Sunday, September 15, 2013

Thunder Rolls 2013 Race report

This was our third year Racing Thunder Rolls 24 Hour Adventure Race. Every Year this Race put on By High Profile Adventures gets even more challenging. We first want to Thank Gerry and all of his team, volunteers and sponsors for helping put this great race together. You all did and always do a stellar job.


This year we were lucky enough to find a great third at the last minute due to scheduling conflicts. Normally Racing with a total stranger can have an ill effect on a team But Rick Schnell did not. He fit right in and we were lucky to pick him up. We arrived at Camp Benson from Colorado/Wisconsin  ready to go. Put our bikes together and got our packs ready and for some strange reason we were ready well over an hour before the Race.  The NEW LUPINE Jersey sent all the way from Germany, thank you Gretta BIkes and Lupine North America, felt light weight and perfect for the team.  At the pre-race meeting, things just clicked and the team got the route plotted and planned quick. We only had to plot Bike sections and TA points. We would pick up our O section maps at TA’s along the route.  Finished up getting our paddle gear to the truck to be transported, then to the start/finish line at 11:30pm for group photo and chatting with other racers. 


Start of the Race, was a sprint to the first Rogaine style O section at midnight, in which Gerry crammed the Reppel and Accent into. Knowing this, we decided to have our climbing harnesses on at the start of the race.  So Firing up our Lupine Wilma’s and making a quick decision on route choice would determine how much of a bottleneck you would be caught in at the ropes. We elected to push the pace and Go in order. We really enjoyed this type of "start" to the race, it took planning, route choice and pure mass SCRAMBLE with everyone going all different directions!  Brilliant Gerry! We hit CP1 with a scramble through the creek and up a rather large embankment with a wire fence. On the way out to CP2 JZ decided to drop down the 10 foot drop unexpectedly and was lucky to land in the creek where it was muddy (this was not the plan but with the hustle and the High grass was unexpected) . Wet Early sucks ass, but the waterproof Wilma shined on. If your around the area there are a pair of kick ass Julbo glasses on the Trails there for the picking. JZ would have never known how much he will miss these amazing shades later in the race. We moved hard nailed CP2 braved a steep re-entrant that saved us a bunch of time our Salomon Speedcross just stuck to the terrain like a hungry tiger wanting a dirt lunch. Quickly to the Accent, bottle necked for about 10 min here, grabbed a rope and we all got up fast!  Pwild did a little Rope tango on the way up with another team on the rope next to us this was a bit of the forbidden dance, but hey we're all friends. You could hear her laughing and the guy saying “sorry”!  Team Lupine got to the top and quickly ran the ridge to CP5 and back to the poison Ivy Repel into the river. Great job to the Ropes volunteers and thanks…they put up with rocks and moss on the head and still had a smile on. We stuck to the river and met up with Wedali at the cave. (tricky tricky Gerry). hit the rest of the O section and headed to the Coasteering section to CP10...Oh this was fun. our shins still feel the exit at the bridge. We jogged to the Paddle put in about a mile and a half up the road. We had a super fast transition and down the bank and into the boat. There were no CP’s along the way but trust us there was enough to keep us occupied along the way. Stump after stump Log jam after Log Jam, tricky fast turns left and right it was almost impossible to eat or drink anything. This was challenging but we could not have had a smoother ride. Rick in the front calling directions Pwild in the middle paddling in perfect sync every time. JZ was in the back steering the team threw all the down trees. You would have thought we practiced paddling before, awesome work!  Getting off the paddle leg before day light!  PWild was chilled from the paddle and took a hour or so to warm up.  On to the slick paddle take out to the Bike TA. We did a quick Point6 sock change and hit the bikes in less then 5 min. on our way to the Bike O….this was where we lost a bunch of time….we elected to do the bike O more from the bikes and some out and backs on foot. Bad idea, so by the time we finished the south section we had lost about 45 min. Live and Learn for sure. Tho the team did have quick stop by a wonderful group of campers that had made some coffee for us, this was a warm welcome for these folks. We dropped them some cash because you can not accept something without giving something….unwritten AR rule in our book.