Adventure Race

This weekend in Del Rio, it felt like there were all sorts of things going on!!! There were two 5Ks, a monster truck rally, several concerts in the park, blood drives, vaccination drives, the adventure race, and the list goes on and on. I don't know why they can't spread things out a little more, because I would have loved to have participated in more events, and there definitely aren't this many things going on all the time!

On Friday night, I went to The Spot (the local roller skating rink) for a hail and farewell for Travis' squadron. Basically, they put together this event every once in a while to introduce all the new guys and families who have joined the squadron and to say goodbye to the families who are about to leave Del Rio for their next assignment. I enjoyed having the chance to see several friends and meet some new ones! I didn't roller skate because I didn't want to wear myself out before the big race the next day, but I had a fun time chatting with everyone and meeting the new people!

Then, on Saturday, it was finally time for the Adventure Race! Here's a picture of our team:

James (our token male) is a T1 instructor (the plane the students fly after they complete their T6 training with Travis); Kristy, a science teacher at the high school who's husband is a T1 instructor too; Heather, who's husband is a T1 instructor and also one of our drivers; me!; and Shannon, who is an Air Force nurse stationed in San Antonio and dating one of the T1 instructors here in Del Rio. (We had lots of comments on the socks along the way, and by the end, all the volunteers knew us as the pink sock team!)

We initially had 6 girls on our team, and we were excited about competing against all the guy teams. But, one girl dropped out in the beginning for various reasons, and then two of our other teammates found out they were pregnant. One girl dropped out, and the other decided she would only do the running portion. We had to have four people on the course at all times, and now we were down to only three. So, at last minute, we asked a friend named James to be on our team. He didn't have one of our green team shirts or the awesome pink socks, but he was a great team member!! He helped out with the biking portion and also took over for one of the girls later in the running portion. Two other major players in our game were the two drivers we had. There were various checkpoints along the race where we had to check in and switch out team members as necessary. Our drivers drove the truck with all our supplies to each of the checkpoints to help us out and cheer us on. They also stopped several places along the road to scream and cheer for us as we went by. It was really motivating!! :-)

The morning started out cloudly, gray, and freezing cold, but it ended up being a beautiful sunny day at the end. I am a little sunburned on my shoulders, and I have a great shorts tan being developed, but other than that, I feel great! I was definitely ready for this race and had a good time doing it. I stayed on the course the entire time, except at the end where we could only have two people in the raft at a time.

SO....how did we do? Well, we did a great job for the first six miles of the race. We were hanging in with all the other teams, passing a few, being passed by some... Everything was going along swimmingly, and then one of the girls had a flat tire on her bike. We were on the first leg of the race, still on the perimeter road around the base, and we discovered that she had run over a metal tack (probably about 1/2 an inch long). Her tire was completely flat, and despite all our efforts to fix it, we couldn't do it. As a team, we were a little unprepared to completely fix the tire (we only had a patch kit), so we fell into last place very quickly at the beginning. Shannon ended up having to run with her bike (pushing it with a flat tire) for over three miles until we reached the first checkpoint outside the main gate of the base. We had a phone with us, so we had called our drivers to let them know the situation, and they were waiting at the checkpoint with a new bike. So, after being delayed for over an hour, we were finally back on the road. We didn't see any of the other teams again until we got to the rowing portion at the lake. :-(

We rode our bikes along highway 90 and some back roads and didn't have any other bike problems. There were several hills and bumps, but we finally made it to the marina in one piece! Again, our drivers were there waiting for us at the checkpoint where we ditched all our biking gear and put on our running shoes. We then started our 8 mile run around the marina area, that basically was a rocky trail through west Texas. They had us run to the dam at the lake and then up the steep hill to the dam. They had various checkpoints along the way with water and volunteers to point us in the right direction and help us out if we needed it. The downhill portions were so nice! :-) Once we ran up the hill to the dam, we had to then run back down and continue back to the marina. The race challenge at this point was that we had to carry our own life jackets and paddles about four miles to the lake. I wore a life jacket while running...a bit weird, but manageable. It was really hot at this point, though, and the sun was really bright, so I did get a little hot. Again, our drivers came through for us, meeting us at the checkpoints along the way with cold bottles of water and snacks!

We finally made it to the marina, and we were really excited to catch up with several teams. We got to the marina at about the same time as five other teams. We all prepared our boats and sent two of our team members into the water for a mile of rowing. We met them halfway to switch out rowers to finish the last mile of the race. We finally finished the rowing, and then we had to carry the boat, paddles, and lifejackets about a mile to the finish line in the marina. We finished strong and came across the line smiling!!

We finished the race in 5 hours and 20 minutes, placing 43rd out of 51 teams! We were really encouraged by how great our time was, considering we had spent an hour fixing our bike. The first place team finished in 3 hours and 15 minutes, so we really did a great job overall!!

The race sponsors provided lunch, water, music, and celebration at the marina. We hung out for a while, watched the awards being handed out, and then we all went out on a friend's boat to enjoy relaxing for the rest of the afternoon.

When we finally came in off the lake, we headed to the monster truck rally at the fairgrounds. It was actually very entertaining!

After the rally, I went home, exhausted and in serious need of some sleep! And, like I said, I'm a little sunburned on my shoulders this morning, but otherwise, feeling great!!

Most of my teammates won't be around next year for the race, since their husbands are being reassigned to different locations in the fall. Hopefully, there will be another group of people who are interested in doing the race by the time it comes around again, because I would really like to do it again!

Overall, it was a great weekend and a fun event!