The 2009 MVP Health Care Bitter Pill last weekend was hands-down GMARA's best
race yet! The beautiful weather and Craftsbury vistas at the top of every...
single... hill... (there was a lot of elevation gain!) kept racers in good
spirits all day, despite a course described as both "brutal" and fun. Maps in
hand, racers had only minutes to choose a course of action before the 6am start.
A quick run down to Great Hosmer Pond, and 125 people were testing out just how
waterproof their mapbags were on a 20 minute swim through the morning mist.
After drying off, 29 of the 50 teams got all 16 points on an orienteering map,
then it was back to the Start location for TA1, new maps, and the first bike
leg.

After riding hill after hill to three points (one of them being Willey's Store,
where each team used their $1 required gear to purchase a little yellow guy to
keep in lieu of a punch), teams pushed hard up to Barr Hill. Water resupply, 8
points in any order on foot in the Nature Conservancy area there, and then it
was back for more biking, a quick gear check, and some fun technical
singletrack.

Last but not least, a run to grab canoes, and then paddle/portage/paddle/portage
to the finish! Little and Great Hosmer Ponds held 8 checkpoints, with a (very!)
muddy portage in between.

Two teams, Snot Rockets and Granite AR, were neck-and-neck all day long, but in
the end the two-person Snot Rockets finished first with a 64-second lead and a
time on course of 7 hours, 10 minutes. Granite AR, in their first race
together, took the 3-person coed division, and so grabbed a spot at the USARA
National Championship and prize money to attend. Terrific racing by all - this
was a very physically tough course!

Detailed results, photos, and links to our sponsors are here: http://
www.gmara.org/bitterpill

Photos (all 1200+ of them) are online here: http://gmara.smugmug.com/
gallery/9133855_ZMb5m. (As usual, you are free to use them any way you see fit,
but please give us credit, and if possible link back to the gallery or the race
website.)

Last but not least, our races wouldn't be possible without our sponsors! Please
patronize these fine businesses, and tell 'em GMARA
sent ya:
Title sponsor MVP Health Care, prize sponsors Outdoor Research, Eastern Mountain
Sports, Untamed Adventures, Endurance Aventure, TrailRunner, Zanfel, Catamount
Outdoor Family Center, Vermont Forest Parks & Rec, Madhouse Munchies, Umiak
Outfitters, The Craftsbury Outdoor Center for providing a beautiful venue and
helpful staff, and a huge thanks to our massage therapist Ginger Kipp. Of
course, without all of our amazing volunteers our races would be possible. They
gave up sleep, staffed checkpoints in the middle of nowhere, and kept racers'
(and organizers'!) spirits up, all while managing chaos
- "thank you" could never be strong enough!


Race on! See everyone at The Frigid Infliction in March!

-Tim, Chris, and Jim at GMARA.org

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GMARA: Bringing Adventure to the Great Outdoors! tim@...
(GMARA is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization)