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.
So on to the Rogaine style Foot O section of the course. Here we made up some time JZ and his suunto compass were on fire finding every one of those lil orange flags, Rick made short time of the Punching, PWild did her Job and kept the team moving and her Perfect pace counting was right on the number. We saw a few teams while on this section but we got in and out, dropping back down to the wonderful Watermelon TA Much thanks to all the Volunteers taking care of us. Here we ran into our old friends Alpine Shop, always great to see some familiar faces.
Some quick hugs and watermelon and checked out of the TA, we rode around the corner to fill up on water as there were no more TA’s until the finish and we had a lot of course left. From here we Headed up to the cut off CP. this is where you would have to decide whether to go to advanced section or head to the finish. We had plenty of time so Punch and go we did. On the way up we see Bushwacker heading the other direction and low and behold Alpine Shop trailing them by about 10 min...now thats a race.
We make high tail to the TA at the advanced section. We get there and spent no time transitioning Per Pwild keeping the fire under our ass to move. We changed into our Salomon Trail shoes and fresh Point 6 socks and headed up the Big boy terrain. This took some careful planning and Terrain reading, taking our time to find find CP 45 As this was a 24,000 : 1 scale. This was a Rogain O section be we were assured we would want to do them in order, which after looking and taking about 45 to get acclimated to the scale we found the ridge to 45 and hit the re-entrant. from here the next two went really well, only because Pwild and Rick showed there pace counting skills. 46 to 47 was yet another up and down. These downs where pretty darn large most of the terrain you see isn't even a glimmer at this scale. This made nav very tricky, from 47 to 48 was our demise. we worked our way up to the ridge to follow out to the large round re-entrant. Not so much, there were so many off shoot Spurs that were so large we just kept riding one out and they would just drop off. So we decided to regroup if we could at 46, this took us a bit. After witch we worked our way down the main re-entrant looking for the large round one to our right. Pwild watching our time cut off so we could get back to the finish. We were not having much luck as the this sucker opened up really wide and were loosing light made it feel even larger. We didn't exactly know how deep we were and how much further the road was so out of time constraints we high tailed it to the road. Missing the race cut off was not an option. We got back out to the road and found our barn that was marked on the map. We had a quick group discussion and decided it best to leave these last two. This was a really tough pill for the team to swallow but with a strict midnight cut off missing a couple CP was a sacrifice we had to take.
Night is coming fast, We get back to the TA and get back into our bike gear. A couple of teams showed up to punch 44 and asked if they think they should go for at least one. That answer with night upon us, and for a team without Lupine Lights was easy "NO". Gerry later thanked us for that answer. So Firing up the Piko's and Wilma's we headed out into the night on our 20+ mile ride back (short course style). at this point we all just wanted to get back popping some Honey Stinger and Pushing on. we knew we had enough time to make it to the finish but for some reason JZ decided that he would miss a turn to add more excitement so it added another 3 miles...It was a nice night to ride. Rick was out of water at this point, JZ feet were in paint from running around in bike shoes during the bike O, and Pwild was keeping the team moving with CP 48 and 49 eating away at her. Turn after turn, after Hill, after field, after "CAR Back", after 53,54, and 55. We Jockeyed back and forth with some other teams all the way to the finish. This Was an exciting race and we have already had our post race chat and found out were we will improve and become a better team for the next race. And that just so happens to be USARA Nationals, see you out there.
We look forward to next year......LOOK OUT THUNDER ROLLS 2014 Team Lupine Racing will be back!!!
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