We checked in around 6pm on Friday evening. The gear check was very brief, they did check for everything, but were not dogmatic about it. We received all the maps and CP coords at checkin. Plotted points in between checkin and mandatory 9pm meeting. (Lesson: we drew lines on all maps before plotting... A LOT of lines, not needed, should have plotted points first using only required lines. Also, forgot a T-sqaure) Kelly, Stacy, & Shelly ran out to grab the teams food and check us in to the hotel. Mandatory meeting was long and verbose. Did pick up some key info about the route. After long meeting... retired to hotel. More gear adjustments and highlighted our projected course, ordered/numbered the maps, and eventually got a few hours of sleep.

Sat AM...dropped bikes, boarded the rafting bus. 4 man teams went in the water first. 9:30am. Rafts were staged minus one member of the raft. NCAR1 was grouped in a raft with a 2xfather/son team with 4 x 500lb packs, I swear. Dancing Andy was in the key stroking position... Dancing Andy may be able to dance, but he could not paddle. The left out member of the each raft ran along a trail and had to jump in and swim downstream to get into the boat... this was to keep the boats from all trying to go down through the rapids at the same time. The New has A LOT of flat water... NCAR1 was passed by just about all the other boats we started with.. we are blaming that on Dancing Andy and his cargo. According to the guide, the trip usually takes 3 hours, with the two teams "paddling together" the whole time, we completed the rafting segment in about 1:15. Everyone stripped on the shore and dawned trekking gear... and we were off. 11am.

About 45 minutes into the trek, just across the old bridge (not the huge largest-arch-bridge-in-the-western-hemisphere... the small old low one) ... Brian grabs his stomach and started complaining that something didn't feel right. During the brian's-in-a-lot-of-pain-along-the-road situation, NCAR2 smokes by us. Well Brian got worse in a big hurry... before we know it, we have the ambulance on the way and shortly, Brian and Shelly are off to the hospital. Since Bob & I weren't going to be much help in the waiting room of the hospital, we continued on in the race, unofficial. Hitting CP2, Bob & I were in last place, 36th. We ran into Fayetteville to find the answers to a few questions. Each question you missed was a 1hr penalty. Quickly back to CP2... we were on our way again. 15 miles of trekking/checkpoints later, we were at the bike transition and CP4, 6:30pm. Plagued by headaches, Bob & I raided the first aid kit. On the mountain bikes... we cruised down very scenic overgrown rails-to-trails along the river.. hit CP5 and then onto backwoods WV gravel roads and started catching people. CP6, 8:30pm, yielded about 20 people many of which were in bad shape. CP6-CP7 was on paved Hwy 41, in the dark. A long 10mile+ climb.... motivated by flashing red tail lights ahead of us, we slowly caught up to people on the never-ending climb. About 9:30 pm, we met up with Bob, Tom & Angie... they stopped to refill water on the long climb. Bob & I decided to stay with NCAR2 (Bob, Tom & Angie) for the rest of the race.

11pm we hit CP7. This is where the nav got a little tricky. We bombed down this downhill to find new logging road construction... the trail split 3 different ways. Straight ahead, an old over-grown muddy logging road, down to the left a newer looking logging road (plunged into the ravine), and to the further left another newer looking logging road also descended but followed a contour. As we arrived, two teams came from the old logging road, claiming it was the wrong way. One of the teams, two "very strong" women, decided to plunge down the middle newer logging road. Another team went back down the older road. We were very undecided and lost. More teams show up, each one seemed to take a different option of the three and disappear, some returned and some did not. After about an hour and a half of deliberating and false starts, we decided to go back to CP7, where we at least knew where we were. On the way back to CP7, we met up with about another 20 people who seemed lost. What a cluster! Everyone had a different opinion on what was the right way. (Lesson: don't navigate in a big group, ever) We finally made it back to CP7 with about 40 people in tow now. A "local" comes out of his trailer hearing all the noise around the CP7 (which happens to be in his front yard).... drawing with his finger in the dirt, he quickly gives us the information that we were missing (i.e. the road we were lost on was not on the maps).

Armed with that knowledge, the 5 us took off with the rest of the 40 people chasing quickly behind. Let the death-match begin.... we dashed down the road, bypassed the wrong turn, took the correct turn, and darted into the woods onto a muddy logging road. It was a full-on mtb race at 2am in the morning with headlights bouncing, elbows flying, people crashing into mud holes... we didn't enter the trail first, but we did come out first led by Tom's awesome mtb-ing skills. Angie was also very impressive on the trails, laying waste to a hoard of people. At the next 'Y' in the road, a part of the big group talked themselves into following the road the wrong way.... off they went. Bob, with a quick glance at his altimeter, determined we were not at the correct 'Y' yet, still +300' too high.... yet another great navigation move. We bombed downhill to CP8, FINALLY.

CP8, we left the bikes... back on with the trekking shoes... and the 5 of us were off. Tom's knees were in bad shape and he was in a lot of pain, so we did what we could to minimize the pain (Lesson: bring whisky next race) including Matt showing his Herculean strength by carrying Tom down some of the downhills. Another 5 miles of trekking, we climb out of the gorge to CP9 (very scenic overlook as the sun came up) and to CP10 to finish, 6am.... a 20 hour effort. There was an optional orienteering course between CP10 & CP11 that could be used to pick up some time bonuses. A lot of teams skipped it and so did we.

NCAR-2 took 2nd place in their division!

20 hours
9 miles of paddling
20 miles of trekking
37 miles of mtn biking