Race #4 0f 2010- Land Between the Lakes, With Kyle Peter, Leslie Reuter, Mari Chandler, and Piers Stockwell
We had a pretty good race and moved well as a team. Unfortunately, the results don't really show it. The race started at 7 a.m. with a 10k off trail trek. In our excitement to be racing again, we were moving a little too fast and were a bit 'sloppy' with finding the CP's in a terrain with features at a much smaller scale than what we are used to. We came off the trek in about 6th place but quickly over took 2 teams while riding bikes on some of Kentucky's finest single-track. Despite having to fix a broken chain, our bike leg was fast and we were able to pick up the cp's relatively easy. To save time and distance we rode down a few sections of power lines and unfortunately ended up with several thorns in our tires. My "tubeless" teammates Kyle and Leslie had no problems, but unfortunately Piers and I were not riding tubeless and had to deal with 3 flat tires. (Yet another lesson learned.) After the bikes we were off for another trek. We had found out we were 45 minutes back from the leaders and set off hoping to close the gap a bit more. We were moving fast and Kyle, now really in tune with the terrain and his maps, led us to each one, spot on. We finished the trek confident that we had closed in on the lead teams, but were frustrated to find out we were still 45 minutes back. Next we were off for a 3 1/2 hour paddle in race provided canoes. We had 32 of the 45 CP's at this point, it was only 4:00 p.m., quite warm out, and we had plenty of daylight left, all was good. Plus, we finally got to use our kayak paddles that we had been carrying the entire race. The lake was relatively calm and quiet with only a few bass fisherman tucked in the coves. We grabbed 7 more cp's scattered along the shorelines and were off for the final trek just as the sun was setting. We were running out of "race" and there was still a big gap between the top 3 teams and us. We remained positive and kept the pace strong as we grabbed the final 2 trek cp's and were back at our bikes for the final bike leg. Well.....first we had to fix 2 more flat tires that had slowly leaked while we were gone. There were only 2 bike cp's between us and the finish and we got to enjoy some more of Kentucky smooth single-track. Unfortunately with 1 cp to go, a mistake with the flipping of the map caused us to take a slightly more "challenging" and interesting route choice. Bike Wacking !!! We ended up off trail for about an hour. We just weren't ready to finish the course and wanted to spend more quality time together pushing and carrying our bikes over lots of downed trees, through thick brush, and oh yeah, we had our kayak paddles with us. ;) Once we were back on the road and trails, we grabbed the last CP and were back at the finish line by 11:28 pm. Despite our slight bike detour, we managed to hold onto 4th place. Congrats to WEDALI, Alpine Shop, and Bushwackers for having a solid race and really making us work hard in the chase. Bonk Hard Racing put on a great race and it was fun racing in Kentucky, a state none of us had raced in. The best part was we were warm and dry the entire time, a first for the season. We are still waiting to have that 'perfect' race , but I'm sure there's one around the corner.
