NEARS VT 12 hour AR: "HUH?"

June 9th 2007 Team LBF packed up the rig and headed to West Dover for a nice short race. We arrived at the Lodge at Mt Snow around 9pm just after they packed up registration. So with a little begging and pleading we got signed up and ready to go. Jamie arrived with our support crew, the incredibly patient Carol Myers and son Craig, around 11:30pm just as Mel and I were packing up the last of the gear for our 6 am start. That night I met up with a few friends from the AR community and got a low down on what normally takes place with this race director. We were awakened at 4am by 15 alarms that were set in case we slept in. Starting the day with 3 cups of coffee, two pancakes and one big pile of eggs was the best way to welcome the sun and a day of slogging up hills. We received our maps and UTMs 15 minutes prior to start and after plotting our paddle CPs. We trotted down to the launch and picked out a boat. We, being not so fast paddlers pulled the boat up on shore in 6th or 7th place. After looking around we realized that the support cars would not be at this TA like we thought. Not a huge deal other than the fact that, because of the rain our gear was in a dry bag and we had no backpacks! So after a moment of slight discontent we packed the dry bag with only the mandatory gear we needed, plotted the CPs on the nine mile trek, grabbed a water bladder and set out of the TA as the 12th or 13th team carrying everything in our arms. Now if you haven't tried running with a 6 lbs dry bag and/or a 70 oz water bladder in your hand take Jamie's word for it, "Wilson, this is not too much fun". However, we blew through the trek like the big bad wolf and the first little pigs straw house. It was beautiful, I'm talking rhapsodic! We hit ever nav point dead on and made huge gains with a few cunning bush whacks. The only issue we had was Jamie at full speed rolled his ankle and nearly ate dirt in a ditch. That was followed with a labored and Jamie specific high pitched voice "oh Mr. navigator...I think I broke my ankle" If you haven't heard this voice ask him to demonstrate it is one on the most hilarious things on the planet. So, in true team spirit Jamie bit his lip and pushed through the run without even a whimper. We got into TA 2 back in 6th place only to watch the teams in the distance stay in the distance. 4 miles later with a few sore arms and hungry belly's we pulled up on shore and carried the boat over head to the TA where all our gear was laid out ready for the ransacking. When adventure racers come into a TA they support crew has everything out and opened up so we can just grab whatever we want, it often is a little crazy and things get tossed a bit but after a nine mile trek with little to no food and two paddles that were an all out effort to stay with our competition TEAM LBF resembled Tasmanian devils, we rummaged through gear and food bins eating and drinking everything in sight dug out new sock, backpacks and towels for wet feet. We had received our new maps and 15 minutes later the course was plotted. As we checked out the volunteers at the TA said the next team was only 3 minutes ahead of us and with "Mt Goat" Mel Brown, Dave "Nummer" Stiles and Jamie "The Mule" Myers rearing to go on our Cannondale and Specialized hard tails we were fairly confident in our response to them being "Not for long!" We headed out on our favorite discipline at a blistering pace hammering up the Vermont dirt hills. There was only 23 miles to bike a a huge deficient to make up so we planned on ridding as hard as we could for the fun on if and to see how many teams we could catch. The course was mostly paved and birt road with a few double track trail sections. The thing I remember the most was the climbs there are these three distinct 3-5km climbs that were just brutal especially because I have the worst power to weight ratio of the three and chasing Mel and Jamie up hill is like being a dog on linoleum, lots of action but no movement, they are always just out of reach I just can't get a claw in the rug and catch them. One thing is fur sure we hauled through the bike in record time. so we picked up a couple spots and finished in 4th place. Sat down in the finish area and took off our packs. Jamie and Mel started Hoovering Oreo cookies and oranges while I was writing down the TA questions on our passport. For those of you who don't know when an adventure race happens in a rural area checkpoints that are or roads or somewhere in the open people have a tendency to steal the pretty flags we use for Check Points so the race directors in this race wrote numbers on the back of street signs and asked us to answers a few question at the CP instead of punching the passport. So back to the finish...I'm transferring the answers over when I get to CP 18 and I realize...there is no CP 18 on my answer sheet but...OH NO! The next conversation went something like this: Dave "hey guys. can you hand me my map?" Jamie "why?" Mel (blank stare) Dave "we're going back out to get CP 18" Jame "HUH?" Mel (blank stare) Dave "we're leaving now!" Jamie "HUH?" Mel (blank stare) Dave "lets go its only 3 Miles. Come on guys" that 6 miles was a blur. We time trialed out and back at 90% thinking another team was right behind us and going to zip across the finish while we were playing dumbo the adventure racers. We got back to the finish without seeing anyone on course but the road biker were passed. So I apologised to the gang a couple times and we all decided that "Check Point 18" was now a new verb and could be used so if necessary. ie "are we going to CP 18 this one?"

Over all the race was a lot of fun, we raced hard and did very well. Mel had a great first AR and we are looking forward to competing again with these race organisers at the NEARS final at Gunstock in September.

Thanks again to our sponsors for helping us compete at the level we do.

Team LBF