ICO 6, 12, 24 Hour Rogaine
Maumee Scout Camp
Indiana, SE of Bloomington
1:24k maps, 10' contours
When I think of the terrain in Indiana, steep ridge and reentrant with big climbs is not the first thing that comes to mind. This event was a good refresher course on just how steep and big those climbs can be.
Partnered with Matt S for this one (his first 24 hour rogaine!). I don't remember the last time we raced together, so it was long overdue.
Summary
The course was BIG with lots of climb. Many, many (maybe 80ish) controls worth about 5200 points. Mapwheeled sweep route was > 100k.
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| Most of the map |
There were a fair number of 6 hour participants, fewer 12's, and even fewer 24's. After the 2nd hour, I think we went another 10 hours before seeing another competitor in the woods.
While the course would have been tough to clear for the strongest runners under good conditions, recent rains and ongoing flooding eliminated an access point to the far north section of the map, forcing a sub-optimal out and back path for the most attractive controls. The first place finisher, Mark Lattanzi, ran solo and collected 3200 points. He called it a day at the 20 hour mark.
Matt and I have always raced well together and this was no exception. Although, due to my various injuries, Matt was in much better physical shape than I. We covered a total of 37+ miles in just under 16 hours, not including the hour at the hash house. We finished in 4th place with 1799 points. It rained on us from about 15:30 on Saturday afternoon until about 01:00 Sunday morning. We ate and hydrated well. With a team effort, we made no significant nav errors and only 2 small errors costing 5 minutes or less.
Even with the rain, the shoe problems, and an early finish, I really enjoyed this event. We made a lot of good decisions and worked as a team. There were plenty of route choices, the woods were beautiful, and the volunteers were awesome.
My gear and clothing choices were good except for shoes. Started in O-pants, ss top, a SLOC O-shirt, and a pair of Lone Peak 3.0's. Carried rain jacket and pants, a lite fleece, gloves, a buff, and a first aid kit, emergency blanket, headlamp + ensure and water in my Osprey Talon 22. I carried a small waist pack for the rest of my food.
Put on my new Salomon Bonatti Pro rain jacket around 4 pm and wore it for the rest of the event. Added a lite fleece around 9PM. After it started raining harder and my hands got cold, I put on a pair of disposable, heavy mil, nitrile rubber gloves. Grabbing those on a whim was pure genius (IMHO).
At the hash house, I replaced the SLOC shirt with a ls top, added a pair of knit running gloves under the nitrile, donned my bike helmet and bike lite, and put the 10lb battery in my pack. The nitrile gloves were sturdy enough that they didn't disintegrate in the woods. The Bonatti Pro was worth every bit of the $200 spent. It is the most breathable jacket I have ever worn. A no point did i feel over heated. When I took it off at the HH, all the underlayers were dry.
The Lone Peaks were a major disappointment, or at least, the factory insoles were. I'm not sure how these things were tested but clearly not during wet conditions. Soon after the first foot soaking, the insoles started moving around in the shoe, getting scrunched under the heel, or mashed up in the toe area. Fortunately, it only cost us time for repeated stops to fix. I've now had problems with INOV8 insoles and Altra. I understand the shoe companies are trying to cut weight, but for $120+ don't make me buy a new, aftermarket insole with every pair of shoes! Rant over.
Details
Matt flew to Indy from NOLA Thursday night, I drove on Friday and we met up at the hotel in Seymour on Friday evening. The weather forecast was pretty abysmal with lots of rain and overnight temps dropping into the mid 20's. Since Matt was flying, I packed a complete set of extra clothes for him, plus extra shoes. The car looked like I was moving to Indiana.... Anyway, we picked up a couple of sandwiches from subway to supplement race food, sorted some gear, and were lights out by 10PM.
Start time for the 24 hour was 11AM (12 hours started at 9, the 6's at 10), map handout at 7:30. We got to the race HQ at about 8:30 and got down to business. 4 maps, 1:24k, 10' contours. 2 11x17 and 2 8.5x14 forming an upside down T. The hash house was located in central position, enabling plenty of route choices for the different time limits. The map was split from NW to SE by a flooded river/lake. We identified 5 major loops: 2 25k loops north of the split with fewer controls, but more bushwacking, worth about 2600 points. And 3 loops south of the split (12k, 17k, 20k) worth about 2500 points with lots of controls and lots of trails. Note: point value = control number
Matt planned routes for the southern loops, I planned routes for the the northern controls. We agreed that we'd go for the higher point controls up north first, via shortest route north possible, taking advantage of the daylight hours and adjusting plans on the fly. We planned to be out on course for 7-12 hours before returning to the HH.
At the start, it was sunny and about 50F but with rain and colder temps on the way, we had to pack warmer clothes, and lights. With no water on the northern part of the course, we also packed full 3-liter bladders and 12-14 hours worth of food. I think my pack was about 17 lbs. Turns out, there was water and food on the northern section, in the form of a mini-hash house. More on that later.
Segment 1:
HH, 30, 49, 61-1 (gateway), 81, 76, 100, mini-hh
We left the HH about 5 minutes after the start. I wasn't ready to go right at 11. I'm not sure I've ever started one of these right at the gun....
The route to 30 is all road with a short outnback into the woods. The first control is always a good reveal for the rest of the course. This one is hung really low to the ground, behind a stump (i think), with the tape higher up, maybe 5' off the ground. Lesson 1 - watch for tape as well as the bag!
49 does not stick out in my memory, except that dersu arrived at the control as we did. Other teams reported problems finding the bag. We went out the ridge, dropped off early and follow the stream.
61 bushwacked to the trail, then a road run to the control. This one will count for 61 points each way since it is a gateway control.
95 road + pace count AND contact with spur as it met road. Conveniently, there was an unmapped double track here, heading in the right direction. Only nav complexity here is to make sure we don't head up the wrong reentrant. A lot of 6 hour teams went for this one. 61-1 + 95 + 61-2 made for a very attractive point grab.
81 long bushwhack north. good handrails to follow. Just need to count big reentrants coming in from the left once we cross the road.
76 follow ridge until it turns west, drop down and into reentrant.
100 a major grunt up to the highest point on the map. Beautiful view. There was a man and a woman at the top having a romantic picnic complete with a bottle of wine. Sorry for the interruption....
mini-hash house - Jerry Lyons (Planet Adventure) is getting setup. Big Orange Hedge is just leaving as we arrive - chat for a few seconds. Its about 14:15, we've been on course for just over 3 hours. Temp still in the 50's but it's getting cloudy and wind is picking up. Jerry says the forecast has been revised and we'll only get a couple hours of rain. Yea for that! We refill on water, grab a Gatorade and a brownie treat and head for the northernmost part of the map.
Segment 2:
mini-HH, 99-1 (gateway), 102, 90, 87, 91, 77, 92, 89, 97, 99-2 (gateway), mini-HH
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| Northern-most controls Flooded bridge in lower right corner |
90 - we still had dry feet so we spent a little time here looking for a dry creek crossing. My planned route should have landed us right on then control, but when we got to the top of the ridge there was no control. This confused me a bit, but Matt was paying attention and caught that we'd gone further up the reentrant before starting the climb. Thus the control should be 100m to the south. Good catch. If you want to call this a nav error, it was the only one we made all day. It starts raining hard enough during the climb that I put on my new rain jacket.
87 - ridge route vs reentrant. Climb on the ridge was more than the climb in the reentrant + longer distance so we did the reentrant route. Still raining.
91 - follow the ridge, contour below the big hill top. Still raining.
77 - drop off the ridge, stay close to the steep hillside. when we hit the little spur, cut across the valley to the first reentrant then start angling up the hill to the control. Still raining.
92 - Matt wants to redlline it, I don't want to climb to the top of the current hill just to drop back down the other side. We discuss for a bit, and settle for not quite redline, aiming off to the left on the next ridge. Still have to do the climb, but there are very obvious, major features to use as waypoints and we'll know the control is still to the right when we top the ridge. Still raining.
89 - The almost redline route adds a big climb. The around-route on the ridge has a major trail on it. The catch: the trail takes us off the edge of the map for a stretch. Not something I like to do, but in this case the trail goes off the map and back on with about an inch inbetween. By the terrain, it's pretty clear that the ridge makes a gentle curve in the direction we want to go. It's a marked forestry service trail so we go for it and the trail does exactly what I expected. As we approach the control (clue = reentr jct), the reentrant that should take us straight in looks really steep and cluttered with fallen trees. We follow the ridge a little further to the second reentrant and drop in. On the way down to the circled jct, we find the bag in a different jct, just under the control circle line. Probably 75 - 100m from the location on the map. If we'd come in from any other direction it's very likely we'd have spent a fair chunk of time searching. I commented to Matt that there will be teams that won't find the control, especially in the dark. Still raining.
I don't remember where, but at some point we had to get our feet wet. Shortly thereafter, the factory insoles in my lone peak 3's started sliding around in my shoes. The left side was the most problematic. It would bunch up under my heel on any non-flat terrain. Stopping to fix it cost us a lot of time for the 7 - 8 hours I had to deal with it.
97 - final control on this loop. just a long ridge walk, mostly on trail. I think it was about 18:30 when we got this one. Still raining, trails are starting to get sloppy.
mini-HH-2 - long road run back to the mini-HH. Raining pretty hard for the duration. Jerry has a popup shelter setup with hot choc, tomato soup, a little bbq with hotdogs, assorted treats, gatorade and water. Another team is parked under the popup so space is a bit tight. We don't spend long, and definitely don't sit down in the offered chairs. I have a hotdog. maybe the best tasting hotdog ever. Matt has some soup and a dog. We refill water and get moving again. It was about 19:15, still raining, still daylight. We wanted to get as close as possible to the next control before dark.
Segment 3:
mini-HH, 88, 82, 85, 61, 20, HH
It's been raining steadily for a good 4 hours as we leave the miniHH, so all the trails are muddy little streams. This exacerbates the slippery insole problem and my left plantar is feeling unhappy about the lump of stuff just in front of the origin.
88 - the route we've selected is all trail, up to and along a ridge with 4th distinct hilltops. We're looking for the 4th. There is an alternate route but riskier in the dark, and for very little reward. From the hilltop, it's a hike down a long spur, into the reentrant, hugging the left hillside to the control. Now that it's dark, it's impossible to see good routes through the veg (mostly brambles), so it's an htfu exercise straight through whatever is between us and the control. We punch and head back out the way we came in (seems shorter the 2nd time). In the daylight, I would have allocated about 35 minutes for this control (from the miniHH), in the rain and dark, it took about an hour.
82 - more wet ridgetop trail. we use the saddle and the steep climb as our attackpoint. The reentrants for this control are super deep and super steep. With the soggy ground, hillsiding is almost impossible but we find the control without any issues.
85 - except for the gateway control, this one is our last big-pointer for the loop. we can almost smell the food at the hashhouse even though it's still a good 4.5 miles away. But, 85 is first, and in the dark, it is a very challenging navigation problem. Before we get started, we both throw on more clothes. It is still raining and the temp has dropped noticeably.
There *are* 2 viable routes to 85.
Route 1: Down the spur from 82 nearly straight south, into the reentrant and then either around the spur to the control or up and over.
Route 2: Follow the ridge a bit to the west, then south, and drop down on the control from above.
Matt wants to try route 1. It's shorter. I'm not happy with the option but he persists. My worry is that the spur to the reentrant has lots of places to make parallel errors in the dark. we could easily end up to the north of the private property. Once we get down to where we need to be, we either go around the spur, which negates the 'shorter', or we go up and over. In the dark, going around, or up and over the wrong spur is a non-trivial risk.
After a fair amount of discussion, we tried to find the spur for route 1. The brambles were really thick, and it quickly became clear that we were not where we thought we were. I'm not willing to wander around looking, so we go back to the trail and take route 2.
Route 1: Down the spur from 82 nearly straight south, into the reentrant and then either around the spur to the control or up and over.
Route 2: Follow the ridge a bit to the west, then south, and drop down on the control from above.
Matt wants to try route 1. It's shorter. I'm not happy with the option but he persists. My worry is that the spur to the reentrant has lots of places to make parallel errors in the dark. we could easily end up to the north of the private property. Once we get down to where we need to be, we either go around the spur, which negates the 'shorter', or we go up and over. In the dark, going around, or up and over the wrong spur is a non-trivial risk.
After a fair amount of discussion, we tried to find the spur for route 1. The brambles were really thick, and it quickly became clear that we were not where we thought we were. I'm not willing to wander around looking, so we go back to the trail and take route 2.
Route 2 is not a sure thing either. We must find correct place where the ridge splits to the southeast. There are plenty of places for this to go wrong, but between pace counting and looking for another steep climb from a saddle we get the right split. Now, we have to stay on the ridge. We start by looking for the little hilltops, but quickly end up on a spur south of the ridge in front of some deep reentrants. Matt identifies where we are and we make our way back to the ridge. Attempt two, I stay in close contact with the steep north side of the ridge. It's a great handrail out to where it turns southeast, even though the turn is past the control. A leash would have been handy to keep Matt from trying to move to the south side of the ridge 'closer to the control'. We make our way to the southeast turn, cut back across the top of the first reentrant and then into the reentrant with the control. It's not a daytime spike, but for night nav, I was pretty happy.
Now it's back to the hash house as fast as we can get there. There is a road on the map in the valley below us so we make for that. The road looks like a side branch of the creek we'd been following, complete with running water. I thought it was the creek actually, until Matt took a closer look. Even though its wet, it's better than muddy trails and way better than bashing through brambles. It's about 23:30, we've been out for 12.5 hours, covered 26+ miles and it's been raining for about 8 hours. Generally, I feel pretty good given my fitness level coming into this event. However, my legs are feeling pretty tired, and the left ankle/tendon problem is making mild complaints. I don't think we ran any of this stretch even though it was all road. We pick up #20 and arrive at the HH around 1:15. It stopped raining about 20 minutes before we got there.
Hash House Break
We're at the hash house for an hour. Time flies when the clock is running. First order of business is taking care of wet feet. A fresh coat of homemade hydropel, dry socks and dry shoes. If it weren't for the insoles I probably would have stayed with the same pair of shoes. Then we set about stuffing our faces - for me, half an ensure, 2 bowls of chkn noodle soup, a ham and cheese sammy and 2 big slices of homemade banana nut bread. Reload water and food. Add a layer. Bathroom stop. Hit the road again.
Segment 4:
The plan is to execute the 12k, 700 point loop that Matt had planned. Control sequence would be 20, 25, 36, 27, 28, 32, 71...
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| Southern half Maumee Scout Camp is towards the top, center |
20 is an apparent bushwhack to the far corner of the dam. Maybe a 1k from the HH. turns out there were trails, but it took us 30 minutes to get there in the dark.
25, and 36 require bushwhacks with a really steep climb. There was no danger of us sweeping the southern portion of the course, so I didn't see the point of spending lots of time collecting 20 and 30 pointers. Matt and I discussed and decided to skip the low point controls and get out to the 50, 60, and 70 point bags. We get 27 (which in retrospect, might have been hung on the wrong side of the bridge), and then head up the big road climb towards 71. About the time we get to the top of the hill, the peroneus tertius tendon in my left foot, the one that was torn back in February, began screaming. More so than February. I really hate ending a race early, but after a brief discussion with Matt and some internal agonizing, I threw in the towel and we shuffled back to the HH. Our official finish time was 04:49am. 16 hours and 49 minutes on the clock and 15:49 on our feet.
We both headed for our cars to get some sleep. I brought a down sleeping bag with me so I cleared out the back of the subaru and was able to find a comfortable position and sleep for a couple hours. I got up and headed back to the hash house for an awesome breakfast of scrambled eggs, homemade biscuits and gravy (loaded with sausage). And of course, another slice of banana nut bread! We hung out and chatted until awards and then headed for home.
