(I used to be really really bad about writing up race reports at all, much less actually doing it in some reasonable amount of time after the race.  I've got a fantastic collection of partially written reports in various folders on various computers to prove it.  Although tempted to punt this one I decided to do it anyways even though the actual race was well over a week ago. (<--Proof at how bad I am, I wrote that sentence well over a week before writing this one...))

This years IndyAR started at Lion's Park in Zionsville, and I was racing it with Angelia Kneisley and John McInnes.  The first leg of the race was to be a small urban O course around the village.  Race director Michael Sapper and some of the volunteers were joking that I might know some of the answers to the clues for this section since I grew up in Zionsville.  They apparently thought that memorizing historical plaques in your hometown was the cool thing to do.*

*-Or, they think I'm dorky enough that I, at least,  found it fun to do...

We only had a few minutes to look at the aerial map we used so I made the snap decision to do the points in reverse order thinking less teams would do that.  Well, most teams ended up doing just that and we found ourselves playing lemming* to the wrong park bench to start the race out.  I hate starting off like that, but the time lost was negligible.  After that the rest of this section went fairly well other than overshooting one point.  Didn't have time to adjust to the small scale on the map.


*The lemming effect is extraordinarily common in a sport like AR, where navigation can be key.  Even the most experienced navigator can have his or her brain rendered useless if more than one team goes an unexpected direction and they don't stand firm to the concept of racing your own race.  Safety in numbers, self doubt, or a need to follow the pack, whatever the reason, you see this ALL OF THE TIME.  Here's some photographic evidence of the lemming effect from this race's paddle.  One team stopped too soon for a checkpoint and you see what happened to all the teams that were behind that one team.  My apologies if you recognize yourself in this photo, don't worry, it happens to everyone!


Next up was the "paddle" section.  Low to no water turned this 5 mile section into an exercise in frustration, twisted ankles, bruised shins and one tipped boat, (just one for us anyways, not sure how many tipped boats there were for the entire race, but probably more than one).  We started with a group of 3 or 4 boats, but it quickly became us and Mystik, with another team only about 2-300 meters behind.  (I later found out it was Sasquatch, who ended up finishing third.)  It was a real struggle trying to decide between walking with the boat, paddling with all three in the boat, paddling with one in the boat and two walking, and conspiring on the evil things we would do to Sapper at the conclusion of the race.

After finishing up the paddle/trek we made our way onto the long O-course on the west side of Eagle Creek Park.  The first point was quick but we whiffed on the second one along with Mystik.  This allowed Sasquatch to catch up with both teams.  After the second CP we stopped to dump the sand and rocks out of our shoes from the paddle.  As we were doing this, Mystik emerged from the weeds and their female proceeded to get pulled onto her face by the teammate towing her.  That in and of itself was pretty funny, but when a team member from Sasquatch emereged from the weeds about 10 feet from Mystik, and proceeded to go down on his face all on his own it became one of those AR moments you'll never forget.*

*-No one seems to have been hurt, so in this case I don't feel too guilty about laughing at others' misfortune.

The O-course went well and we made no real mistakes, but Mystick pushed the pace harder and went up by about 15 minutes on us at the first TA.  Matt, their navigator, knows that part of Eagle Creek as well as anybody other than that second control, was pretty much flawless.


No more than 20 feet out of our TA I was sure my shock had completely lost all it's air but it turned out to thankfully be a flat.  The resultant tire change was probably one of the quickest and most efficient I've been a part of.  We hardly even talked but in less than five minutes my front tire was aired up and ready to go.  Still, it wasn't fun losing that time.

As always the adrenaline you feel on leaving a TA pushed our biking pace and we quickly arrived at CP5 for yet another O section.  The first CP threw us for a loop.  It wasn't there.  Either I screwed up a simple approach on the very first control (never good for the confidence), or it was misplaced.  We had committed to pushing well up the reentrant to make sure the flag wasn't off so we were kind of lured into continuing on the rest of the course and coming back for that control.  (This ended up being a bad idea due to the vicious bushwhacking it required, but that's one of those things you never know about until it's too late.)

The rest of the course went well (other than the bushwhacking) and upon returning to the site of the first control we confirmed that it had been misplaced.  Part of me wanted to go place it correctly, but we had already lost a decent chunk of time with it so we took off and told race management, who confirmed the incorrect placement and moved it.*

*-Having directed and set control myself, I know how stressful it is when placing those darn things.  The only thing worse than waiting for that first team to confirm good control placements is finding out that one was off...

A quick ride brought us to the damn for the 40 foot rappel off the 25 foot rope, one of my favorite AR special challenges ever.  Angelia decided to show off her newly found swimming prowess and chose to do the challenge with no PFD.  (OK, this probably isn't the real reason she went without a PFD, and she's very lucky that everything went well...)  After a quick run down and around the dam, we were off in pursuit of first place, now down to them by about 25 minutes.

The bike was windy, and our "jolly" friends standing along the road outside of Ricks didn't make it all that easy to stay focussed, but we managed.  We picked up one more CP on the way to a triad challenge.

John and Angelia were in their bike shoes so I took a little over half of the run with Angelia giving me a much appreciated break in the middle.  And for what it's worth, scootering* is NOT a piece of cake, as evidenced by Angelia's slightly out of control careen of the trail on a smallish down hill section.  Although easier than running I didn't get quite the rest I was hoping for when she swapped me for the scooter

*-I would very much like to find whoever thought that scootering was an appropriate discipline for AR and have a little talk with them.  Scooters are for driveways and cul-de-sacs.  Oh, and kids, not grown adults with slightly cramping legs...

We managed to make up a few minutes on the triad and continued on the bikes up towards Zionsville.  Another clue based control brought us to Climb Time Towers where we each did a brief climb and descent on an auto-belayer.  I've never used one of those before and I must say it was pretty cool. That alone is worth a trip out there!  John proclaimed that climbing with bike shoes is not "big guy approved".

The gap at this point was down to about 14 minutes and all that was left was biking.  So, we put our heads down and pushed the pace as much as we could.  We made good time, and lost very little on nav, but unfortunately we only closed the gap to 8 minutes, and came in second.

So, two races in a row where first place was missed by eight minutes or less.  But, also two races where I had an absolute blast.  As always it was great to see all the usual faces out there on this years course, which was a little tougher than previous years.

Thanks so much to all the great volunteers this year.  It seemed like every control had tons of cheerful volunteers, which is always a treat.

Now we just wait and see what happens to the race next year.

Mike Garrison
Indy Rootstock