Race

Last weekend Heywood and his race partner Chitwood participated in an adventure race at Lake Tahoe called Big Blue Adventure. For this 6 – 12 hour race, 57 teams entered. Teams could consist of 2-4 persons or solo if one desired. The weather forecast the night before called for shitty weather with continued shitty weather throughout the day.

While making the drive to Lake Tahoe from Casa de Wood in God’s Country, Chitwood looked out the window and said “not sure how it is going to rain if there is not a cloud in the sky. I can see all the stars Heywood.” Yeah. This was at 5:00 am. The two arrived in Tahoe City and staged there bikes next to the kayak in the transition area and then returned to the start/finish line. Morning temps were pushing the very low 40’s at best when the duo was getting dressed. At 7:00 am, 30 minutes prior to the race start, the organizers handed out to each team the map with all the instructions and coordinates for all the checkpoints that must be reached by each team. Team dumbass (that’s wood’s team) mapped the route they decided to take and was civilly waiting the final five minutes before start time when the weather came ragging down in the form of hail. CRAP! With a shot from a bad 44, the race was on.

First was the run to the kayak in the hail. Then Kayak was supposed to be 8-10 miles to two CP and back to the transition area. This did not work out the way everyone expected. Team Dumbass was almost all the way to CP 1 when the lighting starting striking all around. At this point, the US Coastguard stepped in and turned everyone around. Maybe the idea was to out paddle the storm. This was turning out to be a magnificent Noreaster.

Next, the two jumped on the bike and peddled to the orienteering course. After finding all the orienteering markers even though some where misplaced, they continued trying to locate the remaining 4 checkpoints scattered across the mountains of Lake Tahoe. All this was done while snow, rain, or hail continued to fall from the cloudless sky. Heywood felt like he was training for a cyclocross race on the east coast.

After finding the last CP, the only obstacle that remained was a 1200 foot decent while atop their bikes. As they were screaming down the trail, a large black bear ran directly in front of Chitwood. Chitwood then looked back at Heywood and yelled “BEAR!” While looking back at Heywood for comfort and protection, Chitwood steered his mountain bike right of the side of the trail. This caused a catastrophic crashed that Wood thought would somehow end with Chitwood dying and being eaten by the bear. Amazingly, Chitwood was OK and the two raced to the finish line with no further complications.

Results:
13 of 57 overall
3 of 17 for 2 man teams.
Over 9 hours of frozen misery and fun.