Cerberus 3 Day Expedition Stage Race - Day 0 and 1

 

After having done PMBAR 2 years in a row with Lisa, we wanted something different.  I happened upon this adventure race while doom scrolling on FaceBook last fall.  3 stages, each 12 hours long, and sleeps in between ... sign us up! The race was staged out of Camp Powhatan BSA, located south of Claytor Lake in BFE Virginia.

Day 0

We arrived Thursday afternoon and checked into our cabin.  Pretty much as I thought ... dark, dank, and with leaves, mouse poop, and a few dead critters on the cabin floor.  I quickly took the broom that was in the corner and tidied up. There were 3 rooms in the cabin and we were sharing a room with a 3 person female team.  Fortunately, we had one side that had 2 bunk beds so that we both could sleep on the bottom.  We wiped down the plastic covered 2 inch mattresses and then put our own linens on the bottom and our gear on the top. The bath house was within a short walk.

While waiting for the official check-in, we prepped our gear and bikes.  Lots of decisions on what to pack based on the race schematic. Most of those decisions had already been made in the weeks leading up to the event, as both Lisa and I are planning demons.

Upon checking in, we were told that the Day 1 prologue was not going to be a trek at the start, due to a bridge out.  Instead we got to pair up with another 2 person team and play carnival games, which we are not very good at:  ball toss, frisbee golf, and hula hoop toss.  For each game you won, you scored a point.  We ended up winning one and losing two, which gave us a 10 minute time penalty on Day 1.  Once we finished the silly games, we were given our maps.  

We also had to transport our bikes down to the Allisonia boat ramp that evening. So while I drove the 30 minutes to the boat ramp, Lisa began plotting our route.

By the time we had packed our gear, taken our paddle bags to the box truck, and dropped off our bikes at the boat ramp, it was close to 9 pm. We were in bed with the alarm set for 5:30 am, but our cabin mates were not as efficient or as quiet as us, so sleeps did not come until around 10 pm and then were interrupted with the sound of others: talking, snoring, gear prepping.  

Day 1

Motorcoaches were gonna drive us to the start.  However, they could not negotiate the tight twisty gravel road and the multiple extremely narrow bridges leading to camp.  So we got to walk the 3 miles to where they could pick us up.  Just a small hiccup in the race's first year.  This also delayed the start by an hour.

3 mile trek to the bus

With our 10 minute penalty, our start time was 9:14 am.  We had a 1/4 mile run to the canoes.  The paddle was on the Big Reed Island Creek.  What with not much rain leading up to the race, the 12 mile paddle ended up being a "canoe-cross."  The creek was low and there seemed like a bajillion places where we had to get out and drag our canoe across the rocks.  Since we were both small, we at least could make it over more sections than most.  There was only one tricky rapid, where a canoe ahead of us flipped.  They got out of the way just in time as we hit it cleanly.

I was the CP gopher and hopped out to snag them.  The first 3 were on the creek and the last 3 were along the New River Trail.  For those, I hopped out and ran the trail to punch them, while Lisa paddled to the take-out.

CP # 1-6

At the Allisonia Boat Ramp, we quickly transitioned to bikes.  As I loaded our paddle gear in the box truck, I counted only 6 other paddle bags.  We had made up a lot of ground in our weakest discipline! There were 4 CP's in the small Hoover Mountain Bike Area.  What with all the access roads and trail intersections, it made navigation a little tricky. 2-1 was an SOB as we had to scramble through a huge pile of boulders the size of Mini Coopers, trying not to break a leg as we searched every nook and cranny for that damn orange/white flag.  Once out of the MTB park we continued on the New River Trail. 2-5 was at the end of a peninsula on the New River.  We dropped our bikes and ran out to the peninsula in energy-sapping sand.  Once we found it, we then decided to ford the creek (as it wasn't over our heads as we thought it might be). As we were halfway across the creek, my old foggy brain couldn't remember if I had punched it or not.  To be sure I trudged my way back through the shoe-sucking mud and punched it ... again.  

New River Rail Trail

The remaining CP's on the bike were pretty straight forward and we managed to nab them without too much wandering.  However, what really burnt a lot of matches was the bike-whacking climb up Chimney Mountain along a re-entrant.  Think 1/2 mile with pitches of 30% through thickets of rhododendron. It was a 20 minute push of death.  By the time we reached the top, our lungs were screaming and our hearts were beating out of our chests.  This extreme effort caused Lisa to go right instead of left.  She quickly regained her sense of direction once the oxygen hit her brain again and we corrected quickly.

From there it was a mostly downhill pedal back to Camp Powhatan that was serving as TA2. After a quick transition where I beat Lisa ... finally 😄, we headed out on the trek.  We had 4 hours remaining. It was a rogaine.  There were 24 CP's.  We could get a max of 14 today.  Then tomorrow we had the remaining to go after. This section was extremely difficult as there was no clear right way to pick them up.  They were either at high points or low points, so it seemed.  And the elevation  ranged from 2000 to 3200 feet; these hills were steep AF! R9, R24, R18, R16, R22, and R21we nabbed within 2 hours. I've got to hand it it Lisa, she was spot on through here. I was a hurtin' buckaroo trying to keep up with her on the steeps.

Unfortunately, we spent 90 minutes looking for R4 and R20 and came up empty handed. Lisa was pretty frustrated, but I was trying to keep her spirits up.  If only I had her experience and mad nav skills, I could have been a better partner.  She was burning calories not only physically, but mentally as well, like a master chess player. 

We hoofed it back it with 18 minutes to spare.  This put us in 2nd place with 26 checkpoints, and just 1 checkpoint behind the 4 person female team CheckPoint Zero.  

Day 1 was a shock to my system.  We paddled 12 miles, biked 28 miles, and trekked 10 miles with 5000 feet of elevation gain, with the majority of that on the trek. The course was physically hard, what with the steep terrain of Appalachia.  Most of the trek was bushwhacking, either straight up/down or off-camber side cutting hills.

I consumed at least 1000 calories at dinner.  Unfortunately the only thing I could eat that the kitchen staff cooked was green beans.  But I had a hearty supply of chicken salad,  GF bread, and home made protein powder cookies in my cooler.

Neither of us had any issues falling asleep Friday night.  Exhaustion, full bellies, and an edible did the trick.  We both got a solid 5 1/2 hours of sleep.