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August 4th, 2007: on a picture-perfect Vermont summer day, 24 teams of 2 and 3 descended on Bolton Valley for this year's Bitter Pill 12-hour Adventure Race. The race started with most teams breaking in two and biking to points on their way up to the top of the Vista Quad and TA1. From there, a 3+ hour bushwhack through everything from dense forest to fields of stinging nettles tested their navigation abilities with even a few experienced teams becoming lost for hours. Everyone made their triumphant return to civilization and was treated to a fun ride back down to the sports center to stock up on water and set off to several bike checkpoints. They were surprised to meet course designer Jim at checkpoint 8 with a new map and two points to reach on foot. Most teams split again and found devil ducks and squeezable frogs waiting for them before they returned with their loot and continued on bikes to TA3. At TA3 they jumped into a stream and ran down to the swimming leg where several points on a river provided much-needed refreshment before a hard-fought canoe to the finish line. The ever-popular post-race party, this year in the tavern, was a great chance to tell stories, laugh at the slideshow, and congratulate the winning teams.
1st 3-person coed: Sunrise Cafe, finishing at 4:36pm
Fastest time: WickedPissah, crushing the course to finish at 3:21pm, despite a cracked bike frame, a missing shoe, and a detour to the peak of Ricker with their bikes!
I know I say this every time, but this was definitely our best race yet! The trek especially was beautiful, gnarly, and navigationally challenging in ways that you don't often find in races of this length. Talking to people during and after the race I heard nothing but people happy with the course. You can't ask for a better reward than that! Many thanks to the course designers Chris and Jim, all our terrific volunteers, our EMT, and of course our sponsors: EMS, Bolton Valley, Eddie's Energy, Herc, Ibex, Mad River Canoe, Trail Runner, Umiak, and Zanfel.
Racers: if you post a blog or review, send a link to info at gmara.org and we'll link to it here.
See everyone in March at the largest winter adventure race in the US: The Frigid Infliction!
-Tim Curtin, Race Director, and the GMARA Gang
Results available here: http://www.gmara.org/bitterpill/BP07Results.pdf
Photos online here: http://gmara.smugmug.com/
(If you have any photos taken during the race, please send them to photos at gmara.org - we'll put them in the racer-submitted gallery and include any notes you'd like with each.)
More info here: http://www.gmara.org/bitterpill
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