Muddy Buddy!

There is this race called Muddy Buddy that comes through Atlanta once a year and you sign up for it with a partner. AK and I decided to partner up even though that would mean that he had to use my tiny mountain bike.

They give out prizes for the best costume so we decided to give it a go and spent the night before trying to locate blue paint with which to smurfify ourselves. I grabbed a white dress at a thrift store and a pair of red shorts for AK so we could pull off Smurfette and Papa Smurf (complete with a Santa beard).

Man oh man were we a bright, bright blue! We ended up losing the costume contest to Mario and Luigi (complete with a Yoshi bike!).

The race is designed such that one person rides the mountain bike while the other trail runs and then when you get to one of the obstacles you switch off. Whoever was riding the bike gets to the obstacle first, drops the bike on the side of the trail and takes off running....and the runner will pick up the bike after completing said obstacle.

The trails weren't particularly hard, but the amount of people that you had to dodge certainly made it interesting. The obstacles were a ton of fun and we had to run across balance beams, go down inflatable slides, and it all ended in the giant mud pit.

I got to the mud pit first (I biked 3 times, and ran twice) and waited on AK to meet me there. You have to go through the mud pit with your partner and so we ran to it and dived on in, crawling on our knees underneath the flags and getting completely coated.

Making it out of the pit we ran to the finish line and as we would later find out we managed to place 4th in our age group!

After rinsing what mud we could off of our bodies and out of our eyes (ouch!) we headed over to the beer garden - because free beer at 10 am is always a good idea.

We met up with Mariah and grabbed a bite to eat afterwords at a great family joint. Needless to say we got some rather funny looks with our peeling blue skin and mud covered clothes! :)

Costa Rica - Day 3 - Day of Fortuna

We woke up early and grabbed a typical Costa Rican breakfast of eggs, beans, toast, and of course delicious Costa Rican coffee. We found a local store that rented mountain bikes for ridiculously cheap and grabbed 3 of them and a sweet Costa Rica National Geographic Map (another one to add to my rather large map collection).


We asked for directions on how to bike to a local waterfall - La Fortuna Catarata and the three of us were off on the bikes, biking out of town. Of course we biked several miles past the turn off for the waterfall (there are conveniently zero road signs pointing us towards the big ass waterfall) and as conveniently these several extra miles were mostly uphill. Gravity was much appreciated on the ride back downhill and we managed to find the correct turnoff. Who would have guessed that this road was nearly vertical...yeah, my legs were not so prepared for the monstrous hills and I ended up walking up most of it. Lame.


By the time the three of us made it up the gargantuan hill (some of us much faster than others) we had all soaked through our shirts with sweat. We paid the entrance fee and hiked on down through the towering trees to the 75 meter tall waterfall. As hot as I had been from the bike ride, the water was freezing cold so rather than jump in I just stood close enough that I got pretty soaked by the mist spraying off of the waterfall.


Unlike me, the boys immediately stripped down and jumped on in. They managed to find the perfect diving rock and I caught some great shots of them jumping into the cold water. AK was also determined to swim as close to the waterfall as possible and I was positive he was going to get pushed under and drown in the crazy swirling undercurrents....yeah, swimming isn't really my thing. After the boys were done cooling off and playing around, we walked downstream and saw some really cool Costa Rican fish (yes, the fact that they are from CR makes them cooler).


The three of us jumped back on our bikes and joyfully rolled down the hill and back into downtown Fortuna. We returned the bikes, hopped in the car and began circumnavigating the Volcano. As we drove around it was interesting to see the volcano change from being covered in green vegetation to a dark black color with very apparent lava trails. The most recent significant eruption was in 1998, but the most destructive eruption was back in 1968 when the volcano completely destroyed the small town of Tabacon.


Although Arenal is probably the most famous of Costa Rica's volcanoes, it is very rare that one gets to actually see the top of the cone as it is normally shrouded in clouds. As we were circling the volcano, the clouds cleared away and we were given the full view of the volcano for probably 10 minutes, just enough time for us to all jump out of the car and get some photographic evidence of it.


On the opposite side of the volcano is Parque Nacional Volcan Arenal and we paid the entry fee and drove on up the dirt road into the park. Once in the park, we hiked along the trails toward prime volcano viewing. The path led us through areas of high risk (at least this is what the signs warned) and the amount of sharp Igneous rocks significantly increased as we neared the volcano. Standing amongst the black rocks which formed from the most recent eruption in '98 we heard the deep rumbling of Arenal and saw what we could only assume were at least car sized boulders rolling down the volcanic slope (we were at least a mile away from the top of the volcano, which is relatively close to one that active).


When we turned our back on the volcano, Lake Arenal was visible from our perch on the igneous rocks. The Lake is damned and used for hydroelectric power in the area. The whole scenery in the area is one of the most surreal that I have encountered in my travels so far.


We hiked back on a different trail, surrounded by gigantic trees, tarzan vines to play on, and countless species of plants that I have never seen before. The trees seem to reach up forever into the canopies high above, and the rhythmic noises of the jungle kept our heads turning with hopes to spot an interesting animal around every corner.


After an early dinner at what we are pretty sure was the best restaurant in town we all grabbed some ice cream and chilled in the local town square. The clouds decided to clear from the volcano again and the scenery was amazing as local families took advantage of the parks green space - allowing their children to run around, playing tag and wearing off their energy - likely in hopes of an earlier bedtime.


Later that night, we attempted to drive closer to the Volcano in hopes of observing glowing orange lava flows, but we didn't have as much "fortuna" as we had earlier in the day with the sighting of the entire Volcanic cone. The clouds wrapped the volcano like a blanket and only the occasional snoring of the sleeping volcano could be heard.

Amphibious Warrior Adventure Race

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. :)

Wonder Woman Triathlon

So, I had been training super hard...meaning, I had been running a couple days a week for all of 2 weeks and gone mountain biking a whole 2 times...and I somehow allowed AK to talk me into doing an offroad triathlon. I pretty much knew I was going to suck it up, so I joked about wearing my wonder woman costume and brought it along just in case I was feeling like a cape would help the day of the race.

AK & I drove up Friday night with our friend Daryl to Springfield, South Carolina where the race was being held. A couple of our friends planned on making the trip, but would come up on Saturday. We got there pretty late and had missed the big eve of the race pasta dinner, but the race director was so sweet that he invited us into his cabin and heated up some more pasta for us and gave offered us a beer. I of course turned down the beer, knowing that it would greatly effect my performance the next day....NOT! We chilled in the cabin for a while before heading out the campfire that a couple of the racers had going. We head to bed kinda early because I desperately needed my beauty sleep - I mean a girls got to look good for race day, right?

We woke up early the next morning and checked in for the race. We put our mountain bikes in the race racks (I'm sure there is a more technical name that I don't know) and went and grabbed our kayaks that we had rented and put them in the row of super fancy flat water kayaks next to the lake.

I went back to the tent to change into my race clothes and after a short personal debate - I was out in my finest crime fighting outfit. I figured the cape would annoy me since it goes around your neck so I tied it to my camel pack. AK and I were hanging out pre-race and just kinda stretching and warming up because I am hardcore serious and all...and somebody asked him where his costume was. He of course had not packed a costume...but, he did have some work clothes in his car. Hah, he went and changed into work pants, button up shirt, and a tie - we were ready to race! :)

We all clogged together next to the starting line and with the gun shot I was off like a speeding bullet...if a speeding bullet moves at a whopping pace of 6 miles per hour. This 7 mile run, would be the farthest I had ever ran...and my only goal was to keep running and I managed at least to do that. The run through the beautiful trails weaved in and out of the woods and around the lake and I'm sure it would have been absolutely beautiful if I wasn't nearly dying the whole time. At least I had a great support team with the "Go Wonder Woman" shouts every now and then!

After the run, was a 6 mile kayak around the lake - this was the part of the race that I was least worried about. Its not that I'm a big kayaker or anything...I probably paddle just a couple times a year, but at least I knew that I had actually paddled 6 miles in my life before (compared to the 7 mile run and the 10 mile mtn bike) and this was an extra fancy kayak with peddals that you steer with! We had to paddle our way around the lake 3 times and I was actually passing a couple of people which made me happy...really, really stunk for the guy in a white water kayak - he was doing nothing but paddling back and forth.

After the kayak, I hopped on my mountain bike and just prayed that my legs would somehow keep going for the next 10 miles. A lot of the biking was on fireroads, but these were sandy fireroads that made you feel like you were somehow peddeling backwards. The single track was hard and I was often off my bike pushing it up another steep hill since my legs weren't really going along with the whole not stopping thing. Overall, I got passed a ton and I got use to getting passed and was frankly ok that I was majorly sucking it up because the race was getting closer and closer to being over!

After what felt like an eternity, I crossed back over the main road and began biking towards the finish line and I hear "On your left." Ok, this is general curtosy on a bike or even when you are running and passing somebody and I had heard this all day because I had been passed many, many times, but my reaction than time was more of a "Not going to happen bitch" reaction. Well, I didn't say that but I would like to think that my reaction of speeding up and barreling down the road at warp speed, conveyed that. That girl behind me would be 1 of a whole 7 people that finished behind me. Well make that 8 because 1 girl totally cheated on the paddle - no way did she complete 3 laps!

Well, needless to say that kicking myself into warp drive did not make the victory bottle of rum seem like a very good idea and I gave myself a good 30 minutes and a whopping plate of food before I took my shot.

Unlike me, AK actually did really well at the race and apparently got to hear "I am NOT getting passed by a guy in a suit" several times during the race. :)

Well I had been hard at work sucking it up, a bunch of our friends had arrived and we had a great time hiking, drinking, and campfiring before once again heading back to reality.