Team Ragged Glory – Adventure Racing, Multi Sport, Friends

Team Ragged Glory raced for 17 hours before bowing out because of check point cutoffs, fatigue and foot problems. Although we did not finish, we raced respectably and are proud of our accomplishment. Official results are at planetadventure.homestead.com.

Here’s a rundown of the event:

Saturday May 19 saw the start of the race with a steady rain. The race began with a 2 mile run to pick up an orienteering map. We were then required to find seven checkpoints in the Ransburg Scout camp within three hours. We breezed through the first four but spent so much time looking for five that we decided to take the time penalty and proceed to the transition area for the canoes. We spent 3.5 hours in the orienteering leg.

The canoe leg was an eleven mile paddle from Hardin Ridge to Crooked Creek with a headwind. We made the canoe leg in four hours.

After the canoe leg we met Bob and Tim and the transition area and prepared for the big hike leg. First was a three mile hike that took us to the Tyrolean Traverse. The traverse was strung just low enough that we needed to pack our bags on our bellies. Our backsides and feet were in the water. We continued with wet backs and boots. The next hiking checkpoint after the traverse was on an island in the middle of a pond! We then hiked to the south end of the Nebo Ridge bike trail after joining up with an unranked team who had lost a member. We helped them wit some errors in their map plots and they helped by setting a blistering (both ways) hiking pace. We reached CP6 in the middle of Nebo Ridge Trail at about 8:30 pm just as it grew dark. We were given our second orienteering map and decided to take all the penalties and skip it to see if we could make the midnight cutoff back to the canoe area. We reached Checkpoint 7 at 11:30 and had at least a 2 hour hike back to the canoe. Steve and Doug had some severe foot damage, and based on the timing and cutoffs, the team agreed to exit the competition.

In reflection, minor tactical errors prevented us from finishing. Inexperience was the root cause. TRG remains alive and well for future events. More experience means success. I am proud to have raced with this team. It was an honor.

Doug