Greenhorn Adventure Race Report

Greenhorn Adventure Race Report

Prince William Forest Park, Triangle, VA

Sunday, April 15, 2007

It certainly was an adventure! Our Snakes on Terrain team (Katie Poole, Michelle Price, Megan Carroll) braved the rainy and cold conditions to finish in a PR time of 3 hours 57 minutes, finishing in 7th place out of 10 women's finishing teams; 70th place out of a total of 89 finishing teams (combined of all the women's, men's, co-ed's and master's teams). There were 16 teams that either DNF’d, had unofficial finish times or were disqualified. But numbers only tell part of the story. The rest of the story is a combination of perseverance mixed with newcomer innocence. It's fair to say each of us had some idea of what to expect and that each of our expectations was greatly surpassed!

A bit of background taken verbatim from the race web site: The Greenhorn Adventure Race was created to offer competitors a gateway into the sport of adventure racing. This 2-4 hour sprint adventure race was designed with the beginner in mind. While there is significant challenge built into the event, the navigation will keep racers on the established trails, the mountain biking will be on non-technical fire roads and pavement, and the paddling will take place on a lake.

Positive aspects of the experience: a) We finished. b) We stayed out of physical trouble and probably improved mental toughness. c) We each have a little more experience with the growing sport of adventure racing. And, d) Parts of the race were pretty fun---the canoeing; the race day mystery challenge of getting all 3 team members across a short lake crossing using 2 paddles and 3 inner tubes; planning the race route on Saturday afternoon and hoping we'd picked a winning strategy; blowing by a few other racers on foot as they gingerly picked their way through the abundant mud while we acted like veterans of Bull Run '06/Greenway '07.

Warning: this is the "Wah, wah, wah section." The weather stunk (really rainy throughout the entire race and a bit on the chilly side---in the 40's or so. We were soaked before we even started and only got wetter as we got in the water on inner tubes and ran through some major puddles.) It took us about an hour longer than any of us expected when we began the race so that was a little tiresome by the end. Of course, it was all smiles and high-fives when we crossed the finish line.

Now--on to the silver lining section of the report: At least it wasn't windy! None of us got hurt! (We saw a woman with a nasty face wound from a bike fall about 10 minutes into the race. And another time we saw some racers in the lake after they tipped their canoe. Brrr...) We stayed clear of hypothermia. We didn't get lost or go off course (for more than about 2 minutes. At one point we were flying down a paved road on bikes behind a team of 3 other women when Michelle alertly stopped us, realizing we needed to make a turn on the road. Who knows what happened to those 3 other racers---we never saw them again!) We stayed together as a team and finished with a collective positive attitude. At one of the check points when we arrived and started the transition from biking to running, a volunteer remarked "You guys are so calm. Other teams come in to the check point and start yelling at each other "Get your helmets off. Hurry up!'" Our response? "We're not that kind of team. We're here to have fun." (Or something similarly saintly.)

If you'd like to read more about the Greenhorn Adventure Race, check-out the EX2 Adventures race site.