The sun was already coming up, and the 2013 race was just 4 miles old, when we legitimately lost Michelle Roy... an annual AD30 starter, and Finisher back in 2011.
I stood on the Route 1 bridge, overlooking the Aroostook River, desperately trying to see glimpses of color or movement in the thick brush. Moments were tense as we called her name for what seemed like an eternity. No response. Had the river finally claimed a victim, similar to the moose of 2011?
Eventually she was recovered, and learning of her decision to quit, we were free to unleash the fury on the remaining 5 participants. This would be the nail in the coffin for river running in the dark at ad30. A staple of AD30 every year, it has been deemed just too damn dangerous.
Julia Bayly, a first-time TMB, set about on a lunge-fury-from-hell crusade, torturing the racers at the Aroostook Snowmobile Bridge Crossing(11 mile mark). Two racers, Beau and Adam, would suffer through the mileage back to Mojo from the bridge and bail on the race....just in time to watch Lilly hammer out some dumpster pulls before embarking on the last half of the race.
Beau and Adam would be the last to drop. Amy and Stephen, the remaining racers, would stagger through the rest of the race, just pacing themselves along, and putting one foot in front of the other.
As Amy finished with just minutes to spare before the cutoff, I watched Frosty melt into the pavement angrily.
The pumpkins were smashed, revealing their prize for lasting through the most torturous 30 miles known to man...but something else sprang from the mystical pumpkins.
A contagion that pops up just once every 5 years.
Each racer who toes the line at Aroostook Dirty 30 V: Rise of The Outbreak, begins dead, and races to Life.
All racers show up dressed like a zombie.
Who lives, and who stays undead?
Start training. Your life depends on it.
SEPTEMBER 27, 2014
**all photos courtesy of Julia Bayly
