Cozad 100th After a couple of races with relatively little orienteering, Jim Craig assured us that the final two races of the season would be much different. He was right on! Robert Dyer, the race director, and his group of volunteers in We knew right away Friday night after we checked in and got our maps that we were in for a great race. Robert had a number of check point (CP’s) coordinates for us to plot on our topo maps as well as several Points of Interest ( Back at our motel room on Friday night, we went to work plotting the CP’s and figuring out our plan of attack. After a couple hours of plotting and some pizza, we were ready. Conditions on Saturday morning had us wondering what the day was going to bring. Chilly, overcast, and windy conditions greeted us at the start of this race. After some last minute instructions, we lined up on our bikes for the start. The mass of racers at the start began thinning out after the first couple of CP’s. It wasn’t long before we came to the first transition area (TA) where we had to drop off our bikes and take off on foot. After a short run and a couple more CP’s, we came to our first challenge. On the bank of the canal was a round cattle tank with ropes attached to it. The instructions were to cross the canal in the tank by pulling yourself across using the ropes and without dumping the tank and getting wet. A 15 minute penalty was tacked on to your time if you happened to dunk it. After a short wait for the two teams in front of us, BentVenture finally went. We made it across uneventfully, but I can guarantee it’s much tougher to do than it sounds! After the water crossing, we made our first little mistake. Luckily it only cost us a few minutes, but we learned something valuable from it, so not all was lost. After some back tracking, we ran into T & A and the Other Guy and started working together. As we headed down a canyon to our next CP, we looked up on the sides and saw some turkeys…lots of turkeys. It was quite a site watching so many of them running around on the hills and flying overhead….really cool! A half-hour later we found ourselves at the canoe entry point. Before you could set out, you had to solve a riddle. Think about this one before you read on: “4 people must cross the canal with one flashlight. Only 2 can go at a time and you can’t ride on anybody’s back. You can only go as fast as the slowest person. A can cross the canal is 1 minute…B can cross the canal in 2 minutes…C can cross the canal in 5 minutes…D can cross the canal in 6 minutes. How can everybody cross the canal in 13 minutes?” We were given the riddle the night before along with our maps, so BentVenture had it figured out by the time we got there. The volunteers checked our answer and cleared us to pick our canoe. Unknown to us at the time, we made another mistake here too. We picked our boat and set off down the canal with Matt M rowing in front, Matt S providing navigation in the middle, and Adam powering up the rear. A short ways down the canal, it was obvious we had picked the wrong canoe and paddles…water was running in from the front and one of our paddles had snapped! Unfortunately it was too late to turn around and pick a different one, so we pushed on. We came across our first The journey down the canal was scenic and would have been fairly enjoyable except for the large amount of water we were taking in. Unfortunately for Matt S, he was in the middle and had to sit in the water. When you added in the wind and cool temps, it was pretty miserable, especially for him. We knew we had a CP to punch along the canal and started to discuss where we thought it was exactly. We got lucky at this point…we decided to beach our canoe to check our map and dump out all the water we had taken on. We couldn’t have picked a better spot to do it…the CP was just over the hill from where we went ashore! After emptying the water from our canoe, we set off again. By now Matt S was really starting to feel the effects of the water and cold. A couple miles more of canoeing and we were at yet another CP. 8 concrete blocks were set into piles along the shore and we had to assemble them like a puzzle to spell out a phrase...’WILD WEST’. The volunteer marked us off as completing this challenge and we punched our card. Again our canoe was full of water, which we had to empty. Matt S was freezing by now and wasn’t sure he could even continue. A huge thanks to the volunteer at this CP for letting him sit in her vehicle and warm up. Lucky for us, she also happened to be an athletic trainer and had her equipment with her. When she saw our canoe and how badly it was leaking, she found some tape and helped us patch our boat. It was some very sticky stuff and it worked perfectly! Although he was still shaking and freezing, we encouraged Matt S to try the next leg of the race and he went for it. We moved him to the front of the canoe so he could paddle, which we figured would help him warm up. Matt M moved to the middle navigation spot and Adam kept his spot in the rear. The plan worked great! Matt S quickly warmed up and our vessel didn’t take on another drop of water. Overall team attitude quickly improved once our canoe was fixed and Matt S started feeling better. In fact, things were so much better in our boat that we decided to extend the canoe section for another hour! Ok, not exactly…things were much better, but the only reason the canoeing was extended another hour is because we missed our TA, which was back in one of the coves on the lake. Unfortunately for BentVenture, this proved to be the most costly mistake of the race. Instead of giving up and getting dejected from it, we kept our spirits up. We were done with the canoes and took off for the running/trekking section of the race. Even though we had wasted an extra hour in the canoe, we knew we were actually only maybe a half hour from the other teams in front of us…several teams had already missed at least one CP which would give them a 30 minute time penalty at the end. Working with T & A and the Other Guy and After many hours and miles of canoeing and running, we made our way back to our bikes at TA 2. We still had a long ways to go, but it was a relief to finally be able to ride again. The single track trails we rode on were awesome! They were tough and challenging, which is exactly what you would expect in a race of this caliber. We weren’t sure where most of the teams were at this point, but we gave it all we had during the last stretch. Adam plotted the map perfectly and we found our CP’s with relative ease. As we came to the finish, we passed two more teams, which gave us valuable points in the standings. With one race remaining on the schedule, it’s going to be interesting at The Warrior Challenge on October 18th. BentVenture would like to thank Robert Dyer and his volunteers for the excellent course they put together. The 100th Meridian Challenge was everything you could hope for in an Adventure Race and then some. We’re already looking forward to next year! And thanks again to the lady who helped us with our leaky canoe. We’re not sure what her name is, but we are extremely grateful for her help! Matt M “Sports do not build character…they reveal it” Heywood Broun Answer to riddle:
A & B cross together with flashlight = 2
A brings flashlight back across = 1
C & D cross together with flashlight = 6
B brings flashlight back across = 2
A & B cross together with flashlight = 2
Total = 13 minutes
