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Too Cool "Big Chill" 2010 Race Report

January 23-24, 2010
Bastrop, TX
by Marcy Beard

I'm a big fan of the Big Chill race, especially when it's not actually chilly, and even more especially when we get arm warmers for schwagg. Sweet!

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Our team at the pre-race meeting

This year I raced with Dave Bogle, Jason Mittman, and newcomer Adam Reardon. Adam was recruited when John determined he wouldn't be anywhere near trained and ready. Luckily for us, Adam is a big-time triathlete and XTerra off-road tri guy, and he is super-strong on the bike and run. He was game to practice paddling before the race, and also game for everything else we threw at him during the race, so it worked out great and we all had fun.

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Getting on the bus

As the 24-hour teams boarded a bus at 8 a.m., we were handed a set of multiple-choice trivia questions. They were all related to the words Big (e.g. which actress co-starred in the movie "Big", what is the biggest planet in our solar system by mass, where was the Big Dig project?), Cold (where is the coldest weather on earth recorded, who were the members of the band "Cold", "Cool" is a song from what musical?), and Big and Chilly (which actor was not in the movie "The Big Chill", where in England does "The Big Chill" festival take place, where was wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin born?).

Our team knew several answers, thought we knew several others (even when we didn't), and guessed on the rest. The final tiebreaker question asked us to list synonyms for the word "cold" - we went through a bunch of obvious words and then added some non-obvious ones like nipply, unwarm, brrr, and Bandera (an homage to the race from two weeks ago). Apparently we were unlucky in our grader because we were only given credit for 8 out of 24 of our words! Maybe they just couldn't read Dave's handwriting? Most of our words weren't nearly as questionable as "nipply"...

Anyway, the teams started the race in order of trivia question scores, with a 30-second gap between teams. We were about mid-pack in the starting order, which made more than a couple people happy. Someone suggested taking a picture of their team ahead of Team Vignette. We started with a 4 minute gap behind the lead team, but at least it's a long race and with any luck that wouldn't matter too much.

The bus pulled into McKinney Roughs Nature Park, which we were happy to see. The trails are fun to run, and the trail navigation can be interesting. We weren't as excited to be carrying our paddles and PFD's through the woods, but we dealt with it well. There were three checkpoints (CP's) in the park, and the cluesheet listed UTM numbers for them. That was great, except we didn't have a UTM grid on our trail map, nor any other map of the area that would help.

The clue descriptions, however, pointed us to three "scenic points" listed at the bottom of the map. The clue sheet title also read, "A map is worth a thousand words..." - very clever. I circled the three locations and we were off and running. We started up a road near the ampitheater, continued on the road right into a new challenge course. Hmm, that's odd. I spotted the "Pond Spur" trail which led to Whitetail, then we cut over to Pine Ridge one drainage too early. That led us out of the way and put us behind a couple teams.

We stayed on Pine Ridge again instead of using Whitetail as a shortcut a second time, but finally the trails diverged and we were no longer losing ground. Coming upon a wide open highpoint, we spotted the checkpoint across the way and Dave went to punch it along with several other teams. People were standing around on the top of the hill trying to figure out where the trail had disappeared to. I looked west where it should be going and spotted a big orange downward-facing arrow painted onto a tree. Running over there I found the trail. My teammates followed me, and we were in the lead.

We ran down the trail, over a ridge, and down to the Cypress trail by the river. The CP next to the "Riverside Rapids" was easy to spot, although we didn't see much in the way of rapids. I was thinking that the river was pretty low, but found out later that actually it was higher than we have seen in the past.

At the bend in the river we looked to see if we could cut across to the next trail, but it was pretty thickly overgrown. We climbed up the trail and then decided to cut across through the woods. Even when we came to a rather-deep drainage, we weren't fazed - cut across! I was wondering what Adam was thinking about all this, but he following right along and clambered up the other side with the rest of us without complaint. Even when we kept running into long thick vines with thorns on them!

We followed Coyote Road and then Pecan Bottom to the "Giant Pecan Tree" where Dave hit more underbrush getting to the third CP. We cut back to Coyote Road (more vines) and finally out to the trail along the river. Enough of those vines! Three of us were bleeding, and surprisingly Dave wasn't one of them. He compensated by running into some prickers later so he could join in the fun.

Running along the trail, we checked the clue for the boat put-in, a large icon somewhere up ahead on our high-scale map. It read "Hyatt Lost Pines", which is a fairly large place. We didn't see any boats at the boat dock, so we theorized that the boat truck/trailers were up in the parking lot somewhere. We ran up the hill, couldn't see anything, so Dave went in to ask. The guy at the desk didn't know anything about our boats, but he did say that there was a second boat dock that you could drive down to. We continued north in that direction. Ah yes, that looks like the place!

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John came running across the field to take this picture of us

We weren't as excited as John was, because we were a bit miffed about not finding the boats right away. Running in the lead can have its disadvantages, like showing the teams right behind you which way to go. I recovered my good spirits and gave John a kiss before getting our stuff together in the boats. Time to paddle!

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Here we are jumping on the water

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Team iMOAT right behind

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Another team getting on the water

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A team running toward the put-in

We started off down the river, with Jason coaching Adam on paddling technique and stroke rate. They were doing better every time they got in a boat, and our team's overall pace was good. Dave and I concentrated on finding the best way around islands and rocks, and realized we could actually put some effort into our paddling without losing the other boat behind us. Of course, iMOAT blew right by us like we were standing still (which would have required back-paddling against the current, but that's what it felt like). We were able to follow their approximate line down the river for a short while and then they were gone. Ah well, I guess we'll have to try to catch them later. Good luck with that!

Instead of worrying about that, we focused on eating and drinking, ready for a multi-hour paddle and hoping it wouldn't end up being too painful. At least it wasn't freezing cold like last year. As we were rounding a couple corners at about mile 5, I glanced at the map and saw a dark line going from one spot right ahead of us, southeast to another spot close to the river. I leaned forward to verify that I was looking at route 969 (we were about to go under it), and it indeed got really close to the river further downstream.

I suggested to Dave that we should take a minute to consider a portage possibility. Our calculations came up to a 3-kilometer portage in exchange for over 10 miles of paddling. Which was probably less than an hour walking on the road vs. two hours of paddling on the river. Not to mention was to be the longest paddle of Adam's life, by far, and if we could reduce that, we might be better off. Our boats are relatively light, so the only concern was our ability to get back down to the river through possibly-private property down the road.

We were pulling up to the bridge when one of the guys asked some fishermen if they had seen another boat go by. "Yes," they replied, "they went that way" - and pointed up the opposite bank. iMOAT was also doing the portage! Well, that does it, we have to portage now. We hurried off the water and across the bridge, hoofing it down the road with two canoes.

We managed something of an ugly jog/shuffle, but we made decent progress and Jason helped me with my end of the boat as much as he could while still carrying half of other boat. Two of the shoulder straps broke and we came up with carabiners to get them back on again. It was much easier carrying the boat on a shoulder instead of by hand - although that probably also explains why my shoulders are so sore today. The quick stops were nice breaks, and then we were on our way again, watching a long 4-person speck-of-a-canoe moving ahead in the distance.

Closing in on the river again, we started looking for a way down to it. We skipped the fence with the "No Trespassing" sign and the house with the security system and electric fence. I half-jokingly suggested we call the phone number on the sign on the fence to ask if we could walk through their property, but we decided to try on our own first. We continued on to find a nice sloping hillside down to a drainage, away from the house. Some cows were staring at us, but that didn't stop us from bringing the boats into their field and down to the water. The route turned out to be mostly clear of briars, underbrush, angry cows, or men with shotguns. Just rather muddy.

We got ourselves and our muddy feet back in the boats and pushed off. Success! I started following the bends in the river to figure out where the take-out would be. After about 3 miles we saw houses up on the left. That seemed right, but we didn't see any signs of people or banners or anything to indicate which house we should stop at.

We paused so I could plot the point on the real topo map and study it further. It really seemed like we should be there, but maybe it was just further around the bend. Jason shouted that he saw the take-out... but that turned out to be John sitting on the opposite bank in his red sweatshirt. John suggested that we hadn't gone far enough yet, and who was navigating over there anyway? My husband was mocking me, can you believe it? :)

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John captured this photo of us looking confused

So we continued on, wondering more and more how we weren't finding an indication of where to get out. It wasn't like we were about to climb up the near-vertical bank and start knocking on doors in people's backyards. I was really questioning whether I knew where we were. Finally I tossed the map up to Dave and while he was looking at it we rounded a bend and saw the huge bridges of Bastrop just around the next corner. Halt! Stop!

We pulled over so as not to lose any more ground in case we needed to go back upstream, yikes. Dave pulled out the phone and called Robyn and then Art. We were told to continue on down to Fisherman's Park. OK! We can do that. We paddled on down and pulled out, although there was no sign on iMOAT or their boat. Robyn pulled up in her truck, which we were really glad to see because we weren't excited about just leaving our boats there in a public park. Thanks Robyn! They hadn't expected us at the take-out so soon and weren't quite set up yet.

We plotted the next CP, which was only slightly out of the way from where we were. Jogging north, we started throwing theories around about where iMOAT had gone, until I finally got tired of everyone obsessing about them and told them to concentrate on our race instead. We found CP 4 by a railroad bridge and turned around to head toward Lake Bastrop and the TA.

Later we learned that iMOAT had gone up the inlet to CP 4, taken their boat out there, and portaged it back to the right area. They spent some time trying to figure out where to leave it and talking with a couple people at a church who thought that carrying a long canoe down a back road for no particular reason was actually somewhat humorous. Art finally showed up and they were on their way again, now behind us.

Meanwhile, we jogged up the road, along the railroad track, and across a highway to Hoffman Road. I told the guys how I had noticed that the lake was somehow much higher in elevation than the river. Soon we were walking up a long hill, confirming that point. It was a fine walk on a mighty fine day - the sun was shining, we were warm (but not hot), and we were about to finish a "10+ hour leg" in 4:17. Cool!

Eventually we found the South Shore road and jogged back to the TA. There were several 6-hour and 12-hour teams trekking and biking back and forth in the area, that was fun to see (usually we don't get to watch the other courses at all). People were pretty surprised to see us come into transition, but eventually we got our next clue sheet and were ready to prep for our first bike leg.

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Plotting points for leg 2

This leg would be a long loop around the lake and more. We started up the North-South trailway, a 5-mile trail that we had riden once before. But hadn't seen it quite like this - i.e. dang wet and muddy. Well, it wasn't all that bad. Nationals was much worse in comparison. As much as an experience (like Nationals) can be difficult at the time, it's great for the perspective it brings in future situations. Plus I learned a couple things about riding in mud. Like, sometimes you can ride right through a deep puddle. Also, that it's best to let a teammate try it first to see how deep it is.

So here I was again, apologizing to my bike and trying to keep from getting completely bogged down. At least there were some good, rideable sections too. I did OK, not great, and I got pretty tired but eventually we made it to the North Shore side of the park and CP 5. Our bikes squealed like stuck pigs for while but eventually the mud sanded away anything that was rubbing and things got quiet again.

Onto the main road! We followed route 1441 for a few miles, getting in a paceline and taking turns leading (well, the guys took turns and I followed). After most of the mud finally spewed off the bike tires it was actually a pleasant ride. We pushed pretty hard but still it took a while to find highway 21. Finally a rest! We crossed the higway and started the "old road nav" that would keep us occupied for a while.

The beginning was easy - just follow the dirt road to a gate where CP 6 was hanging. The road continued, we crossed another fenceline, and were immediately confused. The intersection didn't match our map, so we tried one direction briefly and debated whether it might turn the right way. Back to the gate to ponder the bike tracks from the 12-hour teams going both directions. Back down the first road, but it continued slightly south of east instead of actual southeast. Finally we went back to try the other option. After a short ways we located a road going southeast - much better!

The road gradually turned downhill and south, so we were happy. We spotted a road coming in from the right and started looking for the next road where we would make a right turn. There it is, right on time. We followed that road until we came across a huge downed tree lying across the trail. It had a big split in the middle, with enough room to pull our bikes through. Not easily, but we made it eventually. Neat!

At this point in the story, all the other 12- and 24-hour racers are probably wondering what the heck I'm talking about. Because as we rode further along, there was no sign of a pond, and we started to question the route as the odometer ticked upward toward a kilometer from the last intersection. Finally (yes finally!) we noticed the creek to our left. Oops, we were supposed to cross that creek before turning right. Someone mentioned they had seen a bridge right past where we turned off. Sigh. Back we go, back up the trail, and BACK through the giant tree across our path. It was still a really cool tree.

Back out to the first road, we crossed the creek on a nice little bridge and found the trail we wanted. Along with a sign stuck in the ground saying "Adventure Race ->" - what?? That was really too funny, that we missed a turn with a SIGN in front of it. We were only slightly amused at the time, but it was a lot funnier talking about it later. We started wondering about the flagging tape hanging from trees - should we be following that too? I'm not sure what Adam was thinking about our navigation "skills" at that point.

The road took us up a hill and over to a pond where we located CP 7 without difficulty. Now we were heading where there are no roads, at least on the map ("Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads"). Except that we could see that roads did actually exist. Would we do any better with our nav when the roads were NOT on the map compared to when they were? Let's find out...

We followed a road that aimed west, which was approximately where we needed to go. We knew that if we hit a creek we should turn south and bushwhack. But we didn't have to do that (yay!) because the road curved south for us. We had a hill for an eastern boundary and a pipeline as a southern stopping point. The road crossed a huge powerline, which also had a "pipeline" sign on it, so we forded the creek to find CP 8 just south of there.

From there we needed to go two kilometers south, following the creek if possible. There were dirt roads going south on either side of the creek, so we decided to try the one where the CP was located. Perhaps they were telling us something with the point placement. But almost immediately that road bent west and uphill - not good! When it showed no signs of cooperating, we turned around and ditched it.

Back across the creek, the other road was much nicer to us. It followed the creek south, there were lots of bike tracks from the 12-hour teams, and it even had flagging tape as a bonus. Well, the flagging tape eventually took off to the east, so we gave up on that pretty quickly, but at least the road was easy to follow. And not even too muddy.

And it even crossed the creek on a little bridge - nice! We followed it across a field and to a building that turned out to be an old barn, just like we were looking for. CP 9 (and a huge raven-looking bird) was inside waiting for us. After that, we climbed up to our old friend Gotier Trace road, had a discussion about how to pronounce "Gotier Trace", and rode uphill to our other old friend the powerline cut. I actually dislike riding the powerline trails, but this time it didn't seem so bad. Probably because we only had to go one-way for a bit over a kilometer.

A couple fences intersected the powerline, but we didn't find CP 10 immediately - it was supposed to be at a trail/fence intersection. We rode down the trail into the woods to the left, looking for where a fence crossed over. At the bottom we figured we must have missed it, so we walked back uphill and spotted the checkpoint pretty easily from the other direction.

The trail surprisingly continued along the park boundary in a northwesterly direction, pointing exactly toward CP 11. Who were we to argue? I had no desire to stay on the powerline anyway, so off we went on the trail. It climbed for a while and I had to walk the steepest parts, also over a couple logs, but all-in-all it was a decent, non-muddy road. Jason was feeling tired, but he was still keeping up with me just fine.

At the top of the hill we could see highway 21 in front of us, and then I spotted CP 11 over by the road. Time to get back to the pavement! We rode briefly next to the highway, then up the South Shore road back to TA. Nice work on that leg, y'all. We completed it in 2:54 and it was still light outside. We theorized it might get dark on us during the next section.

Back at TA we learned we would be trekking around the south shore park to find three points. Our transition was pretty quick because we didn't need to carry much extra on this short jog. I copied the CP's onto the trails map and we took off north for a quick run to CP 14 on a bench by the trail. Then back through TA (hello again!) and over to a trail on the point of land across the way. We could have cut off some distance by swimming, but only Adam might have appreciated that.

We passed 12-hour racers going both directions on foot, and a couple guys heading back to TA were very supportive - they told us to hang in there, we can do it - I don't think they realized we were a 24-hour team, and it was pretty funny, but we certainly appreciated that they were looking out for other teams.

CP 12 was easy to find along the powerline. We ran back south and located the Swift Trail that led to a couple loop trails on the south side. We could see another powerline from a distance and cut over to it as soon as we got close. There is a power station on the lake, for those of you wondering about the multitude of high voltage lines in the area.

We covered a good kilometer along the powerline and then Dave located the draw we were looking for. After a touch of bushwhacking we had located CP 13. Back to TA! We maintained a decent run/walk and returned for a total of 58 minutes for the trek. OK, Dave said, now it will probably get dark on us during the next leg.

Except that he brought back a clue sheet with one paddling point on it - we would be using the rental canoes to find one checkpoint around the corner. Looking over at the windy, wavy lake, we weren't exactly excited about getting on the water, but at least it was just one checkpoint and we could follow the shoreline instead of getting into the middle of the nastiness.

I asked John if he knew where our paddles were, since the clue sheet said we could use our own. He hemmed and hawed about giving us an answer, telling us that we weren't allowed to use our own gear. We questioned some more, and finally got an answer that Robyn had changed the rule. We kept at it, saying we had extra paddles that we could pull out of the car? NO, we had to use the rentals - OK, let's get it done!

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Putting canoes on the water with help from Nick

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It would have been easier if the rest of the lake were this flat

It wasn't much fun paddling in the waves, but the canoes were pretty stable at least. Dave and I had one bit of tippiness as we rounded the top of the peninsula with the wind to the side, but avoided anything worse. Once in the inlet it got calmer and we sailed on over to CP 15. The team had a discussion about portaging back to TA. With our light canoes I would have been all for it, but the rental boats are heavy and I wasn't excited about the amount of work that would take. So we decided to fight the wind back and stay on the water.

Dave kept us really close to shore, skimming the tops of submerged reeds, and we didn't have much trouble with the wind. Jason and Adam worked hard and followed not far behind. We crossed back to TA and jumped out after 35 minutes. Another leg done and it still wasn't dark - nice!

OK, now we need to bring the bike lights and put on our Too Cool arm warmers. We had a longer loop ahead of us, apparently all on nice dirt and paved roads. Time to go back to Bastrop! Team iMOAT was currently on the trek, so we had a decent lead but didn't want to squander it or make any big mistakes. We started with a smooth ride out of the park and down Hoffman Road. My bike got a bit squirrely on me, so we stopped to check it out - low tire pressure in the back. We added some air with a CO2 to see how far we could get before we might have to change the tube.

We rode through town and down to CP 17 at a tower at Fisherman's Park. Hey, we've been here before. Then on a paved pathway by the river over to CP 16 next to a little pier. We needed to continue south, and the pathway had ended, so it looked like we would need to climb a bunch of stairs to get back to street level. I picked up my bike to get started. Jason questioned Dave about it, and Dave basically told him that if you see Marcy doing something, chances are good that you should be doing it too! Toward the top I started giggling when I spotted Robyn with her camera shooting photos of our efforts. Hi Robyn!

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Those are some nice looking arm warmers

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Go Team V!

We crossed under highway 71, made a short detour through a neighborhood when the roads didn't match the map, and found the main road heading south past the ballfields. We had come the other way previously on a training ride, but didn't know the roads perfectly well. We had also run down the railroad tracks in a previous Big Chill race, but decided not to try that on our bikes. On the bright side, there was a gorgeous sunset going on to our west.

Dave pulled out the Bastrop street map we had thought to bring along, and he started calling out directions at each intersection. It took four turns, bypassing several incorrect streets, and figuring out how to pronounce "Waipahoehoe," but Dave got us on the right road going south. Actually he resorted to, "If it starts with a 'K', don't take it - we want the one that starts with a 'W'."

We rode down to the riverside road, crossed the tracks, and found CP 18 in the culvert below the second of two dips in the road. Well, Dave went down and found it while the rest of us watched. Thanks Dave! Then we continued on to Tahitian Drive. This is a rather hilly paved road that goes back to highway 71.

Along the way we stopped at another culvert for CP 19. While Dave and Jason were looking for the checkpoint and I was adding more CO2 to my back tire, a woman pulled up to ask if we were OK. She seemed really concerned about us parked at the bottom of the hill as it was getting dark. We tried to reassure her and let her know that she would see other teams come by throughout the night.

Now for the fun part, or I should say "fun" part. Lots of ups and downs on Tahitian and some really steep hills. We were still moving well, at least, and we walked only one extremely steep part. Jason had recovered from feeling less-than-strong and was doing great. Adam completely enjoyed every biking section.

We crossed the highway, finally back to flatter territory. CP 20 was at Rising Phoenix, I believe the folks who had provided the rental boats. We couldn't see the buildings very well, but we slowed when we got close to the radio tower. Finally I spotted a canoe and a sign across the way, and we rode down the street to find the checkpoint behind the Rising Phoenix building.

Back to TA! First we had to ride down highway 21 for a ways, which wasn't great because of all the traffic, but at least the shoulder was decent and the experience was rather exciting. Then finally back onto the South Shore road. We saw several teams on foot and on bikes going both directions, and it was fun greeting people. We finished the leg in 1:37, a very nice split even with the stops for adding air to my tire.

When we returned to our transition area, John helped me redo my pack while Dave checked in. Dave called out that we had to turn in our big map in exchange for a new topo of Bastrop State Park. John tried to help me plot the points, giving me the coordinates for the TA which wasn't even on the map, until I finally heard Dave saying over and over that the points were pre-plotted, we didn't need to plot the points, hello!

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Studying the orienteering points

Finally, after refilling a few things and a couple people eating way too much food, we were ready to head out on the last section. The long jog south on pavement was uneventful, and I tried to look ahead to the first three orienteering points in the park. We crossed the highway and pushed into the woods, taking an east-southeast bearing toward a long drainage. Once there we crossed over and followed it until we found a small side drainage where CP 21 was located. One down, four more to sweat about.

We continued up the main drainage, noticing a single headlamp mostly stationary on the other side. We asked if that person was OK, and when we got an "Uhhh," we stopped to help get the guy pointed in the direction back to the main road. Moving on, we found a small trail to follow for a bit before veering east along a shallow draw all the way to a little pond. Jason led the way through some vegetation and we all quickly followed. At the pond we located CP 22 and heard a 12-hour crashing around a bit.

Climbing up to the east, we popped up on the ridge at a trail. We decided to follow the trail northeast just a hair, and then it turned east in the direction we were headed. Nice! It went down and up for a bit, but we figured we were moving faster than the more direct line through the woods. Eventually it turned nicely south and crossed the drainage we needed. We stepped off the trail and moved, more slowly now, along the drainage until we came across CP 23. Only two more to go!

We were a bit worried about the last two. They were placed in an area of lots of intersecting draws, big and small, and many an orienteer (including some of our team) had been lost there more than once in the past. Normally I might have approached from the north, but the southern point was next to a little trail and a tempting point to aim for next.

First we had to get to that area. We considered a direct line from CP 23, but we found a small trail heading slightly out of the way to the southwest and decided to stay on it and run/speedwalk along it instead of bushwhacking. We found the park road and then the dirt road going south, which we followed for a while.

We located the trail that led to the pond, then moved around to the back of the pond where we found a draw and CP 24. From there we decided to follow the main drainage down to the big intersection and then go back up the next main drainage toward our final checkpoint. It was a bit slow going along the sides and bottom of the drainage, but the vegetation wasn't too bad.

As we approached the large intersection we heard a loud dog barking. It turned out that some people were camping there, and their dog was seriously unhappy about these strange, smelly people walking nearby. We warned the folks (who had a good grip on the growler, I was happy to see) that there would be more teams coming through all night. I wonder if they decided to relocate so they might get some sleep?

Another 200 meters later we found a side drainage and followed it uphill to find a permanent orienteering marker at the top. Hmm, this feels familiar. I wonder how many times we have been here before. In the middle of the night. You'd think we would know it by heart. But no, it took a couple minutes for us to root around, and Jason finally found a bigger draw next door to the west. Checkpoint! And... phew!

We climbed north and got back on the park road. Nothing left to do but follow the roads. We ran down the hills, walked up the hills, and did whatever we could manage in between. It was a beautiful night, we were warm and still feeling good, and we were hopeful that we might have done enough to win this thing. A while later we ran back into TA to find that we were indeed the first team back. Sweet! Our final leg took 3:03, for a total of 13:24. Team iMoat lost some time with the river take-out issue, matched our splits for the first bike leg and final trek, beat us by 4 minutes at the lake paddle, and fell back a bit during the run around the park (-15 minutes) and the second bike section (-33 minutes) for a final time of 14:25 and second place.

Too Cool did a marvelous job by changing up the venue this year, adding a 6-hour race, setting it up so we got to see racers from the other courses, taking us to new territory, showing us around Bastrop, and putting on a fun event. Thank you, thank you! Well done to all teams who came out and gave it a go this year. Big thanks to my awesome teammates and to everyone who helped in TA. What a blast!

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Awards ceremony

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Dave, Nick, and Logan

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With iMOAT, trying to figure out which camera to look at!

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