At the sound of the starting pistol runners head off in the first Terrapin Tri-County Race. Participants said the beautiful surroundings at the Chief Ladiga Trail Campgrounds were perfect for such a race. Many camped out the night before to wake up early and prepare for the event. Photo by Eddie Burkhalter
Around 50 people made the choice to go the distance alone. Among them, two-time cancer survivor and Piedmont native Tracy Stewart waited for the start like a person accustomed to more than his fair share of pain.
Stewart, who is 47, said that most people have a hard time understanding the desire to compete in events like the Terrapin Tri-County Race.
“Most people aren’t going to tackle this stuff. They’re like, you’re crazy. Why would you do this,” said Stewart.
His first cancer diagnosis came in 2001. A friend gave him Lance Armstrong’s book to read while he recuperated in the hospital. Stewart said reading about how Armstrong took on and beat the disease, and then went on to beat up competitors winning the grueling Tour de France bicycle race a record seven times, gave him something to think about other than his own cancer.
It also gave him an idea.
For two years he trained his still-recovering body so he could join a group ride with Lance Armstrong himself in Austin, Texas.
“A week before I was to go to Austin I got a recurrence,” said Stewart.
The prognosis looked bleak. Doctors removed his appendix, the right lobe of his liver, and a portion of his colon, and gave him a 30 percent chance of survival.
“I just kind of folded. I said, ‘I’m not doing it. What’s the point? I trained for two years and I’ll never make Austin,”’ he said.
But make it he did. Stewart beat cancer a second time, and along with 6,500 other cyclists, including actors Will Ferrell and Robin Williams, Stewart peddled alongside his inspiration in the 2004 Ride for the Roses Charity event that raised $5.5 million for cancer research. He rode with Armstrong again in 2005. Stewart has been participating in races of all sorts since then, but with all his experience with pain and perseverance he still had a few words about the race in front of him.
“This is not going to be an easy adventure race,” Stewart warned. “It’s pretty tough. There are a lot of hills to run, and even the bike part … Now there’s about a mile and a half of dirt. Those road bikes just don’t do well on dirt roads.”
The computer chip strapped to his ankle may have been important to the record-keeper waiting in his chair underneath the finish line, but Stewart said his goal was just to complete the race.
“I’m just doing it to finish. If I could just finish it…” said Stewart. “I don’t know how I’m going to do in this. I’ll give it everything I’ve got and if I don’t have it when I need it, you know what, I’m out here trying, and that’s more than most people.”
At the sound of Couch’s pistol the runners took off on the 6.2 mile run, beginning at the Campgrounds and down County Road 70 to the Pinhoti Trail, up the steep mountain slope where they would have to carefully plant each step on top of a pine needle-covered forest floor, and back into the campground to the kayaks waiting creek-side.
Lack of rain had starved Terrapin to a trickle. Word of the 1.5 miles down a slippery, ankle-deep in some spots, Terrapin Creek had competitors tying foot-long bits of rope to the fronts of their kayaks so they could pull them when they could not paddle. One official later said he was asked to take a photo during the race of a participant standing next to a toilet seat standing vertical in the muck.
“Because that’s what I feel like right now,” said the man holding his kayak by its’ rope.
The racers emptied off of Terrapin Creek at Mamma’s Beach and made their way to the biking portion, which included a tricky ride over an unfinished paving job on County Road 8. Race organizers said the county sprung that one on them just days before the event. The mile-and-a-half on the chert road may have slowed the pace a little, but most cyclists said it was not much of a problem and that they were able to complete the 33-mile ride down Chief Ladiga to the Welcome Center without much hassle. Most, but not all.
Cherokee County native Greg Locklear hit the biking leg feeling pretty good.
“I was proud of where I was at, and the people I was seeing around me,” said Locklear. “I was changing shoes to get on the bike and I looked up and the back tire was flat.”
Locklear was able to get an extra tube and just as he began to inflate the new tube it blew to pieces inside the tire. A spectator standing nearby fetched his own mountain bike and the two quickly pulled the tube out and got it into Locklear’s rear tire.
“Then I’m good for 15 or 20 miles and we come into the dirt road section. It was brutal. You’re expecting a rock to throw you so you’re nervous during that part,” said Locklear. Back on the flat surface of the trail and Locklear said things were looking better again, until, for an unbelievable third time, he blew his back tire.
A tired but unbeaten Locklear refused to pack it in. He offered to buy a passing official’s bike on the spot, but instead quickly found himself a loaner with a seat too low and pedals made for clipped riding shoes, which he was not wearing.
“I said I don’t care. We’re going to finish. It was all about finishing,” said Locklear, and finish he did.
Locklear added that if his interview was used in an article that it be noted he is the pastor of New Prospect Baptist Church in Centre.
“My church members will think I’m not claiming them,” kidded Locklear.
After four hours, 49 minutes and 43 seconds, Stewart rode his bike across the finish line as well. The Terrapin Kayak-drag was the toughest, said Stewart. “The rocks were slippery and you’re already beat down from running up the side of that mountain, so when you slip your thighs have to try to catch you, and you didn’t have anything in them,” he said.
In the end only four participants failed to finish, but the extreme heat and what race organizers would later admit was a serious underestimate of much-needed water, nobody could blame them for stopping before it became dangerous. One man suffering from heat exhaustion was taken to the hospital for precautionary measures, said Caleb Delaney with Event Medical Services. Delaney said a few others were treated on site for minor injuries.
Hanna Jones came from Pell City with three friends to compete in the race. Jones said the mountain run was brutal. “I think that was the hardest part for me,” said Jones. “Adventure race. That is the definition of an adventure race.”
Kelsey Crow, a 22-year-old senior at Jacksonville State University, said the Tri-County, her first, was a tough one. “Especially dragging the kayak. I paddled maybe twice the whole time,” said Crow.
The general consensus seemed to be that when you sign up for an adventure race, you can expect an adventure. But almost everyone said they would return if the event was held next year.
Anniston veterinarian and active member of the Northeast Alabama Bicycle Club, Dr. Barry Nichols, regularly attends events like the Tri-County. Nicholls said the Terrapin Creek event looked to be a success.
Couch, president of Alabama Scenic River Trails, along with an army of volunteers organized the race.
“It’s fantastic. I told Fred if he got 50 people the first year it would be a success. That was my opinion. And they past that,” said Nicholls. “He gets a lot of advice and he listens to people, and it’s going to grow.”
Nicholls said it takes a special kind of person to make something as big as the Tri-County race work.
“The success of any event like this is to have that one passionate, dedicated person. He’s going to get everybody involved. He’s going to keep pushing. He’s going to keep asking. He’s going to keep doing. If he gives up the whole thing falls apart,” said Nicholls. “There’s always that single individual that makes it happen, and they don’t give up.”
As a tired crowd at the Welcome Center awaited the final results word got out that there remained one rider, still pumping away at the pedals some six hours after the start of the race. Someone thought it would be a good idea for the entire ensemble to cheer whomever was still out there across the finish line.
In true adventure race fashion, 28-year-old Bentley Monk from Atlanta rode across the finish line and through a crowd of people, all cheering for the man who refused to give up. After a very tired Monk caught his breath he said he had been peddling with serious leg cramps for hours, and then he said four words everyone could have already guessed.
“I’m not a quitter,” said Monk.
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