Race started at 6AM with the race director handing out maps and coordinates. After about 15 minutes of plotting, we decide on a strategy on the best route to take and set off for our first checkpoint. The next several checkpoints took us into the single-track trails of Uhwarrie, which seem to be endless. Everyone commented on how much fun the trails were. There were a few stream crossings that we had to do also. We tried our best to tip-toe across on rocks, trying not to get our feet wet....Linds using her well-honed soccer footworking skills to get across with a hint of moisture on her shoes! Wow, she can walk on water....she is always surprising us! The next stream doesn't have many well-placed rocks, so Bob and Moni ride across.....we're finding checkpoints now and are having a great time....We continue on the single-track until about 11AM when we arrive at where our boats are staged. We restock our Camelbacks with water and food, but then have to carry our boats several hundred yards to the river. The boats are not light and I think I might have heard Moni use a bad word. The water section was nice, it gave your legs a chance to recover a bit, but of course you're now working out your upper body... We paddled for about 2 hours until we reached our next mandatory checkpoint and took the boat out of the water. The next mandatory checkpoint was only about a quarter mile away, but the rules said that you had to carry your boats there! And if you looked at the map, it was on the top of a hill!!! What???? Moni and Linds are not happy....we run up ahead and look, and sure enough there is a great big hill that we have to carry the boats up. Crap. Moni and Bob were out of the water first and were ahead of myself and Linds. We could carry the boat about 50 yards at a time...it's hard to carry the boat by the handles without the boat banging into your legs....the rudder on the back of the boat was starting to scrape skin off. About halfway up Linds and I have had it and decide to just lift the boat onto our shoulders and carry it that way.... It worked much better and we muscled it the rest of the way.

Mandatory checkpoint 3 was pretty cool.....one member of the team had to do a "high ropes course" where you had to walk along cables strung between trees about 50 feet off of the ground. Bob and I decided to do the rope course and everyone is safety harnessed in for safety. The first part you had to climb a rope ladder to get up into the trees. The next leg you had to shimmy along a horizontal telephone pole to get to the next tree. The next three sections were walking on a cable using ropes for supports. Finally, you got to repel down.

After the ropes, we then had to hike about 6-ish miles back to the area where we left our bikes. Some of the trekking is on single-track and some on dirt roads. We're starting to watch the time now, because we have to be back at the Start/Finish site before 6PM..... 1:30.....2:00......2:30.....3:00....3:30....4:00......we make it back to the bikes around 4:30. We should have enough time to reach the finish before 6pm. We actually skipped a checkpoint to allow ourselves enough time to get back. We biked into the Finish about 5:30......30 minutes to spare. We might have had enough time to get the checkpoint we skipped, but I think it would have been close!