ADVENTURE RACE THRILLER #2

There's nothing like waking up at 5am after 4 hours of sleep knowing that you will be 'racing' for the next 24 hours...constantly moving for 100miles... It wasn't as bad as I had imagined, though. I was anxious about it up until the night before at which point I realized what a difference it makes when you're facing such a physical and mental challenge with other people! I had a great team for my second adventure race - the Hamel bros, Colin and Fletcher and our new teammate, Peter. You'd think that with all the months of planning and thinking we'd be able to pull this thing off without a hitch... wrong atronsky (as my dad used to say??). I realized about half an hour before our pre-race meeting Friday night that ... I had forgotten my tennis shoes... MY SHOES!! were an hour away somewhere forgotten in my room in Kansas City. At first I was sure I'd have to be the fool and make an open announcement to see if anyone had some I could borrow... we made some phone calls to Colin's mom, Fletcher's wife... too big, too small... Wal-Mart... But, thanks to the wisdom of my friend Kelly, it was becoming clear that I couldn't very well run, bike, walk, paddle, much less survive for 24 hrs and 100 miles in someone else's shoes! I needed my own even at the expense of time and gas. Then, something beautiful came about... my housemates back at home agreed to meet me half way with my shoes (AND I won a sweet camelbak during the raffle)!!!! And sure enough they arrived somewhere between Lawrence and KC, with my shoes and a guitar serenading me under the lamplight. It was so energizing. And it made the night a little shorter and a lot more enjoyable! I still didn't get to bed until the early morning hours, but I had realized by then that I wasn't in this alone. We were going to have a great time, there was no doubt about that!
And...sure enough, we did! We finished in an unofficial 19 hrs 8am - 3am (plus the 45 min we spent waiting for our life jackets at the river). It was a beautiful day, marked by a lovely sunrise, the rays beaming through the clouds onto Clinton Lake, an eager dog following us as we biked the country roads outside of Lawrence, a freaky good sandwich from Jimmy Johns and a lot of good laughs.

Early on in the race, after the first leg of orienteering, we were rerouted to do more navigating, after arriving to the lake to find that the boats from the earlier (12hr) racers hadn't yet returned. When we came back the second time we discovered that they had actually lost a number of canoes to the open waters as many teams had succumbed to winds and waves!! We were not going to paddling the lake! There was definitely a sense of relief and disappointment as we moved onto the next part of the race - we missed a good challenge, and our legs were looking forward to sitting for a while, but we also cut a good 10+ miles and 4 hours off of our day. So, we made our way a couple miles to where we had stashed our bikes and a bunch of food and came upon the biggest tragedy of our day!... we had forgotten the quesadillas!!! No quesadillas... was beyond words tragic. This was to be sustenance for the rest of the race, we'd been looking forward to it with every ounce of beings!! And they weren't there. We had to settle for dry, unsalted tuna and bagels. It was made up for with a stop at Jimmy John's later though :)... they really lived up to their claim - freaky fast, freaky good - a perfect way to get some quick calories in the middle of our race. It was fun to be in town for part of the race, not just out in the boonies, like last time.
So, after we picked up our bikes we peddled like maniacs our next orienteering challenge, where we learned that we'd all be getting thigh high into the murky waters of the wetlands... little did we know as we set out that we'd also be marching through the cold waters and reeds up to our ankles for at least half a mile for part of the adventure... and yes thigh high at least once... It actually turned out to be pretty therapeutic for some of our aching bones and joints!
After the wetlands we set out for KU, where we'd run around finding check points on campus before hitting the 10 story rappel site! I'd have to say it was one of the prouder moments in my life as I approached the building anxiety-free. Less than a year ago such a challenge would have had me in tears. But, this time, I felt excited and ready and even eager to give our first timer, Peter, a few pointers. Unbelievable! Here they are: Peter and Colin

We were off to make our way to the River Trails with a stop at Jimmy Johns to refuel! The last time I had done that single track mountain bike ride it was thick and messy muddy, nearly impossible to enjoy. But, this time, (my third time there, 4th time mtn biking ever) it felt mellow, almost relaxing and we flew through the 8 miles of track and trees in just over an hour. It was then that we were finally ready to face the waters.
We soon discovered that they didn't have life jackets for us, which afforded us an extra 45 minutes to get our bikes strapped with zip-ties (thanks to the genius thinking of the master Fletcher) to the boats. We hoisted out boats to the bottom of the ramp and warmed our toes by the fire. It was about 7pm and it started drizzling just about the instant we put in on the river... so with rain jackets on and head lamps lit we headed out into the abyss hoping to find our exit to the ropes course and beyond. With the guidance of the dim lights of the brave boats ahead of us we made our way off the main river into a little inlet where we passed under two sets of ropes crossing over. Up the hill we came around to find a traverse set up where we tied in to the rope above, held on with our hands above our heads and side stepped all the way across the river, wibbly wobbly all the way...and then... the zip-line!! The zip line... I stepped up on the ledge, and with people counting down for me, I closed my eyes and let go with a scream that pierced deep into the darkness, I'm sure. Then it was over. I was half tempted to do it all over again, had it not been an actual race!

The rest of the night on the river was a bleary mess of frustrating attempts to steer clear of the shallow shores and avoid large objects protruding from the surface of the water. The rain and the darkness were making it difficult... near impossible to see anything. We tried to sing, but didn't know any songs, though we made a feeble attempt at making one up. We tried to sleep, but were too afraid to fall in or miss our exit. We tried to stay in the middle, but found far-reaching sand bars. The few minutes when we decided to take a breath, take in the moment and turn off our head lamps were the best.

By some amazing grace, we found the exit we were looking for after overshooting it by just a little. The shore line we were trying to navigate was an indistinguishable gray/black of shore and trees and sky that we happened to find our way through to the incoming Wakarusa River and up to the boat ramp where we'd finally get off the river. It was a miracle or something, the other 2 teams that had been ahead of us had not yet arrived... they had made a wrong turn or gone too far! I think this gave us the little boost of morale we needed to finish strong as it meant we were no longer in last place!! We spent some time by the fire, changed our socks, stuffed our faces with bread and espresso beans and started on our way from Eudora all the way back to Clinton Lakes Recreation Area... a long ways for a midnight ride. But, we did it! We survived, we finished, we had a great time...

The quesadillas awaited us in the car, no less! We were in bed by 5am and up and at'em by 10 for the 'awards ceremony'. My body ached, but I was so pleased with how well we did and so enjoyed reliving the memories of the previous 24hrs. As people talked about the nationals and the next races, I found myself easily imagining doing it again. There's no way you regret something like that. It was amazing, empowering, beautiful and really fun to get so dirty and be outside moving for so many hours!
I think the funniest times in my own experience were when I couldn't seem to get food in my face fast enough and I'd be double fisting a piece of bread and trying to drink gatorade at the same time and have to start riding again, with the bread still in one hand. I could actually feel my body become re-energized by the food intake. :) I also LOVED coming home to read all the 'shout-outs' that everyone left for us. That was great!

So, the canoe fiasco, cost the organizers of the race about 7 boats... all of which they had to replace... a lot of money. It became a beautiful effort of the race participants to help raise the money for these guys! The winning team contributed their winnings back into the cost of replacing the boats and $2,767.50 was raised! Here's the website, it's just sort of endearing: https://www.armonkey.com/canoeassist.cfm
and if you want to check out more of the race info:
www.bonkhardracing.com
http://www.checkpointtracker.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=app.showDashboard&eventID=136