we thought we were) “I guess that makes me feel a little better?” For the next 2 hours, we would be highly doubtful and confused by our every move. Our original plan for this biking section was to stay as close to the top of the hills as possible and trek/climb down/bushwhack to each CP from above (Plan A). We attempted this for CP20. At first, we couldn’t determine where our starting point should be, and after biking back and forth getting distances, we pick a point and go in. We quickly decide it the brush was too thick to keep a bearing (for over 500 meters) and we would surely miss the draw with CP20. Before going in for CP20, we spoke to a team who decided to bike down to the bottom of the hill and enter the draw from below. Yes, we agreed finding the draw from the bottom would be much easier (Plan B), but really didn’t want to climb back up the hills for the other CPs. Oh well, we change our plan and go for the long ride to the bottom, which was actually lots of fun (Weeeeee!). We get to a creek crossing the trail and measure a distance to the draw with CP20 in it. We cross the creek again? Continue for the distance and notice the terrain looks nothing like we expected? What?? Where are we? We review the map and think maybe we were off our mark at the first creek crossing, adjust the distance, and continue. This still doesn’t look right. We must’ve passed it, but where are we? We soon cross another team from the opposite direction who tells us we’re "getting warm" to the draw we were looking for. Great, almost there. We keep going and still never see a draw. Wait a minute, was he referring to the draw with CP20 or CP19? Darn it, I didn’t mention the CP number. Still lost and confused (but thankfully not chafed, yet) we drop our bikes and head across the creek trying to find the draw through the trees in what looked like could be the correct area (convincing huh?). After 15 minutes or so, we are highly discouraged, and probably lost... so we decide to abandon CP20. This meant it was also highly likely we would also miss CP19 which was up another draw past CP20. I’m really nervous of having no idea of where we are and pissed that we have to give up on CP20 and possibly CP19. We bike a bit more and come upon another windmill. “Windmill? Windmills are marked on the map! There we are! SOB!” We hadn’t gone passed CP20 much at all. “We’re going back!” ("OK") We find the draw with no problem, trek through a few hundred meters and, “There it is!” We took pics to remember it.

The next section of biking was the best of the day (totally worth the misery of the previous 1.5 hours) .

The terrain was beautiful and we even saw deer and a (white) mountain goat on the side of a cliff in the distance.

We find the next draw leading us toward CP19 and find it easily after some trekking (my ankle is killing me at this point...every CP in a draw required ascent and descent in boulder type terrain...tearing my ankle to shreds). We were now half way through this leg of CPs, however, the sun is beginning to set as it’s now 7:30pm and we know we are going to end up in the dark, which will slow us down even more.

The trail turned us back up another (big) hill toward the next set of CPs. This climb with the bike was horrific for us with a super steep section at the top. Push-push-sit on rock and eat a snickers-push-push-rest-push-rest-push-finally reach top! Some biking at the top led us toward the draw with CP18. We could see the climb down to CP18 was going to be really tough (uncomfortably steep and rocky). There were discussions of time, darkness coming, Kirk’s ankle, and the climb back up. Despite all of that, I really wanted to get it. After testing out the descent, we both realize it was going to be worse than we thought and have the same discussions over again. We soon hear voices from below and come upon a team climbing back out of the draw. They admitted this was the hardest CP to get thus far (physically not navigationally) and had taken them about 20 minutes for the climb down and back to that point. In that time, I knew we could get it and be back out before it was dark. We carefully climb down and reach the creek with CP18 located down the creek. The climb out took much longer, and many of the rocks were loose and falling as we stepped on them. Kirk almost got me with a bowling ball sized one! (gutter ball) We finally made it out safely, found our bikes and rode toward CP17 with barely any daylight left so we dug out our headlamps. CP17 was easier to climb down to and find than the previous CP. After this CP, continuing to follow the trail in the dark was difficult and at one point we were off of it completely, during which I rode over a rather large cactus. “Darn it, now I’m going to get a flat that we’ll have to change in the dark!” (Luckily my tires held out until after the race.) We made our way toward CP15 until running into a fence. The clue was “Fence (crossing)”, so we follow the fence and spot CP15 on scaffolding set up over the fence for crossing with only enough room for 1 bike at the top. “How do we accomplish this?” Kirk climbed the scaffolding, I passed his bike to him and he carefully lowered his bike down on the other side, gracefully landing it upside-down on the other side. It was rather impressive (I even surprised myself). I handed him mine, climbed over and he handed it back to me below. The last CP of the leg, CP16, was down a creek we knew we could find just off of the creek with CP8. However, getting to it meant passing close to the TA (with 50 meters), tough to do mentally at this point in the race, and then biking in darkness down the rock path and bridge we’d ridden earlier. Neither of us was excited about doing that in the dark and Kirk, who’s ankle was taking a beating from the up and down trekking both with and without the bike, was not interested in hiking through another creek. We thought we had to be one of the only teams still out on the bike, so decided to return to the TA with one missed CP. The best way back to the TA was to climb a little farther up to the windmill again and then coast down a jeep trail leading right to the TA. We were a little nervous about riding the super steep downhill in the dark (we rode earlier in the first bike leg), which the race director referred to as “the death hill”, but it was fine. We reached the TA just before 10:00pm, 6.5 hours after setting off. At least we were right about it taking us a pretty long time.

Leg 6 – Row, row, row and ropes - Paddle & Ropes – CPs 12, 13, 14 (1 hr, 8 mins)
During the previous bike/trek we were looking forward to getting off of our legs for a while, although now it was dark for the paddle and ropes leg. There were only 2 short paddle CPs with the ropes CP, consisting of a 150 ft repel, in between. I was a little nervous about the long repel, but also excited since I’d never done that before. Kirk was hesitant about completing the ropes section, knowing there could be a difficult climb up to begin the repel. I don’t remember at what point the final decision was made, but we decided to skip the ropes. So we paddled to and punched CP12 and turned right back around. CP14 was not far up the river in the opposite direction, but the challenge was crossing a dam (2 dams) by portaging the kayak to the other side (4 times). Kirk was worried about carrying the kayak up and around the dam with his already distressed ankle, but I insisted we paddle at least to the dam to take a look. We did, made a U-turn, and went right back to the TA. (LMT confirmed later that this was a great decision)

Leg 8 – Fi-naly - Trek – CPs 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 (11:02 – 2:49; 3 hrs, 47 mins)
Back in the TA for our last transition, Kirk sat with his foot elevated and read me the final set of coordinates, yawning during each one. “Stop yawning and read me the CPs please (!!!).” (I almost pulled a muscle in my face trying not to yawn after she barked at me...easier said than done) After plotting the final 6 CPs, we changed into dry clothes and headed out for our final leg. We started with CP23 which was on our way back up to the windmill. The steep climb was tough on Kirk’s ankle (again), so we took it slow. We reached a point where we climbed down into a draw toward the CP with the clue of “Above draw in labyrinth”. “What? Isn’t a labyrinth a maze? We have to find a CP in a maze of what? Trees?” We hoped we’d recognize whatever it was even in the dark. During the climb down, we saw another 2-person team coming toward us. We asked them if they had any luck finding the CP down there, but they weren’t forthcoming with any info. “Oh-well, whatever.” Yet they asked us about the difficulty of the climb out of the draw and the quickest way to the trail. We muttered some response. After a few more minutes of bushwhacking down through the draw, we came upon an obvious, actual maze made of trees and fabric with CP23 hidden within it (Cool!). We climbed under the fabric to start and then each went different directions at each split until Kirk spotted the CP after a few minutes of dead ends. “That was fun!” Outside of the maze there was a trail that we hoped could lead us back out, but since it wasn’t quite leading us in the right direction, we decided to start over, climb and bushwhack out of the draw. Once back on the trail, we rewarded ourselves with 2 starbursts each mmmmm! (actually, I had 3...hee hee...don't tell Lori) We continued up to the windmill, then a short pace count down another trail before Kirk shot a bearing and we pace counted toward the “Point”. We were able to continue along an open area by zigzagging slightly until we easily came upon CP24, just a little farther than expected. In the dark, we had trouble following our path out, but we were able to follow Kirk’s bearing back to the trail. Another 2 starbursts each mmmmm! (3 for me!) The next 3 CPs (25, 26, 27) were much farther down the trail away from the TA. There was a metal grate at the windmill (perfect bench), so we sat and rested for a while. Now what? We knew we could make it out there, but the way back would be a long way, and each CP was in a draw of course. CP28 was back towards the TA, but still some distance down a road and creek we’d travelled earlier. It was just before 2:00am and we decided we should head back to the TA (wise decision). I was disappointed in not going for them, especially since we’d already skipped 3 CPs, but on the way back I was convinced we’d made the right decision. There were some steep hills, and Kirk had to rest his ankle a few times going downhill. “Who rests going downhill?”

(it felt like my tibia was going to just slide off the top of my foot) He was limping pretty badly. He’d forgotten his trekking poles, which may have helped a bit, and I offered my shoulder to lean on, but he declined. We made it to the TA for the last time at 2:49am... a total time of 18 hours and 34 minutes. The best part about coming in early was having time to take showers and get in a few hours of sleep before breakfast.

Wrap-up – Total time 18 hrs, 34 mins
Although we didn’t get all of the CPs, we found every CP we looked for and believe we could’ve found the others if we’d went for them. More lessons were learned. The terrain was exciting and challenging. The special tests and water activities were great surprises to the race. I was very pleased in our performance considering we’d done an 18 hour race the week prior. We went at our own enjoyable pace, stopping occasionally to appreciate the moment. I had a great time. (I had a great time too! Huge thanks to Lori for being so patient because I knew it was killing her that we weren't able to run. There was some pretty good suffering for me, which surprisingly correlates with some of my favorite moments in the race.)

The next day, we decided to stop in San Antonio so Lori could see the Alamo for the first time (my 3rd). We took a nice (aching) stroll along the river walk as well, followed by some great barbeque.

Back at home...thanks for the use of your tandem kayak Paul!

Mock Race at Clear Springs

2009-05-06T15:09:00.011-05:00

Matt, Lori, and I headed over to Clear Springs Recreation Area in the Homochitta National Forest near Meadville, MS this past weekend for a mock adventure race that I set up. We started at 11am and finished around midnight. Somewhere along the way it was dubbed the 1st Annual Chafed and Confused Adventure Race (CACAR!). I'm pretty sure we all had a great time...I know I did! The workout lived up to its name for Matt and I...and we were all confused at some point...often. My chafing evidence was in an area not for public viewing but here's a picture of Matt's:

I also carried around a cool little (cheap) camcorder that I won as a door prize a couple of weeks ago. Here's some of the video footage from the trip:

Hefner Bunny Pie Wins 2009 Mobile Urban Adventure Race!

2009-04-21T11:40:00.000-05:00

This past weekend we traveled to Mobile, AL for the first race of the season in the 2009 Gulf Coat Adventure Racing sprint series. A few weeks prior I decided to take a much needed break from running in order to give my ankle a chance to properly heal (see the Eco-Lonestar race reports to find out why) before I attempt the Mission AR in Kentucky next month as a soloist...yeah, I'm a little nervous about that! In addition, I'm pretty sure I've made it well known to everyone that I'm not a big fan of the urban sprint races, so my ankle gave me a perfectly legitimate excuse not to race. So, I was merely the groups photographer for this race.

Lori raced with her usual teammates (Matt & Paul) as team Hefner Bunny Pie (HBP). Damon and Scarlett raced with Nathan (a friend from college) as team Light & Momentary Troubles (LMT). Moe was racing as member of the newly formed team Never Back Down. I spent the morning frantically biking around the race course in attempt to take at least one good picture...I had a great time!

After a couple of hours of passing each other up repeatedly, HBP passed team Bike Zone one last time on the USS Alabama Battleship before sprinting to the finish line and taking home their first overall and coed victory! Congratulations HBP!

Here's some of the pictures I took:

Matt's falling behind the (half) Ironmen!

Nice shirt Scarlett!

SlickChix walking?

Never Back Down trying desperately to Never Flip Over!

Ouch!

Hmmm?

"I heard that!" said Matt. Oooh Paul?!!

"Woohoo! we're gonna win!"

Nice try Stephanie!

Photo finish!

Moe dawg!

Much better!

Lori is an Ironman (half)!

2009-04-09T09:44:00.000-05:00

I had a great time this past weekend cheering on Lori while she attempted and completed her first Ironman 70.3 in New Orleans. Congratulations Lori! Here's my very brief analysis of her race...great swim...pretty good bike (considering the brutal winds)...cramping run! It was truly inspiring to witness Lori and a couple thousand others (including Paul...congrats to you too!) in their quest...however, not inspiring enough to make me want to attempt it myself! I'll stick to adventure racing! Here's some pics from the day:

Dear Kirk's Freetime Blog,

2009-03-29T20:49:00.000-05:00

This is Matt; first time blogger, long time reader. I had a great time racing last weekend. As Kirk has already written a race report, I'll just give you some of my impressions of how things went...

I’m going to start at the end, with things that I learned. First, just because the compass is required gear, doesn’t mean you should throw it in your bag and let your teammate do all the navigating. Sorry Kirk, I’m new at this game. Second, leg protection is key during these truly off-road races. Third, it’s not enough to make sure you’re at the right checkpoint if you don’t actually then punch the correct spot on the passport. Finally, no matter how long the race or how well or poorly you’re doing, if you’re with the right people, the pictures will prove you were having fun.

All right, now for a couple of fun moments along the way. This will be in any order that I think of them, and most probably not chronological. In fact, let’s start towards the end of the race. We’re out of the canoe getting the last two checkpoints (or so we thought) and I’m like the kid who forgot to take his Ritalin because a) I have some extra energy to burn and b) I can smell the finish line (again…or so we thought). So I’m bouncing off the walls (we’re outside so not literal walls) and streaking ahead to get the punches. As I’m heading back I see that Kirk has turned around, and I think he has caught a little bit of my excitement and is running even though his ankle is obviously bothering him. I look down to put the passport away and when I look back up Kirk is on the ground. It seems like he is doing his best supermodel laying on the beach impression, and I’m about to yell at him to stop taunting me and get up, until I see the sheepish grin on his face. He totally wiped out and I missed it! 12 hours of racing together and I didn’t even get to see him fall. Maybe next time.

Moment number two was on the bike leg. We’re on a pretty big downhill, and I’ve gotten it in my head at this point that even as fun as the downhill’s are, it inevitably means we’re going to have to ride/push our bikes back up it. But as we come around the turn, there is a beautiful view of Brown’s lake. I love that adrenaline rush you get when you realize you’re doing something you really enjoy. That picture definitely hit me that this is why I enjoy the outdoors.

Moment number three was as we were just starting the second trek leg. We’ve just run up and down the hills that take you out of the TA area and a team in front of us takes a right turn in the exact opposite direction of all the checkpoints. This normally would be a minor concern and you just let the other team make the mistake, but this happened to be when yours truly had (like a speed demon I might add) plotted all of the checkpoints without supervision. I can’t quite remember what Kirk was doing, but I just flew through the 5 or 6 checkpoints. The team turning is obviously bothering Kirk. Where could they be going? So we pull out the plotting tool and check the closest one. Hurray I’m right. This seems to ease Kirk’s worries a small amount, but not enough that he definitely wants to check the other one’s. We do almost all of them and are left only with 21. I say “let’s trust me on 21” in part because I want to get going, but also because I’ve mostly relied on Kirk for all the navigation and I think it’d be fun to actually be a part of the team. Kirk concedes and we get ready to go, but doubt kicks in for half a second and my “uhhh” kicks Kirk back into plotting gear. The only consolation was that I actually did plot all of the points correctly.

Ok, time for one more moment before this becomes a full blown race report. On our way to the last few canoe checkpoints, we see a three man team that should probably have training wheels on their canoe just so they don’t injure somebody. Well as we’re getting back in the canoe for our “last” stretch, we see the team is some 300m ahead of us. Kirk says something to the effect of “my goal is to try and catch that team.” Remember how I said earlier that I had some extra energy oozing out of my pours? Well this time I harness it all (later Kirk even mentions that it’s the only time during the race I stopped talking), and focus on paddling as consistently hard as I can. We do eventually pass the team (even after I misdirect us to aim at the wrong shore….hey they were really bad at the canoe and I thought they were landing), but with only a short stretch to go. As this is the “last” segment of the race, Kirk and I are full steam ahead. We beach the canoe and jump out. The stupid canoe rental people (I say stupid because they hadn’t even moved the canoes by the next morning) insist that we carry the canoe all the way up the hill to put it by the trailer because they’re leaving soon. My arms are really tired after burning them on the paddle to catch the drunken sailors, and I even drop the canoe at one point (don’t worry it was made of titanium…or some other indestructible and heavy substance). The team is bearing down on us as an extra set of hands makes moving the canoe easier. Gear check time before we run back to the TA, everybody find their head lamps. Damn it, mine is all the way at the bottom of my pack inside another bag. I’m tearing stuff apart and finally find it. I try to shove stuff back in the bag, but it’s really just going everywhere. Kirk takes off with the first member of the other team on our 100m dash uphill to the finish. I bear hug my stuff and grab our kayak paddles and take off after him. Unfortunately the bear hug isn’t tight enough and my gloves fall out. I don’t know this until people behind me yell “hey your gloves.” Damn! So I run back to the gloves, scoop them up, bear hug again and turn to see that the other two members of team swervy are a good half way up the slope. I dig deep and really sprint (none of this trekking stuff) up the hill. I catch them just as we’re turning onto the wooden bridge, but the form a two person wall and I can’t get by. I, as politely as one can in these situations, say “excuse me” but they don’t budge. Never fear as I have the kayak paddles, and use one to guide one of the runners to the side. I sprint passed him and even though their first guy gets to the tent before Kirk, I show up right behind. We beat them!!!! But then the guy starts putting in their team number first…..what?!?!?!!?!@#$ As he hands us the piece of paper for the last surprise leg, I can’t help but let the lady also sitting behind the table know that even though they’re going in first, we had our whole team here and technically would be ahead. She grins, the race director looks confused as to why I care and we go about our business. So that was really only the set up for the moment which is as we’re out there getting the two checkpoints we can before the hard cutoff (DQ if you didn’t return by 7), we see the other team and they look upset. Turns out they forgot to “check out” of the TA and have run all this way without their passport. We win!

Anyway, thanks to Paul and Lori for riding in the back seat up to Tennessee. Thanks to blogspot for sporting such a fancy blog. And a huge thank you to Kirk, without whom I’d have only gotten checkpoint 1.

Matt-hew “Hefner” Abbrecht

2009 Natchez Trace Adventure Race (12-Hour)

2009-03-27T14:05:00.000-05:00

March 21st, 2009
Team: Captain Hefner
Team members: Matthew Abbrecht & Kirk Zeringue
Results (place/#of teams): 7/13 (2-person any gender), 22/42 (overall)
Time: 11 hours 54 minutes

Pre-Pre-Race
On Friday morning, we (Matt & I of Team Captain Hefner…and Lori & Paul of Team Bunny Pie) pile in to my truck along with an abundance of gear and headed to Natchez Trace State Park in Wildersville, TN. We didn’t have lodging reserved for Friday and Saturday night (busy weekend at the Park with an adventure race, duathlon, and triathlon), which bothered some people (Paul), so we were prepared to camp if need be. 8 hours of driving later, we arrived at the park, immediately asked the folks at the lodge if they had any rooms available…they had 1 room with one bed and we took it! Some people (Paul) were extremely relieved because they weren’t looking forward to camping in the cold (upper 30’s). We then checked in for the race, and went to the transition area (TA) to set up our gear for the next morning.

Content with our TA and gear set-up, we headed to Lexington, TN for some supper at Sparky’s, stopped at the grocery to stock up on food and liquid supplies, headed back to the lodge, made one last mandatory gear check, and went to sleep.

Pre-Race
We all awoke around 5:15-ish to the pulsating sound of Paul’s coffee pot. We didn’t have much to do before the race since everything was set up the night before. There was a pre-race meeting at 6:30 at which we were given practically no useful information other than the assurance that there was not a time cut-off. At the 6:50 the team captains, went to retrieve our race packets. Inside was a topo map, the coordinates for all the checkpoints (CP) in the race (or so we thought), and the order in which your team was to complete the different legs (2 treks, 1 bike, 1 paddle). Our order was Trek1-Bike1-Trek2-Paddle1. Other teams had to complete them in different orders…I really like this concept.

Leg 1 – Bike/Trek/Bike (5km/6km/5km)
We quickly plotted the 6 sets of coordinates (TA1, TA2, CPs 1 – 4). Our instructions required us to bike to TA 2, trek to CPs 1 – 4 in any order, and bike back from TA2 to TA1. It is important to note that TA1 was located right next to the lodge at Pin Oak Lake (low point) and there was only one road in and out. The first half mile of that road was steep and winding up from the lake (great fun in one direction, not so much in the other). We mounted up, climbed up from the lake, followed a couple of rolling roads for about 3 miles to TA 2.

At TA 2, we noticed we were the second team to arrive (Lori and Paul were first). As we pulled in on our bikes, Bunny Pie darted off on foot. There was a race official at this TA doing mandatory gear checks…he asked us to show him our watches, we flashed our wrists (thrilled we didn’t have to dig anything out our packs!), consulted our maps, and head off toward CP 1. We found CPs 1, 2, and 4 (in that order) with relative ease (navigationally speaking) but I was losing blood with every step…since I had shorts on, my legs were being torn to shreds by thorns for nearly two hours. Matt’s legs were mostly spared the bloodshed, but his long pants were often times no match for this fierce bushwhacking. CP 3 unexpectedly proved to give us (me) a little more trouble than planned…all we needed to do was follow a creek upstream from the lake for about 600 meters. Unknowingly, we ended up in a branch (that wasn’t on the map) of the creek that basically paralleled the mainline less than 100 meters away. As we got farther upstream, it became evident on the topo that we had gone too far. We headed back downstream to start over at a what we thought was the Y shown on the map. At this point, a couple of other teams come up behind us which was somewhat reassuring since we hadn’t seen anyone in over an hour. From the Y, it should have been less than 300 meters to the CP. I pace counted up the creek, but we still couldn’t locate the CP. A 3-person team in the vicinity appeared equaled confused by the situation and was all spread out searching. I looked toward the girl and noticed that the ground fell off behind her. Immediately I realized we were probably not in the right creekbed, because according to the map, the correct creekbed should be the lowest point in the area. I quietly got Matt’s attention, conferred with him, he agreed, and we attempted to head that way without drawing attention to ourselves. Once in the correct creek, we immediately found the CP, looked back, and saw that team bushwhacking toward us…they were on to us!

We then plowed our way through the thorns to get back to a road and followed the road back to TA2. In the end, CP3 took us about 45 minutes longer than it should have and my nav mistake bummed me out a little, but my spirits were quickly lifted when we got back to TA2…there were a lot of bikes still laying on the ground there (including Bunny Pie’s) energizing us and making me feel a lot better about that trek. We jumped on our bikes, hustled back to TA1, and turned in our passport.

Leg 2 – Bike (45km)
We quickly plotted the 15 CPs for this leg, refilled camelbacks, inhaled a couple of snickers, retrieved our passport and rode away…I was pretty pleased we were in the TA only about 17 minutes (would prove to be our longest transition of the day). Our instruction required us to retrieve the CPs in order. We quickly punched CP 5 & 6 with no trouble. CPs 7 – 10 were located along a pipeline. When we arrived at the spot where we intended to bushwhack from the road, there was trail (not on the map) awaiting us…Great! The trail led straight to CPs 7 & 8 and split at 8. We stayed to the right and continued to follow it on our way to CP. Unfortunately, the trail quickly ended. This didn’t seem to phase a team right in front of us and they just plowed down the hill…we followed…they quickly disappeared (we never saw them again). The vegetation quickly got too thick to ride through but we forged ahead down to the lake. At the lake, we were able to determine exactly where we were, so we adjusted our route, to follow the lake to the pipeline. On our way to the pipeline, we expected to cross a small creek. Instead we were greeted with marsh created by a beaver dam.

We discussed whether to turn around (neither of us were crazy about this idea…uphill bushwhacking with bike in hand) and agreed that we prefer not. Matt dropped his bike and scouted the beaver dam to determine if it was crossable. His extremely unconvincing ruling was we could cross on top of the dam. He went first, I followed. We wove our way through the thorny brush while balancing on top of the dam and made it to the other side…whew! More bike bushwhacking and we finally reached the pipeline at CP 10.

We still needed CP 9 though…2 ridges over on the pipeline. We biked to the top of the next ridge where I planned on changing my tire (heard a pssssss sound while crossing the dam)…matt continued on foot to top the next ridge to retrieve CP9. The psssss was no longer audible so I couldn’t find the leak and I didn’t appear to be losing air anymore. Matt returned, we rode to CP10. We followed a trail (not on the map) along the lake to CPs 11, 12, & 13. We followed a dirt road (not on the map) uphill CP14 where Matt realized he punched 13 in the wrong place on the passport. We (matt dejectedly…me, unphased, it happens) rode back to CP 13 and re-punched…headed back to CP14, punched it…followed a road (actually on the map) to CP 15. We then followed a series of roads (dirt and paved) and an hour later Matt changed his now flat tire somewhere between CP17 & CP18…oh and by the way we hadn’t punched CP16 & 17 yet! In short, let’s just say I screwed up royally on what might have been the easiest section of the bike leg! Not sure how or why, but I know it was my fault. In that previous hour nothing seemed to make sense on the map anymore. While changing the tire, Lori and Paul rode up, showed me where I went wrong (Thanks), and Matt and I back tracked (this time I was the dejected one…still pisses me off). Luckily we were only about 2.5km (5 roundtrip) out of the way. After punching 16 we had to push our bikes up a massive hill (for the second time) back to the paved roads. We followed the paved roads back to TA1 picking up CPs 17, 18, & 19 along the way.

Leg 3 – Trek (8km)
Back at the TA, Matt asked to plot this set of coordinates…works or me (I took that opportunity to down a Coke, yes, a Coke…I love Coke 8 hours into a race partially dehydrated). He quickly plotted the 5 CPs on this leg, asked if I wanted to double check his work (nope), we refilled camelbacks, matt inhaled pretzels, retrieved our passports and headed off on foot. While leaving, we asked the race officials how long ago Bunny Pie left the TA…about 40 minutes. We could do this leg in any order and CPs plotted in a fairly straightforward loop. We assumed Bunny Pie went to the nearest CP first so we decided to go after the farthest CP first in hopes of crossing them along the way…always fun and uplifting to see friendly faces! A few minutes from the TA we here another team behind us…we’re basically side by side for a few minutes until they dart off to the right down a trail. I think my exact quote was “where the hell are they going?” They ran off in a direction completely opposite of where our points were plotted…hmmmmm? I secretly thought that maybe I should’ve checked Matt’s work. Matt vocally thought we should stop and check his plotting…so we did…I concurred with every point. We continued on our way, while I pointed out that sometimes when you think you’re on you last leg, you’re greeted by the race officials with an evil smile another set of CPs…maybe that was the case this time. Anyway, we got CPs 24, 23, 22, 21, & 20 (in that order) pretty easily.

There was only minimal bushwhacking involved (compared to the first trek leg) in this leg and spent most of the time on trails (not on the map) and roads. We never saw Lori and Paul…we probably passed each other while bushwhacking a mere 50 feet apart. We finished this leg in about an hour and a half.

Leg 4 – Paddle/Trek (7.5km/1.5km)
While plotting the five CPs for this leg, I started questioning my plotting skills because the coordinates were falling unbelievably close to each other and not on the water’s edge. I double checked every point …same answer, oh well. We made our way down to the boats where our rented canoe was located…we had a little pep in our step since it was the last leg (or was it?) I picked up my end of the canoe first and shout some over-reacting expletive. Matt picked his end up and said it wasn’t that bad (only because my reaction prepared him to expect a 600 pound canoe). We settled into a nice paddling rhythm on our way to the first bundle on CPs. About 20 minutes in, we spotted Bunny Pie across the water heading the other way (back to the TA). We came ashore in the vicinity of CPs 28 & 29, jumped out of the boat, continued on foot up the hill to CP29…somehow we missed 28 on the way up, but matt quickly spotted it on the way back down to the boat. For some reason, matt got all excited and was running as if it were the start of the race. My running was exactly as expected after 11 hours of racing…relatively non-existent! We got back in the boat (Matt jumped in nearly flipping us...calm down Matt!) paddled over to the east shore of the lake to retrieve CPs 27, 26, & 25 (in that order). During this short paddle stretch I notice a 3-person all-male team ahead of us paddling horribly. While trekking up hill toward CP 25, I attempted to run (but admittedly my ankle was starting to bother me…sprained it two weeks earlier). It must have looked pretty sad because Matt insisted that just walk while he sprinted ahead to punch CP25. On the way back down, I stubbornly started to run again, tripped over something (I think it was my left foot) and found my self lying on the ground as Matt runs up with that “I told you so” look on his face (and laughing, of course). Nothing hurt but pride though. Back at the boat I spotted the spastic paddlers off in the distance, told Matt they we had to catch them. We busted our buts and caught up to them shortly before reaching the take out. While attempting to pass them they rammed us…twice…not intentionally, they just suck that bad at paddling. We reached the canoe take-out barely ahead of them, knowing we were probably going to be in an all out sprint to beat them to the finish line. Mandatory gear check…darnit…headlamp…dig in pack…got it…sprint away toward finish line…hear some rumbling behind me about somebody dropping something…Matt dropped his gloves…darnit…he caught up…over a bridge to the finish line. We beat 2 of their 3 team members to the finish, but it didn’t really matter because guess what was awaiting us? Yep, we were greeted by the race director with an evil smile and another set of 5 CPs. He instructed us to retrieve as many as possible and be back by 7pm…if you missed the 7pm deadline you would be disquailified!

Bonus Leg
We regrouped at our tent and plotted the CPs. It was about 6:25pm meaning we only had about 35 minutes left. We agreed that we probably only had time to retrieve 2 of the 5 CPs. We headed off, found the 2 CPs pretty easily and returned to the finish line with 6 minutes to spare.

This was a really fun race, well organized, great location. I still get upset thinking about CP16, but eventually I should get over that…sorry again Matt! Huge thanks to Matt for racing with me. I know it was a little slower than his normal race pace, but I’m pretty sure he had a great time as well. Thanks for being the rabbit and no matter what that team on the pipeline said, I never once thought of you as my B. Once again, I learned a lot about myself and adventure racing and can’t wait to the next race!

Here's a couple of extra pictures from the race:

Eco Lonestar Extreme Adventure Race

2009-03-12T10:14:00.000-05:00

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!).

Caribbean Cruise over Mardi Gras

2009-03-03T13:52:00.000-06:00

Lori and I went on a “7 night Exotic Western Caribbean Cruise” the week of Mardi Gras. Scarlett, Damon, Stella, Jamie, Caroline, and Damon’s parents/grandmother/aunt were also on the trip.

The boat set sail around 6pm on the Sunday before Mardi Gras from New Orleans. We had lunch at Frenier Landing (highly recommend) with my parents who then dropped us off at the terminal. Traffic getting through New Orleans (parades) made for a little longer drive than usual, but we made it in plenty of time. The Pourciau’s, on the other hand, had a far more eventful ride in…hopefully Scarlett will include all those details in Stella’s blog!

The itinerary had us Sunday night and Monday at sea, Tuesday in Costa Maya, Wednesday in Guatemala, Thursday in Belize, Friday in Cozumel/Playa Del Carmen, Saturday at sea, and back in NOLA first thing Sunday morning.

The days at sea consisted of eating, shows, working out (mostly Lori), ping pong, eating, napping, eating, etc.

In Costa Maya, we (me, Lori, Damon and his dad) bike and kayak shore excursion….I will provide details when Damon gets his pictures developed since Lori and I didn’t take any. I think we all had a great time! Here's a couple from the ship:

In Guatemala, we (Zeringues, 5/7 of the Pourciaus, Jamie, and Caroline) spent the day relaxing, playing beach volleyball and ping pong, and eating at the Amatique Bay Resort. Once again, no pictures yet from the excursion, but here’s a couple from the ship:

In Belize, we (Zeringues, 2/7 of the Pourciaus, Jamie, and Caroline) took about an hour ride into the jungle to go aerial trekking (ziplines) and cave tubing …this was definitely the highlight of the shore excursions. Once again, no pictures yet.

In Cozumel/Playa del Carmen, we (Zeringues, 1/7 of the Pourciaus - Scarlett, Jamie, and Caroline) took a nauseating 45 minute boat ride to the mainland, followed by a 1 hour bus ride to the Tulum Mayan ruins. I have a ton of pictures there…here’s a sampling.

Not yet nauseated!

These iguanas were everywhere!

This picture is totally staged!

"Should we go in?"
"Yep!"

I was impressed with this wall. It surrounded the entire site and was about 10 - 15 feet wide and 10 - 15 feet tall.

Here's some signs in Cozumel that Lori found entertaining:

In short, we all had a great time. The seas were a little rougher than my previous cruises, but not too bad. (Lori tends to get motion sickness, but handled the conditions pretty well) The onship entertainment was average…some good, some bad. The food was average…some good, some bad (didn’t stop us from eating way too much of it -especially the men). The ship was spotless. The rooms were small (duh…it’s a cruise ship). I’d say 3/4 of our excursions were great! I'll update the pictures as I get them!

Spillway Workout

2009-02-22T09:54:00.000-06:00

A bunch of us (Paul, Damon, Scarlett, Lori, an myself) did a paddling, biking, and running workout at the spillway yesterday. For the biking portion, the Iron people rode their road bikes on the levee, while Scarlett and I went play on the mountain bike trail. Here's a video of Scarlett's first attempt at the jumps:

She's OK!

Here's a picture of Damon and Scarlett just before they rammed their canoe into my kayak!

New Orleans Mardi Gras Marathon

2009-02-01T22:13:00.000-06:00

Fresh off the heels of a 12 hour adventure race last weekend, I decided to "attempt" another marathon. Unfortunaltely, I did not finish. I didn't feel that fresh in the first few miles, but this didn't concern me because I never feel good the first few miles of a run. During the loop around Audubon Park (about 8 miles in), my knees started bothering me...this did concern me because I never have knee pain. The nagging discomfort didn't subside over the next couple of miles so I decided around mile 11 that I should quit after the first half rather than injure myself (i would hate to jeopardize my adventure racing seasoin!). I'm pretty convinced that the knee pain was directly related to the adventure race last weekend. In addition, my legs just felt tired (understandably so). As I crossed the half-marathon line, I decided that I would just slow my pace and turn around once Moe caught up with me (I knew he was planning to run with the 4:15 pace group...I was running with the 4:00 pace group at this point). Before I knew it, I was staring at the foot of the overpass on Wisner Blvd (around mile 16.5) and new I didn't want to run up it so I turned around and started heading back. A few minutes later, I finally see Moe. He looked strong, and was excited to see a friendly face. I ran with him for a few minutes and tried to be as encouraging as I could. I then turned around again and headed towards the Start/Finish. I still had about 4 miles just to get back...the knees were really bothering me now. Long story short...I eventually make it back near the finish line just in time to see Matt come in around 3:17...wow. Later on, Moe came cruising through the finish line around 4:45. Congrats to both of them. At the end of the day, I did not complete what would have been my 4th marathon, actually ended up doing a long run of about 20 miles. In case your wondering, I'm not dissappointed...I know I made the right decision!

2009 Big Chill Adventure Race – Bastrop, TX

2009-01-27T21:50:00.000-06:00

January 24, 2009
Team: Captain Pie
Members: Kirk & Lori Zeringue

Pre-Race
Lori and I arrived at Bastrop State Park on Friday afternoon, checked in with the Too Cool Racing folks, and set up camp. After getting the truck unloaded and both tents erected, we decided to ride in to town to do a little shopping and scouting…we knew there would be a small urban section of the race in Historic Downtown Bastrop. We headed back to the park, spent the next couple of hours piddling around and getting all our gear set up just right for the morning. Lori did a little studying and I was easily sleeping in the tent by 10pm…the earliest either of us had gone to bed in months! Our alarms started going off at 6:30am on Saturday. It was significantly colder in the morning than when we went to sleep the night before, which led to a couple snoozes before we actually emerged from the tent at 7am. Since we did most of the race preparations the night before, we only had a couple of things left to do before the Pre-Race meeting at 9:15am (i.e. boat drop, bike drop, fill camelback bladders, etc.). The Pre-Race meeting yielded no surprises and we were told to meet back there for the start of the race at 10am.

Leg 0 – “Amazing Bastrop Race” (Trek/Mystery Challenges)
It was about 40 degrees with a 25 mph winds. Each team captain was given an envelope to be opened at the start of the race. We hurriedly opened ours to find a clue sheet, a small city map of Bastrop, a bigger city map of Bastrop, and pamphlet describing some of the historic sites in Bastrop. The clue sheet was a “Roadblock” that told us to run to the Arena Park where one person was to complete a task to receive the next clue. We were advised to keep all of our clue sheets since we would need to turn them in to receive the map and checkpoint coordinates for the next leg of the race. We had some trouble finding Arena Park on the map, so we decided to just follow the pack while continued to search the map.

As we arrived at Arena Park, Lori finally locates it on the map. There was a sign instructing one team member to round up a goat and bring it to the person sitting in the middle of the arena. I immediately said “go get him Lori!” I knew she would have a lot of fun chasing goats, and I really didn’t want to smell like goat all day. As she makes her first plunge towards one of the goats, Dane swoops in and steals her little goat (not intentionally, he was just focused on catching one, but in Lori’s mind, he stole her goat). She didn’t take long to catch another much larger goat and had no trouble carrying it to the volunteer in the middle.

She came running back with the next clue which directed us to either bring a can good for each team member to the place where one would see Madame Butterfly or go to the Historic Bastrop Jailhouse and locate who the architect was and give that answer to someone at the place where you would see Madame Butterfly. We immediately searched the map for a theatre and found the Opera House. We knew there was going to be a store along the way and that most teams would probably run in and buy the canned goods, which would result in waiting in a line. The Jailhouse was only about a block away from the opera house so we decided to do that option, but if saw a second store along the way, we would then buy the canned goods and go straight to the opera house. Sure enough, as we approached the first store, just about every team was heading in. We continued on and a couple of blocks later there was second store. We ran in, bought our canned goods (no line) and proceeded to the opera house. At the opera house, the next clue was a word search. We had to find and circle 10 words which resulted in 9 letters being circled twice.

We had to unscramble the letters to reveal our next destination…Ferry Park. We quickly located Ferry Park on the map and ran there to receive our next clue. That clue directed us to go the location you would find the oldest newspaper in Texas. On our way to Ferry Park we saw some teams running out of a little museum, so we assumed that was where to go. As we approached the museum, a lady comes outside and directs us in the right direction. We arrived at the Bastrop Advertiser and were given a newspaper and a clue sheet, which said “What’s eating you?” and told us to show our answer at the next location. We figured we needed to search the newspaper to find those words. We searched, and searched….and searched…teams were coming and going. Lori was getting extremely frustrated. We finally decided to just follow one of the teams to see where we ended up. If we knew the destination, then we might be able to find what we were looking for in the paper. We ended up across the Colorado River at the Sugar Shack. There were other teams there so we knew we were in the right location…if we could just find it in the newspaper! We searched, still no luck. Lori is downright pissed off by this point. Damon comes running up and we desperately ask him where it is, he obliges and points it out. Apparently, we were supposed to be looking for the Too Cool Racing logo. We were so focused on the words “What’s eating you?” (because that’s all the clue sheet said!!!!) that we never even thought of looking for a small graphic. (Damon and Dane did this race last year and knew what to look for…huge thanks Damon…Lori and I might still be there searching!) We showed the race folks the logo in the newspaper, and were instructed that one person needed to eat what enclosed in the cup. Lori, concerned it might be bugs, made me eat it. I opened it up and it was sugar coated candy (some teams weren’t quite as lucky)…I struggled chewing the long skinny thing and the near frozen sugar coated skittles. I swallowed and we received a topo map and the first set of UTMs for Leg 1. We had now been racing for about 1.5 hours.

Leg 1 - “Row, row, row your boat and bike!” (Paddle/Bike)
We received coordinates and clues for 7 checkpoints (CPs). We found a spot in the corner of the building (to get out of the wind) to plot the CPs.

CP1 was about 6 miles downriver from where we had dropped our boats earlier that morning. We ran back across the Colorado River and down to where our kayak was. We both put our waterproof gear on because we didn’t want to add wetness to the cold and windy conditions. We loaded up the kayak and headed downriver. The river was pretty low so we had to be careful to stay away from the shallow areas...this was tricky at times because of the current. A few miles in to the paddle, we started passing teams (yes, the ones that passed while we searched through the newspaper). Passing teams in a paddle always makes you feel good. At one point, we noticed some people standing in the river ahead of us. This made us nervous because we immediately thought the river was going to be too shallow to float through…meaning at least one of us was going to have to step out into the frigid waters of the Colorado River. Luckily, this wasn’t the case. Actually, two boats collided causing them to take a spill into the river. We were relieved, felt bad for them, but relieved. We continued on, and when we reached the boat take-out (also CP1), we were excited to be the 4th boat out of the water (3rd team). Our bikes had been transported to this location by the race staff. We transitioned from paddling to biking, ate a snickers, and planned our strategy for getting CPs 2 – 7.

It didn’t take long before we were staring at our first real climb. I didn’t quite make it to the top and had to push the rest of the way…I think Lori made it though. My thighs were already burning and I was severely out of breadth. I immediately new that I was going to struggle in this bike leg…and boy, did I!!! We turned onto a road that (according to the map) would get across the creek and over to CP2. After screaming downhill towards the creek we were greeted by nothing…no bridge!!! Apparently, it had washed out long ago. It was too steep to traverse without a bridge so we turned around and headed back uphill. Lori was pissed that the map had let her down. I was pissed that I had to go right back where we came from without making any progress towards CP2…in other words, an unnecessary uphill climb! We then looked for a new route to get us across the creek, crossed our fingers, and headed that way….downhill again. This time we were greeted with a barricade, but still no bridge…Lori had steam come out of her ears! This crossing seemed a little more realistic than the last, so we put our bikes on our backs and very cautiously headed down to the creek bed. We made it to the other side, where the road picked up again and started the climb up to CP2. Lori punched our passport and we headed back the way we came…downhill, creek crossing, uphill. Finding CPs 3 through 7 was far less eventful and we pretty much went straight to those…scratch that, we went directly to them…nothing straight about it except for when it was straight uphill. The next hour and half consisted of uphill, downhill, uphill, etc. Most climbs ended with me pushing my bike and by the time I got to the top I could barely breathe. During one the last few climbs, both thighs cramped simultaneously. I battled cramps the rest of this bike leg, but we finally made it back to the TA. Lori was extremely supportive during all of this...she even pushed both our bikes up one of the hills!

Leg 2 – “That’s so puzzling”(Trek)
When we checked in from Leg 1, the race official gave us a trail map and a jigsaw puzzle of the trail map to complete. We assembled the roughly 100-piece puzzle quicker than the other teams at the table, so that made us feel good. On the completed puzzle was the location of the next 3 checkpoints. It was about 4pm and we figured it would probably get dark before we finished this leg. We decided go after what we thought would be the most difficult CP to find while it was still daylight. After some trail running, we got to the point where we needed to leave the comfort of trails and roads to find CP A. I shot a bearing, followed it for a bout 400m, and spotted the CP immediately…no problem. We found the next couple of CPs pretty effortlessly as well an headed back to the TA. On the way back we debated over whether the next leg would be a bike leg. We both new deep down that it would be, but it was nice fantasizing that it might not be…especially after my dreadful performance on the first bike leg.

Leg 3 – “I want to Ride My Bicycle (again)” (Bike/Trek)
Of course, it was a bike leg. The race folks handed us a small map with CPs already plotted on it. It was an extension of the big topo we were given earlier. We both were getting a little cold during this transition so we were expecting to be even colder once we got on our bikes. I, of course, was nervous that my thigh cramps would resurface again during one of the climbs we were certain to have to conquer. We loaded our packs and bikes now outfitted for the darkness and headed off. We calculated that this leg would be about 18km. After a few miles of rolling paved roadway, we veered off of Gottier Trace on to a gravel road and headed down to where we expected to hit a fence line. Sure enough, there it was with a couple of teams of headlights trekking off in the distance. We were puzzled by the direction they were going since it was in a completely different direction than we had planned. We checked the map and shot a bearing along the fence line…it matched the map so we went our way. We followed the fence line (on foot) down through the brush until it intersected a creek bed. By this time, we noticed some lights following us…sure enough, it was the two teams we saw go the wrong way. According to the pre-plotted point on the map, the CP should have been about where the creek intersected the fence line…it wasn’t. The other 2 teams joined in the search. We went a couple hundred meters in either direction of the fence line and still had no luck. At this point, there were 8 of us searching. I decided to keep following the creek even farther upstream than what was logical and still no luck. Lori yelled out that if I hit a sharp left turn in the creek, I should turn around and come back because it couldn’t possibly be past that (based on where the race officials pre-plotted the CP on the map). I reached the sharp turn in the creek, decided to turn around and as I pirouetted, the light from my flashlight caught an orange reflection off in the distance…a closer look and there it was, beyond the left turn in the creek. We (all 3 teams) agreed that the race folks completely misplaced this CP. We trekked back up to where our bikes were and proceeded to CP12. After a brief, premature right turn into someone’s driveway (I highly recommend reading Light & Momentary Troubles race report to find out what they endured in this same driveway!), we had very little trouble finding CP12 which our clue sheet told us would be located in a culvert. I offered to go punch the passport since Lori had been performing that duty all day/night. It ended up being about 30 feet into the culvert under the middle of the road…luckily it was bone dry and there were no animals. We then made our way back to the TA. You may have noticed that I didn’t complain about cramping or being severely out of breath during this bike leg…I performed significantly better in this bike leg than the first one. Apparently, it takes me about 8 hours of racing before I find my biking legs (same thing happened at the fig back in November).

Leg 4 – “Fi-nally Trek” (Trek)
We received the last 3 set of coordinates for CPs 11-13 and went back to our tent to plot them. This transition turned out to be fairly long as well. We were cold (temperature in the mid 3o's)and hungry…and Lori had to make two trips to the bathroom. I stuffed food down my throat for about 20 minutes, drank a Coke (maybe the best Coke ever!) and we off we went. While Lori was in the bathroom the second time, she got a tip from another girl who had just finished the last trek. She said to “look up” while searching for CP13. With that fresh on our minds, we went to CP13 first. We arrived in the vicinity of CP13 only to bump in to those same two teams from the previous bike leg. They weren’t having much luck finding the CP. Armed with our super secret bathroom tip, we shined our flashlights “up” and spotted the CP. As we got closer to the CP, we turned off our lights in an effort to avoid drawing attention to ourselves, but the other teams spotted us anyway. After a few miles of trail running and trekking (and tripping over roots!), we found CPs 14 and 15 and checked in at the finish line.

Our finishing time was 12 hours and 56 minutes. We finished 6th overall, and were the 1st in the 2-person team to finish. I had a great time racing with my wife and can’t wait for the next one!

Kayaking in Bayou Lacombe

2009-01-17T22:52:00.000-06:00

Lori and I wanted to get some practice together in the tandem kayak in preparation for the Big Chill. Paul and Matt were there as well taking Paul's new canoe on its maiden voyage. Here's a couple of pictures...one of them made us laugh:

New York Trip

2009-01-06T17:19:00.000-06:00

Lori and I took Hallie on her first trip to New York this past weekend. We left on January 2nd and returned on January 5th. Since this was Hallie's first time in NYC, we tried to squeeze in as much sightseeing as possible. We went to a few shows...Shrek the Musical (pretty good), In the Heights (phenominal!), and Chicago. We also met up with Darryl & Noel who were also in NYC for their annual 10 day trip. I know Lori and I had a great time (we always do when we travel, doesn't really matter where we go!) and I'm pretty sure Hallie did too! If the number of pictures Hallie takes is an indication of how much fun she is having, then she must have had a blast since she took over 1200 pictures in 4 days!!! Here's a few of the pictures that actually had one of us in them:

Hiking at Clark Creek Natural Area

2008-12-29T09:43:00.000-06:00

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!

2008-12-11T13:24:00.000-06:00

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

Mississippi Coast Marathon

2008-12-01T13:53:00.000-06:00

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

2008-09-23T14:05:00.000-05:00

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

2008-08-28T23:29:00.000-05:00

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: