Wednesday, September 21, 2005

First Official Adventure Race

Well here is the race report: (Note: I came down with Bronchitis and by Friday night it was in full swing.) The weekend started with the drive out to Rockford Friday night. Darrick rode with us and I offered to let him drive since he has the longest legs. : ) We all stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott and Darrick drove me to the race site at 5am on Saturday and then drove back to stay with the kiddos and Val. They went swimming, shopping at Target, lunch at Appleby's and then met me back at the race site at 4:15ish.

The Race (Team Unknowns):
Started at 6:20 with "Boot Camp" warm up. We all did group callestinics and hill repeats with walking lunges X 3, then it was a mile sprint to the beginning of the raft race where each team had to carry the makings of a raft and then assemble it at the entry point into the water. The catch - all tools, materials etc. had to be carried the entire way. We were the fourth team into the water and the last out of it. (Our raft was too bouyant and we couldn't stay on it. Wouldn't have been so bad if Bob could swim a bit better. Shannon and I pulled Bob through the mile long river route. Once on dry land it was a free for all, each team could decided what section they wanted to tackle next and plan the rest of the race themselves.

We hopped on our mountain bikes and rode to the local ice-skating rink where we each completed 10 laps on the quarter mile rink. Wet/cold and very sore shins! From the ice rink we rode about 6 miles to the 'mystery event' which turned out to be a team building task of getting a golf ball from one pole to another while each of us held ends of string holding a metal cirle the ball rested in. Fairly easy if you relax and we made it on the first attempt. Next we biked about 4 miles to the Bushwhacking course where we had to get off our bikes and head into the woods to find markers (10) we found all ten which doubled our points. We did get pretty scratched up though. Thank goodness we didn't run into poison ivy or worse. Back on the bikes and we decided to tackle the climbing event next since it had a fairly good amount of points. We got a little lost trying to find it but eventually asked a local police officer. (yes it is legal!) We wouldn't have gotten lost if Bob wasn't so POSITIVE that he knew "IT HAS TO BE AT THE COLLEGE I have never heard of an indoor climbing wall except there." Shannon and I both told him that it sure didn't look like the address or directions on the map... Uh, we were right and for the second time Bob felt bad but the time was already lost. I sorta wish Shannon had been more assertive since she was our 'captain'. She was also the youngest though and Bob was the oldest and has lived in the town for 10 years. (Obviously not rock climbing though!) We all climbed to the top and then it was back on the bikes headed to the TA (transition area) where we left our bikes and headed out on foot to enter the orienteering section which was done in the downtown area visiting museums, a church, parks, and various other landmarks. Once again, a certain team mate was sure it had to be this or that place and knew it couldn't be the spot we plotted on the map... Sure enough, Bob was wrong and after running way longer than we needed to he finally conceded that the coordinates we plotted were right and we backtracked and found our clues/checkpoints... I took it all pretty good and didn't get bent out of shape. I had a hard time with the running and had to use the inhaler a lot more than I had hoped to. We finally left 4 checkpoints out on the course and decided to head back since we were getting close to the cutoff for time and we hadn't done the canoe section yet. We ran back to the TA and got in the canoe and were able to find one checkpoint before we had to finish up the race it ended at 4:20 and we turned our score sheet in at 4:15. All in all it was a great day and excellent race and I learned a lot of things that I would do differently next time.

Monday, September 19, 2005

Blog Archive

About Me

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I love Jesus and want my life to be a reflection of His life in me!

A Good Read...

  • Rooms by James L. Rubart
  • C.S. Lewis
  • Any book written by Terri Blackstock
  • O'Malley Series by Dee Henderson
  • Black, White, Red (trilogy) by Ted Dekker
  • Driven by Eternity & Rescued by John Bevere
  • Under Cover by John Bevere