The Death March is a Sub 9 event that is very similar to an adventure race but the check points are cemeteries located in the Hoosier National Forrest (HNF), just south of Bloomington. You ride with a teammate to various locations, take a picture in front of the cemetery sign, then move on. We planned to make it to every checkpoint so were able to plan a route several weeks in advance. Spending time riding the path we would eventually take helped with both navigation and conditioning/endurance. We made 3 pre-ride trips down to HNF in the weeks before the race. Ultimately, it was two teams (Larry and myself, and Glenn and Matt) that planned to stay together throughout the race, which in my opinion was a great plan.
Overcomming two stops to fix a flat, hitting all checkpoints in the planned order, and staying together as planned resulted in a great race that did not force one to dig super deep, but rather enjoy the day. One thing that helped our eventual placing besides knowing the route, was our intentional effort to spend as little time at a check point as possible (less than 1 minute). The bummer about the hastiness, was that I apparently did not save three of Matt and Glenn's pictures, resulting in a DNF for them as one of the cemeteries was a required checkpoint. Sorry guys....
The event was fun. Good food and mulitple discussions about route choices and what to do differently next year was the topic of the post ride discussion. The event is also a great way to start off the 2012 season (road and MtB).
My next official event is the Mt. Mitchell Challenge in May, then the Mohican 100, the first weekend in June. I'm sure I will enter several local events in the meantime, just for fun.
