Racing the Clock in Castlewood: Urban Adventure and Unlikely Partnerships

Ever wonder what it's like to team up with a near stranger for a grueling 8-hour adventure race? That's exactly the twist fate handed me and my new partner, Greg, after my original teammate had to bow out due to injury. Our impromptu duo faced the Castlewood 8-hour adventure race head-on, and this podcast is your opportunity to ride shotgun through the entire electrifying experience. From the pre-race jitters as we laid eyes on a daunting pile of maps, to the warm embrace of the adventure racing community, we navigated the unexpected urban labyrinth in honor of the late David Frey. 

Navigating the urban sprawl of St. Louis became our unexpected playground as we raced against the clock, and I share the pulse-pounding decisions that shaped our race day. The cold morning rush to the start line, the strategic selection of biking over running, and the grueling checkpoints that pushed us to our limits - it's all here in vivid detail. And for those who think adventure is solely about nature, our urban escapade will flip that notion on its head. This was a race that tested not just our stamina, but our ability to adapt, think quickly, and maintain a level head when things didn't go according to plan.

Looking ahead, I tease an upcoming challenge: the Pier Marquette Trail Run. Here, I switch gears from pedal to pace as I tackle the rugged terrain with my road-running friend Lacey. Prepare to be transported to the trails as we recount the thrills, spills, and camaraderie of this off-road adventure in a future episode. Whether it's navigating city streets or navigating steep trails, the spirit of adventure pulses through every story shared. Join me, jtiggs, for a journey that goes beyond mere race recaps and into the heart of what it means to embrace the unexpected in the wild world of adventure racing.

Welcome to the Do Hard Things Podcast with your host Jay Tiegs, Are you ready to amplify and improve your life? Then you are in the right place.  On this podcast we have unfiltered conversation with inspiring people who take on challenges and share with us, the wisdom from their journey. We talk about how doing hard things adequately enable all of us to deal with life's struggles and challenges and ultimately improve the quality of our lives. 

Transcript

Castlewood 8-Hour Adventure Race Recap

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Do Our Things podcast . I'm your host , jtiggs , and this is another adventure series and in this episode I'm going to do a recap on the Castlewood 8-hour adventure race . In the previous episode I kind of gave an overview of what adventure racing is , what all it entails , some frequently asked questions and equipment , and in this episode I'm just gonna do a race report of the latest Castlewood 8-hour , kind of do an overview . So if you're interested in that , stick around . And yeah , that's it . So the background noise you might hear . Lacey and I were driving , we're going to , we're going to Pier Marquette and I was crunched on time so we decided to go ahead . Just record it while we're on the drive over there . So we had a couple hours . So apologize for the sound quality , but it's all good . The content here should be good . So the 8-hour Castlewood adventure race is one of my all-time favorite adventures . It is considered the country's like the third largest adventure race in the country and it's typically in the first weekend in December and it's named after the Park Castlewood State Park which is in West County of St Louis , and typically there's two categories of teams well , four if you consider the co-ed , but there's typically two person , male or female , or co-ed , or a forward person male , female , co-ed . So , correction six teams , six team types all together .

Speaker 1 1:31

This year I had a two person and I typically race two person and leading up to it I had a partner , and right before like just a few weeks before , he got hurt . So I reached out to the race director and like hey , does any other team out there that do they need a partner ? And there was another team out there , my , my teammate that I raced with his teammate was riding a bicycle and hit a deer , broke his collarbone , so he was out for the race . So but the race director knew both of us and thought that we would be a great match . I'm usually apprehensive about training with or racing with someone new , because there's so many dynamics to adventure racing and I've raced with people that you know that just aren't fun to race with , especially once you get cold and hungry . Your your personalities come out and racing with the wrong partner can be incredibly frustrating . So part of this adventure was racing with a new teammate I gave . His name is Greg . I gave Greg a call , we connected and talked about the race . He had some experience . I had some experience and he even invited me to crash at his house the night before . So my new to my new teammate this year complete adventure with the teammate and not even knowing you know who I was going to crash the night with . But you know , that's the great thing about having a community that you know , you know people , that know people and and they can vouch for you . It was all good . I wasn't even concerned in the least .

Speaker 1 3:01

So , leading up to the event , let's see here what I uh , yeah , our team name ultimately was stranger danger or stranger's danger , because of not knowing one another , and what we had was the packet pickup was the Friday night before . So I drove into St Louis to go to packet pickup and you know , when you go to packet pickup they give you your maps for the race and usually some you know you'll get a coupon and some other I don't know . We had some food that they threw in there for us . You know , some sponsored food and it's always great because I typically go there and I usually meet other adventure racers that are picking up their packet . It's a great way to connect with other people , usually seeing your friends , and that's what I did . When I grabbed the maps , though , I noticed they gave us five , which is a lot for an eight hour adventure race . And as I looked over the queue sheet , which is the kind of the rules and the guidance sheet for the event , I noticed that they were going to give us three more maps , so we had three mystery maps on the day of it . I'm like man , that's a lot of maps . There's eight maps for this particular race and the good news is they were all pre-plotted , so the points were plotted and that saved a lot of time .

Speaker 1 4:17

Downside was and my initial judgment of it was it was all going to be urban for some reason . So the race wasn't in Castlewood State Park , like it typically is , and I was kind of bummed because I like to be in the woods when I race these things . Looking at the maps , like man , we're going to be riding our mountain bikes in the city and going to local parks . This is going to suck . So that was my initial response to it , on top of racing with someone I've never met before , like how's this going to turn out Right ? But all good , we're just going to embrace the suck and we're going to go through it anyway .

Speaker 1 4:50

So , yeah , I met up with a couple of people . I picked up the packet , met up with some folks that I knew . My friend Larry was there and he introduced me to some of his teammates with Team Boar BOR and they were going to head over to have some tacos and beer right up the street at Mission Taco . So I told them I'd be right up there . They usually give us a coupon so I usually like to buy a shirt or something by some kind of item . So I found a nice Patagonia vest . I've been wanting one of those for a couple of years and decided to pull the trigger on that . And my wife says I look very , very nice on it , so I like it and that's what I bought .

Speaker 1 5:29

And then I headed over to Mission Taco , had a beer , had a couple of great tacos . We talked about race strategy . We talked about another big adventure race , the Ozark Expedition . That's a five-day race . That's in April , here in the northern part of Arkansas , not far from here . And from there I went over to Greg's house , my teammate for the day , and he lived down there by Forest Park in that area of Clayton Beautiful neighborhood , met him and his family . They were very accommodating , had me set up on a cot , we pulled out the maps and we started plotting our plan for the next day and ultimately , you know , the planning took a couple hours . We didn't have to plot the grids , but the maps were , you know , primarily the topographical maps , and there were a lot of street corners and names and only the major names were identified . So the night before you can use any means necessary to help yourself plan . So we went through Google Maps and just kind of looked , street by street , and kind of made a . We identified our route and kind of , you know , planned our strategy , if you will , and we were very meticulous in doing so and that would actually really benefit us on race day . So we had a great conversation

Adventure Race Preparation and Execution

Speaker 1 6:48

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Speaker 1 6:48

We were planning our routes , we were talking about strategy , we were loading up , you know , getting our bikes ready , doing last minute gear checks , and that's how we spent the evening . We think we were done around 10.30 at night and we had to get up , while we were going to get up at 5.30 . That was our target to get up because we had the race starts at 7.30 . It was a half hour drive and we wanted to get there in plenty of time . So our target was to get up at 5.30 . But both of us over slept a little bit and we got up at 6.00 and we quickly woke up , threw our clothes on . He made some oatmeal and some coffee . We downed that . We got our stuff into the forerunner , made the drive over there , had about a half hour , once we got on ground , to get set up , which was ultimately more than enough time because we had prepped the night before .

Speaker 1 7:41

And so we got our bikes ready , got them in position and we went to the pre-race meeting . And there were , you know , there were a few hundred people there . So it was in the Crestwood Community Center and there were tables everywhere . We sat down , we got the pre-race brief of all the rules , what to be aware of , you know , get the full rundown . And then we got our .

Speaker 1 8:07

We had two options at the start . You could get one of your mystery maps at the start , because there was an orienting section at the park that we were starting at , or you could hop on the mountain bike and go and start hitting checkpoints . We opted to hop on the mountain bike because if we ran out of time which is happens in adventure races we would at least be orienting or clearing up near the start finish line , so we opted to start off with the mountain bike . It's easier to gauge your time and distance when you do that , so that's what we opted for . Half the team stayed and started there with their maps at the park , and then the other half of the teams hopped on their mountain bikes and took off .

Speaker 1 8:52

Now , during the pre-race meeting , one of the reasons that they had this race as an urban race was due to the fact that David Frey , who was a avid adventurer and very well known in the community he had recently passed the Blue Gehrig's disease and he was definitely someone that was a supporter and a big proponent of adventure racing and supporting the O-Meets , and they said that this type of race would have been his perfect or preferred type of race , which is why we were doing the urban and the land nav in the parks , and so that initial feeling I had of oh man , this is gonna suck , turn into you know what . This is an honor of David and it turned out to be really probably one of my favorite Castlewood adventure races , so it was surprisingly fun . But then ultimately we line up . We had our route picked with our mountain bike . That was the route we're gonna take . We line up at the arch , they play the national anthem and off we go .

Speaker 1 9:58

We immediately go to our bikes , and I had an issue . I remember initially my first screw up of the day was on my bike . There's a strap on there , that kind of buckle , and I couldn't get the strap open . It took me a couple minutes to get it open , and so we were a little delayed on the mountain bike and we had to play catch up . Another downside that we had with this particular race was I brought my Trek Stash , which has the 3.5 plus size tires , so not quite full fat bike , but kind of like in between , and we were gonna be urban the entire time . The reason being was because , leading up to the race , I didn't have enough time to prep my other mountain bike that I typically raced , and I recently raced on the fat bike . I'm like you know what I'll be fast enough and I'll be good , especially if we're gonna be in Castlewood , not knowing that we're gonna be on asphalt all day . So I felt a little slower . However , I had enough horsepower in the legs to get those wheels moving and we actually made really good time in Pasalog , because we were actually pretty quick on the bike , so that was great , all right .

Speaker 1 11:05

So once we got to moving , our first stop was called the Heights and there were a few clues hidden around the park , some of them , some of the checkpoints for this , most of the checkpoints you had to . You had a passport and you had to use a little clicker to click the passport and it put a little code on there . Some of the clues were alphabetical , so it'd be like this is checkpoint A and you would have to read like a gravestone . You had to look for a specific gravestone and like determine when the person was born . Or some of them were like a . One of them was like a sculpture of like these chairs and how many chairs created the sculpture . So they were fun . So we had a few of those sprinkled about At the Heights .

Speaker 1 12:00

We mountain biked to the Heights and then we had a . One of the clues was a bench dedicated to a young man that was born in 2008 . We had a quick stop at a cemetery that was in the backyard of between a couple houses and we had to find the birth date on one of the headstones . Then we mountain biked over to Watson Trail Park . We ran our bike through the playground , found a checkpoint and then went onto the paved trail . From there we took off on foot , grabbed a couple of checkpoints , got back on the bike and then we found our next checkpoint .

Speaker 1 12:32

Well , actually this was one of our errors that we made . I saw a few other racers and I thought , oh shoot , this has gotta be where the checkpoint is . We quickly hopped off on foot , went down the bottom of the hill and then I , just then I noticed that these guys didn't know where the checkpoint was . Looking at the map , I had noticed that we had left too soon or got off the bike too soon . It was actually up around the next corner . So , greg and I , we got back .

Speaker 1 13:01

We had to go back on the trail , get back on the mountain bike , and when we got back up there , one of the homeowners started yelling at the other people that were the other racers because they were trespassing in his backyard . I don't think the homeowner knew that there was an adventure race happening that day and there was no checkpoint down there . The homeowner was kind of pissed off and but we got out of there pretty quick . We found the checkpoint pretty quickly and then got back on the mountain bike and rode to the Laumeier Sculpture Park . Now , I lived in St Louis before but I'd never been to this particular park . We got our map of 20 checkpoints and we were on foot for this segment and there were checkpoints all over this park and this park had some of the coolest sculptures I'd ever seen . Some of the sculptures were like large deer , there was like a huge eyeball , there was like these really unique buildings and ruins and all sorts of like different sculptors . It was a super cool place to be and I would highly recommend , if you ever go back to St Louis , to go to a Lawnmire park and check it out . We found our checkpoints there .

Speaker 1 14:12

We got back on the bike , hit a bunch of checkpoints and made our way down to the Dirt Crit segment . Now the Dirt Crit segment is a 1.5 mile single track mountain bike loop and what was unique about this segment is that each of your teammates had to do two laps and then you tag out with your other teammate . So Greg did the first two laps and while he was doing that I met up with my friend Larry again and he gave me he shared with me some of his potato chips and his Coca-Cola and there's nothing that tastes as good as a cold Coca-Cola when you're racing . This is really the only time I ever drink any kind of soda or pop , whatever part of the country you're from , I call it soda , but it was amazing and it gave me a few minutes to kind of organize my map board on my handle bar of my mountain bike . That was kind of getting kind of squirrely . He did his couple laps , I got on and did my couple laps . Cool thing is we got the third fastest team time on this particular course segment and to me it was probably the most fun of the race because we're both pretty avid mountain bikers . So I think we did our ride in that segment .

Adventure Race

Speaker 1 15:27

But so , being fueled up on potato chips and soda , we got back on our bike and the temperature dropped significantly during this part . And this is the part where we got to Simpson Lake . And when we got to Simpson Lake they did a gear check . They wanted to check our wet weather gear . So wet weather gear is usually at the bottom of the pack so we had to pull it out . They checked that off and then we were off to grabbing our canoes , the paddles and our PFD , our personal flotation device , also known as your life preserver we got into the canoe and we set off .

Speaker 1 16:03

There were nine checkpoints that we had to get to on the canoe . We decided to go counterclockwise and the first so most of the checkpoints you could grab them while you're in the canoe . I was in the back , greg was up in the front , but the very first checkpoint we both had to disembark and what sucked about being in the back was when you're in the canoe and you get up to the shore , you can kind of paddle kind of quickly and get the front of the canoe up on the bank so the first partner can hop off without getting their feet wet the person in the back . You can kind of do that balancing act where you kind of take a few steps up and hop off , but that was going to waste a lot of time . So I just stepped out of the canoe and got my feet soaking wet and we were wearing our cycling shoes , which really sucked because as we disembarked and we had to get to the checkpoint , there were a lot of big rocks that we had to scramble over and it was like being on ice skates . So that part was really really tricky and really slick .

Speaker 1 17:06

When we got the checkpoint , hop back in the canoe , grabbed a couple checkpoints by canoe we were making great time passing teams , which are super cool and then we got up to this little river way and there were like four checkpoints on the river and the farthest point up the section was up a creek and there was an option to portage Portage meaning you can disembark and carry your canoe if you'd like , and there was a fork in the river as well , and we chose the going left and we got up to this to kind of toward the end of that , and then we disembarked , got out of the canoe , had to scramble on some more . It was like a levee made out of rocks , so we're kind of scrambling over these , the rocks that were on the levee , to find our checkpoint . Well , what we noticed when we got to the checkpoint , if we were to stayed right at the fork , teams were paddling right up to it and they didn't even have to get out of their canoe . So we actually wasted time . But there was no , really no way to know that that was the right way to go unless you really knew the area . So we wasted a little bit of time there . Most of the teams did go the same way that we did , so it was only an advantage for a few of the teams . But we got back in the canoe and headed back .

Speaker 1 18:26

I started getting pretty cold at this point because my hands were wet . My feet were soaked from getting out of the canoe a few times . We finished up our checkpoints , we got back on the bike . The temperature was dropping and because my feet were wet , my hands were wet and we're back on the bicycle going anywhere between 15 to 20 mile an hour . That wind chill really started to set in and this is where I started to really started getting tired . I noticed I was cramping a little bit . My legs weren't working . Thank goodness for Craig was willing to do the passport because when we got to the next park in Kirkwood he could run up to the checkpoint and I could kind of do the next map check , still staying within 100 feet . I could catch a quick breather while he grabbed the point and I was able to keep up without slowing us down too much , but I was definitely starting to slow down .

Speaker 1 19:15

We finished the 20 or so points at Kirkwood and , yeah , we finished up . We got back on the bikes , head back through Kirkwood , hit a few checkpoints , got back on Grant's trail , headed back to the park there at Crestwood where we started , and then , when we got to that point , we had an hour left to hit the . I think there was about 12 checkpoints at that last stop . We had less than an hour because you had to make the cutoff before you got there and so we were at that point . We cut it pretty close . We ultimately finished with 20 minutes to spare . We cleaned the course , that last little orienteering section in 40 minutes and finished at seven hours and 40 minutes . Ultimately , we thought that we cleared the course .

Speaker 1 20:08

They said that we missed a checkpoint in Kirkwood . I don't feel that we did , but you know I'm not mad at the race organizers or the people that were scoring because our passport was wet . They had 86 checkpoints per team to score , but typically you know whether or not you missed a checkpoint or had a screw up , and I don't think we did . But they said that we did so . With that being said , we finished 43 out of 106 teams with a time of seven hours 40 minutes . We got credit for 85 out of 86 checkpoints , which is the most checkpoints I've ever done in an adventure race . There were a lot . Typically it's half of that . We covered approximately 40.5 total miles and had we gotten credit for the 86 checkpoints , we would have ranked 32 out of 106 . So pretty good given a team that had never worked together , and there are some incredibly fast teams here in the Midwest .

Speaker 1 21:11

So the first team , they finished in four hours and 48 minutes . I mean , they just absolutely crushed it . And so a lot of . And then the next fastest teams were like in the 530 mark . We were in the running to do pretty good and I think that we did pretty good , all things considered . Some of the lessons learned Slow , smooth and smooth is fast . And I say that because there were a couple times where we made some rushed decisions to find checkpoints and followed some other teams thinking that they knew what they were doing , and when we got down there , like oh shoot , we're not even close , so trying to , trying to , and that that's pretty typical when you start the race , you're trying to save as much time as you can , and that was a mistake that we made , because we did that a couple times , not realizing that the team ahead of us , their little N-EV , was a little off . Therefore , our land nav was off , so that was kind of a mistake and we lost some time due to that .

Speaker 1 22:09

I had some issues with the map holder on my bike and that was due to the fact that I used a new bike and I violated my own rule of I have a rule of no new equipment on race day . Now I've raced that mountain bike numerous times With mountain bike races . I had never used it during an adventure race and the screw-up was I had never used that map holder on this mountain bike during an adventure race and that caused me some issues and hassle during the race . That really pissed me off and cost us a little bit of time . Don't use the Trek Stash . The tires were too big . I should have prepped , made time to prep the other mountain bike . That was primarily due to the fact that , even if I was racing or not until kind of like till the last minute , but either way lost some time , probably because I used the bike , but we did get that bad boy humming on the race . I mean we we passed a lot of teams on the bike . Don't follow other teams touring the race or recover that one .

Speaker 1 23:09

Be confident in your own land nav and in your own in yourself . There are a couple times where , I don't know , you get flustered , you might be off a little bit . You start to second guess yourself Later . This typically happens on a couple points later in the race . We overshot a point and I kind of lost confidence myself for a minute and I kind of got flustered . But we shook it off .

Speaker 1 23:32

Sustains . We had great teamwork . I love racing with Greg . We were mutually supportive , we had great communication . We worked really really well together . Another sustain was doing the prep work the night before . It was tedious , it took us a long time to do that , but it helped us tremendously .

Speaker 1 23:49

Course correct on race day and I thought that our gear was on point . We didn't over pack , which is , you know , if you over pack that can slow you down , and we did a good job . We had all of our items . We had the items that we needed for gear check and we yeah , we didn't overpack . We were good to go . And you know , something I've learned too is it's easy to overpack on water and hydration and that stuff gets heavy . I mean , a gallon of water weighs eight pounds . So you definitely want to be mindful to not overpack but you don't want to run out either .

Speaker 1 24:22

But I had my snacks arranged and we constantly reminded each other to eat , because when you're doing a race of this length you know once you get over an hour you got to start really ingesting calories . You've already burnt up your calorie stores and the rule of thumb is you want to ingest probably 100 calories every 15 minutes , but your body doesn't want to eat , especially as you get later in the day . So you have to force yourself to eat or you're going to bonk out or crash . And I think I brought the right foods and we had . We reminded each other enough throughout the race to continue to eat and drink and we never really felt that hard bonk Improves . You know , we allegedly missed a point . So I guess we need to make sure that we double check our passports before leaving the park .

Speaker 1 25:12

No new equipment on race day . So my new equipment was the bringing the Trek Stash . And then I wish I would have had for my paper some acetate tape to cover it , because some of my note taking paper got wet and it started to disintegrate later in the race and I couldn't read it . So that's on me to bring some acetate papers . That's a reminder to myself . But overall , man , I tell you what one of my favorite races . Greg was a great partner , had so much fun . It was a great way to honor David on a life well lived and we just had a blast . It was one of those situations where I kind of went into it , kind of like I don't know where I get into , this might suck because it's going to be urban , and it turned out to probably be my favorite race of all time and , yeah , I had an absolute blast . So that is my race report on the Castlewood 8-Hour Adventure Race .

Speaker 1 26:14

So if you have any questions or comments or insights , did you do the Castlewood 8-Hour ? What was your race experience ? I'd love to hear from you . You can reach out to me on social media . You can contact us , connect with me through the website wwwDoOurThingsNationcom and or just straight up DM me if we're connected on social media and I'd love to hear what was your experience . If you'd like to know more about adventure racing , check out the previous podcast where I give you an overview of what adventure racing is , and if I can answer any questions that you have about the sport , let me know . I think it's a fantastic sport I would love to see it continue to grow and if I can support you in that in any way you know , feel free to let me know . And that's it . That's it for this episode of the Do Our Things podcast . Castlewood 8-Hour Adventure Race overview .

Pier Marquette Trail Run Adventure

Speaker 1 27:07

Like I said , lacey and I were on our way to Pier Marquette to do the . This claim to be the best trail run in the Midwest in Alton Illinois at Pier Marquette Park . I love it . It's a 7.8 mile run and we'll do a race report in a podcast episode specifically on our adventure together there , which should be fun , because Lacey is not an adventure racer , or so she claims , not a trail runner . She's sorry , not an adventure racer , not a trail runner , she prefers , she's a roadie . She's a roadie . So she's probably going to hate me a little bit tomorrow because it's pretty steep in some areas , but I think it's a fun race . I prefer anything off road to road , but I love running with my buddy Lacey and we're going to do this together . So in the meantime , keep doing hard things and we will see you in the next episode .