Kelly and I raced together for the 1st time, as team "Ball and Chain #1." Ben and Allison were going to race together as team "Ball and Chain #2," but she broke her ankle mountain biking a week before the race. So Ben found a
replacement from his local bike store (Travis). We don't have many photo's for this race, because we didn't have any spectators there. Kelly and I carried a disposable camera, but we haven't yet had them developed. The pictures here are from the event's photographer. The race started with everyone having to remove their shoes and put them on a tarp, Then we swam about 1/4 of a mile, ran on the beach to get our shoes, but they had mixed them all up! Once we got that straightened out, we had a 5.5mile run,
in which we had to climb (with ropes) down a bridge, swim across a river (or climb up a cargo net -- the line was too long), climb back up, etc. Kelly and I lost the map early in the run, but we know the park well and the course was marked. There were some orienteering check points that were marked on the map, but we remembered most of them. I did check one team's map to make sure at one point. We then had a canoe section, and they made us portage several hundred yards. This was real tough for Kelly and me. In the end I carried it by myself on my shoulders, which was very hard! But once in the water, we passed a bunch of boats and never got passed. (We were one of the last boats in the water, though.) Half way through the canoe, there was a short orienteering section. On the way back, we could portage again or canoe a bit further towards the transition. Guess what we did! Then it was off to the 10-12 mile mountain bike course over the tough Oleta trails, made even more
treacherous because of all the rain and mud! At the very end, we had to carry our teammate and a 2 by 4 a couple of hundered yards down the beach, as you can see in the picture below. We finished in about 4 hours and 45 minutes,
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|