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Sun, Aug 10th - Lightning and SuperGlue

Beast staff / 10.08.2003

The \"Death March\" as some competitors have called the 35-mile trekking still stands as the dénouement of the race and the great divider of teams. The storms that blew through the area made national news and even closed down the rappel site early when lightning struck near the Dirty Dozen and electrified Mary Scheerer from Team Towanda. Despite a mild jolt, she and team mate Shari Hymes have continued in the race.

Several competitors commented on the beauty of the bountiful waterfalls, stream crossings and foliage along the long trek, but most lamented about what the wet, rugged terrain did to their feet. Matt Hunt from Team Snickers Marathon was removed from the course with an infected silver dollar-sized blood blister under a detached big toe nail. Odyssey\'s 3 medical doctors and 3 paramedics have kept busy non-stop fixing competitors water-logged and blistered feet.

Paramedic Greg Turner said he\'s re-supplied their foot care items 4 times and have completely cleared out the towns of Brevard and Rosman of their Super Glue supplies. \"Our medical crew is so dedicated and really cater to the racers by attending to their foot care issues,\" said Race Director Don Mann, who added that most races expect the competitors and support crews to handle non-emergency medical problems.

Racers finishing the trekking section before 7:15 pm on Saturday got on their bikes to ride 25 miles of densely forested single track to Lake Jocassee. Under a full moon and calm winds, these teams paddled 16 miles to find 2 lakeside orienteering points.

Team V-Max who was the first of eight teams that did the lake paddle, kept a 3-hour lead over teams Eric Turk, Litespeed, Kinami/Leatherman, Lostworldadventures.com, NADS/Cycleworks-TREK, Casual Adventure, and Mason Dixson. Teams who didn\'t make the 7:15 cut-off continued on directly to Gorges State Park, where they would proceed on bikes to the 175 foot Jumar site and then on to the Finish Line.

The 7:15 cut-off before the Lake split the existing two categories into four. Those arriving in the PRO Category before the cut-off proceeded to the Lake and remained in the PRO Category. Those PRO Teams arriving after the 7:15 deadline created a new PRO2 Category. Adventure Category teams arriving before 7:15 went on to do the paddle and remained Adventure. Those arriving after continued on in the Adventure2 Category.

As of 2:00 pm on Sunday, six teams have dropped from the race. Those teams are Zach Doppel, Nature Calls, Revolution, Race Logix, InnerStrength, and Hall Pass. Team 23 from the river rescue actually re-entered the race unofficially. We also have several other teams travelling unofficially after dropping team members.

Team New Balance/Odyssey, which is now in the PRO2 course after missing the Lake paddle are expected to be the first team arriving at the finish line with PRO2 Team Flown the Coop-Trailblazers following quickly behind.

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