Adventure Racing race (Lucky 21) 19:44:00 [3] 88.0 mi (13:27 / mi)
Our longest race to date (10 hour epic was previous longest) and we had a blast! There is definitely plenty of room for improvement, but we couldn't be happier with our results. Our goals were (in order of importance): be official finishers, clear the course, fastest 2 person coed, and we did all 3! 5/11 overall and 1/4 2-person coed.
Milage:
Trek: ~15
Bike: ~56
paddle: ~16
Howel O: 45 minutes, 6/11
Only one minor blunder, but it went really well and was a great way to get our feet wet and our confidence up. Would love to see some of the ropes incorporated into a future event!
Lost the map, so I cant say our route
EDIT: Map posted, so our route was: 20,21,22, 24, 26, 27, 25, 23
Bike 1: 3:12, 8/11
We estimated getting to TA1 at 2 am... and got there at 1am, and beat our support crew there. Clearly we need to work on our estimation. Even with being an hour early, we had one of the slower bikes. We definitely werent pushing it, as we didnt know how our bodies would handle 21 hours, so we took it pretty easy. One blunder on the badlands bike, missed a hard left and ended up hiking our bikes up a sand dune, only to have to come back down. The badlands bike was my favorite part of the race though, it was perfect to do at night and really fun.
Island lake O: 3:41, 5/11
Pretty much flawless navigation by Sydney. Did a little jogging, but mostly just fast walked. Very happy with our time on this section. This was my second favorite part of the race.
25,20,21,23,28,24,26,29,27,22
Trek to paddle: 1:09, 9/11
This felt the longest 3 miles of the entire race. walked the whole way and ate breakfast on the go. felt like we were power walking and still had one of the slower times. Didnt have the map out and almost missed the turn off. Lesson learned, always keep the map handy.
Canoe: 5:13, 10/11
Definitely the place for the most improvement. Second slowest time. We both were flagging, mentally and physically, for a big stretch in the middle. This section was torture for us. I got pretty cold from having wet feet, and didnt have warm food planned at the TA. Luckily our support crew made us ramen they had brought, and it was a huge boost. Lesson: Plan warm food.
Bike 2: 1:54, 9/11
I was very happy to be familiar with the mountain biking trails, since its not my strong point. I was actually feeling pretty good at this point, syd was in worse shape which never happens mountain biking. I think it was dehydration, we tend to slacken off on drinking and eating while in boats. Time was pretty average.
Brighton O: 2:15, 9/11
Our worst of the 3 O sections, mostly due to fatigue. Made a couple fairly major and really stupid mistakes, just getting sloppy. Seems to happen near the end of every race, no matter how long it is. It was nice to see some other teams on this section, gave us some motivation to keep going after not seeing any other teams since the dam of the canoe sections (almost 6 hours!).
40,41,42,44,43,39,45,38
Bike 3: 55 minutes, 3/11
Pushed with everything we had because we thought another team was on our tail. Result was pretty good - one of the faster bikes back. Now if only we could always bike fast like everyone else...
Not really sure how we ended up 5/11 based on our splits for each section (8.4/11 average). I'll need to check our TA times. Our total was about 30 min, which I feel like was probably pretty slow/average based on our lack of originization and knowing what to have our support crew do.
Had so much fun! Sad that the AR season is mostly over, at least as far as longer races. Hopefully this is motivation to stay in shape for the winter, which is something we have never really had before. That being said, I am personally very excited for the orienteering season to start up again!