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Report & Photos
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May 19, 2007- VO2 Test Race Re-Cap
May 19, 2007—was another perfect day for a Grass Roots Race. This one took place on the North Shore in Pittsburgh, PA. With a crystal clear sky, temperatures hovering in the high 60’s, approximately 50 racers…..and thousands of Festival attendees—all the elements were in place for a great day. The VO2 Test was the second race of the GRR season. It was not one of the official sprint series races but served as one of two substitutes for those unable to make the opening event—or that had a poor performance. Being an urban race, it was also a great chance for newcomers to see what Grass Roots is all about. And—finally—it was a great opportunity for race directors, Frank Eyth and Bethann Scott, to turn the challenge up a notch by making it a navigation only event using a Rogaine format. This format would give racers 3 hours to visit 17 CP’s in any order they chose. Each CP was given a point value based on its location and the difficulty of retrieving it. 8 CP’s would be collected on foot and were scattered throughout Downtown Pittsburgh and on the North Side. 7 CP’s were scattered along the north shore of the Allegheny River—6 of which could be collected while staying on the bike trail that served this part of town, while one point was tucked in the slopes that lead to Observatory Hill. And finally two CP’s were in the river itself and could be reached only by using one of the ten kayaks provided by Kayak Pittsburgh. Ten kayaks for twenty-some teams? Sounds like a strategy issue. Strategy was---in fact—the word of the day since racers had no order in which to retrieve their points. The only rule was that run points could only be retrieved while on foot and bike points while on bike. The color coded punch cards (red for run, blue for bike) was how race organizers controlled this. The paddle points were on both run and bike maps and punch cards and could be retrieved while completing either course. After a quick check-in, and a brief pre-race talk racers were given their maps at 7:55 with strict orders to not open ‘til the 8:00 start. At 8:00am sharp a horn signaled the start and racers quickly reviewed their two maps—run and bike. They also checked their clue sheets—which included point values. And—finally—they decided where to go first. As if pre-planned 10 teams headed to the kayaks—maxing out the capacity without leaving a single team behind. Some teams took a second or two to determine which direction to head. The small maps had a lot of information on them and it made them tricky to orient. Team Relaxed Brains took a couple strokes in the wrong direction and then quickly corrected their error and within minutes all were headed up river. The two kayak CP’s were evenly distributed at half mile intervals up the Allegheny. The first was on a buoy near the 6th Street Bridge while the second was also attached to a buoy just before the Conrail railroad bridge. Retrieving these two made for a two mile paddle in kayaks—a trip that most teams completed in 30+ minutes. Teams that did not head to the paddle were pretty evenly split between the bike and the run and would not be seen for well over an hour. Team Vygor was the first off of the run leg and looked strong. They traded their run card for their bike card but had left two (2) point CP’s un-punched. Clearly they were planning to return to those if time permitted. The run course took racers past PNC Park, to Heinz Hall, the Gateway Subway station, the top of the Monongahela Incline on Mt. Washington, Steel Plaza Subway station, the rivers edge at 10th Street, and finally over to the North Side to the Children’s Museum and the National Aviary. Total distance was 8 miles to get all points—most of which were pretty easy to find. There were two that proved tricky as they were well hidden in the subway station (for security purposes) behind the trackside mirrors that conductors used to watch the loading and unloading process. The clue given was simply “mirror” and many racers spent time unwisely trying to locate bathrooms. This is where strategy became important. Was it better to spend a large amount of time looking for a hard to find low point CP—or would it be more valuable to move on to other higher point CP’s? Also, order played a part. Those racers that went to the relatively small Gateway station first found the mirror quickly and then knew how to find the one in the larger Steel Plaza station. The bike leg also had some hard to find CP’s—the worst being the one hidden at the “Gas-line”. After a long arduous ride over varying surfaces along the Allegheny past Millvale and into Sharpsburg, just beyond the RD Fleming Bridge, bikers were stumped since the sign marking their destination was facing the river and not them. The clever ones were able to catch this while others looked high and low—some never finding it. Scott Angove of Team Hollyloft recounted how his team were able to locate the CP and slip away unnoticed by the girls of Team Awesome who were deep in “the weeds” trying to locate the orange and white marker. The bike leg covered a total of 18 miles by going the full distance of the bike trails along the Allegheny and Ohio rivers. Heading east there were (3) CP’s including the dreaded “Gas-line” and one at Mr. Small’s skate park in Millvale. Some racers saw Mr. Small’s in the clue sheet and headed straight to the namesake’s theater—not skate park—without looking at the map and seeing that this CP was along the river. Heading west down the Ohio some racers got hung up on the CP hidden at the “Cable Crossing” not noticing that there was a sign on the other side of the river and that the CP was right on the straight line connecting the two signs. Much of the challenge in this event was less navigation than “CP hunting”. The navigation was fairly simple due to the urban nature of the event. Once maps were oriented racers were able to make quick work of picking routes and getting to the location of the CP’s. The trick was to read the clues and not put meaning into them. Ticket master—for example---referred to the ticket collector at the top of the incline not the offices of the well known ticket distributor. Route selection did come into play—even in this example. It was not a requirement to ride the incline to reach the “Ticketmaster”. In fact average round trip on the incline was 30 minutes if all fell into place (no waiting etc.), while running to the top via Sycamore St. took 15-20 minutes. It is small adjustments to strategy and focus that make or break teams in events like this. That is what makes them so much fun! At the end of the day it was Team Vygor’s decision to leave two low value CP’s “on the course” that won the most points. They emerged victorious with 46 out of a possible 50 points. Amazingly this was exactly the amount needed to place them tied for first in the series with The Snotrockets—winners of the Season Opener Nemacolin Adventure Race! Second place went to Team Hollyloft who fell short by one point. It is interesting to note that Hollyloft got all the run points while Vygor got all the bike points---strategy once again! It’s also interesting to note that two newcomers—Cruzin’ Cousins and Team 2 Tall—finished together and tied for third with 41 points. That’s enough to put them tied for 8th in the series! This format seemed a big hit and a huge success so you can look forward to more of this at Grass Roots Races while we look forward to seeing everyone at the AFAR—A Frick n’ Adventure Race—on June 16th! Series Points Overall
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