Port to Fort #4

The 4th running of the Port to Fort Adventure Race went off with a few last minute changes, and was a spectacular race. I have done all 4 years, and the returning team of Zombie Hors D'oeuevres (Mitch Drummond, Channing Wendt, and I) was back to defend their title of DFL in the long race--a 5 mile-ish trail run with a 40yard swim in DEEP water, and another 5 miles in a canoe, and then a bike race of undetermined distance on a mix of surfaces. It was truly an adventure. 

The starting gun sounded while I was in the porta-potty, and there was a minor misunderstanding as to whether we were supposed to start at 7:00 or 7:15--our fault. So, we started about 7-8 minutes late. 

 
Since the Arkansas River Navigation Channel is so high due to crazy summer rains, the normal Three Rivers Trail could not be used, and the canoe trip had to be moved from the super wide deep exposed barge-way to the Grand (Neosho) River just below Ft Gibson Dam. Our run consisted of mostly paved road on the shoulder of scenic HWY 80. My pictures here did not turn out well, and I spent most of my time trying to keep a good pace up and did not fiddle with my camera much. Our team had to stay within 100 feet of each other, and Mitch and Channing were in a groove.


Our groove came to a halt when I hit the swim portion. I thought there was gonna by some sort of life vests, which IS allowed, but there were none. I am a very poor swimmer. I sink straight to the bottom, and the creek which flowed into a swollen Grand River was at least 30 feet deep. (I have fished here.) I got into the edge of the water which was instantly over my head, and sat on a submerged tree, just frozen. I was not panicking, but I just was not sure HOW I could get across. One COULD bypass the swim and finish the race, but would not be an official finisher.

Finally, the dude in the kayak loaned me his vest, and Mitch told me to stay afloat and hang on to his foot. He swam and dragged my dead-whale body across, and with this good planning and using the rope to pull us along, we made it. If I did not have shoes, socks, and s a shirt on--and if I had on scuba flippers, I could swim it. I was very humbled and thankful for Mitch's help. He complicated me on facing my fears, and reminded me that we a were a team.


There were a couple of newly created trail sections on the run portion, but most was road running.
We had an ice chest to take with us on the canoe. A good selection of beers, and Gatorade is a must for our team


The river was scenic and shaded for much of the way. In years past when canoeing on the navigation channel, the water seemed still, and we paddled into a headwind every year. Stop paddling to scratch your nose, and you're dead in the water. But this year in this raver, the current was swift. I think our canoe time was faster than our run time.

The new aluminum canoes were so much better than the old heavy fiberglass ones the race used to use. They sat high in the water, but at times it seemed like we might tip over. Mitch had his butt clinched tightly to his seat. I sat in the floor of the canoe to lower our center of gravity.


The river was full and there were several islands. We guessed which way to go at one point, and guessed wrong. It looked like we were hitting a dead end, but saw we could paddle through the woods.


When we popped out of the trees, the old iron bridge was in sight. We beached our canoe here, and headed out for the last leg of the race.

We are novice mountain bikers, but we HAVE practiced a few times on Turkey Mountain ande did a lot better on the bike because of this modest amount of preparation!!

After a technical section of trail, we popped out on the iron bridge seen from the river. Old bridges like this are an endangered species a pleasure to ride.

 The Jean Pierre Chauteau Trail was a 12 mile trek last year, but this year, we rode about 2 1/2 miles on it before getting onto some gravel roads and rural paved roads.

 Channing is just praying we do not have a half dozen flats like we had last year.

 These single lane super narrow bridges are 30 years old, and at one time, this trail was supposed to go all the way from Ft Gibson to the Port of Catoosa. Unfortunately the trail does not get much use and gets pretty overgrown. I think we should schedule group runs here a couple times a year to keep things tromped down.

 Um--guys? There might have been a weight limit on the bridge.

 It got muddier the further we went. I knew it would be. I have worked in Ft Gibson a couple times the past week, and it has rained like CRAZY. The whole town of Ft Gibson has minor flooding all day Thursday. I was surprised there was ANY of the trailz that were ride-able I was ahead of Mitch, and hopped over this small channel of water/mud. Mitch was feeling his oats and tried to ride through it, and went head first over his handlebars and took a good roll in the mud. I heard him laughing and RAN back--not to help him, but to get a good picture.

Not to be outdone, Channing took an end-over as well. Somehow he pulled himself together though and we rode on like champs.

Near the end of the trail portion, we had a 100 yard water crossing. I think this was actually a gravel road that was under water. Mitch and Channing pushed their bikes across, and I decided to ride mine. I made it all the was across, and cleaned all of the caked up mud from my tires, gears, and chain in the process.

Next we had 2-2 1/2 miles of gravel roads that had a mud puddle here and there. We saw that we were catching up to another team and picked up the pace top reel them in. When we hit the pavement with 3 miles to go, we shifted into the higher gears and pedaled like crazy. It felt fast anyway.

We beat our time from last year (Ok, on a shorter course), we beat the heat, and we beat two other teams and a solo racer. 

UPDATE: I have just been told we finished 4th out of 7 teams!!

I had a little to do with this all women's team entering this race. I gave the race glowing reviews,and told them they could do it. Their captain was sick and could not make it, but Jodee and Candy toughed it out, and took home the women's first place team. WTG!!

Thanks to Joel Everett and his army of volunteers for putting this race on, and for devising a course that worked well despite all the heavy rains. I always say after this race that I'll never miss it. Looking forward to next year for Port to Fort #5.

Port to Fort Preview

I'm stoked to do the 4th running of the Port to Fort Adventure Race. I've been on a teem EVERY year, and will never miss it as long as my two feet are fit to use. 

This year has a different route due to high water in the navigational channel. The Three Forks Trail used in the past is underwater in places, but RD Joel Everett is a genius in trail planning and has found a spectacular re-route for us. 

We will begin and end near the old fort. This is where the runners last year boarded their canoes. From there, we'll run North towards Ft Gibson Dam. (See map above)

Joel and Muskogee Running Club members have been hard at work, grooming the trails where they need a little primping--but rest assured they will not be cup-cake easy.

Whereas last years trail run was pancake flat except for descending and ascending into and out of a couple of ravines, this years course runs a similar type route along the Grand (Neosho) River, and runs alongside some steep bluffs that tower above the river. Now if "I" had any say, we would go up and over these said bluffs, and then down then up again. That's how I roll. I have tried to discover the deep dark hidden agenda that Joel has contrived, but have only had very generic answers. :-) 

I suppose that's why it's called an adventure race.

 
This is part of last year's bike course. This is the Jean Pierre Chouteau Trail. This trail was once a very well established and very long trail extending from Ft Gibson for many miles north and west. Plans were for it to extend all the way to the Port of Catossa. But at the time it was built, trail running and mountain biking had not yet exploded in popularity. Joel and crew spent many days re-cutting and clearing the trail. The trail was not kind to mountain bike tires, and our worthy team had 8-9 flats between us and only 5-6 tubes. Our time suffered, but we just would not quit.

I just loved the bike portion. We had a few creek crossings wit  these old rusty bridges. None of my team had the guts to ride across,  Your mileage may vary.

Now if the water is high--this may be an even greater adventure. And don't worry about being last. Team Zombie Hors d'oeuvres has that place locked up.

Join us at the 2015 Port to Fort Adventure Race.

PORT TO FORT--What an adventure!!

Two years ago after finishing the first Port to Fort Adventure Race, I said I would always do this race as long as it's held. That was 2012. SO far, I have made good on that promise. My teams the past two years have competed in the adventure race which has included a short swim, a 5 mile trail run, and a 5 mile canoe trip. This year, a longer race was introduced, featuring the usual 5 mile of trail running, a 7ish mile mountain bike ride, and a 7+ mile canoe trip.

The swim is my Achilles heel. I do not swim. My best is a survival dog paddle which resembles treading water almost unsuccessfully. Each year, I have swallowed my pride and embraced the leniency of the rules and used a flotation device. Year one, I brought an oversized ski vest. It kept me afloat, but I could not get horizontal in the water and eventually found that I could lean back and do the back stroke. I was the last one out of the water, but we kicked some trail running butt and finished in the middle of the pack. Last year, I decided a boogie board might be better. It did not keep my head and body above water, and I ended up wrapping my right arm around it and beat the water to death with my left arm. Brian Hoover said he thought I had broken my arm, like my arm was in a sling. But as pitiful as I looked, I was in the middle of the pack getting out of the water. This year, I went with a smaller tighter ski vest. It kept my body afloat, but I still could not do the horizontal thing,m and did the back stroke albeit maybe a little quicker. My team mates told me as soon as they could touch bottom, and I was able to walk out of the water a little sooner than before. I was in transition before some of the speedier swimmers had left, and I swam in my running clothes and shoes so I was ready to go!

Our team was the Zombie Hors d'ourves. Zombies hate "fast food" or so the saying goes. But as runners/adventure races go, we are not fast. We would be a zombie's first course, hence the name. Our team from left to right: Me, Shannon Wendt, and the one and only Mitch Drummond.


We hit the trailz, and after a half mile we had found our rhythm. We were the last team out of transition since Mitch and Channing had some shoe/clothes changing to do after the swim, but we caught a team after a mile or so. The trailz on this section were the best they have been since the race began. We were just cruising. But a super fast solo runner from the short race blew by us just before the ropes section--no worries though because he was in the shorter race.


We did the rope climb, and breezed through the rappelling too without much of a delay. It was nice to not have a long line at these obstacles.

After 5 miles, we mounted our bikes and took off. This section was a complete mystery to us. I did not know if the route was on roads, gravel roads, trails, or what. We started out on a trail that hugged a chin link fence. My handle bars clipped the fence, and I quickly dismounted and walked my bike til I was past the fence. Then when it looked like we were gonna climb up and over a rail road track, the course markings sent us under the bridge, and then up a steep gravel reinforced embankment on the other side. It was like loose scree, and the thought that the whole course might be this hard raced through our minds.

Fortunately, we got onto a paved road, and crossed the river. This bridge was a treat. A good breeze couples with sweaty shirts worked like air conditioning. Down a paved road through a river access park, all the way to the end of the road. Now where??
The Jean-Pierre Choteau Trail. This is an old trail that has all but been forgotten. A renewed interest especially from RD Joel Everett has breathed new life into this gem of a trail, which extends 60+ miles from Ft Gibson to Catoosa alongside the navigation channel. Opening this section took days of marking and carving out the route through dense thickets and jungle-like bamboo and wild tall grass.

None of the three of us are accomplished mountain bikers, but we moved slowly and carefully, through the bike leg. I enjoyed the ride early on. It seemed hard but very doable. 


Anything technical or steep we walked out bikes. Everything else was a steady pedal/coast. And fun.


Twice on the trail we came across old very narrow steel bridges. These were barely wide enough to walk our bikes across. I doubt that even the speedsters rode across them. We crossed another creek that should have had one of these bridges. AS deep 6' ravine that was 8-10' wide looked like a formidable obstacle, but we worked like a team, with Mitch on one side, Channing on the other, and me in the bottom and we handed the bikes over and didn't blow much time. We were still having fun.

The fun took a detour when Channing got a flat tire. I had brought a couple of spare tubes, and we made like a Nascar pit crew and got his flat fixed. My CO2 applicator was in the seat-bad on my road bike though. I did have a handheld pump that pumped one thimble of air per stroke, so 275 pumps later, we had his tire inflated. 1/4 mile later, he had another flat. This time it was the back tire, but we still got it fixed in decent time. But the group we passed caught us. They were also having bike trouble. Mitch tried to help with a bent derailer, but needed a wrench or pliers, and could not do them any good.


Channing, with fresh tires (well, tubes) found his mojo and was cutting through the woods like a kid with a new bike. We got into a part of the course with a LOT of mud holes, and Channing plowed through these with reckless abandon. He looked like a pro!


In places, briers reached out from the newly cut tunnels through the thicket, and moth arms and legs were shredded. A little blood looks tough though.

The two tubes I brought turned out to be way short of what we needed. The newly cut trail could have been the cause. Cut stalks of bamboo were like buried sharpened pencils planted pointy-side upward. Steel belted tires with titanium tubes filled with slime would probably not have been any better. My bike had slow leaks in both the front and back. I'd stop and do 250 pumps in each tire, and that'd last a mile. I came down a steep hill with a rocky bottom, and must have cut the front tube badly because it would hold no air. With two miles to go, it was a hike-a-bike affair for me.


As a team. we were required to stay together. As friends, we would have stayed together anyway.


The rotten part--the last mile or so was much smoother and really rideable. It was heating up! I had drained my Camelback, but still had my water bottle. Mitch was out of water, and Channing was getting low. We shared what we had, knowing we were close to the canoe checkpoint. 


This bridge was a welcome sight. Here, we boarded our canoe, and we had a LOADED cooler--iced down beer, water, sodas, Gatorade, and BEER!


Knowing the 5 mile canoe we had done in years past was tough, 7+ miles on a 100 degree day seemed pretty scary. But we all hydrated, and got a good rowing routine going and paddled near the bank in a straight line and made good time--as good as you can do in a 2 mph current against a 25 mph wind. We were not in the main wide navigation channel, and the river did not seem right. After a while I remember this was called Three Rivers Trail for a good reason. Three rivers converge into the Arkansas which by then is the main navigation channel. We were in the Verdigris which is more narrow, and the wind and waves were not as bad. But when we hit the main channel, it was like rowing across the ocean. We could see the HWY 62 bridge which is very near the start/finish and while it looked like we were close, it was actually 2 miles away. It took us almost an hour to go those two miles against 30-35 mph winds. WOW.

We were the last ones in. The finish line was still up, the clock was running, and we finished to a round of applause and pictures from the race photographer. 

We were third in our division. The group behind us dropped. We have finishers medals and trophies coming. Cool!

Joel Everett does such a good job planning and organizing this event. It is still on my must-do list for next year.

Much mud is still being scraped out of my ears. Mitch washed my bikes off before bringing them back by this evening. Good memories were made.

Port to Fort Adventure Race

The Port to Fort Adventure race was Saturday, and I had toyed with the idea of participating. "Toyed", because it involved a short swim, and I am a sinker. A 100 yard swim--a football field. Problem is, I doubted I could even make a first down.

After the swim, there was a 5 mile trail run on NEW TRAILZ, and then a 5 mile canoe trip. The second two disciplines, I was sure I could make up for the slowness of my slithering out of the water. The race was open to solo runners, and three man teams. Since Russell and Rob were coming with me to the full mOOn 50K in Arkansas, and this was right on the way, our three man super-team was born: Team Ruh Roh.

We were pre-registered, and our friend Stormy was in charge of packet pickup, and had our stuff set out for us when we strolled in. There were 61 teams, and 35 solo competitors, along with 283 who opted to just do a 5K trail run.

I wondered if this was the mascot, or maybe an award for winning?

The green arch was the finish line. The start was down a hill and on a concrete dock of sorts. We had to jump into the water--a 6-8' drop to the 12' deep water. I stayed way to the back, and had several waves of fear. There was an option to just wade through a shallow section of the water, and some people did this, but I wanted to be tough. How tough? Not tough enough to not wear a life jacket. I think I was the only one who did, although PFDs were allowed. There were a few who used little chest boards, and buoyant tubes. I hit the water and sunk deep, before popping back up. Without the life jacket, I would not have surfaced. Doing the breast stroke was not working. I flipped over and did the back stroke, and paddled for what seemed like 30 minutes. In reality, it was about 8 minutes. In reality, it was only about 50 yards.

I was the last one out of the water, and since I did not have my glasses on, I could not find Rob and Russell, and my drop bag with my shoes. But when I found them, I quickly got my shoes and socks on, and we were off and running. To our credit, we were not the last ones out of transition.

We were off for the run. I was IN MY ELEMENT, and we passed a lot of people. I felt light on my feet, and other than fiddling with my camera for a minute or two, and taking a pee stop, we really made up some time.

This is a fairly new trail. The first 2-3 miles are around a year old, and the last part was a lot newer than that. Much of it was carved out of a dense thicket, and wound and twisted it's way along the wooded banks of the Arkansas River Channel.

Everyone's least favorite part of the trail--a short exposed section that was loose sand. There was no fast running through here.

But most of the way, we were treated to single track, or a wider path, with a few rocks, a few roots, and a few stumps to trip you up.

About 2 miles into the race, we had a challenge. We had a slingshot and five chances to hit a target. Five misses, and you had to jump rope 50 times. I am not to coordinated, so this could have been a disaster, but Rob smacked the target in the first shot.

There were several tree-falls, but rather than remove them, they became part of the adventure. Evidently, Stormy thought this one might decapitate someone.

No danger of tripping on these.

Step in a hole--bad. Stepping in a pink hole--really bad.

The last two miles were awesome. We went down one ravine and up another. There was a log-jam here, as ropes were needed to scramble up.

The wait to rappel here was a good ten minutes. The delay spaced out the train of runners, making it harder to catch the teams ahead.

A short jaunt through a park-like area, and then we hit a water crossing.

Knee deep water, and shin deep mud. Great fun.

More squeezing through fallen trees. After this, we reached the transition area, but first we had to run up a hill to the fort--hence the name Port to Fort.

These are some of the oldest buildings in the state of Oklahoma.

The fort-keeper greeted us with a trivia question about the history of river travel--"Which river is referred to as the Grandfather of Rivers?"> I guesses Mississippi, and it was right. had it been wrong, we would have been imprisoned and put in locks and shackles for a few minutes. I do not know how many were penalized like this--would have made some good pictures.

We ran back to the river bank, and boarded our canoe. There aluminum canoes seemed to teeter back and forth. I do not remember having the feeling that the canoe trips on the Illinois were so unstable. While we were technically going downstream, we were bucking a headwind, and thew water was deep and still. If we stopped paddling even for a second, we were dead in the water.

So we paddled non-stop for about an hour. Most canoes ahead of us were going left and right and left and right. We did our best to keep the canoe going straight, and doing that allowed us to pass several team canoes and single kayaks. We were moving up in the standings, and by the end of the race, we had passed everyone we possibly could have caught. If we could have bypassed the snags with the ropes on the trail portion, we might have finished a bit higher.

Entering the harbor, we landed, and carried our canoe up and across the finish line, finishing in 2:32. This was good enough for 10th out of 13 men's teams, and 28th out of 61 overall teams. Super fun--and a much better finish than I thought we could do. But still, we could improve on that next year.

A lot of races give you a medal for finishing. This race gave all finishers an AWESOME hat. I love mine. Plus, there was burgers, hot dogs, chips and sodas for all the participants. I loved this race, and will definitely be back next year, as well as back a time or two to run this trail. Joel deserves major props for pulling off an exceptional race. And Stormy did packet pickup, the pre-race briefing, the race start, and the awards ceremony. He is race director material!