Thank you Gary! He played it perfectly, casually inviting me to a friendly “geocaching-kind-of” race, well ahead of time, so I could get it on the calendar, gently convincing Andrea how important it was for us to get out and do things… and then hitting me with a full-on panic two days before. “You better get organized! You don’t even have a bike yet! You gotta get prepared!” Hahaha he knows me too well! And we pulled it off, in the nick of time – I ended up buying my mountain bike at 7:50pm the night before the race (the shop closed at 8pm). And I got all my gear after that, good old REI and their late hours! Gary helped me through it all, and I was actually prepared – GEAR wise anyway!
Being fit enough was a totally different story, though. The last major event in my life was getting a chunk of my lung removed. I’ve been trying to get some running in, really huffing after a couple miles. So I was scared going into this race. Most of all, my pride told me that I didn’t want to let the three-person team down, dragging them to last place. So I tried to buck up.
The race itself was an absolute joy. We covered a ton of the ground around Umstead State Park, even swimming across Crabtree Lake, and venturing out onto Cary roads as well. The bike computers showed that we covered about 50km in about 3 1/2 hours, but I don’t think they caught it all. Clif bars and shots, as well as over 200oz of drinks laden with electrolytes and caffeine, delivered via Camelbak, kept me going well enough to prevent total collapse. Chris is an orienteering machine, he doesn’t miss a beat of the race while constantly navigating via compass and map (dangling around his neck). Gary shot off into the woods at most of the markers to collect the punches – you have to get the paper punch and punch the right spot on the scorecard.
The swimming was crazy – we had to wear “Personal Flotation Devices” – read “life vests”. The swim went on forever. There was only one redeeming part for me. The guys had told me to pack a snorkel and mask, in case there was an “underwater checkpoint”. Me having absolutely no clue, I diligently obliged, and carried the stupid thing with me the whole race – even though they were just messing with me, rofl. Awesome hahaha! But I got the last laugh, that thing saved my butt on the swim. I plopped on the snorkel, put my head down, and chugged away with a frog crawl for 30 minutes. It was zen-like bliss. They arrived on the other side with stiff necks. Ha!! :P
No that is not a child’s vest. Yes I need help.
The finish was the most dramatic part of the race. We came back from collecting all the large-map points that we could with 12 minutes left on the clock. We decided to go for broke and switch out to the small map, to see if we could pick anything else up. We biked as close as we could to the closest point, and dropped the bikes and hoofed out towards the point – down a steep ridge, up the other side, down another ridge… and up… and no luck. With 6 minutes left, we gave up and headed back, but the climb was unbearable. I was pushing with both arms on my kneecaps to get my legs to push me up the hill. It took forever… and we ended up back at the finish after 7 minutes, with a 10-point 1-minute-late penalty. Dang!
I was really bummed waiting for the results. I thought we were really supposed to clear the course, and we hadn’t even come close. But wait… when they posted the scores… NO ONE had cleared the course!
And there were only 4 three-person teams… and we came in second! AWESOME! I didn’t drag us to last!! I was so happy!!
And then we realized we lost by 10 points… yes, the 10 points we lost “going for broke.” If we had just relaxed for the last 12 minutes, checking in early, we would have tied for points, perhaps even won because our time would have been better! Or if we had spent another minute and found the marker… maybe a long shot, not sure… but we would have scored 30 and lost 20, again tying for first. Another rush of adrenaline. First prize gets half their entry fee back, and half off the fee for the next race! Gnashing of teeth… But I am still glad we went for it. What a rush.
I’ve never experienced anything like this before. If you get a chance, and you have ANY basic biking/hiking ability… you should go for it. Even if you clear 20% of the course, you will have a blast giving it all you’ve got.
Chris has an awesome full writeup here. THANKS CHRIS AND GARY, it was incredible.
