Results & Reports - 2006 North Georgia Adventure Race (NGAR)

Enduraventure wins 2006 North Georgia Adventure Race

Report by Lisa Randall

The 2006 NGAR was held in the Blue Ridge/Cooper Creek area. Most of the terrain, with the exception of the second trek, was familiar to many racers as it had been used by previous NGAR’s and the Blue Ridge Mountain Adventure Race. Representing Enduraventure were Bryan Goble, Lisa Randall, and James Holmes.

Leg 1 – Prologue/Run: Where’s our runner?

The race opened with a short prologue that involved running through the campground and up a steep hill to retrieve a card with our team number on it. We sent James up the hill, so when runners started returning we expected him to be one of the first. A couple of minutes pass and lots of runners return, but still no sign of James. A couple more minutes, still no James. The crowd starts getting pretty thin as the majority of teams are out on the road. I look over and see Litespeed/Inov8 still waiting for their runner...hmm...that’s strange too. Finally we see James headed back through the campground and we’re off! Apparently, the front group of runners had thought they were supposed to run up Hwy 60, and by the time they realized their mistake, there was a huge crowd of people heading up the hill and swarming around the numbered team cards. We start jogging down the road towards CP 1 and make up lost ground fairly quickly. We opted to bushwhack straight to the point instead of taking the trail which put us into CP 1 in the top 3 with the Checkpoint Zero teams. Back on our feet for another 3 miles of road running brought us to Deep Hole for the beginning of the paddling section.

Leg 2 – Paddle: Anyone for a swim?

We put in to the Toccoa River in 2nd place behind Litespeed/Inov8. Once we got our steering commands down, we got into a good rhythm and had smooth runs on all of the opening shoals. Having run this stretch of river before, I was a bit worried about how our overloaded flat water canoe was going to fare through the rapids near the Swinging Bridge. The combination of 3 people plus all our gear in an open canoe made the little class II rapid seem like the Ocoee. We ran a good line and made it through unscathed, although it was a pretty wild and exciting ride for a brief moment. We hit some calmer water and small shoals and my teammates start doing their “whoo-hoos”, happy that we made it through the hardest part. I decided to rain on their happy moment, knowing a couple hundred feet down river was the final major obstacle on the river. We drop over the ledge, bow hits first, still good, stern comes down, boat stays upright for about 0.5 seconds then tips over. I roll out of the canoe and onto a nice flat rock in the middle of the rapid. The current wasn’t strong so I stand up and the water is only up to my knees. I remember thinking for a second…well this isn’t so bad. Then back to reality and I realize I’m stuck in the middle of the river, so I slide off the rock to find the water is deep enough that I can’t touch. Grrr. Next our boat comes floating by right-side up and full of water. I grab onto it for a second and try to help guide it to shore when the Rock Creek team comes down through the rapid. So now I’m sandwiched between their boat and ours, which was about the last place I wanted to be. I have no idea where Goble is – I haven’t seen him since the boat tipped but I can hear James behind me somewhere. Once Rock Creek was safely past I headed to shore, tripping over every rock in the process. I get to shore and wring myself out. The water was cold, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as that long Lake Allatoona swim at Goldrush a couple of weeks ago. James and Goble get the boat bailed and we continue on our merry way thoroughly awake now.

The rest of the river went by pretty quickly as there was more flat water where we could make good time. The take out came just in time as we were all pretty cold from our wet clothes. We transitioned to our bikes and left the TA in 3rd place.

Leg 3 – Bike: Recycled race terrain

This bike section was pretty straightforward and on terrain used in countless other races. The only decision we needed to make was whether to bikewhack to CP 5 or ride around the long way. Worried about the physical drain of bikewhacking up such steep terrain, we decided to go the long way around. This turned out to be a bad idea, as there was a trail that led up to the CP that wasn’t on the map. Several other teams put time on us here by heading straight up Brawley Mountain. Back on our bikes we headed down the mountain and towards CP 6, picked it up easily and then found an old roadbed that led us back down to the main FS road. We pacelined it back to Skeenah Mill Campground and arrived at the TA again in 3rd place. Litespeed/Inov8 was a good 40+ minutes ahead of us at this point, so we knew we had a lot of work to do on the trek.

Leg 4 – Trek: Flawless

This was a beast of a trek that included countless ups and downs and some great nav choices. We were moving along well and moved into 2nd place coming out of CP 8. We opted for a lot of bushwhacking which kept things interesting. We were able to acquire the next two CPs before dark, so that was definitely an advantage. Bryan was dead on with the nav and we were making good time by jogging whenever possible. We saw Litespeed/Inov8 right before CP 12 and figured they had 8-10 minutes on us. After getting CP 12 we headed back to the road for the long run back towards CP 13. We were a bit surprised when we caught Litespeed/Inov8 about a mile from CP 13. We figured Jay would have his team double-timing it on that run after seeing us. From this point on, we pretty much stayed together through CP 13 and back to CP 14. The highlight of the last part of the trek was having some intoxicated locals in a pickup buzz past us, then run their truck off the road shortly thereafter. Oops. That’s karma for ya.

Leg 5 – Bike: Multiple System Failure

We headed out on the bikes about 30 seconds ahead of Litespeed/Inov8. I was experiencing some weird breathing difficulty near the end of the hike and it was worsened by having to climb on the bike. On our way to CP 15, we were just riding along and all of a sudden...crack! What was that? James’ titanium bike frame cracked near the dropout. Litespeed sees this happen and at this point I’m thinking we just gift wrapped the race for them. We hobble James’ busted machine back to the TA and pick up a spare bike, as duct tape wasn’t going to fix this one. Back on the course we start picking off the bike CPs with little trouble other than the fact that I now feel like I’m breathing through a straw and my lungs felt like they had water in them. On our way to CP 17, we see Litespeed coming back down the road, still looking for CP 16. At this point we rallied and tried to move [me] along as quickly as possible as we knew Litespeed would be right back on us. The roughest part of this section was the bikewhack up to CP 18 and then back down the other side. This really took a lot out of me, so thankfully James took my bike on the way up. The whack back down was also steep and very difficult. I eventually resorted to just letting the bike roll down the hill by itself. It would get hung up in the bushes every so often and eventually come to a stop. Sorry bike. Back to the bottom and at CP 19 we heard that we were the first team there. We get a few minutes of reprieve on a nice fast fire road, although we then found that my front derailleur was frozen and I only had the small chain ring. James did a great job of helping me along as we headed down the road to pick up our final CP. The nav was easy and we knew where we were going, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to ever get there, let alone hold off Litespeed. When we didn’t see them on the out and back to CP 20, we figured we had at least 10 minutes on them. Thankfully it was a rolling ride back to Doublehead Gap Road. This last road section seemed like the longest mile ever, and I needed a lot of help to get back to the Finish in any sort of quick manner. We rolled in at about 4:40, the first team to cross the line. It was a well earned win and I was really excited, but my body was so taxed from the last couple of hours that I just collapsed in the dirt.

Overall, we had a good race. For the majority of the race we were physically doing very well and our nav was about as good as it gets. Our support crew of Chris Randall and Eva Goble always had our gear ready to go and had pizza for us before the final bike section. It was also Bryan’s Birthday so what better way to celebrate than with a well earned win over some stout competition. It was disappointing to hear that Litespeed missed CP 16, as they were having a really great race and were doing a great job at pushing us. After some rest and a lot of plain water, my breathing retuned to normal, the lungs drained and all that we were left with was the usual post-race aches and pains. Good times!