Checked in Friday night, got maps, checkpoints and some brief race instructions. Headed back to our hotel, plotted the points, & organized packs. Plus, we had eaten prior to race check in, so we got to bed on time. Rained hard Friday night... Up at about 5am, still raining... last minute pack up off to the race start. Set up transition area in the parking lot of the host hotel...using Dwayne's tent (thanks Dwayne). Rain stopped just prior to the 7am start.

1st leg... 3 mile out-n-back beach run (6 miles total) this spread the groups out pretty fast. We were racing 3 person coed, another pulled away from us early on the run, towing their woman. We probably dropped 15 minutes to them on the run. We had left all our water, throw line, etc in the transition area to minimize our weight for the run... grabbed that stuff as we went back by the T/A on our way to the kayak leg. An additional 1 mile run put us at the kayak start.

2nd leg... Kayaking... there was a lot of unorganized confusing at the kayak put in. The 3 people teams had to grab a tandem and a single kayak from the rental place. Likely our biggest mistake of the race is not taking the time here to get the best kayaks possible. Some of the teams ended up with regular tandem sea kayaks, while we ended up with this hollowed-out stubby tree-trunk single-cockpit no-rudder tandem. We did manage to get a nice single regular sea kayak with rudder, etc. Matt and Shelly took off in the S.S. Log Jam while I jumped in the single to follow. We headed under the causeway and into the strong headwind and wave produced by the remnants of the hurricane. The kayak leg SUCKED, especially for everyone in p.o.s. style boats that Matt & Shelly were in. The boats kept taking on water and were impossible to keep straight. We counted roughly 5-6 boats capsize during the kayak section... for most of them, the water was shallow enough that they were able to empty the boats and get back in. In my luxurious sea kayak, I couldn't paddle slow enough to stay with Matt & Shelly. Eventually, I decided that paddling ahead and scouting the checkpoint was a better approach, so I did. We paddled out and around this island-sort-of thing... that had two checkpoints around it, on the water. At the second checkpoint, we decided to rearrange seating in the boats and in the process, I ended up on my ass in the water. Matt took the single while Shelly & I took the beast back home. I felt inept trying to keep that thing going straight... wind & waves at our back, every little swell turned us sideways. Eventually after many iterations, we just muscled it back to the takeout. we took off on the run, back to the T/A..

3rd leg... Bike section. 8 mile straight away up the coast on a paved trail that followed the road. We hammered as hard as the strong headwind would allow. Eventually reach the Nags Woods Nature preserve,picked up CP8, followed by about 4 more miles of biking comprised of two out-n-backs on gravel/sand roads to get CP9 & CP10. Back to the preserve's visitor center, we transition off the bikes to the orienteering section.

4th leg... Orienteering. Roughly another 6-8 miles of orienteering on nature trails, power lines easements, roads, and a little bush-whacking to get 6 checkpoints. Orienteering was mostly straight forward... ran as much as possible, but Matt was having issues with his legs that limited his ability to run. I ran ahead a little and scouted/nav'd, while Shelly ran behind me and when I made an important turn, she acted as the bread crum to make sure the Matt made the right turn. Orienteering point #2 was a little tricky... it was shown in an inset on the trail map we had, but there was no indication of where the inset map belonged on the overall map. Eventually we decided that it was off the map to the South West. We back tracked some trails and eventually bushed wacked toward the SW to hit a power lines. The tough thing was that there were multiple paths that crossed the power lines easement and we were not sure which one was the right trail to take to hit #2...some info from other racers and some searching and we eventually found it. Doubled back and picked up the remaining to Orienteering points, and back to the bikes.

5th leg... 2nd bike section. With the wind firmly on our backs and the barn in site, we pushed the pace the 8 miles back to the host hotel & T/A.... roughly at a 20+ clip... main worry was a car pulling out of a drive way across the path in front of us.

6th leg... the hotel rappel... CP12 was on top of the hotel... dashed through the lobby, attempted to run up the stairs with very tired legs. Hit CP12 and then across the very windy roof to the rappel. Race personal were there to help with double checking everything, etc. Brian had managed to get involved by proving fireman's belay from the base on one of the rap lines. Rapped off of the building... Shelly's first rappel!!! She did great on a intimidating rap... you had to step over the hotel wall & out on a miniscule ledge. With the three of us on the ground... a short run up to a pier to grab CP13 and then a jog back to the hotel deck to the finish line completed the race.

8hrs 21min ...2nd place. About 1hr off 1st place in co-ed 3s and about 1hr 20 off the overall winner.

This gives us a bid to the National Championships.

Lessons Learned:
1) Take the time to pick the best possible kayak
2) We need a lot more paddling practice to be competitive
3) To challenge for 1st, need to be able to aggressively run the on-foot sections
4) Could have been better organized at the T/A for faster transitions
Overall... the race was a lot of fun.