Season Opener: Brake The Habit 6 hour race with the ASI Adventure Racing Team

As "Coach" TCOPE of the Garrett College/Adventure Sports Institute Adventure Racing Team I had plugged this into the schedule pretty late and decided to use this as a team selection event (and a nice little workout for me).  Originally slated for 3 disciplines, they pulled the paddle leg out of the race due to the weather and ice on the lake.


That left just Mountain biking and trekking.  We fielded two 3 man teams and I was a third on one just to get a workout and help the team learn about racing.
We drove down from Deep Creek at 4am and got on site in Germantown just as map distribution was taking place at 7am.  This was a first adventure race for the students and I was bopping around trying to help them get organized and plan routes and logistics as well as get ready myself.  The race flow ended up being this:
1.  A quick prologue to get 2 of 3 points on foot (your choice of points) and then back to the transition area.
2.  A bike section that took us to the western reaches of the park for Check points 4-12
3.  The return back to transition on bike for check point 13
4.  A foot orienteering course for 11 optional CPs
5.  Back on the bikes for checkpoints 14-19.

Our team with Jason and Adam and me took off to get points 2 & 3.  There were over 178 racers and 77 teams so there was a buzz at the start as people went crazy to get out into the field.  We got the two points and headed back tot he bike.

We transitioned onto bike and headed north up the park road and then west.  We picked up CP 12 and then turned around to head back on the trail down to CP 10.  We ditched the bikes and made our way up the steep ridge to nail CP 11 and then crossed the ridge and down to the stream to hit CP 9 and then back to bikes.
We paralled the lake on bikes and Adam got a flat on the way to CP 7.  Jason quickly fixed Adam's flat in 5 minutes and we we're on our way.  We nailed CP 7 and then down to CP 6 where we dropped the bikes again and made our way around the lake inlet to CP 5.  We then decided to leave CP 4 and make our way back to the transition area and CP 13.

The ride back was uneventful and we pulled into the TA and checked in.  We were given a new map with 11 orienteering points on them.  I decided to make our way up the eastern side on foot and hit all the points on that side and see how much time we had.  Ultimately we abandoned the 3 CPs on the western side and nailed CP 11 and then the other two we had bypassed down on the peninsula.

We got back and then mounted up on bikes again and said we would see how we felt.  We got CP 14 quickly and then up to 15.  I pushed on and said we could get 16 and then on the way back we decided to shoot for 18 which we nailed!  I was psyched and the team was moving well.

From there we pedaled back into the Finish.  We finished in 5 hours and 39 minutes and got all but 5 check points.  A great race for the new ASI racing team.

The other ASI racing team also had a great day out there and I don't have the results yet but it appears they all did very well.


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