The day has come and gone for my first adventure race. The Capital City Challenge took place around the Harrisburg, New Cumberland, Lemoyne, the Susquehanna River and on City Island.
Our Sponsor, Ted Hoffman, General Sales Manager, Sutliff Hummer; The coed-masters team pre-race: me, Dr. Drew Wellmon, Karen Weissman
The Challenges:
The eggs
Catapult
Lizard egg (bowling ball and ropes)
Egg toss into a colander on top of a teammate's head or do a damn tangent puzzle that would eat up time.
Planks with circles
Climbing wall
Ping pong ball and tubes
2 Planks with steps - had to prop up as high as the rope between trees.
The race started with the mountain bike in two waves; the all-male, master male teams went first and the second wave were the rest of the 95 teams. We had to carry an egg during the event. It was ideal not to break the egg as we needed it for a future challenge. We started in the top third. It was a fast start off City Island, along the Susquehanna, into a trail that turned to road and switched back and forth from trail to road. We set a steady pace and stayed together most of the time. The first challenge has us as the 2nd master's co-ed team on the road. We had to sling-shot a little red ball across a soccer field to a partner. Karen's shoulders ached with my pulls. I could not rocket the ball far enough. There was a line that the ball had to pass for us to catch it. We had 2 tries and if no catch, we had to go to the end of the line and do again. We did this at least 4 or 5 times with me catapulting the ball not far enough. We never had a line to stand in but we lost time. I ask Drew to catapult the ball as Karen held the sling shot. His first shot flew beyond me. Yea - but no catch. I prepared for the second ball, watched it like an outfielder and caught it with my body. We got another egg and I added it to my Serfas eyeglass case. Perfect for holding and protecting the eggs.
We rocketed on the bikes again as I knew I was going to die on the run. I had only trained up to three miles a week. With one run on the road at 40 minutes and another one a week before the race for one and a half hours on trails.
We finish the bike about an hour 40 later, returning to the transition area, changed shoes and off running. I had a bungee to be towed but I was doing okay for the first mile. The second challenge was to carry a lizard egg (bowling ball) with ropes. We could not touch the ball. Once we created a cradle for the egg, we walked a few steps to drop it in a basket. We get a third egg that barely fit in the eyeglass case.
Off running again for a few minutes to the canoes. Karen has better upper body strength than me so she was up for paddling in the front, Drew captaining in the back. I was the middle driver as I sat in water in the middle of the canoe. Hmmm. I had a hard time not giving directions even though I had only canoed once in my adult life. The river was low and we navigated well. Toward the end of the canoe leg, we had to walk part of it through a pathway between two little islands to get to the dock on the other side of the river.
Third challenge: The egg toss. I opted to be egged. I wore/held a white colander on my helmet and Drew threw the egg. Since we had three eggs intact, we had three tries. If we missed or did have broken our eggs, we would have had to complete the tangent puzzle. One team said it took them 15 minutes to do the damn puzzle. Drew made the second egg land inside the colander. 15 seconds max. With egg on my face! for real, we began the run from hell. It was ALL on the road. I was warned that the run leg would be long because it has not been so in a long time. I had hoped for trails but none would be present to save my legs. I had an excruciating pain below my right knee that I thought it was going to snap anytime. So I said no to the bungee. I did not want to be towed faster than my body could handle.
Challenge four after at least five miles of running. I sort of looked forward to the rest waiting in line for the challenge but I feared the run afterwards. We had to stand on a plank with two circles on either end. One person handed two other planks over for one to be placed on the ground matching circles painted on the pavement. Halfway through, we bobbled and one of us fell of the plank. There was a line and off we were to stand and wait to start again. We switched positions on this second round, took our time and completed the task.
Running. I kept imagining the transition area. I kept guessing that the bridge to City Island was near. I swear we ran another three miles. Many of our friends said once we did an adventure race, we would be addicted. Not me. The run had cracked me. I was miserable. I had to mumble to myself to keep jogging. I started dragging my right leg and let the left carry most of the work. The impact of the road was killing my tibia/IT band. We finally saw City Island. We ran down the stairs to the parking lot near the transition area but we had to continue running up the other side of the damn bridge to cross the river.
Cracked. Drew was the constant as he had done this particular race many times and many other adventure races, too. Although she worked through injuries and a painful start to her run, Karen, too was consistent as she does triathlons and runs often.
We make it to the other side of the river to face three climbing walls. Karen is afraid of heights and we both have not done any climbing, ever. Karen hyperventilated as she is guided into the harness, I stared at Drew climbing the wall. We had to climb to a certain height and touch the line and drop. The "rope" (wire) was on a pulley system so the set-up was totally safe. But after watching Karen hyperventilate, climb part way and drop, I trembled as I attempted the climb. We had three tries each (except for Drew-he made it up in the first try) and could move on. Karen tried two more times and dropped. There was no penalty for not making it to the top. I should of have climbed a bit and dropped but after racing for four hours, I thought I had to climb the wall. My third time around I was in tears. Tears out of anger. We had to go to the end of the line for each try. Luckily the line was non-existent. But I was so mad and frustrated, I walked around the volunteers to the imaginary line and turned around huffing and puffing with my eyes all welled up like a three year old.
I had been guided to each wall for my tries. The third try was on the shortest wall on the left. All heights were the same to climb but I think having the shortest wall helped me mentally. My body felt empty. On the first try, I could not go to far as my right leg gave out trying to climb the rocks. I cracked on the second try not making it too far. My body was exhausted. I could not believe how weak my upper body felt. I was told climbing was all in the legs but mine were shot from a hellish run and had snapped at the knees.
I tried to keep my butt tucked in, use my legs as much as possible and with much encouragement from the volunteers, I made it to the top. Yea!! I guess. And dropped. Karen overheard some volunteer ask why would anyone would sign up to do this if they never climbed or were afraid of heights. With adventures races, one does not know what is in store. We figured we would do the best we could when the challenge presented itself. Now Karen and I will practice climbing just in case we do another adventure race.
We had to run to another challenge - I hobbled. Not knowing what categories were around us, we had to keep moving. Three small PVC pipes and one ping-pong ball that we had to pass to each with the pipes. Out the window goes the germ-o-phobia in us. Two tries and done.
Hobbled to another challenge. Poor Drew. I was cracked from it all and this wasn't even an adventure race with navigation and maps (thank goodness). We had to propped up two - 2x4s with blocks for steps on the 2x4s. We made Drew climb the 2x4s over the rope to the other side. Oh, we could not hold the wood for him to climb. More time passed. We finally created a cantilever pushing against the wood. Karen yelled; "push, push, push" to make sure I pushing against her push. When Drew made it to the other side, I think I released and Drew jumped/fell to the ground and the 2x4s just about crashed on Karen.
Go, go, go. I had no idea where the finish was. I was going to cry if we had to cross the river to the transiti
on area for the finish. Drew talked me through most of the run and continued during this last bit. He saw the finishing tent. I did, too, and wanted to walk. Then I heard some guy saying; "both calves are cramping" but I never heard the person that was trying to push him to run pass us. I realized what was going on and I told Karen to run faster. She did not hear me so I had to pick up my hobble and "sprint" to the finish. Karen had no idea why was was running pass her so she ran with me. The guy with both calves cramping ended up being a competitor team that we out sprinted second place for the master's co-ed team.We also finished 27th overall out of 95 teams. After icing and massaging my legs for two days, I was pleased. I am not sure I would do an adventure race again. If I can keep up the running (It is now a week later and I have not touched the sneakers yet) I just may try again. But be wary - if we have to navigate or use maps - I suck.
4 hours and 40+ minutes. Winning time for Coed Masters: 4 hrs and 7 minutes.
Nothing broken, just over worked and strained. I thought my leg was going to snap at the knee. My training did not prepare me for the 8 miles of running on road. Hydroworx had a trailer so all three of us climbed into the trailer to get a massage in a pool and Karen and Drew ran on the treadmill. I was done running. Even if the treadmill was in a pool. For $28,000, not including installation, you could have one of these recovery pools in your house. I bet if I did not use the Hydroworx, I would not have been able to walk at all for a few days. Since I had a plane to catch Tuesday night for Vegas, I jumped in that pool with my full kit on.
