When going through hell, keep going

Truer words of wisdom do not exist. The 24 Hour Wild and Wonderful AR is over and it was everything and more I thought it would be. The most exhilirating and the most difficult thing I've ever done. There were some of the highest points in my life and some of the lowest. I will be writing a pretty lengthy blog about the race this evening, but I thought I would share with my faithful following that a) I'm still alive an b) Rolling Thunder, Pouring Rain is a contender baby!!!

Photo courtesy of our new friends Cheryl and Bobby, taken after our lightening fast trek on the rail trail. From left to right, Mick, Charlie, Zack and Cam

The Wild and Wonderful 24 Hour Adventure Race 2007

The race weekend began with me driving to Arlington, VA to pick up Zack and his college buddy, Mick. We packed our things and headed down to WV. It was a long haul - 6 hours. Our first stop was in Fayettesville to pick up Mick's rental bike and then our adventure began. We got a call from Charlie, Mick's brother-in-law and our fourth teammate, with a request to find a strobe light. He couldn't find one. So we added that to our list. Three shops later and no strobe. We found a dog blinker - maybe we could squeak by on that. We opted to forge on and eventually picked up a strobe (better described as a cute blinky) light at a raft store which was operated by a couple of stoners. Asking for a strobe in that establishment led to the obvious question, "Where's the party?"

We exited the store and headed to Camp Washington Carver (race headquarters), but not before we figured out that we also needed dry bags. Dammit, this was getting ridiculous. What else were we forgetting? So we decided to see if we could rent them. No luck. We headed back to town to Ace Adventure Store, where we found the dog light and picked up four dry bags.

Done. Off to Camp WC. We met up with Charlie and exchanged hellos and we started the gear check process. It went off without a hitch. The bike check however was a different story. Mick had a generator headlamp system which I think he stole from my father's Schwinn Fastback. I wonder if he had the Mickey Mantle rookie card that made my pop's bike sound like a motorcycle when it struck the spokes?

We got through the checks and Mick and Charlie went to sign into our cabin. Zack and I head into town for some food. We met back at the pre-race debrief, got the usual spiel, ate our dinner, got our maps and headed back to the cabin to prep for the day ahead of us. We mixed our drinks, packed our bags and plotted our course (via UTMs - thanks Zack).

Bed by 2 am, alarms set for 6 am. Lights out.

More to come...