Running from the Alamo to the Texas Capitol

So!  Lately I've been playing around with the concept of Fastest Known Times (FKT's), a way to go on new adventures and in some cases set an informal record.  Really just for fun and to get ideas for interesting places to do some training.  For lesser-known FKT's, there's a chance that I'd be the first female to complete and report it, so I just have to finish it to get on the board.  For example, my first FKT was last year on Maui, from sea to sky and back.

There aren't a lot of opportunities in Texas to do something quite so epic.  I decided to try creating one of my own, and maybe it will be interesting enough that someday someone else will follow in my footsteps.  Or not, no matter!

I happened to see an Amtrak train pulling into Austin one day, and that got me thinking, I wonder if it's possible to run from San Antonio to Austin?  What about from the Alamo to the Capitol?  That makes it sort of an interesting story.  Let's do that.

So I set it up the FKT board and set about to planning.  Here's the route I took (with a couple very minor changes): goo.gl/maps/fgYANdmycBw

Some things to know:

1. At ~80 miles, this is not a long road run by any means.  It's a beginner cross-country trek, dwarfed by things like running across entire states, the Last Annual Vol State run, and of course anyone crazy enough to run across the US.  And road running isn't something I intend to do a lot of; this was just a starter test to see how I liked it.  Result = it's doable but at this point I really prefer trails.

2. This was not Primal Quest training.  I'm supposed to be biking and paddling and going up/down steep mountains with a weighted pack to get ready for September.  I'd also like to keep some running fitness in between all that, so this was kind of a "fun interlude," or as John put it, procrastination from PQ training  :)  And after all, miles on my legs can't hurt!

Brief pre-run adventure:
I had planned to take the train from Austin to San Antonio (after all, Amtrak was the inspiration).  Some brief flooding in San Marcos negated the train option on the exact day I intended to start, so there was a delay in the plans.  Instead of waiting to see if the tracks would reopen the next day, I switched to MegaBus to get to the starting spot, and that worked out great.  The trip down was quick and the timing for running overnight worked out better anyway.

Plus the Alamo was open when I got there so I could wander around a little before hightailing it outta town.

A little souvenir from the gift shop that seemed appropriate:

Giant flowering cactus in the yard:

A bit of Texas history:

Lunch had settled, everything in place, time to get trucking.  Before starting the chrono on my watch:

Start time of 4:15 pm on April 12 2017:

One last selfie at the Alamo on the way out:

Thoughts of my husband...

Check out the dino butt:

In the front lobby of the museum, not sure this came out very well but it looks cool in person:

Lovely "trees" and gate:

Step one - leaving San Antonio, check!

I originally was going to start several hours further into the evening, but instead I had some sunshine and warmth for the first section.  Which meant I needed to eat my chocolate before it melted.  Ah well, the sacrifice must be made.  I found a "Marcia" street sign and figured it was appropriate enough for a selfie:

Almost presidential!

Lovely but really large houses in the neighborhood heading out of town:

Solar for John!

Thinking of my friend Kathy:

Probably the most interesting mural of the journey, at Planet K on Austin Highway:

Happy not to be in a car today!  Just missed a photo of a train, looks like the tracks are back open so that's good.

Heading for my first pit stop at the Valero, bathroom break plus water resupply.  I also checked the blinking lights on the Spot tracker and they seemed to indicate that everything was working.

I was playing with a loose goal of 4 mph average, including breaks, and this section was certainly a good start.  Closer to 5 mph but also a good motivator to limit the rest stop time.

Go bear go!

Awesome mailbox design along Randolph Boulevard, very Texas:

Another sign of making progress:

This was sort of a view?  One of the few places I could see very far ahead.  Also a look at the mowed grass where I ran near the highway access road for a few miles.  It was great having a safe place to run that was nowhere near the cars, but it made for some extra work and slower going.

I'm at Crestview already??  Oh wait, not the same Crestview:

Valero #2 (happy to support Valeros as many of them are open 24 hours).  Not sure why I look surprised that I'm getting my picture taken.

Not quite 20 miles in, and the effects of running on the road are starting to be noticeable.  It's never really fun for the feet, especially since I'm not acclimated to my Hokas so I didn't want to risk wearing them.  The feet were happier when I was running instead of walking, so that was a good reason to keep up the pace.  My knees would ache now and then, and a good walk break would help with that.  Switching back and forth was definitely key.  I was glad that nothing ever really got worse, just there for the duration.

The best part was that I had reached an excellent section of the access road - plenty of shoulder, very few cars, gentle hills, and a beautiful time of night to be running.  The hum of the highway nearby kept me company but otherwise it was very peaceful and I was happy to still be making good time.

One place that saw a bit of traffic - want to bowl a few frames, anyone?

In New Braunfels I veered off the access road and got some change of scenery through the streets of town.  There were a few people out and about, not too busy.  Crossing the river I ran through a cloud of smoke, what was that about?

The best sign!

This next photo didn't turn out great (and this is after several tries to light it up), but it says Austin 45 miles to the left, San Antonio 35 miles to the right.  Almost halfway!  Still keeping ahead of the 4 mph pace, not sure I can maintain it but so far so good.

Hey, it's another Planet K, and a duck!

The all-important "checkpoint beaver"

It was worth walking the length of the place for the excellent bathrooms and the stop at the food counter.  They didn't have breakfast sandwiches though, so I settled for a croissant.

Trying unsuccessfully to get a photo of the beaver statue:

Well, that was a long-ish stop, back on the road to try to make up a little time.

We should see about getting a Subway at our adventure racing TA's:

A bit more access road, then over to Hunter Road for some quieter running.  The Happy Cow bar and grill was all lit up but didn't seem to be open.  I passed Centerpoint Road, which is sort of the halfway point between Austin and San Antonio, although I had reached my halfway mileage a little back from there.  Cool!

Somewhere along here I changed counties again:

Hey, an open gas station!  I didn't find this in my pre-run sleuthing; it had seemed like most places in San Marcos closed overnight so I'd been planning a detour to HEB.  Instead I ran in here to use the bathroom and get more water.

The guy behind the counter asked where I was walking tonight.  Well, since you asked... I told him I was running from the Alamo to the Capitol.

He paused and looked at me - "What does that mean?"

And then clarified - are you saying you are going from San Antonio to Austin on foot?  Why yes I am!  He seemed suitably impressed while seeing the ridiculousness of it at the same time.  I thanked him for being open in the middle of the night, very helpful.

Just down the street - the Candy Wraptor, not a great photo but I had to try:

San Marcos was the quietest I've ever seen.  Although there were a couple women walking and talking on the sidewalk and a runner with some interesting lights on his ankles and wrists.  Almost, but not completely deserted.  Then there was someone on a bike - who rides their bike at 3 in the morning?  Hey, it's Sheila!!!

I apparently had a couple Spot-stalkers, including my friend Sheila who lives in San Marcos.  Amazingly, she got up in the middle of the night to come see how I was doing.  Wow, thank you!  We had a fun little chat, then I was on my way out of town and she was on her way back to bed.  Very cool.

I was somewhere around 50 miles in.  My legs had reached sort of a steady state of mild discomfort, but the bigger topic was finding something I thought I could eat.  I was feeling a bit "low energy" but not really wanting to chew on anything and it had been awhile since the Buc-ees croissant.  If I remember right, I might have tried one of the chia bars I was carrying, something to get me to the next convenience store a few miles away.  I've always been able to eat whatever I want during a training run, but this was probably the longest training run I've ever done?  So it wasn't too surprising to have my stomach start to rebel a little.

Post Road was a wonderful, quiet place to run and think.  I enjoyed those miles, especially crossing the little bridge over the Blanco River.  It seemed like a good time to get out my iPod to listen to a podcast, which was great until I returned to the access road and the highway noise.  Ah well, fun while it lasted.

A short while later I was in Kyle, crossing over to the 7-11 that was open all night (thank you!).  I decided on a yogurt, thinking I could probably handle a few bites anyway.  A short break and one selfie later, and the yogurt was gone.  Nice, that should help!

I peeled myself up off the sidewalk and crossed back to continue up the access road.  I started seeing more waypoints that I had made notes about, and there was more to look at through here, more civilization as it were.  Kyle Crossing, Windy Hill Road, then I decided on another quick stop at a Valero for a water resupply.

Overnight I had carried a second water bottle in my pack for some of the longer sections, but I was ready to ditch that in favor of quick stops more often.  My pack was feeling heavier by the hour, even removing the extra water.  I would do a mental inventory of what I was carrying, and did I really need the extra clothes?  Not likely.  Maybe I could find a post office along the way and mail myself back some extraneous items so I didn't have to carry them anymore... at least it was a funny idea, but no, by the time anything opened I was already close enough to the end that it made even less sense.

Morning time, lighter skies but lots of fog.  Hey, now that little sunscreen tube is extraneous too.  I was not complaining about the lack of sunshine!  Happy for the cool weather, wow, it really was the perfect temperature the whole time.  Besides being soaking wet from the humidity, I hardly ever thought about being hot or cold.

There it is, where we met our home (Howie, for "house on wheels-ie") for the first time at Crestview RV in Buda:

Traffic picked up so I kept my headlamp on, plus the reflective strip I had attached to my pack shoulder seemed to give me some visibility.  I stayed far from the driving lanes, stepping off the pavement as needed, and most cars had already changed lanes upon seeing me from far away.  Most helpful.

Not so helpful was spotting some poison ivy here and there along the roadside.  Something else to dodge.  Maybe after all the pretty springtime flowers are done blooming they will mow the roadside.  It wasn't super prevalent but did keep me on my toes.

Also not helpful - some sections of mud that stuck all to my shoes and made it harder to detour onto offroad tracks.  Arrgh.  Scrape off the shoes, back to the road, step off and avoid the poison ivy and the mud, back on the road, run now that the road is empty!, pause, run!, pause.  Interval training and also gratitude that this was only a small portion of the trip.

This sign is only notable because it's facing backwards on the access road - who exactly are they trying to reach here?  If you see this, you're going the wrong way!  It just struck me as funny:

I ran in at HEB for a quick bathroom stop and to buy one banana.  14 cents!  And it was delicious, I finished it before leaving the parking lot.  My stomach was working better and all systems were go for more interval training.

The one section I would definitely change about my route would be to take Old San Antonio Road from the HEB to Puryear Road.  It's a bit narrow, but it has to be better than the access road between those two points.  When they build highway 45 they apparently decided that a shoulder is completely unnecessary (really?), so I spent a lot of time waiting in between cars.  It was a short distance but the least pleasant of the journey.

Finally past 45 and back to an excellent shoulder and many fewer cars, yay!  It was also the beginning of some big hills, quite noticeable after being on my feet that many hours.  Long run down to Onion Creek, at least I'm moving faster again!  And Onion Creek is quite pretty from the bridge:

Up the hill... hey, there's another Planet K, well I certainly can't pass up a chance to get a photo trifecta:

I started thinking more specifically about finish times.  20 hours would be great, that was always a nice goal to aspire to.  That would be 12:15 pm.  Another target would be finishing before noon.  Then the "4 mph" goal would be sometime around 11:45 am just to be sure, having not figured the precise number of miles yet.

Then my left ankle started giving me a little trouble, twisted ever so slightly from all the times I stepped off the roadway and found angled ground off to the side.  It tweaked occasionally, causing me to revert to speed-walking, then focusing on running straight and with good posture.  Hmm, that could keep me from running it in, but at least walking was still fine.  So I'll focus on walking quickly.

Finally to Southpark Meadows, sweet!  I had been looking forward to leaving the highway for good, plus there was a Starbucks right along the route.  Overnight I was idly dreaming about stopping somewhere for decaf coffee, and this seemed liked a good place for that, but then I decided I really didn't want to wait nor take the time to drink it.  I had an ankle that might give me trouble, I had just over 8 miles to go, and I wasn't sure how long this last part might take.

I did run in and order a croissant to go plus they helped refill my water bottle (one less disposable plastic bottle, thank goodness).  Starting up Congress Avenue, eating my croissant bite by bite, a nice speedy walk up the little hill.  Wow, I'm finally on Congress Avenue, kind of hard to believe.

Another big dip, way down and way back up... I wonder how many more of these there are?  Kip had noted that the route had an overall elevation loss, but it certainly wasn't all downhill, especially right at the end.

Hey, I used to live at these apartments way back when I first moved to Austin!  That's pretty cool:

Little ankle twinges but nothing too problematic, just keep focusing and keep moving.  Another down-and-up, yep.  Crossing Ben White, another accomplishment.  Somewhere around St Ed's it started raining, well then!  I bagged up the camera and figured everything else was already waterproofed or could just get wet.

I noticed that cars going by were splashing up all kinds of water from the puddles, happily I was running on the sidewalk.  But it made me realize that I'd gotten really lucky - if it had rained not long earlier, I might have been soaked from car splashes on the access road - phew, nice to avoid that!

One last big downhill to the river before one last climb to the Capitol, almost there!  Hey, there's Leslie!  She rode downtown on her bike to see me finish, and happily she also documented it for me, very cool!  Hi Leslie!

About one mile from the building in the background:

Selfie from the bridge, with the hat looking a little soggy:

Quick stop to get a photo for a certain race director who also does cross-country treks:

Leslie captured my entrance onto the Capitol grounds on video:



There it is!

Last few steps to the stairs...oh right, stairs!... but my legs managed it OK:

And done!  Well, I beat those time goals pretty good.

Final tally on my watch chrono = 18:46:20.  Calculated at 79.4 miles including the walk over to Buc-ees, etc.

Woohoo, glad to be done!  Thank you Leslie for the photos and video!

That was actually sort of epic  :)

Thank you everyone who tracked the Spot dot and kept a virtual eye on me, and for all the fun comments on email and Facebook.  I had no idea this would be any kind of "big deal", it was just a training run, but I ended up feeling connected to a lot of people and that was really special.  Thanks again!

Recent rides and runs

Another set of random photos from around Austin, as I've been enjoying exploring while getting in a few training miles.

I spent one day trekking to all the Trader Joe's in town, because well, Trader Joe's.  I started with the one downtown, a favorite spot that I pass by all the time.  And I can't pass by without going in.  One of my favorite treats:

Some of the newer buildings in the area (new to me, at least):

The trail to the Nature Center with a nice little arch:

View of downtown from under Mopac bridge:

A trail I just "discovered" - neat!  No idea how long this has been here, but you can get from the Mopac bridge parking lot over to Zilker Park this way:

Running along Mopac (and there appears to be another trail and bridge further south by 360 that I need to figure out how to get to):

Obligatory bagel break, I sure am going to miss Bruegger's!

Fun mailbox in Rollingwood:

Love these signs:

TJ's stop #2:

The last Trader Joe's is the crux - way up in the Arboretum.  I had decided to combine this with the quest to run to the end of bus line #350 to make the day more manageable, then I could ride the bus all the way back to the house.

The route took me up Exposition, through Tarrytown to Balcones.  Somewhere along there I found public art (along with a few hills):

TJ's #3, check!

A quick stop at Genuine Joe's (no relation to Trader Joe's, I don't believe) for a delicious decaf iced coffee, which I didn't really have much time for because of the bus schedule.  So if you saw a runner on Anderson Lane carrying a water bottle in one hand and an iced coffee in the other, that might have been me.  I did make the bus  :)

More food porn!  This one is from the Manor 290 Cafe, which I didn't expect to be all that great, but it actually was pretty good, especially the sweet potato fries.  Oh, and the workout was a ride from our place near the airport, up the east side Walnut Creek Trail, past Decker Lake and over to Manor.

I had ridden 7.5 miles of the trail before but never over to the lake so I was happy to finally get that far.  Very nice trail!

And a very quick view of the lake, which I missed on the way up in between all the trees (don't blink):

Lovely view of Austin from off Montopolis near the river:

Oh, and the best find in Manor was Tamale Addiction, seriously, I had no plans to return to Manor but now I'm plotting going back up there just for these.  They sell at (and will deliver to) weekend farmers markets around the area and the tamales are a-ma-zing.

Next quest!  With less food involved, sorry?  I rode the first loop of the Tour das Hugel route, stopping early on to get a photo from the overlook on 360.  Very nice.

The rest of the ride was all UP and DOWN and UP and DOWN, well, I did expect a lot of hills, but wow some of them are steep.  Mostly short, but many many of them.  And that was only 1/3 of the whole route, what?  It's a doozy!

Now for a shorter day, which turned out to be a bit more challenging than expected.  But not in the "running" way - we went to an orienteering meet at Chalk Ridge Falls put on by the Austin Orienteering Club.  The navigation this time took some real focus.  Very early, when I couldn't hardly see the trail that was supposed to be there, I realized I should pay close attention and maybe take it slower than I normally would.  Good precision nav, slight missteps but never too far from where I should have been, and a very slow portion in the middle of the course where there was too much confusion on the map to do anything other than take a bearing/distance measurement and guess which of the multiple trails to take based on that.  Somehow that was good enough for the fastest time overall, well, I'll take it!

Thank you Leslie for the finish line shots!

Oh my, that was an interesting course!

John pretending to drink from a bottle he found on the course:

Dave is still smiling!

A colorful team photo:

One last workout, an excellent hill and gravel ride starting from Bastrop State Park, with Dave, Sheila, and Sheila:

Sheila R. is a master of the selfies:

A fun bike mailbox and the beautiful piney woods:

Thanks for the company - and the lunch stop with pie afterward!  Sorry, no photo of the pie... we were too focused on eating it  :)

Too Cool April Fools race

Another excellent adventure race!  We're lucky to have Too Cool Racing designing fun courses in interesting parks around Texas.  We're also happy to be in Texas for a few months to participate in these races, and lucky to have Dave as an excellent teammate!

The April Fools race brought us back to Parrie Haynes Ranch where we hadn't been since August 2008, wow that's quite a long time, and it was great to be back.  Also, the weather this time around was SO much better, being that it wasn't August and it wasn't 100+ degrees.  We had clouds, a bit of wind, some tiny sprinkles, threats of rain that didn't hit us, and overall the most perfect day.

Art and Robyn gave us the race maps at 5 am and we mapped the route in Dave and Michelle's travel trailer (thank you for the comfortable digs, y'all!).  Michelle made biscuits and we plotted points and had breakfast.  Meanwhile John was off to the paddle put-in to hang out with the boats and wait for the teams to arrive.  We had guessed we might see him rather early in the race.  Kind of hoped so, in case it really did start storming later like it looked like it might.  I stuffed a biscuit in my pack for him, just in case he was hungry when we got there.

Here's most of the map, except for the cemetery and paddle put-in to the west and one bike point on the eastern edge:

We thought we were starting with a bike share leg (one bike per two teammates) but right at the end of the pre-race briefing Robyn mentioned we were ALL starting on bikes for the melee portion of the event.  Ah, OK, well, then I will go get some bike lights set up for me.  We kept expecting at some point to hear "April Fools!" but no, everything we were told was for real.

The melee was fun - called "Luck of the Draw," each team picked a random starting checkpoint and we quickly plotted where we needed to head.  Dave and I took off down the road, immediately alone in the dark.  Our first point was on a "wall" but we didn't see anything obvious right along the road where we had it plotted.  Dave wondered if it might be among the ropes area off in the woods?  We checked around the cabin, including all the walls of the building and even inside the bathrooms and around the water tank (lots of walls!).  Well, that was likely too far north anyway so we went back down the road a bit, and Dave finally went off into the trees and yelled "got it!"

He was on top of the structure by the time I got over there - wow, that's a challenge!  He had somehow managed to pull himself up on this platform that was maybe 10 feet off the ground?  He read off the coordinates to the next location while I scribbled them onto the map.  I sort of helped him down, with me wondering how I might have managed that one if, say, I had been racing solo.

The next checkpoint (CP) was back at the transition area (TA), so we rode back pretty darn quick (PDQ).  Time to assemble a jigsaw puzzle!  Dave told me that he's not great at these things, which is fine because I enjoy doing them and it's nice to feel useful.  He helped sort the pieces and I did my best to put them together quickly.  Funnily, the photo that Too Cool took suggests he was sleeping on the job, but I can assure you that he was busy moving pieces around in a mostly not-random way:

[Photo courtesy of Too Cool Racing]

One Snow White and a few dwarves later, and our little break was over.  Back to the bikes, back on the road, now heading toward the ranch entrance.  We started seeing more racers on the course, including a couple 6-hour rogainers collecting as many CP's as they could on foot.  Apparently they had 3 of our 4 melee points as well, fun!

We continued our trend of being slow to find points in the dark, standing right next to the flag and missing it completely (that was all me) before exploring more downstream.  No, that must be wrong, back upstream.  Yes, there it is, geez.  At least we recovered on this one more quickly and didn't go into any buildings along the way.  More coordinates to plot...

One last melee point, this one in the middle of a pond to the north of the TA.  On the way there we discussed whether there was any advantage to starting with one particular point out of the 4.  Well, if all of the points required you to go back to the TA afterward, there shouldn't be much advantage to any one (except the timing of the break for the puzzle).  Ah, but from the pond point you could bypass the TA on the way to the wall.  So actually, we started with the least optimal of the four.  Dave mentioned this to Art later and he told us that's why they called it "Luck of the Draw"  :)

We rode up a long gentle hill, down some rocky drops (with me taking it slow but happy that it was getting light out so I could see - one advantage to doing this one last).  Dave offered to wade into the water to punch the control, thank you Dave!  That was not an insignificant thing.  Here's Art demonstrating the depth of the pool in a pre-race photo:

[Photo courtesy of Too Cool Racing]

Back to TA, with Dave now quite wet but not complaining.  OK, well, that opening leg took an hour and a half, plenty of time for darkness to disappear (which is probably not physically, nor poetically, correct).  Excellent, now I can do the riding part of the ride-and-tie without needing lights, and in fact we don't even need to carry the lights to the river at all.

We did a quick transition, Dave changing into running shoes, me picking up my bike lock, both drinking some Spiz and dropping off headlamps.  Still got the biscuit in my pocket though!  Don't worry, it's my pack pocket and not in my pants.

I rode up the hill, Dave running along wondering how long this hill goes?  We would get to know this hill pretty well by the end of the race.  I asked if he could try riding my bike?  Sure, he says!  I rode ahead, dropped the bike and helmet, and ran a ways before Dave passed me and repeated the process for me.  I made sure I got to run down the rocky part, that was definitely the faster option for me and probably for Dave as well but I wasn't really thinking about him.  You can tell because I ran ahead and made him push the bike up the next hill which had so many rocks it wasn't all that rideable even for him.  Eventually he passed me near the top of that hill and we went back to switching off riding and running.

Some easier trail, a few barking dogs (mostly confined to their yards), and a tiny bit of navigation later and we were at the bike drop.  I found a spot in the cedar trees to lock the bike to a branch, managed to forget the key in the lock even though I lock my bike to things almost every day while riding around town, went back to retrieve it, and we were finally on our way.  The fence had the tightest barbed wire we've ever seen, making it about required to go over the top.  Finally, onto the road!

The next several miles were uneventful, just running and chatting.  We found one CP next to a cemetery.  Looked at a potential shortcut that avoided the last hill but decided not to thrash through some crap and possibly wake up potential dogs and maybe an irate Texas landowner.  Running down the last bit of road over the bridge we could see John was awake and waiting for us - Hi John!!

John hanging out with a bunch of boats:

[Photo courtesy of Darby Stewart]

Here John, have a biscuit that I've been carrying around for a couple hours!  He seemed to appreciate it, or at least acted like he did.  We had fun talking for a couple minutes while we prepped to paddle.  John had fun watching our reaction at the boat put-in location - a nice big drop down a concrete bank.  OK then!

He told us there was also a little trail we could take, but he had strung a nice rope down the embankment, so of course we had to do that.  Not so fast, Dave!  Yep, through the trees, sure why not...

My least shining moment of every race is usually figuring out how to get in a canoe off some rocks while trying not to get my feet wet (I'm not proud of this but I haven't committed to changing it - yet).

In the water, practicing the back stroke:

And finally on our way, let's do this:

John took a bunch of pictures of other teams, and this certainly was a good spot for that.  Here's a view of the trail (which he told us later might have been tough to get a canoe through):

Another angle on the incline:

Another canoe coming down:

You could probably calculate the angle from this photo:

These guys don't need no stinkin' rope:

More like our "through the trees" method:

View of the bridge underside:

The river paddle was fun!  It has been a while since we'd done a river paddle, especially for me sitting in the front of a canoe using a kayak paddle on moving water.  Good practice.  I enjoyed reading the river, remembering how to spot potential obstacles just under the water, to look for nice downstream V's to start the little rapids, and to plan for steering around the corners.  Dave had the same take on everything and did a great job with the steering.  I most need to work on my draw stroke with the kayak paddle, something that doesn't come naturally to me like it does with a canoe paddle.

Good current, interesting twists and turns, a few shallow spots that slowed us down, a few trees to avoid, curiously shaped limestone rocks in the water below us.  Then there were herds of deer running across the river ahead of us.  A kingfisher swooping around.  A slight headwind as we headed south, changing to a tailwind as we went around a large U.  More river reading, lots to keep our attention, plenty of loud directions on my part, hoping Dave could hear at least the important stuff.

We bumped one solid rock with the front of the canoe and I made some kind of incomprehensible noise while shifting my weight toward it.  Need to work on a brace to complete that maneuver, but we stayed upright just fine.  We mostly avoided the rest of the obstacles except for taking out a few leaves on some low limbs here and there.

Hey, some wild pigs!  A whole bunch of them, all running once they spotted us.  Wow, that was super cool.  That got us started talking about bacon and favorite foods.  We agreed on pizza with Canadian bacon (with pineapple for me).

One last set of branches hanging down alongside the river... just... stay... left... OK, now we're in the middle of them (yeah, that lack of a good draw stroke I was talking about...).  To avoid getting completed whacked I lay back and grabbed limbs to slow the boat.  We extracted ourselves with some pushing and pulling, and I came away with only a couple minor scratches but way too many spider webs.  And spiders!!!  In the boat!  Luckily the next section was easy navigating for Dave because I was busy removing as many as I could from the front of the canoe.  Several ended up catching a ride to the take-out.

And there it is, the end of the fun 5 mile paddle.  We pulled up to the rocky beach and schlepped the canoe fairly far away from shore in case there was a stormy deluge later that caused the river to rise.  One short walk up the hill and we were almost back to TA.  The bluebonnets in the field were lovely, I noticed - here are a couple other racers climbing the hill from the take-out:

[Photo courtesy of Too Cool Racing]

Well, that was fun!  Thank you for the excellent river paddling experience.  Time to go collect my bike.  Another quick transition and this time we had Dave's bike with us.  His bike has egg-beater pedals and a taller seat so it wouldn't be so easy for me to ride.  I told him I was happy running the whole way, so he took my pack and handed me the towline.  Sweet!

I felt really fast without the pack, getting towed up the hill.  Just like in the old urban racing days with John pulling me around the city.  I let the bike go ahead for the rocky downhill, then got back on tow for the nice trail along the upper fence.  Soon I was unlocking my bike and handing it over the fence to Dave.  Time for some road riding.

The road loop was pretty uneventful, giving me time to ponder how we were over 4 hours into the 12-hour race and had gotten only 5 of the 20 numbered checkpoints.  Although actually if you count the first 4 points from the melee, 9 out of 24 total CP's wasn't bad.  But there wouldn't be a lot of leeway for clearing the course in the allotted time.  Gotta keep pushing to make that happen.

We saw a rogaine team at the north end of the course as they popped out onto the paved road to trek to the CP we were riding toward.  We were happy to be on bikes for this part, quickly reaching the intersection but not finding the control flag...  I happened to glance down into a little ditch and saw it hidden in the brush by the culvert - not likely to be found by anyone who wasn't actually looking for it (and maybe if you actually were).

More pavement, some gravel, a checkpoint under a bridge (thank you Dave for thrashing through all the vegetation and obstacles to reach the CP punches), and a climb up a small hill to start heading south.  The headwind wasn't bad, but look at that dark sky.  We figured we would be happy to get as much of this bike ride finished as we could before the rain hit.

And - no rain - just a solid ride back to the ranch entrance and then all the way back to TA.  1.5 hours for the loop, not too shabby.

Trekking nav, yay!  We started with CP 10 because we knew the route almost all the way there, up the hill and past the "swim pond" again but going straight instead of on the trail to the bike drop.  Through some cedar, Dave collecting spider webs as he led the way (thanks Dave!), a couple hundred meters up a creek to the CP.

We came back to a trail and began some trail nav.  Because I thought I knew what I was doing, we then took a fenceline trail to a drainage that we wanted to cut across (to save a bit of distance vs. going around on trails).  Well, I don't know nothin', because the vegetation through the drainage was crap.  We spent some time and effort finding a way through, and I made mental and verbal notes to not do that again.

Cedar twigs down the back of your neck, well, it's not the worst thing in the world.  We found the road on the other side and followed it toward a jump-off spot for a little pond.  More cedar and thick vegetation, this stuff couldn't be helped.  Oh, yes it could have been.  We found the pond and CP 9, then found a spectacularly clear way out directly west, complete with a cairn at the spot where we hit the road again.  Lovely.

Bygones.  More road/trail through the woods, then an excellent turn uphill to climb way up to the water tower.  A good opportunity to look ahead on the map.  We found CP 8 behind the tower and Dave pointed the way to the steep "trail" down the backside.  Oddly, there was a racer coming up the hill wearing his bike helmet - ?  Really not sure what that was about.  He told us there was another team just ahead of us, and we looked to see a couple figures off in the distance along the boundary trail.

Turned out it was Tammy and JD, who had skipped the paddle leg completely with the thought that they wouldn't be able to clear the course but might be able to collect more CP's than many of the other teams that chose to do the paddle.  Interesting strategy.  We found CP 11 and then chatted with them for a bit as we ran toward the center park road.

Dave and I discussed how best to get back to the TA, settling on a plan to take a trail cutting up and over the ridge.  That worked great, as when the trail ended in a T we continued straight along a clearcut through a couple ditches and popped out close to camp.  This trek took 2 hours for 4 checkpoints, right on pace for the "2 CP's per hour" needed to clear the course.  Still, not a lot of room for error.

We discussed possibly doing something different and next going counter-clockwise for once to shake things up?  Naw, let's stick with what we know - no sense taking silly chances when there's not a lot of room for error, right?  One more bike leg, this time mostly on trails.  It still wasn't raining, happy for that!

Back up the road on the long gentle hill, past the swim pond, back to the fenceline trail.  This time we took a right turn along another fence and followed a trail until it started steeply downhill toward a "gulch."  We were wondering about the use of the term gulch instead of a creek, but it turned out to be a pretty large drop so we agreed it was warranted.  CP 13, done.

We retraced steps and headed out past the bike drop spot again - there was still a bike there, yikes!  We wondered how long John had to hang around the paddle put-in.  Maybe I should have brought him 2 biscuits.

Another bike hand-up over the fence, this time I tried crawling under and managed it OK.  We were happy with another bit of pavement riding, this time stopping at the fence where we had seen the rogaine team earlier.  Another bike hand-up over this fence, maybe we were done with fence climbing.  This was actually a solid gate so it was a bit easier.

We found CP 12 in the bushes, had a quick bite to eat, then started down through the middle of the ranch on trails we had run earlier.  Dave did some excellent trail nav and I tried to pay attention since I suspected we'd be back here for the final trekking leg.  We spotted the giant oak tree, trying to figure out why it was on the wrong side of the trail, but it was definitely the right tree.  Complete with the checkpoint flag up in the branches!  Another adventure checkpoint for Dave, fun!  (at least, it was fun for me to watch).  This is another racer up in that tree collecting their punch:

[Photo courtesy of Darby Stewart]

Back to TA, done with the bikes, no rain, and we had 3:45 to get the remaining 6 checkpoints on foot.  At 2 CP's per hour, this should be doable, but you never know until you've done it.

For old time's sake, we started the final leg in the same dang direction, up the long gentle hill.  Dave jumped back into the swim pond to punch that control one last time (not just for fun, nor was Dave overheating, it actually was CP 17 as well as one of the first melee points).  Thank you for swimming again, Dave!

We headed northeast to locate the trail we had followed earlier, followed a couple more trails, and made careful note where we expected to turn off later for CP 18 since there were two possible fencelines to pick from.  We were also looking up to the top of the next hill where there was a pretty overlook in the area of CP 15.

But first!  A dry pond and CP 19.  No problem.  OK, shall we go straight up this little mountain?  Sure, why not?  There wasn't an obvious alternate route that looked any easier, no trails or roads besides going all the way around to the saddle, and that would only help partway up.  Let's do this.

Dave led the way, clearing spider webs again (thanks Dave!).  It got quite steep, but thankfully the vegetation was fairly clear.  In fact, I remarked, it reminded me of the Barkley course.  Speaking of which, the Barkley was going on that day!  I wondered how everyone at Frozen Head was doing.  In the meantime, we had this tiny little climb and then we were at the top.

We checked a short way to the right to verify we were indeed at the southern end of the mesa.  Yep, go back the other way.  And there's the overlook - spectacular!  Dave decided we had time for a quick photo, nice!

I thought it was funny that racers on trails below us might be able to see us, so I waved (such a dork sometimes).  We poked around through the rocks and trees but didn't see any checkpoint flag.  Hmm, we must not be to the western point yet.

More west, more west, ah yes, we agreed that we were now at the western edge.  Hmm, still no CP flag.  We started climbing around on the rocks and finally I spotted it down below by a boulder.  Nice one!  That one took some real navigation work, I like it.

We worked our way back past the overlook (wave!) and started down the way we had come up, no sense in trying to push through another unknown area that might have nastier underbrush.  Suddenly Dave says hey!  I don't have the map!  Uh oh.  I don't either.  He decided he must have dropped it back near the last CP.

We debated a few seconds - we had 3 CP's left and I thought that I *might* remember enough about them to find them without the map.  But it was a risk.  No, better to go look for the map before trying something crazy like that!  So we went back up the hill (more training!), past the overlook, back toward CP 15, there's the map on the ground, whew!

Once more across the overlook, now I figured anyone sitting down there watching us must really wonder what the heck we were up to!

As we were going down the mountain for real, I told Dave I wanted to try navigating without looking at the map just to see if I could do it?  He was game to try, although I'm guessing he thought I was nuts.  We came out at the road a bit far to the east, and since we weren't precisely sure where we were, I figured it would be stupid to make a mistake right now just because I wanted to try some strange map memorization trick.  So we checked the map and decided to go west.

Yep, that worked, we knew where we were.  Past the windmill, to the fenceline we had looked at earlier, down a trail toward a trail/draw intersection.  We found the spot easily, but had to search around to find the CP 18 flag behind a bush.  Two to go!

We used the trail map to try to figure out the fastest route toward CP 16 at the bass pond.  The trails seemed like maybe they were working, but the intersections we hit were kind of vague although we were mostly going the right direction.  I didn't think it was possible to cross over one large north/south trail without noticing it.  But then Dave asked about the contours so we stopped to look.  And hey, isn't that water over there to our west?  Since we're looking for a pond, maybe we should go check it out...

Yes, that was the pond, somehow I had messed that up pretty good but we also recovered just in time.  Still not sure what happened there.  The funny thing is that without a map, I would have backtracked from CP 18 to known trails and followed our biking route from earlier directly to the pond.  So for once I might actually have done better without the map, who knows  :)

CP 16, disaster averted.  One more checkpoint, this one at a tower.  I could not remember an obviously visible tower in that area (near the wall from the beginning of this story), and it was mapped in the middle of nothing, so this CP was the main reason I had hoped we would find the map.

We ran into Kim finishing her penultimate trekking loop and ran together to chat briefly.  Then it was time for us to detour toward the giant tower sticking up above the landscape (so yeah, not one I needed to worry about!).  We ran across a nice field and found CP 20 inside the bottom of the structure (no rock climbing today!).

About a mile to run back to TA and we were done!  Course cleared in 10 1/2 hours, yay!  That was a fun one.

John took a picture of Robyn taking a picture of the top three 2-person and solo teams - congratulations everyone!  Especially Kim who overcame a large early error to take 2nd place overall, and Darby who was 2nd solo (two women at the top of the leaderboard for the solo category, nice).

We pushed hard the whole time, a good effort for the whole day.  My biking legs were quite tired by the end, phew.  Dave says his trekking legs were tired by the end (phew).  So it all worked out.

Big thanks to Too Cool Racing for an excellent adventure!