bikes. There was no clear path to the bike drop so we improvised using a series of dirt roads and trails that did not connect. We crossed a couple of roads and bushwhacked downhill to the river trail and ran along the river. Somewhere in there I blew out my right ankle. Full crunch, ankle bone to the ground, ripping blow out. Nice. I popped two Aleve to keep the swelling and pain at manageable levels and we ran on.
Actually, there were so many boats simply stuck in the few passable locations that we began employing a “bump and run” navigation style. Glance off the grounded canoes and hope for deeper water on either side. I think this endeared us to our fellow racers. We settled into a good rhythm suited for a 4-hour paddle. I was up front providing the engine with the double bladed paddle and David was reading the river and manning the stern with the single blade. Mary made a seat out of the packs and alternately paddled and handed out Clif Blocks. We portaged a dam and made one pit stop to empty water from the boat (speed doubled). There was a lot of jumping from the boat to drag it through the shallow spots. This created a nice routine: paddle, hit something, jump from the boat, drag it, jump back in, shiver until you dry… repeat. 11:30 a.m. 04:30 We hit the end of the paddle unexpectedly. It certainly didn’t match the maps but there was a Golite flag and everyone was getting out. We Adventure World Magazine is a GreenZine
quickly unloaded the canoe and David threw the boat on his head and took off up a steep single track. I put both our packs on and Mary grabbed the paddles. It took us a while to catch David, who was running uphill with the canoe solo. It was embarrassing enough to get dropped on the prologue. I was determined not to be outrun by a guy carrying a canoe on his head. After a 3/4-mile run we dropped the canoe at CP-2, punched the card and inserted our electronic “dipper” into the….uhhh…not quite. It was gone. Essentially the race had two passports. One was a standard punch card that we need to punch at each CP. The other was an electronic “dipper” that had to be inserted into a box that recorded the time you passed through. I had been wearing the dipper on my wrist per the instructions but it had self jettisoned somewhere along the way. We quickly decided it was not worth going back for. We had no idea where it had been lost. We still had the punch card and each CP had a manual punch. We would take the penalty and race on. We ran out of CP-2 headed for the
We continued on at a slightly reduced pace, crossed the river and arrived at the power station (CP-3)where we dropped the bikes the day before. Team Wicked Pissah was already there and a picnic ensued. We had two flavors of Ensure as well as Chef Boyardee, shot blocks, Slim Jims and Power Bars. Mmmm… good! 12:30 p.m. 05:30 We jumped the bikes as a 6 pack, popped some wheelies and headed out of town, tires squealing, gravel flying everywhere... well, that’s what it would look like in the movie anyway. Actually we all started out in the wrong gear on the steep driveway exit and a genuine clown circus occurred as we all tried to emergency downshift. There was a lot of wobbling and expletives and gear mashing. Not pretty. I knew this was going to get ugly quickly but it was much worse than I thought. We headed uphill and onto some single track at sprint pace. I was into Zone 6 almost instantly. My heart was pounding, legs were burning and I was just barely hanging on the back end. I thought I was going to fire a lung onto the trail any second. 1:30 p.m. 06:30 41