The GGBs are back in action!!

Just 5 weeks out from MAD, the Green Governor BEASTS need to kick their training into high gear and we also need to start blogging again!

We both went on some great runs last night in our respective cities- there is definitely room for improvement in speed and distance (well, at least for GGB Lisa), but we'll get there eventually. We will also be working on some incline training to get our lungs and legs ready for those hills (a.k.a. mountains) of PA! During our training runs, we do like to keep in mind all we have learned from past experiences. For example, an energetic power walk with lots of arm pumping up the killer climbs is just about as effective as the slow and steady we-can-go-forever-at-this-pace run. On race day, we're sure the power walking will also coincide with snacking on PB sandwiches....

In the past we have had the luxury of being able to train together. That was extremely beneficial, especially for our mountain biking training. It's more fun and a lot safer to have a friend biking with you on the narrow and tricky single-lane trails, so we both have been putting off that component for now. We can't put if off forever though because the one thing we do remember looking back at MAD 2010 is the biking... and it was technical!

OK, so here's the game plan: we are going to increase the frequency and length of our runs, and we will brush off our bikes and get back on the trails. Because of our distance from each other now, encouragement through emails, texts and giddy phone calls will keep us on track with training. Ultimately, we are going to hold each other accountable because we sure don't want a DNF next to our names!

HVAC - Team Holly Loft Race Recap

Guest bloggers, Scott Angove and Missy McNett from team Holly Loft, share a winners' race perspective. Holly Loft earned First Place in the coed division and finished just 11 minutes behind the First Place overall team, the Batty Boys.


Missy and I choose to start together. It's a team sport, and we tend to think better as a team. We were really scared of loosing each other and we're closely matched in climbing, especially at the start of the race; Missy is a strong climber all day, where I seem to run on adrenalin for the first 30 minutes, and should be able to keep up with her for the climb.


Starting out in the second row of the 60-70 bikers was a distinct advantage as we were both in the top few racers around the first two corners leading into the uphill single/double track. We worked our way to the front of the lead pack, through points 1, 2, and 3; but back to the middle, still in the top 6-8 teams, by the long trip south to the scout camp. These top teams, ourselves included, must all have believed Frank's 3-hour estimate, as nobody seemed to be pacing themselves for a 5-7 hour event.


There were maybe 5 teams ahead of us at the bike drop, but we watched 2-3 teams ahead of us run right past the first run CP. We slowed to a jog for a few yards and ducked into the woods for that first run CP without any of them noticing. We caught the Batty Boys, and perhaps one other team at the clearing looking for the second run CP. Using our compasses to find the correct corner of the clearing, we bumped right into that second run CP in the thick brush to find ourselves in first place. The Batty boys were a ways back but gaining through the cemetery and we led each other up the wrong valley looking for the trail to 15a. All four of us realized our mistake after roughly 10 minutes, but it was one of them that found the correct trail up the correct valley 10 minutes later, and we gladly followed them toward 15a. At that point the four of us thought that somebody must have passed us while we were off-course, only to find out later we were still leading. We came to the obvious "reentry" and incoming trails from the left where 15a was on the map, but struggled for 15 minutes with 4 other teams looking for 15a. Chris Darling and Eric Fadale were the first team to give up on that location and continue onward toward 15b. We got wise a few minutes behind them and headed off to find 15a further up the trail, and 15b in the creek bed. We were now in 2nd place behind Chris & Eric, nowhere in sight, who must have been faster on foot as we were feeling the heat and lack of fluids by that point. At the bike drop, without thinking about it, had chosen to run without carrying any water. We ran with the Batty Boys for a while, and came into the bike drop just ahead, but they passed us transitioning back to the bikes, as we took a while refueling.


The long bike trip felt slow as we both were going full speed for the first bike leg south, and had little left for the return trip north. We were out of fluids and gels, and looking for other teams over our shoulders, but were happy to find we were moving not quite as slowly as Chris & Eric; and caught them at the tennis courts and they regrettably allowed us to pass on the single track back to the finish. We finished overheated and undernourished but very happy with a first place coed finish only 11 minutes behind the very respected Batty Boys.

HVAC 2010 Recap

Kristen and I were on the same page, obviously since we had all week and a 3 hour car ride to strategize. We let a majority of the pack go ahead and then we started our race. We set a good pace and began the climb to CP #1 at the tennis courts. We basically biked up ski hill and it was in the first 10 minutes of the race that the negative thoughts started to creep in…”ughhhhh why does the race always seem like such a great idea before we start… and when will we start going downhill again?”. Once we reached the tennis courts, life was good. We went over the strategy again: 1. Go at our own pace, 2. Stop every 45-50 minutes for a snack/water but for no more than 90 seconds, 3. Use the map to measure the distance to the next checkpoint, and turn around if the checkpoint (CP) is not found within the pre-determined set time limit and 4. Try to have fun (OK, we didn’t talk about #4 but it’s always good to have it on your list).


Alright, we made it to CP2, CP3, and there was just a minor navigational hesitation for CP4, but we admitted a wrong turn and quickly turned in the correct direction. When we saw Frank at CP4, our smiles couldn’t have been bigger! Kristen and I were loving the technical and muddy biking, because that’s what we train on and it’s when we ride our best. Any time that we might have lost on walking bikes up inclines, we definitely gained right back during the technical parts and downhill portions.


Let’s take a minute to talk about Kristen going down hills. I promise you, she doesn’t brake. As I’m going down hills, I start to imagine skidding out of control on gravel or hitting a misplaced rock and flying over the handle bars, so I brake like it’s my job and take my time. Well, Kristen, she is a speed demon and only looks back to make sure I’m OK. In the end, we balance each other out, but her downhill speed demon-ness needed to be mentioned because it played into the last 10 minutes of the race…


From CP5 – CP10, our navigational training was really paying off! Kristen would measure and I would keep track of the mileage on my bike odometer. She was right on and, I told her, I couldn’t believe it. Why didn’t we use the ledger in all the other races? What were we thinking? We may have struggled with the hills, we might have fallen off the bikes, and possibly came in contact with poison ivy and multiple thorn bushes, but no, we did not get lost once! We had eaten Luna Moons, energy jelly beans and orange slices. We were well-hydrated and absolutely loving life riding into CP10.


We had arrived at the bike drop around 12:30pm and for once there were a ton of bikes there! Bethann ran over to us and said “Good job girls, you are the second place girl team right now” woo hoo! I knew my hydration pack was running low so I took my bike water bottle and poured it into my pack. We ran into the long grass, ready to keep our lead! We looked at our maps and found that the next point would be in 400 meters, then we passed a team that said “girls you know you don’t have to keep your helmets on for the run, or your biking gloves” ugh, ugh, ugh! We smiled and laughed…we didn’t even know we had our helmets on or our gloves” We must have looked crazy! We then found check point 11!


Check Point 12-14: On our trek from 11-12, we decided it was time for the tow rope system that Lisa and her mom so nicely donated. It was basically a rope that would tie the two of us together. It was also time for a snack; peanut butter sandwiches minus the jelly! We decided to power walk while snacking, and we came across one of the members of LAST PLACE. He looked at us and said something like “you girls never cease to amaze me”. Here we are, with our helmets on, tied to each other, with our biking gloves on, eating a peanut butter sandwich, while power walking, and smiling so big! Oh it must be those GGB girls! This is exactly why we have to look so tough pre-race because during the race, we look like…well…the GGB’s…Check point 12 was found! Yes!!


CP 13-14 we started to do some running, while tied to each other on the difficult terrain. Frank warned us to be careful with our tow rope and we were…well, for the most part. Lisa took the lead and I was in the back, there were probably about 3 major falls in which I would trip on a root, and Lisa’s momentum kept going. So as I would fall, she wouldn’t see me and would keep running. The rope would tighten on her waist and bring her to an abrupt halt, while the rope would force me to fall flat on my face, but also to be pulled for a little bit going backwards until Lisa realized I was turned about and on the ground. It was not funny at the time…at all…but now we can laugh about it! :)


We made it to CP 15a and 15b going a little bit of a long way, but we weren’t lost! We knew where we were! Getting back to the bike drop was when things got a little crazy. We were on the road, and planned to take the road all the way back to the bike drop, so we followed it until we realized it led us to someone’s backyard! Ugh! Where are we? We turned around and found the Laurel Highland trail…morale had started to sink, we had far surpassed our finish goal of 6 hours, we had both ran out of water, and it seemed like it would take years to get back to the bike drop. We decided to finally take our helmets off to allow the heat to seep from our heads. We started to think about ways to cool down our bodies and we were definitely starting to feel dehydrated and hot. The only thing that kept our spirits high was knowing that there would be water at the bike drop. We saw the field on our right and knew we were getting close. We ran up to Frank and said please tell us there is water left. There was about 1/3 of a Dixie cup left. I took a sip, Lisa took a sip and that’s all we had to get us to the finish. We were 7 hours into the race, and asked Frank how long he thought it would take us to get to the finish. Frank said “about 1 hour”, OK we can do this.


Back on the bikes we were feeling kind of optimistic, maybe too optimistic…We felt good because we had been to the CP’s before on the way there and we THOUGHT we knew exactly where we were going. Stress, fatigue, no water and hot weather can do funny things to a racer. On the first bike leg, we made sure to eat every 45 minutes, we measured our distances and kept track on the bike, we quickly changed direction if we felt lost and…we were nice to each other. On the second bike leg, not so much of any of the above.


Getting to CP 17 was the hardest. We didn’t know the exact distance, then we made a wrong turn on Jones Mill Run road…and stayed on that road for way too long. The road was all up hill. Why didn’t we turn around? We didn’t even have any water to drink at the top of the hills as a celebration. The negativity started about this time. We were looking at the streams and thinking about drinking from them. We kept talking about our bad navigation, but neither of us had a solution. It’s hard to admit when you’re wrong. OK, we finally decided to turn around and the good news is, it was all down hill to the Cherry Trail, Jones Mill intersection – woohoo!


We figured out the mistake and found CP 17. We decided to take Red Oak Trail to CP 18 and make sure to have a gel each. Both of us were squeezing every last drop out in attempt to rehydrate our bodies. A couple things happened on the way to CP 18: we both shed some tears secretly, we saw another all girl team, we each thought about quitting but didn’t vocalize it, we walked our bike more then we rode them…and then we saw Frank!!! To sum up the exchange, Frank had just run out of water that he brought for another team and he asked us (in a way where we knew he didn’t want us to respond) if we wanted to quit. We paused, looked at each other, made some secret GGB eye contact and shared a memory about HVAC 2008, and said No, we will not quit, we will finish the race!


CP 18 – punched! At CP 19, we met up with another all female team. From CP 19 to CP 20, we were trailing behind the other team. At the tennis courts, we knew it was downhill until the finish. Kristen gains some momentum and powers through the technical terrain at her usual downhill speed. She is just ahead of me, when I turn a corner and see her hurrying to get back on her bike. I said “Kristen, what are you doing? We have to keep moving!”. She refrained from screaming at me, which I find out that I deserved later, that she fell off her bike hard, hit her head and was in pain. Regardless of the fall, she got back on that bike and pedaled like I’ve never seen her pedal. It was only until after the race that I saw her cuts, scrapes and bruises. We also decided that a new helmet was going to be needed after that one had absorbed so much impact.


Frank describes the Finish the best:


“Approximately 6:00pm (9 hours after race start!) Corinne Schneider of Thunder Buns and the Category 9 comes absolutely flying across the finish line yelling something about Heather (her teammate) being right behind her.."with--like-- 90 other women on her tail!" Shortly I see a cloud of dust as the group comes sprinting around the bend heading toward me. Heather Adams is giving it her all, but Lisa Tersigni and Kristen LoGrasso inch past her and beat her to the finish line by a fraction of a second--and right on Heather's heels are Twisted Sisters.”


We finished the race! We finished with other racers around! We improved our navigation by 100% and we actually had fun for the first 7 hours.


We couldn’t talk about MAD until just a couple days ago because the pain was too fresh, but we have decided to race and keep with the new game plan – we’re already getting excited!

HVAC - Pre-race routine!

The crow screaming for its long lost pal outside our tent at 5:50am was probably the sign today was going to be an interesting day…The night before we set up our tent on a slight angle and I may have rolled off the mattress into the tiny space between the tent and the mattress a few times, but other than that it was a great sleep, there was no sleep talking and no bear attacks, we’d made it through the night!! We woke up and quickly cleaned up our campsite, sat down for our bagel, PB and banana hoping it would calm the little bit of excitement and nervousness in our stomachs. We showered in the crazy showers that when turned on, hit the back of our legs, not the top of our heads, we braided our wet hair, dressed in all green, and headed off to the race. We made a quick stop at the gas station for some tea and coffee, then it was time to get pumped up: time for the boom box to come out and the mixed CD entitled :GGB third times the charm - HVAC 2010 Women's Champs. We blasted “How can we be lovers if we can’t be friends” at the top of our lungs, and headed into Hidden Valley, and to our surprise, we were one of the last vehicles to arrive. We turned off the boom box and got in serious race mode, pre-race is no time for smiles, just head nods and salutes. We made the serious trek to the registration table, we signed in, gave a secret smile to Frank and Bethann, and then went to get our bikes and race gear. At the car we pulled on our bright pink leaders jerseys, grabbed our hydration packs, sprayed some OFF on, and I put a quick swipe of sunscreen on my face, then we walked the bikes over to the pre-race meeting. Here I was trying to look tough and fierce and one of the girls from Twisted Sisters was smiling really big at me, then Lisa turned to me and said “Gov you have sunscreen all over your face” ugh great! I was trying to look tough and here I can’t even smear on sunscreen. We listened intently at the pre-race meeting, we had the option of sending one of us off on the race course thirty minutes early, to some this would be an advantage, but to the GGBs this could be disastrous, yes Frank, the path we would travel would be completely marked, but we would have found a way to be lost and alone, ending our adventure racing careers FOREVER. OK, we both looked at each other after the same daydream of being lost and mouthed to each other “WE ARE NOT SPLITTING UP”. A team to our right asked for a pen, which I let them borrow as Frank continued to talk, I think I may have gotten the lip snarl from Lisa when I gave the pen away, so we impatiently tapped our feet until we got the pen back and quickly wrote what Frank yelled out. Our sheet was filled with notes; everything Frank said we wrote down, and for once it MAY have paid off. After the pre-race meeting we had 20 minutes to look at the map, so we sat on the gravel and measured the distance between points, looked up which trail we would take, and then jumped on our bikes. We gathered in the back..BA yelled ”…3…2…1…GO!”

Pre-HVAC 2010

Hello GGB fans, friends and family!!! We took a break from the blog, and a break from training together, but we are back and ready to tackle HVAC this weekend!

We went on two long bike rides this week, put together a navigational plan and built up our confidence to an unheard of level. The GGB’s are having a great week!!!

HVAC is going to be hot, like 90 degrees hot. I guess it’s better than hail, SORCAR style. Frank has promised an “athletic” bike ride and a “navigationally challenging” trek. We were told “no” to a water component, but we aren’t crossing it off our list of things to be mentally prepared about.

The bikes are polished and tuned. The padded bike shorts are laying on the bed and ready to be packed. Pre-race dinner menu is set. Email giddiness is in full effect.

Saturday’s the big day – we’re going to accomplish our set goals and keep the smiles big!

Mixed Emotions during SORCAR 2010

Where do we start the SORCAR re-cap?

Pre-race excitement. It might have been a 27 (wink, wink) on a scale of 1-10. Everything was going great: we were right on time leaving Cleveland, we had all the necessary gear, some clouds and no rain, GGB Kristen’s bday, the “It’s Good to be a GGB” CD in the boom box (in the car), pre-race snacks, great directions, screaming “how can we be lovers if we can’t be friends” at the top of our lungs, small knife was packed in a safe spot… See! How could things NOT go right????

Set Up. We get to the transition area (TA) feeling better then we’ve felt since we started adventure racing. It was so good to see Bethann (BA), Frank and a lot of familiar faces… we almost didn’t feel like “newbies” anymore. The pre-race puzzle was a fun twist! The small knife was used to open the puzzle box, which I tried to open with my bare hands with no luck and was very happy to have the small knife. BA and Frank are so tricky ;) But it was in the back of our minds that we may have to use the knife again. You just never know. Kristen rocked the puzzle – and we agreed that we would definitely win a puzzle race, maybe we need to look into something that plays to our strengths more? Anyhow, we had to finish the pre-race puzzle to get a poker chip. Once we had the poker chip, we got our bikes and gear set up outside in the TA. The sun may have been peaking around the clouds at this point – things were still looking really good!

Run. Our run start time was 8:05 and we handed over the poker chip while waiting in line to depart. We had a good idea of what direction we were going to run for all of the colors (for the red, yellow or green course). We had the red course first. "We just have to get two check points (CP’s) and we’re on to the next." Well, we had great intentions when we started. We knew the general vicinity to run, but we’re overshooting all the CP’s… every race we re-learn that the points on the map are A LOT closer together than they look. After completing the red course, we started on yellow. Awesome – we found CP5 so quickly and we’re thinking “we’ve got this, we feel good, let’s keep this momentum”, but that’s when it got bad… we ran allllll over looking for CP3 and 4. Why??? We must have passed both CP’s numerous times…at one point we got so mixed up that we came across CP5 again! UGH!!! OK, deep breath, let’s look at the map again, here’s the compass, it should be right here, let’s keep running, wait, let’s look at the map again, hi other team, yes, we did just see you 30 minutes ago in this same spot, oh you’re heading back?…yeah, we’re still on yellow, wait, did you just say that we look lost and we shouldn’t be helped? we weren’t going to ask for your help anyway and yes, we know we look lost!!!! deep breath. We finally found CP3, then CP4 and were head back to TA. BA gave us the biggest smile, yelled “Go GGB”!!!!!, and said “we were wondering where you ladies were”. Time for the green course. At this point, we’re running downhill and bikes are zipping past us, we know that we’re alone on the run course for the most part. We cross the bridge to the other side of the “river” and decide that since we can’t find CP6, we’ll get 7 and 8, then come back to 6. While on the north side of the river, we spot CP6 on the other side. Instead of wasting precious energy to run around to the other side (at this point the time doesn’t even matter), Kristen volunteers to cross the “river” by maneuvering along a narrow, dried out, dead tree to reach the other side. She was a champ and it was a minor victory for the GGB’s. Post yellow-course-fiasco, we would take any small victory! After getting 6, CP7 and 8 were easy to find. I do need to mention that the climb to CP8 was intense!!!! Very steep, so we had to walk a majority of the trail leading to it. To get back to TA, we had to cross the “river” again. This time we decided to take off our shoes and socks and very carefully cross. Although the fisherman watching us may have thought we were a little crazy, their facial expressions didn’t give anything away.

TA. Back at TA, of course we only see our bikes and another teams’ bikes. We were expecting this. The run portion took us over 2 hours to complete. What we weren’t expecting was seeing the Batty Boys there. They’re that good. They lapped us. Like, MAJOR lapped us. Are we that bad? We won’t answer that question. Moving on. We run in and give BA our green punch card and we’re smiling because we’re optimistic. We really love mountain biking and usually it’s our strong leg. At least on the bikes, there’s very few instances that bushwhacking is needed. As you can tell, we’re not great at veering off trails. The Batty Boys shared some encouraging, compassionate words, along with a double check of our food and water supply, then wished us luck on the bike portion. Here we go!!

Bike. CP9 was easy to find, CP10 was more of a challenge. There was a lot of pushing bikes up hills and there was mud. Also, this may have been where the negative comments started. We pushed on and found CP11. Along the way we came across two other teams, much to our surprise. We thought we wouldn’t see anyone for the remainder of the race. CP12, CP13 all were found. It was between CP13 and CP14 that the negativity reached an all time high. Of course we were pushing the bikes up a hill, Kristen’s back was hurting, like really really hurting. My leg, I’m sure it was just a rogue muscles shouting it’s protest, was not feeling great. Did I mention we were walking the bikes up a hill? The following comments may have been uttered during the trek from CP13 to CP14: I’m not having fun. Why are we so bad at navigating? Why do we keep doing these races? I’m not having fun. If I could quit right now, I would, but no one would be able to come get us. Remember, no quitting. Why do we keep participating in something that we’re not good at? Why did we think we were going to do good today? I don’t have the energy to cry right now. My bike and I are not going to be friends for a long time after this. Whyyyyyy????? I may have to use crutches when this is over. I’m already thinking about what I’m going to write in the blog. Let’s do some yoga stretches to help your back. Maybe a downward dog? We need to take some pictures to remember this ultra low point, maybe a video too. This is a bad birthday. Take that back. OK, this is a great birthday. It’s hailing on us...again. CP14!!!!! It was nestled in with the giant pine trees and was more difficult to find. We knew exactly where CP15 and 16 were because we passed them on the way to CP10, so we lifted our heads a little higher, put on a smile and headed for home. On the main road heading back to TA, we got to see a few of the racers driving away and we got a lot of encouraging waves, “great job girls” and smiles. A lot of smiles. Once at TA, we threw the bikes down and ran in to see BA, amid clapping and cheering. It was a great moment.

We finished the race. We didn’t quit after the run, we hit every single CP, there wasn’t a flat tire or even a mean word exchanged between us (whewwww!) and 6 hours 23 minutes is better then a DNF, right??

To race another day? As you can probably tell, we don’t compete to win the race. Obviously we’re competitive and would love to place, but if we competed just to win or even just to place, then we wouldn’t keep signing up for the races. We wore the notorious “pink leader jersey’s” because we have been doing this for a couple years and not because we’re the competition. Besides, all the other teams quickly learned not to follow the (pink) leaders.

As much as we told ourselves that we would never forget the pain we felt during the bike, we were able to laugh about it during the car ride home, and the next day, the pain was just a distant memory. On Sunday, we were already looking forward to HVAC. On a very positive note, we know we’ll get better. We’re going to work on our navigation and endurance training. Lastly, we’re optimistic because we know the trails of HVAC (we’ve been lost on them for probably over 12 hours during races in 08 and 09 combined) – it’s not much but it makes us feel better!

Thanks again to all our fans, supporters and fellow Grass Roots racers for the encouragement and competition!! You inspire us to become better racers!

Big smiles in Cleveland

10 reasons we are crazy nervous!!

It’s the first race of the season. We are extremely excited!, I feel like we are the most excited and anxious we have ever been, of course being the GGB’s that is trumped by a CRAZY amount of NERVOUSNESS. Yes we’ve raced before, yes we know we have the endurance to run this race, and yes this is our third season…but…these are the top 10 reasons we are crazy nervous:

1. A small knife – a last minute addition to the gear list…umm…is that for cutting our way through the trail?, cutting ourselves out of a booby trap-like net while dangling from a tree? defending ourselves against small animals? A tool we may need to survive if we are lost in the forest forever?
2. Bushwhacking – While one of our favorite moments was bushwhacking for about a mile to find a CP (WAR – 2009) while chomping on some peanut M&M’s a part of us thinks that was not our compass skills, but possibly all luck! (half just kidding)
3. Pink Jersey’s – While we are EXTREMELY excited to be the female series leaders, its going to be pretty terrifying having other teams chase us down! And pretty embarrassing when they chase us down about 10 minutes into the race (again half just kidding)
4. Water – Will we get wet again? Will one of us shiver, and the other just race in their jersey giving her warm clothes to warm up the other?
5. Staggered Start – Will we know which way to go at the start?? We usually follow the pack a tiny bit and figure things out from there! Ugh!
6. Pre-Race T/A – Will teams stare each other down with their laser eyes?
7. Map – Will the map stay dry and more importantly perfectly unwrinkled? (hopefully for K’s sake)
8. The Boys – Will we finally be able to call home to our boys and say we have medal and we rocked it! Or will it be another conversation of we did not do so great, and the boys coming up reasons why they are so proud of us and why finishing last and in 10 hours is a really really great accomplishment.
9. Frank and Beth Ann – Will they be proud with our finish! Will they want us to come back and race again?, we will live up to expectations? Will there be cookies left?
10. Friendship – Will we stay friends after this race?, will we bicker?, will the lip snarl be present?? (definitely just kidding)