An Adventure "Race" Extravaganza!

So I finally did my first Adventure Race and it was as a member of a very unexpected team; the BV Divas! (BV stands for Buena Vista where the race was held). My friend Lori Stewart, who I know has an adventurous soul because we spent 2 weeks cruising around Italy together a few years ago, agreed to be my teammate when I had decide to do it but had no partner. We signed up for the 6 hour race which included trail running, mountain biking, kayaking on the Arkansas River and some orienteering.

I had such a blast! Lori was the greatest teammate! She was organized, excited and open to whatever challenges we might face. John, Ken, Paul and Heidi did a 4-man team so we had friends on the course with us which was really cool! Sarah, Kelly, Katie and Drake served as the best Crew we could have asked for and they made the day even more fun by allowing us to focus on getting through transitions and feeding our faces while they laid out all our gear for the next phase of the race. Every time we ran into a transition our gear was all spread out, organized and accessible. I fear I am seriously spoiled now and I doubt I will have the same luxury at my next adventure race.

The 6 hour race itself was well organized and very manageable. We started Friday night with a crash course in how to read a map with degrees. They only gave us coordinates and then we had to map where we thought the check points would be. Paul and Heidi were very helpful in making sure we were on task and weren’t going to end up in Leadville or Kansas. THANKS GUYS! Saturday morning was really relaxing and we did the traditional photo shoot, visited with other friends who were up there and generally hung out until we started the run. Of course we started running straight up hill for about 4 miles. This is of course my strength and Lori was awesome. We found a pace that was strong but manageable and we beat many teams to the 2^nd check point. This is where I had my first real “aha” moment about adventure races…follow your instincts and not other teams. The 2^nd CP was cleverly placed at a 4 way intersection so depending on how you read the coordinates there were options. I was amazed as people went all 4 directions. Fortunately Loir and I went the shortest way and did a great job of cruising down hill to the road in order to get to CP 3 and jump in the river! We did spend a little time chatting with a team of 4 young bucks who had come up with the same coordinates we did. It is never a bad thing to be lost in the woods with 4 young bucks…I’m just saying!

The water was by far the most challenging and fun portion of the race for me! My friend Sonja, an experienced backwoods trekker, advised us that we should have Lori in the front of the kayak and me in the back as I am presumably stronger. Hmmm. We need to revisit this theory of beer. Lori is a solid 6 feet tall, lean and strong. I am a solid 5’3” and equally strong but neither one of us has any kayaking experience. Once we got all dressed and Kelly and Sarah coached us into the water, strapped on our packs and pushed us out I immediately knew we had made a mistake. Imagine if you will a boat weighted in the front with plenty of rapids and very little control in the back…yes, we spun around, around and around. We worked really hard to stay straight but for all our efforts I got some really good pictures of Lori going backwards! I nearly wet my pants from laughter as we spun! I almost fell out once but got my foot stuck in Lori’s pack. My head was hanging out, my paddle banging along in the water. It was so funny and exhausting. We worked really hard and tried to coordinate our strokes and avoid any rocks but I was supposedly steering around rocks I couldn’t see so Lori was yelling out times but I couldn’t figure out which way the clock went! Needless to say we got through the miles and then had to drag our boat up the river bank (by far the most strenuous part of the event!). The mountain bike started out on a long ride on a dirt road which was a good way to shake off the water and get ready for some good mountain trail climbs. I apologize now if my “cycling shorts” offend anyone. I find that this particular model of shorts really helps me focus and other people really enjoy the view as well. Like I have said before, it is all about having fun! I learned something really cool about Buena Vista, Colorado…a large percentage of it is based in sand. OMG! Once we left the highway on our mountain bikes we started to climb up jeep roads that were primarily sand. This makes for hard climbing and maneuvering. Lori was a freakin rock star on this portion of the race! She climbed so strong and we both got off our bikes when a “technical” section made us nervous. Admittedly the “technical” sections I am referring to would not even be noticed by experienced mountain bikers but we were all about not getting hurt and finishing the race. I saw no need for “practicing” my lame mountain bike skills. In fact, I had the lamest crash going too slow down a hill. Once I let other folks pass us by Lori came down to me and I was baffled because it appeared that my front cables had completely stretch over the front of my handle bars. I swear it took 5 minutes of staring at it until Lori suggested that I simply turn my handle bars all the way around…who knew you could do that with a mountain bike! Brilliant! I thought I had totally messed up Paula’s mountain bike! Phew!

The last part of the mountain bike ride was down a jeep road at a good clip and then down a single track that required a couple of jumps off the bike. It was so beautiful and just about the perfect day! As we came down to the bridge that crossed the river to the finish we could see Sarah and Kelly on the other side of the river cheering us on! What a blast! We road across the bridge together and finished so strong! We finished the 6 hour race in 5+ hours! Rock on!

I do have to share a story about meeting up with our other team during the mountain bike portion of the race. J During an adventure race racers are required to use an orienteering punch at each check point. That is how the race organizers know you completed the entire course. When we got out of the water we had to map our last 2 coordinates. Paul was nice enough to check me as they left our little transition area so I felt confident we were on course the whole time! Well thank goodness Lori didn’t like to bomb down sandy hills! As Lori was navigating her way down a particularly sandy portion of the course I was stretching at the bottom and thinking we should be seeing CP #5 very soon. In fact we had stopped to read our map ½ mile earlier to make sure we were still where we thought we needed to be. While I was stretching I happened to see CP#5 tucked up inside this old gnarly tree on the other side of the dried up creek. I went over, punched our book and off we went. A short time later we ran into John riding the opposite way; apparently they had missed CP#5. In fact plenty of people had missed it as I suspect they blew down that hill and up the other side in order to have some momentum to climb. Well, if you blew up it there is no way you would have seen the flag. We yelled to John as we went past him that it was back a mile+. Then we saw Ken who was waiting for John to go find the CP. Then we ran into Paul who was farther up the trail and also waiting. It of course made us giggle as “the boys” were the great map readers. Plus Heidi, who actually had the map, was nowhere to be found. Then the challenge to find the last CP began. There were a bunch of us riding around trying to find it and we had all marked it on our maps differently. Again, thanks to Paul, Lori and I decided to go with what we had mapped out and turned around and headed down a different trail. How we managed to be the first ones to find CP#6 and the last ones out of there baffles me but Lori and I are still pretty cocky about how amazing our map reading skills served us!

If you are interested in trying an adventure race I would highly recommend this event. It was challenging yet doable. The weather was stunning, the landscape beautiful and the event was a blast! The best part was really afterwards when the beer started to flow and the stories were told! We all have our own version of that day but since this is my blog you are getting my version! J Lori and I finished as the first 2-woman team! Very impressive for our first attempt! (Need I mention that there were only 2 teams? NAH!)

Once again I experience an event that I love and could easily become addicted to…good thing I don’t have time in my schedule this year!