Third Chance at Life: Adventure Race

My first Adventure Race was a long time waiting, and in the end well worth the wait.

There is no use in trying to drag out the suspense, so here it is...

Our team, The Dirty Thirties, finished second out of 42 teams. Not bad for a bunch of first timers (especially when one of us put on the bike helmet backwards at the beginning of the race.)

Before arriving at the race we had no idea how long each leg of the race would take or in what order. Once we got our map of the course we had about an hour to plan our route. We started the race on bike and attacked the course hard. We cleared all five check points on the bike leg way under our projected time and quickly transitioned into the trekking.

There were a few tough ones to find on the trek, but we again cleared all five with time to spare. The canoe was the last, and hardest leg. With one eye and the map and one eye on the clock, we had to skip the last check point on the canoe leg.

We finished the course in under the three hour mark which was the deadline to get in without a penalty. We waited around and tried to recover from the 13 km bike, 6 km trek, and 6 km canoe until the awards ceremony. We all felt pretty good about the way we raced, but had n idea how we did in comparison to the rest of the field.

When the third place team was announced, and we realized that our time was better then theirs, and for the first time started to think we might have placed. Those thoughts were confirmed a short time later when they announced The Dirty Thirties as the second place team. A mixture of shock and excitement simultaneously hit us all.

It was an awesome race and I owe it all to my teammates. They really carried the weight (figuratively) and kept pushing the pace. I only hope that I didn't hold them back too much.

A very special thanks also goes our to Melissa and Alyson who stayed back at condo and spent their day watching Braydon and relaxing by the beach and pool.