My original plans were to go to Tour de Fat on Saturday, volunteer with the recycling group on campus to get free beer, and then go hiking somewhere on Sunday. You know what they say about the best laid plans...
Since most of my crazy ultimate friends (with whom we had dressed up last year) were in Colorado for a tournament and my grad school friends were being lame, I was just about to head out the door in normal street clothes for a full day of debauchery involving bikes and beer in Tempe Beach Park when Hannah called and changed my entire weekend plan. Rick from Sierra Adventure Sports had e-mailed us (Team ODP), and asked us if we wanted to defend our Extreme Heat victories in the last race of the series. After the Gilmore AR disaster, we had decided not to enter any more adventure races until we got some more training under our belt, but we couldn't refuse a free race. It was SAS's first night adventure race, and we were excited to say the least.
I still had until 3 p.m. to enjoy Tour de Fat, so I headed out on my bike towa
rds Tempe, tried to adjust my seat while I was still riding (not recommended), and promptly rammed myself into a parked car, bruising my right thigh and crumpling to the pavement not 100 ft. from our house. I returned to the house, cleaned up the new gash on my left knee, and headed out again. Tour de Fat is one of my favorite events of the year, and this year was no exception. Although I had missed the bike parade, there were still thousands of people at the festival enjoying the lovely combination of New Belgium's finest beers
, the comradarie of fellow bikers, and several really fun bands. I met up with several of my grad student friends, some ultimate frisbee buddies, the Missing Links guys, and some STP racers that are part of my new mountain biking team, Zumbala (more details to come). Even though I was no longer going to be able to volunteer with the recycling group, I had friends that had taken a morning shift and had been given too many (!) beer tokens, which they kindl
y donated to me. With a race that evening, I couldn't enjoy more than a few of New Belgium's fine brews, but that didn't stop me from trying out all of their amazing bikes. We all had a good laugh attempting to ride unicycles, shoe tire bikes, miniature bikes, bikes that had springs for their frames, and all sorts of other very unique cycles. All in all, it was an incredible event with lots of good bikes, beer, and friends.
rds Tempe, tried to adjust my seat while I was still riding (not recommended), and promptly rammed myself into a parked car, bruising my right thigh and crumpling to the pavement not 100 ft. from our house. I returned to the house, cleaned up the new gash on my left knee, and headed out again. Tour de Fat is one of my favorite events of the year, and this year was no exception. Although I had missed the bike parade, there were still thousands of people at the festival enjoying the lovely combination of New Belgium's finest beers
, the comradarie of fellow bikers, and several really fun bands. I met up with several of my grad student friends, some ultimate frisbee buddies, the Missing Links guys, and some STP racers that are part of my new mountain biking team, Zumbala (more details to come). Even though I was no longer going to be able to volunteer with the recycling group, I had friends that had taken a morning shift and had been given too many (!) beer tokens, which they kindl
y donated to me. With a race that evening, I couldn't enjoy more than a few of New Belgium's fine brews, but that didn't stop me from trying out all of their amazing bikes. We all had a good laugh attempting to ride unicycles, shoe tire bikes, miniature bikes, bikes that had springs for their frames, and all sorts of other very unique cycles. All in all, it was an incredible event with lots of good bikes, beer, and friends.I rode home without incident, and made it back to the house to get ready to head out to the McDowells. Hannah and I got to the Pemberton Trailhead shortly before the pre-race meeting and joined the 15 othe
r teams as the sun sank lower in the horizon and the cold started to settle on the desert. The race started like an Easter-egg hunt with all of the teams scrambling for 5 points positioned near the staging area, and then performing a somewhat chaotic frisbee-throwing mystery event before turning on our lights, jumping on our bikes, and heading off into the last glow of the sun. The trail is gently inclining, and we started picking off teams one by one until we were leading the pack. The checkpoints were all on the trail, and though my knee and thigh were sore from my run-in with the parked car earlier, we were both feeling great and had only one team pass us. After a few checkpoints, we turned off of Pemberton to an amazingly smoot
h, winding downhill trail filled with perfectly spaced and elevated waterbars. I was completely in heaven, jumping down the waterbars with my headlights shooting into the darkness ahead and a full sky of stars above. Before we knew it (and after only one minor wrong turn), we were back at the TA, where we performed another mystery event involving transporting ourselves around the TA on blocks of wood. Then it was on to the trekking part of the race. We started out good enough, hitting the first checkpoint right out of the TA, and finding the second one after a little bit of searching before heading down a wash to the third point. Unfortunately for us, we couldn't see in the dark that the wa
sh split into two, and we took the wrong fork of it. We only realized this when we found ourselves back on the main road, but it didn't take us long to find our way back to the trails where we found the next point, although our mistake cost us a few race places. The next section took us along the technical loop of the competitive track, which we followed out to the Pemberton Wash and the next few points. Finally, we found our last point while hiking along with another team, and began to make the last push for the finish line. We got back to the TA 3 hours and 21 minutes after the race had begun, very satisfied with our 4th place overall and 1st place women's team placing. As all of the teams starting coming in, we kicked back with some Coke and enjoyed each other's company in the warmth of the mystery event's wood fire. It was a great comradarie of all the teams that had gone through our first night race, and it seemed that everyone had enjoyed themselves out on the course. We stayed and talked to Rick for awhile after the race to thank him for inviting us out and then headed home, with our 1st place finishing dog tags around our necks.
r teams as the sun sank lower in the horizon and the cold started to settle on the desert. The race started like an Easter-egg hunt with all of the teams scrambling for 5 points positioned near the staging area, and then performing a somewhat chaotic frisbee-throwing mystery event before turning on our lights, jumping on our bikes, and heading off into the last glow of the sun. The trail is gently inclining, and we started picking off teams one by one until we were leading the pack. The checkpoints were all on the trail, and though my knee and thigh were sore from my run-in with the parked car earlier, we were both feeling great and had only one team pass us. After a few checkpoints, we turned off of Pemberton to an amazingly smoot
h, winding downhill trail filled with perfectly spaced and elevated waterbars. I was completely in heaven, jumping down the waterbars with my headlights shooting into the darkness ahead and a full sky of stars above. Before we knew it (and after only one minor wrong turn), we were back at the TA, where we performed another mystery event involving transporting ourselves around the TA on blocks of wood. Then it was on to the trekking part of the race. We started out good enough, hitting the first checkpoint right out of the TA, and finding the second one after a little bit of searching before heading down a wash to the third point. Unfortunately for us, we couldn't see in the dark that the wa
sh split into two, and we took the wrong fork of it. We only realized this when we found ourselves back on the main road, but it didn't take us long to find our way back to the trails where we found the next point, although our mistake cost us a few race places. The next section took us along the technical loop of the competitive track, which we followed out to the Pemberton Wash and the next few points. Finally, we found our last point while hiking along with another team, and began to make the last push for the finish line. We got back to the TA 3 hours and 21 minutes after the race had begun, very satisfied with our 4th place overall and 1st place women's team placing. As all of the teams starting coming in, we kicked back with some Coke and enjoyed each other's company in the warmth of the mystery event's wood fire. It was a great comradarie of all the teams that had gone through our first night race, and it seemed that everyone had enjoyed themselves out on the course. We stayed and talked to Rick for awhile after the race to thank him for inviting us out and then headed home, with our 1st place finishing dog tags around our necks.My body was definitely worn out, and I woke up early Sunday morning with my knee and thigh sore from the day before's injury and my entire body begging me to just stay in bed. I had plans to go on some sort of adventure, but the sleep monster won again, and I slept in until mid-morning. I took the day to relax, read (for fun!), and just hang out. I didn't have the heart to watch football, as Tiller's really having it rough in his last season. I still do and always will love Purdue, though, so it was nice to hang out with some fellow Boilers in the evening. D, one of Kohl and my old friends from our crazy college days, was in town for the weekend, so I fixed dinner and the three of us hung out in the evening, sharing new stories and reminiscing about our wonderful days in West Lafayette.
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