Team “Whatever, Man”

Flat Rock YMCA camp was a great location for an AR and provided us with awesome overnight accommodations. As we checked in Friday night, we met other racers, chatting near the fireplace while making smores. We all learned what a yurt is and were pleased to find them clean and warm and comfortable. I surprised myself by falling asleep quickly in my top bunk. However, I was soon to be awakened by the sounds of giggles and scurrying people. Many decided to yurt-hop after realizing that the snores of a certain expert orienteer would be more than they could bear. After a nice night of sleep, we awoke to a chilly morning, with plenty of time to prepare for the race. With a history of bike problems during races, a strange rubbing noise coming from my wheel , and no bike maintenance abilities, I was wondering if this race was even going to happen for us. I arrived at the lodge early for the map hand-out and begged the assistance of Mike Garrison, who, using his vast AR knowledge and skills, kindly informed me that my bike tire was actually on backwards. (Thanks, Mike!)

The race started with an uneventful adventure run to CP1 and back to the TA via a well-marked trail. In the daylight, we got our first glimpse of how gorgeous the camp is. It was then onto the bikes for a quick ride into St. Paul. Our team made a decision early on to use the bike tow prophylactically. It only made sense given my weenie chicken legs and me having a teammate (Rachel Moir) who is probably a close relative of She-Ra.

At the next checkpoint in town, we were greeted by Jerry in his $3.99 Goodwill skirt, Monty in his shades, and Dave with the camera. They gave us a new map to complete an “Urban O.” The term urban was used loosely here. Townies were puzzled to see an onslaught of women in adventure gear running around their neighborhoods, furiously searching for answers to questions to prove we’d visited the checkpoints. We made a point of not passing by Michelle and Cristal more than once so they would not know that we had made a bad route choice. It ate up some time, but saved our pride. The map was a little hard to read and we’re pretty sure a church we were looking for was surrounded by fake roads and guard dogs.

We completed a good part of the foot orienteering and headed off on the bikes choosing to do the route backwards. Country roads afforded beautiful views, a few hills, and some wind from the open fields. The navigating was easy- following the roads. However, as our team name implies, we tend to be a little lax about our racing and easily distracted by pretty houses and jokes about cows. We, therefore could not seem to find any information about the birthday of a Methodist church and completely missed a Dan Henry, even though we rode right by both of those things without a doubt. Neither of us had any desire to go back to find what we missed. We wanted to cut the bike leg short, but it didn’t make sense since finishing the Bike-O took us on the most logical route back to town. At the cemetery with the F600, we realized I lost our clue sheet. Yes, I do know better than to keep it in my pocket. An old man in bib overalls kindly stepped out onto his porch to ask if we were lost. I informed him that we were not lost ourselves, just losing things. I’m quite sure that he thinks we’re nuts.

I happened to remember that the last bike-o answer we needed was an address on a mailbox, so we acquired that info and headed back to the TA again. We were lucky to lose our clue sheet after we were really done with it for the race. From there, we went to the archery range. Next, was the paddle. We chose to get just the first checkpoint and even though we both like to paddle, we skipped the second one to avoid wasting time dragging our infamously heavy yellow canoe over the shallow parts. The cool water felt good as we were warming up in the midday sun.

Back on the bikes for a trail ride to a handful of checkpoints, including the Alpine Tower. I jumped at the chance to climb it and had a blast. My not-so-fond-of-heights teammate headed off to find a still unnamed shape near a chapel . We met back up and continued on to a couple more bike CP’s. We headed back to the finish with just over an hour left, thinking that we would rather spend our time on the Score-O and make up some points we’d missed. After a brief “planning session” in the TA and being made fun of by the race staff for our laid-back approach , we went out, deciding to cross the river in our fresh and dry shoes and socks to find the marshy land with a pile-o-rocks worth double points. Said pile-o-rocks proved more difficult to find than anticipated. We apparently gave up just before team “Comfort Zone” found it. During our attempts at returning to civilization, we stumbled upon a large cliff/rock wall/pile-o-rock above a very marshy area. Thinking we had accidentally found what we were looking for, I scrambled down the cliff, Rachel bravely followed, and we found nothing but a muddy, marshy, messy, but beautiful area. The Garrisons later pointed out that what we crawled down was marked on the map as an impassable cliff. Maps can be wrong! Back over the river and through the woods for a few more CP’s and another helping of Hammer Gel. We decided to go for one last CP and booked it back to the TA, arriving sooner than we anticipated, and sneaking in the back so as to avoid pictures of me panting with bad hair at the finish line. I felt rather disappointed that it was over as we headed into the lodge for our very favorite part of the race… food and the raffle. Somehow in the process of packing up, I ended up in possession of Jerry’s much-loved megaphone , which I am now holding for ransom. A promise to never wear a skirt again just might be payment enough.

Carrie Kirkpatrick

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