Genesis 12hr AR #2 - Adventure

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=361947is race course map on g-mappedometer.com

Results at http://genesisadventures.com/2006%2012-hr%20Results2.pdf

This format doesn't really work with adventure races so I'll just write it all down here.
TA opened at 6am at Housatonic Meadows State Park and then everyone was bussed 10 miles or so north to the kayak put-in below Falls Village hydro plant. This meant that we would paddle the same course that KB and I raced back in May - just that this time there was only 1/10th the water running so that instead of being in big rapids we'd be scraping bottom on many occasions.
Mass kayak start was cool and also the first few miles were into the sun and with a cool fog sitting on the river the paddlers ahead of us were silhouetted - man I wish I had had a camera. Paddling was good for the first 8 miles of so - had to navigate a few shallow bits but we managed to take the good lines from when the river is high and use that to know where the water would be - often we were still paddling and flowing through when others were walking. After the covered bridge in Cornwall Bridge the water got very low - we still managed to navigate through and around but had to walk it 3-4 times and use our paddles to pole off rocks etc. More than one racer broke their paddles and one boat got holed.
Paddle was 11 miles in 2:36 (back in May with the river running high we did the same stretch in 1:25!!) we came in middle of the pack and only 10 minutes or so off the leaders - the low water was a pretty decent equaliser.
CP1 was the TA. Then there was a 1 mile memory trail run from written directions down the road, onto a trail and 0.5 miles straight up to the top of Breadloaf Mountain (CP2) and back to the TA (CP3). Didn't seem like all the teams were taking their mandatory gear on this run - might've been good to have a gear check at the top.
Then the biking began - we had one big bike loop but with 2 stops for foot legs - one a trail run and one for orienteering. We headed off south down Rte 7 for about a mile and then took a L on Rte 45 and began a good 2 mile climb. Temps were fortunately only mid-70s and not humid but neither of us had really put in any long training (or bike training on my part) so the bike was slow but we knew that going in. Picked up CP4 at the roadside almost at the top of the hill and then took a couple R turns and looked for the L hand turn to CP5. The road wasn't marked and we went past it first of all where ARFE Masters were wondering the same thing. They took it and after about 0.25 miles we doubled back after seeing a pond that confirmed that it was the turning. We met ARFE coming back out as we went in - they weren't sure still ut I told them they hadn't gone in far enough. So back we all went in down the road with ARFE ahead of us. The road turned L and went up a hill and I should've looked at the map and realised that that wasn't the right way but I tend to get distracted when there's other teams around. We got up to the top of a hill where someone was building a huge mansion but the road dead ended and that's when I realised that we shouldn't have come up the hill and somewhere were the new driveway left the road we had missed a trailhead and that we shouldn't be looking for the road to continue but be looking for a path. We let ARFE go ahead and they soon disappeared as we rode downhill slowly looking off into the woods for the trailhead. We quickly found it - it was obscured by a 10-15ft tall pile of stone that had been delivered! for the house so unless you really loooked you weren't going to find it easily. I guessed that ARFE had gone back out to the main road and that we wouldn't see them for a while. CP5 was down the trail about 100 yds on what looked like a dry stream bed - that was the trail. We were psyched to find it and get on going to CP6 - a bike drop at the top of Kent Falls where we would travel on foot to 2 more CPs.
Kent Falls is what I guess they call a "honeypot" area - lots of people go there to picnic and hike the short trail alongside the falls so there were plenty of touristy types around. CP7 was down a trail to the north and then CP8 was a bridge at the bottom of the falls. So it was basically a big downhill and back again to the bike drop. As we got back on the bike ARFE Masters came in a good half hour behind us by now.
Next was a ride out onto rte 7 and then south to the village of Kent. R in Kent and then R up Macedonia Brook Road to a fork and then we had to go up Fuller Mtn Rd to CP9 and the start of the orienteering section. This, I thought at the time as we had not finished the course and I did not know what was coming next, was the steepest road I had ever been on. Don't have much fitness but I was zigzagging in the lowest mtb gear. It went on for at least 2 miles - there was no way to speed up the agony but eventually we got to CP9 at the top.
There were 2 'O' loops - you had to complete one to get the map for the next. We set off on loop A and had decided to walk it as we were pretty knacked. There wasn't the usual 'O' flags at the the CPs as we were on a permanent 'O' course so you had to nav to right on top of the feature (sometimes as small as a boulder) and then look for a metal plate on the nearest tree and the pucnh would be there too so you had to be a lot more fine with the nav as normally you can get to within 20 yds or so of the control and then see the flag but not on this course. That was fine for us - we nav'd well we just walked slow. Ran out of water in this loop but filled our packs from a stream and used Xinix drops to purify. Finished our loop and then were told that we had missed the cutoff for the 2nd loop. The race organisers had sent people out on either A or B first and hadn't anticipated teams not doing both loops so some people finished having done the shorter B loop so times were a little off. However, leaving the 'O' course was CP10 and then we "just" had CP11 and 12 to hit on the bike. I could tell from the map that CP11 was going to be ugly.
We wound around a few roads to the East of Macedonia State Park and then took a R turn down towards CP11. Now THIS REALLY WAS the steepest road I had seen - it was steep even going down it and it was not metalled just a loose stone track. I didn't need to tell KB that we'd be going back up this as you could tell from all the racers pushing their bikes back up where we had to go.
It really was a b*****d. One mile straight down, punch CP11 and then turn around and one mile back up just to get off the dirt road not to mention the 1-2 miles more going up hill to get over to CP12 and then sweet relief - a 1 mile or so easy freewheel ALL downhill back to the TA/Finish.
We were definitely not trained to do this race and then the race course was very hard - I guess so hard that it kind of was an equalizer - we all push our bikes at approx. the same speed! I didn't even realize til the next day that my knee never hurt at all so (touch wood) I think the ITB stuff is finally behind me. It was fun and it sucked all at the same time and the scenery was fabulous. By far the best AR paddle section of any race I've done - just needed even 700 cfs more but it was still fun scraping over rocks and walking it etc.