Sheltowee Extreme 48 Hours Race Report

From my perspective as a volunteer, the race went really well. No death. Only one Copperhead bite, almost everybody finished, and one team nearly cleared the course. The team that did not finish consisted of Shaun, the Copperhead bitee, and Electra, his partner, who had a wonderful Minnesotan accent. It was no wonder that Shaun was bitten, as he raced naked except for a pair of anklets that said “BITE ME” on the side. The bite did enable him to see the inside of an ambulance, the inside of a hospital, the inside of his eyelids, and Miss Deters, his fourth grade teacher. He claimed she was wearing a pantsuit made from eighteen 2 slice toasters.

Drake and Judd won the race, and they looked it. I’ve seen exhumed bodies that seemed more chipper. The crazy bastards probably hadn’t slept at all, and Drake’s description of his feet was enough to make me hurl. After Drake had cleaned up a bit he still looked like a train wreck. Normally, Drake is about 7 or 8 feet tall, while I am normally less than 5 and a half feet, but we were seeing each other eye to eye as Drake was trying to walk in such a way that minimized foot pain. After the race some people stood for the final words, while others sat in chairs, and a few were lying about, trying to pay attention to Stephanie who was surprising lucid after approximately no sleep for the past couple of days. I was looking for the Black Box to try to decipher what brought this plane down in the first place.

I would like to say amazing things about each team, each soloist, each volunteer, and the director, but frankly, everybody was amazing. A 48 hour event seems like a crazy hard length. Short enough so as to push and push with little or no sleep, long enough to be relatively lethal. It was one hellacious thing to pull off. Sisyphus, Hercules, Amelia Earhart, and Mother Theresa would have been proud. Stephanie designed the course like the wizard racer that she is. She plans the routes that she would take. She plans the C.P.s that racers might want to drop to save time and energy. She plans the course for both beauty and struggle. I know these things as I helped set some of the C.P.s and clear a few others. After setting one of the pond C.P.s, Stephanie was hoping we’d find a way into a rather steep looking gorge. Thus the knotted rope descent into the stunningly Gorgeous Gorge. Of course the course was a true body beater. Steep, long, gnarly and mentally, spiritually and morally challenging. Common attributes of a Stephanie race.

One fellow, Anthony, was on the Cumberland team as a substitute, as their regular members, Thor and Winslow, were having their hair, nails, and race-proof make-up done over the weekend. Five or six hours into the race at T.A.1, Anthony was keeping up with his very experienced partners but was looking pretty crummy: dehydrated and electrolytically challenged. He was pushing too hard for his new mates. I thought he’d be a gonner before too long, but his smart cookie teammates, Jen and Kevin, nursed him back from the Brink of Bonk. At each T.A. Anthony kept looking better, and by the finish he was making full sentences. He talked about his wife’s concern about his “no quit” mentality, his commitment to the team and about how he has always thought that Boris Karloff and Lon Cheney were way scarier than Vincent Price. He began to quote various scary movies that he had watched during the race. Then he began to sing Christmas carols in Chipmunk fashion, as if he was singing through a window fan. Soon he was singing to his bicycle, and I asked if he had a ride home.

There were two guys wearing burnt orange shirts, Steve and Mike, who always looked kinda bad but not terrible bad. They seemed to get more sleep than most. Mike, “The House”, is built as if he pushes and pulls train cars uphill for fun. Steve was a cheatin’ bastard , as his lovely wife, Carla, and two beautiful young children, would meet him at the T.A.’s, keeping up his spirits and his mental acuity much better than we could, as semi-groggy volunteers. None of jumped into his arms yelling “Daddy!”

The race was small in numbers. Was it the proximity to Labor Day? Was it the glut of September races? Was it the 48 hours? Regardless, Stephanie worked her ass off to direct this race, which would have accommodated 10 times the number of participants. She did not whine or whimper about the small turnout. She simply ran the race fully, cutting no corners. Two weeks after the race she told me that she nearly broke even, which meant “expenses only”. The multitude of hours spent scouting, meeting, calling and computing were, of course, free. However, everybody seemed to like the intimacy of the small group. We all got to know who was whom, along with personality traits, states of being, levels of pain, complications of injury, and “dreams and aspirations”. (There were a lot of the latter.), Although I was not supposed to help any of the racers, I did perform Vulcan Mind Melds with seven of the race participants. Of course I was drained a good bit, what with gathering in their discomforts, joys and dysfunctions, but it kept several from Seppuku and excessive mumbling.

One fellow, John Harris, (sounds like a rather unimaginative false name. He’s probably C.I.A.) , was M.I.A. for several hours early in the race. I was finally called upon for a “search and rescue”. As I was mentally rehearsing the application of a Bandaid and how to remove a racer’s limb that may be caught in a tree or under a rock, C.I.A. John reached T.A. 2 in fine spirits, having spent a number of enchanted hours on the ridge around C.P.8 where there was the beautiful small arch. John’s dedication to C.P.8 was full flavored, and darkness kept him in its grip. C.P.8 and the Dark had conspired to blow Smoke into John’s Navigational Cortex and the squirrelly nature of the enigmatic cliff/ridge made descent a matter of blind faith! Late in the race John joined forces with the other Soloists for a while because, as we all know, the mind goes before the body. (In my case, I need help after about 45 minutes into an “O” meet.)

One additional development of the soloists’ banding together for a while was a new language! They began muttering to themselves and each other at about hour 44. They continued to talk this way after the race, to themselves and others. It seemed to make no sense to anyone, themselves included. We later came to realize that it was mostly a comforting mumbling vibration. I have taken to the language, utilizing it while I’m on the toilet reading. It keeps my legs from going numb.

I feel like I’d be amiss if I did not mention Todd and Joe; however the photographs that Stephanie put on her website, Flying Squirrel, say way more than a thousand words. Seeing Joe and Todd sleeping in those chairs after the race tells us the sounds, colors, pains, agreements, disagreements; the smells, the drive, the confusion, the twilight, daylight and darkness of a 48 hour race. I am sure that the reasons for doing these things are many and varied. This reminds me of a story that Woody Allen told at the end of one of his movies; “Annie Hall”, I think. A man walks into a psychiatrist’s office and says “Doc, I have a serious serious problem. My brother walks around acting like a chicken. He thinks he’s a chicken!” The psychiatrist responds, “Well, that does sound very serious. Perhaps you should try to get him committed to an institution.” The man says, “But Doc, I can’t! I need the eggs!” It’s like that folks. We need the eggs.

Yours, the one who strives for mediocrity,

Bill Donnelly

Warning

Racers of Sheltowee Extreme II 48 Hour,

I send this warning in addition to last year's note. I forgot to bring long pants when I went down to Cave Run Lake recently to help Stephanie Ross set a few checkpoints. I thought that last year's calamities were due, in large part, to a lack of constant motion. This turns out to be crap. The nasty little nasty little seed ticks once again took advantage of my nudistic mistake. I say to you very clearly and bluntly: Wear Everything You Own. All of your clothes, skintight, skin loose, skinny, wide. Coats, ski masks, goggles, monocles, light days pads, thermarest pads. Soak in deet, slather your soul with as much sludge from the Gulf Spill as to be measured in centimeters, not merely millimeters. Wear garbage bags, boxes, aluminum foil, television sets and carpet scraps. Make reservations at your favorite hospital for a drug-induced coma so you can lay low till the heat is off (till the situation cools down.)

After just 8 hours in woods, I spent over an hour picking the little bastards off my partner, Katy, with a tweezers and my high powered reading glasses. The damage was already done to me. It took a couple of days to show me the error of my ways.

However, if you do happen to do the race in mere panties, shoes and anklets, there is a simple cure. With large sized pump spray bottle, coat yourself liberally with #3 Kerosene and light a match. Wait 14 seconds and run, screaming as loudly as possible to the nearest body of water. Keep the run between 100 and 300 meters. Too short, and the cure may be incomplete. Too long, and the cure may be worse than the disease. (Let us separate that word: dis-ease. Note the prefix well.)

So, I'm sure Stephanie has warned you, but believe me when I say "SHE IS NO SISSY." If you complete this race (it will be most fun, creative and adventurous) without any skin irritation then you have either invested well in extreme chemical compounds or you have invested well in a high grade of Berber carpet or you are a big liar and you did not race. Have fun, and remember two things: "The skin you save could be your own" and "Biting back does not work."

Bill Donnelly

The One Who Strives for Mediocrity

Costumes, continued: Long vs. Short Pants

Of course, long pants protect us more but are by and large boring and hot. The main advantage to short pants is the art work on your legs at the end of your time. Scratches, gashes, blood, bumps, mud and extraneous bike grease patterns bring Jackson Pollack to mind. A private sweetness for me is the dowsing of the tenderized flesh with good old isopropyl. As I squeal with seizing waves, the exquisite blooms paint the inside of my skull. Maybe it's adrenaline, I do not know, but is is not for the faint of heart.
However, my top short pants dilemma came not as a racer but as a volunteer for Stephanie Ross's Sheltowee Extreme '09 36-hour traverse of at least nine southern states. Stephanie was very conscientious with the volunteers, trying to keep us moving to different venues with sleep time, tents and the like. Partner Bob and I had several jobs and settings, but one was beechside for a semi-manned checkpoint. Even in the middle of the night, I took my job seriously and wanted to be on hand in case someone's arms and legs were falling off or they had a harpoon puncture. Turns out my personal naked legs were harpooned by M.F.ing seed ticks, approximately 4000 times. They apparently crawled up my relatively motionless legs and had a feast fit for royalty. Seed ticks, nearly microscopic, kept me itching with a wire brush for a week or more, way beyond the drawing of blood, to the point of visiting a clinic for a distemper shot laced with sleepwishes. I was forced to not work for fear of hammering my own hands or someone else's window panes. I took pink pills. I used 25 year old athletes foot cream which, in retrospect, may have been a mistake. My skin actually did reach flashpoint and burned off what little clothing I could wear. I then chose more conventional salves and cold showers. Katy's description of my lower half (waist to toes) did involve the use of the word "hideous" which, somehow, did not get me all sexed up.
A few weeks later, having caught up on sleep, to some degree, I did a TOPO adventure race at East Fork Lake in southwestern Ohio, where a nurse happened to be womanning one of the checkpoints. After a few questions I felt fairly reassured that I did not have Lyme disease, but over 6 months later, I still had enough bite scars to be able to identify all of the constellations in the Southern Hemisphere.
My conclusion about volunteering is that one needs to keep moving. This year I will help Stephanie during her 48 hour Sheltowee Extreme wearing four hazmat suits individually duct-taped at ankles, wrists and face, and when not actually doing something important I will run in place. I have already started my endurance training so that I can stay in constant motion for at least 48 hours.
To conclude, I would like to say, "Watch your panties!"

Yours,

The One Who Strives for Mediocrity

Sheltowee Extreme South 2010

Okay Racers,
We made it through Stephanie Ross's Sheltowee South. How crazy was that? When we entered the Beaver's Creek they immediately began a quiet gnawing of our medula oblongatas and whatever cranial lobe they thought interesting. Those Beavers created hallucinations, shape shifting trails and disappearing feeder creeks. The pinnacle CP (14, I believe) was findable but was a classic up-hill battle. Joe, of Team Race-COAR, and I traded leads, thrashing our way through. We bled, we grunted, I whined, we finally saw big stone and hoped it was a pinnacle. We skirted around and CP 14 was found. We did not die or leave limbs behind in the rhodo tangle. I felt fine. When we found an easier way back down we found ourselves somewhere in the Ozarks. Most of our group of six took a bus back to the trail while Kathy Jo and I swam our way back through stunningly beautiful rock formations and cool water. I felt sublime. We were all glad to reconnect with the trail of Babel. I would like to say more and more about our Beaver Creek experiences but it is all very blurry. Basically, for my partner Rob and me, it consisted of wandering about in a cloud trying to keep the comforting tender mumbling of the Beave close to our hearts, getting testy with one another, listening to the birdies establishing themselves, trying to decipher the lumps and bumps in the trailway/waterway and eventually experiencing the release of the Beave's tenacious choppers as dawn surrounded us with its loving arms.
Let us regress as the Beaver progressed to the South Fork of the Cumberland River. A more picturesque waterway I have not paddled. Rock formations, worlds beyond any human sculpture, rapids to make me squeal and laugh and yell, and a Duck Rock that gave us the most fun of the day. Getting dumped was just plain fun and funny. Rob and I giggled as we emptied our boat and collected ourselves. I would love to say more about the paddling but I can only say that it is inside me and feeds my heart, as do all the hardships and hard shit that we encountered throughout the race.
Speaking of hard! This sonofabitch was hard! Made even more so by the fact that the Beave was supposed to be a daytime trek but was dramatically altered when some Pin-Headed Bureaucrat, who had had the race plans in his possession for several months waited till the eleventh f-ing hour to tell Stephanie "you can't go in there." Thus a total redo of the 24 hour and a completely new 6 hour. Stephanie did not go on about it too awful much because, I suspect, that, as an attorney, she knew she would be an accomplice to murder or at least a sound thrashing if she let slip the Pin-Head's identity. In any event, it worked out well for Rob and me as we didn't feel burdened by all those extra checkpoints. It was gift enough just to wander and wonder about them. Plus we got a chance to deal with and laugh about our testy behaviors.
Okay, let us not fail to mention CP 10 (CP 7 in the 6 hour). We had it plotted somewhere out by the end of the Earth. Before one reaches the END, one must apparently need to go through one Hellacious Gauntlet. We were all clubbed, kicked, stabbed, whipped, burned and treated to other forms of meanness I cannot describe. What we needed was either a collection of mice or parakeets who could move about at will, report back to us and teleport our corporeal selves to the punch and back. Stephanie said that after setting this CP she had a relatively easy walk out to the road. She either levitates, or is a pathological liar. Since Rob and I had already crapped up CP 8, it wasn't too difficult to let go of 10 after 20 minutes or so of flagrant foul treatment. Four days later, I continue to laugh about it.
The 2010 Sheltowee South was my first 24 hour. Halfway through, in the quiet of twilight, I was convinced it would be may last. Now I am not so sure. It truly was one Hellacious good race, one Hellacious good experience. A bunch of very impressive humans really put themselves out there. This is good.

Yours,

Bill Donnelly
The One Who Strives for Mediocrity

Costumes

Racers,

I feel the need to address the concept of costume. Many, including my own, at times, border on being nondescript. In the colder weather, although necessary, long pants lack. Black lacks. Tan lacks. For one race, I did manage a splash of panty color with a multi-hued speedo over my aging black tights, to hold them up. The speedo also kept up my spirits over the course of the 12 hours on the steeps of southeastern Ohio. The NSF boys beat me up on the course, but did not offer a costume award. (My partner, Rob, did win a door prize, and his jacket was at least a sort of gold/orange.)

For a multi-faceted adventure race, the costume is extremely important because of the various situations: wheels, water, woods, boats, rocks, foliage. At times, the proper costume can bring the environment right out of the crapper (e.g. gray road, gray day . . . floral costume, Voila!) Remember, it is not uncommon to lose a drably hued partner due to invisibility. When going solo, it is even more important to punch up your outfit or you run the risk of losing yourself during the race -- getting confused about your existence. Once, during an 18 hour Mission race put on by DINO in Indiana, I lost two hours, thoroughly believing I was a maple tree, waiting in stillness to be tapped for my sap. Someone actually did tap me and I almost crapped in my trunk, but I did get the message. Still, I had a hell of a time pulling myself free from my roots and then heading on to the next C.P.

A secondary issue is the practicality of costume. Irritating seams go on the outside. Bicycle padding should be minimal. I've made several mistakes in the padding department. At one point, my favorite pair of shorts was falling apart. The pad was coming loose and grinding its way toward tenders and bones, so I did a practice run in a finely tuned red pair. Alas, the run was not a long enough test. During the race I was rubbing raw what little I possess in the privacy department. That night after the race, a cold hose shower with what must have been muriatic acid instead of soap brought me to gasps and shrieks and fits of insane laughter. I slept little for days upon days.

My worst occurred during a triathlon turned duathlon. The great Ohio River was too polluted to swim. (It's actually been scientifically proven that after Cincinnati's yearly Paddlefest the paddle blades are 6% smaller and have ragged edges.) I had been inspired by a past duathlon where the winner was wearing a slick bib short, finishing the race as I was starting the second run less than a week behind him. So, for the du, I wore this low end bib that had a pad designed for pole sitting or bronco riding or attempting to fool the world as to one's personal endowment. I truly noticed irritation early in the second run. By the finish I had lost 12% body mass due to erosion, however, my tears turned to joy when I realized I had taken 2nd in my age group. I was fairly certain there were only two of us 55-59 years old, but, by gum, I earned it. I felt good enough to ignore the custom of costume change after performance. That night was very bad. I whimpered as I showered. I knew not what to do. I walked as if I had ridden the Fiery Horse From Hell for One Thousand Miles. The next night, after more symptoms had set in, my partner, Katy, and I went into crying fits of laughter as my tiny weenis had morphed into an Amanita Muscaria, a fairly poisonous but supposedly hallucinogenic mushroom. Folklore says that ancient tribesmen (being men of course) would force their women to eat the panic button-like Amanita Muscaria, whereupon they would get sick as dogs. Then the men would drink the women's urine to attain a high beyond the mountains and skies. I aligned with the women who got the very short straw in this deal, but for a week or two, Katy and I did have nightly fits of merriment over my mutant member and his feisty little brothers. Remember your essence.

The One Who Strives for Mediocrity