2011 Midnight Rush 12AR

From 4LPH41337.com

Stefanie's Take This 12 hour race was so much fun! It is a great experience when learning to race in the Winter and keeping you in shape while you really just want to stay inside for the warmth. It started out with a nice trek through the woods. Ben was spot on with the navigation. We got our shoes wet about 30 minutes in which was ok when you can rationalize you only have 12 hours to go. They did dry pretty quick. We got on bike after that which is my least favorite part. The biking was not t hat bad. I struggled on the single track, but kept an ok pace. Ben took us on some wider trailers that were ultimately longer to keep me off the bad single track. Thanks Ben!

After biking back to camp, we figured out we had to bike straight up Cooper’s Gap. Fun times. It was dark at this point and cold. I got up the mountain just fine, but was discouraged when I realized we had to go further along the ridge than just the gap. I broke down a little, but Ben and Jo were there to pick me up. Once we got on to the final trek, I was fine. Ben was once again dead on with the navigation. We were not able to g et as many points up there as we would have liked, but we did get some and had the coldest ride ever back down the mountain to camp.

All in all, the race was fun. I really like the 12 hour formats. I need to work on my biking more, but other than that, we raced really good together.

As Ben would say, roses to Ben for awesome navigation and helping me out when I was low, roses to Jo for always being so calm during races and keeping me calm, thorns to the creek we crossed at the beginning and thorns to the snow storm that came upon us on the ride down the mountain.

Ben's Take The 2011 addition of this classic race actually took place in 2010 and looked more like the Bull Mountain race known for freezing temps!! With Race proceeds going to support the Wounded Warrior fund the race was for a good cause and brought a strong field of about 40 teams to the line. Due to low river levels the paddle had been canceled and replaced with some extra trekking which is how we started the race. The Squad for this race was me and the ladies (Stefanie and Joanna) and we had a great time even if it was a little more biking then they would have liked. So we started on foot running to collect a few bushwhack points and a big climb before picking up our bikes where we dropped them before the race. this bike section took us to the bull/Jake mtn area for 20+ miles of FS and single-track riding collecting points along the way. We didn’t have any trouble with the navigation and I think made good route choices, this is a great area to spend a day and the weather was perfect at this point but it would get colder and wetter later on. Clearing this section we were back to the TA to warm up and change some layers before the 3.5 mile climb up coopers gap on bike. It was getting dark as we reached the top and it is always colder up there so the jackets were on and zipped up. We then rode along the FS rd 42 ridgeline to a TA where we dropped bikes to pick up a few trek points that were nicely places at the highpoints in the area. We started getting freezing rain and sleet with gusts of wind but we hit all the points and made it back to the bikes. At this point we checked our time and decided we needed to head back down leaving one other point that was farther up the rd. I hoped to make it back to the finish TA with time to head back out on foot for the two bonus points. It was a cold ride down coopers and we made it back with time to get out to one of the points but maybe not enough to then get back to the finish so we turned in our punch and ended up with a third place. The girls were great and I had a great time, Roses to snow, roses to Kent and Greg, Roses to Stef and Joanna, roses to hot soup!, roses to no rain during the day. Thorns to no double tow system, thorns to that hillside CP.

Joanna's Take