Adventure Racing race (RTN) 17:37:00 [3]
RTN Esprit with Bash, 3Pin and Lo-Tox.
Hmm, maps hadn't arrived on time...
This one turned out to be a surprisingly short course.
We started on a night bike leg, mostly ATV trail, with 3-pin doing nav.
We were with Numse after a while when he went right and we went left along with much of the pack. Turns out that Numse was right, but it took us an hour to get back on track. We were surprised to find that we were in 5th at the TA, even with our error.
Next a trek, with a fair bit of road. We missed our proposed route by a bit, but some good relocation by Bash and we were back on track. A 3km bushwhack and we hit the road to the bike drop, but somewhere in there we lost almost an hour to teams behind us.
A short ride to the dreaded Tomcats. First portage was hideous as expected, with my neck in total spasm and zero vision.
The paddle went quite well, actually. Tomcats are fine in rapids.
Bash and I were slightly faster than 3-pin and Lo-tox on the flats, but 3-pin can really nail a good line and is faster in current.
I rigged my "yoke" for the next portage and it was 75% better.
We saw a team behind us and tried to put the hammer down, but Bash and I kindly indicated a rock by getting hung up on it, as Running Free caught us. They were unranked tho, as they had a bad bike leg.
60km paddle took us 6hrs, less than we thought. We saw Hunger ahead, and met them on the zipline, but even with a fast paceline to the finish we were 6th by 13 minutes.
A fun race with a good team, but somehow it felt more like a SAC long course.
Good on Beowulf/Outback, finishing 2nd behind Explore Mtn Hardwear.
Numse was 3rd, Tiny and Nosnohj 4th.