Originally posted June 22, 2020
21 hours of activity in 96 hours, DONE! This does not include drive time, prepping, planning, or any of the other extras. I am happy that I did it and happy that it is over.
I have been planning this since April. A badly sprained ankle and ripped off big toe nail brought me almost up to the deadline. The weather did not look ideal, but I had no other days to get it done (thankfully the way was way better than predicted).
Day one was good (mostly because I had my gal pal Nancy with me!). The goal was 3 hours of bushwhacking and 3 hours of hiking. I found one of the few permanent orienteering courses in the area and it was perfect for what we needed! We went to Patapsco State Park, Hilton Area where the course was. Nancy and I loved the course and the park. We will definitely be returning. Another part of the race was to find at least 10 geocaches. We tried to find one there and found a cool snake instead. We completed 3 miles.
Part two of the day was 3 hours hiking. I wanted to try Liberty Reservoir because it looked like there were lots of geocaches we could get. I have to say that Liberty Reservoir was not our favorite place. There was no place to park and finding access to the trails got a little crazy. There was a TON of poison ivy too. This hiked totaled 4 miles and 5 geocaches. We rewarded ourselves with some yummy Dairy Queen.
Day two ended up being longer than I had anticipated. It was going to be the 5 hour multi-discipline, but I added the two-hour “other” to my line up. My longest day was spent at my favorite place to hang out, Black Hill Regional Park. I started with a 3 hour 10 mile mountain bike ride. I found several caches while riding. I did my two hour “not trekking, not biking, not napping” activity next. I took advantage that it was not raining yet and went paddle boarding. There was a really cool series of caches that could only reached by boat, so thats what I did. I got to see another snake while looking for (and not finding) one of the caches. The front moved in while I was paddling back. The wind got so strong I had to kneel just to get enough power to get back. I completed 2 miles and several geocaches. I finished up with two hours of hiking and geocaching. By this point both my watch a phone had about 1% left. My two hour hike was pretty pathetic. with a total of 3 miles.
Day 3 kind-of sucked. OK, it REALLY sucked. It was hot, humid, and pouring. I decided to try out a new place to ride to mix things up. I tried to go to the Pickall area of Patapsco State Park, but it was closed. I went to the Hollifield area instead. There was really only one trail I could find to ride. There were many parts that were not super friendly, especially with the rain. I think I might have walked more than I rode. At one point I got off my bike and just sat in a field waiting for inspiration (or a bike fairy that would haul my butt back to the truck). Neither really happened, so I got back on my bike and finished the loop. After I had a quick bite to eat, I felt better and tackled the loop again. It went marginally better. I got a total of 5.65 miles in three hours. Not sure it could be much more pathetic, but at least I completed it.
Day four went way better then I could have expected. The goal was four hours of road biking. There were several things that I was supposed to see during the ride (a tombstone, bridge, a statue, stone wall etc.). I was trying to figure out where I could bike, see everything on on the list, and not get run over by a car. Dave suggested Gettysburg. Perfect! I downloaded a bike route tour (1b) and hit the road. I ended up adding several loops for a total of 20 miles. The tour was listed as a four hour tour, but that is if you are going to stop at all of the markers. I hate road biking. It is not fun for me, and Dave will never have to hear me say that I need a road bike. I actually have to say that I really enjoyed myself! Gettysburg is the perfect place to bike. It was so scenic, and obviously very historic. There were only a couple of times that I had to go on busy roads, and the shoulder was wide enough for me to ride comfortably. The rest of the time I was on beautiful country roads that were relatively flat and very few cars. I might even consider riding there again. I went home and promptly took a nap. I still had one hour of weight training to complete. I found a video on you tube and had the most pathetic hour of exercise of my life. Athena at least provided some moral support.
So the numbers were:
21 hours of activity
31.1 Miles biked
10.1 Miles traveled by foot
2.5 Miles SUP
14 Geocaches
0 Injuries!!!!!!
I am so glad I did this. At first I thought that I would complete everything, but just take my time doing it. At some point, I realized that I could actually complete the whole thing in 96 hours. There are many people(pretty much everyone that completed it) that have way more miles racked up than I did, and that’s OK. I ran my own race.
Thanks to Rootstock Racing for organizing this race. They raised over $9000 for the COVID relief fund with this race. I have only known about them for about a year, but am happy I have found them .