FRIGID
6 hour rogaine
1/20/13
361° Adventures
Team Eyes of the World
Racers: Eric Olsen, Heather Kluch
We decided to head down to Brown County, Indiana the day before the race since it was about a 4.5 hour drive. Luckily April and Ellie Hernann were nice enough to let us tag along with them and sleep at the cabin they rented which was at the race start. It's always nice to not have to drive to the race start in the morning! April and Ellie bring a new racer along with them (their dog, Rosie) and after many farty stanks wafting in my face, we finally arrive to the cabin. The cabin is pretty sweet, it sleeps 8 and has a fridge and a microwave, and the room is so toasty warm, I didn't even want to leave to use the bathroom but peeing in a garbage can would probably be disgusting. We hang out, eat delicious cheese and cookies that April baked, and finally call it a night.
We wake up the next morning to a much colder day, and dread leaving the cabin. Pre race meeting is at 9am and the race starts at 10, so I get only half way bundled up since we all thought the meeting was going to be indoors. Nope! So, Eric and I stand out there freezing to death while the race director lays down the rules. Luckily, it was a short meeting, so I only froze to death for 15 minutes. We get our maps, passport, and then head back to the cabin to plan out our route.
We decided to start with Checkpoint 2 and then head clockwise around and up, and then back down to get CP 1 before the finish. As soon as it hits 10am, we sprint up a hill to get to CP 2. Well that sprint turns into a lame donkey limp, this hill is ridiculously steep, I felt like it was murdering me. I wasn't anywhere near warmed up and start on something like this made me feel so out of shape. I was out of breath in seconds and my legs were like what the hell is happening right now? We finally made it to the top of the hill but I still felt like death on a stick. We find the CP in a blue bus and move onto CP 3 which was in a reentrant. This park was filled with reentrants and some weren't on the map so counting them wasn't always accurate. Some of these hills were so steep, I had to slide down on my butt so I didn't fall on my face! We snag the CP and get out of this hilly reentrant and head up onto a ridge line. I love ridges because they are mostly flat. We stay up on this ridge for the next couple CPs and then head up onto a main trail to head west to CP8. This trail is amazeballs. It's wide, open, flat, and we can get a pretty good jog on. So we follow this trail to find a pond which is pretty easy to spot. The next few CPs are also off this ridge and luckily we can follow the trail map (which was not to scale) that was also given to us along with the topo map above.
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We snag the next few CPs without any mistakes. Using the trail made it so much easier and Eric's nav skills combined with my nav skills, we were pretty spot on. After we get CPs 13 and 14, we head up north. More hills! Running on these things started to destroy my left leg because I kept stepping in invisible holes. My leg would completely lock out and feel like my bone was jabbing up through my torso. It wasn't very pleasant, but of course I pushed through it. We hit another ridge line with a trail which makes me do a happy dance, so we attack CPs 15-19 using this ridge line trail. I would marry this trail if I could. We see our friends April and Ellie, with their dog Rosie on this trail. They're moving pretty fast for having a dog running along with them! After this we only have two CPs left...20 and 1 which is back by the finish. A different trail pretty much lead us to 20, and so did the racer wearing bright orange. I thought this guy was the CP until it started moving! After we grab 20, we bust out the trail map to find out which trails would make sense to make it back to CP 1, which was a hilltop right next to a lake. Luckily the lake was on both maps so this made it easy for us to plan our route. We took the Homestead trail to Indian Camp and as soon as we saw the lake we crossed a reentrant and headed up that super steep hill. By now my legs were getting used to this...of course now that we were at the end so it doesn't really matter. We head out on a road back to the resort and sprint to the finish line so we look like we're fast. That's what every racer does even if they were walking seconds before. You gotta look hardcore for your finishing photo! We cross the finish line and it took us only 3 hours 3 mins. Since they were only allowed to use a small area for the race, it ended up being a lot shorter than planned, but it was still fun and a great workout.
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| Team Eyes of the World |
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| Team Rosie's Way...Ellie, April and their dog Rosie |
After the race we took a shower in the freezing cold bathroom and then headed home, with Rosie's (April and Ellie's dogs) farts wafting in my face again. It was glorious, but she's an awesome dog, so I couldn't complain much. We finally get back to their place but still have another hour drive back to our area. We decide to stop and eat since we are about to gnaw our arms off. We eat at a bar forgetting that it might be packed because the game was on. We at least get a table, but little did we know we were about to be entertained. First off, our waitress sucked! She would disappear forever and we didn't even order yet. Then some random person at table next to us starts cackling in a spastic way asking us what the score is. He's like screaming and waving his arms "Dude, dude dude, I'm going blind fo real, what's the score, I'm going blind fo real!". All I could think of was please shut up. We can hear you. So we tell him the score and he still proceeds to tell us that's he's going blind. I turn away but Eric still has eye contact with him. I didn't know this until later, but the guy pops out his eyeball and shows to Eric!! Wtf?? Who does that?? And then eyeball popper man rants on "I've been up since Thursday, LOL!", (yes he did literally say LOL after many of his sentences) and then he told us his wife got mad at him and he had to take his kid somewhere. How this guy has a wife and a kid is beyond me but I guess there's someone for everyone out there! We're hoping his friend comes back from the bathroom soon so spazzmatazz will leave us alone. Well his friend comes back and this guy still won't leave people alone. He starts telling the girls at a table next to him to smile. Well this is just a guess but she's probably not smiling because you won't leave her alone. Then two guys at a table next to us tap me on the shoulder and they say "I'm sorry you had to put up with that crazy guy." We finally get our meals and the guy stops talking to us. We can still hear his cracked out loud mouth stories but at least we don't have to listen and answer any questions. Sometimes the most interesting and weird things happen after a race, this definitely being one of those moments! Eric can now do a perfect imitation of crazy eyeball guy which now I'm sure will be making appearances in upcoming races. Can't wait! "LOL!"
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