December 30, 2012

Castlewood 8 Hour Adventure Race

Due to LIFE getting in the way, I am just now getting a race report for the Castlewood Adventure Race out.  And since I have waited so long, I don't remember a lot of the details.  This is what I do remember. 

Chuck and I decided to have two teams this year, a guys team and a girls team.  We had some newbies that really wanted to try Adventure Racing and some people that we showed the ropes in the 2011 race that wanted to do it again. 

The guys team was Chuck, Jacob Vohsen, Keith Timmins, and Patrick Albert.

Of course I was on the girls team, it was Lori Vohsen, Jenny Norton, Krystal Giltner and me.  Lori was our navigator and I tried to help where I could, but it was really all Lori.  I think Chuck told her, what ever you do, do not let Robin navigate, which is really good advice. 

We started the race hanging with the guys, but then they got restless waiting for us so they took off.  Oh don't worry they didn't just ditch us, we had decided before the race that we might do a couple CP's together then go at our own pace.  Plus we got to test our skills without help. 

The day was beautiful and we quickly went from long sleeves and pants to shorts and short sleeve jerseys.  Lori's orienteering was spot on all day long, we were hitting the CP's dead on. 

Krystal and I sucked at paddling and we were just dragging the team down during the paddle, but we did better on the bike.  I think the hardest part of the entire race was dragging the canoe off the beach.  Everyone we knew was at the manned CP's.  It was a like an Adventure racing reunion and so good to see everyone who wasn't racing.

We worked together like a well oiled machine, it was a great team that we had. We ended up in second place, although we had the same number of CP's as the first place team, but our time was slower.  We missed the last two CP's because we were short on time so skipped them. 

Below is our race in pictures.


Figuring out which way to start
 
Hanging out with a great race volunteer


Good Friends

Checking to see if we have time to pick up one last CP

Both ROCK Racing teams

Punching the CP

Another CP bites the dust

One More CP

Lori, which way do we go now?

Blood, that makes it a great race


We got it, lets move out

Some time on the water



The fast paddlers

Krystal can paddle, but Robin steers all over the river

A taste of a bike leg

The Finish Line


Jen, Krystal, Robin and Lori