31 March 2016



Team Commie Bar at the SwampFox 


Team Commie Bar at the SwampFox Adventure Race in Georgia took 3rd place in 3-4 person Coed division on 19 March 2016.  Previously in March Jon Gamm and Charlie Raffay finished the grueling 75 hour race in Florida called Sea to Sea....

Race Report from team member Michael Scott:

"Not sure if any news has gotten back to you yet, but we seemed to have a pretty amazing race from all that I could tell. We came in third among elite teams (they combined 3 person coed with 4 person coed to make the elite team group) and we came in second in the 3 person coed group. Our time was 11hrs 15 minutes and we collected 18 of the 22 CPs. the first 4 points were only given after the race actually started and had to be triangulated off of each other. We chose to plot them prior to getting into the canoes, and they were to be collected by stopping mid way on the canoe leg. Unfortunately, we missed the turn in for the canoe pull off completely (though most teams also missed the turn in).

We were able to find every other CP along the way from there.
There were 4 or so that required some extra activity like crossing a stream on a slack line, climbing a rope ladder, and a swim across a little lake to an island, and a finishing task with a climbing wall. Mark volunteered to do the climbing each time and I did the swim.

Otherwise it was mostly a bike course. I think we covered like 58 miles on the bikes. Mark did the majority of the navigating and carried the maps the whole way, Val tracked distances and shared in the navigation, and I was on a mission to learn from them along the way. Mark and Val were incredibly motivational and positive and I know I couldn't have put forth the effort I did without them patiently pushing me throughout the race.

It was clear that my fitness wasn't quite as strong as theirs, and I had a pretty rough couple of hours at about the 8-10 hour point with cramps in my legs and such. I worked through that with endurolytes and found some energy to finish out the race with some strength. It was a crowning moment in the last 6 miles of so, Mark put on an all out assault and pulled Val and I to the finish along the road back to the start. We passed 4 or 5 teams who all hopped onto the line and the finish was really fast. It was an absolutely fantastic first race for me, and we all seemed to agree that the team dynamic worked well and enjoyed racing with each other.

We're all looking forward to the racing together again and adding you to the mix. Hope that gives you some insight into the day. I am sure Mark and Val could add more to round out the details, but I thought I'd offer a bit of a summary.
thanks again Mark and Val for the race and thanks Todd for getting us all connected.
Got some work to do before April, that's for sure, but looking forward to it all.
Mike

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