Missouri is just not my place for good luck I guess. Here's the quick and sweet, about halfway into the course we were disqualified because I lost our passport. Bummer, out on a technicality and it was my fault too. Long version below.
The race was in Potosi, MO; a very pretty area. We arrived and checked in the night before, there were a lot of big guns out there and Robyn Benincasa was there as a USARA rep and was cheering on the teams, cool, she's a lot smaller than I thought she would be.
The race start was at 7 a.m. at the Trout Lodge, it was cold, temps were in the 20's. We had to split up for the first section of the course, Jim ran up the road to get our passport and then back down to the lake and Sara and I would paddle the canoe across the lake and pick up Jim.
The gun goes off and we quickly split, Sara and I reach the canoes and the madness ensues; canoes falling everywhere (they were stacked three high), people arguing and yelling at each other over who had right to that canoe. Somehow in the madness I ended up snagging a canoe and Sara and I were in the water in 6th place, out of 80. Not bad.
We paddled into the fog on the lake, visually this made for great photos, but it was sooooooo cold out there. Any water that splashed onto the canoe quickly froze. We reached the meeting area just as the front runners were arriving. Jim took a little longer than anticipated, but we still were in the top 20 when we gathered him in and left. This is where the race organizers could've done a better job, we had a two seat canoe for a three person team.
We paddled to the island and quickly nabbed the next CP and continued on. Jim was having trouble getting comfortable without a seat and was constantly changing positions. My hands were starting to feel warm, finally, though I still had ice on the outside of my gloves. We reach the next CP just as the bottleneck started, we were third inline to punch the CP and the line was at least 10 boats long when we left. We finished the paddle and we were in 15th place coming out of the water, doing ok.
Now we implemented our strategy for the start of the race; look at the map, but basically follow the front runners for a while to keep them in our sights. I was a little slow at the start of the orienteering section because my hands were thawing (the previous warming sensation was completely false) and were so painful that I couldn't run fast. Our strategy was working great for teh first 3 CPs, in fact we were catching more and more people. Then we made a small snafu going off trail and lost a few minutes. Then we encountered a trail map with a "You Are Here" on it, that cost us 15 more minutes; who'd have figured that knowing our exact location would throw us off so bad.
Soon we were settled in and one of the teams near us was very familiar, Team Monster Energy was Team Pain Syndicate at the MAR; we were faster then and I knew we could be faster now. We flew through the last few check points and reached the bike transition placed somewhere in the teens. The best exchange of the day was when Robyn Benincasa came over while we transitioned and said,
"What team are you guys?"
"Team Seek Adventure"
"Do you guys have a sponsor?"
"No, not really."
"Man, you guys are scrappy!"
On to the bike, awesome, time to reel in some more teams. We were cruising as usually and within 10 minutes we've already passed a team. We are hitting checkpoints without hesitation and everything is going great. Next thing I know we're passing Team Yoga Slackers, they were quite fast at the MAR and this means we were now cracking into the top 10. The 4th bike CP had a twist, we get there and there's a sign giving us coordinates to the real CP, interesting. We don't pick the best route to get there, but we lose only about 5 minutes. CP 5 is quick and we're blazing towards CP6, right on the heels of another team. We reach and intersection and the other team is there talking to a hiker. He says he came from the right and he started at the campground, that was all we needed, we headed right towards the campground. Well it was the wrong campground and we were then lost for 1.5 hours. Talk about a bummer. We get to the CP in 33rd place (it was only 100 yards to the left when we made the wrong turn).
We keep our pace steady and methodical, we didn't want to blow through any intersections we needed. We were clawing our way back up through the field. The biking was very nice here, mostly singletrack, but it made it difficult to pass. We arrive at the next transition area and we're in 30th place, with several teams there as well. We change over to our trekking stuff and head out, hoping to get to the canoes before it gets dark (and really cold on the water). I was carrying the passport and I switched it over to a pocket in my pack, because carrying it in my short legs didn't seem secure enough for a trek.
Three miles into the trek we're tangled up with the teams in front of us and I decide to do a sanity check on the passport. I reach in the pocket, it's not there. I try some other pockets, still not there. I quickly tell the team to stop (seconds before we were about to splash across a 20 foot stream crossing) and let them know. we check my pockets again and then realize we have to backtrack.
Reluctantly and disappointingly we retrace our steps looking for the passport. We make it all the way back to the previous CP without a trace. We ask if anyone turned one in and the said no, and then they said without it we were DQed. We theorized that some other team might have picked it up or that it blew away with some wind, either way we were out.
The only highlights of this part of the race were when we got back to the transition area the other racers were dumbfounded, they though we had finished the trek and canoe already. The other thing that made us feel ok was that at the same time Team Nike Beaver Creek was pulling out (due to one team mate hurting himself), they were only minutes ahead of us.
So we rode back to the lodge, had a great meal and went to bed early. We heard the next day that everyone was coming off the water freezing and borderline hypothermic, I was glad to miss out on that.
A disappointing end to the season, but it'll serve as good motivation for next year.
I want to thank my teammates Jim and Sara for not making me feel like a schmuck for losing the passport, thanks for understanding.
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