Finally, a completed race under the waist straps of our packs. And not only was it completed, it was completed well. For the most part.
Aside from the usual required gear (water for drinking, PFDs for kayaking, cell phones for pizza delivery, etc.), we needed two items for secret team challenges: a handkerchief (at least 18″ x 18″) and a ball (1 1/2″ – 4″ in diameter). Because we knew those are required gear, but not what we were using them for, we looked for ones that we thought would give us the best advantage. For the handkerchief, we used Brent’s spare buff (a stretchy headpiece that can be used like a cap, bandana, neck warmer or jaw supporter if it gets dislocated when you run into a tree). The ball was something we bought at the store: it was basically a rubber tennis ball with a 2′ long rainbow-colored tail at the end. You could hold the tail, swing it around, throw it a long distance, catch it by the tail, whip it in the wrong direction and dislocate someone’s jaw… we figured that would work out pretty well. Of our choices, one out of two wasn’t that bad.
Races usually begin with one of the mystery challenges to help spread out the field and keep everyone from being packed into one gigantic blob of human flesh that has a fairly low percentage of body fat. This one required half of the teammates (one in a 2-man team, two in a 4-man) to wear the handkerchiefs over their eyes so they couldn’t see. The team then had to run across a field using only half their legs. Again, that could be one person using both legs in a 2-man team or each person using one. If an additional foot touched the ground, the team had to move back ten feet or Dan (the race director) said he’d tackle them. The person who was blindfolded, of course. Since that was me, I had a special interest in keeping that from happening.
Dan started the race and people took off. The fastest teams rode piggy-back, but since Brent and I are both fairly heavy, we opted to hop across the field on our right legs. Unfortunately, we fell behind right away because I hadn’t the slightest idea how slowly we were moving (one of the downsides of being blindfolded, I’m afraid). By the time we crossed the line and headed to the transition area, almost all the teams were already looking at their maps to find out where the checkpoints were, but we were the first team to get on our bikes and leave. Why? Because we stayed up past 3:00 in the morning.
Note to students: I know that you can do some of your best work while staying awake all night in a caffeine-induced state of enlightenment. That’s not what happened to us on Friday. And even if it had been, that heightened state of awareness tends to fade when the sun comes up, at which point you fall asleep on top of your books and start drooling, making the ink run all over the place and ruining the work you spent all night doing. Instead, we stayed up while Brent created a little doo-hickey that made navigating on our bikes a lot easier, a lot faster and kept the map from banging against his knees while he was pedaling.
He took one of those tomato plant holders, then started bending the wires around and using zip cords to bind it all together. The end result was like a music stand you’d see in an orchestra. You know, what those people use even after they’ve been studying music since the day they popped out of the womb. Then when they finally reach the necessary skill level, they hold hourly rehearsals for three months with time off for sleep and potty breaks… but I digress. This doo-hickey held the map extremely well and extremely flat, making it extremely readable as we mounted up and started pedaling down the road.
We were passed in short order by a pair of guys who were… well, they were faster than us. You know that story of the tortoise and the hare? Slow and steady wins the race? (I always figured, “Yeah, except fast and steady already finished.”) When it comes to adventure racing, you can chuck that saying out the window. Slow or fast, steady or bursts of speed, straight and narrow or weaving in and out of traffic—all that matters is that you find the checkpoints. That theory was reinforced about ten minutes later when that team passed us for the second time. “Slow and steady wins the race over fast and running in circles.”
Admittedly, we had taken the same wrong route, but turned back after about 100 yards. That span of time was all it took for several other teams to get in front of us. However, they didn’t stay ahead of us because of Brent’s music stand. He’d follow the roads according to the map laid out for him, then we’d reach the next checkpoint. I’d write down the word we were supposed to find (e.g., “What’s the name on the mailbox?”) and Brent would figure out which way we needed to go. We’d take off right away and eventually overtook some teams who had stopped and looked really confused as they turned their maps in their hands. If only they’d stayed up and gotten less than three hours of sleep the night before the race…
Brent’s music stand wasn’t our only advantage during that section of the race. By reading the map en route to the transition area where we’d drop our bikes, he discovered a shortcut between a pair of roads. We ducked underneath a gate and rode across a gravel strip, which saved us from going up and coming back on the roads that I imagine most people took. (I’m making an assumption about this part—Brent was the one with the maps—but given that I didn’t see anyone pass us while we were moving between roads, I’m pretty sure it was a good decision. Especially since we were the third team to reach the TA.)
