{"id":901,"date":"2010-08-07T20:39:38","date_gmt":"2010-08-08T01:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/?p=901"},"modified":"2010-08-12T08:36:27","modified_gmt":"2010-08-12T13:36:27","slug":"adventure-racing-beyond-my-limits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2010\/adventure-racing-beyond-my-limits\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventure Racing beyond my limits"},"content":{"rendered":"

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!<\/p>\n

\"Gary<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The race<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

Me on left, Chris on the right.
No that is not a child’s vest. Yes I need help.<\/p>\n

\"Warning:<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

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!<\/p>\n

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!<\/p>\n

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!! <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Chris has an awesome full writeup here<\/a>. THANKS CHRIS AND GARY, it was incredible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading Adventure Racing beyond my limits<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-my-rowdy-friends","category-daily-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9M0Zg-ex","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":981,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2011\/thirsty-turtles-nab-2nd-place-in-soggy-bottom-boys-va-adventure-race\/","url_meta":{"origin":901,"position":0},"title":"Thirsty Turtles nab 2nd place in Soggy Bottom Boys VA adventure race","author":"m","date":"March 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"A brisk day of fun, we were stripping off layers of gear as the sun came out. 2nd place overall in the 6hr category for Chris Gary Don and me. Not bad for Don's first time out!Your browser does not support the video tag","rel":"","context":"In "Daily Life"","block_context":{"text":"Daily Life","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/daily-life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2382,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2018\/9-0-omd-punishment-of-luxury\/","url_meta":{"origin":901,"position":1},"title":"9.0 OMD: Punishment of Luxury","author":"m","date":"March 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Love this recent discovery. My old friends at their game, with the sample kits and synths of Skrillex and MGMT in their pockets. Full dynamic range electronica from the originators. Yes, please. Beck's Colors also in rotation. Nice and comfy. Don't get me wrong, I like it, with Bruno Mars\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Daily Life"","block_context":{"text":"Daily Life","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/daily-life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1876,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2014\/bad-beer-night\/","url_meta":{"origin":901,"position":2},"title":"Bad beer night","author":"m","date":"August 27, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Gary and I headed out for a minor adventure last night, into the mysteries of Raleigh Beer Week.\u00a0 How big would it be? We got started around 7pm and had a couple concrete events off raleighbeerweek.com - here we go!\u00a0 First to Tyler's tap room where there were 12 brewery\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All My Rowdy Friends"","block_context":{"text":"All My Rowdy Friends","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/all-my-rowdy-friends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"wpid-img_2670.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/wpid-img_2670-e1409424802916.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/wpid-img_2670-e1409424802916.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/wpid-img_2670-e1409424802916.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":379,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2009\/see-my-bike-stats-guilt-me-into-riding\/","url_meta":{"origin":901,"position":3},"title":"See my bike stats, guilt me into riding!","author":"m","date":"March 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"A new page of my bike stats is available on the menu above. Check 'em out and ask me why there are big gaps. :>","rel":"","context":"In "Daily Life"","block_context":{"text":"Daily Life","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/daily-life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2853,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2019\/welcome-to-raleigh-weaver-street-market\/","url_meta":{"origin":901,"position":4},"title":"Welcome to Raleigh, Weaver Street Market!","author":"m","date":"September 21, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Finally got back on my bike today. I love my bike. It's the tires. At over 100psi and just the right thinness, with Kevlar to keep the flats away, it's the fastest way around downtown. My adventure was only 2 blocks. That's the distance to anything downtown, in my estimation.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cooking"","block_context":{"text":"Cooking","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/production\/cooking\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/img_20190921_1124234528316985201555078.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/img_20190921_1124234528316985201555078.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/img_20190921_1124234528316985201555078.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/img_20190921_1124234528316985201555078.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/img_20190921_1124234528316985201555078.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/img_20190921_1124234528316985201555078.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":252,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2007\/post-pax-mike-is-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":901,"position":5},"title":"Post-PAX Mike is back!","author":"m","date":"August 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"My friend Gary has been waiting for PAX to end, so I will get back to reality and get my head out of the PAX cloudcover. It was worth it... here's my PAX post... if you're not a gamer, \"move on\"... zomg pax so r0xx0rz!! ITSATRAP!! OK so we were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All My Rowdy Friends"","block_context":{"text":"All My Rowdy Friends","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/all-my-rowdy-friends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=901"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":913,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions\/913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}