NYARA The Longest Day, Warren, PA, 8/12/23

 With Reed being a busy guy this summer, working and becoming Wilderness EMT-certified, this event was our only chance to race together this summer. So, we undertook the 9-hour drive to the western PA/NY border to brave The Longest Day. This would be my 6th The Longest Day and Reed's second.

This year, we were based out of Warren, PA, nicely situated in the northern Allegheny mountains. We checked in, got our maps, turned in our bikes, gear bin and paddle bag and then headed out to Bent Run Brewery for a couple hours of eating and route planning while enjoying the nice outdoor brewery atmosphere in (for now) nice summer evening weather.

The race start was early. We would have a pre-race meeting and board buses at 5:00 AM. Like most racers (and race staff) that I spoke to, this meant that the night before this 26-hour race promised little quality sleep. For me, it's tough to sleep after having seen the race maps/route. My brain wants to keep returning to strategic minutia instead of staying asleep. 

We were, uncharacteristically, able to each grab a little nap on the (school) bus, which is notoriously difficult. Then we unloaded at Holiday Valley ski area in Ellitcottville, PA for the race start. We began at 7:15 AM and would finish no later than 9:00 AM the next day. The first (prologue) stage was to hike to the top of the ski area, on ski slopes and trails, while grabbing 2 CPs and gaining 650 ft. No major nav here. There was the usual thing of many teams starting at an unsustainable initial pace (jogging uphill); we were happy to slide to the back of the pack and "race our race". We made the unpopular decision do do this 2.25 mile trek in our bike shoes. We both have comfy hikeable bike shoes and, by doing this, we wouldn't have to carry wet damp trek shoes for the next bike leg (up to 40 miles). We did not see any other team adopting this strategy but felt that we had made the right decision.

At the TA, we quickly switched to bike mode (just put the maps on the bike board and donned helmets) and set off onto the first, and longest, bike leg on the trails and forest roads at the top of the ski area. I immediately made a slight but highly consequential nav error and started off on what seemed to the right road, heading in the right direction, but quickly things were not lining up on the map and we consequently spent the next 40 minutes riding around trying to find out where we were. Once we were "found" again, we were able to start finding the trail CPs. We found one after some nice flowy trail riding and headed to the next. On the way, I had an abrupt crash on the classic front-tire-on-wet-diagonal-root, which immediately slammed me to the ground. No worse for the wear, we continued on to our next target. Here, I left the trail too early and sent us on foot, without the map (total rookie move) to a local high point where I expected to find the CP. After not finding it, I directed us back to the approximate location where we had left our bikes and eventually hit a trail, which I misidentified and sent us on a rambling 45 minute trail trek to eventually find our bikes and, shortly thereafter, the CP we were aiming for an hour earlier. Gah.

After this ignominious start, I directed us, more accurately on the trails to find the next 4 CPs without issue. The trails thus far had been pretty fun, smooth and flowy, but soon, continuing down Porcupine trail, they became more bony and with many sections which were best hike-a-biked. At the end of Porcupine, we were face with a big uphill hike-a-bike section on "Growler", part of which we had to reclimb because of bad Dad nav. That's when I heard a call from Reed, behind me "Dad! my pedal fell off!" Hmm. Okay, no worries, we'll just screw it back tight onto the crank arm, right? Examining Reed's bike, however, we found that the clip-in part of the pedal had fallen off of the axle, spewing grease and ball bearings onto the ground - not a field repair. By loosely sticking the pedal back onto the axle, however, we could continue. In fact, we were able to get 4 more CPs in this manner - riding slowly and having to put Reed's pedal back on every few minutes. We switched pedals after a while so that I could take a turn with the bad bike but, by this point, the pedal had tightly seized onto the axle and no longer spun. This seemed workable at first but we soon discovered that, with the pedal rigid, it unscrewed from the crank with every bit of downward pressure. So, the entire pedal was falling off the bike every minute or so. We then hiked to the last optional CP of the section with the knowledge that there was no feasible strategy to complete this leg, which included 20 more miles of riding.

Mid-race, a good time to work on your single-leg pedaling drills.

As luck would have it, we were above 2000ft at this point and therefore had enough cell reception to call race HQ and report our misfortune. Vice race director Aaron was able to come and pick us us, transport us to the next CP, and also loan us a pedal. This way we could continue through the race and experience nearly the whole course. Having skipped about 20 miles of this bike leg, however, we were an "unofficial" team and would be racing solely for "fun".

Arriving at TA2 by car, we quickly installed the loaner pedal and got ready to paddle on the scenic Allegheny Reservoir. The first part of this was quite pleasant - partly cloudy and nice to be seated in a canoe. During the last 2/3 of this leg however, we observed storm clouds approaching and soon found ourselves in monsoon-like downpours and accompanying high winds. The former were more of a nuisance but the wind raised a substantial chop on the water, eventually enough so that little waves would break over the bow and dump a little water into the boat. It was also, of course, a headwind, which slowed progress immensely. Many teams pulled their boats off the water to wait out the storm but we just plodded along, weathering 2 separate downpours. At one of the CPs, we stopped on shore to dump several gallons of water of water out of the boat. The last raging downpour coincided with our arrival at the takeout (TA3), so we had to transition in the rain - never a joy. In all we paddled 8 miles on this leg, picking up 2 of the 3 available CPs. 

Mid-downpour, pre-waves

This TA (paddle -> trek) was our last chance to see our gear, so we loaded up food to last the rest of the race and refilled our water reservoirs. As we left the TA, the rain was basically finished. We walked on the road for a few minutes and then on a trail and then headed off-trail. 

Skies clearing (temporarily) leaving TA3

We had made a conservative decision to go for only 2 optional CPs on the leg, which were more-or-less on the way to the mandatory CP for this leg. This was a cool area for off trail exploration, but, unless you were a team planning on clearing the course, it was not an efficient place to spend time because the CPs were few and far between. Other legs of the race featured more densely-placed CPs, and so, if you wanted the most payoff for your time, this was not the place, sadly. Navigating to our first CP, we had some difficulty, as my compass bearing and my intuition were in conflict with one another. We were climbing too slowly and walking too far but I kept telling myself "trust the compass". Well, eventually it became obvious that trusting the compass was leading us astray and, after a few minutes of map scrutiny, we discovered that we had overshot the CP by quite a distance. After correcting, we found the terrain to match up nicely with the map and after 30 minutes of bonus bushwhacking, we were at the CP. From here it was not too difficult to find the next CP, before eventually reaching some trail, on which we would spend the rest of the leg. Anytime you're off trail in the PA/NY area, you worry about encountering vast evil stands of mountain laurel but we found none here. The forest was pretty open and although brushy saplings and deadfall slowed you a bit, there was no thorny or stiff underbrush. We enjoyed the off-trail travel. The trail hiking was straightforward - just keep trudging. A soaking downpour arrived and continued for 30 mins or so, further muddying the trail and generally adding to the sloggy-soggy vibe of the final trek. We covered almost 10 miles here and picked up 3 total CPs before arriving at TA4 around midnight.

At the TA we were in for a real treat - the RDs and volunteers had set up an awesome rest stop inside the back of a rental truck. We we could sit (ahhhh) out of the rain (ahhh) and enjoy a fresh hot snack of taco toppings spooned into a Fritos bag (ahh yeah). It was a unexpected moment of comfort and a serious morale boost.

Soon enough, we had finished our snack, transitioned, and it was time head back out into the wet night for some more AR. The first part of this would be a speedy descent on road, so we clothed our wet bodies as best as we could (i.e., put on a windbreaker) and headed down. After a few miles of this, we reached a section which RD John Courain warned us pre-race "sucks so bad". This consisted of a rudimentary skinny trail through chest high weeds/bushes in muddy terrain which went on for about 1.5 miles. At this point, the RDs had placed pink flagging tape to show us the "best" way through this tangle. This was monumentally helpful. After following several sets of flagging, we were led to a low-elevation CP.  After this, the flagging stopped and our job was to steeply gain 600 feet elevation in a roughly southern direction and hope to find one of the hilltop roads which were on the map. There were some historic trails/roads? marked on the map that could theoretically be used to get there but it was difficult to match the overgrown terrain with anything that could be considered a "road/trail". Luckily there were tracks ahead of us through the weeds - either made by teams ahead of us or the RDs. These roughly followed what seemed to be an old road grade, which was somewhat encouraging. There was really no option other than following these tracks at this point. The main issue, however, was not the blind navigation (which was quite concerning) but that the steepness of the terrain necessitated a wet hike-a-bike for the entire duration. Even when the terrain flattened out enough to possibly ride, there were enough fallen trees to prevent it. This sweaty uphill slog took a full hour, while only covering a little more than a mile of horizontal distance.

At the end, the trail finally flattened out for good on a recognizable plateau feature, but by this point we had lost our enthusiasm for this race. There were several teams together at this point and we worked together to figure out how to complete the final connection to the road system that lie ahead. This was thankfully downhill and we soon punched into an odd labyrinthine forest road system.

Almost immediately after entering this road system we discovered it purpose.

We encountered several oil wells and oil tank installations and there was a frequent odor of oil in the forest air. It was interesting and a little eerie riding through the silent, unlit woods among this unusual machinery.

These roads were well-mapped and after a few turns we were back on public roads. We had been racing for 19 hours at this point; it was about 4:30 AM. Here again, we needed to descend speedily on pavement to our next destination. Strangely, there was almost no uphill riding on this race. We gained almost all of our elevation on foot and via hike-a-bike.

The next destination was Jake's Rocks, a nest of trails designed for mountain biking. These were initially fun trails and we picked up the initial CP while riding generally level and flowy trails. Soon, however, in order to get the next mandatory CP, we needed to ascend 550 ft on these trails. We were able to ride a few short switchbacked sections but the trail got rockier and steeper as we went along. So, again, we found ourselves undertaking a long arduous hike-a-bike.

At the top, we punched the CP and headed on forest roads to the next section. I'm sure there would have been some better trail riding experiences to be had in here while going after some optional CPs but, at this point, we just wanted to be done with this leg of the race.

After a few miles of flat forest roads, we reached the final TA. Here there were 5 optional checkpoints to be had on foot, if time/desire permitted. At the TA here and at the prior (TA4), we noticed a more-than-usual amount of carnage for a 24-hour race: racers dropping out, racers camping out at TAs and, here, multiple teams sleeping roadside just a few hours from the end of the race. We weren't judging. Heck, we had skipped 20 miles of the first bike and were feeling pretty spent nonetheless. It definitely wasn't the longest or climbiest race but it was taking it's toll for sure. Whatever it was: storms, mud, bad pre-race sleep, soul-sucking hike-a-bikes or other hardships, the racers were definitely feeling it.

Here we elected to find a single optional CP on this leg, I think it was CP28. We hiked out to it's approximate location and, immediately, the small nearby road was not corresponding to the map (at least to my sleepy pre-dawn brain) and I was not sure where exactly to point us as we looked for a "Waterfall". With all the recent rain, any waterfall should be really gushing, and so we were seeking with our ears as much as our eyes. We found several small falls but nothing substantial, while my altimeter told me that we had already gone far enough. I really didn't have the mental energy to figure it all out and re-attack, so after 20-30 minutes of fruitless bushwhacking in moderately technical terrain, I called off the search and directed us out of the woods back to the TA.

We said goodbye to TA boss Jason and biked off to the finish line in Warren, 10 miles away. This was easy nav once I we realized that a road called FR160 was not the same as an adjacent road called F160. Reed and I rode side-by-side trying to keep each other awake. We each blearily saw lots of hallucinated bears in the trees flying by us. We were revived quite a bit when daylight finally conquered the fog of dawn, and rode to the finish line without further issue.

It was really nice to be done. It was not a highly successful race but we were proud to have completed a version of the course, albeit unofficially. Discounting the car ride, we covered about 80 miles while climbing about 9000 feet and felt satisfied with the results of our trip.

We would love to thank the NYARA team (Courain branch) and all of the volunteers and sponsors who helped make this happen. It will certainly be a long-lasting memory for this father and son team.

Deposit in calorie bank on the trip home, Bath, NY.