Castlewood Adventure Race

This weekend Danny and I participated in the 2008 Bonk Hard Castlewood Adventrue race. The race was an absolute blast. It incorporated running, biking and canoeing all the while using land navigation to find the check points.

We checked in at 9:30 Friday night and got our packet of goodies. We headed to John's extended stay hotel to crash there for the evening. Once we got there (10:45ish) we ordered a pizza and Danny started plotting the check points on the maps we received at check in. At about 12:30 Danny finished up with that and we hit the sack.

The race started with a 2ish mile trail run which looped back to the starting line. At the starting line we were given an orienteering map and for the next 1.5 hrs we ran around finding check points.

Danny trying to stay warm before the race.

After the orienteering course we entered the first bike section in third place (Sapper Danny nailed every point on the money giving us a huge advantage). We headed off on our bikes feeling pretty good about ourselves. We biked for a while on Keefer Creek Rd looking for our next checkpoint when we arrived at Manchester Blvd. It was ridiculous, there we were, all decked out in our racing garb on bikes looking at a map in the middle of a busy intersection. Clearly we made a mistake. After scratching our heads for a few, we turned around and headed back. 15minutes later we came to the intersection that we so blatantly rode by 30 minutes earlier (we were pissed).

We completed the first biking portion and entered the canoeing in 6th place. We canoed for what seemed like forever then hit the bikes again maintaining our race position. We rode the entire rest of the race in 6th without seeing a soul, until the end. Somehow, while plotting our points at 12:30 the night before and using a homemade plotting tool, we managed to screw up the last point. So when we got to the point, it was nowhere to be found. After asking a friendly finisher where point 30 was we set out on a 15 minute detour to get the last checkpoint. By the time we backtracked and got the point, a big group of racers caught up with us. Long story short, we ended up in 10th or 11th only seconds behind our 6th place position we held on too so dearly for so long. But man, what an awesome time it turned out to be. Our final time was just under 6h45mins.

Feeling pretty good after the race! The only problem = no beer

We headed back to Rolla where I hung out with the housemates and watched the Mizzou game, which was a huge disappointment. Matt and Diane came over and Ashley was down from Columbia to add to our cheering entourage, but it still wasn't enough.

Josh sporting his new chops, Ashley sporting the stink eye.

Vew more pics from the weekend and others here.