Pre Race
Angie and I weren’t sure to look forward to this race or be afraid of it given our Devil’s Challenge track record (2003 DNF due to missing canoe cutoff, 2004 DNF due to illness 15 minutes in). As it turns out I was just really nervous. The race changed a bit this year and would start in the afternoon on a Saturday. This was a nice change of pace since we often dread the drive and the pre-race meeting the night before a race followed by an insanely early start. We got on the road early and were to meet at the transition area to receive our maps and begin the shuttling of cars and gear.

We arrived to find dozens of teams already there looking over their maps. Once we got our packet, Angie began organizing the gear as I went over the maps and started planning the course with Andy McCarthy. I was very confident we would be doing very well in this race. Angie soon took off with the car to stage it at the canoe put-in and Andy and I continued to come up with what we thought was the best strategy for the race. Angie got back just in time for the pre-race briefing and now traditional pre-race wine toast. We learned in the briefing that certain roads would be off limits which totally blew the strategy we previously had decided on. No worries, there were enough options to keep us in line.

Section 1 - Orienteering
The race ‘began’ with an hour long group hike through the woods to the official start area which was also the start on our orienteering map. We were told we had to be back at TA by 6:00 and should simply bushwack west off the map in order to reach the road the TA was on. After everyone was done with the hike, the start was announced and we were off to the first CP. We found the first CP rather quickly and were off to the next. It wasn’t long before we encountered a bulldozed 2-track which meant we had overshot our checkpoint. We looked around for a while and before I knew it I was totally disoriented. We killed around 15 minutes before I realized the 2-track was actually the ‘indistinct trail’ marked on the map. Next thing I knew we were back on track and quickly got the CP. Our strategy was to grab 3 more CPs and then head back giving ourselves an hour and a half for the bushwack. Unfortunately, we overshot the third CP and without any time left, we were forced to head back without it.

The bushwack was a total flashback from the BOAR last year. The terrain was horribly difficult with lots of boulders, branches, brush, hills, etc. slowing us down. Since the area we were bushwacking through was off the map, I had no way to know if there was a better route to take. I tried to head slightly northwest hoping we would end up near the area we hiked in on, but after a while I just pointed straight west for the shortest route out. At points we were slowed down to a near crawl and soon 6:00 had passed and we were now going to be penalized all the points we had gotten (1 point for every minute late) We finally got back to the TA after just over 2 hours of bushwacking and decided to take our time getting fueled up.

Section 2 – Bike
We left the transition area around 6:30-6:40pm on the bike section of the race. We had just under 2 and a half hours to get to the canoe put-in by the 9:00 cutoff. I decided we would take the shortest route to the canoe knowing that we had some pretty tough hill riding ahead. The first part of the bike leg wasn’t too bad until we reached the hills around mile 6 or 7. The hills seemed to last forever, and given Angie was bordering heat exhaustion, we were off the bikes frequently. I knew if we could just get through the hills, we could really make up some time on the flats. We continued to do the best we could and after an hour and a half, we were leveling out.

We now had around an hour to finish the last 18-20 miles of the bike, and the realization set in that we would likely be late. We cranked on the flats the best we could and were successful sustaining a 17+ mph pace. At one point I remember riding past a barn that seemed to go for a quarter mile. It had these giant fans blowing hot smelly barn air at us while we tried to hold our breath. We grabbed the two CPs that were on the way back and finally pulled into the canoe landing just after 9:30 under the cover of darkness. Much to our surprise, we were allowed to continue on the paddle. We transitioned as fast as we could and put into the river.

Section 3 – Paddle
The paddle was a welcomed event after the hilly bike leg. The night was still and clear, giving us ideal conditions to move quickly through the 5 miles of river. We bottomed out a few times and had to hop out of the canoe, luckily the water felt really good on our feet. Pretty soon, we couldn’t see the canoes we had passed (I think 3 or 4 of them) and we arrived at the take out in just under an hour.

Post Race
As always, hot food was cooking and cold beer was in the cooler on the shore at the end of the race. I quickly popped a Milwaukee’s Best and enjoyed a college classic. We pondered our performance and decided we had done pretty well, especially given we had 4 teams come in behind us on the paddle. As it turns out, the way points were awarded and penalized, we placed 24th out of the 36 teams that started. One team raced unranked, and 6 others dropped for various reasons. We were happy with certain things in the race, and disappointed with others. Kevin typically puts on an excellent race, and this year he tried something new. I think once the kinks are worked out this format will definitely make for another excellent race. We will definitely be in it again next year, however, I intend to win. Thanks to Kevin and everyone else who helped make this race a success.