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Burns Park/ Cooks Landing June 2nd, 2007 Race Report

 by Veronica Battaglia

Ozark Extreme Adventure Sprint – Advanced Category (Saturday June 2^nd, 1007)

This would be mine and Steve’s first race to officially navigate.  It had been a while since we raced last so we were already excited and the navigation piece just added to it.

The Pre-race meeting began at 9:45am.  Brandon gave some overall race do’s and don’ts before splitting the Advanced and Sprint racers into their respective groups and handing out the maps.  We received 2 pre-plotted maps with 14 CP’s.  We would start off on the bike!

 The race started at 10:30am with all racers (Sprint and Advanced) on their bikes headed downhill towards the Big Dam Bridge .  Steve and I got our places up front so that we could stay clear of any mass bike start tragedies… thankfully there were none.  We were the first team to arrive at CP1.  Steve punched and we were off to CP2.  We made great time to CP2 and expected another “punch-and-go” but were surprised when the CP marker wasn’t there.  

Here is where we made a local team mistake – “knowing where the point is” – instead of keeping up with distance, bearings, surroundings – we “just knew” where the point was on the map – just across that bridge up on the hill was a perfect spot for a point – wrong.  Soon other teams arrived and joined in on the search.  After several minutes of searching, Steve and I decided to back up, take a real look at the map, and noticed that we were at the wrong hill.  We jumped back on our bikes and rode 200yds before seeing the marker at the top of the “correct” hill.  Off to CP3 we go.  Burns Park is our training ground, so Steve was able to navigate us at a good pace and move quickly up and over Emerald Mountain and into the trail system.  We were able to easily hit each CP along the way until CP10.  We are heads-down flying through the trails and stop at an intersection.  CP11 should be close by…. Maybe just up the trail a little ways.  We continue riding and before we know it, we see the road.  Too far!  We ride back to the intersection and turn right… not there. We go left… not there.  We continue on the “left trail” thinking maybe we took the wrong loop and we know that this trail will lead us back to the intersection.  As we cross back onto our original trail, this time “heads-up”, Steve sees the marker right in front of us!  Right where we had already ridden, but with our heads down!!  Move on.  We find CP’s 12 and 13 without incident and pull into TA at CP14 along with a solo advanced racer, Daryl McCauley.

 We are handed new maps and clue sheets. We will be trekking this section.  We make a quick transition into our running shoes and take off.  We are going to be venturing into an area of Burns Park that we have never been… we are excited.  Daryl joins us at an intersection of the street and a powerline.  Steve and I are too excited and make a navigation 101 error.  We head straight down the powerline without taking a bearing.  “Surely it’s just down this powerline.” –no.  If we had taken a bearing, we would have known that we were too far east.  Instead, we use our “instincts” and barrel down the powerline to no-mans land.  We search for a few minutes and then decide that we must get back to a known point (the intersection) and start over.  We meet Daryl back at the intersection… he had found the point.  He gives us some friendly advice – we get found on the map again and head back into the woods on the “correct” trail and Steve finds the point.  Ok, we got the navigation jitters out of the way, the next point should be a piece of cake.  I wouldn’t say that we went right to CP16, but it was a well hidden point and didn’t take us too long to find.  We hit CP’s 17-19 with no problem and head back to TA.  Both Steve and I are out of fluids.  Thankfully the race volunteers have water and heed for us to fill our bladders.  We re-fuel, change back into our bike gear and hit the road headed back towards the start/finish TA for the canoe leg.  We punch CP21 race to CP22.  I make a small nav mistake on CP22 which cost us a couple of minutes, but we continue to move quickly to the TA.  I notice that the sky is getting dark… my hope is that maybe we won’t have to canoe afterall.. but I know that is just wishful thinking.  We pull into TA and Steve hands our passport to the race staff.  She instructs us that we will NOT be canoeing because it is beginning to lightning!!  Wooohooo!  Now we just have one last CP….  A run up to the top of the Big Dam Bridge and back.  We change BACK into our running shoes and take off.  I wouldn’t say we set any records, but we kept a pretty good pace out and back.  We returned to the finish line with a time of 3:42:48…. 1^st place Coed and 2^nd overall.  It was good to race again!!!  

The Ozark Extreme Team really did a great job putting on the race.  The sprint race to introduce people to adventure racing sounded like a lot of fun too.  The advanced course was challenging and the volunteers were all great.  I hope that more people find out about these races because Brandon and Steeve really did a great job of laying out a well designed course.  It takes a lot of effort to put together a successful race and we just want to thank Team Ozark Extreme for everything - “We’ll see you next time”.