24 Hours of Shale Hell pit crew

The action is nonstop - not long after BattleFrog is 24 Hours of Shale Hell!

I felt some kind of peace of mind once I switched to the Beast. I can stop fretting about certain things now! 

I've heard that Shale Hill is an OCR destination in Benson, Vermont, with some crazy hard obstacles that'll make most other obstacles pale in comparison. I saw a bit of the madness while volunteering at the 8 hour Polar Bear Challenge back in February. The penalties were formidable, to say the least.

New this year is the 4 person relay team, so initially I was going to pit crew one runner (Jen) but since she joined a team I guess they inherit me as well. 

As I usually do when traveling through Vermont, I suss out a craft brewery en route so this time I do some sampling at Otter Creek Brewing (Middlebury, VT). The bites I've ordered on the side blew my mind - brie with strawberry habanero jam on crostini! Whaaat!!

I arrive on site and the owner and creator of the Shale Hill madness, Rob Butler, gives me a warm welcome. Whoever's arrived has started to set up camp; I meet Paul Jones, one of the main players of the New England Spahtens, and he's already chilling with a drink. The space eventually starts to fill up with tents (from 2-person ones, to a 1970s behemoth we dub 'The Green Monster', and a couple of 10 x 10 EZ-Up tents overhead), as well as camping gear, coolers, water jugs galore and enough food to last for days.

The guys' tent with a little accessory

The evening starts off with a meal at the restaurant (The Wheel Inn) in the village, and we end up meeting a number of New England Spahtens. One of them, Sandy, had completed a 30-day stint at Shale Hill so I immediately ask if I could accompany her on a lap the next day, since she'll be full of tips and info. 

There's also a blue moon in the sky - now I wonder if there's something rare and unexpected that will happen (maybe we'll spot a unicorn! Or the Trix Rabbit!)

I haven't been camping much, but I absolutely love waking up when the sun comes out. The camp comes alive and amongst the camping stoves here and there, only 1 kettle can be found. Hm, will have to be strategic with my timing when I brew the coffee. 

The team is awake; Alex cannot be missed as he is in his trademark Pac-Man pj bottoms, though I'm told he's in the zone when he's wearing them. 

At the morning brief Rob explains how the event is going to go and how the penalty (30 spider-man pushups) for elites will be counted as the rounds go on (by the 5th round, failed obstacles means zero penalties) His zigzag wall has more than 1 section and the penalty will be multiplied by the number of failed sections. Yikes! 

The racers take off at 9am and the sun is already hot and blazing overhead. I hope it won't affect too many people.

After less than two hours the first runner, Evan, comes in (he'll eventually win the event with 10 laps completed, and he never really stopped for the whole 24 hours!); after 3 hours or so quite a few have finished their first lap and many have started cooking their 2nd breakfast - the aroma of bacon is everywhere. 

An amazing pit crew, Bill

We figure out how to fire up the older-model Coleman stove that was sent along with the team, and Alex cooks himself up some bacon and eggs and takes off on a lap after eating. He ends up running a penalty-free lap and has earned the title "The Canadian Ninja" from fellow racers! 

It isn't long before I get ready to go out on a lap with Sandy and 4 other NE Spahtens. I've pretty much brought a full set of gear to do a run, all I'm missing is my hydration pack (hey, I wasn't really expecting to be sweating up a bunch). I really don't know what to expect; up until then; I had never been on the Shale Hill loop (about 10km with 51 obstacles). I'm feeling some slight trepidation - will it be hard obstacles that I'll have a lot of difficulty doing?

Not long into the loop we see Rob's edition of teeter totters - the 2nd one is longer than most, so it takes a bit of shuffling towards the middle before the end drops down to the ground. 

I'm not going to reveal much on the Shale Hill course (come and try it for yourself!), but one of the obstacles I really liked was the Lincoln Log. It reminded me of the tree climb (with the rock climbing grips) at the 2013 Montreal Super Spartan. On another climbing obstacle (Abacus) I whack my shin on the descent, and it stings. 

Up I go on the rope ladder

There are a lot of obstacles that are grip heavy (hello, hoists!) and some involve a bit of tricky climbing against gravity. There's also an inordinate number of hay bales to jump over. Several obstacles I chose not to attempt (the tyrolean traverse, for one) since I was pit crew and I had to be coherent and functional (ie no blistered hands) just in case. 

We make a small detour to a taco stand that has homemade frozen fruit pops - mostly frozen crushed fruit, some have a bit of cream mixed in there - that are almost as long as a giant Mr. Freeze (but 3 times wider). It was totally worth it! 

4 hours later (we walked, after all), my new racing buddies and myself finished our lap and rang the bell at the start/finish zone. I am POOPED. The evening goes on and I'm trying to stay awake in case if my teammates need me to run with them (safety reasons - it's an extra headlamp) while they go out on a night loop.

9:45pm feeding and I STILL fell asleep despite the coffee!

(The take-out spaghetti tastes fantastic and curiously enough, the noodles don't seem to be traditional egg noodles. I can see myself tucking in a large bowl of these swimming in chicken broth on a winter's day.)

I tell the guys I'm going for a power nap, and expect to be woken up later on. 

&&& I wake up 5 hours later. Must have been exhausted (and probably overtrained, at this point) after that lap.

It's about 3am and some runners are still trickling in and out. Turns out Alex is on course, and teammate Andrey looks like a ball in a sleeping bag in the tent.

The sun comes up just before 6am and I make my way back out. The fire that has been going pretty much all night is shrinking, and Rob has been hanging out with other racers around the fire. We spot a figure in bright green running the last section (Anaconda) and we guess it's Andrey.

Heeeere's Andrey! Ringing the bell for the team's 8th lap

After making sure Andrey won't fall asleep standing up by having him drink a complimentary chocolate milk (a bonus for Shale Hill racers - the chocolate milk is AMAZING!), the morning winds away and the event's 9am finish approaches. There are pops of champagne corks here and there in the camp; people are eating their breakfast and simultaneously sipping away at the bubbly. My kind of event!

Another Spahten, Hannah, has a table of plenty which includes a large bottle of bourbon whiskey. Ok, where do I sign up for the next race?

Not long after the event officially ends, Rob proceeds with the awards ceremony.

The Canadian contingent wins 1st place with 8 laps completed! 

Writing's on the wall...now who named them the Ottawa Titans? Awesome

What a great weekend, met lots of cool fellow OCR runners (aka New England Spahtens - thank you Sandy, Steve, Tora and Sue for letting me tag along on a lap) and I will definitely be back at Shale Hill for at least training weekend and a few events. Another frozen fruit pop won't hurt, either!

What a team! Photo courtesy of Jen Milligan 

For a racer's perspective of this edition of 24 Hours of Shale Hell, check out Jen Milligan's post