The Chill Race Report
By Jesse Hagberg
Welcome to my The Chill 10 HR Adventure Race report!
The Chill 10 HR Virtual Adventure Race was offered up as an alternative to Adventure Addicts Racing’s 10 hour Adventure Race in Cumberland, VA that cancelled due to a blizzard in early February. AAR kindly left the flags hanging and shipped out the maps and swag to teams who wanted a crack at it on their own time.
My teammates on Broad Run Off Road AR and I coordinated calendars and found the only Sunday that worked for most of us. As the day approached, so did a new “Nor’easter” winter storm that threatened to shut down travel in the Mid-Atlantic on Sunday afternoon. The rest of the guys live significantly further away and decided to play it safe and stay home. The weather on Sunday was sure going to suck but avast me hearties, my Captain Jack Sparrow compass was still pegged towards The Chill.
I checked with my regular Awesome Sauce Adventure Racing teammates but they had other stuff going on so a solo mission it would be!
I hit the road early Sunday morning with a rainy but uneventful drive until I got within about 15 minutes of Bear Creek Lake State Park. It seemed like more and more traffic was building up behind me and EVERYONE was in a hurry. We were way out in the country; where could all these people be going at this hour on a crappy cold and rainy morning!? By the time I entered the park gates I had a train of cars behind me as far back as I could see. We were met with volunteers directing us where to go. I was in the first 1/4 of vehicles and after I parked I watched the lot fill up to overflowing within minutes. I was SURE I’d have the whole place to myself but turns out this was the date of the Richmond Road Runners Club (RRRC) Bear Creek Lake 10 Miler trail race. It was surprising and awesome to see so many adventuresome souls out to chase endorphins and brave the elements.
“The Chill” was true to its name. Temps just over freezing with wind and steady rain is about as cold as it can be. I stayed warm enough on foot and biking through the mud fest of the trails but once my gear inevitably wet out, the faster road riding was full on type-II .
The course was designed for 10hrs and included 2 large trekking areas around Bear Creek and Winston lakes, 1 central MTB loop between the treks, and a ~27 mile bike loop around the whole thing (all of Cumberland State Forest). I estimated the two trek sections to take ~2 hours apiece and the central biking to take an hour. With transitions, that would leave 4.5 hours to do the outer bike loop. Ok—feasible with clean navigation and fast transitions.
Beginning at the Start/TA1, I cruised through the central biking in around an hour including a southern out and back to a "spirited CP", locked up my bike at TA2 under the shelter at Winston Lake, switched maps and dashed past an inbound line of trail runners on my way to the big “Once Upon a Time” Trek.
I was cooking on nav for the first 5 trek controls until I got whacked for 20 minutes when I missed a control, took a safety bearing back out to a road, relocated and re-attacked. I found the control quickly on my second pass but my confidence took a hit and I slowed down in favor of accuracy.
This section was super diverse with marshes, deep ditches, cool ruins, mixed forests and big overlooks. I ran where I could but with the slick mud, blowdowns and briars it felt like I was moving through molasses. This first trek took me a whopping 3:43:00. So much for 2 hours!
Back at TA2, I switched maps, added a wool hat under my helmet and hit the road to Bear Creek Lake and TA1. I was counting on making heat on the bike with hard pedaling but along with faster speed comes quicker heat loss. In hindsight, I should have put on my shell mittens over my waterproof gloves which were barely water resistant and completely saturated. I powered through the 3 mile ride as fast as I could while quickly losing feeling in my fingertips. A thermal war was happening in my mid section as my quads blasted heat and my chest and arms lost it to the wind. Knowing that the remaining 27 miles of biking would be on faster roads/trails and I was soaked through, I decided that I’d hang up the bike at TA1 and keep all my fingers and toes.
A tiny Matt Wilson appeared over my shoulder and said "don’t get in the car, that’s where the fire is"…
At TA1 I turned on my car, blasted the heater, and climbed in the back to change into a dry mid layer and a spare/dry rain shell. I had felt my feet sloshing around during the day but was delighted to discover the sensation was just from water between my sealskin socks and shoes. My feet were actually pretty dry aside from a little sweat that the wool socks were doing a great job of keeping away from my skin. I fished out my rain pants from my pack and pulled them on over my wet tights, gaiters and shinguards.
The hot thermos I packed to drink a little and do a mountain house meal failed and was cold. Bah! I poured it into the Mountain House anyway while thinking about The Royal Elk’s technique of cooking dehydrated meals in their pants. It never fails to make me chuckle. In that moment I didn’t feel like I had any heat to spare for pants-cooking so packed up and departed “the fire” with a total 15 minute turn around.
Next I set off on the “Water Water Everywhere, Not a Drop to Drink” Trek at 3:15pm with motivation to beat 6pm sunset and 7pm the park gates closing.
The trails around Bear Creek Lake were a total mud-fest and slick as spit after a herd of a hundred something trail runners had come through earlier in the day. I was glad to have tackled this wettest portion of the course last. It contained a comical amount of soupy marsh, some legit water crossings, and of course it was still steadily raining and "snicing".
I chose to go counter clockwise, tackling the high ground first and delaying the inevitable marshy water crossings on the East side of the lake. My spirits were up and I was competing against the clock and the cold to keep me moving quickly. Nav went decently well. I was having challenges with tight terrain association and relied mostly on the ABCDs - attack point, bearing, catch point, and distance. At times my altimeter added confidence to stay in contact with the map.
Halfway around the loop it was time to get wet with a couple of thigh high water crossings. WOOHOOO. Yep, that's the good stuff. I could finally feel water seeping down my socks and soaking my feet. It was a pretty good run with dry feet and had to happen sometime. The last couple of checkpoints went well enough though I was losing light fast.
By the time I made it to the vicinity of the last Control, CP42, it was DARK DARK with just barely enough light to make my way through the woods. I should have pulled out my headlamp as I approached the control but since it was only 150m from my car I figured it was a gimme.
NOPE!
I rolled into the reentrant where it should be and made a pass up and down it without ever seeing it. At this point I started wondering what if the park ranger closed the gates early and I got stuck in here. I made one more quick pass from a different direction and just headed back to my car where it promptly started snowing heavily AND STICKING.
After 8 hours and 57 minutes of action, I put down a towel on my seats and carefully drove out of the park drinking down my cold Mountain House, very satisfied by an awesome day in the woods. I called Bethany as soon as I cleared the park gates and she kept me company while I drove home through the snow.
Here's a big Thank You to Michelle Faucher and Liz Faucher for putting together an awesome course and for the extra work to make it Virtual when Nature said NOPE.
It was super fun and also humbling to see I'd need 4-5 more hours to clear it!
— FIN —
Congrats if you’ve made it this far.
For those of you like me who like reading adventure reports and wonder what did you carry? How did you prepare? etc...Here is some bonus content…
Clothing
Bottom - 3/4 length tights, alpaca wool socks under knee-high sealskin waterproof socks, trail running gaiters, moxie gear shinguards, one size up Bronax running shoes. Rain skirt (didn’t use). Rain pants (used for last trek section)
Top - Brynje open mesh wool base layer LS shirt, LS lightweight polypro shirt, rain shell, neck buff, boonie/bucket hat, 100% HYDROMATIC waterproof gloves. Smartwool hat (used briefly on the bike). Smartwool LS mid layer (added for last trek section). Extra wool socks (didn’t use) Extra fleece gloves (didn’t use).
Lube
Body Lube: standard body glide - parts that move
Morning Foot Prep: cleaned w/ soap and water and dried 5 mins Prepped soles and achilles with tincture of benzoin - creates tacky surface for lube and tape to better stay put.
Lightly applied foot glide (by body glide) to soles, tops of and between toes.
Rounded the corners of a strip of Leukotape P and applied to the back of each heel extending 3” up the achilles while achilles are maximally stretched. Rubbed the tape for 20 seconds to warm and complete the bond.
Socks on and RTG.
Food and H20
2 bottles of 4 HR FUEL, 800 cals per bottle; Horchata (yum), Tang (also yum)
1 bottle of Tailwind, 400 cals + 2 LMNT packets
1 bottle of plain H20, in case of stomach issues or wound irrigation
Mountain House - Chicken and Dumplings,(for the finish line)
Tech & Nav
Garmin Fenix 7X… w/ AR Mode
Kanpas Wrist Compass for Bike
Kanpas thumb compass for Trek
XR Gear map board - early prototype still getting it done!
Bulk 11x17" poly bags for map cases
Elastic bedsheet straps to secure map case and passport to pack for hands free
Cell phone fully charged (for tracking and EMR comms)
Backup Battery Pack and charging cable
2nd Cell phone in car (work phone) in case first one gets lost in the swamp of sadness, to ensure redundancy of being able to tell B I’m ok (do not call in the cavalry!)
Backpack: OutThere WC 30L. (Was just right for this kind of kitchen sink operation).
Safety++ (considering I’d be solo and expecting no one to be out in the State Forest on such a day)
Headlamp
Bike light(s), spare tube, repair kit
Hunter blaze orange item
2 person first aid kit, recently restocked
+Full sized trauma scissors
+C-Splint - I don’t usually carry this but eh, it’s slippery out and also, Andrea Anderson, thinking of you!
+Tactical Tourniquet - Note, this was to mitigate the risk of crossing beaver dams (made of carefully sharpened spears), slipping through and slashing an artery. (Thanks Justin Mann for showing me how to use these!)
Separate smaller first aid kit just for feet (overkill for such a short race but it lives in my pack so just left it. Besides, it's free training!)
Toilet Paper
SOL Emergency bivvy
Cutdown foam pad for dry/warm sitting
Fire starting kit (sure thing buddy)
Knife, Whistle, pictures of all maps on phone
Logged flight plan with Bethany and planned check-ins at TAs
Hard candy - for quick sugar to the brain in case of confusion
What went well?
4 HR FUEL and TAILWIND both went down easy for fuel. Having all liquid calories on a cold day made me have to pee a bunch but I had good energy all day. Brynje open mesh base layer LS shirt (European party boy shirts). After this outing and the recent Winter Wildcat as proving grounds, I’m a big fan. The only downside is the aesthetics and I don’t care about that as long as it keeps me warm and dry!
What would you change?
The waterproof gloves I have… aren’t. An hour of rain and they were completely saturated inside and out. Albeit soaked, they kept my hands warm enough while trekking but as soon as I was in the wind from biking my hands froze. I’m still on the hunt for a better solution to cold + wet hands. Temps just above freezing and driving rain is a tough solve.
Nav practice! I occasionally interpret spurs as reentrants but obviously prefer to shoot bullseyes.
