Friday - The Day Before

(5:30pm) - Jason & I arrive at the River Market in downtown Little Rock for the pre-race gear check and skills test. We notice dozens of vehicles fitted with every type of bike rack imaginable. Racers are wandering all over the place carrying backpacks, drybags, life jackets, bikes. Talk about some high dollar bikes - there were probably enough >$2k bikes there to compete with any bike shop. Slightly intimdating to say the least. Jason called up his wife, Natalie (who was the 3rd member of our team) to tell her to meet us down there (since she worked nearby). She showed up shortly there after and we commenced to register and go through all the pre-race checks.

After filling out the mandatory racing license application and signing the "I promise I won't sue anyone" and "I'm fully aware of the craziness I'm about to do" forms, we went to the various stations to show the mandatory gear we were supposed to carry, show that we knew how to hook ourselves up using rappeling gear, and demonstrated we could plot UTM coordinates on a map. We had a slight holdup with the first aid kit check as we ran into the First Aid Check Nazi. We only had a small tube of antibiotic ointment rather than the required 2 oz and he wouldn't sign off our form until we acquired the necessary 2 oz (which is actually 2 large tubes of ointment). How anyone needed that much ointment during the race was beyond us.

So we located the other team from my work that was racing and "borrowed" their tubes of ointment so we could get our forms signed. As they gave it to us, they commented that they felt like they were doing something illegal by giving us the tubes. Give me a break. Already it seemed like they were treating us like the adversity rather than fellow friends and co-workers. Like we didn't train with them and help them before this. After getting our form finally approved by the First Aid Nazi, we turned it in with all the required checks and received bright oranage racing bibs, Raid the Rock T-shirts, and our race passport. We would be team #20, also known as Kinetically Challenged (our team name). Which ended up suited us to a T.

Having nothing to do until the pre-racing meeting at 7:00pm, we went and put our bikes & gear back in Jason's pickup and went and got some grub to eat. Spirits were pretty high at this point as we were all pretty excited and anxious about the race. Natalie was especially excited as they just signed the contract on a new house they purchased. That was pretty much all she could talk about. But I don't blame her one bit as we were in the same situation not too long ago ourselves.

Jason's cousin and his wife were going to be our support crew for the race and they showed up shortly before 7pm. The support crew was responsible for having our gear ready for us at the transition zones (i.e. when we transitioned from hiking to biking or canoeing, or any combination therein.) They were also responsible for helping us have a smooth transition (i.e. having extra food for us to eat, helping us refill our water bladders while we changed clothes, etc). They were a sweet couple and they definitely did an awesome job.

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(7:15pm) - The pre-race meeting officially began with the race organizers thanking all the promoters, suppliers, and sponsors. In fact, even the mayor of Little Rock got up and said a few words. It felt amazing to be part of such a large group of like-minded individuals participating in this awesome event. After the intros were finished, it was down to business. Nathan (one of the race organizers, fellow co-worker, and Team Traveler member) got up and reminded us again about the checkpoints. They were essentially 3 feet long PVC pipe (6" in diameter) with red reflective tape. Each of them had a unique hole punch and phrase scrawled on the inside. When we got to a checkpoint, we were to punch or write the phrase in the appropriately numbered box on the passport. Some checkpoints would be manned, others would not be. But they did say that the PVC pipes would be in plain view so that we didn't need to look too hard for them if were in the exact area.

After Nate was done, he turned the spotlight over to his teammate Greg who would be giving us the information we were waiting for - where and when the race would start, and the requisite maps and checkpoints. He started off by excusing the support crew (who met in a separate meeting) and then said in his serious, official voice, "Ok, let's get onto business. The race starts in exactly one hour. You have one hour to get your gear and meet back here. By my watch, it is now 7:40pm, the race officially starts at 8:40pm." <Insert dead silence here> You could have cut the stress, tension, anxiety and panic in the pavilion with a knife. Most of the people looked like they were going to have a heart attack. I was trying to figure how I was going to get back home, get all my food and clothes, and get back to the River Market in an hour's time. No one was prepared for the race that that point. People were sitting around in jeans, sandals, work clothes, you name it.

After giving us the requisite time to stress and worry, he told us he was only kidding. I'm sure the look on our faces was priceless. The race would actually start at 5am and unlike previous years, instead of starting and finishing at the River Market, the race this year was going to start at a location 40 minutes away. In addition, they were only going to give us the coordinates for the starting location, and the 2nd and 3rd legs that night. We would be given the coordinates for the 1st leg in the morning at the start of the race. So we would be plotting points out in the field in the dark. After clarifying those instructions a few times, we were to send one team member to get the maps and the coordinates that they were distributing. Natalie came back with maps in hand and course booklet (which had the coordinates with any special instructions we needed to know).

Quickly finding the nearest flat surface (which was a trash can), we unrolled the maps and found out where we would be starting the race - at the Jolly Roger marina 12 miles west of town. The Jolly Roger marina is located on the south shores of Lake Maumelle just west of some pretty rugged hills. We had a feeling we would be trekking through those hills the next morning - only we didn't know just how rugged it would be. After consulting with the other FTN team (Quest for the Holy Trail), we broke for our cars. We decided that Natalie would go pick up the rest of the food and supplies (ice, ointment) we needed while Jason & I would go to our office and start plotting the points. Since my car was still at the office, that was deemed the best location.

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(~9:00pm) - Jason and I arrive at the office with maps and coordinates in tow. After studying the checkpoints, we find out that the first leg will be the hiking/treking leg, the second leg will be the canoeing leg, and the third and final leg would be the mountain biking leg. So we started plotting points. The canoeing leg/transition 1/checkpoint 11 was going to start at the Little Maumelle River just north of Pinnacle Mountain. A location very familiar to us as that was where Jason & Natalie and Quest for the Holy Trail started when they did their "dress rehearsal" practice the weekend I had the table tennis tournament. In fact, I had even gone out there two weekends ago and practiced hiking from that point myself. As we plotted the points for the canoeing leg, we found out we were to paddle down the Little Maumelle River to the Arkansas River, hit the checkpoint at boat ramp (CP12) at Maumelle Park on the Little Rock side of the river, then paddle across the river to a checkpoint located close to the golf course in Maumelle (CP13), and then from there we would paddle downstream about 3 miles to Two Rivers Park where we would take the canoes out (CP14), portage the canoes to a drop-off point (CP15) and hit the transition to the bikes. The total distance we would canoe would be somewhere close to 10 miles. All stillwater paddling as there was very little current on those rivers. In other words, we didn't have any current to help or hinder us.

At Two Rivers Park, we were to transition to our bikes (transition 2/CP16) and then we were supposed to bike out to the point overlooking the Arkansas River where a tributary came into it(CP 17). Again, another area we knew really well as we had trained there and ridden there in the past. However, CP18 was located across this 1/3-mile wide tributary on the Little Rock side of the river. The instructions said "To go from 17 to 18, follow race personnel instructions." The main question being, how the heck were we supposed to get across this tributary with our bikes? We pondered and hypothesized what they could be making us do. I thought they would have us ferry our bikes across using some sort of rope & raft system. Jason thought it might be a zip line. Nothing we thought of gave us a clear answer. We would just have to wait until we got there to figure out exactly what we had to do.

After we arrived via mystery mode of transportation on the Little Rock side of the river, we were to bike down River Mountain Road just past the dam, hit checkpoint 19 there, then bike up a fairly steep but distinct trail following Jimerson Creek (CP 20). That would take us up to Cantrell Road where we were to ride to Reservoir Park (CP21), and from there we were to travel down specific roads to CP22, located on Rock Creek not too far from where we work. The funny thing was that one of the roads we were instructed to ride down would take us past the exact house that Jason & Natalie bought. CP23 was just a bit further down Rock Creek and CP24 was at Kanis Park just south of I-630 (where we drive by every Sunday to go to church).

CPs25-27 were located at Boyle Park - which consisted of a highly technical singletrack mountain biking trail. From there we would have to hit a couple of checkpoints in the central Little Rock area (close to where Jason & Natalie currently live) and then make our way downtown to the Robinson Performing Arts Center (CP30). We had a good idea we would be rappeling off of Robinson Center (due to a leak of information), but that just confirmed it. The outside of Robinson Center looks a little like the Lincoln Memorial with huge pillars that come down. From there we would hit the final and last checkpoint at the Riverfront Amplitheater located right next to the River Market.

Considering these were places that Jason (a Little Rock native) knew like the back of his hand, we thought that the mountain biking leg would be where we had an advantage and could excel. And out of the three disciplines, mountain biking was our strongest suit, so again, we thought that would give us another added advantage. It wasn't until almost 11pm that Jason & I got all the points plotted and doublechecked them, plotted our route, got the maps folded and numbered that I was able to go home. We were planning on meeting at 3:45am in the morning to drive out to the Jolly Roger marina.

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(~11:45pm) - I finally arrive home after a long day at work and doing all the pre-race stuff. I spent the next hour or so getting the rest of my gear and food together (trying to remember any last-minute things I had thought of I needed). I didn't get to bed until 1am, giving me only a couple hours of rest before I would have to be up again. Based on Jason's past experiences in adventure racing, little sleep the night prior to a race was not wholly uncommon.

Next entry: Race day!! (shortly forthcoming)