Matt's Kinzua Country Tango 2012 Race Report

The lead in to this year’s Tango was a bit crazy. Largely because we kept thinking that putting together a women’s relay team was possible. But there were also some injuries that limited the options of what everyone was going to be able to do.  I think I may have caused some stress/confusion because of this uncertainty. I guess because I was ready to do as much of the race as was necessary, I didn’t think of the fact that everyone else would feel better knowing what they were going to do and who they were going to be racing with. To give you an idea of how in flux the teams were, Genine’s team picked up their 4.5 mile runner a day or two before the race. The good news is that everything worked out. We also introduced 3 new people to the Tango.

Matt’s Team:

Chad Burns 13.1 (new to our teams but has run the Tango before)

Craig Cerra 20 Mile Bike (6^th Year that Craig and I were on a team together)

Claudia 2.5 Mile Swim (Todd’s Daughter, 1^st Tango Event)

Todd Olson and I Orienteering (Todd’s 2^nd year, 1^st year orienteering)

Christian 4.5 Mile Run (Todd’s Son, 1^st Tango Event)

Craig and Todd 8.5 mile Canoe

Genine’s Team:

Marty Durnell 13.1

Scott Ferguson 20 Mile Bike (1^st Tango Race)

Genine 2.5 Mile Swim

Jerry Johnson / Genine Orienteering

Amanda Costagnino 4.5 mile run (2^nd appearance on our Tango team)

Scott/Jerry 8.5 Mile Canoe.

Marty was signed up to be Jim Robert’s support team. In order for Marty to help us out and run the 13.1, I had to jump in and help support Jim up until my event started. I was more than glad to do this. It turned out to be a good learning experience. There are a few things I would do differently had I the chance to do it over. I’ll speak more on that later.

 RACE MORNING:

I didn’t sleep well at all. Not sure if it’s because we had heard that the orienteering would be challenging this year, or because depending on how closely Jim races in comparison with my team, would determine how difficult it would be to support him.

Day started off low 70’s and very humid. It’s going to get hot fast today.

13.1 Run:  This is going to be a good race. Jim and Chris running the whole race today are shooting for a 1:45 run. Chad hopes to do better than this. Marty figures 1:50-2:00 range.

Chad was in the lead at the 9 mile mark which is right after the crossing of the dam. At the finish, Chris and Jim were there first at 1:47:00, Marty at 1:48:00 and Chad at 1:53:00.  This was a good start and set up the bike race well.

20 mile  Bike: Scott left about a minute before Jim and 5 minutes before Craig. Scott is on a fat tire 29er. Jim is on a fat tire mountain bike. Craig is on a Cyclocross bike but has an injured calf muscle.

We had to drive over to T2 which meant there was a chance we would see them out on the course, and we did. We saw Craig. Then very shortly after, we see Scott and Jim. Jim was directly in front of Scott just about to turn up to the road to Jake’s Rocks. Close race so far!

Jim arrived at the boat launch first. 1:43:00 split. Then about 5 minutes later Craig arrived with a 1:44:00 split. Claudia is going to get a head start on Genine for the swim.

Scott arrived about 12 minutes later with a 2:01:00 split and Genine starts her swim.

2.5 mile swim: Genine and I have not put as many laps in the pool this year, so I was curious to see where she would finish. 1:04:00 was her previous time. This being Claudia’s first year, I really had a hard time guessing how she would do. I had guessed a range of 60-90 minutes.

Genine finished in 1:04:00 again!! Claudia showed up about 8 minutes later having swum a 1:24:00! Which sounds similar to what most of us swam our first time. She should be pretty happy with that.

Orienteering: Genine and Jerry headed up the hill a few minutes ahead of us. She had to get out of her wetsuit and get into her running shoes, so it was less than an 8 minute lead.

Todd and I got our map. It was obvious which direction we had to go to start. As we went down to point 1, I was already concerned for my ankles. We passed Genine and Jerry on the way to point 2. I kept looking at the map deciding where to go after point 2. As we climbed our way through the rocks to point 2, I had decided I was going to take the easier route and go to point 3 next, rather than going through the woods.

Point 3 was on a steep slope near route 59. Getting down and back up from there was a challenge. Todd did a great job finding this point.  I just had to follow his lead. I did better going up than down. At this point, I was warmed up and moving well. Now it was time to run the trails!

We made good time running to point 4. We kept rolling towards point 5. As we reached the point where you’d leave the trail to find the point. I think we had just caught 3 or 4 other teams. It sounded like many of them had yet to do point 3 tho’. I wanted to stay ahead of all of them if possible. So on the way back out, we tried to push the pace.

I figured we’d see Jerry and Genine on the way back. They must have been on the other trail as we went by, so we didn’t see them. As we approached the rim rock parking lot there was a team ahead of us that I figured we needed to be in front of before we reached the stairs. With random sightseers, there was always a chance they could get between us on the stairs and they could gain time on us there. So we sprinted to the stairs and…. Of course there were 4 or 5 people walking down slowly. (it wasn’t awful, just feels like it when you know you are on the clock) Then to make matters worse. I was impatient at the bottom and cut across what I thought was the start of the trail. It wasn’t. So we had to jump down from a few large rocks to get back onto the trail to the beach. The tough part here is not to trip on the way down. I felt like we did well. Very little wasted time. We finished in 1:34:00 (1:22:00 was fastest time for the day Officially)

Now is when the day gets kind of crazy. We waited for about 2 hours for Genine and Jerry. They along with many others had a really hard time with point 5. They finished in 3:27:00 and that was not the worst time of the day by any stretch. There were 15 teams with times over 4 hours!! People were coming out of the woods Very dehydrated. I started to get very concerned for Jim. He was still out there as well.

4.5 mile run. Christian ran for our team and ran it in 39 minutes. Amanda ran for Genine’s team. (She gets the super patient award for the day.) She knocked out a 37 minute run.

I didn’t see the start or finish of either of our canoeing teams. I stayed up at the beach waiting to make sure Jim was alright. When he came out he was like so many of the others. Dehydrated! So he sat down and started to down fluids and get calories in. Eventually he decided he would keep going and we were headed down to the boat launch. (I’m hopeful that Jim will write something up on the blog).

When I got to the race finish. I saw that Jerry and Scott finished the canoe is 1:26:00 and Todd and Craig finished in 1:31:00.

Matt’s Team Total time: 8:45:00  About 12^th place of 42 open relay teams unofficially

Genine’s Team Total Time: 10:23:00 About 30^th of  42 open real teams unofficially

As always, it was a very fun day. It would be interesting to know how much fluid we went through in total. Our cooler alone we went through 14 32oz bottles of Gatorade and a 24 pack of 16 ounce bottles of water.

It’s also great to hear everyone already talking about next year. I have a feeling that our fastest times are yet to come!

I apologize for the lack of pictures. I didn't take the camera out of the bag the entire week I was in Warren. Which is quite disappointing considering the great weather.  Genine will have some photos or videos on her iPhone. Maybe she will post some of them.

Here is a link to the pro photos.

2012 Kinzua Country Tango Results. Unofficial/Partial. Hopefully full Tango results will be posted soon.
Final results update can be found on their website Click "official times" will look much better than my image here.