Amanda, Tom and I participated in the Hi-Tec Adventure Race which was held in Sacramento, CA on Sunday August 18, 2002.  It consisted of a 5 mile trail run, 1.5 mile kayak and a 9 mile mountain bike ride.   What made the race fun were the Special Tests involved.   We had 7 Special Tests, and the most famous of them is called The Wall, which is a 12 foot wall the whole team must climb.  Pictures are below for people that don't like to read....

We arrived on Saturday and attended some clinics that gave tips on how to do the wall climb and mountain biking.   There was also a mandatory meeting in which they told us the distances of the run, kayak and bike.  The great thing about this Adventure Racing series is that each race has different twists to it.  With the exception of The Wall, no team finds out about the Special Tests until you arrive at them during the race.  I was hoping our team could win one of the top ten team names at the meeting to win a pair of Hi-Tec shoes, but evidently our team name "Ain't Too Proud to Puke" didn't make the cut.

Our race started with a 5 mile run.  After about 4 miles we came to our first special test which was orienteering.  They gave us a map and we had to find 4 playing cards which were found in bags(a red 7, 8, 9 & 10) located in the park.  Each team had to remain together throughout the orienteering event.  When you arrive at any Special Test you must have your whole team present otherwise they do not let you proceed.  Other teams had to look for different sets of cards so we couldn't just follow the team that was ahead of us.   We finished the Orienteering test and continued with the run in which we had to wade through chest deep water and finally through a mud section.

As we arrived near the transition area we had to go inside a booth.  We found a list of instructions numbered 1-9.  Instruction 1 was to perform 10 situps and pushups as a team.  The hardest one was two teammates had to switch a shoelace since we had just run through mud.  We worked our way through instruction #7 and got to #8 which said that we only needed to perform instruction #9 which was to ring a bell located in our booth.  They totally play mind games with you in this event!

The next special event was to cross a section of sand using two boards without any teammate touching the sand below us within that section.

We then arrived at the kayaking portion of the event.  Tom and I had a hard time during this part.  At one point we flipped over in the middle of the lake.   Amanda was in her own kayak and was going faster than us together in the other kayak.   We initially had our boats tied together, but that didn't exactly work, I think we ended up paddling at least 2 miles.  This was the funniest part of the race though because I got a bit tired and when that happens I tend to start laughing.  I was really tired.

Once we finished the kayak, we came up to the dirtiest part of the event.  We had to interlock arms and roll over each other across a mud pit.  At this point Amanda joined me in my laughing phase and poor Tom was stuck at the bottom of the mud pit while we couldn't quite roll ourselves over him.  We made it through and came to the next special test which was a memorization of 7 items in which you had 10 seconds to look at what you had to memorize.  Only one person could be the spokesperson for your team and if you didn't repeat the items correctly your team had to go through the mudpit again.  Tom had the idea of each of us splitting what we had to memorize and then I was the spokesperson.   We got it the first time but there were other teams that weren't so lucky.

After the mud pit, we came through the transition area.  A team must be completely self sufficient for the race which could last up to 6 hours.  They don't pass out water or food throughout the event, so we packed all our stuff in here.  We were pretty prepared when it came to this which helped a lot.

The next event was the 9 mile mountain bike ride.  Amanda exceeded our expectations and so we gained ground on a lot of teams, even passing all guys teams.  It was frustrating at times because there was a lot of single track and slower teams created a bottleneck effect in many areas.  Once we came in from the bike the volunteers told us to keep our helmet on to proceed with the next special events, we were almost done! We came up to the inverted wall climb which is a wall tilted at about 45 degrees.   Tom and I let Amanda go first and we grabbed her feet to spot her.  Once she was at the top board we climbed and swung ourselves up the climb.  This was probably my favorite of the special tests but I must say the booth one was the most clever.

The final test was The Wall.  Tom was the anchor one this one.   I spotted while Amanda climbed up to his shoulders and then Tom pushed her up with his arms extended.  Once she grabbed onto the top a man from another team who had just finished the climb helped her up and over the wall.  A team is not allowed outside assistance but may use assistance from anyone that is participating in the race.  So in this case we were fortunate to have another team help us out.  We then threw Amanda a rope which she anchored with her foot and held on as Tom and I climbed up.  It's amazing how much leverage helps.

And finally we finished!  It was a blast!  It was cool to see everybody be a strength at some point in each of the events and to push the others forward.