Pain in the Pines

Rodo forgot to mention that I was useless the last leg because I was trying to solve a stupid rubik's cube! Did I mention I hate rubik's cubes? AHHHH

Pain in the Pines Adventure Race 2008

Race Report by: Rodney Skyles

Teammates:  Chris Clemmons, Justin Reneau, Nancy Alvarez-Bills

Chris, Justin and I have raced together a few times, but we needed a female for this race, so I contacted Nancy.  Nancy is a very experienced adventure racer and I have always liked her personality, when I have seen her at races.

Pre-race was pretty laid back and we were all busy getting our gear together.  It is very obvious when racing with experienced racers, because we were all just busy and quiet, as if we were getting our gear together for a day of work... We do this all them time ;-P

Leg 1:  Orienteering

The first leg was a jog from Blackjack to the lake trail.  We were given nice orienteering maps with pre-plotted points and 1:15000 scale, which was nice.  Each team had their own 4 CPs to get, so you could not follow other teams to your CPs.  This was a GREAT first leg to spread teams out, but not have a train going to each CP.

We made it back in a close 3rd, but there were many teams together.

Leg 2:  Bike/Paddle

This leg, we biked counter-clockwise on the park road, picked up a couple of CPs on the road and then went to the boat dock.  From here we paddled to two CPs in a clock-wise direction.  The second CP had Kip, race director and others there (Jana, photagrapher, John, volunteer, etc.) . The special test was to throw small ball through a kid's basketball goal from your Kayak.  Justin and Chris did this, while Nancy and I shagged balls.  We made it through, pretty easy and then paddled back to the bikes.

On the bikes, we went down the old park entrance road and saw Marcy with another special test.  We had to blow up a balloon and get it back to the TA without popping it, or risk a 20 minute penalty!  Zoiks.  Chris strapped it on and we biked back to the TA on the B-Loop trail with little problem.

Leg 3:  Trekking

This was a nice trekking leg that mainly had CPs in the SW corner of the park.  We found all these CPs with no problem and made it back to the TA.

Leg 4:  Mountain biking

For this leg, we basically biked the whole trail, Loops EZ, A, B, C and D.  We were to punch surprise CPs we would encounter along the way.  This was a nice bike and we had no trouble finding CPs.

Leg 5:  Scooter

We had to solve a word special test for instructions to this leg, then get on scooters (not electric :) and scoot around EZ trail, punch a CP, and back.  When we got back, we were to elect one racer to pick a cup and eat whatever was under it.  Chris volunteered and it turned out to be strawberry malt balls or something.  I was worried it would be a bug, or something, so WHEW!

Leg 6:  Trek / Paddle

The final leg was a trek to get points all around the park and also paddle to get two points.  We knocked this out pretty easily; however, my nav was off a bit on CP #32, the last one :(.  We took the park road for a bit and I led us too far down the road, before dropping off into the woods down a dry creek.  We had to head East, once we figured out we were in the wrong one, which was about 5-10 minutes out of our way.  UGH!  Sorry guys!

We made it back to the TA and were told we finished 2nd, since the 3-person male team had earned a 15 minute penalty, due to finding the wrong CP on Leg 1.  WooHoo!  We were still an hour behind Vignette, who won the race, but we had a good time.

Chris is in the process of moving back from NC.  He has been gone a while, so He, Justin and I have not raced together in a while.  We're looking forward to racing as much as possible in 2009.  We had such a good time at the Pain in the Pines AR, that it was like Chris never left.  AR is just like riding a bike ;-P

Nancy was very easy to race with and did have a great attitude.  Adventure racing is supposed to be fun and that is just what it was.  Great teammates, great weather, great course, great exercise.  Sign me up!