Finally, I have some time to share my thoughts and feelings about my most awesome experience in the Sunflower State Games Adventure Race! It really was pretty awesome! I loved the teamwork with Shelley. We weren’t really friends prior to this event, just acquaintances. We came together for this challenge because we are both motivated to stay fit and enjoy trail wogging and outdoor adventure type stuff. Turned out that we have many other things in common and, I hope it was mutual, enjoyed each other’s company. It was a good feeling to be able to work together and accomplish a challenge of this magnitude. Our communication and collaboration with each other was strong. A couple of times I found myself marveling at the whole situation – the two of us over forty women tromping through the woods – straight through poison ivy, brambles and swamp in search of little orange triangle tent thingys aka compass points to get orienteering punches on our tiny square paper. Too silly! Yet AWESOME!!
I really think that the compass was the great equalizer in this race. Our use of the compass and our maps really gave us an advantage over several more fit (looking) people. I guess that maybe they weren’t as fit as us however, I really think they were. For sure they had more muscle definition! It was rewarding to challenge myself but it was also rewarding to WIN! We finished 23rd out of 49 teams some of whom didn’t even get all 16 compass points! 19 mens teams and 3 co-ed teams were ahead of us. The second place women’s team was an hour and one minute behind us! Amazing, really! Wow, I know that that seems like a pretty arrogant statement but really – I am amazed at our performance! I know that I am not the worlds most humble person (I’m working on humility but it is really hard!) however, my amazement comes from my own surprise at our performance! I think that there is a difference between baseless pride and arrogance and legitimate pride in self for hard work well done.
I guess the other piece is that it is rewarding to feel my hard work pay off. It wasn’t very long ago that I wasn’t fit and didn’t feel that healthy. I have been working slowing and steadily to be more fit and it feels great. I feel strong and capable and pretty darn fit. I have cultivated some healthy habits and have maintained my weight at almost 20 pounds less than two years ago. This feeling is pretty awesome. I have better energy and all my labs are great. I have committed to this healthy lifestyle for myself. It is my time, for me because I want to do it. There really aren’t that many things that I do at this time of my life that are purely for me. I don’t think it is selfish to make time for me and to leave other tasks undone while I take a wog! (Ok, truth be told sometimes I feel guilty but I just ignore it and it fades away!) Also, I really figure at least part of being healthy and fit is for my son and my husband! Not so selfish to be healthy for the ones you love!
I was hoping that the official race photos would be ready by the time I got around to writing this but they aren’t – boo! I’m hoping they will be soon. The photo guy was over each hill! The last tidbit would just be a run down of what we did… We all started at Turkey Point in the State Park. This is the base camp. First we all ran as a group dividing up as we hit the woods…then we ran/trekked to two points. From there we hit the third point and hopped into our canoe. We chose one route while the rest of the pack went the other direction. this caused us to really second guess but we stuck with our plan. We hit the canoes and realized that we were still pretty close to the front! It was exciting! We canoed across the lake, beached and got a point then canoed away again We ditched the canoe at the boat ramp then had to run/trek back to the base. We refilled our camel backs and took off on our bikes. We headed for the State Hiking Biking trails. We hit 4 compass points while on our bikes. The points had to be collected in numerical order and using the mode of transportation dictated to us. We finished the bike trail portion then were given a second map with four more points to collect! We were still the first women’s team at this point. We were excited and motivated to keep rolling! We ran back into the trails looking for three more points. We decided to really use our compass and cut, brush whacking style across the woods. It was fairly successful at saving time. We had one episode where we came out of the woods and couldn’t decide which way we should go on the trail so we killed some time going back and forth. Happily we figured it out and kept going. The toughest part was the final ride up the big hill back to base camp. I ran my phone in the bottom of my camel back to see how far and how fast we went. It read 15 miles with an average pace of 15 minutes per mile in three hours and forty five minutes. Pretty cool!
Overall, I felt like I worked pretty hard and upped my fitness level. I also feel like I could have worked harder to get even more fit! I think we might do another adventure race in the future. Oh… by the way, the race we did is considered a “sprint” or “sport” adventure race many adventure races are MUCH longer! They range from max time of 5 hours like we did to 24 or 36 hours long. I’m not interested in anything that lasts longer than a maximum of 8 hours. We plan to defend our title as the women’s champs next year at the Sunflower State Games!!
I hope that the fun that I had might inspire or energize you to improve your fitness level and challenge yourself! Do it!!
~ Denise
PS If they ever post the pics I will post them!
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