TeamTOG: Lionheart AR Recap 2014

Team TOG - 2014 Lionheart AR Recap

American Adventure Sports recently hosted their annual 24-hour Lionheart adventure race on Saturday August 16^th. We have each competed in this race in previous years and every year Doug Critzer (race director) and his crew comes up with new ways to challenge racers and run an exciting course.

The night before the race was team check-in. We received the maps as usual but when we went over to the master map to transpose the CPs we knew that the 9 listed on the map was not the whole race. It was a very straightforward and fast course beginning at the Sugar Loaf sledding hill and a run to the paddle put-in at Confluence, PA with 3 CPs on the way. After the paddle there were three more CPs before returning to the Sugar loaf sledding hill for a transition and the second half of the race. What we didn’t know was where/when the bike/orienteering section(s) were going to be.

Saturday 8:00am

All the racers took off as one bunch up a fairly wide trail to the first CP, which was only about 1km south of the start but required some bush whacking down a stream reentrant that quickly thinned out the crowd. Team AAS made it to CP1 first but we quickly followed with teams GOALS ARA and Odyssey. We jumped onto a dirt road along side team Odyssey that would lead us to a trail taking us to CP2 which was a beautiful 1200ft high lookout overlooking the Youghiogheny river. From here we were able to link up with a pipeline and fire tower access road down the mountain to the riverside for the 3^rd CP (about 10km). This left a fast 3km push up the river trail to the boat put-in. We arrived only about 5 min behind GOALS and AAS so we knew we needed a fast transition (about 2 minutes and we were on the water).

Paddle: 10:06am (16km / 10 miles)

This was a 16km paddle with one CP on an island about half way through. We decided to have Matt and Nick in the two-person boat and Amber in the single being towed behind. We could see teams AAS and GOALS ahead of us. We met up with both GOALS and AAS at the island CP but they were back on the water a few minutes ahead of us. The river was still a little low considering the controlled dam release, which caused all the teams to battle some rocks. During one of the faster water portions of the river we had to serpentine around some rocks to avoid getting stuck but Amber’s boat spun sideways and flipped her into the water. Luckily it wasn’t in dangerous part and she popped right back up.  It took a few minutes to gather up her paddle and get her back in to boat.

Out of the Water: 1:00pm

From the boat take-out we stacked two boats and carried the equipment to White Water Adventures, about 0.5 km away. From there we had specific trail directions on how to run to the next CP with a surprise waiting. Once we got there (about 30 min behind AAS and 10 minutes behind GOALS) we saw a slack-line stretched across a creek bed leading to a rappel over cucumber falls. This was a real highlight of this race! Although it was a lot of fun we had to keep moving to the next CP, which was about 3km up a nearby stream with another waterfall view where we ran into GOALS while having some trouble finding the CP. After a little searching we figured we needed to keep moving down the trail and found the CP.

We decided that the fastest way to the next CP (located a the start/finish) was to cross the stream on top of the waterfall and bushwhack 0.2km up hill to a trail that would lead us CP/bike transition.

 Second Half / Bike Orienteering: 3:56pm

Once we got back to the starting line we were instructed to plot an additional 8 points that were worth a total of 21 points and could be completed in any order (Rogaine). We hurried to plot the points, plan a route, and get our packs ready. We knew we had plenty of time to clear the course but there were a few different options how to attack the points. We decided to attack 3 points that were closer and required a bushwhack down a long draw to the base of some cliffs but would put us on a rails-to-trails path that would allow us to move fast to the next set of CPs. We had a miss-cue on the 3^rd point at the bottom of the draw that kept us looking around in the woods longer than expected.

Once we got down off the draw we jumped on the rails-to-trails path for a 20km ride to next group of CPs. We hit these points without a hitch attacking each from the rail-trail. We decided the fasted route back to the last set of three CPs was to back track past where came from but since it was dark we would be able to move much faster on the gravel and hard-top roads this route featured.

The last three points were on a fast loop that we figured would be the easiest to find at night. The loop allowed us to travel on gravel roads except for a small bushwhack section to cut over to another road. During the bushwhack we were welcomed by a trail that wasn’t on the map that minimized the bushwhacking but took a longer way around to the last CP. Once we punched the last CP we jump on the bikes and pushed up to the finish where we finished just 20 minutes behind GOALS. We ended up with a 4^th place finish behind AAS, Odyssey, and GOALS.

Finish: 5:06am (Total Time: 21hrs 6min)

GOALS KG Memorial Race Recap: Team TOG

GOALS Krista Greisacker Memorial Adventure Race is a 12 hour adventure race held in the Appalachian mountains of Pennsylvania. This year the race featured a linear course spanning from the town of Tamaqua to Kempton PA with a true single-track mountain bike course, two bushwhacking intensive orienteering courses, and a canoe leg in between. The course was fairly straight forward point to point navigation with some adventures thrown in between.

The race began with a prolog where racers had to run 100yard to a parking lot and find their bikes with one teammate racing on foot to the first CP. We came out of the prolog in third and raced to the beginning of the mountain bike course. The section was an intensive 10 miles of single-track designed specifically for some fun mountain biking and favored the more experienced riders. During this bike course we stopped to help another race team fix a broken rear derailer which turned out to be unsuccessful. We came out the single-track course a little behind but pushed fast toward the orienteering courses about 10 miles away getting two CPs along the way.

The foot orienteering course was split into two sections that began at the bottom of a ravine with each section requiring a 400 - 500ft steep climb to begin. We chose to start with the "A" course which was more spread out. The O-Course required intense navigation and a lot of bushwhacking. We cleared the A course but only had time to take one CP from the "B" course before riding down to canoe put-in.

The canoe section was not the fast paddle the racers were hoping for. The water levels were quite low and required almost as mush time out of the canoe pushing as time paddling in the canoe. After some time on the water the takeout came as welcome relief.

The last section of the course required racers to navigate their way to the base of the north side of Hawk Mountain where we punched another CP and one out of three optional points due to time lost on the water. From there we had to bushwacker a fairly linear line up over 800 feet in elevation to the ridge line punching one CP along the way and one at the top (Dan's Pulpit on the Appalachian Trail). The route down the south side of the ridge line took a lot rock jumping and good navigation to meet up with an old Jeep trail that ran through the final two mandatory CPs. Once the final CP was checked we had to hustle about three miles to finish where we placed 2nd in the 3-person coed division.

Thanks to GOALS ARA for a great job incorporating some great riding, orienteering, and sights into this race.