The Turd Annual SHITR

The Most Wonderful Day of the year is quickly approaching, that’s right The Turd Annual SHITR.  The 2015 run will be held on January 10^th, with a 5 pm start time, as in past years, the course will start at the Weldon Springs Mound, and you will be running on the Lost Valley Trails.  There may or may not be a mystery event, you will have to show up to find out.  

This year we even have some sponsors on board, Mountain Khaki's, Vroom Foods, XX2i Optics and Zanfel have donated some great schwag to the event!  There may or may not be other surprises… Be sure to come and find out. 

The SHITR is also the final event on the Tortured Soles tour, so we will be joined by a slew of SHITR virgins. 

If you haven’t already signed up, please go join our FB group and sign up by clicking the “GOING” button.  We also need a count of how many will be joining us at the Mexican restaurant after the event. 

Dirty Kanza - The Half Pint Edition

A year ago, if you would have asked me if I would ever gravel race, I would have told you, “there is no way in hell, I will ever gravel race”.  I guess those are some of my most famous last words.

Here’s the thing, my teammate Chuck built a gravel bike and he was having all kinds of fun on it, and having the fun without me.  I did some adventure riding with him, but on my mountain bike, and it’s no fun trying to keep up with a gravel bike when riding a mountain bike with fat tires and weighing about two tons.

I started thinking, I would like to do some CX races this year, so maybe I could get a CX bike that could double as a gravel bike. The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea, but I would not be doing any gravel racing, I would just use it as an adventure bike to ride with Chuck for training purposes.  More famous last words, I guess. 

 

Chuck and I also work together, so when it was bonus time at our company, Chuck encouraged me to take my bonus and use it to purchase a gravel bike.  I did research for months and had my choices down to two bikes, the Trek Cronus and the Cannondale SuperX.  I ended up choosing the Cannondale SuperX, more to come later on the bike, I will be posting a review, but let me just say right now, I made the right choice. 

Robin's Cannondale SuperX

Now I had a gravel bike, but unfortunately, I also had a broken tailbone and a heart problem, so I was not able to ride it yet.  As soon as I got released to ride, I got on the bike and tried it out.  Problem was I didn’t have a lot of time, so I rode it twice, then I rode the Tour of Herman gravel race with Chuck, it was only my 3^rd time on the bike.  Remember a few paragraphs back when I said, I would not be gravel racing, well that didn’t last long, but I was mainly doing TOH for a training ride, not a real race.  Well we finished the first two legs of TOH and missed the cut off to start the 3^rd lap by 30 seconds, but that was ok, the hills almost killed me on the first two legs and I wasn’t all that ready to go out for a third.  After the TOH, I was wondering why in the world I signed up for the DK half pint race.  I had heard that the hills at DK were worse than TOH.  Once again Chuck talked me into doing something I knew better than to do. He had decided to do DK200 and I said no way, I won’t be doing it, but when he said Lori was doing the Half Pint 100, which was really 110, and for me 119, more on that later, I thought well, I will do that, not really race it, just ride it for training. Of course I had already signed up for DK before I actually rode TOH, so hide sight is always 20/20. 

Next on the list was to ride Cedar Cross as a training ride, but I had decided to sell my house and to my surprise it sold in 24 hours and I had little time to find a new house and needed Cedar Cross weekend to look for a house, so I had to skip CC.  Now I had a total of 3 training rides on my gravel bike, with the longest ride being the TOH at 67 miles.  But hey, being prepared is overrated.  I mean who needs to train after having tailbone surgery and heart surgery in the last 4 months. 

As DK neared my reluctance grew, I had no training in, I didn’t even start doing anything until March and here it was the 1^st of June and I was going to ride 110 miles of gravel in the Flint Hills of Kansas.  What was I thinking, how could I be this stupid. So 4 days before the race, I got the ok from my heart doctor to go back to normal workouts, I wonder if I should have mentioned that I planned on a 110 mile gravel race on the next Saturday.  Maybe it’s better I didn’t mention it. 

My life had been crazy for the last couple months, my youngest daughter China was graduating from high school, and I was planning a big BBQ, plus my house was sold, so I had a million house things to do, and to top it off my planned support crew, which was China, had to back out because of her best friends graduation party being on the same day.  Now, I had no support crew, was feeling overwhelmed with life and had no real training under my belt, again what was I thinking, I should have backed out, but I didn’t. 

When Chuck figured out a schedule so his boys could support both him, Lori and I, I thought it must be a sign that I should go to the race.  

Now with only two weeks to go befor the race, I decided that the tires on my bike would not do well in this race, so Chuck ordered me some Schwalbe Marathons, Schwalbe is ROCK Racing’s tire of choice.  They came just 3 days before the race and I tried to put them on, which was a mistake, I ended up taking them to my favorite bike shop, the Cyclery and had the guys there put them on, since I really sucked at it. 

Friday morning came, I loaded up the adventure van and took off for Kansas, all the way there my reluctance grew more and more.  The ride seemed too lonely, I called my daughter China 4 times, just to talk to her, she was getting really sick of me.  I drove through a few storms, thinking, well maybe it will storm and the race will be cancelled then I won’t have to ride it or back out.  I was kind of praying for that.  

I checked in at the hotel, then Chuck called and said they were at the theater checking in, so I drove over and met them. As I parked the adventure van, I saw Emma, who is always smiling, it just made me feel better to see a happy person, of course Kyle and Derrick were there also and some other adventure racing friends.  I got checked in and still wasn’t feeling like I wanted to do this. Oh and somehow my entry said I needed a large shirt instead of a medium so, I was feeling like, I won’t even be able to wear this shirt because it’s too big, but I guess since I didn’t think I would finish, it didn’t really matter. 

DK Check-In

Plus, I was calling home trying to line up stuff for the new house financing, and feeling like I should be home doing that and not be spending a weekend at a race.  

The pre-race meeting went well, and I bought a DK beer glass that said crew, I figured that might be the only way I was going to get a glass, I knew for certain there was no way I would be making the cut off times. I figured it would be legal since after I got tossed from the race, I would be crewing for Chuck. 

After the meeting we headed to the Pizza Ranch, one of the volunteers recommended it.  When we got there, we ran smack into Team Virtus and their crew, we said our Hi’s and started chowing down, the pizza was extremely good, but of course I ate way too much. 

Since we had to be out the door of the hotel by 5 am we headed off to bed, of course I could’nt sleep, I think I may have slept 3 hours that night. So to pass the time I went through everything in my race packet and found instructions on safety for the DK200.  It was not what I would have thought the safety tips would be.

All about Kansas Snakes

Soon, it was 5 am and we were off to the race, we found a good parking spot, moved my gear into Lori’s van, got our bikes ready and were set for the start. 

ROCK Racing

While talking with Team Virtus, I ended up in one of their group shots, I guess I kind of photo bombed them.

Photo Credit: Team Virtus

The 200 took off and Chuck was gone, Lori and I lined up with a Virtus friend, Jessica,  ready to roll out for the half pint race.  Lori checked her tires and realized that her back tire was low, but here we were with just 9 minutes to the start and we can’t figure out how to use the frame pump.  Emma, sprinted down to her car and brought back a floor pump and we put air in Lori’s tire.  Once again Emma saves the day!

Race start from the back of the pack

The Gun went off and Lori, Jessica and I rolled out only to see a train crossing the tracks ahead, but by the time we rolled up, it was gone and we just kept rolling out. I kept thinking that I may have to pull over and puke, but my stomach finally calmed down after a few miles.  The pace wasn’t bad and I was just rolling along listening to all the conversations around me.  We fell into a nice comfortable pace and the rolling hills were not too bad.  We came to a muddy section of road and had to do some bike trekking, but it really wasn’t that bad. 

Photo Credit: Chuck Vohsen

I had lost Lori somewhere just before the muddy road, so after I made it to the top of the next hill, I pulled out my camera and started taking some photos, while I waited for Lori.  Jessica was gone, I didn’t think we would see her again.  As I was goofing around with the camera, a few groups passed me, I thought I saw Lori, so I put my camera in my pocket and chased for a while to catch up, to my surprise, when I caught up, it wasn’t Lori.  Now I had no idea where she was, in front of me or in back of me, so I just kept riding. 

Many long hills ahead

I kept moving along, just taking in the beauty of Kansas, when I came across some free range cows, one was at the side of the road, and doing a little dance, like he just might bolt in front of me.  As I rode by him, he just kind of gave me the evil eye, like get out of my yard. 

He was not happy to see us

After passing the cow there was a steep incline, as I was riding up, I could see everyone walking their bikes, so I figured I would have to walk too, but surprisingly it wasn’t too bad and I rode to the top, just as I crested the hill, I saw Team Virtus take off, I thought about trying to get on back, but then I knew we were close to the 110/200 split, so there was no real reason to chase. I watched them about 100 yards in front of me until we came to the split and they went one direction while I went another.

At the bottom of a steep gravel hill, there was a crash, a girl with a bloody face was on the ground and a guy was holding her head up telling her to just stay still. There was a guy in a truck there to pick her up, so I rolled on.  Soon I came to the 200 split off from the 110 and I kept riding, right through a couple of creeks, and I made it through them without taking a swim. Some guys riding in front of me got off and walked through, I’m not sure why, it was easy ride through, the water was only about a foot deep. 

I rode a few more miles and caught up with Jessica, we talked for a while, then I stopped to get some food out.  I really had to pee, but there is no place to  hide in the middle of Kansas, so Jessica said there was no one in the distance, so we just moved to the side of the road, dropped our shorts and pee’d.   I felt so much better then, but I could already feel some chaffing in places that no girl should ever be chaffed, I would have to deal with that for the rest of the race. 

Photo Credit: Chuck Vohsen

The wind just kept howling and there was nowhere to hide from it, no trees to break it, no valleys that blocked it, so what’s a girl to do, my thought was just keep moving forward, maybe it would die down soon.  Finally I got a break the route turned and I got a tailwind and some pavement with a downhill to boot.  As I hit the pavement a rock blasted me in the face and hit my xx2i sunglasses, it hit so hard I’m surprised my glasses didn’t break, but they did a great job protecting my eyes, had those glasses not done such a good job, my race would have been over right there. After shaking off the thought of losing my eye, I just coasted for 3 miles into the checkpoint.

As I rounded the corner, I could see my crew, Sam and Jacob, they were cheering me on.  I asked if Lori had come in and they said no, so I headed to the tent to check in, got my new map and headed to the van to refuel. 

The boys were a great crew, they filled my bottles and pack, got my food out, washed the salt off my glasses, and got my bike ready to go again.  They gave me a report on how everyone was doing and who had already gone out.  I made a mad dash for the Johnny, then took a look at the map and headed out. 

 

Leaving CP 1

I was really worried about getting lost because I’m a terrible navigator.  I hoped someone would be on the road in front of me to follow, but no such luck.  I was looking at the map and knew there was a turn at 63 miles, but I totally missed it. This is where things went wrong.  I kept riding seeing no one, finally I hit W road, and knew I had gone too far.  I rode back, stopped and asked a lady mowing her grass where I was, she said I missed the turn and pointed me in the right direction.  Of course I made another wrong turn and hit W road again, I knew it was wrong so once again I rode back, saw another lady mowing, she sent me through her driveway, to another road, where I made another wrong turn and hit W road again.  I turned around and by now I was really get frustrated, plus I had already added on an hour riding in circles.  Finally after an hour and twenty minutes I found V road and got back on course.  At this point I was so frustrated and worried about missing the cutoff time, that I really considered calling my crew for a ride.  I just kept thinking, by the time they got there, I would have probably had time to ride another 10 miles, so I should probably just keep riding. I thought finishing over the time limit would probably be better than not finishing at all.

I figured by now I was the last one on the course, but to my surprise, I started seeing people and passing people.  I was talking to them as I rode by and I asked one guy what his mileage was, that is when I realize that I had added an extra 9 miles to my route.  Just what I needed, I signed up for 100 miles that turned into 110 miles and would end up riding 119 miles if I finished. All this riding on 3 training rides, the longest one being only 67 miles.  I just wondered how I got myself in these situations.

For the next 4 hours I would ride past people and when I would stop to grab food out of my pack, they would ride back past me.  I was starting to get cramps in my legs, my back hurt and I felt like I was going to puke.  I made a new plan, to stop every hour, take an enduralyte and eat while standing still instead of doing it while riding. This way I could stretch my legs and back out.  I was able to get peach cups and cans of V-8 energy drink down and keep it down, so that’s was I kept eating, good thing I had put enough in my pack.  When I ran out of those, I started eating the KIND bars in my pack and was able to keep them down also. I really needed some salt and the dark chocolate sea salt flavor worked perfectly. 

Riding into the last town before Emporia there were 5 riders somewhat together.  With just 12 miles to go we started to break up, but one guy who I had talked to earlier in the day, came upon me.  He told me there was one last hill before the finish line.  He also had a big bubble in his tire and was just praying he made it to the finish line before it blew.  As we rode though the campus of Emporia State University, another guy caught us and the 3 of us rode to the finish together.  We knew we were going to miss the cutoff time, but by just a few minutes and we were all talking about all we wanted was that stupid finisher glass and we hoped that we would still get it, even if we were a little late. 

We rode under the finish banner and into the chute where people were high fiving us, and cheering, and one guy was handing out beers.  

Photo Credit: Lori Vohsen

It almost had the same feel as the Finish at the Ironman race, except it was hundreds of people, instead of thousands.  At the end of the chute, we were handed a glass and congratulated on our finish.  

Ahhhh, the coveted glass

I was all smiles then and the guys I was riding with were the same, we held our glasses up to each other because we had finished an epic gravel race just to get that 2 dollar glass, and it was all worth it.

Lori and the boys were waiting for me at the end of the chute and they grabbed, my bike and all my gear.  We headed to the van, loaded stuff up, I got changed, then we went and got a burger before heading to the CP 3 for Chuck.  At the CP we talked to other crews and watched friends come in and go out, next thing we knew, Chuck was in and looking relatively good and in good spirits.  He sat down and ate some salty chips while the crew went to work getting him ready to go out again.  We told him that we had found out a lot of our friends had abandoned the race just past the 100 miles mark, so he was really doing great.  I told Chuck where I missed the turn at, and warned him to make sure he didn’t miss it to.  Not like he would, he is the world’s best navigator, but he was tired so I thought it was good to mention.  A group of 6 guys went out and Chuck jumped on his bike in hopes of getting on the back of that train for a while. We all yelled our goodbyes and good lucks, then we headed back to the finish.  Since we had some time we decided to go back to the hotel and take showers then go watch Chuck finish. We got to the finish line at about 1:30 am.  We cheered for every rider, hoping that every head light we saw in the distance was Chuck. 

The race organizers started taking down banners and people started leaving, it made me sad to know that Chuck would finish to no fanfare.  I mean we would be cheering as loud as we could, but it would be like finishing in a deserted city.  At about 3 am, we saw three headlights in the distance and one of them belonged to Chuck.

Chuck crossed the finish line

He rode in under the finish banner as we cheered, as soon as he got his glass the finish banner was coming down.  We quickly headed Chuck over to it and the guys taking it down pulled it back up so we could get a picture of Chuck under the banner. 

One last finish picture

The race was over, Chuck had the coveted DK200 pint glass in hand, the crew was beat and we all headed back to the hotel.  

QUESTION: Will I ever do this again, well at the end of the race, I said “never, ever, ever, ever”, but now, I’m thinking I might do the half pint again, hopefully without getting lost. I mean looking at my time with the extra mileage added on, well I would have had a pretty decent time, had I stayed on course. 

The best part of the entire race, I mean besides the glass, was that I finished on hardly any training, with a good ride time average and I really never felt like I was going to die, I really never even felt like crying.  I was frustrated over getting lost, but I was never on the verge of tears.  I hope this means that I’m making a comeback, that my heart issues are over and my tailbone is fixed and in time I will be fast again. 

This was a happy finish

Goomna Adventure Race 2012

It seems like I just wrote the Goomna race report for 2011 and here I am again.  Time really flies when you get old.  I guess it has been an entire year, you would think in a year I would be in better shape, but life doesn’t always work out the way we want it to.  So coming into this year’s race, Chuck and I were struggling and weary due to Ironman training.  We both hoped that all the long workouts we had been doing would give us an advantage this year.  Well, we were foiled again this year for a couple reasons, but neither was because we were overtraining or bonking during the race, in fact we raced strong all day, but more on that later.

So this year our teammate Patrick opted to do a kayak race, but his plans were also foiled by a change in the race format, so he ended up doing a Mississippi paddle with an island camp and oh believe me, it was killing Chuck not to be there with him, but Chuck had committed to Goomna so he was with us.  We had to pick up a replacement for Patrick, and Jenny was willing to try it out, she did the Castlewood 8 hr with us this past December and was ready to try a summer race. Here’s the thing, Jenny is smoking fast, so Chuck and I would have to work to keep up with her.  She is an awesome teammate, plus since she is the rookie she had to do all the stuff we didn’t want to.  Like the initial run at the start of the race, of course she rocked it.

While Jenny grabbed her gear at our most excellent headquarters, Chuck and I looked over the information she brought back from the initial run. 

We were on our bikes and out on the road very quickly, only to find out that we would be fighting the wind for most of the day. We chose to ride the bike trail along the road rather than the road like most other teams were doing. This gave us some advantage, because we were able to pass teams without having to maneuver around them. The first stop was a food drop, we had to bring a non-perishable food item for the food pantry, but Jenny and I thought we would be dropping it and check-in and we had big items.  Jenny had crackers and I had a very large can of soup.  It’s a good thing we have Chuck, he figured it out and brought some small cans and mac n cheese, so we carried the small stuff to the checkpoint.

  

When we dropped the food we were given the map for the next CP, this was at a public pool, we were thinking we would be swimming, but instead we had to run down a hill and memorize a list of 15 items which happened to be president’s names, then run up the hill and list them in order on a sheet of paper.  We split them up, I took the first 5, Chuck the second 5 and Jenny the third 5, It didn’t take long for us to complete the task and get back on the road. 

The next stop was a long haul to a campground, we were covering some of the Highland Biathlon course to get to it.  We came to a corner where all the teams were turning, but opted to take a different route, which worked out, we passed a lot of teams and arrived at the lake in good position. Good thing we have Chuck, the Mater Orienteering guy on our team. At this CP, we put on life vest, swam across the lake, each picked up a wood timber and ran it back around the lake, barefoot, through the rocks. I’m no Indian maiden and am not good at the barefoot thing, but we made it.

Here is the funny part, Chuck and I both swim like rocks and we were right next to each other the entire way across the lake, but just as we hit the middle of the lake, I look up and see Jenny already on the bank waiting for us.  Chuck and I just look at each other, we were both thinking the same thing, “we are such losers when it comes to swimming”. Ha Ha, and we are both doing an Ironman in September, hopefully, we will make it out of the swim alive.

We picked up the next map and got back onto the bikes, still in good position.

 

This would soon change and let me tell you why, this is where I get frustrated, about this race. This race is pretty much an urban adventure, but the rules state, you must have a mountain bike with knobby tires, and every year people show on with hybrid bikes, with road tires and this year was even worse, I can’t tell you how many people were on hybrid, cyclocross, and road bikes. This gives them such an unfair advantage because all of these bikes will just walk away from a mountain bike on the roads, especially in the wind.  This puts Mark the race director in a bad position because he has to decide what to do, but he really wants to just have a fun event and not disqualify anyone. We like Mark and as a race director myself, I know what it feels like to be in his shoes, so even though I may have gotten a little pissy a few times when it was really affecting me, I kept it to myself, well maybe not myself, I voiced my opinion to my teammates, but they were pretty frustrated about it too. 

When we left the lake we were in a really good position, and we were really on our game, keeping up a really nice pace, actually a fantastic pace for being on mountain bikes and fighting the wind, but we still got dropped by 3 teams, all on bikes other than mountain bikes. 

 

Going into the next CP, we hoped that we could make up time on the run and canoe, but since we had no idea what was in store, we didn’t know. This CP was at a gym, A somewhat non conventional gym.  Once inside we found out we would be doing a number of tasks of strength, and let me tell you strength is not my strong point.  The first task was to swing from tie-down straps and land on balance balls, it was harder than it looked, but really fun.  I do well with balancing so liked this and we all three were synchronizing our jumps, so we made it though very quickly.

Then we climbed fireman pools 3 times each, since we were so sweaty and the pole was too, we kept sliding back down, so we instead climbed into a teammates hands then onto their shoulder and did a final push to the rafters, we actually did this very well and very fast.

 

Next we rolled a giant tractor tire for two laps, that was not hard, but took strength and my arms were getting tired. 

Oh then we hit the hardest task of all.  We had to do 50 pushups, not your standard pushups, not that I could do 50 of those either.  This is how it worked, Chuck was in the standard pushup position, then I had my feet on Chucks back, hands on the ground at a 90 degree angle, Jen had her feet on my back, hands on the ground at a 90 degree angle, then we had to complete 50 pushups like that.  Well, we couldn’t do it, we did 31 and couldn’t do another. There was an alternate course of action, we could instead stay in the same structure and hold a plank for 3 minutes instead, but since we had already done 31 pushups, we only had to hold it for 90 seconds, it still took us 3 tries to do it. All of our arms were shaking when we were done. I wish I had a photo of that one. 

The last task was really frustrating, not because of how hard it was, but because of the confusion on the line of people waiting to do it.  When we got in line we were the next team, but then we found out we had to move to the opposite end, then when we walked down a team moved in front of us, we were then sent back down to the other end, to find another team in front of us, so we ended up waiting more than 15 minutes just to do the task. The task itself was hard, but doable.  In fact a took a couple photos of another team doing it and Chris a Metro Tri Club teammate was on the team that was completing the task. I noticed he had the cushy job of laying on the sled.

This is how it worked, we had to pull a male member of the team, and since we only had one male that was Chuck, on a weighted sled down the length of the building, the trick was we had to go under 3 lasers that were about 3 foot off the ground, without setting them off.  If a laser was set off, a 45 pound weight was added to the sled. We had a nice system and Jenny is really good with counting out the beats as we go, so we would count for 1,2,3,4 beats while pulling then rest, then pull again for 4 beats and we finished really fast without setting off any lasers. By then my legs and my arms were shaking. 

Once outside and back on the bikes we decided that worrying about the time setback in the gym and the inconsistencies on the bike was only going to take the fun out of the race.  So there and then we decided it was all about the fun and not about trying to win. 

Back at transition we were told to run to silver lake, where Chuck and Jen got in a canoe and I took a mountain bike on the single track around the lake to the CP.

The single track was awesome with tons of roots and cool yet sketchy bridge crossings, I made it to the CP about a minute ahead of the canoe.  Jen then took the bike down the trail to the next CP and Chuck and I canoed. I told Jenny to be careful, there were some hairy spots on the trail and she didn’t have a helmet on, I didn’t want to lose a teammate out there.  It was really lucky that Jenny and I ride the same size bike frame, it made for a perfect bike swap. Chuck was upset that he didn’t get to bike, but the bike would have been way too small for him. He would have really loved those trails, I didn’t want to say too much and look like I was having too much fun riding the single track while he was busy paddling our butts around the lake.

At the next CP Jen and I switched again and I got to ride some more awesome single track, I even passed 4 people on this section, did I ever tell you how much I love riding single track.  The bike I was on was great, it was a Specialized 29er, I don’t know where it came from, I guess borrowed from someone for the race, but it was a great bike, made me want to be on my Superfly flying through the trials.  After passing 4 people on this bike section I got to the CP and there was a backup of canoes waiting for their teammates, so I stepped out into the water to get to my canoe, the water was cool and felt so good on my feet.  It had really heated up, I was hoping for another water event, so I could cool off, but there were no more to come for the rest of the race.  Chuck and I finished the paddle and Jenny was waiting to help pull the canoe out of the water. 

I need to digress for a minute and talk about my xx2i sunglasses, the entire race had been brilliantly sunny, but my sight was fine because I was wearing my sunglasses and due to the forecast for bight sun I had chose to pop in a darker lens at the start of the race. I was concerned when I headed for the woods with the serious shade and thick humidity, I thought I might have to take the glasses off while riding the single track. In the Midwest the humidity just hangs like pea soup in the shade of the trails and sunglasses end up steamy like a mirror in a hot shower house. To make it even worse I was going from the shade and thick humidity on the bike to the bright hot sun in the canoe and even though I was sweating buckets, my glasses never once steamed up. I have to chalk one up for xx2i, my Oakley’s never worked that well.
  

We got the next map and ran to the next CP, where we were greeted with ice cold energy drinks and a round of Frisbee golf.  Jen was a pro at it, we took her throw every time, I really sucked at it. After golf, we headed to the next  CP which was back at headquarters.

We ran most of the way back to headquarters which was at the Korte Rec Center, there we had to do a word find, we worked together and quickly completed it, it also gave us a few minutes to cool off in the shade of our tent. Now we were off to the dock on a little pound where we found that our next CP was based on a bearing and a distance, we found it on the edge of a cemetery. We got another bearing and distance, we could have gotten to the next CP so fast if it was legal to run through a corn field, but since it wasn’t we had to take the long way around.

We arrived at the Korte Construction Company where there was an obstacle course setup.  First we had to run through some rip rap rock and under some construction tape.  I’m a little closer to the ground then Chuck and Jenny, so that was pretty easy for me. Then Jenny got in a wheel barrel and we pushed her through an S shaped course.  We then had to knock a can off some tires by throwing a rock at it, it reminded me of a carnival game, Chuck got the win and hit the can first. Now we were back to rolling a tractor tire end over end again, but this time it was outside, hot and the tire was dirty.  We all had black hands after that, good thing I had black shorts so I could wipe my hands on them. Then two teammates had to climb over semi truck containers, so Chuck lifted Jen and I lifted Chuck, then I ran around to spot them jumping down, it went pretty fast.  The next section we had to duck under saw horses after the third sawhorse, I started getting cramps in my abs, I think I was about dehydrated by then, and my muscles were tired from all the crazy gym stuff. When I got through, Jen told me to lift my arms over my head and that really helped. It’s nice to have a physical therapist on the team. The last task in the obstacle course was to build a bat house, Chuck was all about this.  He loved every minute of it. In fact it was his favorite part of the entire race, well it might be second to us pulling him on the sled.  I have to say, it was a really cool bat house. 

 

After getting some cold water from the volunteers we headed back to the finish line with our bat house in tow.  We were told that the bat houses would be put up in a nearby park. I thought that Chuck might fight them to keep the bat house, but he was too hot and tired to put up a fight.

We finished with smiles on our faces and a great sense of accomplishment.

  

Looking back, my favorite event was the single track mountain biking, I know Chuck’s was the bat house, I’m not sure what Jenny’s was, but I would guess the swim, of course we all enjoyed the swim, it was a great way cool off and gets some of the dried salt off our face and out of our eyes. I do know what our least favorite event was… the pushups, we will all attest to that. 

A BIG THANKS goes to Mark Rosen our fearless race director, he put on another fantastic race and even warded off the thunderstorms this year. 

  

I need to thank all the volunteers too, it was a long hot day and they all did a great job, of course they did once again, get the most cool shirt.  How can I convince Mark to give the competitors the same shirts, I love the volunteer shirts, I have way too many tech shirts, I need a really cool t-shirt like the one they get.  I guess I just have to volunteer next year, rather than compete, but with my luck, they won’t get the cool shirts next year.

Yurbuds Review

I have been a runner for over 30 years, a triathlete for 12 years and an adventure racer for 5 years. To be good at any of these events you need determination, perseverance, a work ethic like no other, time, lots of time, and most of all, focus. Long workouts are taxing on my physical being, they beat down my body and eat away at my mental capacity. I many times need help focusing on the finish line. Training groups and other like minded friends help, but because of time limitations I am frequently alone, on my own, to struggle though the mental turmoil of training solo.

 

Music is my drug of choice for those long lonely workouts, but I always struggled with the technology available to allow me to pipe that music through my head. I tried earbuds of every type, but was never able to find a pair that would stay in my ears. If I found a pair that would partially stay in, I would have to turn the volume up so loud to drown out the wind that I felt like my head was pounding by the end of the workout. I once found a pair that would stay in my ears, but my sweat shorted them out. I even sometimes ended up with chaffed ears from constantly pushing the earbuds back in or the cord rubbing against my ear. I had all but given up, when at last I found something that worked and worked well, Yurbuds I had heard a lot about them at the Cyclery, my local bike shop, and also on the adventure race circuit. Apparently the inventor of Yurbuds is an adventure racer and has graciously donated product to adventure race groups for prizes. Unfortunately for me, when my teammate Chuck and I would place in the money at a race, by the time we had a chance to choose our prize the Yurbuds had all been taken. I had done research on the product and was just waiting for the right time to buy, when a friend gifted me with a pair of Inspire Yurbuds, (Thanks to the Darbon Clan)

 

So after testing these Yurbuds extensively, meaning I’m in the middle of Ironman training and spending many hours running, and cycling alone, so I have had them in my ears more often than not, I have come to my own conclusions about this product.

The GOOD

They haven’t shorted out even with the very large amounts of sweat the rolls off my head and right into my ears. The twist lock system works well once you figure it out. I am somewhat challenged when it comes to following instructions, so for people like me, it might take a couple attempts to get it right. Because of the design the cords are held away from your ear and don’t rub your earlobe raw. The sound quality is good and I don’t need to turn them up to a level that would burst my eardrums to hear the music. Most of all, when I’m at the point that my body is screaming “NO” , the music flowing through my head helps me to focus and push on just a little bit further.

The BAD

Like I said I’m a little challenged when it comes to reading and following instructions. I had to actually go to the Yurbuds website and watch the video, to figure out how to lock them in place.

 

The UGLY

They don’t come in my signature green color, I mean come on, I need ROCK Racing green or Godzilla Green in all my workout gear.

My FINAL ANSWER

Buy these if you need to focus and don’t have the patience to continually fight to keep your earbuds in your ears, I know you will love them. I think they are a bit pricey, but I think it’s worth it, especially when my training plan continues getting longer as the Ironman nears. I will continue to use these for workouts even after the Ironman because I have come to count on them. Oh, and of course they come in handy when mowing the lawn too.