Mysterious Weekend

Did Maddog do the death race? Don't know. I'm betting he did. MADDOG!

I still haven't been on my road bike but tomorrow (Sunday) buddy Brian and I are scheduled for a long haul, rain or shine.

Image via Wikipedia

My ass is going to kill me.

Friend Andy is off on his first presi. Hope he didn't get hammered by Thor.

Anyone else? Bueller? Bueller?

MADDOG: WOOF WOOF!

We'll get the official MadDog report soon. If he doesn't send it along tonight I'll just post his email from earlier today which sounded like a letter sent home from the western front. Dear Mom, I had my leg shot off but the bleeding has stopped. Cancel the order for my spectacles - no longer have eyes.

[The Report is in (via MadDog)]: they wanted to see no more than 10% finish.

so with that goal, the very first segment was to stomach crawl a mud stream with a barbed wire mesh above it. all transitions below had barbed wire trail - you had to stomach crawl over rock and mud, and bring your gear along it all.

everything you started with you carrried with for the whole day (15 lb pack, full size shovel, full size axe, a tree stump and your bike (w/o tires). so with that we:


dig and chop out a tree stump (mr stumpy was born)
transition
2 hr up river run all rocks and slime
2 hr back river run
transition
split 1/3 of a cord of wet oak
hike and tag a 2k footer on trail
memorize and recall later pres names
retrieve leggos from a pond, scramble up a mud run (covered in barbed wire) and reconstruct a leggo block from memory
transition
2 hrs up river again
fetch a fresh egg, start a fire, boil water and eat the egg
put tires on bike (no chains on bikes at this point) ride downhill to a another farm
Nazi checkpoint people throw your bike into 50 deg gravel pit water hole 10-15 ft deep and murky (no visibility). you watch the point of entry wait til drops and dive to retrieve it. 50% of those that even got this far dropped due to hypothermia. I lucked out - my hit half way and stay afloat - just swimming to it and getting back almost took me out. Some of the cadets were in the water for an hour trying to locate theirs (and doing buddy hugs to prevent hypo)

Image via Wikipedia

drop bikes, keep stump and pack. then weigh in and based upon body weight, I was assigned 35 lbs of rocks to carry. destination "up the mountain". at this point I was only able to walk 20 paces and then had to do a 10 rest count. this pattern repeated for the next 2hrs as the course brought you half way up the mtn on trail - falsely thinking you were making progress, then they took you all the way to the base, and put you in a major brook inside a ravine for a 2k ft ascent bushwack in the brook. It was so dense with fallen tree, debris etc. totally over the top, trying to ascent it and lifting a 35 lb bucket with rocks in one arm, and a stumpy in the other bucket.

near the top, dump your rocks and meet the checkpoint team on the summit for your next and final task. guess what? GO BACK down the mountain, this time fill your now empty 5gal second bucket, to the rim with water and bring it back up. so off mr stumpy and I went, I was trashed. 2 hrs + later I was back on the summit with the water for my next assignment. The guys tell me ok dump the water. You are free to get to finish however route you want. I walked in for the next 1.5 hours.

My arms are nearly ripped out from the shoulders, I had barbed wire snapped into my eye, legs and arms full of abrasiions and brusing, neck and shoulder abrasion and brusing from walk with the bike on my shoulders and falling constantly in the river.

Glad it is done.


They kept you wet and barbed wire scrambling all day.

mutha's trip report:

Not a lot to report, other than that I FINALLY got out on my road bike, thanks to Brian Howard. First ride of the year. Woo Hoo! Lovely weather, threatening clouds.

Highlights:

• 52 miles (Montpelier to Morrisville and back)
• a modest 1800' of elevation gain total
• spent social time on way out - catching up on jobs, life, etc. took 2 hrs out. on way back, just rode. average speed just under 15mph.
  
• my ass hurt
• my neck hurt
• my back hurt
• my legs hurt
• brian is pretty seasoned so he kept the level down a notch to keep my in view. but is was pretty hilarious. we'd be chatting away and hit a small hill. i'd put the bike into my smallest gear and stand. brian would keep talking, not change gears and pull away from me. i'd try to catch up on the downhill.
• this ride never exceeded a 4% grade. i can't imagine doing a gap ride this year, let alone 6. i'll just end up walking the bike.
• on a positive note, i coasted faster than he did. not sure why. maybe it's my greasy hair.

This pic is from mapmyride.com. The vertical scale is GREATLY exaggerated.