The race started a little later than most swims or tri's. The race didn't officially begin until 10:00am so Chris and I did not have to leave too early. We had met the night before to discuss strategy and lay out our gear.
Chris picked me up at 6:30 and we loaded our gear in his truck and took off for John Bryan State Park near Yellow Springs Ohio. The race instructions directed us to first drop off our bikes at a location different from where the race would actually start. Chris and I got there before anyone else and took our time checking our bikes and investigating the river we would soon be running. After getting our bikes arranged we drove into the park, where the race would start.
We were there plenty early so we made sure our packs had everything we needed. My gear included a GoLite pack with a 100oz bladder. In the bladder I had water with a few NuuN tablets. I carried a couple of Clif Shots and that was pretty much it for nutrition except for the water bottle of Gatorade I left with my bike. In my pack I carried an extra shirt, extra socks, a compass, and my bike helmet. I wore shorts, short sleeve shirt with base layer, arm warmers and a hat.
We received our maps about ten minutes before the start so we didn't have much time to plan strategy. Chris looked at the map and came up with a general idea of how we would attack the orienteering section of the race. The orienteering was first, then we would paddle and finally ride to the finish.
We took off at 10:00 and jogged toward the first checkpoint we targeted. Only a few other teams had the same strategy as us so it wasn't too crowded. We crossed a bridge and then began looking for the elusive CP. Before long we had found it and were on our way to the next one. The next CP took us a long time to find and in hindsight we probably should have cut our losses and moved on but it became personal and once we did find it we were both were feeling really good.
We grabbed a couple more checkpoints and then moved to the rappelling section. I struggled with this as I had never done it before. It was a little dicey at first for me but I finally got down and waited for Chris to get a harness. Chris and I decided we needed to order our own harnesses as we waited a good 30 minutes to do the rappelling section because we didn't have harnesses. Chris came down the face like mad man. All the volunteering were yelling "Navy Seal" as Chris made easy work of the face.
Once we finished the ropes we grabbed a few more easy CPs and then grabbed our canoe. The canoeing ended up being harder than we thought with all the rain we had but we got through it relatively easily. We did miss a checkpoint but it was no big deal as we had others to find.
After finishing the paddling we grabbed our bikes and took off. Due to the high water the majority of the bike was on the road. We missed a few CPs on the bike because my chain snapped and Chris and I had to rig it back together but I could put very little pressure on the pedals for the rest of the ride. We packed it in and rode to the finish tired but proud of what we had accomplished.
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