Recap by Jen
On Friday, we drove into Bend and
went to packet pick-up to check in and get all our clues. We had raised enough money to get an early
passport that contained the clues for 1 of the legs of the race and a course clue. So thanks to all who donated to our team and
helped us reach our goal. When we
checked in, the race director was there and told us that we had been selected
to be one of their sponsored teams by Merrell Oyster Racing. A few months back we had sent in our racing
resume to the company to see if they would sponsor us. We didn’t really think anything would come
of it but wow, they selected us! We
will be learning in the next few weeks what this means for our team but we know
that that they will paying our way into many of these races that we do and
giving us cool Merrell gear to represent them!
So thanks Merrell and Oyster Racing we can’t wait to represent you.
So on the
heels of that good news, we collected our clues and set to work trying to
figure them out and prepare for the race in the morning. From the clues we had a couple of ideas of
where they might be taking us to tomorrow so we decided to go into the Mill
District and have a look around to see if we couldn’t locate things early so we
knew exactly where to go during the race.
Of course while we were out we paid close attention to statues and
landmarks that may be in play as well.
We finally went back to the hotel and hit the sack around 11 pm.
The alarm
went off at 5 am and I was up and getting ready. I had to be the first to the start area to claim our spot by 6
am. The race didn’t start until 8 but I
always like to be first. So at 5:45 we
had the car loaded up with supplies and away we went. We were first and I got my choice transition spot. Then it was back to the hotel for
breakfast. We returned to the start a
little after 7 and started setting up for the race. Setting up can take a while
because you have so many supplies: bikes, helmets, shoes, gloves, glasses,
extra clothes (it was raining at the start), food and drink. So at about 7:45 I called Angela and let her
know we may need her help once we figure out what we are doing on the first leg
of the race. She was working and would
be driving in to work just after the start of the race so hopefully we would not
need her help until after she got to work or before she left for work.
So we all
gathered for our prerace briefing and when they were done telling us all the
details they told us that our first puzzle was hidden in our start corral
somewhere. Tricky. We race back and
find a puzzle that we had to solve. So
I start to figure it out and then we head to the front table to check to see if
I am right to get our first passport with instructions for the first leg of the
race. Cool I am right; I think we were
the second team out of 100 or so to get the passport. We read it and it says to go on bike to Pilot Butte and check in
with the Oyster volunteer and then run to the top of the butte and give 6 of 8
listed scavenger hunt items to the second volunteer. I read the scavenger hunt items and we had already had 4 of the 6
we needed so we only needed to get 2 more.
The ones we had were a 1970’s coin, a Deschutes conservancy button, the song lyrics to Carly
Rae Jepson’s Call Me Maybe, and what city the next Oyster was in. The other 2 we needed were to draw a
mustache on one teammate, come here Will I have my pen ready, and to turn our
shirts backwards. One of the other
options was to gather 5 pieces of trash and turn them in at the top of the
butte. We decided to do this one
instead of singing the chorus to Call Me Maybe just because it seemed easier
even though we had the lyrics.
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| Backward shirts |
Will had
spent a lot of hours creating a map of Bend with all the spots he thought might
be in the race located on it and in the process he learned where most
everything was in Bend. So he took the
lead and said he knew how to get to Pilot Butte. We had driven there before the race last year because we thought
that might be one place they might take us.
It is an old cinder cone volcano that has a steep road you can drive up
the top of and see a 360-degree view of the city. When we got to the volunteer at the bottom, we were in first
place and he told us to leave our bikes and run to the top. So off we went, looking for and picking up
trash on the way up. It was quite a climb, 500-foot elevation gain in 1 mile of
running. Well slow and steady it was to
the top. When we got to the top, we had
to give another volunteer our collected items from the scavenger hunt. As we did, I saw a dirt trial where people
were coming up. This was the off-road
Oyster and all these people had caught us so I thought that this might be
faster. As Will repacked stuff into his
bag I pointed out all the people coming up the trail and told him that we
should take the trail down it might be faster.
I looked at him and said, “I am taking the trail down, follow me.” And I was off. And here begins the colossal
SNAFU. I ran a bit of a ways and then
waited to see if he was coming. I
couldn’t see him and he is faster than me so he should be catching me. People were still coming up the trail so I
kept running down. I spotted a few side
trails made by water run-off that I wanted to cut down instead of winding my
way down on what I thought were switchbacks, but Will hadn’t caught up yet so I
didn’t want to take off the main trail without him. I stopped and took out my phone to call him. Oh my God, his phone wasn’t on, come on Will
I told him before the race that the one thing I really needed to be able to do
was to be able to contact him at all times in the race! I kept going down hill. I spotted Merrell windjammers that marked
the bottom volunteer spot below and there was a small water trail I could cut
down to get there faster but is was a really steep long way down. I stopped
again and tried to call, no luck his phone was still off. I was starting to get really mad as I didn’t
know where he was and now I couldn’t go off the main trail. Other racers kept
passing me going up so I figured the trail had to lead to where I wanted to go
at the bottom but this was wasting precious time. I tried calling him 2 more times, no luck, I wanted to
scream. Then the next thing I knew I
was at the bottom of the trail but this wasn’t where I needed to be, the trail
never switched back and I was now at the bottom on the wrong side of the
mountain!!! Now I just wanted to
cry. There were a ton of bikes here,
from the people that passed me going up but they had started here and not at
the bottom area I had started with the volunteer.
This ended up not hurting them as we didn’t have to get anything from
the bottom volunteer but now I was on one side of the mountain and my bike was
on the other! Holy crap. I tried calling Will again. Come on how can you not know something is
wrong you never passed me on the trail!
I didn’t know if he just went down the road or if he started down the
trail and cut down a water trail without me.
The first thing that came into my mind was to steel a bike and ride it
back to the other side of the mountain, but then that didn’t seem like the nice
thing to do so my only real options were to run back up the trail (500 ft of
elevation gain again), or try to follow a paved path that looked like it might
go around the base of the mountain. I
opted for the latter. I started running
while calling Will’s phone every minute or so.
Still turned off! I asked locals
who were walking how to get back to the road you drive up and they seemed to be
confused. Oh my gosh I must be way off
if they don’t even know where the road is.
I just kept running and calling and cursing, oh my. I wasn’t even sure if I was running in the
right direction. Then the trail ran out
and I was in the middle of a neighborhood.
This is not good. I couldn’t
even see the butte anymore. I ran into
the middle of the street and stopped some random person in their car and told
them how I needed to get back to the road you drive up on Pilot Butte. At first
they said get in, and they would drive me.
I explained I was in a race and couldn’t take a ride or I would be
disqualified so they instructed me to run down the road I was on then take a
left and a right and another left and zig zag through some more neighborhoods
to the main highway and then another left and it was out there a ways. Holy mother of pearls, this was just the first
leg and I was adding a lot of extra running to the race. Then my phone rang. It was Will, finally!!!! I answered it cursing at him and explained I
was lost on the backside of the mountain and needed help to get back. He had the map and the clue with the race
director’s number on it. I told him my
cross streets and then he said he couldn’t find it on the map so I should of
just come down the road like him and then hung up! He later said that he just lost the call but I still have my
doubts. I called him back, and all the
time I continued to run, and said I told him I was going down the trail and he
was supposed to follow me. He said that
he didn’t really hear me as he was packing his bag and cannot do 2 things at
once and to him trail meant road. I am
pretty sure the ROAD AND THE TRAIL ARE NOT THE SAME THINGS! But valuable note to self, Will cannot
listen and do anything else at the same time.
I told him he needed to help me get back, I wasn’t sure how to get
there. He told me the roads I was on
were not on his map so I needed to figure it out on my own. Nice teamwork honey! I was fuming and about to cry as I asked a
nice man working in his yard and he said I was getting closer and if I just
continued out to the highway and took a left I would make it. Will said he would grab my bike and start
down the highway with it and meet me where I came out. He did but we had lost our lead and now were
working from the back of the pack. I
probably ran 2 extra miles or more.
When I got to him I asked him why he didn’t have his phone on. He said he never thought to turn it on
because he didn’t really need it. I
replied with oh really, when you got to the bottom of the road and I wasn’t
there you didn’t think something was wrong.
He said he did and thought I might have had a heart attack and fallen
off the side of the mountain. Well and
then you didn’t think maybe you should try calling me instead of sitting at the
bottom of the mountain waiting for 20 minutes with your phone off!!!! He said that thought never entered his mind,
he is not used to using the phone! I don’t get his mind sometimes. We rehashed this over the ride back to the
transition area where we got passport 2.
It was obvious that most of the teams were in front of us now and so we
just had to keep our heads down and try to gain some of the lost time back. When I looked at the map after the race, the streets I told him I was on were right on the map, I don't think he even looked at it.
Passport 2
said to go to 2 mystery locations on foot and complete tasks. Great more
running. The first location was their
sister hotel in Bend. We knew this was
the Phoenix Inn. For the second, we had to
solve a puzzle to figure out it was Deschutes Brew Pub. Thanks to our donors this was one of the
clues we got early so we had already figured out the locations. Once we got to the hotel we had to find a
particular rubber ducky out of a couple hundred floating in the pool. We could get in or try to do it from the
side. We started looking from the side
and got lucky and found it in not too much time. Then it was off to the brewpub.
There we had to play beer pong.
Will did this pretty fast and we were out of there in no time. I made Will drink all the beer. We made our way back to the transition for
passport 3.
This time we had to go out
on bike and find a particular gnome shrine on a mountain bike trail. We were making up some time but now were
probably at the middle of the pack.
Will studied the mountain biking trail map we bought last year and said
he knew how to get to the trailhead we needed.
We headed out and then made it to the trailhead. We had to get on the COD trail to the ELV
tail. Well the COD trail was a black
diamond trail and I don’t mountain bike so this was quite a challenge for
me. I ended up pushing my bike much of
the time. It was quite difficult up
large rocks and stumps and we were not going too fast. I fell off a couple of times and got some
good bruises but we kept pushing forward.
We finally made it and then realized we could take a forest service road
down. We did and made it down the trail
in no time. We really should of taken
the forest service road up to the ELV trail instead of the COD trail but oh
well, now we know for next time. We did
catch up to the Nads, our friendly rivals that always beat us, on this leg and
we both got back to the transition about the same time.
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| These are two guys in front of us coming down but you can see how technical the trail is. |
Passport 4
said to go on foot to two more checkpoints.
We figured these out, one was Orvis sporting store in the Mill District
and the other was In Motion gym and training center. We knew where both of these were and headed out. Once at Orvis we either cast a fly into a
circle floating in a pond or tie a clinch knot in waders.
Well we both had learned how to tie the knot and I sucked at casing a
fly reel so we tied the knot and were out of there in no time.
Next we ran to In Motion where we had to
complete a three-legged slalom course and then crawl under bungees and finally
do 30 burpees. Done! Back to transition. On my way back to the transition my quads
right over the inside of my kneecap cramped up really bad. I hadn’t eaten enough or hydrated enough and
it hurt so bad I didn’t know if I would make it back. I fell to the ground and had Will stretch it for about 15 seconds
and then up again and barely made it back.
After the race the Nads, (Tyler and John) both said the same thing
happened to them right at the same point in the course. They thought it had something to do with
having to do those burpees. I don’t
know but that muscle was sore for 3 days after the race, and that was the only
one that hurt.
Passport 5
said to go to the Visit Bend HQ and complete a task. When we got there we had to do 10 sample SAT questions and get
8/10 correct. We had gotten this the
night before as a clue as well and had it already completed. I did it in no time the night before and
my score was 10/10. Back to transition.
Passport 6,
the last one, said to go to river Bend Park and canoe to get a secret password
and bring the password back. I slipped
on my Merrell shoes, because the first person to finish wearing Merrells got a
certificate for new Merrells, and we were off.
The Nads were only about 10 yds ahead of us when we got to the canoes.
We had to sit facing each other in the canoe to make it harder and Will did an
excellent job of canoeing and we overtook the Nads in the water.
We got our password and paddled back to the
shore and then had to run back to the transition to complete a blindfolded
challenge. One team member was
blindfolded and the other had to navigate them by voice through a field of
plastic balls without them touching any of them. Will was blindfolded and I instructed him to go to the very edge
of the field and then walk up the sideline to avoid as many balls as
possible. In fact with this route, he
only had to step over 1 ball. We passed
another team here and then ran to the finish.
We finished in exactly 4 hours for second place. We missed first by only 3 minutes. I was the first to cross the finish in
Merrells so did get $110 to get new Merrells.
We made quite the comeback from our early mistake pulling it together for
a good showing. Thanks to all those who
donated to us and helped the Deschutes River Conservancy. We had a good time and really pushed
ourselves in this race. Looking forward
to doing the Portland Oyster on August 18th.
Our second place finish with our silver capes.
2012 Total Course Mileage
Course
Totals if you take the most efficient route
Pilot Butte Hoardenger
Bike, 5 miles | Run, 2 miles
Phoenix Inn
Pilot Butte Hoardenger
Bike, 5 miles | Run, 2 miles
Phoenix Inn
Run, 2.3 miles
Gnome
Hunt Mountain Bike
Bike, 2.7 miles
Wanderlust Kayak
+ Mine Field
Run 1.0 mile
Kayak - 0.5 miles
Course
Total = Approx. 25 miles
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