Burnet, Texas United States Terra Firma Promo 40F / 4C Precipitation

Total Time = 3h 30m Overall Rank = / Age Group = Age Group Rank = 0/

TEAM TORTOISE RACE REPORT

Woke up at the hotel, ate some breakfast and headed to the race site to meet Tim and Sabrina.

Met up with them, got my registration and bought a blow up seat for our blow up kayak. Which was well worth the $15. And I have it if I need it again.

Setup my "transition" next to Tim. Really just laid my bike on the ground and put some stuff beside it. Pretty casual transition.

Attended the pre-race meeting and it started to rain. The wind was blowing, it was cold, and then rain. Ugh. I ran to the car to get my rain Pancho.

Got back, went to the restroom and the race was about to start.

The race started with a trail run. We were in the back of the pack and they quickly took off leaving us in the dust.

It was raining and I had 4 tops on, pants and my rain Pancho. Got hot quickly.

Slowly we picked off a few people on the run. Cool. We weren't last. Not yet at least. Ha!

Only a 5km though, so not too bad. I never felt great running, but I gutted it out.

So here's the thing with Adventure Races... they do not use timing chips. I took off my Garmin because it was raining, so I have no clue what the individual segments times were. I know the first run was 5km, the bike was roughly 9 miles. But that's it.

Finished the run and went into transition. Got our seats for our boat and headed to the pond for the paddling section of the race.

This is where we lost ANY lead we had over ANYONE. We sucked at this. Would constantly end up turned backwards. Finally just started paddling backwards. Ran into other boats. Overall, we just sucked. It was funny and pathetic all at the same time. We were the last ones out of the water.

Get into T2, and only 1 other team is there. Everyone else has left. After Tim changed shoes, got dressed, I changed tops and went back to the car for dry gloves... there wasn't any sign of any other teams.

Finally got on the bikes and headed out. The trail started out decent. THEN it got HARD. Well, hard for me. 80% of this bike course was on rocks. I'm not keen riding over loose rocks of all sizes.

About 2 miles into the bike a guy came up behind us. I told him to go ahead and pass. He let us know he was our "personal escort"... aka: Course Sweeper. We were the debris to be swept up.

I felt bad having him behind me, as I walked A LOT.I walked probably 75% of this bike course. I got really tired of pushing my bike over rocks... rocks...and more rocks.

You know you suck at mountain bike riding, when you contemplate buying a more expensive bike, that's lighter... because you need to be able to carry it over terrain. Yeah. That's me. My current bike is so heavy I can't lift it up and carry it. So I always have to push it.

I started the ride with my rain Pancho on, but had to take it off. It was hard to ride with it on. Our personal escort was kind enough to put it in his Camelbak. Later, he also carried Tim's shirt for him. So that was nice.

Our escort also called a couple of times to let the race director know where we were. It wasn't a good sign when he would give the mile marker... listen... and then chuckle. I'm sure the RD was wondering why the heck we were taking so long.

FINALLY the 9 mile mountain bike (that probably took us 2 hours) was over. We go into T3, to find out we have to paddle again. Ugh. AGAIN? As we are in T3, two 12 year old girls finish the race. Nice.

Not to mention the transition area is CLEAN. There are maybe 2 other bikes laying around. Otherwise, everyone has packed up and gone home.

So we go out to the lake and I sit in the front. Tim tells me to not paddle as it wasn't helping. So I propped up my feet, laughed and let him do the work. I wanted to help, but when I tried we would go all wonky.

We finally get back in off the lake, and go to the finish line. They scan our race bibs and it's over. At least no one noticed we were the last and there wasn't any fan fair over it. That would have been embarrassing. But we finished so far behind everyone I doubt they even knew about us.

I can honestly say this is my first time coming in DEAD FINISH LAST in a race, since I started in 2005. We figured we would be last, but I didn't think it would be such a massacre!

Tim was kind to race with me and to chill during the race. He was way too generous to sign up with me. I doubt he'll ever do that again. Poor guy was waiting for me on the bike the whole time.

I would also like to say that Sabrina was so very helpful! She blew up my boat seat, cheered us on, and took the photos. Not to mention she hung around a long time waiting on us, because I was so slow. Tim was very helpful too! He put air in my bike tires and strapped the turtle on my helmet.

Otherwise, I'll do another AR again, but the bike course MUST be easier. I'm not going to push my freaking bike 75% of the way. What a whipping! Not to mention I need mountain bike shoes and pedals so I can get clipped in.