2014 Bonkhard Castlewood 8 hour Preview

The field that has already signed up looks tough indeed, with good teams in all the divisions, but the competition that everyone will be paying close attention to this year is the heated race between the two TeamBOR squads.  This has the makings of a legendary event, Neil and Kyle in the two man with Scott, Dave, Paul and Kevin in the four man, all with our sights set on being crowned TeamBOR CHAMPIONS! 


The two man team, Neil and Kyle, looks very strong indeed for this race.  Combining Neil's impressive navigation skills with Kyle's fearlessness and speed will make for a tough team to beat in the 2-person male division.  The only potential issues I see with this team are Kyle's inexperience and Neil being old.  And not necessarily that Neil is old in a physical sense, but I see him being ready for a nap and breaking out his old man chair at a TA to change his shoes.  Kyle is going to have to really try and push the pace where he can without going to fast as to loose his dad.  Remember Neil, 100 foot between the two of you at all times. 


The four man team is made up of four strong individuals, who I believe will draw upon there collective experience to form an even stronger unit.  Scott will be doing the navigating, which is a huge boost to the 4 man team as he has had much success in previous races and o meets and has not let them down yet.  Scott has the natural ability to not only get you to the checkpoint, but he can see the best route to the point and put you in good position on the following point.  They also have Dave, whose riding style is hands down one of the smoothest I have seen and has the unique ability to speed up as the race goes on.  Paul brings with him his natural abilities at everything athletic and really helps pull the team together by being the anchor point.  Kevin brings a good attitude, and a bike that is missing some gears. 


Expect to see some serious fireworks when these two teams go at it Saturday, Nov 15th.  If you haven't already made plans for that day make sure you are out there to cheer on not only both TeamBOR teams, but all the other teams out there as well!

"Long Overdue Blog for Escape the Night Extreme Obstacle Course Adventure Race Mud Fun Run with Warden X

"Long Overdue Blog for Escape the Night Extreme Obstacle Course Adventure Race Mud Fun Run with Warden X….or something like that.  Team BOR – Neil, Ahab, Paul, Dirk, Rachael, and Ryan (Rachael’s boyfriend).

 

This was a race at a newly formed obstacle course in Rolla with Team BOR proving…well, we’ll get to that soon.

 

The ‘race’ started with 6 events – an obstacle course race, tossing hand grenades into 5 gallon buckets, running with a tennis ball balanced on top a pvc pipe, flipping a massive tire, eating 1000 year old eggs and the like, and answering some logic questions incorrectly.  And PT.  And more PT.  Thankfully, Team BOR LOVES PT.  From these events, we got the best prize you could get….not the Gatorade they were talking about, no, a ‘Pardon’.

The racing portion of the race started with everyone else being zip tied into prison, where they had to break out with guards shooting paintballs at them, loud horns going off, fireworks, and the like. While they were going through all that, we took a leisurely stroll up the quarry to the first checkpoint.  OK, so it wasn’t leisurely…it was right slow.  We basically walked/crawled along the edge of the quarry to keep from being seen by the guards.  Used a rope to climb up a massive hill, and then got our first clue partway down a 60’ ladder.  Onto Checkpoint 2!! Woo-hoo!!

 

Along the way we gathered some important stuff for starting a fire, which was the next checkpoint.  May have gone a little overboard on this, but between Dirk and Scott and nice fire was made and much kindling was left for others.  Scott was having serious troubles seeing with his goggles, so he ran back to the Trailblazer for some different safety glasses, losing his light.  Then we headed on the treacherous journey to our next checkpoint….going past the Prison.

This seemed like an easy enough challenge….there was a berm on the west side of the prison…we could hide along the west side of this berm and go un-noticed!  HA!!  Started as planned, but a guard quickly spotted us and started hunting us down.  Here is where Team BOR became the uber-sneaky/crafty team.  The entire team would hide in a matter of seconds, many times even from other teammates!  After a half hour going 200 meters, we finally reached the woods. 

 

The woods were a scary time for those of us with tinted ski glasses….or perhaps just me.  We were moving without lights typically, and there was no moonlight to help us out.  By the way, the ‘race’ started around 7pm.  Several shin hits and a big drop later, I said screw moving without lights.  The map was also found to be…well, wrong.  We found our checkpoints, but in much shorter distances than expected.  And again, we found cover at the mere mention of ‘Guard’!!

Since we were basically lost in this portion, we spent some good quality time hiding in the woods, finding random checkpoints, and deciding where to go next.  Mind you, the race was ‘designed’ to be done in order.  This naturally meant you had to cross the entire complex between each point, and probably at least 200 guards (Dave number) each time.  With our massive speed past guards, this would have been a 7 day adventure race.  We opted at first to go to the Paintball course, where apparently we would have been given gear (paintball guns) to fight the guards with to retrieve a flag (not our flag), and then run a gauntlet to return with the flag.  This didn’t happen because our course kept moving away from it, and guards (and some other inmates) kept us pinned down.  As time was already running out, we moved toward the final obstacle – a double rope walk across the water to FREEDOM!!

 

We watched several people struggle on this, and Dirk was the only soul brave enough to conquer this obstacle.  The rest of us made an attempt to find our flag based on very rough information, and failed.  So we just walked into the finish area and enjoyed some bonfires while re-swapping gear.  We all joined up pretty quickly, had a few beers and burgers and departed.

Overall, I’d like to do this course again.  Screw the red lights.  Balls Out Racing would all have maximum light power on at all times to run like the wind to all checkpoints, blinding guards with our massive light output!!  Yes, we’d probably be caught.  Yes, we’d probably get shot.  But….we’re Balls Out Racing!!"


-Paul

01-04-14 FUGITIVE RUN – ESCAPE THE NIGHT by Captain Ahab (Scott Shaw)

I put St. Louis to my back Saturday late morning to pick up Neil Dickhaus (Human Compass) and head to Paul Frisbee’s (Manimal’s) neck of the woods in Rolla to compete in the Fugitive run.  As I am driving, I am thinking this may have been a bad idea since I have never done an obstacle course, never been around tear gas, and never have been in the military, but hey I am an Adventure Racer so I will be fine…well at least I won’t get lost.  Human Compass sounds the same concerns, and by the way, we are headed into a predicted snow storm…well we just completed the Castlewood 8, so we will be fine.  We arrive at Manimal Manor and Minimal (Tanner Frisbee) starts us off on our first orienteering event of the night by strategically relocating our gear.  Missymal (Rachael Frisbee) and Ryan Reagan (Mr. President) show up and look like Stay Puff Marshmallow Men with all the layers they are wearing.  While we are discussing clothes, layers and gear, the time is ticking for registration and the other Manimal (Dirk Frisbee) hasn’t shown up yet.  Manimal-D (D milk) shows up and says that was the earliest he could milk his cows.  For you city folk, he seriously was milking cows.  We pile in my wife’s trailblazer and Manimal races it to the registration.  We are one of the last teams to hang our flag and take a picture.  As people are rattling off rules and map nonsense, I am checking the other team’s flags for quality and find that most are really good, but not as good as the BOR flag.  Confusion sets in and we try to figure out where to start and when to start because the time has passed.  We herd ourselves into the jail (barn) with all the other teams and sneak up into the rafters thinking we could escape first.  The prison guards come and tell everyone to get out and assemble in the yard (obstacle course area).

The guards check to make sure everyone has their mandatory gear and then split us up into groups.  BOR is announced first…yes they recognize!  We head to a large wooden wall and are told we will be competing in an obstacle course in timed intervals and we get to go first.  I am looking at how tall this thing is and I am thinking I have climbed moving sailboat masts taller than that, but I am a little worried about my shorts legs making the spaced out rungs…oh crap they said go.  I am up the wall last as we had to go two by two.  Missymal is on my left and beating me to the top.  I get to the top and tell her to be careful when crossing to the other side as her foot comes across my face and she tells me there is no time for that and she is descending the other side.  Well I am not going to be last so I descend about half way and let go.  We go through various obstacles and my stupid goggles start fogging and I see enough to push Manimal-D’s butt up to get through an obstacle and then he pulls me up.  I remember cursing the Chinese water trap zig zag over ice as I am jumping on Manimal-D, then H-Compass, then Manimal-D is on me, then Compass is gone and I fall through the ice while other teams are jumping past me.  I can hardly see and ask Manimal-D where to go and I see Manimal across a stupidly small tunnel.  Compass is slithering through it backpack and all, like an inch worm.  I throw my pack to Manimal and launch into it with a thud as my shoulders are the same size as the tunnel.  I shoe horn myself as far as I can and inch worm my arms to Manimal, who pulls me out like a breach baby.  Somewhere in the mix, we get to a rope wall and I am last to go and a military looking gent tells me he will hold the rope.  I start to climb and the rope is tugged away from the wall and I hear laughter as my short legs leave the wall.  I yell “slack, shorts legs!” and I climb the rope as far as I can to reach the wall.  Using the rope in one hand, the wall on the other hand, I somehow monkey crawl to the top.  I am kind of mad now.  I keep running obstacles and notice I am gaining some ground as I have caught back up with Manimal-D and Compass.  We cross the finish line in first, but are we first with corrected time?  YES we are!  We win a Pardon.

At this point we are being PT’d (pushups, burpees, jumping jacks, squats) between different mental and physical challenges.  If you ever have seen me do burpees you will get a good chuckle out of that( Note: Scotts uncoordinated burpees are hilarious. Looks like a fish -Kevin).  We flip this huge tire I was sizing up for Ida (my Jeep XJ).  She rolls on 33’s and I estimated this was at least a 60”.  The stupid thing is full of ice and I get excited and start to lift on 2 of a 3 count and almost poop myself.  All six of us are flipping this thing and for a moment I stop to admire the military team flipping in complete synchronization…wow they are half way…I better help…we lost.  We do this flash bang toss that takes an eternity to get into a 5 gallon bucket and you have to race back in forth…we lose again.  We have to assemble a jig saw puzzle and our princess is missing a piece…lose again.  We have to eat the most disgusting eggs I have ever tasted.  Manimal-D devours them and I think he liked it, I choke mine down as a drill instructor type is yelling at me to about face and not throw up on him.  I drink some water and start swallowing large chunks like pills.  Mr. President spits his out…we lose again.  We run up and down a hill repeatedly while asking each other trick questions and I am thinking when does the race start and ok here comes some snow.

We are herded back into the jail and are told our pardon lets us out with a head start.  We run towards the quarry and try not to fall to our deaths, get hit with paintballs, or tear gas.  My goggles are completely fogged and I am totally blind.  I can’t risk losing an eye so I follow the best I can and I make it to the obstacle / check point, but on the way back I slam my shin, which are legendarily rock hard, against a diamond hard rock.  I can tell it cut my skin through my bushwhacking pants and heavy tights.  I can’t find a hole in the pants, which again is proof that North Face Paramount Peak Convertible pants are awesome and are not for teenage girls, except Missymal because she is not all human like the rest of the Frisbees.  So now I am totally mad and blind and can’t start the fire with my new flint, but Manimal-D strikes his and gets it going.  I tell the team that I have to go get my safety glasses or I won’t be able to continue; so I run to the truck, get my glasses, ditch the goggles, and run back and notice I lost my headlamp, so I run back to the truck and can’t find it, so I run back and borrow Manimal’s backup.  We continue sneaking by police and guards to check point after check point.  I can see now so I am no longer mad, but I am mourning the loss of my Petzal E-lamp.  We seem to be going in circles and Missymal is telling the Manimals where to go, and I see the Compass without a map and can read his thoughts that he is upset and the Manimals are lost.  I mentally agree but lay down in a low cold obstacle and think this is the slowest race we have done and I could take a nap right here.  I look over and Missymal Monroe and Mr. President are holding hands and snacking.  Guards start coming and it’s time to move.  We are “hell-o-stealthy”TM and move around through the woods searching for check points and finding few.  Missymal hits a booby trap as a guard is planting it and “kills” him.  We can hear the paint balls firing and can smell the tear gas in the distance.  We are running out of time so we head back to the start and we are asking where our flag is, but we never get it back.  I thought Cops were not supposed to steal and we didn’t even get to shoot back at them.  We left wounded, sore, dirty, but we all survived without capture or being shot. 

We eat, drink, talk, and drop off the Manimals at Manimal’s house and head back to St Louis.  I drive in 4HI through snow, listen to Compass snore, drop him off, get home, throw my gear inside, text Manimal to let him know I survived the drive home, inspect the bloody shin, shower, sleep, and wake up to two feet of snow and realize I have to now go shovel with a sore body…tis the life of an Adventure Racer.

New Years Day Extravaganza: BOR vs. Chubb, The Epic Battle

Brief report: Chubb victorious.  BOR wounded, but coming back for more.


So as a BOR tradition, as of 2013, the new year is kicked off with the BOR New Years Extravaganza.  This event consists of a ridiculous amount of bike and run miles and hopefully some kayak miles if more team members would buy kayaks, you know who you are Dave and John,   and this year was no different.   We set off with an ambitious plan to ride castlewood state park trails then ride to greensfelder and ride the trails, then return to castlewood, a 40 ish mile ride, and then run 13 on the castlewood trails.  While the distances seemed long the terrain was easy to moderate at worst and seemed more than do able in a days time.  However, Captain Ahab grabbed a hold of it and started changing locations and the like until we settled on Chubb Trail.  Now anyone who has ridden chub trail knows that it is the yeng and the yang of the mountain biking world.  the west Tyson side is very rocky, hilly and technical while the lone elk side is very flat and fast.  Chubb is also an out and back, 7 each way for a 14 mile total if you don't do the castlewood challenge loop. 

So with this being Paul's first experience with Chubb and the rest of us having not trained as hard as we should have, the 16 mile ride followed by a 16 mile run followed by a 16 mile ride seemed like it might be a little much but we decided to give it a go and see what happened.  Turns out what happened was a war of attrition between the four members of BOR and the epic Chubb Trail.

So the day started around 7:00 am with a text from Neil saying he was running late, which is odd since he was the closest of us to the trail......  Undeterred Paul, Scott and myself (Kevin) set off on the West Tyson side full of hope and excitement.  Then Chubb decided it had enough of our generally positive outlook and sent Scott careening off the trail and almost off a 10 foot drop.  After that we got back on the trail and continued the beating until we reached the picnic table at the top of the hill.  There Paul decided it would be a good idea to take video of part of our decent down the back side, however it didn't turn out to be as awesome as it could have been since the trail was loose, leaf covered, and bouncy.  So the video completely makes us looks like amateurs and its iphone quality, but here it is anyway. 

 

 

The rest of the ride was uneventful through the castlewood loop and up the hill to the Lone Elk parking lot and the return to the West Tyson side.  Then Chubb started taking its victims.  We checked the phones to see where Neil was, and had a message that read "Fell too much, left knee and elbow hurt. on my way home"  Chubb had claimed its first victim.  I then proceeded to fall about 4 or 5 times with one of them being a big enough hit I wound up about 25 feet from my bike after I got done rolling downhill.  I manage to tweak my left knee a little when coming off the bike on that one, but figured I would be alright after a little stretching it on the rest of the ride.  Paul then managed to have a pretty intense fall smashing his hip onto a rock outcropping pretty hard, hard enough to have him cursing the ground with anger and disgust.  After a few minutes he was well again and we were back to riding out the last bit of the trail.  at this point the three of us had decided we probably were not going to get the last ride in and were okay with that as we rolled up to the trucks to change shoes and head off on the run.  The run was fairly uneventful up to the picnic table where Paul decided his injuries were too much to do the remaining 12 miles of the run.  Just before we set off a runner came flying up the back side of the hill and through the picnic area with enough speed to amaze everyone standing there, and to set off the injured Paul's competitive spirit.  As he left the picnic table area with the speed of a super human, and a slight limp, Scott and I figured he would catch the mystery runner, and he did with photographic proof.

 

 

 Paul on the right, mystery runner on the left

 

 

Once Scott and I started down the hill my knee really started acting up, to the point of being painful so we ran / jogged / hiked the rest of the trail to lone elk and back.  but while we were out there we did come across some SLUG (Saint Louis Ultrarunners Group) members and talked with them about trails and gear and the balls on our packs. 

 

Only one member of BOR that started the extravaganza finished unharmed, and surprisingly it was Scott.  Maybe this year will continue like that for him, but smart money would bet that he will keep pushing and find a way to get hurt this year just like every other year.......  Side note, John also did not get hurt while sending us updates from his own personal workouts that day, he managed to sit in the kitchen for a while, the move to the living room all without falling or getting injured, congrats on the achievement John!

Frozen Hell: The 2013 Bonkhard Castlewood 8 Hour

2013 Bonkhard Castlewood 8 hour AR Report, AKA Frozen Hell......


So for this year's race BOR fielded two teams, BOR being the two man consisting of Scott and Neil, and BORed (BOR Elite Division) was a 4 person coed consisting of Amanda, Kevin, Dave and John.  Basically our two teams just stuck together and formed one six person, 6 people has to be better than 4, right? 
Seems odd that I can describe the entire race in fewer words then it took to describe our team structure, cold and frozen.  The temperature at race start varies on who you talk to, but it was anywhere from 8 - 12 degrees.  Yeah, it was cold.  People we so bundled up that I walked right past Dave at the start and we didn't recognize each other.  Just look how bundled up we are.

The previous night we had discussed things we needed to do during the race to keep the cold from adversely affecting us, things like drain the camel back hoses after each drink, don't shed your outer layers, try to stay dry and don't flip the canoe.  But that didn't come close to preparing for a single digit start temp.  After feeling like I was freezing in place the race was started and we were off to checkpoint 3.  We followed a large group also doing the same thing up a hill to the CP.  I managed to mispunch CP 3 as CP 2 (how do you mispunch the first point? I blame the cold!) but quickly fixed my mistake and we were off.  While the navs were getting a bearing I started to take a drink, but my hose was frozen solid.  Even though I had blown all the water out of my hose, the residual in the valve had frozen up.  I could see a look of panic slowly start to come over the team and we realized that every ones water hoses had frozen.  We managed to unfreeze my hose and after some work got most of them unfrozen, except for Johns, his was solid.  So we then had ideas of shoving them in jackets, wrapping jackets around camel backs and so on and set off for the next CP.  We managed to get a little confused on the next CP and while trying to find a bearing I was informed that my compass wasn't correct.  My cheap compass was frozen.  Glad I wasn't navigating, otherwise we would have been screwed.  From here on the running section continued as normal and when we were heading back to HQ we were an hour and 15 minutes into the race.  We where running a little behind where we wanted to be time wise, but getting ready to get on the bikes is always a morale boost for BOR! Here you can see our newbies John and Amanda being in good spirits!

 

So with the bike transition done, food eaten and waters thawed out, we hit the road full of the awesomeness and greatness that is BOR! Only problem was about 400 feet out of the transition was Amanda's bike experienced some chain suck and required extreme brute force to get it unstuck from the front chain rings and the frame, but then we were off again!  We stopped for Scott to change gloves, he was ranting endlessly about the horrible gloves he had bought (seal skinz H2) but I thought nothing of it since those were in my pack for the paddle, not the ride.  And we were off again to CP 6!  Coming down to CP 7 we were getting passed by cars left and right and actually overshot the CP since we were more afraid of getting run over then paying attention to CPs.  We only missed it by a couple hundred feet and it wasn't the end of the world seeing as we needed to be heading in that direction anyway.  After catching that CP and perfectly timing a train at the crossing we proceeded to hit a trail, paved underneath the snow and ice, and slip our way into Route 66 State Park ( I think! Remember, I am not the navigator).  We cut through the CPs in there pretty quickly and before we knew it we were at the canoe drop in!  I don't know exactly what time it was when we got there, sometime a little after 10:30 I think but we had beaten the cutoff.

 

 

We carried the boats down the ramp after receiving the points to plot and went to work tying in bikes and plotting the points.  Harder then it sounds since the boat ramp was covered in snow and ice and the boats kept sliding down the ramps, which actually turned out to be a blessing when launching!  John and I launched shortly after Dave and Amanda, and after I nearly dumped John out of the boat trying to jump in as the boat was sliding down the ramp we were on our way.  Now, remember those gloves Scott was complaining about?  Turns out they do kinda suck for arctic temperatures......  So I had to reach behind me into my pack, grab new gloves, steer, put new gloves on, still steer , and try not to flip us.  So with the glove crisis resolved we caught up to Dave and Amanda and kept going to the CPs.  We got the first one with no issue and charged (sort of) to the next.  2 miles later I was having some serious issues with my right hand, to the point of being so cold it hurt.  I knocked us into a sand bar so I could try to get a hot hands pack in my glove as fast as possible since it was getting unbearable.  I couldn't get the hot hands packs to heat up fast enough and ended up having to put my hands under my clothes and let them reheat for a good 5 minutes before I could go on.  Not sure what the limits for frost bite is and I don't know what the wind chill was on the river, but I do know that it was cold and probably a close call.  But since typing this I am using all of my fingers I think we are good.  So we kept going, and hands now warmed up, I was in a much better mood!  Now one thing not mentioned yet is that the boat was taking on ice.  and not just the boat, everything on the boat including bikes and bags and the accumulation on my handle bar hanging over the canoe was starting to drag the water.  This was a reminder of just how cold it was out there and how much we did NOT want to go in the water.  We reached the last river CP and whacked it with our paddles as someone had broken the punch on it.  This is about the time we started realizing how the cold was affecting our gear.  Then Dave managed to get stuck on a gravel bar and thoughts in our canoe quickly turned to laughing and wondering how they would get unstuck.  Once Dave he-manned the canoe off the gravel we set off to CP 16, the canoe pull out.  YAY! I hate the canoeing sections.  When we got there we were told it was a gear check and that's when we discovered the extent of ice issues we had.  John's pack was frozen inside his pack cover, Amanda's tube and bike gear frozen to the bike, my front break lever had a half inch thick icicle connecting it to my handle bars and Dave's handle bars were frozen into position.  Neil and Scott were here waiting for us and helped us get gear out of frozen packs and get ready to continue.  Good thing there was a fire around otherwise we may not have been able to continue.  After thawing gear and carrying the canoes up we ate and were ready to take off on the bike section through Castlewood!

 

We started off and felt very at home on the trails.  BOR loves trails.  So we went crazy.  Then Amanda had her run in with near frostbite and had to use Neil's extra pair of socks and Scott's mountain bike booties.  Once she was geared up and under way again she was fine and as of today no one has mentioned anything about lost toes, I think she is still good.  Once we got to the Cedar bluff loop everyone was feeling good and after a short safety briefing for the newbies on the treacherous first section, we took off.  We quickly realized that everyone else was riding the loop backwards and didn't know what was going on until another team informed us the clue sheet said ride it counter clockwise. Oops! We were too far in and said to hell with it, we are doing it our way.  So we continued going backwards and got all the CPs and set off towards Al Foster trail to hit a CP where we were given a bonus course section.  At this point it was around 2:00pm and the finish cutoff was at 4:00pm and As a group we decided that we didn't have to time to complete the roughly 6 mile bonus loop and get back to HQ in time to do the last section and finish with Amanda feeling the effects of the cold.  So we pushed on and got to the next CP in pretty good time, where we were directed to ride out onto 109.  Yeah, HWY 109.  Not my preferred choice of route back to greensfelder area, but I don't make the maps, just follow them.  We turned off of it fairly quickly onto Alt Road though so it wasn't to bad.  As we started up the hill, Amanda's bike started experiencing more chain issues and I stopped to do a hasty repair roadside before the big hills.  Bike fixed, we took off and went up one of 3 hills on that road.   We completed the second, and then the third without too much incident.  Then came a downhill that gave me windburn in the only exposed skin I had between my baraclava and my glasses and ice formations under my nose.  It was a fast downhill that I know we had to have hit 30 mph on easily and the entire time I was praying not to run into any ice or snow on the road.  Once we hit bottom it was a quick jaunt back to HQ where Scott and Neil got the UTM points and headed off into the woods to get the last 4 mile loop and team BORed had a tough decision to make.  The cold had been really hard on everything that day, bikes, passport punches, camel backs and people.  We decided that risking it with less than an hour to get the CPs and get back just wasn't worth it with our gear and team mates in their current conditions and Dave and I called it at 8 hours and 5 minutes with 27 checkpoints.  But we finished alive and in one piece! 

 

Neil and Scott finished with 28 checkpoints and a time of 8:25.  No pics of their finish yet since we were inside for a much needed warm up, but here is an artist rendition of what it may have looked like.

 

 

 

I must say that I enjoyed the race and enjoyed inducting two new members into the BOR family.  Congratulations John and Amanda on earning your pair of coveted BOR BALLS! Wear them proudly while training up for the next race!

 

 

 

 





BT Epic 2013 RaceReport

BT Epic 2013 Report:


That race was hard.....


End report. 


But really, that race was the most torture I have ever experienced on a bicycle.  Granted, that could be because in the previous 3 months I have only rode my bike one time, but with work being busy what can you do.  Some of BOR did rather well, Scott managed to kill it in a 7:47 and Paul was right behind in just over 8 hours.  Neil had to drop out at the cutoff due to some hydration issues and Dave and I both managed to finish tied for last finisher at somewhere around a 9:30.  Race was really well put on (other than getting charged $36 bucks to park our car by Bass River Resort) and they had a lot of good giveaways and raffle prizes.  Whatever food was left by time last place finished was actually pretty good!

So now onto the actual race. We arrived at 7:00 and after typical BOR shenanigans we were ready for the 8:30 start.  We held off to the side and for the start and jumped in about mid pack to tear off up the dirt road and head for the woods.  You wouldn't think this would be a difficult part of the race, but whether it was because I have a 1x9 or that hill was just worse than I though, by the time Scott and I came to the turn in the woods to wait on the rest of BOR I was feeling the burn and we were only 3.1 miles in! 

Once we regrouped and turned into the woods, the trail was actually very nice and flowy,  nothing like Dave had described it from last year, and I was really enjoying myself.  Scott and I were having so much fun we ended puling away from Neil, Dave and Paul and stopped to wait for them after the first hill climb.  After a couple minutes to pop gel packs and fuel we were back to riding and really enjoying the trail until I had to avoid a rider tht laid the bike over on a steep little downhill that caused me to end up taking a line into a tree.  Scott was riding so well that from there I didn't see him until I came into the first CP about 4 minutes behind him.  Dave, Neil and Paul came in about 4 minutes behind me, where Paul promptly fell off his bike trying to get on the road.  From there we convinced Scott to race this on his own and that was the last time I saw him until the finish.  Shortly after Scott left the remaining BOR headed off into the woods for another sweet section of single track.  This was another nice section of single track and I accidentally left Dave.  He caught up to me after I took a header off the bike on a root drop and laid in the trail for a couple of minutes trying to clear the cobwebs. 

From then on Dave and I were riding at a pretty good pace, for us, and just really enjoying the fast downhills.  We didn't enjoy the painful uphills very much though.  We meet back up with Paul and Neil after stopping to eat then we all rode into the campground checkpoint around 11:20 ish.  I think that was somewhere around the 24 mile mark, but I cant remember exactly.  We found our drop bag and saw that Scott didn't even stop since his beer was still in the bag.  We all consumed our mid race beer and Gatorade, and then set off again.  From there I cant really remember much of the section that brought us back to the campground other than I was flirting with bonking for most of it and Neil had to pee a lot.  I do remember that after we grabbed our zip ties we talked Paul into going at it on his own since it was 2:00 worried about making the 3:00 cutoff into the last CP, 8 miles away.  Paul resisted a little and then he went off like the flash, and we never saw him again either until the finish. 

As it turns out we made the CP by 2:30 since it was all fire and paved roads to it, and then we had some decisions to make.  Neil decided his hydration issues were more important than finishing the race which was a good call on his part.  Dave and I got some information on the remaining trail and decided we had enough time to get out of the trail and onto the roads before sundown and we went for it.  The first section out of the trail was a fast long smooth section that really had me feeling good about the remaining trail.  Dave and I walked some small technical bits here and there just to avoid any tired mistakes that would cause us to crash but other than that we were making great time.  At least I thought we were. 

We knew we had roughly 11 miles of single track from the CP we had left until we hit the road for the final push into the finish.  We were about an hour and a half into the single track and I thought we had to be at least 6 miles into it, based on our pace, and I was really feeling confident on finishing this thing when we got passed by another rider we had been playing leapfrog with all day.  We chatted him up for a little bit while riding with him and asked him about the rest of the trail, to which he replied "The next 7 miles of trail are real nice and then its a good road ride to the finish." I have never felt so bad in my life then when this guy told me we weren't even half as far as I thought I was.  I was so heartbroken I started hiccupping and did not stop for another mile and a half.  I don't know if anyone reading this has ever had to ride a bike with vicious hicups, but it really makes breathing when you are already tired a terrible experience.  Because of that, the next couple miles were some of the most miserable miles I have ever ridden / walked.  I couldn't breathe, my confidence in finishing was shot and my entire body hurt and to be honest neither Dave nor I knew exactly how many miles we had left to go. 

We started riding again.  we played leapfrog with a couple of guys who didn't look in any better shape than us.  We hooked up with another rider and together the three of us rode on... and on... and on... and on, praying that around the next corner was the road.  Until finally we come up a hill and there it is, but it wasn't, the course crossed the road.  I cursed just about everything under the sun and then we kept riding until I saw a road getting closer on my left, the closer it got the happier I got until we made a sharp right on a downhill.  I cursed everything again.  After who knows how long we finally arrived in a gravel parking lot and the route turned into double track which made me a very happy person.  We had to be close, double track almost always leads to a road!  except this road looked to be about a 45 degree angle right up a hill.  We walked the first hill and then I got on and road up the next hill with everything I had, hoping that stupid road was there and finally we ran into it. 

I had about 2 or 3 minutes wait for Dave and Ray (guy we hooked up with earlier) to catch up and I spent the entire time yelling about how beautiful the road was and how much I loved everything about it, It had been a long day and I was a little delirious.  Once we got on that road I knew we were home free, until we stopped for a break and noticed the guy behind us was the sweeper taking signs down.  I don't think he would have taken signs down in front of us and he seemed like a nice guy, but from then on we were on a mission to outrun the sweeper and we were on it! At sometime around 6, the last 3 riders to finish rolled into the tent, Dave, Ray and myself, and personally I have never been so happy to finish an event.

Really though I thought it was a well organized and supported event.  I just wish I was more prepared.