Team Lupine Training Day for TR2012

Team Lupine just got done picking some daisies for our training day. Well we didn't see any daisies but we did have a hard training day. We decided to meet up at 9:30am down at Brown County State Park and do some hard trekking then Biking. It was an absolutely beautiful day, we hope this weather comes race day next weekend.

Starting on foot with some tough hill work in brown county, on trail and off trail. Today was also a day to test new gear. Jason testing KT Tape from Weekend Warrior Shop, Paula testing CW-X Shorts instead of tights and Robbie trying the honey stinger pomegranate energy chews. Things are working well. Instead of locating CP's we decided to bushwhack our way to Geo Caches. After a few hours we head back to the cars for a quick change to our MBikes. Off we were on Trails.......Flying! KT Tape was holding up, more Honey Stingers were eaten and staying cool in the gear we picked for the day. The weather was PERFECT! More hill climbing on the roads back to the cars, practice with the bike tow as well as drafting in a pace line. Day ended with us sweating and all smiles. See you out there!!

SXT 4 2012 Race report

Shaltowee Adventure Race, 15 Hour, 2012 Team Lupine
Jason Zorilla, Gary Dunham, Karen Clark
Cave Run, Kentucky

Temp: High in the 80’s, low in the 60’, 30% chance of rain
Pre race meeting:  8am
Race start time:  9am with Prolog
Race cut off:  Midnight

Course: leg estimates
Start: Prolog climb on foot up hill to get passport
Leg 1 Bike Cps1-3(2cps minimum) approx time 2.5-3hrs
Leg 2 Trek Cps4-9(2cps minimum) approx time 2.5-3hrs
Leg 3 Paddle Cps10-12(2cps minimum) approx time 3.5-4hrs
Leg 4 Tek Cps13-18(2cps minimum) approx time 3.5 - 4hrs
Leg 5 Swim Cp19 approx time 20 min
Leg 6 Biking Cps20-22(2cps minimum) approx time 1 1/2hours
Finish

Well Second year of Racing this what turned out to be another wet monster of a Race, thanks to Stephanie and All the Volunteers for this Adventure. Had some wonderful support for team 11 as well. Went into this Race With a former co racer Gary Dunham and a newbie to us but not new to Racing...our European counterpart Karen the Climber Clark.   After suffering what I thought was a break to my elbow the weekend before I figured I might not make it to this race this year. But I was feeling better and Gave it a go....Not the best Idea I have had, but it is Adventure Racing. All started well with an up the Damn prolog which did okay to spread out the field a bit. But I think the first Climb in the heat took care of that even more. I could feel my heart in my brain at this point, already knowing it might have been better to sit this one out. I think blood was still thin from the meds I was on. Pedaling past what I thought to be a Cicada on the ground which to me seemed really loud. As I got closer I looked not two feet from my bike and there he was a Timber Rattler all coiled up with his tail shaking like mad. “OMG its a Rattlesnake” I shouted back, “look out”. We made out better then Team 361’s Dallas, whom tangoed with a baby copperhead and ultimately won .We pushed on just took it easy for the first 3 bike cp’s. Got those no problem. Wheeled into TA1 with the head of the pack . Karen and I took a min to transfer the points to the waterproof map.  This way we could have two sets of eyes looking at a map. “Gary, where is Gary?...Oh there he is” thought we lost him in all the commotion. Then our slippery slope started, more of mine on the nav.  Found our pond  took what we thought was the right spur and went up and up.  Up to far and not over enough.  spent way too much time here and decided after seeing Team ToPo up there that we would scrap CP 4 and 5 and grab the rest of the CP’s on this leg...cut our losses so to speak based on our time frame of sections thanks to Gary who was our time and pace counter and he is right on the money as long as you giving him the right info. ie when you get a new Suunto compass make sure you know if it is meters or miles. I figured that out a little later.  So we moved on and grabbed the last Cp’s on this section in good time, Ending up and oh yea....TA2  comes after TA1.  Some Road time to kill here so we decided to fuel ourselves up with some Honey Stinger Bars and Chews for our 14 mile paddle coming up...Yum.
All three of us Climbed into Gary’s canoe and set out for the next three CP’s.  We left this TA a little behind the time we wanted but pushed on  as a team and paddled our asses off...literally , Gary’s Left cheek went numb and Karen’s right cheek did. Paddled hard making up time around all the teams within reach. Why when you see someone on the water does it seem so long to catch up to them? Yet another Reservoir of hidden stumps that really kept us on our wits. We were lucky not to take a dip on this trip. We wound up later finding out Team Lupine Had the second fastest Paddle Split next to the Overall winner and solo at that, Drake.  Did I mention it Poured on us like crazy for about 30 min.  Did some bailing at the CP’s to lighten our load. Checked in at TA’3 to the oh so happy lightly moist volunteers , whom I must say are the best on earth. Decided to use the open u haul truck to transfer the Points for our last trek to our main map, because the Issued map was not waterproof and we were down to one waterproof map case because the other we had left with the bikes thinking at that time we would get back to them to get it.  It is always tough racing with a new team.  Figuring our team dynamics is a tough challenge to do on the fly. We got things figured out as they came, this day.

On with the next Trek, I decided to Pull Out my Lupine Wilma and put it on now as I knew the darkness was coming soon and why not with the pro band I hardly knew its on my head.   Headed up to CP 13 which it seemed 7 to 8 teams all got to it at the same time. Kind of follow the leader at that point. I myself am not a fan when a race gets this way....Paddle section was like this after we pulled ahead...teams behind us didn’t even have to think.  I guess it happens on shorter races like this. One reason I like 24 hour and over . So at this point we had to make a decision based on what the old Suunto Core was telling us...time to cut this trek short as we were running short to finish on time. Eyed up our last mandatory one for this leg (CP14) and made our way down to it . Found this Really freaking sweet Cave/shoot  down threw the cliff face that we would have had to go around. Man I wish I had a camera , If you ever get out there it was straight north of the CP13. Down we went to the mud trail to CP 14. up the main rentrant passed the small one by about 50 meters and went back to check that first small one to the left...up and up and bingo.  So out we went back to the trail and on to TA 4  the last bike leg. We were running about 30 min behind what we wanted to at this point and that only got longer with the rain and the slippery Rocky trails we had coming. My arm was starting to really not like me anymore, shooting pain up to my ear with every small bump. Karen was officially racing her longest race yet and she was pushing hard. Gary was keeping the pace going clearing the trail of copperheads and warning us of possible bad ruts and washouts.  I was spent and in Pain....no amount of KT Tape  or arm support could help me at this point. Lets just keep moving and get to the finish as best we can.  I had some issues with keeping in the map at this point with all that was going on. I tried my best to keep in it making a couple missed but quickly corrected turns. All and all through the rugged horse trails and intermittent bouts with pain and the wildlife I think as a virgin team we did great.  Made it to the Finish a little later then we wanted but for this time around we made it and that was our race. Great Job Team Lupine and Thank you Flying Squirl for putting on this great race. I’ll get you next year....

Race of Hope 24 hour Rogaine

Team Lupine is heading to Ohio to practice some navigation.......Race of Hope 24hr. ROGAINE 2012
Our Wilma's will be in the house! Light it up those flags Lupine! Looking forward to seeing friends and playing in the woods for 24hours straight. Time to tape the feet, put on our Point 6 socks, grab some honey stingers, and "punch and go".

See you out there