The 2009 Bonk Hard Chill was the first race of the season for the Wild Hares.  Scott and I raced in the 2-person male division.  Before I begin the review, I want to say thank you to Jason and Laura from Bonk Hard Racing.  They put on a fantastic, well organized, and very challenging race.

The 2009 Bonk Hard Chill venue was the hills in and around the Lake of the Ozarks State Park.  Our goal for this race was, as always, try our best, run a clean race, and hope we finish strong.  The gear check and pre-race meeting was the night before the race.  This is where we received our maps and coordinates.  We were also informed of a bike drop section located at Camp Rising Sun… just a couple of miles down the road from the race start, Camp Clover Point.   Plotting the map revealed a short navigation section, followed by a paddling section, followed by the bike, and then additional coordinates to be received on the bike course (checkpoint 22).  The race start/finish was in the Lake of the Ozarks State park, specifically at Camp Clover Point.

Race Day:

After an early morning bike drop (5am), we headed for the start.  A timely 6am start soon forced about 150 racers into the trees for the first navigation/trekking section.  We had to get checkpoints 1-9 in order.  The checkpoints were positioned throughout the area in the trees.  This section was approximately 5 miles of trekking and   provided a great way to spread out the teams.   We ran a pretty good click, trying to position ourselves toward the front of the pack.  We were trying to avoid getting bottle-necked behind a bunch of teams at the first few checkpoints, so our strategy was to get our front as quickly as possible.  After about checkpoint four, we found ourselves in a group of five other teams that had broken away from the pack.  A run down the road to get checkpoint five, and then six didn’t do much to separate the teams.  However, checkpoint seven was different.  We plotted it at the end of what looked like a fire road or trail, near the end of a clearing… I believe the hint was a pond.   After getting checkpoint seven, we started toward eight to pick up our bikes and head for the water.  Surprisingly, we noticed a couple of the head teams turning around and heading back toward seven.  I later learned that these teams ran past checkpoint seven and had to go back and get it (it happens… as you will read later).  That left a pretty good gap between the two leading teams… the Wild Hares, and Dynamic Earth/Salomon, a 4-person coed team out of Springfield, Mo.

We hopped on our bikes and rode down a steep fire road to the water.  Dynamic Earth was already on their way with their canoes for put in.  We positioned ourselves behind Dynamic Earth as we headed in counter-clockwise direction (reverse) for checkpoints 15-10.   The paddling section was in the Grandalaize Arm; the checkpoints positioned on and up the shoreline in various coves and inlets.  I would estimate the total distance about 5-6 miles.  A couple of the checkpoints required that we leave the canoe and trek up bank for several meters.  The highlight of this section for me was breaking ice with the canoe… very cool.   Scott and I tried our best, but we could not catch Dynamic Earth.  We ran a clean paddle and headed back for checkpoint 16 where we had to attach our bikes to the canoe and paddle about a mile to checkpoint 17… again, Dynamic Earth was already in the water, heading for 17, about 700 meters in front of us.

At checkpoint 17, we took the bikes off of the canoe and started getting ready for the bike section.   Dynamic Earth was on the shore, doing the same.  They left about 5 minutes before we did.  Our strategy on the bikes was again, run a clean bike section.  We were given the option to get the bike checkpoints (18-25) in ascending or descending order.  The bike section was nearly 25 miles of long and steep gravel/paved roads, south of the park area.  After looking at the map, we decided that getting the checkpoints in reverse order was the easier route…. not sure about that decision now.

As we turned west at checkpoint 18, we noticed mountain bike tracks in the gravel road… Dynamic Earth had taken the same route…  I’m not sure what happens to most people, but for me, and I know for Scott, we love the chase.  Up to this point, we had been doing nothing but chase Dynamic Earth.  We pushed hard on the canoe, and again, after we started the bike section.  Now that we saw tire tracks, we pushed again.  At checkpoint 25, we finally caught up with Dynamic Earth.

If you have ever adventure raced before, you have come across this decision.  Following a team is always done at your own peril.   On one side, it is nice to let them do the brunt of the work… you check your map to validate they are correct, but for the most part, it takes a little pressure off knowing a good team is in front of you.  On the other side, being out front, especially at a race like the Bonk Hard Chill was something we hadn’t expected.   I had the legs and felt confident with the rest of the bike section, so I indicated to Scott that we should pass Dynamic Earth and try to continue to pull ahead.  After attempting to pass the team a few times, we noticed that they wanted no part of us taking the lead… great.  We traded 1st and 2nd about 30 times on the way to the church at checkpoint 22… I don’t know about the Dynamic Earth team, but I was pretty anaerobic for most of this section.  I had managed to suck down a bottle of Perpeteum, a ton of water,  and choke down a salted nut roll, so I thought I was ok (more on that later).

About half way through the biking section, at checkpoint 22, we were directed inside a church where we received a new hint list with 11 new coordinates.  Dynamic Earth was already seated at a table, plotting the checkpoints.   We noticed the checkpoints were located in the trees near the end of the biking loop indicating a rather large o-course. After a quick plot (with no double checking – always bad), and sucking down a few juices (thank you church volunteers!), we were back on the bike.

… back to the chase …

Dynamic Earth, again, was about a mile ahead of us on the bikes.  We finished up the biking section without any issues and ended up in a parking lot as we prepared for the huge orienteering section we just plotted at checkpoint 22.

John, from Dynamic Earth, and I discussed that we work as a team, run a clean o-course, and finish strong.  We were in agreement as we headed to get the first few checkpoints in order.  28 was easy, but the same could not be said for 29.  I’m not sure what happened, but we couldn’t find it.  As we looked about and retraced our steps, we decided it would be best to continue to the remaining checkpoints and get 29 on the way back…thinking it would be easier to find it from a reentrant point of view.  Up to this point, we were reading the land, not necessarily holding a bearing, which proved to be detrimental.  Checkpoints 30 and 31 also proved to be a tough find.  We found 30, but 31,  like 29, was not where we thought it should be.  We attempted to run a trail from 30 to 31 while counting reentrants.  It didn’t work.  At this time, John and I decided to return back to 30, shoot a bearing and walk straight to 31.  We found 31 in about 3 minutes… new strategy.

The rest of the checkpoints seemed to come pretty quick.  John was out front running a bearing, while I came in behind, running a slower pace count while holding the bearing.  It’s amazing how that works sometimes… I literally stepped on top of 34!  At checkpoint 38, we crossed paths with Alpine Shop.  With five checkpoints to go, we needed to turn it up a click and run the rest of the o-course clean… we had no idea how many checkpoints Alpine Shop had to find.. but assumed they were probably toward the front of the pack by now.

This is where things turned a little south for me for awhile.  I’m not sure what happened… maybe it was all of the anaerobic activity.  Maybe it was that we had been training all winter in -20 Nebraska windchills and the high today was near 60… I could have been wearing too many clothes or didn’t hydrate enough.  When we started the nav section, I assumed we would be in and out in two hours… so I didn’t take my bottles from my bike with me.  Regardless,  I began locking up (cramping).. both legs, both sides.  I must have looked like Frankenstein hobbling through the woods.  I took the rest of Scott’s Heed and sucked down some of his bladder water (since mine ran out at checkpoint 31).  This agony continued through the next four checkpoints.  At checkpoint 33, we had one more to go … checkpoint 29.  We decided the best strategy was to shoot a bearing straight south to the power lines, hang a left, and take the lines to the inlet where 29 was positioned.  We ran south for about 20 minutes, and sure enough, there were the power lines…. but something didn’t look right.  We sooned learned why.  We assumed we were in the right spot as we turned east and headed for the inlet.  After counting reentrants and running up a few hillsides, our frustration was climbing again… 29 was nowhere to be found.   We soon learned that we were on the wrong ridge, nearly 1000 meters to the west.   Traveling east to the next ridge, we were able to locate the streams (where we rehydrated) and reentrants that gave away the location of checkpoint 29.

A quick and frustrating run back to the parking lot revealed we had lost a few positions.  We biked back to the canoes at checkpoint 17/40, reattached the bikes, and headed back to the finish.  Leaving the canoe take out, we biked the short park road back to the finish.

At the finish, we were met by Alpine Shop and the other top finishers.  Some very nice words of encouragement made me feel better about the challenges we just faced.  I threw down a few plates of food and tried to put something back in my body.

Overall, I am happy with our results.  Like every race identifies, we have improvements to focus on.  It was great racing beside and behind Dynamic Earth/Salomon.  Like all of the teams in the Bonk Hard series, they are fantastic athletes, competitors, and people.

I’m looking forward to the 2009 season and returning back to another great Bonk Hard Racing adventure race.

-Justin Hankins

Wild Hares