 |
| Girls vs. Guys: Team Zero Fail! |
Ok! So first real post in awhile! Anyway, this past Friday, my friend Cindy called and asked if I would be a stand-in racer for the Bearable Adventure this weekend. She and Craig, her boyfriend, had registered as a team, but he hurt his knee when we were mountain biking last weekend and it has gotten a lot worse 🙁 They didn’t want to waste their registration, so she asked me if I wanted to join. Of course!!!
Quick word to the wise, however: jumping at a race is all fine and dandy, but training is recommended for a reason! Granted, I’m in pretty good shape and exercise a lot, but I haven’t been training for a tri….which is essentially what this was!
We arrived at Bear Creek State Park yesterday morning around 6:30am. Nice and early, and boy was it chilly! Since the whole race prides itself on the “adventure” concept, we weren’t sure what to expect. We laid out all of our biking, running, swimming, and extra gear and …..just kinda hung out. What else could we do?!
The race started off with everyone running 1/4 mile to these inflatable rafts. After we (as in Cindy!) blew up the entire thing, we had two separate lake crossings where you had to get both teammates and the raft across the water. No problem. After the water portion came the running–a 4 mile trail run. Of course, this wasn’t just ANY 4 mile run–it was filled with obstacles! During the run we had to find our team number in a sand pit, crawl through a mud pit, walk upstream against the current of a river, climb up a slippery mud bank, and climb over some hay bales. I actually think the obstacles broke up the running and made it more fun!
After the run came the mountain biking–10 miles of single track. Although this was not technical riding, there was definitely some pretty tough climbing. A lot of people had to push their bikes up the hills but I made a point not to allow it 🙂 Anyway, the orienteering also took place during this portion of the event. We arrived at a pond and were given a topo map with 6 or 7 different check point that we needed to find and mark off. Of course, the check points were spread all over this open space area and were super tiny. Needless to say, they were not easy to find! I actually think Cindy and I did pretty good on this portion though, and we finished it in roughly 30 minutes.
Most of the mountain biking came after the orienteering and I am convinced that this was the longest 10 miles ever! There were 5 or 6 river crossings that were too deep to ride through, so carrying our bikes became a tiring chore 🙂 However, after a few other minor obstacle courses, we were done with the bike!
The very last section of the race was actually the funniest. We dropped our bikes in the transition zone and a “helpful” girl told us that we would be fine leaving our bike shoes on for the last part, clipless and all. She lied. We jog down to the beach and it turns out I have to guide Cindy through an obstacle course cause she is blindfolded. That was actually really entertaining for me and I giggled a lot! After we made it through that, we had to climb over a Crisco-covered wall. Usually, this would have been pretty easy, but our lovely bike shoes made this a chore! We finally conquered the wall though, and jogged (in our bike shoes!) the last 1/4 mile to the finish line! We had survived the Bearable Adventure!
Overall, I had a lot of fun! I am fairly sore in my back and quads today but its the good kind of sore 🙂 Besides, I think we did pretty well for being a last minute partnership!!