Overmountain Extreme Race Recap

So, to get things kicked off, I guess we'll post our most recent race. The Overmountain Extreme AR was a 30-hr race based out of Morganton, NC. After a bit of a mid-summer lull away from racing, Lisa, James and Bryan were ready to get back into things and took on the course.

The official splits and finishing times haven't come in yet, but the team crossed the finish in first place approx 3.5 hrs before the next competitors, Rock Creek Outfitters, then all male Checpoint Zero and Might Dog soloist Chip Whitworth), followed by then Black Dome (formerly Litespeed).

Courese overview map here:
http://www.firewater50.com/omear/OME-II-map.jpg

Lisa's original report was posted to TrailBlazers' Message board, but I'm reposting it here:
First off, hats off to Michele and Chris for putting together a spectacular course. The scenery, course layout, and mix of disciplines were first rate. The weather was also PERFECT, so I couldn't have thought of a better way to spend my weekend. The start was at the Grandfather Mountain visitor center, however, this wasn't the "official" race start. Due to safety concerns of the Grandfather Mountain management, we couldn't be timed on this leg of the race, so our actual start time began when we reached Serenity Farm on the other side of the mountain. This meant that we could take our time, enjoy the trail and the scenery, with our only concern being losing daylight. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that this was a FABULOUS way to start the race. Low stress, easy warmup, and an awesome trail with cables, ladders and amazing views. We took our time and were probably one of the last teams to leave the parking lot, and ended up being the seventh team to leave Serenity Farm. Black Dome (aka LiteSpeed) had left before us, which was what we were hoping, so if we caught them, we'd actually be ahead of them in race time. We hoped the same would be true of Rock Creek, but we found them doing mapwork along the trail a few hundred feet from the TA. We left Serenity Farm on our bikes just a few minutes ahead of them, headed for the Wilson Creek trail. The ride was fast and fun, with a lot of downhill. We overshot the turnoff to Wilson Creek by maybe 1/3 of a mile due to me enjoying the descent too much and not paying attention to the map. We backtracked and picked up the trail and immediately ended up in traffic as several teams were scurrying around looking for CP 4. We went straight to the correct hilltop and James spotted the CP immediately, although with Black Dome and Rock Creek in the vicinity, we waited until they were out of sight to go pick up the point. We made our way up a steep pitch on the Wilson Creek trail, then it was down, down, down (did I mention Waa hooo!!!) towards our next TA near Mortimer. Black Dome caught us on the ride down and we rolled into the TA together. With a quick change of shoes and some food we were off onto what appeared to be a 12-15 mile trek in the same general area as last years trek. Black Dome quickly passed us as we all got caught up in a train of 20 something slow moving boy scouts. We lost sight of them, but figured it was for the best as we like to work alone. We then ran into Chris Brown who was advising all teams to attack CP 10 from the creek level. We did this but in my opinion, could have saved a lot of time just staying on the trail and dropping in from above. After hitting CP 10, we backtracked to the Mountains to Sea trail and, remembering the access trail from last year, decided to attack CP 9 from above. We picked up CP 9 and then continued along a trail to FS 58 where we picked up CP 8. From CP 8, we bushwhacked down to North Harper Creek and picked up a trail for a short while. We headed west a bit and then started an uphill whack towards Lost Cove Cliffs. It was a bit steep, thick and overgrown in places but it got the job done and we hit the trail just west of CP 7. We picked up the CP and climbed out on the rocks for an INCREDIBLE 360 degree view. After taking in the scenery it was back to work as we headed down the trail towards CP 6. We ran into Black Dome coming up FS 464 as we were on our way down. We wondered why they were coming from that direction, but figured we had a bit of a jump on them. After a LONG downhill run on FS 464 we picked up CP 6 and then headed back towards the TA on the Yellow Buck trail. Our legs were taking a pounding from all the downhills but we knew we had to keep the pace high if we wanted to stay ahead of our chasers. The final push over Yellow Buck Mountain and the descent down the other side was pretty painful but it also meant we were about to get off our feet. Back at the TA, it was another quick change of shoes and some pizza to go and we were off on a long biking leg. Having to pay the trail toll at some point, we were faced with several long climbs on this section. We made our way to CP 12, which was pretty well occluded by the vegetation. We then decided to head down to the Mountains to Sea trail to save some distance getting over to Table Rock. We had some difficulty picking up the trail, as the maps weren't completely accurate where the trail junction was. We went down to a waterfall but didn't see the blazes so we headed back towards the camping area to see if we had just missed the trail. We got some sketchy trail intel from an old guy, but it turned out to be correct and we headed back to the waterfall where we then spotted the white blazes on the trees and made our crossing. We dragged our bikes up the rocks to the top of this little waterfall and crossed the river. With dusk approaching, we though about how tough that crossing would have been in the dark. Once on the MTS trail we began what can only be described as pure evil. A nice hike-a-bike up a 20-30 degree incline for close to 3/4 mile. As we stauntered our way up at about .0001 mph, we wondered whether the longer route to Table Rock may have been the better choice (after talking to Chris and other teams afterwards, it turned out the MTS trail was the way to go but it still really sucked). Dripping with sweat and our upper bodies worked before even touching a paddle, we finally arrived at CP 13. Oh sweet road, how I love thee! We get a nice gradual gravel road climb and then we hit the steep paved stretch up to Table Rock. This was pretty evil too, but after riding up Brasstown Bald last weekend, we were all able to make it to the top without shedding tears, talking to God, etc. We do a quick shoe change and up we go to what I'm thinking is the final challenge to the race (its all downhill after that, right?). We crest Table Rock Mountain and head back down, hop on our bikes and fly back down the paved road (Waa hoo again!). We didn't see any other teams on the out and back, so we were feeling good and knew we just needed to keep it steady and not do anything stupid..like crashing on a pile of logs obscured by weeds on an overgrown roadbed... Ok, that didn't happen but it was going through my head as we had to chase Goble down the weedy overgrown road to FS 118. Once on FS 118, the road conditions improved a bit and it was a long, winding ride back to Fish Hatchery Rd. We kept the momentum up and moved well on this section. We managed not to get swallowed up by any of the abrupt 10' deep washouts on the road and hit the TA before midnight. Once at the TA at Lake James, we were greeted by a bag of greasy, cheesy, yummy burgers from Hardees. Did I mention Chris ROCKS! We quickly ingest 700 calories each and hop into our canoe for a calm evening paddle on Lake James. We tossed around the idea of portaging the large penisula, but figured we had a decent cushion, so we opted to park our butts in the canoe and just paddle around. We again felt good as we didn't see any other teams out on the lake while we were out there. We picked up the four lake CP's and portaged our boat to the final TA where Chris and our bikes were waiting for us. We had to load the boat and gear on the truck before we could leave the TA, but we were soon off on the final short bike section that would take us back into Morganton. Needless to say, this went a lot faster than the bony river paddle we were hit with last year. There were a couple of climbs on our way back in, but it was a pretty quick ride and the thought of a victory made us move just bit faster. It was probably a good thing that the Taco Bell and Wendy's were closed, or we may have had to make a pit stop. We arrived at the finish at 3:30 a.m., greeted by Chris and Michele and some delicious burgers and hotdogs. We refueled, then took a short nap until the early morning when other teams started coming in. We sat around and ate some more and exchanged war stories with our fellow competitors. Everyone seemed to be in good spirts, although based on the way everyone was hobbling around, we were all pretty beat up physically. What was really cool about this race was that there were several teams that obtained all the points before the cutoff. It packed enough punch to thoroughly challenge the fastest teams, but it was also doable for a lot of the mid-pack teams as well. Everyone who came in seemed to display a large sense of accomplishment. It was tough but I'd sign up again in a heartbeat. (just not today, as I'm having difficulty going up and down the stairs) Thanks again to Chris and Michele for their efforts in putting on this event. I'd highly recommend this one to everyone next year. The area is beautiful and Chris puts together great courses.

Bryan followed up with his own comments:
Michele and Chris B, As everyone has already stated, I can't salute you guys enough for having designed one of the most well-balanced course as I've ever been on. I thought last year's course was really nice, but this one took it to another level. You really, really spoiled us early with the untimed hike (I'm really glad it ended up being that way) over the Grandfather Mountain range with several amazing views and the subsequent descent/singletrack. I was kicking myself the whole race for not having packed a camera but I can't say you didn't tell us to bring one ahead of time. I found that "The Wall" was much more fun descending than ascending. I knew we'd be forced to pay the piper at some point and we certainly did later. But it was well worth it. Those views were absolutely amazing. Apologies to Black Dome for a small bit of deception and bad acting around CP 4, but we are a bit calloused for ending up on the short side of information sharing in our last few races. Good on ya' for figuring it out so promptly.
The trek took quite a bit out of me physically, but it sounds like our clockwise route decision/guess and whacking ended up playing to our favor. By the time we got back to the bikes, our knees were destroyed and personally, I had been reduced to a puddle of goo. James bailed me out on my sub-par performance on the subsequent bike ride, but that's what he's there for, right? Holy-shitballs... I was not thrilled with the hike-a-bike up especially knowing that we still had to climb up to Table Rock ahead Every step was a struggle. As a matter of fact, I can't really recall too much between there and the base of the climb up to Table Rock. Thank god it was paved otherwise I'd just have been spinning in place, I think. I was re-fried. At the bike drop, I remember telling Chris B which finger I was planning to apply my CP fingernail polish to. The hike to the top was pretty enjoyable. Wish we could have seen it in daylight. I know, I'm greedy.
The run & ride back down was significantly more fun than it had been the other direction. Coming down the overgrown road was a bit stressful at first but after a while I got kinda tired of the stress, wanted to get done with racing, I was tired of breaking spider webs, and my fingers hurt so just let go of the breaks. I figured that if I didn't see an obstacle and hit something, the ground would break my fall all the same whether at 5 or 15 mph. Glad we didn't have to find out. I'll put it on the record that I had pity for those without HID's on that whole descent. I agree with Jay that FS118 went on forever and ever, but it wasn't so bad bc at worst there were short, rolling hills and mostly descents. We cruised into the paddle TA looking forward to giving our legs a break... maybe too much.
Chris Randall met us there and provided us with glorious sustenance in the form of Hardees burgers. I think I had a mushroom swiss burger, but I don't remember tasting it. Chris R. helped get our updated maps together and we set off on the lake. We saw the portage option but played things safe and simply got the points in order instead. After hearing some of the other team's war stories, I'm kinda glad we skipped the optional portage. We bagged the points without much trouble and headed towards a bonfire on the shore, where the portage trail was. We warned the campers about all of the activity that was gonna be coming through there all night, but it sounds like they stayed put. Once we got the boat up and over the road, it was nothing but fun through the kudzu. The final cruise through downtown Morganton was pretty enjoyable as far as road rides at the end of races go.
Can you ask for more than hot dogs & hamburgers and a place to hang after a race? I can hear Neal saying "Guiness", but he's just greedy too. Congrats to everyone who raced, finished and everything in between. Thanks to Chris Randall, James, Lisa and all the volunteers along the course. It was a gem of a race and those that missed out really, really missed out. Make space for it in 2007.


Many more reports and comments regarding the race can be found on the TrailBlazers website:
http://www.trailblazerar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2445