9/13/08
Kearney,
Driving to
Saturday morning when we woke up it was chilly and breezy, but otherwise great out for the Big Hawk Chief Adventure Race. The
After some last minute instructions, we were divided into groups based on whether we were doing the short course or long course. The short course people took off on their bikes, while the long course people had to complete their first challenge. This challenge consisted of one team member filling a bucket with sand using only a clam shell while the others watched. We quickly completed this challenge and moved on to the maze. The maze held the race map and a different team member had to run through it to find the map.
Matt S made his way through and emerged victoriously with the all important map and instructions. We looked it over and took off riding to our first Transition Area (TA). At TA 1, we were given the option of running a mile and a half to the park for a Check Point (CP), or riding a couple miles on bikes to a different CP. With only one other team in front of us running first, we decided to head to the park on foot.
After a nice little run, we made our way back to the bikes and took off in the opposite direction for the other CP. After punching our card and writing down names, we moved on to more CP’s and eventually The Tower. The Tower required us to climb several flights of stairs for yet another CP. Coming back down the stairs, we were faced with another long run. After a few minutes of confusion as to which bridge the CP was located near, we figured it out and raced to the pond where some tubes were waiting for us.
The final CP in that park was hanging from a bridge just above the water and we had to paddle out to it on tubes. Normally the water would feel good after a run, but with the wind, the water felt pretty cold!
It didn’t take long for us to warm up once we got out of the water. We jumped on our bikes and pedaled onward to our next event. At the soccer fields, we were instructed to gather 15 rocks as we ran around the outside perimeter of the fields. We received more than a few strange looks from players and parents as we gathered up our goods and raced around! After getting the rocks and finishing the run, we had to make a pouch with them out of animal hide that was provided. Adam and Matt S quickly sewed it together and we continued on to the BMX track. We completed a lap around the track finding some CP’s along the way. Coming out of the track, we raced towards TA 3.
The instructions at TA 3 were that 2 people had to paddle one kayak across the lake to 2 CP’s while the other team member had to paddle by themselves in a separate kayak to a different CP in the lake.
It was decided that Matt S would do the solo kayak and Adam and Matt M would team up in the double kayak. Everything was going good for us in the double kayak until we made the turn around at the far CP in the lake. I knew I was getting a little tired, but I couldn’t believe how hard the kayak was getting to paddle! Then we noticed it was starting to lean to the side a lot. Yep, sure enough we had hit something in the water and the right side of our inflatable kayak was deflating rapidly!
Luckily we were able to limp back to port safely, although it was much more difficult and time consuming that what we liked. The team challenge (yeah, that wasn’t even considered the challenge! Ha!) required everyone to run to an archery range and shoot a bow and arrow at a target. Each member had to hit the target before you could move on. Our excellent marksmanship skills allowed us to all hit the target on our first shot!
The final part of this TA was a single track ride to gather a few more CP’s. The trail was in great shape and we quickly found all but one of the CP’s in this area. Stopping to look at the map, we realized we must have passed it when we were on the opposite side of the trails. Fortunately, Matt S happened to look up and notice it off in the distance. We decided the quickest route to it would be to bushwhack and carry our bikes. This decision proved to be a very good one and saved us a bunch of time!
We had our CP’s for the area and checked out with the volunteers. As we rode on toward the final leg of the race, we discussed the points race and where we stood. We were sitting in 5th place before this race and were 22 points away from moving into a 3rd place tie with our friends from
BentVenture and
All 3 teams pulled into the final TA where the canoeing was to take place at about the same time. We quickly dropped our bikes and packs and put on our life jackets and found a canoe. BentVenture was 2nd into the water with
All 3 team members had to get in the canoe, but you could only have 2 paddles. Our team decided that Matt M would paddle in the front and steer, Matt S would sit in the middle and be our coach and look out, and Adam would paddle from the rear giving us our power boost. It proved to be a good setup…BentVenture reached the CP on the far side of the lake first and never let up. We punched our card and turned for the finish line paddling with everything we had.
We ended up finishing ahead of the other 2 canoes and came away with a 7th place finish overall. The race was a blast and the season points race is getting interesting coming into the home stretch. BentVenture was able to gain 6 valuable points on 3rd place and now sits 16 back in the standings.
Stay tuned to BentVenture.com for the race reports from our final two races in Cozad and
BentVenture would like to thank everyone for helping put together a great race in
Matt M
matt@bentventure.com
“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt
