:: Adventure Race - August 17, 2003 ::

:: Saturday, August 16, 2003 @ 5 PM::

We had a mandatory meeting to attend at the park at Folsom Lake to go over our start time, what to expect at the race, and registration. After we got registered we went and tried out the inflatable kayaks that we would be using in the race tomorrow. Overall the kayaks suck but we talked about our strategy and other important factors for the race.

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We ate at Fresh Choice. I decided to get a little bit of frozen yogurt just to piss off Forrest. Forrest, by the way, injured his ankle and was not able to race. So as a result I had to step in and race in his place. We got back to the hotel and worked on our bikes and prepared our gear for the race tomorrow morning.

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I was the first one up on our hotel room. In our room there was me, Christina, and Forrest while in the other hotel room there was Patty and Margaret. I got up and took a shower and prepared things to go while Christina and Forrest were getting ready. The staging area at the race opened up at 6 AM and closed 7:15 AM, so we had to make sure we got there in time to get our bikes and gear into staging.

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We got to the race, got parked, got our gear into staging, got our kayaks, and started waiting around for the race to start at 7:30 AM.

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The first cannon went off and Christina and I were off walking down the beach to the water with our two kayaks, two life preservers, and three paddles. Once we got to the water we got into the kayaks and started paddling out to the buoys. Just a little while after we got there, the second cannon went off and Patty started swimming out toward us. Once the swimmers got close to the kayakers everyone was calling out names and waving. Some people even had ballons tied to their kayaks so that their swimmer would have an easier time finding them. We didn't do that because we didn't think it would make that much of a difference. But as people got close to the kayaks and we swimming in between kayaks I made the comment to Christina that this was just like when the Titanic went down. All the people in the water trying to get into the boats.

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After Patty got into my kayak we started on the mile and a half paddling course. We had to keep the buoys on our left and try to finish the kayaking part as fast as possible. Christina ended up getting a defective kayak that lost a lot of it's air, so she was slowed down by that. Patty and I had a hard time keeping the kayak going in a straight line, and we stopped every now and then to wait for Christina.

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We came to the end of the kayak course. Patty and I finished before Christina and we put our kayak away and I went back to help Christina with her kayak. Then we got rid of our life preservers and ran back around toward the staging area. Once we got near the staging area we had to solve a Rubk's Cube that had 4 squares on each of it's 6 sides. The way we had to do it was I could make one move, then pass it to Christina who would make one move and then pass it to Patty. Repeat the process until it was done. I think it took us 5 or 6 moves to solve the Rubik's Cube, then we ran to the staging area and put our running shoes on. Once we did that we began the running part of the Adventure Race.

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One of the first things that we had to do in our 5 mile run was run through a bunch of mud and water. My shoes got soaked by going through the water and as a result I had problems with my shoe laces coming untied for the rest of the race. But we kept going along the trail until we got to the orienteering part. They gave us a map and told us to look around for three flags that contained the specific cards that we were after.

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We decided to go in a big loop to look for our flags, and we generally had no problems finding our cards. I think we made up a lot of time in this part of the race. We had to run around in a big loop, but we eventually made it back to the table where we had started. Once we handed in the cards it was time to start running again. By this time we saw that some of the elite teams were already on the mountain bike of the race.

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As we finished up the running part of the race we had to work with another team on the balance bar portion. This was essintially some wood sheets that were planted vertically into the ground. A person could walk over them very carefully, but the goal of this balance bar was for all three members of the team to get onto the baland bar, then the member that got on last would have to work their way around the the first two and finish before them. And if any member of the team touched the ground then the entire team had to start over again. We worked with another team to complete this balance bar rather quickly. After the balance bar was conquered we had to crawl through a mud pit on our stomachs. The rule for this part was that we had to stay in contact with the team member ahead of us. After a few scrapes and some crawling through mud we made it through that obstacle, then had to run through some water, and then made our way back to the stagin area so that we could begin the biking part of our race.

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Christina and I have a lot more mountain bike experience than Patty, so we let for most of the mountain bike portion of the race. It also turned out the Patty had some issues with her brakes, so she had a hard time when we had to go downhill. Patty didn't tell us about it until we were racing, so we were frustrated that we didn't have a chance to work on her brakes ahead of time. But as we went along, we would get ahead of Patty, then decide to stop and wait for her to catch up, then get going again. We got near the end of the mountain biking section when we stopped to wait for Patty and she didn't come for a long time. We got worried, and decided to go back to look for her. We went all the way back to the last part that we had seen her on and still didn't see her. Now we were really worried because she wasn't anywhere. So we made our way to the end of the race and talked to an EMT working there and reported her missing. Then Christina saw Patty in the staging area, so we cancelled the missing person search and made it over to the staging area. By this time I was getting a lot of constant sweat in my eyes and I was completely out of energy. I was well hydrated, but I had bonked. After finding out what happened we deicded to finish the race.

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We had a few obstacles to overcome before we could finish the race. First, we had to climb up a plank system and then slide across a wooden plank on our stomachs before falling into a big net and crawling out. We had to do this one at a time. Then we had the toughest obstacle, the big wall. I would estimate this wall at 12 feet high, and we had to get one person over the top before they could lower the rope down to us. So I went and stood at the base of the wall, then Christina helped Patty get onto the top of my back, then Patty climbed to the top of the wall and over. Then Patty lowered the rope for Christina who then walked up my back and onto my shoulders and was hoisted over the wall. Then I had to try to climb the rope to get up and over the wall. The first time I got near the top, but no one could hold on to me and I fell back to the ground. Then the second time some of the people around helped me get to the top and I got my leg over the wall and was pulled the rest of the way over the wall. Then we jogged through the finishing gate and were done. I was so tired and felt like crap because I boked, but if felt good to end it. Our official time was 4 hours, 51 minutes, and 31 seconds. We probably should have finished in around 4 hours because of all the problems that we encountered with losing Patty.

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The race was over and we were hot, tired, and cranky. Maybe that was just me... But we hung out and got some fluids and then got out of there. We changed our clothes at the park and threw everything into my truck and went to have lunch at Baja Fresh. I didn't feel like eating anything so I passed, but later on the trip home I did feel like eating and as the day wore on I felt better and better. The next time I do an Adventure Sprint I will have rope for the kayaking part, not lose Patty on the biking part, and be leaner and meaner. I think we can get to under 4 hours next year. Just wait and see.

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