Winter "Camping" and Adventure Racing.

As I sat and watched the weather forecast last Wednesday, while Logan County was on a level 3 snow emergency, I wasn’t really all that concerned with the weather on Wednesday, I was more concerned with what the weather was going to be on Friday, Friday night to be exact. Since December 31, when Ashley and I had lunch with our adventure racing buddies, Damon and Dusty Clement, we have been planning  for the Cabin Fever Rogaine Race, along with a winter “camp out” the night before. The time for the trip was upon us and all I could focus on during the weather forecast was that big fat 5 degrees that was plastered on the screen for Friday night’s low. 5 degrees… really?

Now here is the thing with me and “camping”. Most of my camping adventures have included a vehicle less than 25 feet from my sleeping bag, as well as some sort of indoor restroom no more than 200 yards away.  I have done some actual camping trips as well, don’t get me wrong, but I am just saying most of my camping trips have been the scenario described above. When I purchased my Jeep Liberty I actually put the seats down in the back to see if there was enough room for me to sleep there comfortably. I always saw putting up a tent to be silly when there is a perfectly nice, dry place only a few feet from my tent. This trip would be no different.  After making a rather nice sleeping headquarters, that included a papasan chair cushion and a many, many blankets and my 15 degree sleeping bag, I was ready to brave the cold temperatures.



Friday finally came and the weather forecast was looking much better. Thankfully there was now a 2 in front of that 5. 25 degrees sounded a lot better than 5 degrees, no doubt. I picked up Ashley and she added her many blankets and gear to the back of the Jeep. Our trip had officially started. We made our way to Chillicothe to meet up for dinner with Damon and Dusty. (Who have both decided to grow mountain man beards… which creeped me out at first.) After enjoying a nice dinner with friends we haven’t spent time with in a while, we were headed to the camp site. As we were driving, I noticed there was no snow. I mean none… The roads were clear and you could see grass. This wasn’t really going to be a winter camping trip after all. However, once we got to our campsite, there was snow, but not near as much as there had been in Bellefontaine.



Damon just waking up and trying to get his little stove going.
This isn't his best picture...



Now, even though Ashley and I would be sleeping in the Jeep, Damon and Dusty were going to be a lot more on the adventurous side. Dusty had set up his tent, his air mattress and blankets. He had a not so “roughing it” electric blanket that a friend had let him borrow. In order to keep it more of a secret, he used a white extension cord to plug it into the electric box at the campsite. So Ashley and I have the Jeep, Dusty has his tent and then there was Damon.  Damon won the “Adventurous Award” for the night. He had taken his poncho and trekking poles and made a simple shelter. He had his camping pad and sleeping bag and he was ready to go.





Under Blanket Mountain. We were ready to get a nice nights rest.



Ashley and I slept just fine in the back of the Jeep.  Well, Ashley is taller than I am, so she struggled a bit, but all 5’2” of me slept just fine. We woke up to rain and that is the last thing we wanted to see. Ashley and I just kinda hung out in the back of the Jeep when we wondered if Damon actually slept outside all night in the rain. We poked our heads outside and there he was… right there under his poncho. I couldn’t believe it. Once everyone got up and got going, we helped the boys strike camp and we checked into the race. With Adventure Races, check in is usually several hours before the race starts so teams have time to look at the map and make a plan. We got our maps and headed to breakfast.

Now, you would think that since we camped out the night before we would be ready for the race when it started. Oh no, not us. We got back from Breakfast late and missed the start of the race. With Adventure racing that’s not really a big deal. There were lots of other teams still getting their gear on and ready to go when we heard the blast of the starting horn.



Ashely and I waiting for the boys so we could start the race.



The mountain men are finally ready, I was just being a weirdo.



Before I go any further, I think I need to explain how adventure races work. It isn’t a race to see who can get from start to the finish the fastest. It’s a challenge to see how many “checkpoints” you can get to in a set amount of time. Races can vary in length, checkpoint requirements and methods of getting to the various checkpoints. The race Ashley and I did last fall was kayaking, orienteering, repelling and mountain biking. This race was just orienteering (hiking with a purpose with the use of a compass) with 25 check points to find in 6 hours. Depending on the race, sometimes the checkpoints are all worth the same amount of points and sometimes they are worth various amounts depending on difficulty. It is extremely difficult to “clear the course”, meaning to make it to all 25 checkpoints. Once you have found a checkpoint, there is a hole punch that is specific for that checkpoint. You punch your card on the corresponding number and continue on to the next checkpoint. Each team decides which checkpoints they are going to attempt to get, so everyone’s routes are really different. You might only see a few other teams the entire day of the race. A checkpoint is a small box that is hung from a tree. They are hunter orange and white, and the hole punch will be hanging from the checkpoint. These checkpoints aren’t easy to get to by any means.  It’s not like they are placed on the side of a trail you can easily get to. You can basically count on it being placed in the most inconvenient place and its going to take a lot of work to get to.  As I mentioned before, the race is timed, so you have a certain amount of time to get as many checkpoints as you can and return to the race start/finish before you are out of time. If you get back after the time limit, there is always a penalty for the number of minutes you are late. So, if it takes you an extra 30 minutes to the get 1 more checkpoint, you will basically have all your points taken away because you were so late. The whole day is a mind game that is just as mentally challenging as physically challenging.



I didn't feel good when this picture was taken. Can you spot the goofball behind me?



Finally finding our first check point of the day.



So, as I started to tell you before. We were running a bit late. (We slept less than 100 yards from the race start and we didn’t get there on time… come on) Once we were all bundled up and ready to spend the next 6 hours hiking around Tar Hallow State park, we were headed to our first checkpoint. I wasn’t feeling well at all and was dreading the race. I was trying to figure out how I could just go back to the Jeep, get under “blanket mountain” and just sleep while the other three continued the race. I felt like I was going to be sick the whole time. We kept looking at the map and trying to figure out the terrain, but no one seemed to agree on what was what. By no one, I mean Damon and Dusty, as Alice and I just kinda kept our mouths shut and let the boys figure things out. It took a little while, but eventually we slipped into the beautiful dance called teamwork. I was finally starting to feel better which obviously helped me out big time. Dusty found our first checkpoint and once that was found, everything started to mesh together. 

We continued on our day, finding about a checkpoint an hour. We trekked up steep hills, slide down ravines, crossed raging rivers by walking across fallen trees and spent a lot of time laughing about the ridiculous ways we had picked to accomplish our task.

When we had less than 2 hours left, we passed team after team coming from a certain checkpoint. One gentleman stopped and asked us if we were headed to checkpoint “53”. That actually wasn’t checkpoint we were planning on finding, but he made it seem so easy to get to we listened to his advice and headed down the “service road”.  Maybe to this guy, it was an easy find, but it was by far one of the most difficult checkpoints to find. We don’t tend to usually “split up” to find a checkpoint. Some races actually have rules on how far apart two racer can be. Sometimes it’s as little as 10ft. This race you had a little more freedom when it came to the distance you could be, so as we followed other’s footprints, whenever they split, so did we. Eventually I was walking around this area alone and it really messed with my mind. I was extremely tired and starting to get cold. I was worried about passing the checkpoint because I wasn’t looking close enough. Eventually all of our paths met back up at the same point. We were looking down into a reentrant and we could see other teams on the other side of the creek. More and more teams started showing up. This was by far the most people we had run into all day. A group of men showed up, probably about the same age as Ashley and I and asked us if we could see it. I told him it was down there somewhere, but we hadn’t found it yet. Out of nowhere this guy just threw himself down the hill, with one of his buddies following right behind him. I couldn’t believe how quickly that crazy kid had gotten to the bottom of the steep hill. Our team took its time getting to the bottom. We still hadn’t found the checkpoint and even discussed giving up on this one and trying to get what points we could from a different checkpoint. This wasn’t something any of us wanted to do, because we had spent almost an hour getting to this stupid checkpoint that we thought was going to be an easy 50 points. We kept looking and finally found it down the hill even further. Ashley and I waited where we were for Dusty and Damon to get punch the card. The trek back up that hill was brutal and we just wanted to be finished at this point. We went and got the checkpoint we had planned on getting prior to the “53 Detour”. It was time to call it a day and head back to the finish. Dusty figured out that we could get one more on the way back and I was totally up for it. Knowing we would be able to find 6 checkpoints in the six hours made me really happy, as that had been the goal in my mind all day. We got our sixth checkpoint and headed back to the finish.

I was glad to be done. When its cold like that, you have to find a good balance of clothing that will keep you warm, but you are also always moving, so your body can get warm really quickly. Since we had all types of weather yesterday, I was wet on the outside of my clothing because of the weather, but wet from sweating inside my clothing. It was fine when we were hiking, but once we were done for the day we all got cold really quickly. After my last adventure race I learned my lesson about always having a complete extra set of clothing to change into. We got out of our wet clothes and headed back to the shelter house to win some door prizes.  I knew they were giving away “Fit Socks” and I wanted a pair. Of course, because it’s me, I now have a very comfy pair of fit socks. You should probably buy some.

I like doing adventure races because they teach you a lot about yourself and about working with others. I was joking after completing my first adventure race last fall that the next guy I date, we will need to do an adventure race together so I can see how he is going to handle stressful situations. If he acts like a fool and a complete jerk, I will be able to see this relationship just isn’t going to work out. It’s probably best to just drive there in different cars so there aren’t any awkward conversations after I dump him in the parking lot. As Dusty put it, you can get six months worth of dating done in 6 hours.  As silly as that sounds, I can really see how this can be true. When doing a race that is that long, you can’t fake anything. Who you really are is going to come out during that time. Adventure races take all of those key phrases like, “leadership, teamwork, communication and attitude” that are completely over used and put them into a more realistic challenge than any “Challenge Course” I have ever participated in or lead. Yesterday, we needed to get to the other side of a creek that was a bit deeper than we would want to walk through. In my mind I could see this same scenario set up at almost any camp that has a challenge course, but now I was going to need to do it for real. There wasn’t a big pile of mulch and a facilitator standing there in case dropped a foot and a half. This time it is higher, with some very cold water moving below me. The four of us could see what needed to be accomplished, we discussed the various ways to make it happen, we put the plan into action and completed the task. This was a time for problem solvers, not problem identifiers. I know there are plenty of people that tend to be problem identifiers, but identifying the problem does nothing if you aren’t going to come up with a way to solve it. I know it sounds so corny, but it really does amaze me. I like to be put in situations that I can truly learn from. Ashley and I aren’t really good at reading maps and using a compass. It was humbling to admit that I need help when using those tools and I really don’t think Ashley and I could have completed our first race last fall without the help of Dusty and Damon. That is where we met each other. They were sitting at the same table we were before the start of the race. We ended up at a checkpoint at the same time and just started working together. It is interesting to see which areas each of us excel at and there were times when everyone had a chance to contribute to the group. As basically everyone knows, I enjoy giving my opinion on lots of things, but when it comes to these races, it puts me in a situation where I need to listen twice as much as I talk.

I am planning on doing a lot more adventure races this summer. If this seems like something you would like to try out, check out both of these websites:

 http://www.race-coar.com/  - Central Ohio Adventure Racing. Ashley and I are the “Racers Spotlight”



https://sites.google.com/site/nsfadventures/ - This is the company that put on this last race.




Alice was showing off her best moves here!

 



Damon at the first checkpoint.



Ashley and I enjoying the view.

The boys were planning our next checkpoint.
 I am getting "Into the Map" much like Joey on Friends.

Mountain Men

No matter how stressful it got, Dusty still found time to throw snowballs at whoever he could.

There is a checkpoint down there. Can you find it? No, its not those leaves, its much smaller.

Our racing team.

I was climbing over this fallen tree...

When I flipped right under it!

Ok, in real life, this crossing was way more dangerous than you can tell in the picture.

After we had changed into dry clothes. Alice refused to wear her camo for this picture.

After our race in October. That water is water, not sweat. I had to bob for an apple.
Also noticed the gym shorts? Those are Damon's. He let me wear them after I ripped my pants open.

Overall, it was a great weekend. We got 6 of 25 checkpoints. Only 1 group completely cleared the course and there were over 130 teams there. The key to these races is being able to set reasonable goals, know how to use the tools and resources given to you, and be able to laugh at yourself. Yesterday, Ashley was walking by and laughing she told me, “That was a stupid way to go”. She had just freed herself from a large amount of rosebushes and it was just so funny. I told Ashley it would be great to set a goal of clearing a course someday, and she just looked at me like I was crazy. I think we can do it, it might just take us awhile to figure it out.