The Raging Russell Adventure Race - Cornelia, GA - Nov 15-16, 2003

Wow! Another fine Adventure has been added to our list! The Adventure Family Race Team tackled the 3rd Annual Raging Russell Adventure Race as it's first real "adventure race". Considering that no one was seriously injured and there were other teams that finished after us, I'd call it a huge success!!

The Adventure Family Race Team Raging Russell Racers! (say that ten times real fast) Infoman, Chocolate Warrior, Daron (nickname pending)

Chapter 1

As with most of our adventures, just getting the group together is an adventure in itself. After packing my stuff into Sandy's van and slapping on the logo signs, I left the Triangle about midday on Friday and headed west.

The Logo sign is loaded!

Stopping in the Triad, I picked up some gear from SCOP, and let him talk me into a grilled cheese on pumpernickel before hitting the road again. When I got to W-S, I did a few laps around the Benton Convention Center before going in to search for JPQ. I inadvertently managed to slip into the ongoing Piedmont Craft Guild's show without paying (they left the side doors open) and cruised the aisles of craftsmens' and craftswomens' displays while looking for JPQ. I saw a lot of neat things, including a huge "tortise and hare" rocking horse that must have been 6 feet high at the top of the hare's ears. The "tortise" was carved from a huge knotty tree stump and formed the rockers, and the "hare" sat on top forming the seat. Very neat.

I had finally given up my search and decided to wait at the outside door, when someone in very bright yellow shoes walked up behind me and said "hi". We transferred some luggage into the team van and headed off into the sunset, literally.

As we wound our way up the mountain from Asheville, JPQ and I practiced our navigation skills. Seems the measurements in klk's driving directions are different from what the van odometer shows. That's a matter that's still in dispute, but since we also had the road names, we managed to find the subdivison without too much trouble.

The last time I was at the warrior's place, they had just marked the trees to be cut so that the house could be built. Now there's a nice two story house nestled into the mountainside. KLK's last house had a steep uphill driveway. I guess she didn't want to give up the steep part, so this one has a steep downhill driveway. Since it was dark when we arrived, and neither of us had seen the place before, about all we could tell about the driveway was that the edge of the road dropped away quickly and there was a garage door on the house down below. I drove forward on faith. JPQ let out a yell and grabbed hold of the OS bar, knowing for sure that we were about to tumble down the mountainside.

Warriors' Lodge

The warrior's driveway was Mystery Event #A. Fortunately, they had a nice paved drive and we rolled smoothly (on wheels) down to the house. After a brief tour of their beautiful house, we enjoyed a bottle of crianza and some black bean lasagna before watching the warriors pack their gear. There's no sense in packing too early. Then it was off to the hot tub for a relaxing soak before getting some shut eye.

Getting to the hot tub was Mystery Event #B. KLK had told us about building rock steps around the yard (hillside). She hadn't told us about not finishing the walk to the hot tub. So after we get in swimming attire, rock hop from the front door around the side of the house and down the hill, we discover the remaining 15 feet of the path is an undeveloped challenge. Since it was only 40 degrees outside, and my blood is thinned from riding all afternoon, eating dinner, and the crianza, I find myself developing major cold shivers while trying to negotiate a leaf covered slope in the dark.

Again, luck was on our side and we made it to the hot tub deck without major injuries. We threw back the cover and with teeth chattering, I hopped through the rising cloud of steam into a whirling bowl of bubbles. There were some stars out and we could see the lights of downtown Asheville twinkling through the trees below. A nice way to end a day. Especially if your next day happens to be a "3 day night".

Saturday dawned cloudy with a light rain developing. Far in the south, we could see what appeared to be the edge of the clouds. We had a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs before loading up the vehicles and heading south to GA. Just so you won't miss out on the food news, we stopped in Sylva and enjoyed some hot cocoa and cookies. They were so good, Marion went back in and bought more before we left!

By the time we reached GA, the sky was beginning to lighten up. By the time we reached Cornelia, over half the sky was blue and the remaining clouds were leaving fast. We joined the other teams in the parking lot of Ethicon, the company hosting the race. There were bikes and boxes of gear everywhere. We called D&K from Nashville and learned they were about an hour away, having just had a late breakfast at a Cracker Barrel after spending the night in Atlanta.

After more gear rearranging, we took all of our required items, including the bikes, over to the check-in area. We didn't know what the procedure was, so we watched others go through it. Watch and learn. We did and picked up on the fact that the checker wanted to see everything laid out so all we'd have to do was point to it. When it was our turn, it went so fast she told us that we won the check-in!!

Whistles? Check! Compasses? Check! Good sense? No way!

She also told us to take our required non-locking carabiner and put our team number on it and leave it in the pile of biners there. She suggested that we put something on it to help us identify it. We weren't sure what to put on it, but Daron finally ripped the yellow handle strip out of a trash bag and tied it on. When we went to get a piece of tape to write our number on, we found that there was only 1/2 inch of duct tape left on the roll. But that was enough to hold the last 8 inches of tape together in a big loop through our biner. Remember this description, it will be important later on.

Then we had to go sign away any blame or litigation rights and pick up our t-shirts and race package. In the package were our race jerseys (we were team #175) and directions to the start of the race, which was about 15 minutes away. Since it was around 1 PM by then, we decided to find a place for lunch before we headed to the start. But first we had to cram six people, all our race gear, and all our support gear into the van. It all fit, even though several people were holding duffel bags in their laps! We decided not to tell Sandy about scraping on the speed bump as we headed out of the parking lot.

Amazingly enough, the directions included a turn at an intersection with a Dairy Queen. The Family is well acquainted with the DQ, so we decided to grab lunch there. How we fit more stuff into the van is Mystery Event #C. One of the additional things was a pumpkin spice milkshake, which somehow managed to make it's way around the van and disappear by the time we reached the race start.

We were hoping to find a nice open campground at the start and be able to set up the big tent and tarp that we brought. Instead we found a line of cars parked precariously along a narrow road above a little lake. There were rumors floating around among the other teams about whether we need to take all of our gear to the pre-race meeting, or not. We finally decided to leave the bikes on the rack and just take our packs. Other teams had unloaded all of their stuff. Mystery Event #D.

Here we are. What next?

At the pre-race meeting, held 15 minutes before the race start at 3 PM, we listened to the safety talk and some general rules. We learned there were 42 teams checked in. Then they sent all the support people over to a tarp to pick up the race maps and check point coordinates. About 2 minutes later, someone started yelling for everyone to bring the maps back. Our support crew hadn't even made it through the line yet. Then they pulled all the support people over to the side and had another talk with them.

The three of us who were to race just had to sit there for about 10 minutes and try to relax. Should be easy, right? Knowing, or should I say not knowing, what we were about to get into didn't help.

When we finally got the maps and checkpoints, we learned that there were 27 checkpoints, spread across two topo maps. We got to work plotting the points on the maps and double-checking our numbers and measurements. Daron called them out while I measured and wrote. After getting them all marked, we went back through and rechecked the numbers and highlighted in orange the routes we wanted to take to get from one point to the next. In many places there were obvious roads or trails that we could take, in other places there was no easy route to follow. All of that was dependent on the maps being accurate, which they sometimes are not.

Coordinates? Is that a trail? Which way should we go? Where's the next DQ?

I was pretty focused on the map work. So much so that I was a little surprised to discover when we were finally done that there were only two other teams still working on their maps. All the others had already left the start area.

	Required ritual before starting an Adventure - left hands in the middle... MAY THE ADVENTURE CONTINUE!!
	Last chance, let's go!

We hurriedly packed up what we needed and ran off to the right, heading across a small bridge along the lake.

There they go to the right!

After going about 50 feet, we decided that this was the wrong way and turned around to head the other way around the lake. Our support crew was filming and laughing as they cheered us on!

There they go to the left!