2009 Siege On Fort Yargo
From 4LPH41337.com
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2009 Siege On Fort Yargo Info
- Trailblazers Siege On Fort Yargo
- Date: June 20th
- Location: Winder, GA
- Event Details: 5 hours
- Event Description: The race will include 8-10 miles of mountain biking, 4-5 miles of trail running, 2-3 miles of paddling, some orienteering points and a few special events. The race will have optional swims for extra points. Basic navigational skills will be needed to complete the course. This is an unsupported race.
- Event Points Category: Trailblazers Series
- Team Registered:
2009 Siege On Fort Yargo Pictures
| 2009 Siege On Fort Yargo Team ROC Gear/4LPH4 1337 | |||
ROC Gear/4LPH4 1337 Crew |
Michael |
Jack |
Josh Laura Joanna |
Laura Getting Ready |
Josh |
Pink Team Reading |
Both Teams Reading |
Team Huddle |
Team Huddle Break! |
Blue Team Discussing |
Blue Team Reading |
Laura Game Face |
Pink Team Packing |
Pink Team Running |
Blue Team Portaging |
Blue Team Dropping Canoe |
Blue Team Put-In |
Josh Rushing |
Josh Mike Prepping Canoe |
The Handoff |
Blue Team Shoving Off |
Pink Team Portaging |
Pink Team Prepping Canoe |
Pink Team Put-In |
Pink Team Paddling |
Blue Team Ladder |
Blue Team Leaving Ladder |
Pink Team Ladder |
Pink Team Leaving Ladder |
Joanna Biking |
Holly Biking |
Laura Biking |
Jack Ladder |
Blue Team Ladder |
Josh Ladder |
Josh Biking |
Mike Biking |
Laura Ladder |
Blue Team Finish |
| 2009 Siege On Fort Yargo Jack's Jills | |||
Rope Ladder |
Rope Ladder Anchor |
Canoe Portage |
Canoe |
Canoe |
Canoe |
Canoe Takeout |
Canoe Takeout |
Bike |
Cooling off after the race |
Group Swim |
Group Swim Kiddos |
2009 Siege On Fort Yargo Map
2009 Siege On Fort Yargo Website
http://siegeyargo.trailblazerar.com/
2009 Siege On Fort Yargo Results
- Team ROC Gear/4LPH4 1337 - Blue: 1st All-Male category out of 51, 4th overall out of 104
- Team ROC Gear/4LPH4 1337 - Pink: 4th All-Female category out of 7, 55th overall out of 104
- Team Jack's Jills: 3rd Coed category out of 46, 3rd overall out of 104
2009 Siege On Fort Yargo Reviews
Josh's Take
We went into this race knowing it was gonna be about time management and biting off what you could chew. With 5 hours and at least 40 checkpoints, that meant getting a CP every 7.5 minutes. Given the map and the pre-race announcement that it wasn't clearable, we knew that we should be looking for checkpoints that were time consuming and avoid them. And time consuming had to be used loosely here, since we at most CPs were 10-15 minutes out of the way, which is much shorter than we are used to. As far as the 3 disciplines, we randomly received the canoe points first. This was less than ideal for us, as we preferred to be on the water later, when it was hotter, and do the running first when it was cooler. Oh well.
We decided to paddle the upper section, and got attempted all of them (C1, C6, C3, C2, C4, C5). The problem CP was C4, which I'm pretty sure was misplaced 50m south of the plot. I know where it was after leaving and someone else confirmed it was there, but we had spent 5-10 minutes looking for it in the location it was plotted and to no avail, so we moved on. I also must say the Grumman was moving on the water quite nicely. Justin, Mike, and I were in our groove on the paddle, but only I was sad to see it over so quickly. But C7 and C8 I knew would take much longer to get than they were worth. With 5 canoe CPs, we then transitioned to the trek, which we felt was better to do in the cooler portion of the day.
We managed the trek pretty efficiently, running the entirety of it, except where we needed to hone in on a check point. T1, T2, T5, T3, T4, T6, T7. Then we got to TWP, where there were special instructions to get 2 unplotted trekking points using compass bearings and distance estimates. This was pretty easy for us, because we normally use the compass pretty heavily while navigating. We got OT1 and OT2, then continued toward T8. T8, if it existed, was in a huge brier thicket, which we realized--after attacking from 2 different locations and spending roughly 10 minutes on it--that we should move on. We then swam the lake from T8 to T13. We quickly got T13, T11, and T10. Ran down and approached T12 from the saddle. 10 minutes of searching, time to move on. Who knows where it was. Made our way to B2, and based on plot, T16 should be a short distance to the northeast, right? Wrong. Joanna confirmed that it was much further than plotted, as they had spent a long time searching for it. Thankfully, we were short on time and spent maybe 5 minutes before bailing on it. T15 was too much of a temptation, since we already knew where it was from the paddle, so Mike put on the PFD while I cooled off in the water. Did I mention it was 100 degrees at this race? 13 trek CPs and on to the bike.
Last leg was the bike leg. We knew that at practice some of the team had ridden the loop in a couple of hours with frequent stops to get used to the trails, so we weren't sure how long it would take with all the CPs. We had a 10-15 minute transition and jumped on bikes. I stuffed a clump of ice from the chest in my jersey pocket to help keep my temperature down, and we were off. B3, B4, B5, then to B8. We spent about 5-10 minutes searching for it on west side of the stream between the bike trail and the pipeline (where it is plotted) only to find it on the east side. On to B9, which I was frustrated with myself for looking at T9 and thinking that was B9. Once I realized we were going to the wrong place, Mike helped us reorient and get our position back. Back on track, hit B9, B10, B11, B12. We couldn't find a legitimate way to get to B13 without biking back down the road, so we found the nearest point we could legally get to the road (bikewhacking disallowed), and pedaled the road to the mini-golf course and then the trail in to the finish with 8 bike CPs.
We crossed the finish line in good spirits and with 5 minutes to spare and 26 CPs if my memory is decent (it's all a blur in the heat and Mike was navigating the canoe and trek). We weren't sure how we did, given all the trouble CPs we had, but after hearing that other teams had lots of trouble with the misplotted C7 and also with T9, we had a fleck of optimism about our placement. At the awards ceremony we discovered we were top 3 out of the 51 all male teams and were quite happy. Our strengths for this race were that we capitalized on our strongest leg--the trek--and that we did well on time limiting ourselves for searching for CPs. Given the amount of misplaced CPs, the latter became a differentiater for us. One last unexpected benefit was that we surprised ourselves on our paddling speed. The heat was a threat to our performance, but we came prepared and did our best to fight it off. Justin did a phenomenal job and was very energetic, Mike quickly got honed in on the navigation, and I was proud of myself for not having to get towed on the running/trekking leg.
Michael's Take
Holly's Take
Joanna's Take
Laura's Take
Jack's Take
First off, I raced under the name Jack's Jills, as part of our Membership Commitment. So ours was not an official Team ROC Gear/4LPH4 1337 team. This is the third time I've race with these exceptional ladies, Judy Schneider and JoEllen Ruf. They started adventure racing last fall with me at the West Point Dam Adventure Jam, then Challenge Four, and now Siege. They've come a long way, having never mountain biked before fall of last year--to now taking the 6+ foot dip in the Monster Mile section (near B-8), without issue.
Start When we picked up our maps at 8am, they stated that we needed to meet at 9am at the boat ramp, and that we didn't need to bring anything... The rules stated that the teams would be split randomly among the three disciplines to minimize congestions, so we decided to bring our packs and gaiters, in case we got to do the trek fist. People kept asking for the current official time, but they kept stating that they'd tell us later. At the race start, they told us to official time (why they wouldn't give us the official time before that for a race with a hard cutoff, I don't know). I set my watch on the run to find our numbered passport, which indicated that our first discipline would be the trek. We lucked out, getting the trek first via the random selection. This is actually what we wanted first, as we figured it was best to get out of the way, while the day was still cooler. We were already wearing our packs and trekking gear (loved having the gaiters).
Trek While most people were headed to their TA to prep, we just took off directly on the trek. We spent a full 2.5 hrs on the trek, looping the entire lake counter-clockwise (did not swim the lake). We managed to run far more than I anticipated and I think we made better time than attempting to swim the lake from T8 area to T13, where I believe most people did.
Details of attack: Of the CPs we attempted, we got all but T8. We attempted T8 from the lake side, but encountered an impenetratable briar patch. I'm guessing it was reachable from the outer loop bike path to the east, but couldn't easily get it from the west, so we pressed on. We got T1 & T2, and noted the canoe C7 under the bridge on the way to T5. Had a bit of trouble with T5, because the 75 meter diameter CP marker on the map covered the fact that it was on a peninsula... Then we used the pipeline to get to T3 and T4, then on to the Monster Mile section, where we picked up T6. We bushwacked the stream to T7, as we watched a team continue around the loop on the trail...we got there in a few seconds. It pays to have some navigation experience. We got to TWP and picked up the two optional points there. We attacked T8 from the lake side, which we did not find. After 5-10 minutes, I called it, and we moved on. Picked up T9, but noted that the dirt road in real life curves back toward the dam, crossing the bike path again...the road on the map is the overgrown thing that heads east--the compass does not lie. From T9, we hit the paved road on the edge of the out of bounds area and ran to T17 and noted that B12 was under the road in a drainage tunnel on the way. Ran to T10, which was lying on the ground and hard to see, then out to T11 for a refreshing swim. Judy punched T11 and we all got wet to cool off. Over to T13, then to T15 for another swim (Judy)--we were lucky to approach from the east side, as the CP was clearly visible. We were there with another team, which we watched put his passport in his shorts pocked for the swim back. I remember saying, "He's putting it in his pocket?!?" They said it worked for the long swim... Sure enough, when he got to the shore, it was gone. He swam back out, and JoEllen noticed it floating just below the water surface and pointed it out for them. Then we ran back to the central TA. 2.5 hrs into the race...
With only 2.5 hrs left in the race, we decided that we needed at least 2 hrs for the bike, so the canoe would have to be cut short.
TA Judy and I downed an Ensure each at the TA, and we changed out bladders. I doubled up the Nuun tablets (2 per liter) this time, as the 1 per liter I started with was not cutting it in this heat. We put on our PFDs and took off to the canoes--then realized we had to have our paddles to pick up the canoe as we hit pavement, went back to the TA, got paddles, then back to the canoe (3-5 minute mistake).
Canoe
Knowing that we had to get 2 CPs on the canoe section, we went for C7 and C8. We got C8 first, easily seen from the lake, then over to C7. There were a LOT of boats on the beach to the west of C8, but way too far north of C7...they were goint to be doing alot of bushwacking. We pulled up just west of T5, hit the pipeline, got the punch under the bridge, and were back in the boat in probably 3 minutes. Back to the TA...hardly seemed worth the portage, but it was mandatory to get 2 CPs in each section.
TA Being only 30 minutes, no bladder refills. The gals changed socks, but I just shoved my damp Injinjis into my bike shoes (let me note, that I had no blister issues this race).
Bike
We had right at 2 hrs to do the bike. We knew it took us 2.5 hrs the previous weekend with stops, so we were going to have to skip some CPs. This leg was filled with calf cramps and thinking maybe it would be better to just throw up and start fresh...
JoEllen pointed out that we could punch the TA box now, as there may be a traffic jam fighting for the 2:15pm cutoff, so we got the rope ladder climb out of the way. We had to ride counter-clockwise, so we picked up B3 and headed to B4 via pipeline and powerline. Then took the trail over to B5. A calf cramp forced me to ride with my left leg unclipped (fighting the cramp), and peddling with just my right leg. It subsided as we got into the Monster Mile section. We got to B7 without issue, then trekked over to B6 (there was a dirt road there, but not on the map). Over to B8, where I took a dip in the stream there to try to cool down. Not sure what the temp was, but my body was having issues keeping cool. I was oddly experiencing some chills every once in a while and wondering if I was actually still sweating (or was the breeze of the biking just evaporating it that quickly??). At this point, we had about an hour left to the finish. We skipped B10, taking the bypass trail, but got B11, which was visible from the trail (short bushwack). Over to B12, where I almost busted my shin open on the rocks getting to the tunnel under the bridge. Then we jumped on the road, cooked it down to B13, skipped B14 due to the time, and powered down the paved road to the bridge, and then the uphill....keep pedalling! We skipped B1 and B15. Upon reaching the picnic area (circle road just to the northeast of the finish), we had 15 minutes left. I decided we had time to get B2, but were going to have to pedal hard. I was confident that the Jills had it in them. We got the punch, then booked it down the powerline and into the finish chute! Much more dramatic finish, than having to go punch the rope ladder last.
Finished at 2:08, per Zack, but table check-in girl said 2:11 (my watch showed 2:06 based on the starting guys watch), and Zack wasn't willing to argue with check-in girl--I think he was scared of her. ;) I think all of the race staff members had different times on their watches, but whatever, as long as they had us coming in in the right order. Official finish time was 2:11 with a 2:15 cutoff. I think we managed our time well, not sure we could have squeezed in another checkpoint in 4 minutes.
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