Week 29 - DNF

William Henry better have devoted his life to the concept of Henry's Law because that's how long it's gonna take me to understand it. Just when I thought I was getting it, I made the mistake of understanding it well enough to ask about the constant for CO2. As it turns out, nearly 50% of CO2 stays in the aqueous phase and it gets even more complicated by dividing out the species (Yes, there are species of CO2). Sigh...

This past weekend begins the break here at school, and my and my brother's trip to the Sub 9 Death March. The race turned out to be far more challenging than either my brother or I had anticipated. We made great time until we hit the backwoods trails - we were not even partially prepared for the kind of trail back in there. Pictures will do more than words to describe this adventure, at least until my brother's GoPro video is downloaded. More than 7 hours into the race, with no water, we hiked in to the last checkpoint since we were too tired to actually bike it. As was the case all day, the trail was a mess, littered with trees and we missed the mark for the turn. We walked for miles and eventually ended up at this barn with a man working in his woodshop. Good news was that we were only a quarter mile from a cemetery checkpoint, but bad news was that it was the wrong one. We had missed the other one by over 2 miles and there was no way we'd go back at that point because the race was already over.

No worries, we got the van ride of our lives from the founders of the race: cold beer, loose gravel, jazz beats, a Siamese cat story, high speed turns, VW mini-bus, creek crossings and a hard stop around potholes that would swallow a bike. We rode about 45 minutes and slowly realized just how far we'd been from getting back. We were marked a DNF, rode our bikes back across the creek and ate some cold Qdoba while packing up the tent. Maybe we failed the ride, but we had a great adventure and a challenging bonding experience, and now we have something to look forward to beating next year.

Sunset on the drive to the race.

The crowd as they started showing up the morning of the race.

First cemetery of the day at minute 15.

My brother when we stopped for a mapcheck.

Cemetery 2 at 40 minutes.

Cemetery 3 after a 300' climb.

Cemetery 4 on the tower ridge road.

We got a 45' bonus if we climbed to the top of this tower. Took video at the top.

 

View from the top of the tower.

View down from the top.

We missed this guy on the downhill and had to cut back a mile through mud for it.

Hardest earned checkpoint of my life.

Photo break on the Nebo Ridge Trail. Not as flat/dry on the hilltop as we hoped.

Mandatory checkpoint 4, with 2 hours remaining.

Optional before final mandatory. Sun's starting to go down too fast.

Our final resting place before pick-up.