Adventure Racing 6:40:00 [4]
Formerly known as the "adidas Divas", the Salomon Bobkittens were back to take on the first Adventure Challenge course of the year. Slice, T-dot, and I teamed up for a new configuration of racers and decided that we would start the race (a fast paved road ride) by trying to hold on to the back of the front pack. We would draft and if a team broke early with too much speed we would let them go and stick with the next pack. We had made a mistake in another race of trying to push too hard at the start and spent too much time trying to recover.
The pace was great off the start and it seemed like no one team was going to break and work on their own off of the start line so we just stuck with the pack. The ride was fun and we were up with the top 5 teams into CP1. We made the decision to backtrack to the road to avoid having to make decisions on trails that weren't on the map and it appeared to pay off as we jumped ahead of a couple of teams. We got to the first TA with Beowolf, Kinetic Konnection, and SRS and we all headed out on the trek at around the same time. By the time we made our way through the bush to CP4 Beowolf had jumped ahead of us and we were in 3rd. As we crossed the river we saw SRS coming in behind us to the CP. Now we had to find a snowmobile trail or try bushwhacking. We found a trail a little sooner than I would have thought but it was heading the right direction so Slice hooked T-dot up on tow as she was having a little GI distress and we moved well on the trail to the road and into TA 2. We saw Beowolf here just getting into their boat and after a quick TA we were in the boat as SRS came into the TA.
The paddle was okay (despite sitting in the middle) but this is where I think we have a disadvantage as an all-female team. SRS passed us on the portage as Slice and I had the boat on our shoulders and Benoit trotted by. It would be a great feat to catch them on the water so we just tried to maintain a steady pace. I jumped out of the boat at the optional rapid and ran the shore while the girls ran the rapid no problem. I wouldn't have been much help in the boat anyway as I was still woozy from being whacked in the head by Slice's paddle - thank goodness we had to wear helmets. Back in the boat I thought we were going to be really tight to make the 3 pm cutoff and I saw one potential area to cut off a loop on the river but by the time we got there it appeared that the river had changed and all of a sudden we were at the TA in a panic to get out on the advanced. Then we were told it had been extended by an hour. Phew!
Onto the advanced bike we hit some ATV trails and luckily didn't make any wrong turns.. the riding was a little slow in parts but we pushed on until I got a flat. We didn't know how far behind the next team was so speedy T-dot changed the tire, we pumped it and topped it with CO2 and then climbed back on our bikes. Once we hit the road we were cruising and really pushed the pace to the finish line.
Coming in fourth overall was great in such a strong field and once again we had a blast racing togther. We even saw a little kitten on the course and thought this was a good omen considering our new name.
Great weekend, great course, amazing weather.....