Ever since my off road triathlon attempt I had been wanting to get more into the awesome and intense sport called Adventure Racing. For those of you that don't know what Adventure Racing is, it is a race that is almost always done in teams of 3-4 people with generally 3 racing disiplines - mountain biking, trekking/trail running, and canoeing/kayaking/rafting. During each disipline you have to navigate yourself around with the use of your compass, map, and points that you have marked using the UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) system and find checkpoints in the woods along or most oftentimes off of the trails. Most every race is different and they almost always include special tasks and for the most part these races aren't any walk in the park - at least for me.
I had been to several local orienteering events, so I was designated the navigator, but made sure to show Adam and David how to use the compass as well - since I would most likely need help in making decisions. The Amphibious Warrior race was an 8 hour long race and took place in Wind Creek State Park in Alabama. The 3 of us drove up there the night before, somehow managing to fit all of our gear into David's small car and all of our mountain bikes on the back. Once we arrived, we set up camp and all climbed in relatively early since the race was starting the next morning - for whatever reason the boys had decided that they didn't need to bring their sleeping bags with them and they froze most of the night, well I slept well in my 0 degree bag (thanks Mom and Dad!).
The next morning we got up and got all of our gear shoved into our little camel pack for the gear check, we put our rented canoe next to the starting line, and our mountain bikes and extra food in the transition area that we would come back to between all of the disciplines. The rules were explained to everyone and we kind of casually wandered over toward our canoe and the start - thinking there would be an announcement before the actual start of the race, but right as we got to our canoe the air horn sounded and we grabbed the canoe and were off running toward the water.
The 3 of us dodged our way through the trees and down to the water, David jumped in the canoe and Adam pushed it off and hopped in - leaving me on the shore staring blankly at them like WTF? I shrugged my shoulders and went diving in the water after them, somehow managing to keep the canoe upright well I clambored on in. The two boys were paddling and I was in the middle navigating and it was off to the first checkpoint we went. Only 2 of checkpoints were right next to the water and all the others the three of us had to go tramping through the thick, burr filled woods to find. We did well in the canoe despite one navigational error and Adam's horrible steering skills - and I didn't sit on my butt the whole time in the water and switched off with the boys for some paddle time.
After our canoe section, we headed back to transition gathered our necessities for the mountain biking section and took off on the road out of Wind Creek State Park and towards the mountain biking trails. A lot of the biking was actually road biking, but the mountain part ranged from wide fire roads to steep, rooty, and terrifying single track. At several of the biking checkpoints there were certain military type obstacles for us to do (the Auburn Marines put on this race) and Adam even had to take a short swim across a creek to get to one of the checkpoints. Overall, my legs were beyond dying and I was definitely slowing down the group as I had never biked near the 25 miles we covered that day. Surprisingly, we found all of the biking checkpoints (there was some really tricky ones!) and we biked on the road back into the park.
Once in the park we turned in our stamped passports and were given a list of UTM coordinates that we quickly plotted on our map. The mountain biking had taken a long time so we had to be very strategic about which hiking points we would try to hit, knowing that the checkpoints with obstacles would offer double points. We managed to find a couple of the checkpoints and had to crawl through mud under the "fire" zone for one of the obstacles - fun! Needless to say, the mountain biking had definitely taken up too much of our time though (my slow, slow legs couldn't peddle any faster!) and we returned to the finish line with only a couple of stamps on our passport. :(
Overall the race was a blast and I was dead tired! I really need to find another Adventure Race to do soon!
P.S. We somehow ended up qualifying for Adventure Racing Nationals, but opted out because its wicked expensive. :)
