trekking checkpoints were not terribly difficult and we knocked each of them out fairly easily.
We then encountered two mystery events in the TA. The first one we tackled involved using three 2”x4”x2’ blocks of wood that we had to use to travel out and around a cone and back to the start…all without touching the ground. Our strategy was for me to set out the first block and stand on it, Ann stood on another block behind me and passed me the third block which I then put out in front of me. I moved to that block, Ann moved to the block I just stepped off of and used great balancing skill to reach behind, grab the trailing block and pass it forward to me. And that’s how we got to the cone. As you know, “if the race director doesn’t say you can’t…then you CAN” so we took the cone with us on the way back to the start line, using it for balance along the way. We never once stepped off our blocks!
Now it was time for the 2nd mystery event. This involved one teammate strapping a small bucket to their back and the other teammate tossing three plastic balls into the bucket from a distance of about 10ft. Both of us were not very successful at first, but then I reread the instructions and nothing said we couldn’t toss all of the balls at once. So, I put all three balls in a gallon Ziploc with a rock and tried that. It worked! Although poor Ann got the rock to the back a few times first. Sorry Ann! The result…we rocked the mystery events.
Now it’s time to plot checkpoints and head out on the bikes. We double checked my plotting against another team’s results and they were right on. As we headed out of the TA, we noticed that our biggest competition, Team Storming The Castle, was heading out of the TA on their bikes as well…but in the WRONG DIRECTION! The passport clearly stated that the bike CPs must be completed in order. We caught a lucky break with their error and took off with smiles on our face. A short ride down the road and through a subdivision brought us to a trailhead. The trails were fast and smooth for the most part, not to mention amazing scenery. We knocked out the first few CPs easily. But then…I got a flat. We got it changed pretty quickly and we were off again.
We arrived at the next CP which was also a mystery event. What was the challenge? A Sudoku puzzle! Argh! Personally, I’m not good at these things, but Ann kept cool and took charge. We knocked it out much faster than I anticipated and we were off again to find the final bike CP. But then my tire went flat again. In my frustration and hurriedness to get going again, I committed a MTB sin. I didn’t check for thorns when we
changed the first tire. Sure enough, there it was. About an inch long and nasty looking. So the tire got changed, we got back on trail and ended up riding right by that last checkpoint. Thankfully we noticed that we should have seen it and ditched our bikes to trek back. (The trail was pretty rocky at this point and we didn’t want to miss the CP again because we couldn’t take our eyes off the trail.) There is was, hidden in a tree and
impossible to see from the direction we originally came from. We punched our cards and went on our way.
Now it was back to the TA and that pesky 12 foot wall. We rode in, ditched our bikes and found that another team was there at the wall and willing to team up. One by one, we all made it up and over the wall and crossed the finish line. We had done it! We finished first in our division!
But then there are the OPTIONAL O points. We still had an hour and a half till cutoff so we had no reason not to go out. There were 12 O points on a premarked map. Some were on flags, some were words that were written on stickers. We were feeling great, especially because we hadn’t seen our big competition in hours. However, as we ran out of the TA to get our O points, we saw them biking in. How did they catch up so fast?? Panic struck me and I knew we had to haul ass. We made a plan to hit them all in almost one big loop. Some were easier than others to get, as they always are. We knocked out the first few and were feeling a little better. Then we started to worry about time. Can we hit them all and get back in time to not LOSE points for being late? We took a shot at getting ten of the twelve points and I can’t tell you just how relieved we were when we got that tenth one and headed back to the TA.
We were about ¼ mi from the TA with 8 minutes to go. We had done it! We crossed the finish with our 10 O points and officially took first place in our division and 2nd overall on the short course. Thanks Ann for being my race partner again and for always being so positive. We rocked it!
-Jill-
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