Adventure Racing 7:50:00 [3]
RockstAR with Eco and Amber. This is my favourite adventure race in Ontario and for various reasons I have missed it the past few years. I really wanted to do it this year and asked Eco and Amber if they would mind having a third wheel along when I saw that they were already signed up.
Got up to Bark Lake on Friday evening and Eco and I enjoyed a late happy hour from the porch of our awesome cabin. Amber got a up a bit later and we had a catch up before bed. Felt like we had lots of time in the morning to get organized and plan our route, which consisted of a trek loop which we intended to do first and then a paddle loop.
As with all of STORM's races, the logistics were dialed and the race started on time. The bike went smoothly for us and we got back to Bark Lake about 2.5 hours in. We had been warned of thunderstorms later in the day and could see dark clouds as we were finishing up the bike, so decided to do our paddle loop first before the weather got too bad as we really wanted to paddle! We got our first paddle CP (54) and then just as we were heading across the lake for the next one (30), the skies opened up. We got to the shore and hauled our boat up and reconsidered our plan as the safety boat was clearing the water. We realized that from where we were, there were three high point value trekking CPs that we could get but hadn't intended to, so we did an out and back from CP30 picking up a 60, 70 and 80 pointer along the way. By the time we got back to the boat, the skies were clear again, so we hopped back in our boat and picked up CP35 then went around the corner to get CP45. From there, we paddled over to the island for CP64, where a bin of Rice Krispie treats was waiting for us! We stopped in at the underwater CP on the way back to the Hub - we were planning to leave this until the end but were already soaking wet from the rain at this point so it didn't really matter and we thought it would be more efficient than backtracking later on.
We got back to the Hub with just over 2 hours left in the race, so set off to complete the trek loop we'd intended to do first, starting with the SUP CP, then two others that were just off the Counn trail. When we had about an hour left to go and as the skies opened up a second time, we looked at our options and decided to head out for CP61 and try to get the audio CP (44) on our way back to the finish. The rain was insane and we were so glad it was July and not cold! We found 61 and 44 but got stung by some angry ground wasps on our way back to the trail from 44 - ouch! As we came out on the road, we had just enough time to spare to try the slingshot CP where Eco nailed the target and we avoided the 10 minute time penalty that resulted if you missed. We contemplated one more CP (32) before heading in but saw a team coming out that said it would take us longer than that. We decided not to risk it and headed in with 10 minutes to spare but no CPs that were reasonable to go after in that time.
We finished with 1040 points, good enough for our category win and behind just one other 2-person female team. Amber and I navigated well together and Eco was game for whatever we were proposing. They were both awesome teammates and we had a blast out there!