The Rappels of Carderock

November, 1^st, 2003

The day dawned a little crisp, but had a promise of beautiful weather. Mother Nature certainly delivered as the day went on and the beautiful leaves displayed their palate of colors.

We got to Riley’s Lock about 7:30 am or so as the traffic was very light around the beltway. We had to walk around a little to warm up as we started unloading our bikes and other gear. There were quite a few teams already there doing the same.

Mike and crew showed up and we checked in and started plotting our CPs on the maps. It was quite a task to get it all organized and ready to go before the brief. In the confusion I guess I set down my race number and forgot it until seconds before the race started.

Mike gave us our brief and we made the final preparations to start the bike leg. Our support crew of Sarah, Jessica and Nina were there making sure we were ready to go and getting ready for what needed to be done. The three crew members were going to support two teams. Myself and Lisa, my wife, (Team Not Dead Yet) and Anna and Doug, two people I work with at CGHQ who were doing their first Adventure Race. We also had another team, Kim and Amy who had brought their husbands along to support them.

At 10:20 the race started. We biked down Riley’s Lock Road to River Road and turned left. We followed the road for some miles as cars slowly made their way past us. There were a couple of hills, but it wasn’t too bad. After a while we turned onto a gravel road and headed for the C&O canal. We passed CP1 where we picked up the C&O canal trail and started back to the Lock. The trail wasn’t too bad. There were a few soft spots, but nothing that slowed us down much. The bike leg took us about 46 minutes.

We got back to Riley’s Lock where we transitioned to the canoe. Our support crew were waiting to see to our needs and helped us quickly get into the canoe and head out. I also picked up my race number and stuffed it into my map bag. Duh…

The canoe leg consisted of canoeing through some minor rapids and finding CPs on some of the islands as we made our way down stream. The water was pretty high and this made some of the islands appear a little different (if they appeared at all) than the map stated. Nevertheless, we easily found each of the CPs, which would give us a time bonus of one hour at the end of the race.

We arrived at Swain’s Lock after about 1 hour and 18 minutes and pulled the canoe out of the water with our crew’s help. Our awesome crew had dry shoes and socks waiting for us. Be grabbed a quick bite and drink, changed our shoes, shed wet clothes and headed on our way down the C&O to start the Trek/Orienteer portion of the race. As we came to Lock 20, Lisa and I split up. I headed for the advanced CPs while Lisa tackled the beginner CPs near the river.

I headed up the road and struck into the woods. I found the first CP no problem. There was a guy following me and I had spotted the flag just as he spoke up "there it is". I headed to the next CP. I tried to do some overland to where I thought it was, but encountered some fencing that spilled me back onto the road. This CP was hidden behind the VFW next to a woodpile. I saw a guy coming out as I headed in, so this helped me find it some.

Next I crossed the road and hit the woods until I came to the path. I turned left and followed this path until it intersected another. At this point I struck a bearing and headed for the notorious CP13. I guess this CP was unlucky for some, but I had no trouble finding it. Just before I saw it, I saw some movement up ahead of me and thought it was racers. It turned out to be a couple deer and just after I saw them I scanned right and there was the flag.

From here I headed out on a bearing that should take me straight to the last CP. I crossed a trail and all seemed good. Before I hit the trail I came up on four deer that just stood and stared at me. I passed them by at about 10 meters, and then took off running again. Next, I came on another trail. Confusion set in. Either this was an unmarked trail, or I was a little more south than I thought I was. I continued on my course and came up over a rise. As I looked into the draw below, I saw a red fox booking up the draw to get away from the crazy dude with the map and compass.

As I frantically looked for the last CP, I could hear that I was getting close to the road. I couldn’t refold my soaking wet map, which was stuck in its plastic cover, so I had to keep flipping it back and forth. I decided to hit the road, see where I was and shoot a new bearing. This worked rather well, and I found CP14 about 5 minutes later. I headed for the road, cut through the parking lots and met Lisa at CP15, the bridge. She had been waiting about 9 minutes. All and all it took about 1 and ½ hours to do the Orienteering.

We started off down the C&O again towards Carderock. We got there about 22 minutes later. We checked in, got our helmets and got in line to rappel. The first one was cool, the second one a rush as I correctly negotiated a small overhang. All the rest were just a blast. We would rappel down, scurry up and around to do it again. After 10 rappels we were done.

The pace had really slowed down as other teams arrived and queued up to go down the cliffs. It took us about 1 hour and 25 minutes to do all 10 rappels.

We finished with an unofficial time of 5 hours and 22 minutes. With our 60 minute bonus our official time as 4 hours and 22 minutes. This was 3^rd place in the CoEd division and 5^th place overall.

Of the other two CG teams, Kim and Amy came in first in the Female division and Anna and Doug came in second in the CoEd division. It was a good showing all around as far as the CG is concerned, and a total blast for each of us.

About seven teams DQ’ed, most because of that rascally CP13. A couple teams were ranked lower due to running the beginners course or short coursing due to a misunderstanding.

Everyone finished and I think all of us got something positive out of it. To me Adventure Racing is a competition with myself. It is a test for me to see if I can work positively in a team environment and achieve the goals set before me. So far we have been doing fine. I can’t wait for the next challenge.