Untamed Virginia 30-hour adventure race

Event: Untamed Virginia 30-hour adventure race
Location: Richmond, Virginia
Date: September 13-14

After having had a great experience at Untamed New England in June, Marcus, Joel, Pete and I decided to rejoin forces for Untamed Virginia, a 30-hour race being held near Richmond, Virginia. We wanted to take some of the lessons that we’d learned from that race and be able to apply them to a new context and we loved the idea of racing in a new state. Untamed New England was the first long race for three of us and our goal was simply to finish as a ranked team; at Untamed Virginia, we wanted to improve upon our ranking with the goal of finishing more in the middle of the pack. This goal may not seem overly ambitious, but we thought it was a realistic one.

One of the lessons we learned from Untamed New England was NOT to try and drive down to a 3-day race the day before, as we arrived way too late to feel organized and prepared to race. So, after work on Thursday, we met up to drive down to Virginia. Although it meant driving through the night, it also meant that we were at the race location a full day before the race. We spent Friday getting our gear organized and picking up all of the last minute snacks and items we may have forgot. There was an optional race prologue held on Friday afternoon that we decided not to take part it, rationalizing that it was more important for us to be well rested and prepared for the main event.

Our morning started early on Saturday with a 5am wake-up call in order to pack up our trucks and drive to the race start, an hour outside of Richmond. We had not received any maps Friday night, and knew that we’d have only have hour once we received them before the race start. Upon arriving at the race start, we found out that we’d actually be boarding a bus for another two-hour ride to the real race start. This gave us more time to work with our maps, but it was quite awkward to plot, mark, and arrange the 10 maps we were given on a school bus!

The race started with a Portage-O, which meant carrying our boats (we were a four person team with one canoe and one kayak) to 2 orienteering points before launching them into the James river. On the Untamed bulletin boards, there were hints that there would be some heinous portaging and that portage wheels would be helpful, but unfortunately we were one of the teams that did not take this seriously. This meant hoofing our two boats, our transition bag (estimated weight: 75 pounds) and all of our riverboarding equipment on the O course with us. Virginia was also experiencing above average temperatures and humidity for this time of year, so you can bet that this section of the course was a hot, sweaty and frustrating one for most teams! We found the CPs without any difficulty then proceeded to load up all of our gear into our rental boats for a 12 km paddle section. The section also included a conservation project in which teams could earn time bonuses by picking up tires (1 hour bonus) or bottles (2 minutes per bottle) that they found on the river. We found a tire early in the paddle and loaded it into the canoe, which was incredibly heavy as we had to take all of our gear for the entire race, with the exception of our bikes) in the boats with us.

This section could only be described as a gong show for us. What should have been an easy 2 hour paddle down moving water took us around 7 hours. Between the three people, the tire, the gear bag, the 4 riverboards and the leaky broken boat we had, this section was an exercise in frustration for everyone except whoever happened to be in the kayak at the time. We tried towing, to no avail; we swapped out who was in the canoe, to see if that made any difference; we bailed out water (constantly) but nothing would move that beast of a canoe. Definitely a tough way to start a race!

When we finally emerged from this section many hours later, we were told that we had carried our riverboarding equipment for naught, as the course had closed. So, we had to take a 2-hour time penalty instead and start on a bike/trek O course. We decided that the points could be located more efficiently on bikes, and finished up this section just as it was getting dark. All of the first night was spent on the bike, covering over 100km on various trails and roads. At CP12, we had to do a team time trial up a 2km long hill on loose gravel and rock. The winner of the time trial won free entry to Untamed Switzerland and $500 towards their airfare, but sadly this was not us. Still, this was a fun element to the race in the middle of the night.

Due to our boating mishap, we missed the 2 am cut-off to stay on the pro course by fifteen minutes. We were a little bummed about this, but mostly because it meant that instead of getting off of our bikes for an orienteering section, we proceeded to several more biking CPs and a Bike O-course. Because all of our dry clothes had been in the TA bag that had been carried (and dumped) several times in the river, we had been biking for several hours in wet shorts, developing an affliction that we have named “fire crotch.” Fortunately, we later discovered that diaper rash cream is a surefire cure for said affliction.

Pete’s navigation throughout the night was bang on, and we had little to no trouble finding any of the CPs. This made us feel a little better as we were fairly disheartened after our boat mishaps. At each section, we found out that we were slowly climbing back up the standings. The race difficulty and the heat were also resulting in a higher than average attrition rate; by Sunday, 13 of the 34 teams had withdrawn.

We were a happy bunch when around 5:00 am we finally got to get off our bikes for a trekking O-course. Because we had missed the pro cut-off, we were now on the “Sport” course, which meant we only needed to get 2 trekking CPs. These controls were found easily, then it was back on the bikes for another 38km before the last paddle section.

After our disastrous first paddle, we had asked the race director and CP staff if it were possible to get another boat for the final 18km paddle. We were a little worried when we arrived there and were told that we might not have any options, but after Marcus threw a tantrum and we asked for one of the boats of the teams that had withdrawn, we were provided with another boat. Unfortunately, it was the same kind as the beast we had had earlier, but at least the middle thwart wasn’t broken and it didn’t leak!
This paddle went much better. We all complained about trying to stay awake, but we covered the distance in 2.5 hours, arriving at the finish line around 2:00 pm. The official race cut-off was 3:00 pm, but we were told we could go and get some optional trekking CPs for time bonuses, so we dropped our padding gear then headed out for one more CP which gave us another hour time credit. We crossed the finish line around 1:29 pm then celebrated with a beer and some sandwiches.

Due to the nature of the race, with multiple time bonuses and optional sections, we had no idea how we fared at the end of the race, only that many teams had withdrawn or were unranked. At the end of the day, only 15 teams (out of 34 starting) finished the race ranked. We were 11th, and 4th in our category, which thrilled us to no end. Hopefully we’ll head back down south next year for more of Untamed Adventure’s races – this time we’ll bring the portage wheels!