The first Adventure racing tizzy

There is something about an adventure race that makes it very different from a road race. In a road race the only job of the brain is to zone out, to relax and let the body do its work. Not so in an adventure race, in an adventure race your brain is working the whole time, asking questions: what will be next?, will we have to swim?, what direction should we be going in?, is it worth it getting that extra point? Ahhh!! your mind and your body are at full force, which sometimes can create a bit of stress and maybe even a bit of crankiness…

We were just finishing the run leg of our first adventure race at Hidden Valley, we ran up to the T/A table and handed in our run punch card, we were then told by one of the race directors that we were in the middle of the pack, “wait what?...no way” We were already on a high from finishing the leg race and now we are told we were in the middle of the pack!, things couldn’t be better and smiles couldn’t have been bigger.

Those smiles were short lived, “Now one of you need to swim across the lake to get the bike punch card while the other team mate plots the bike points on this map” the race director told us. Lisa looked over at me “I can do it” I thought (“Yeah, you’ll do it since I already had to swim”) but I said “You are going to do great, do it to it gov!!.” (smile…nod…smile).

She was off on the swim and I was starting to feel bad so I thought I would lay out everything for her so that when she got out of the swim we could just jump on the bikes. So I went to T/A gathered everything she needed and laid it in a perfect line. Yes! we were all set. I went over to the dock and started plotting the points. I saw Lisa doing a combination of a backstroke with a little bit of side stroke every now and then. I heard her saying to the lady swimming near her “I hear that there are snapping turtles in this lake.” They were giggling, meaning Lisa was in a great mood and I made sure all the points were plotted, everything was going perfect! We both had this little time for our brains to zone out and relax, we knew what was coming next: the bike, we just had to do good on the bike and we would stay in the middle of the pack

Then it happened…She ran over to the area I had everything set up and she said “I need a towel”. Shoot! I thought, I didn’t bring a towel over. So she ran back to T/A and dried off, there was nothing I could do at that point so I quietly stood by my bike, and then I saw it, I could see it from a mile away. It was the “SIDE EYE” My mind went crazy I was thinking what did I do to deserve the side eye, before I could open my mouth to ask “what’s wrong?” I saw the “LIP SNARL” I never get the snarl, she was showing her teeth, what could I have possibly done. Then she said it in slow motion. “Did you wrinkle the map!!!” “No No, I did not wrinkle the map.” (the map was on a 8 x 11 piece of paper, and the zip-loc bag was 9 x 9, so yes, maybe it was a little jammed in there, ok I lied…a little. Then she said “let me see it, it is wrinkled, let me have it” At this point she was no where near ready to jump on the bike, she was just so concerned about the wrinkled map.

We eventually jumped on our bikes, and rode in silence for a little bit, by the time we were to the top of the hill we were back in race/friend mode looking together for the first check point, on our quite wrinkled map.