NH07RaceReport

New England Adventure Racing

NH-24 hour Adventure Race and NEARS Final

September 22 2007

The start of the race on Lake Winnipesaukee at Libby Museum saw support crews and 30 foot bass boat trailers vying for the same small parking lot which made for a lot of shuffling of cars and anxious race directors.

With a prompt 7 am start on the water, the teams quickly spread out. At the helm of the safety boat, Pam and Tony Halsey followed the pack out of Winter Harbor onto The Broads which is nine and a half miles long and over 3 miles wide. The wind can create a chop even on calm days which it was doing that morning as teams reported foot and a half swells washing over the sides of their canoes.

Erin and Kristoffer Nielsen manned CP1 in order to expedite teams on their way. By the time canoes entered Wolfeboro Bay they had about a mile spread between the first and last team.

Team Eastern Mountain Sports was the first onto the portage from Winnipesaukee to Crescent Lake on the Rail Trail path. Having wheels to help with the portage was not a guarantee of ease, as some wheels wouldn’t cooperate and had canoes steering crookedly down the path. The next portage onto Lake Wentworth was optional and most teams took advantage of going up to a half mile through woods depending on the route versus a nearly 2.5 mile paddle around. Did anyone see the skeleton of a huge snapping turtle near CP3?

Tom Stanley (another relative) in another safety boat watched Eastern Mountain Sports turn around and head back to get a missed CP which allowed Wicked Pissah to move into first place which they held the entire race. Mad Moose maintained a third place standing throughout the paddle despite having only the borrowed canoe paddles from Saco Bound. (They looked like professional canoe racers)

At CP5 racers were met by Chris Edmondson at the waters edge with news that only one person had to run to get the CP. This CP was a bit confusing for some racers if they weren’t told by their navigator that they were looking for not the first bridge upstream but the second where ‘troll’ Bill Greene was waiting under the bridge to mark their punchcards.

At TA-1 there was only a 1- 4 minute gap between each of the first 8 teams, but only Wicked Pissah, Cogg Wild and Mad Moose held that close lead leaving the transition area.

The start of the biking leg was deceptively flat and smooth on the rail trail which led to a long ago abandoned class VI road and more jeep trails where even the 4x4 off road vehicles get into trouble. Teams could drop their bikes and run up Tumbledown Dick Mountain via the steep south side or go around to the gentler north side. The top 3 teams that orienteer Jim Arsenault (who also helped at registration) saw were Wicked Pissah (12:08pm), Cogg Wild (12:16pm) and Littleton Bike Shop (12:21pm) who ended up having a spectacular bike split making up nearly 45 minutes on Wicked Pissah.

During a road section one team was nearly side-swiped by a fleeing truck going 55mph as it was chased by a police cruiser. The truck whipped through a field and hid behind a barn. Meanwhile the cruiser stopped in front of the team and asked them which way the speeding car went. All three team members pointed to the barn. The next team through saw men in handcuffs standing near the cruiser. No names are mentioned to protect the innocent.

The first teams to run up Devils Den, (we like the names of the mountains around here) manned by Gary LeMay were Wicked Pissah (13:35), and Littleton Bike Shop (13:50), followed by the large pack of Berlin Bike (14:15), GMARA (14:17), SPTU/DarnTough (14:19), Canigetawitness (14:22), Hype (14:27), Maximum Overdrive (14:31), and Mad Moose (14:33).

Lots of rough and confusing jeep trails. There were broken spokes, flat tires, bent derailers, falls and endos, but no major damage to bike or human and a nice screaming downhill to Merrymeeting Lake with a long paved but no less hilly section to CP14 manned by Tom Stanley.

Maximum Overdrive saw a car swerve to miss a fox (that was crossing the road) and hit a tree, nobody hurt, but a close call as it happened 200 ft. behind them.

Littleton Bike Shop (16:06) had caught Wicked Pissah at TA2, Berlin Bike (16:39) and SPTU weren’t far behind. Eastern Mountain Sports, working hard since their mistake at CP3, left TA1 in 11th place and gained 6 places on the biking leg to leave TA2 in 5th place. The Rogaine style trek meant that teams could get the next 8 checkpoints in any order but had to hit the ‘GO control’ (last cp before the finish) and be at the finish by 7am. About 11 teams started the trek with at least some light left in the day. GMARA took advantage of that to get a difficult checkpoint while they still had the light while most teams rotated counter clockwise around the course hitting that difficult point well into the dark. Summit Achievement manned CP21 on Straightback Mt with 2 staff and 3 students setting up camp and waiting for teams to come in. They reported a beautiful night illuminated with stars. Wicked Pissah arrived at nearly 19:00 while the next place team, Littleton Bike Shop was about 19:30 and the next 2 teams, Eastern Mountain Sports and SPTU/DarnTough around 20:00.

Shenandoah Curley who originally wanted to be on a team helped us by manning CP17 (she also helped at registration Friday evening) said the night was so beautiful with a bright moon, shooting stars and warm breezes. She also had the company of a beaver on the pond who tried his best to warn the adventure racers away by slapping his tail on the water. The first teams to arrive at the pond were Wicked Pissah around 10pm one hour ahead of Eastern Mountain Sports. A half an hour later were teams Berlin Bike, SPTU/DarnTough, Littleton Bike Shop, and Maximum Overdrive which had a spread of only 20 minutes between them.

Just before midnight, Chris Edmondson offered to bike around the Tumbledown Dick Mt area to search for 2 teams missing since TA1. Team Twisted and Wet Bandits joined forces and became Lost Twisted Bandits and were located just south of CP10 on a jeep trail. They were still moving forward, tired and out of food & water but in good spirits and happy to be found.

The 'GO control' (CPC) was manned by Tora Olafsen and Ryan Pollock who took turns watching for teams to arrive in the predawn hours. They had built a small, comforting, fire and while waiting for an ailing teammate to recover, two teammates from Team HYPE took advantage of the warmth for a few minutes before heading to the finish. Tora and Ryan had estimated a time of 7 hours for the top team to get all the trek checkpoints. However, as they waited and waited, the Belknaps seemed to have gotten the better of the teams. Finally, at 3:08 nearly 4 hours past the estimated time, a motivated Wicked Pissah reached CPC. Having all but completed the trek section as cleanly as possible with the nighttime conditions, but still nervous about having EMS on the chase, they moved on quickly and ran the last 15mins down to the Base Lodge at Gunstock where a relieved race director was waiting at the finish line. The third team through CPC was Piches who had actually left TA-2 as one of the last teams, but smartly decided to skip several of the difficult trek CPs and head to the finish to make it before the cutoff. As teams filtered in, and the morning drew on, the excitement built as the results would come down to who got all the checkpoints and who could finish before 7am. The first team into the finish was Wicked Pissah (20:23), who had nailed the course almost from the beginning. Making a comeback, but unable to get back that original 55 minute error, Team Eastern Mountain Sports (21:34) came in second. Gaining on them was Berlin Bike (21:51) followed by GMARA (22:53) and Littleton Bike Shop (23:17). The first team into the finish was Wicked Pissah (20:23), who had nailed the course almost from the beginning. Making a comeback in second place was Eastern Mountain Sports (21:34). Gaining on them was Berlin Bike (21:51) followed by GMARA (22:53) and Littleton Bike Shop (23:17). The Rogaine finish worked well keeping all teams finishing in less than 3.5 hours of each other.

For the New England Adventure Racing Series, Team EMS was able to hold their lead without a problem for the third year in a row! Second place in the series went to SPTU/DarnTough with Wicked Pissah in an extremely close third place. In the all-male division for the series, Team Choi maintained their lead over Canigetawitness, despite some mishaps during the final NH-24 this weekend.

Congratulations to all teams!! We aspire to design some of the toughest courses in the country, each of you should be proud to have competed in and finished in each of these races. Please email us with comments or suggestions as we want to make every race better than the last! Thank you very much to all racers for your wonderfully competitive but pleasant attitude on the course, support crews for putting up with the long waits, volunteers and our sponsors!

By the numbers:

Paddle - 15 miles /30 meters climb

Bike - 50 miles / 1400 meters climb

Trek - 17 miles 1300 meters climb

18 teams started the race.

15 teams crossed the finish line.

7 teams got all 25 checkpoints.

3 teams dropped out or were not permitted to continue.

Full results can be digested at http://www.racingahead.com/Results.html

Racing Ahead,llc

Hosting Adventure Races in New England