GMARA Bitter Pill, 12 hour AR, 8/10/19, Waterbury, VT

This year's 12-hour race with Reed (hopefully a continuing tradition) was one of our first and still favorite races, the Bitter Pill. This would be my 5th BP and Reed's 1st. This year's version was in Waterbury, VT, home and outdoor playground of this year's course designer, Ross LiebLappen. Rob was tapped to join the GOALS team with Glen Lewis and Nicky Driscoll.

Per BP usual, we set a pre-dawn alarm in the hotel room. Well before this, however, around 2:00 AM, I was awakened by Reed rustling about in the room. "Dad, I didn't bring any contacts."  Hmm. And no back-up glasses either, Hmm. So, we fished his old contacts out of the bathroom trashcan, rehydrated them in tap water and popped them back in. After a few anxious, stingy, blurry minutes and one re-do, the contacts were working fine and we were back in bed for a couple more minutes of sleep before the alarm.

Once we arrived at race HQ (Blush Hill Country Club), we learned that we would be starting on bikes from here, followed by a long trek, then a short road ride, then a paddle, followed by a short trek back to here. There was a time cutoff at 3:00 to start the paddle. Since the final race cutoff was 5:30 PM, this led me to believe, without verifying this on the maps, that the paddle must be quite short. 

At 5:30 AM, we were off, zooming downhill on our bikes, which was a little chilly, but relief (?) would soon be on the way when we entered the Perry Hill trail system and encountered a flowy, bermed-out downhill section...that we would be ascending. With all concerns of coldness behind us, we spent several hours on the trails here, finding a number of on-trail checkpoints. Reminiscent of the Frigid Infliction, the CPs were marked on a topo map that did not have most of the trails, so you had to nav it up a bit to determine which trail you should be on to find the CP. We did pretty well here; Reed rode pretty well on the trails which transitioned from smooth dirt and pine needles to increasing amounts of wet, protruding roots as we passed deeper into the forest. The only significant nav snafu was that I totally forgot about one of the CPs (realizing it only when when the final detailed results were posted days later). Once we left the techy trails, we were treated to a wide mowed grass trail which was mostly smooth and downhill - nice. We rode the last half of the bike with the 2 teams composed of the Koenig family. It was nice to chat with them and see their kids kicking butt out there.

View from the flowy, grassy, latter section of the bike

Reed showing off the old "raspberry branch sawing into the elbow-pit" AR bike injury.

 Once we left the grass, we rode shortly on pavement and gravel before reaching a unique feature of the race. The historic road grade which led from our current location (n the Middlesex Notch) to the start of the trek, had long ago been submerged by busy beavers and was now a saturated marsh. There was no feasible ride-around, so it was a 1-mile hike-a-bike through the wetland involving lots of frogs, ankle- to thigh-deep water, surprise holes, and, during an ill-advised CP approach, a short swim. Although this may seem sucky on paper, we actually enjoyed this cool, scenic and downright funny section. Afterward we agreed it was our favorite part of the race.

Yep.

 After we cleared this section, we had reached TA1, where the trek began. It was a well-sited and laid out trek. About 50% on/off trail, hilly and with some very pretty spots. After testing the course, GMARA had deemed a few of the trek CPs worth 2 points, a smart decision which added a little more strategic planning and fairness. Overall, we did okay on this section, my nav was far from perfect but we snagged a respectable amount of points here. The only problem was that it had taken a long time to get them, so we had to turn on the hustle on our descent to TA2 (same place as TA1), keeping the looming time cutoffs in mind.

Out of the marsh and laying out a plan of attack for the trek.      Photo: GMARA

We met some fellow granite-staters who supplied this shot from the scenic summit of Chase Mtn.

 We hurried through TA2 and jumped back on the bikes in order to get to the paddle in time. We were riding from a "notch" to a "river" and therefore I was expecting a speedy downhill zoom, however there were a couple tough climbs mixed in which slowed the progress. Still, though we reached the river, site of TA3, at about 2:40 - a decent cushion before the cutoff.  This fact led me (who, again had not looked ahead on the maps) to conclude that we would be able to finish the race on time, as long as we didn't have a significant screw-up.  We flew through the TA and were on the river, kayaking in our bike shoes and helmets, in about 5 minutes. Once we got going, I thought I would take a minute and see what this paddle was all about. I think I laughed out loud when I discovered its length: over 8 miles. The trek afterward was short but mostly uphill and involved some navigation. There was no possibility of finishing on time.

So, with this in mind, we did not go crazy and bomb past all the CPs in an effort to make the final cutoff, we stopped and got every paddle CP while moving purposefully down the river. During this, we had seen a few dark clouds approach from the West but then veer off and spare us a cold soak. Finally though, in the last mile, one of the storms bulls-eyed us. Reed didn't like it. See video below.

Fighting through the rain and new headwind, we eventually made it to the tributary which held the takeout. We didn't have to go far up the tributary (Little River) but its swift current against us was a challenge to fight. Finally, cold and a little beaten up, we made it to the takeout and daunting uphill portage to the TA.

Fun little trail to carry a kayak up.

After laboriusly depositing the canoe at TA4, we took a minute to layer up and grab food for the trek. I think there were 3 or 4 CPs on the trek, but we were already over time at this point, so the plan was just to traverse the area as quickly as possible and not get concerned about finding flags. As we ascended the gravel road to begin the trek, a big group, 4 or 5 teams together, come jogging down the road, telling us that this definitely isn't the way and that they were all going to find some other way back. I rechecked the map, determined that this must be the way and respectfully ignored their advice. Soon we were on the correct trails, as confirmed by Ross, who we met in the woods, and making steady progress to the finish. Reed even spotted a flag which we stumbled across on the way!

Jogging it in.     Photo: GMARA

In the end, we had a great day out in the woods and waters of Waterbury and Middlesex. I thought the course layout, terrain, level of nav difficulty and balance of disciplines were spot-on. Our friends Strong Machine edged GOALS in the end for an impressive win.

A super shout out (do only old people say that now?), as always, to the GMARA family and network of volunteers and sponsors who keep this race going. We'll be back!