The Shag 16 hour Adventure Race Report

Race Report

The Shag 16 Hour Adventure Race

This was a cool race. 16 hours of straight racing can be fun but the killer to this was they devised it to also max out on sleep deprivation by starting at 1 am in the morning.
I got up at 5am on Friday like I normally do for work
I worked then drove to the race site
Check in at 8pm

Turn in of gear at 10pm
Race brief at 11pm
Race start at 1am Saturday.
Race finish at 5pm Saturday.
By race finish time I had been up 36 hours straight.

My pack and nutrition plan stayed pretty constant.
On the pack I had the mandatory gear they require plus some spare clothes.
I had a 3litre hydration bladder in the pack and a .75 litre insulated bottle stuffed with Perpetuem protein mixture and a hands free bite valve. I also had 8 ounces of Hammer Gel and a ton of electrolyte pills.
On the bike I went with one water bottle with HEED and another bottle with a water Gatorade mixture. Additionally I had another 6 ounces of gel taped to the bike.

In the bike bin I put an additional hydration bladder and a gallon of water and 4-5 more bottles of water ready for mixing nutrition. During these long races I also like to eat some “real” food so I also added a couple Peanut Butter/Jelly sandwiches and cheese and trail mix with nuts……

Additionally I carried a full water filter and Ultra Violet purification system (which saved my skin during the kayak section)

Here were the legs
Leg 1: Night Mountain bike by Land Navigation
2 Mandatory Checkpoints
4 Optional Checkpoints
Total Distance: 10 miles of single and double track riding at night.
Finish time: 3:30am
Thank god I installed new lights for this. I went with the Majic Shine 1400 lumen triple headlight on the handlebars and the Majic Shine 600 helmet mount. This was super fun and going fast on tight single track trails at night with just a light beam 15ft or so in front of you is a rush. No surprises here and I got into the transition area in plenty of time.

Leg 2: Night Trekking by Land Navigation
2 Mandatory Checkpoints
8 Optional Checkpoints
Total Distance: Approx. 11 miles
The majority of this section took place on the Appalachian Trail. Some hairy sections in the dark but a great course. I met up with a couple of other solo racers during this leg and we began to work together a bit. We got 5 of the optionals and then knew we had a race cut off time at 0930 decided to head for the last Mandatory and then the transition point to beat the cut off time. It was cool to be on the Appalachian Trail as the sun came up around 7am as I was on a major ridge line and could see the New York mountains in the distance. Then a major navigation error fucked us up. We missed a trail and what seemed would be a casual finish at 0900 am or so turned into a full on jog/run with packs the last 3 miles or so just to get there with 11 minutes to spare.

Leg 3: Paddle on Flat Water by Land Navigation
2 Mandatory Checkpoints
4 optional Checkpoints
Total Distance: Approx 6 miles
Tactically I made a big error here. I said I had a bike bin full of water and food. In my paddle bag all I had was my PFD and some paddle gloves. No food or water. Food wise I was okay but I was running very low on water due to the mad dash run I had to make on the previous section. Good thing I had the water filter with me as I started pumping water from the lake the minute I got in the Kayak. It saved me and my feet were killing me from the run on the last section so I took off my shoes and socks and dangled them in the water as I paddled along. I nailed two optionals and headed for the last mandatory and transition area.

Leg 4: Day Trekking by Land Navigation
2 mandatory checkpoints
6 optionals
Total Distance: 9 miles approximately
This section started innocently enough with some movement on the road. Then it broke back into the wilderness with huge elevation gains and scrambling along the rock faces of the AT. I nailed 4 optionals and linked up with a couple of other solo racers for the shlog to Transition area 5. Here again we all misjudged the distance and this time it turned into ANOTHER 3 mile flat out fucking run to beat the cut off time of 1:30pm. I got there with only 3 minutes to spare and was allowed to continue. The finish of this leg cost me dearly and I spent about 20 minutes in transition. I had to eat and remix nutrition and water. I also changed socks and refitted the bike before starting out.

Leg 5: Day Mountain Biking by Land Navigation
2 mandatories
13 optionals
Total Distance 10 miles
I was smoking pretty good but still had juice in the tank for this last section. Pretty quickly the mind games started with forced mounting and dismounting of the bike due to the technical nature of the trail. Basically this was a 3 hour hike a bike that killed me.
I linked up with a guy named George at Mandatory point 1 and after nailing a couple of optionals said fuck it and made a decision to head for home. Good thing too because the last mile section was a straight up hill that had us passing our bikes to one another up the rock face just to get up. After that it was a pretty good run out peddling back down the mountain to the Finish.

Total Time: 15 hours/43 minutes/9 seconds…… Estimated distance 45-50 miles....

After the race I drove 2.5 hours back home and put my boy to bed (and myself) after 40 hours without sleep.

I love Adventure Racing.