another race report
This past weekend was the Too Cool Spread Your Wings Adventure Race. It was held out at Camp Eagle, a few hours west of Austin. The drive out there on a long, lonely road showed that we were in for some fun. It was hilly, with real terrain features (sometimes lacking in Texas races). Pulling into the camp brought back memories of my summers at camp - definitely an amazing way to spend you summers as a teenager.
Two of my teammates were already there and were setting up our TA under a big tree. A lot of teams had already arrived and set up. There were a lot of teams, and everyone was looking forward to trying out the fun stuff we had spotted down on the water front.
The race started at 8 am on Saturday morning. We were told to wear PFDs to the start line. We ran down the hill and into the water where about 100 m downstream there were boats clipped to a rope across the river. Each team was to get a boat, and with everyone touching it, take it around a raft in the middle of the river and then back to the take out. We all jumped onto our boat, and paddled with our hands, which everyone ended up doing, since it was the only way to make any real progress. Even so, it was difficult to have four people on one boat.
After running back up the hill from the water, we set out on Leg 1 - mountain biking. We plotted the few points and set off for CP1 (they had to be found in order). When we arrived there, Tom discovered that he had lost the passport out of his handy-dandy new shorts pocket. Oops. So, back we went to the start to get a new passport, putting us way behind a bunch of teams. That meant we were behind a line of bikes through the singletrack. We managed to get past most of them, and back to TA.
Leg 2 was a trek and the points had to be found in order. At the first CP there was a special test where we had to get all four teammates through a hole in platform about 10' off the ground without touching the platform supports. We did it pretty easily and moved on. We were in second place. We probably passed most of the teams on the bike and the rest in TA between the legs. The second trek leg was up on the highest hill at the camp by the windmill. The point was in the middle of the swimming tank in beside the windmill. Paul climbed in to punch the point. It was a bit of a battle to see who would get to go in. Part was through this leg Lance started to get some leg cramps. Not a good sign so early in the race. The last point of the leg was the ropes course. We chose to go down the long rappel and then ran along the sherpa traverse and back up to the top. There were two teams right behind us when we arrived at the ropes, but we put a gap on them through the ropes and ran back to TA for the next leg.
Leg 3 was water sports!! There were two checkpoints, one on top of the 'texas iceberg' and one of a platform (ladder up, slide down). It was a really fun break and a good chance to get in the water to cool down. We got the next checkpoints for Leg 4, which was a bike leg out a dirt road, about 9 km each way. Lance was still cramping, so we started giving him lots of salt tablets and did some towing up the hills during the bike leg. We were still in second, about 40 minutes behind Backpacker, the leading team.
Leg 5 was a paddle. There is a river flowing past the camp, but it has many dams along it that we had to portage. One of the portages was quite long and was a total bitch. We saw backpacker during the leg, and confirmed the time gap. We knew that unless they made a mistake it would be hard to catch them unless there was another bike leg.
After the paddle we got to go down the zipline. Super fun! There wasn't any way to make it go faster, so we just got to enjoy it without thinking about the race for a few minutes. After that we had our final leg - a trek where we could get the points in any order. The first two went fine. Lance was still feeling poorly, and we continued to try to hydrate him and get electrolytes into his system. Before the third CP, he went down with terrible leg cramps. Paul had been towing him a bit to help, but he was still suffering pretty badly. It didn't help when we had a nav error on the the third CP and spent extra time wandering around a very hot mesa (the wrong one) looking for the point. After that, the CPs came easy, but Lance was doing poorly. We knew the STAR had passed us during our nav mistake so that we were sitting in third. We plodded back to the finish and as we were approaching, we saw another team running in. We couldn't move any faster than we were, so we ended up in 4th - 1 minute behind 3rd and 20-something minutes behind 2nd.
It was a fun race, in a great location. I'll definitely go back next year! Thanks to Art and Robyn for putting on a great race.
Two of my teammates were already there and were setting up our TA under a big tree. A lot of teams had already arrived and set up. There were a lot of teams, and everyone was looking forward to trying out the fun stuff we had spotted down on the water front.
The race started at 8 am on Saturday morning. We were told to wear PFDs to the start line. We ran down the hill and into the water where about 100 m downstream there were boats clipped to a rope across the river. Each team was to get a boat, and with everyone touching it, take it around a raft in the middle of the river and then back to the take out. We all jumped onto our boat, and paddled with our hands, which everyone ended up doing, since it was the only way to make any real progress. Even so, it was difficult to have four people on one boat.
After running back up the hill from the water, we set out on Leg 1 - mountain biking. We plotted the few points and set off for CP1 (they had to be found in order). When we arrived there, Tom discovered that he had lost the passport out of his handy-dandy new shorts pocket. Oops. So, back we went to the start to get a new passport, putting us way behind a bunch of teams. That meant we were behind a line of bikes through the singletrack. We managed to get past most of them, and back to TA.
Leg 2 was a trek and the points had to be found in order. At the first CP there was a special test where we had to get all four teammates through a hole in platform about 10' off the ground without touching the platform supports. We did it pretty easily and moved on. We were in second place. We probably passed most of the teams on the bike and the rest in TA between the legs. The second trek leg was up on the highest hill at the camp by the windmill. The point was in the middle of the swimming tank in beside the windmill. Paul climbed in to punch the point. It was a bit of a battle to see who would get to go in. Part was through this leg Lance started to get some leg cramps. Not a good sign so early in the race. The last point of the leg was the ropes course. We chose to go down the long rappel and then ran along the sherpa traverse and back up to the top. There were two teams right behind us when we arrived at the ropes, but we put a gap on them through the ropes and ran back to TA for the next leg.
Leg 3 was water sports!! There were two checkpoints, one on top of the 'texas iceberg' and one of a platform (ladder up, slide down). It was a really fun break and a good chance to get in the water to cool down. We got the next checkpoints for Leg 4, which was a bike leg out a dirt road, about 9 km each way. Lance was still cramping, so we started giving him lots of salt tablets and did some towing up the hills during the bike leg. We were still in second, about 40 minutes behind Backpacker, the leading team.
Leg 5 was a paddle. There is a river flowing past the camp, but it has many dams along it that we had to portage. One of the portages was quite long and was a total bitch. We saw backpacker during the leg, and confirmed the time gap. We knew that unless they made a mistake it would be hard to catch them unless there was another bike leg.
After the paddle we got to go down the zipline. Super fun! There wasn't any way to make it go faster, so we just got to enjoy it without thinking about the race for a few minutes. After that we had our final leg - a trek where we could get the points in any order. The first two went fine. Lance was still feeling poorly, and we continued to try to hydrate him and get electrolytes into his system. Before the third CP, he went down with terrible leg cramps. Paul had been towing him a bit to help, but he was still suffering pretty badly. It didn't help when we had a nav error on the the third CP and spent extra time wandering around a very hot mesa (the wrong one) looking for the point. After that, the CPs came easy, but Lance was doing poorly. We knew the STAR had passed us during our nav mistake so that we were sitting in third. We plodded back to the finish and as we were approaching, we saw another team running in. We couldn't move any faster than we were, so we ended up in 4th - 1 minute behind 3rd and 20-something minutes behind 2nd.
It was a fun race, in a great location. I'll definitely go back next year! Thanks to Art and Robyn for putting on a great race.
posted by little b @ 8:42 p.m.
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