Team Shenanigans (JD Wright, Crawford Humphreys, and Kath, w/William "Wallace" Castano [CFATL] as superstar support-roadie) represented in a big way for their first adventure race April 12th -- the 11th Annual Blue Ridge Adventure Race. http://adventureracega.com/ -- TIME: 10:06. ...And that aint minutes.

The gunshot went off promptly at 8am. While we were all milling around trying to talk out pre-race-anxiety gitters (no lie). With a "holyshit", Crawford RACED up a mountain. Uhhh don't they usally kinda line up at a STARTING line or whatever for these things??? Nope. Not in this case. Every team had one passport that you had to get a special stamp at a check-point to prove you were at that site. I heard a "WAAAIIITTTT you forgot the passport!!!" Yelled up the mountain. At least that wasn't us lol.
Then we got a get-out-of-jail-free card and loaded our canoe into the water. I say GOOJF cuz virtually while 40% of the other racer teams (97 4-man teams in all) were bunched up to load-in at ONE tiny spot, Crawford "I-can-sweet-talk-anyone" Humphreys asked if we could load in at the stairs (which I personally heard denied twice), BLAMO(!) we were practically the first crew in the water. (ASIDE NOTE: the only other time we'd been in the canoe in the water with all THREE of us, was 19 hours prior lol.) Dumped the canoe on some rock that had to've popped-up and grown like a gopher head -- but clean & jerked that mutha in 7 seconds flat to clear it of water and was again on our way crusing the baby whites. Did I mention that there been these strange coughing-fits of torretial downpours all night long? Niiiiiccee.

RACE HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: the guys snatching the canoe and carrying it on their head/shoulders for a half mile over land (part of this crazy crossfitlike-triathlon-in-the-woods-with-a-compass thing)...
Kath doing her american-gladiator-imitation by climbing the cargo net up to the bridge (notice in the pix progression the guy next to her, PASSED)...
We ALL had the glory of running up and down MOUNTAINS (not kidding or exaggerating HOOYAH)...
Kath got lost on a logging-trail in the woods and ended up running for 2 hours (last time I did that it was a friggin half-marathon and it didn't have all the other shit before or after it lol not to mention fear of bears)...
Crawford took Kath's bike down the mountain, but not like all the other bikers we saw wheeling it down.... no the spartan-stud strapped it to his BACK (you should've seen this rig-up with 2 camel-back straps)...
We rowed a lake for about 2.5 hours straight, we couldn't stop or rest because the wind was gusting so hard if we did, we'd be blown backward. (ASIDE QUESTION: have you ever tried to curl your legs up into canoe-rowing or kneeling position for almost 3 hours AFTER you've ran and ran and ran AND biked and biked and biked? Let me tell you, when one of you gets a muscle cramp (we alternated) in the confines of that crazy-small floating distaster, and you involuntarily spasm to reach for the locked-up calf or thigh, that boat rocks like a disney-ride-on-crack WHOA)...
We now hold the record for the longest sprinting 5k at the end of the race. We're pretty sure we clocked that baby at about 50 minutes. Pretty damn good with numb feet and not having eaten/drank/pissed in a half day...
Very end of the race we cross the finish line together! ...Aaaannnddd the guys keep running while Kath trails after them yelling (whiny-crying by now) "why aren't you stopping??!!" Turns out the race official told them "you're coming in backwards, you have one more obstacle to accomplish to complete the race. (here I am thinking they're running to the family or home or beer or SOMETHING who knew.) Then guess what? After 10 hours of not stopping -- our final task is to saw the end off a log. But not with a (reasonable logical) chainsaw (which was teasingly laying on the ground there. With Crawf thinking "sweet, I know how to use a chainsaw, this is going to be cake") NOOOOooooOoooo this has to be done with one of those old-fashioned 2-man hand saws. We can't lift our arms to scratch our heads but we're supposed to SAW???? Needless, Kath cheered while JD & Crawford sawed like the badassmofocrossfitterss they ARE.

This adventurer race has been one of the most incredible amazing experiences of our lives.

And at least Kath can say she did it on CrossFit trainging ONLY.

OTHER NOTES: Fellow CFNA'er Rauf also competed in the race (I'll get his time/pix/details and post those too... I believe his team came in sliiiightly after ours) -- and Grace & Hoff were cheer'ers at the event too.

William Castano was a stellar awesome wonderful life-saver PERFECT support-person. A very very special from-our-hearts THANK YOU WILLIAM. We thought he'd be dropping off our bikes and that'd be the end of it. The (fellow crossfitter) went above & beyond the call of duty, trekking to places where he'd have available to us dry clothes, power-bars, supplies, WHATEVER... mostly it was a profound morale boost to just see a friendly familiar face in places we didn't expect, I can't describe how intensely that helped our drive to continue this effort.

Karen from the Atlanta chapter of the Trailblazers Adventure Race Club (Kath & JD are members and took an orienteering course). That woman helped up SO much, plotting our points on the map, just ANY dumb question we asked... girl you ROCK.

Linda from Blue Ridge Outfitters... helping us buy the right shoes, laughing with us, helping us with information & direction... the best smiling face and open-heart, GIVING Kath biking shorts (donated by Lynne Sledge, champion AR racer/winner).

Thank you Travis for sponsoring me for the race. You are the best.

Thanx Dana for letting me borrow your bike to train... and all other CFNA'ers for your moral support. Bud Lite.

p.s. I loved that Rauf wore his CrossFit North Atlanta t-shirt to the pre-race meeting... over 400 saw that. Thanks Rauf!


kk