*** First Run Segment ***

Started off by running through the H.A.C.C. parking lot and then through a little bit of the campus. Directing racers at the exit of campus was my TnT teammate Amy! I knew she was volunteering, but I hadn't seen her yet and was wondering where they put her on the course. From there, we ran past the Farm Show Complex, under Route 22/Cameron Street via a pee smelling pedestrian underpass (OK, I get it, it's an "Urban" Adventure Race) and up to the State Hospital. We saw some people coming back through that we knew and they mentioned a treasure-hunt ahead. Cool, I'm thinking we had to find a bedpan, a syringe of lithium and maybe an orderly. Anything has to be better than running up and down the side of a mountain just to punch a whole in your checkpoint wrist band. Oh, a quick note about checkpoints. Last year, some checkpoints were unmanned. This year all checkpoints were manned and each time a challenge was completed, you got a different colored zip tie. You needed all the zip ties at the finish line in order to receive an official finish time. In order to get our first zip tie we had to find the letters "B" "I" "N" "E" and "R" to spell 'biner' (as in caribiner) - rats, no bedpans or lithium. We had a page with the rules for the challenge, the location of each letter that we needed (letter/number grid for a map) and a map of the hospital grounds. Sounds too easy - so we took a close look at the coordinates and the map before starting and noticed that if you got the letters in the order they were listed, B.I.N.E.R, we'd be running back and forth all over the place. Taking two mintues to plan our route saved us a lot of walking. I wonder how many other teams noticed this? We got to the first couple of letters quickly and then started seeing other letter buckets with letters that we didn't need. A couple of teams tried to give us extras or other letters. I think one team was trying to trade too... But with letters that we didn't need. Oh well. We got the second to last letter and had to make a turn. We made the turn. An eighth of a mile later we realised that we weren't on the map anymore. As we turned around, our navigator who shall remain nameless uttered race quote number four "Well, it's not like I was looking at the map" :) We made the correct turn when we got back to the Power Plant this time and made it back to the check point in no time. We even picked up the last letter on the way. I handed the volunter our letters and said "B-I-N-E-R and 'biner was his name-o." We got our zip tie and headed back to our bikes. But when we got back, there were still two more special challenges to do before we would continue on with the second bike leg. The first challenge was to move all three of us using three 18" long bits of railroad tie with a 2 foot long piece of rope threaded through each end. We had to stay together and we couldn't touch the ground. Hmmmm, only 10 yards. Nah, can't jump it. What we ended up doing was lining up the blocks end to end and walking on them until all three of us were on the forward two blocks. I reached down and passed the last block to Cathy out front and we did the stingray shuffle out to the front blocks. We repeated this over and over until we got to the other side. Methodical wins over Spasmodic once again. From there, we were directed to go to the Public Safety school on the H.A.C.C. campus. As we got closer, we saw a bunch of people in climbing gear cheering us on from the fourth floor of the training tower. Cool! We're going to have to climb somthing. As we rounded the building, there was nothing to climb - just hanging ropes. EVEN COOLER, we're rappelling!!! The volunteers helped us get into our harnesses and then we walked the stairs up to the volunteers. Cathy's done rappelling before and Vanessa and I have been to climbing gyms for top rope climbing, so we were excited to try it. After getting a little bit of instruction we went down one at a time. If you've read my other Adv Race reports, you'll know who uttered race quote five - "I'm Scared" (with a smirk of course) - but all three of us got down without issue and had big grins the whole way back to our bikes.

*** Go down to the BIKE section for the second cycling segment ***

*** Second Run Segment ***

While running may not be my favorite sport, interrupting it every so often with a puzzle makes it a lot of fun. Our first challenge after leaving transition was to use a fire hose (hooked up to a big red fire truck) to knock over a beer keg and move it ten/fifteen yards without going out of bounds on the side. Knocking the keg over was easy, but getting it turned sideways in order to roll it over the line proved to be harder than we thought. We tried the other keg there, but went out of bounds so we went back to the first one. Eventually, we got it sideways and rolled it over the line - or at least we thought. The girl who was supposed to be watching was flirting with one of the fire fighters... *ahem* All together now, *AHEM* We got it? OK, thanks. On to the next challenge. Four ropes tied across a couple of trees about a foot and a half apart vertically. All three of us had to go through a different slot and touching the ropes was OK. Cathy went though the middle space. I picked up Vanessa and passed her through the top space to Cathy and I crawled through the bottom space. Check! A short trek through the woods behind the parking lot, under the West Shore remains of the Walnut Street bridge, through the parking lot, up a bunch of stairs, across the Market Street bridge and onto the top level of the multi-use path. The first challenge there was to have all three of us stand together on a two foot by two foot platform about six inches off the ground. We had to get to the rope hanging in front of us and have all three of us swing over to the other platform without touching the ground. After a few failed attempts at leaning, reaching and swinging one helmet to try to get the rope, we tried something different. Since Vanessa and I have the same brand of helmet, we cliped them together to make a bolo kind of device and that worked well to get the rope. We tried different combinations of first person across and swinging techniques, but after half a dozen attempts we just bagged it. Had we not been DQ'ed already we would have had to try, but we didn't lose anything by skipping the challenge. The last challenge was a baby-elephant chain trick. Two foot high metal pole sticking out of the ground to my back. Reaching between my legs with one arm to hold the metal pole, I reached forward with my other hand to hold on to Vanessa's hand that she had between her legs, Vanessa's other hand holding on to Cathy's hand that she had between her legs. At this point we could not let go of each other. Now, with Cathy's free hand she had to reach out for a hula hoop and we had to work the hula-hoop back the line until it was flat on the ground around the post I was holding on to. Then, we had to pass it back up to where it started. It took a little (OK, a lot) of coordination, but like the rest of the challenges we took our time and got it. From there, we headed off to the finish line. At the pre-race meeting Friday night they emphasised more than once the importance of having the team together when arriving at the challenges or the volunteers wouldn't let you start. We were joking that we'd have to hold hands and skip into each challenge just to make sure that they saw us together. Well, since we hadn't done that yet, we figured the finish line would be the perfect place for a victory skip. Like some sort of hot pink, mud and sweat covered Wizard of Oz nightmare, we held hands and skipped across the finish line :)

*** Go down to the POST-RACE section ffrom here ***

Maybe run a little more, but I just didn't have it today.

*** First Bike Segment ***

Started off with a loop of City Island, crossed the Walnut Street bridge and headed upstream on the lower multi-use path along the river. We changed to the upper path at McClay street and took it out to the end of the path. Dang, looks we're heading back to the mountains again this year. If there was any consolation, they never do the same course twice, so it's got to be different, right? We continued up Front Street to Fort Hunter and took a right on a road. A road with a hill. OK, who am I kidding - the road was a hill. We rode some of it, walked some of it and eventually made it to the top. Taking a quick left turn past a gate, we were finally off road! Went a little way on grass and that's where we got into some steep switchbacks under the power lines. Thankfully we didn't have to push our bikes up that far before getting to the top. What a view! Looking back you could see the city and looking forward was Second Mtn (the one we went up last year) shrouded in fog. By this time we were hanging out with the course sweeper (we spent most of the race with Jeff last year too) and he kinda' snickered and said "well, at least with the fog, you can't see everyone else going up Second Mtn." What? Two mountains this year? Ugh.

Well, the back side was steep, rocky, loose and muddy. We opted to walk down it as a team and we eventually got to a place where we could ride again. OMG, what fun! Nice single track for a few miles. It was rocky and muddy and Cathy and I took turns up front calling out the turns, which lines to ride and any obstacles that we came across. Now, this is one of the hardest (and longest) Adventure Races in our area, but the biking is rarely technical. No big logs to jump over, tight turns or anything like that. But since this was Vanessa's first time this far off road (actually, her first time riding in traffic too come to think of it), I was worried that she wasn't going to have much fun. But she was smart about the course and walked where it got hairy, but rode quite a bit of it. There was one muddy section that was pretty squirrely - which leads us to race quote number two. We were giving each other some space on the single track stuff and the order was me, Cathy, Vanessa and Jeff the Sweeper. We're just riding along and we hear "I'm down" in a calm, polite, sing-songy voice from behind us. It was so cute that Cathy and I had to stop and laugh a little bit. No problems, just a little slip. "I'm not sure how my bike slid out from under me, but still ended up on top of me..." (quote number 3) Race Quote tally: Vanessa - 3, Cathy and I - zero.

We eventually rode out of all of that and came to a steep six foot drop off at the road. I went first, then we handed down all the bikes, then Cathy and Vanessa walked/slid down. We got back on our bikes and hit some pavement for a little while. At the top of the rise we were presented with a closed gate. That we had to go through over. Cathy went over first, we handed all the bikes over, then Vanessa and I climbed over the gate and we rode off again. And then we got to the steep switchbacks of Second Mtn under the power lines. The sick thing is that we know there are people who actually race this race and they rode up (and down) this stuff. I can't imagine how much fun it would be to be that good. Thankfully, we only had to go half way up Second Mtn and pretty soon we were at the trail. Got back on the bikes and rode it out to a big logging-type road. Went a mile or so on that and went back to some familiar looking single track. Dang, I think we're going back to the pipeline. We were. What's funny though is that I wasn't sure if it was the same one because it looked so much smaller this year. It's a pretty steep down and up section of the trail. I stopped to let everyone get back together. Who knew that I could get into trouble just standing there... I lean against my bike, hear a sizzling sound and then realise that the sizzling was me. OUCH! Yep, I leaned the disc brake rotor against my leg and now I have a nice "Avid - Powered by SRAM" brand for my troubles. Cathy went first with her bike, Vanessa went next and I went last. We crossed the little trickle/stream and headed up the other side. The last bit of grassy single track offered up the next set of quotes. "Jaggy bush left," "Jaggy bush right" and "Jaggy bush DUCK!." Rode the last little bit of single track out to the road and started to head back to City Island. But that's not where we were going... We ended up over at H.A.C.C. (Harrisburg Area Community College) and that's where we got off the bikes for a little while.

*** Go up to the RUN section for the first run segment ***

*** Second Bike Segment ***

We got back to the bikes and rode back through the H.A.C.C. campus and past the Farm Show Complex and made a right turn onto McClay. We pretty much rode up over that hill and back down to the water front. Lots of traffic, but lots of Police support at all of the major intersections. Once we got to front street we ducked down to the lower level multi-use path again and rode back to City Island. We ended getting back to transition only a few minutes after the time cut-off to start the canoe segment. Dangit. Oh well, by this time we were tired and hungry and really didn't mind it that much. So as of that moment, we were officially DQ'ed (and I don't mean that we got a Dairy Queen Peanut Buster Parfait for our effort). Kind of a bummer, but since last year we didn't even cross the finish line it wasn't such a bad thing. We still had the opportunity to do the last mile and change of running and special challenges before going across the finish line - so that's what we did!

*** Go up to the RUN section for the second run segment ***

We walked back to City Island, changed and got some food. Chicken fingers, salad, fruit, 180 energy drink, Troegs beer - what more could you want? There was some pasta, but it was gone before we finished. As usual, Mike's team was on the podium :) Final race quote was overheard at the awards ceremony "Wow, um, I've never gotten third before" (or something like that).

Race Course:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.mb?episodePk.pkValu...


Faster? It was cool just to cross the finish line. Now that we have our team for next year, we can worry about faster then.


Awesome race. I love that it's a different race every year. Volunteers are awesome. Post race party is awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome. I can't wait to see what they do for a course next year.