Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Before I go into my extremely long (er) post summing up my OD experience,
I want to say a couple of things about the ride for those who would never
see it if they had to trudge through all the fluff.

First and foremost...I had a great OD experience. I liked the ride, they
even put it closer to my house than I'd originally thought (8-9 hrs).
Loved the camp where I was, could have lived with the big camp. Really
liked the people in charge and the more I got to talk to them one by one
the more my conception of what this ride is and how it comes together
became *slightly* clearer. There's a TON of PRIDE involved...and  you
know how it is when you deal with someone with so much pride that they
don't tell you about their personal problems...they just try to take care
of it themselves rather letting you know they're not perfect...well I
think it's kinda like that. If you knew some of what they were dealing
with to manage to get us that ride on the old trail *one more time* you'd
be surprised that far more details weren't smoothed out than were!

Lets say you lose large portions of your trail, but want to have that
"farewell ride" so you have to add many portions & stops in new places
that haven't been tried out in the past.  This could cause some
unforeseen problems.  For instance, the mix up with the 50 milers' vet
check facilities. The ride had a permit to use a field by the river for
their vet check. The road in was cramped and you know how we all have to
have our own personal duelly to take care of us, so things got very
tight...BUT, the field was also a drop point used by local outfitters
that take groups of tourists out in a van pulling a trailer with about 12
big canoes stacked high on racks behind them. The outfitters have a
permit too. Now, you have a poor person who is in charge of the vet check
who HAS to have this check...all these horses are piling in! Then you've
got the driver of a van who HAS to have all these vehicles moved! He has
a van full of people & canoes he needs to go right through the whole
shebang. Can you imagine dealing with that?? If that's not exciting
enough (the sherriff is on the way by the way, called in by the
outfitter) now add a 50 miler dropping from heat exhaustion, who needs an
ambulance to get through. Starting to get my drift? Now let the riders
try to tell you that the markers have been sabataged out there and that's
why everyone's coming in so late, then have everyone start to arrive at
once and the rule for the day is, "Only a VET takes pulse times". Thank
goodness *I* wasn't in charge!!! :-P  Everybody has a right to be upset,
or upset, from the vet down to the outfitter to the rider on the
trail...but the only person I can see who's messed up is the one who gave
the permits who probably had no clue.  Frustrating, but just the sort of
thing that can go wrong and possibly will help everyone understand why
the ride is moving to a new location...just too much pressure from too
much growth in the area.

As to the "2 strikes you're out". I felt really bad about voicing my
opinion of it during the competition and was afraid that a certain vet
would have a bad impression of me from now on. So, Sunday morning I got
up my nerve, pulled them asside and said, "I honestly would appreciate it
if you'd give me your side and just tell me what could be *good* about
the two strikes you're out thing". This vet caught me totally off guard
when they said, "That system sucked, I hated it". The funny thing was
they didn't remember at all that those were pretty much my exact words,
"This set up SUCKS, I hate it!". Ha ha. 

The vets I talked to did NOT like being responsible for taking the Pulse
for the hold time to start. They're used to just vetting the horses when
they get to them as they finish the one before and this system, by making
the official down time not start until they could get to you, put
pressure on them to finish the horse ahead of you that they don't
normally have. They KNEW we were standing there, impatiently watching our
horses get hot waiting for them to finish what looked like "chit
chatting" with the rider ahead of us, but they were simply doing the
usual, helpful, "How is he doing out there, is everything going OK"
exchange. 

It was not the way OD usually runs things. It appears it *Is* something
that has seeped over from FEI and has no place in an AERC competition in
my opinion and apparently some of the vets.   The slightly funny now, but
irritating thing that sort of rubbed salt in the wound though was that
the person who laid out the vet check marked off a large "P&R" area
leading up to the vet check, so you had to walk an extra 25 yards or so
of "no man's land" since there weren't any P&R people and many of us felt
we were supposed to leave out buckets of water outside that...Oh yeah,
because that rule had seeped over. I have *NO PROBLEM* with
International. As of this year, I am a paid member of International
(whether I'm listed in the directory or not) but this is what will make
me stop that support... the UNNECESSARY implementation of their rules
which may be neccessary in a 100 mile "battle of the National Egos" but
makes things more difficult, run less smoothly, and is unfamiliar to the
majority of riders, vets & volunteers, all so they can have a practice
run for their events.

Riding this trail I thought it was very well laid out. The measurement
felt accurate, yes, there are massive climbs over slow terrain, but they
separated them with stretches of wide open forest service road where you
could get your time back. I liked the way one person put it, "You say,
Thank God, a trail so I can get off this gravel road. Then you say,
"Thank God, a gravel road so I can get off this trail!" :-) You can look
at the times for finishers and knowing how much really *fast* road was on
there, get some grasp of how difficult the climbs & terrain in the woods
are since you still struggle to make the 24 hours. It's well done. There
was ample water at all the right times. They even filled up the puddles!
I might have *liked* more markers at times, but I have been manager for a
ride with  50 miles of trail and can say they worked 10 times as hard as
I managed to at making sure the markers were still there on ride day.
There were literally guys on motorcyles riding the trail checking markers
ahead of horses. (I'll post a photo...takes a lot of body armour on a hot
day to risk those trails and I still don't know how they did it!)  They
had a massive Ham Radio tower in camp and you guys knew I was pulled
before the person in the camp next to me did. They definitely had the
most water carrying ability I have ever seen pulled behind one truck
putting water out there. That's a guy who is willing to raise his hand
for the BIG job during the planning meeting.

If they were going to have this ride at this site next year I'd say to
have the stop & go that was in the open field immediately after we
crossed the Shenendoah River (instead of having us pass it, do 4 mile
climbing loop and come back in) to save the water guy from having to
bring in about 10,000,000 gallons to get the horses cool that the river
would have provided voluntarily, but since that's the only time they've
used that spot for that purpose and won't be using it next year that's a
lesson that they won't be able to capitalize on.

Their rescue trailers were amazing. I think that's the second time in my
life I've had to be trailered back to camp and it was nice that they had
really nice big open trailers and there was little or no waiting. Several
different rigs were out there and I really appreciate those people. It
was about 11 PM when they took me in and I'm sure they'd been working all
day.

They had a full treatment mobile vet facility on the grounds for doing
bloodwork, etc. on horses that might get in metabolic trouble...first
class all the way...and ALL THE VETS were cheerful and helpful. Poor Art
King came over and helped us get our horses checked at the open field
stop and go and it's so obvious he's used to dealing with slightly
hysterical riders. Just nice and calming influence...don't argue with the
crazy lady, just reassure her everything will be alright"

Volunteer Crews.  This was an area some of us outsiders could have used a
little more introduction to. After a while they looked more familiar to
me. It's kinda like the "P" stops in International. If you've got a vet
check with no room for crews you send out these groups of volunteers who
will just sort of crew for anyone who comes in. Some had T-shirts that
said OD, but I didn't really understand what they were ride volunteers.
When we first came to Edinburg Gap in the AM, we'd been told "No
Crewing!" and we rode in to the tanks and saw these people circling a
horse feverishly sponging him. They were all dressed alike in matching
red T's, some younger kids & a couple of adults, apparently a family. I
thought this rider had messed up and tried to nicely say to one of the
adults, "Hey, be careful, they said No Crewing on Trail, you may get in
trouble". The guy just kinda looked at me funny and by then I had ridden
on past". Later saw much of the same at the Pulse & Go in the open field,
that family was really working on a horse, other groups are helping other
horses, we're all thinking this is rediculous that these people are just
getting away with this. Finally, I mention it to Art King and he says,
"Those are volunteers!" Huh? Then when we're panicing because the water
trough is almost empty a guy walks up with a bucket of water that he may
have scooped from the river 100 yards away for all I know (seems cooler)
and starts helping me. Later at another stop & go one of the kids, maybe
12 years old, in the red shirts just jumped in and worked herself to
death helping me get my horse down...all business. I said thanks to her a
bunch of times but I'd like to say thanks to all these people who we
didn't know or understand, were helping it be possible for us to have
that ride.  If I do it again, *I'll* be the one who asks them to put
water on *my* horse when I go through Edinburg! :-)

For all the folks from the OD organization. My hat is off to you for
managing to pull this thing off. You really can't help the unbelievably
hot weather that hit Friday, and for all the riders who finished the 30
over time, you probably earned more respect from your peers for slowing
down and actually making it through that course than you ever would have
for a simple AERC completion. Be proud and tell that story in a few years
when somebody says they did a hot one. For the fiftys. Man, manure
happens, but isn't the Shenendoah River beautiful?  For the 100's. I hate
all of you. It's no fair that you finished and I didn't. Ha.. No really,
congratulations. You got your buckle...I hope you remembered to pick up a
rock from Sherman's Gap. I did. Got two. Had to put them in my bra until
I got down off the darned Gap. That would have been hard to explain if
I'd died up there. >g< 

I don't think they'll miss the rocks. They had plenty. Did I ever mention
they had plenty?

Angie McGhee
http://www.lightersideofendurance.com


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