The Longest Day, NYARA, Windham NY 9/1/18

Rob and Mason finished off summer with a Labor Day weekend trip to the scenic low-key resorty town of Windham in the Catskill Mtns of NY. This area is a great fit with AR: rugged country with a pretty sparse population and some mountain biking infrastructure in place that the organizers would make use of later in the race.

We started off at the Windham VFW to begin a 10 AM Saturday to 10 AM Sunday race. We were bused off to the race start in Nickerson Park Campground, where we began by sloshing around in and eventually swimming our way through Schoharie Creek (really a river) for the first 3 checkpoints (CPs). This included scooting along a submerged riverside ledge and then swimming around a bend in the river. Since being overheated is my baseline for most races, I usually enjoy these adventure swims and this was no exception. The only problem was that the "waterproof" map case took on a pint of water during the swim which made the paper maps/instructions tough to manage for the rest of the race.

The agony!

After returning to land, we embarked on a shortish (3-4 mi) orienteering leg through ruggedly sloped Mine Kill State Park. I screwed up finding the first of these CPs, but this turned out to be our only substantial navigation problem of the entire race, which was really fortunate for us.

Photo : NYARA

Next we hopped on our bikes and did a shortish bike-O through the Park before busting out onto roads toward the paddle leg. The course organizers estimated a staggering total elevation gain of around 15,000 ft for this race. Our GPS tracking was a little erroneous so I can't verify this but it probably wasn't too far off. Except for a few sections, it seemed like you were usually ascending or descending something significant.

We paddled on Schoharie Reservoir for about 8 miles, finding the 5 CPs on this scenic body of water. It is a protected reservoir so it is minimally developed. Apparently NYARA co-RD Eric had a heck of a time jumping through bureaucratic hoops to make this happen for us. It was a nice place to paddle, with the mountains as a backdrop for several scenic waterfalls, as well as a nice eagle sighting. The yellow sit-on-top-with-no-backrest kayaks have long been a staple of The Longest Day paddle sections. They are pretty much the least comfortable watercraft you will find.

Penetrating the logjam was an interesting exercise

Breathtaking shot of Bald  Eagle

Although the paddle was a nice break for the legs, after 2 hours or so, we were ready to be done with these boats, and it was back on bikes on quiet country roads for about 12 mi. The rural scenery on the ride from Gilboa through Conesville was like a trip inside a time capsule. Most of the farms, homes and open lands wouldn't have looked much different if you ridden through 40 or 50 years ago; a sort of unintentional historical preservation which can only occur in the absence of an economic incentive to make subdivisions and erect Cumberland Farmses. I liked it. Shortly, however, this reverie was terminated by a big (500 ft) hot, depleting bike climb up to TA4 where we would begin the monster trek.

By far the biggest leg of the race, the monster trek was, for us, an 18 mile, 10 hour hike on and around The Long Path - a length of mostly secluded singletrack trail through the forested mountains of the area. Although the trail skirts many of the mountains along the way, the RDs made sure to remedy that by placing hilltop CPs off-trail as needed, resulting in 10 or so major ascents for the leg. Except for a couple hours, this trek occupied the entire night portion of the race. The woods were fairly open and breezy and temps weren't too bad, making this leg quite tolerable despite the length (and heights). We raced well through the night with no major issues. We were alone for the majority of the time with the exception of trekking with Team NYARA-Breakaway for a mile or so and few brief encounters with other folks. Finding and including a big trek like this, in the northeast, in a 24 hour race, was a major strong point of the race course.

We strode into TA6, in Elm Ridge forest, the site of a nice network of MTB trails, to begin the final bike leg. This was around 4:00 AM. We had until 10:00 AM to make it to the finish line. We had to figure out a route to hit as many CPs as possible in Elm Ridge while still leaving time to ride to back to Windham and make it up and over Cave Mtn before rolling in to the finish line at the VFW. After cramming some fluids, caffeine and calories into our protesting stomachs, we were off. The leg started inauspiciously by me leaving the passport (where we mark all our CP punches) at the TA, costing a little time. Then we were onto the trails. They varied from annoying baby-head fields to rad bermed-out downhill rippers. We were slowed down a little by fatigue and a minor nav mixup but we made it through this section relatively successfully, if on fumes. It was nice to be on full suspension for this bike leg, as even the flowier stuff was chock full o' rocks.

After a short road ride down and UPhill, we arrived at the backside of Cave Mtn. The course finale was a World Cup downhill bike course at Windham Bike Park, on the flip side of the Mtn. As one would expect, ripping downhill from the top of Cave Mtn required that we first ascend it. Our provided route for this was a grass and dirt strip that went directly 1000 vertical ft up the mountain over only 1.5 miles (i.e., steep). We rode a couple short sections but this climb was basically a 30 minute hike-a-bike. The suckiness of this section was unmitigated by anything other than the almost laughable level of suckiness of this section. We put our noses to the grindstone, eventually passed a couple teams, and went up and over the summit around 9:00 - plenty of time to finish.

Although rocketing downward on a professionally built DH course is not in the wheelhouse of most adventure racers, us included, we managed a speedy but safe-enough descent through the park and rolled into the VFW with time to spare.

Photo: North Atlantic Dirt

After the race, we were met with more hospitality from the race crew, volunteers and VFW members, the latter preparing and serving a satisfying breakfast buffet. We came in 7th overall out of 37(?) teams and felt very good about our performance.

This was an amazingly laid out course in a great area for racing with tight race-day organization. We loved this race and give huge kudos to our RD/RO team of Aaron Courain and Eric Caravella, as well as the rest of the race crew, volunteers, VFW and sponsors - thank you!