We did it!

Okay, I knew Jenn would finish, but I still had doubts whether I would! The race was divided up into sections, 1) run/walk, 2) bike, 3) swim, 4) bike, 5) the "gauntlet".

We started off at 9:15 a.m. with the run through the woods, along with a rubber chicken that each team has to carry as their third teammate. There were so many women, the "traffic" made us walk through the first section. We jogged for awhile and then walked again. Our first "mystery event" was scrambling up a mountain of gravel! We felt like kids again, up the gravel and back down again. At the end of the run, we were told to clip our shoes together with a caribiner and do the rest of that section as a 3-legged race!

Back to the transition area, we picked up our bikes and helmets. Now we faced the trails on our bikes. It seemed to me that the majority of the trail was uphill! The bike trip was broken up by more mystery events. The first was just to toss our chicken through a hoop. Others were more inventive -- we were handcuffed to each other through a rope obstacle course, had to balance (walking sideways) along a wide tube, and, my favorite, the intellectual puzzles! I did well on the mystery events. Jenn actually had trouble with the balancing part and had to do it three times. This made me feel a little better for making her stop or walk for me to catch my breath. The puzzles were fun -- word scrambles, word finds, geometry and other math. We got all our answers right. (Other teams weren't so lucky and had to keep working on their answers until they got a minimum number right.)

Back on the bikes, I was thinking about doing this same course again for the second bike section (minus the events). I honestly didn't know how I'd do it...I was trying to think how I'd break it to Jenn...but part of me didn't want to forfeit...

It was hot, but the worst thing for me was the pain in my lungs. It hurt so much to breathe, and I couldn't catch my breath. I used my inhaler 5 times, and I was starting to think it wasn't having an effect anymore.

We (finally) got back to the transition area to ditch our bikes and pick up our floats for the swim. As we approached the starting area, we saw Anthony and the kids! Anna started running in circles around us, chanting "We found them! We found them!" They were so happy to see us, but we still had half the race to go!

Our float for the swim was Anna's whale, Shami (not Shamu, because she's a girl). We also had to wear annoying life vests (race rule). We hiked to the lake and stepped in the sticky mud to wade through thigh-high weeds in the water. The water felt good, and it had also started to rain. We made it about a third of the way through when they spotted lightning in the distance and had everyone exit the lake. We were glad we got to do at least some of the water portion.

We headed to the transition area again, where we dropped off our swimming stuff and got back on the bikes. By now it was REALLY raining, pelting us on our left side and cooling everything off considerably. Now the tricky part was the mud! It was very slippery, and there were a lot of ruts in the path. We saw a couple women who crashed. I still had to walk some, but I made it through. This time when we got to the transition area, all we had left was the gauntlet, so named for its entry to the finish line and its many obstacle events.

We climbed over a rope wall, crawled through kid-size tunnels, rolled through the mud under a rope mesh and then crawled through a water tank under additional ropes. We were soaked, muddy and glad it was over! The announcer called out our names and team name as we crossed the finish line. Whew. What a relief.

After a feast from Carraba's, we headed back to the Martin house to rinse off all the mud.

Now, after a lovely dinner by Jenn (how in the hell did she have the energy to cook?), I feel pretty good. I'm glad I finished, I know how to work towards the next one in Dallas in September, and I'm glad it's over! We finished in 2 hours 20 minutes. (And, by the way, I think the last team came in around at 3 hours.)