I hate B

The Greenway's Adventure Race. It's become my personal nemesis. In three attempts I've had 2 near wins & one utter disaster. The first near win was my first attempt in 2002. We got DQ'd while in the lead for basically using a map instead of following the "marked" course. I say "marked" because it wasn't marked because the volunteer who's job it was to mark this section couldn't find the course to mark it. I'm only a little bitter about that. The utter disaster was mostly my fault in lack of respect for the nav; enough said about that. The 2nd near win was this years & probably the biggest disappointment.

I can honestly say if that if there was a favorite it had to be my team Dynamic Earth. Granted we were without are strongman Bradley, but Anna had supplied us with a tried & true vet in Greg. I was a little nervous(ok down right sick with worry) about racing with a new person let alone one I'd never met. But everyone spoke highly of him so I put doubts aside(turns out he was the biggest surprise, more later). So we had high expectations going in. Bradley gratiously opted to be our team driver/gopher/coach for the weekend so we were set to go.

After a few emails & phone calls a leave time was set. I finally got to meet Greg & we were on our way. A quick hour later we were @ the race site in search of our diesel member Doug. He had come earlier with his girlfriend Dana to snag a campsite & set up the big Dynamic Earth HQ/Basecamp tent. Kudos to them for getting it set up(I've done it & it's a bear). The others on the team had a fitful night of sleep supplied by our rowdy neighbors, but not I who was sleep deprived as usual & passed out in the team bus on a comfy crash pad.

AM always comes early on race day especially when you have to get up @ 5am to get race info. I start looking over the races instructions(no utm's here). Not to bad this year it is a bikers race instead of a runners race like in the past. I give a big sigh of relief since I haven't ran since the Ozark Challenge! It does start on the bike so we decide to stake out our start spot on the front early.

We get all lined up & Greg looks over & notices the team next to me has a member with a flat(luckily them & not me who I thought he was talking to). Anyway they loose their premo start spot to change a flat. The race director informs us of a surprise we'd get about 5min after the start of the race. OK this could be interesting. Since we're already going to be riding on dirt roads for a few miles hopefully its something to distance us a little.

Then out of the blue the start horn goes off. Crap here we go. We blaze off get in a pace line & immediately start distancing ourselves from the field. 2 minutes in I see 3 or 4 race volunteers standing in the road. Hmm what's going to happen here: Am I going to have to come to a stop or are they going to direct us off the road? At the last second they start waving for us to go off the road; ok into a clear cut under the powerlines. About half way is an unrideable section so off the bike. Well we come out still in first & start to gain more time as I pull the train full bore towards the first of 2 runs.

A quick transition & we run out the way we came for 2miles to the canoe. Now I made a little misjudgment here. I told everyone to drop everything since we'd be back to the bike & just carry a water bottle. Well I didn't factor in the 7 mile canoe. Luckily Anna had lost a bottle on the descent into the transition so we picked it up on the way out(only good luck of the day). We were shocked to see we had almost 5 minutes already.

Onto the canoe & we're flying. I can say this was by far the best canoe leg I've ever had in an AR race. I think we actually gained more time. So after a quick paddle we're back to the bikes & much needed fluid & food(or GU in my case).

Now for a technical bike to a mystery event followed by a run section. Not too technical but it increased our lead. The first mystery event was a Frisbee throw @ a gun range target. Greg & I sucked @ this with numerous throws each while the clock was ticking on our lead. Anna the super woman she is hit it first try & Doug didn't take but a couple of tries(just long enough for Anna to drop her shorts to pee). Off on the run we go.

4.5 miles doesn't seem far but when you don't run much its a ways. I started lagging a little behind Anna & Doug's pace. Luckily Greg didn't want me to be lonely so he hung with me 30 meters being the Awesomachers. We hit the TA & Bradley is there freaking out with excitement. He says we're flying & no one is even close to use. So onto the bikes we go to another mystery event & the O course.

The mystery event was to carry a team member through some staggered tires. Easy; Anna hops on my back & we're done in 5 seconds. Now to get our O map. Of course the first thing I do is drip water from my hat on it. I get my bearings look at the order & off we go.

We had to go C-B-A. I hit C perfectly(& I mean perfectly). I then decided to take the path of least resistance & use the road to attack B. My thinking being the road offered me better land marks than bushwhacking would, since B was on a semi featureless flat. Well I found my attack point & dove in. We actually swept for 30+ min then retreated to C to shoot a bearing & bushwhack to B incase our attack point from the road was wrong. I know I didn't stray from my heading enough to be super far off the mark. But I guess with the foliage we walked right past it(again). Then some more random walking several reattacks from the road. Then we walked out to the road getting ready to go back to C again & I like what I saw on the map when we hit the road & decided to dive back in & walk down farther to compensate for the 20 foot intervals & the length off the road which I had scaled @ about 300 meters(Paced out close to 400-500meters when we found it). Bang straight to it! Then shot my bearing to A to bear off a little to the left of it since it looked to be marked directly in the creek. So hit the creek & turn right & walk to it, nope. Walked about 400 meters in the creek bed & I knew we had gone passed it. Saw several teams who had been looking for it for awhile. Looked @ one of their maps & saw that it was plotted ever so slightly on a 20' interval line. So we went up about 20-30 ft of L & back tracked straight to it. Then a beeline to the road & a desperate sprint to the finish line(out of the woods 11th).

We hop on the bikes & Doug starts lagging. He says he's not feeling good so we start pumping him full of all the GU we can find to get his energy levels back up. We start passing teams left & right in the "technical" bike section. Then Greg yells & we think he has a flat so I go back to help him & tell the others to drink & eat to get their energy back up. Well disaster has struck; its not a flat, its a busted pivot. What to do? Breakout the allens, pull the bolt, force the pivot back on, & lock out the shock. It works & Greg rides it all the way back in. By the time we hit the road section to return to the finish Doug is really hurting so I tie a couple of tubes together & fashion a tow. Now towing a guy Doug's size by a guy my size is not easy @ all. After a few attempts I figure out the best way to do it.

We struggle in to finish in a disappointing 4th especially after we find out that we @ one point led by an hour & fifteen minutes. Still we find the bright side, we did go from 11th to 4th. Oh well there is always more races. As usual I learned a lot from this race: Anna is probably the best female athlete I've ever met. I need backup on the Nav(gotta get Bradley healthy). When its hot water, water, water, & when your sick of it more water! Be prepared for the worst & make the best of it.