Big Blue

The Big Blue series has come and gone this year and it ended with the 12 hour race in sunny Lake Tahoe. Wait a second I said sunny...We got rained, snowed and sleeted on. But that was all part of the fun. We finished by running accross the finish line in the SUN, so that was a big treat. It was a great race and a stellar production. We will be back for more Big Blue adventure races for sure.

The race started with a 1.5-2 mile run to the boats. We got there with a couple of other teams and I had a tough time squeezing into my boat so we took off a couple of minutes behind the two front teams. 2 miles later at the first boat CP we were just about 3 minutes behind the two lead teams and slowly moving in on them. Lightning cracked out on the lake and within minutes the Coast Guard moved in to tell us we needed to turn around and head back before we could get the last CP on the lake.

It would be a full on restart with no advantage given to the leaders. It was raining and very cold during this time and gave everyone an idea for how cold we were going to get while climbing up an additional 2500-3000 feet. Who brought their ski goggles?

We were off again... the rest of the course was laid out in a Rogain style. Five check points to get in any order and at one of them you would be given a new set of maps for an orienteering section. We chose to do most of the climbing on our bikes first and to do the orienteering last. Most of the competitive teams chose a similar order and we were surrounded by other teams on the first big climb. By the second CP we had a solo racer and another coed team on our tail...but the field was no where to be seen. We had also biked our way into the middle of a snowstorm.

With the feet feeling like ice blocks we began to distance ourselves from the field and worked our way to the orienteering section. We were required to get 8 of the 11 checkpoints in the field and we were off. The key for us was to stay moving so that we would not get too cold. Once we were on our feet we began to warm up and this also allowed us to eat. With the cold weather we had not really been eating as much as we should. With two more CP's to go we ran into the 2nd and 3rd placed teams and it really lit a fire under our butts. Of course we had no idea where they were in their orienteer or how many CP's they had but it got us moving again. It took us 53 minutes to complete the O and then we bombed due south into the TA, where we dumped bikes, put on our running shoes again and ran into the finish line. Woohoo!

See reults and splits here.

Great race, fun competitors and sweet location. Cheers to Dogs in space, Dirty Avo's and everyone else that made this a fun event. We will be back for sure!