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!