Well, I did it! I finished my first adventure race! This is how it went....

Before the race on Wednesday, I went with Mitch, Paul, and Cecelia to do a very hard mountain bike ride. While on the trail I flew off of my bike and landed on my shoulder. I knew that I'd hurt myself because it was very difficult for me to finish the ride with six miles left to go...all downhill! In addition to falling off of my bike, there were two really big fires that had ignited; luckily, we got out of the canyon in the knick of time! (Of course, we were the only ones riding that day...who else would be that nuts to ride three to four hours in that heat!) So when the rangers met us at Rogers Park, where we finished, they asked us if anyone else was behind us. We said, "No", and when we looked behind us and saw what was coming toward us...it FREAKED us out to say the least!

In the car my shoulder stiffened up and I lost all hope that I would be able to race on Sunday. I was really bummed out, since I had been training so hard! Thank God for Dr. Chin (my acupuncture doctor). His methods worked, again, and I was able to at least move my arm around and decided to go ahead to NY! It wasn't until I kayaked Saturday as a warm-up that I was sure I would be able to race on Sunday. I felt good on the kayak and decided I was FOR SURE racing!

So here is how the big day went:

Sunday morning we were up at 5 a.m., sleepless, after peeing all night Friday and Saturday to keep from dehydrating! On top of the fact that we were all extremely nervous (especially ME!) I had no idea what to expect. We left the hotel with our gear on board and went to pick up Danelle. We ended up getting lost and were driving around for 30 minutes trying to find her place. Finally we found a phone and called her. She was quite pissed. She had been waiting outside in the cold with all of her gear. Boy did we get a mouthful when we arrived! (I mention this only because it goes along with what happened to us in the race!)

We made our way to the race, set up in transition and peed about 20 more times before starting a three to four hour journey!