On Friday, June 25th I picked up Lullel Hickman in Bolivar, MO and we headed to Perry State Park in Lawrence, KS. Before that time I had never officially introduced myself to him but had seen him many times at other events. I was thrilled to finally meet him and even more thrilled to get to race with him.We pitched a tent when we got there at around 10:30. We did not waste much time getting some rest. Overall we both agreed that we had gotten more and better rest than we thought we would.
Saturday morning we were up at 6:00 and we began to take care of prerace stuff. We knew that this was a sprint race but we both had taken enough stuff to race a normal 8 to 12 hour race. My philosophy is if I do not pack it I cannot use it.
At 7:30 the pre-race meeting got underway with Jason Elsenraat of Bonk Hard racing directing the rodeo. He was in a chipper mood once again and was having way too much fun throwing out Salomon water bottles.
We got our map and clue sheet and began to strategize. This race had a specific bike section, a specific run section, and a specific canoe section. Jason allowed the racers to choose the leg that they wanted to do in any order. Each time you finished a leg you came back to HQ to receive a punch on your passport. We chose to bike first.
Before we took off we looked at the bike section as it had three checkpoints(CP's). The first was at the entrance to the singletrack trails and the other two were in the midst of a complicated trail system. I was very concerned about finding them but I kept that to myself.
Lullel and I had about a mile to the entrance of the singletrack and we then began our quest to find the two CP's amongst the puzzle of trails. My concerns were greatly brought to life as we struggled a little to find CP #6. The concerns were full blown as we struggled greatly with #7. We were falling behind at a rapid pace. Our biking was very fast but our locating of the CP's was very slow. We found them both and finally escaped the maze.
We then chose to trek. Lullel's gift is running. He towed me with a bungee. It was awesome. We knocked out the trek pretty quickly. We were slowed a little as I fought off some cramps. This was the first time that I had ever been towed running and we would not have gone even close to as fast as we did if it weren't for Lullel towing me. It was a great experience.
We then bolted for the canoes. When we were done they had told us that we were the fastest canoe time recorded for the race. We bushwhacked a hundred yards to the finish and was through. We ended up 22 minutes behind first place and we are thoroughly convinced that we lost all of that on the bike section.
Results completely aside, I was thrilled to spend some awesome time with Lullel. I truly looked forward to spending the time with him way more than the racing. My expectations were fulfilled.
This post is from Marc(as if you could not tell by the above picture).
