Shelley and I and Jeff Ferguson raced in the Urban Adventure Race yesterday. This race is a score competition which means the team that gets the most points wins. We had the most points but we ended up in second place because we lost points for finishing 9 minutes late.
We were perfectly happy with second (out of about 20 teams). I'm always amazed that more of these youngsters don't run circles around an old fart like me. I know it'd be a different story if it was a straight bike or running race. Thankfully experience and strategy play a big part in this kind of race.
The weather was perfect - overcast and not too hot, not too much wind. The mosquitos were crazy though if you walked across any grassy areas.
Much to Shelley's chagrin, she slipped off at the end of the climbing challenge. Muddy running shoes aren't the ideal climbing footwear!
All the racers got yelled at by the adults organizing a kids race we had to pass by. I can appreciate warning us that there were kids around, but they were a little over zealous trying to get rid of us.
Thankfully the biking was split into two sections with the running in the middle. None of our team had been doing much biking lately other than back and forth to work, which isn't really adequate training for a four hour race!
It was a little frustrating to get the late penalty - we know that's a big mistake. We've always managed to time it pretty well in previous races. But we had a long way to get back to the finish and misjudged how long it would take us.
Other than finishing late, the race went pretty well. No more than minor delays finding any of the points, and our route choices worked out pretty well. Some of the points were in areas we were pretty familiar with, which always helps. But there were others in parts of town I'd never seen before, and that's fun too.
We only had one crash. I was trying to read the map and was debating which fork of the trail to take. I went over the handlebars but slowly and into soft grass. More embarassing than painful.
I guess Shelley and I can't have been too out of shape since we're not too stiff or sore today.
I was lucky with my bike. I went out on it this morning and only got a few blocks and my chain broke and fell off! Thank goodness that didn't happen during the race! It's a bit strange since I got a new chain about a month ago and haven't abused it in any crashes or anything. I managed to repair it with a link from an old chain and my chain tool that I've never had to use before.
Congrats!
ReplyDelete