For the first time, Team Fat Otter was going into a race with a goal other than just finishing, we were going to compete. The race directors of Rock the Race decided against the pre-race meeting the night before, but rather 15 minutes prior to the start. The open format of the race (we get to choose which checkpoints we want to get, and in what order. The team with the most points in 10 hours wins) was quickly explained, and soon we were on our way to commit the start map to memory. The map had only 2 checkpoints. We would get our instructions at one, and the race directions at the other. We planned a course for the closest checkpoint and waited for the start of the race.

Once the race began, it became apparent that the other teams had the same plan as us and we found ourselves amongst a pack of eager racers. About 30 seconds in, we stopped and made a decision to go to the farther point first, assuming that the mob of people at the closer checkpoint would cause a backup and therefore a delay. Our decision proved to be wise when we reached the checkpoint and received our race instructions with ease. We read the instructions as we hiked to the other checkpoint to pick up our maps. Once we got our maps, we made a decision to do the canoe leg first since the weather was perfect and points for that section were huge.

We quickly ran to the canoe and followed the flags to the canoe put in. Only problem was the flags stopped and we had no idea where to go. There was a stream down a hill to our North that led to the river, so we looked for the clearest route and made a run for it. We got to the stream and found it very shallow and muddy. It made best sense for us to just walk/run the canoe through the stream as quickly as possible. We soon found ourselves at the river junction and beached the canoe as we grabbed a nearby checkpoint. The river was very calm and contributed to a pleasant paddle upriver to the first checkpoint. We beached the canoe and proceeded on foot to the checkpoint and found it with little problem. We ran back to the canoe trying to evade the teams approaching on the river and paddled upriver a bit farther to the next checkpoint. We grabbed it and the final canoe checkpoint and headed back to the canoe put in.

On our way back to the transition area, we decided to head to Rock Cut State Park for the mountain biking leg. Once there, we downed some supplements, got on our bikes, and headed to the park. Once there, we quickly recognized the trails from our ride there a week prior. We headed to the first CP and wasted 5 or 6 minutes looking for it before we realized we were in the wrong spot. We quickly jumped back on our bikes and headed to the next bend in the trail and found the CP with ease. We bagged the next couple of CPs and decided to do the row boat section in the park. It turns out Christian is an excellent rower and he refused to let Peter or Myself humiliate the team with our haphazard rowing and rowed virtually the entire leg. We finished the row and got the rest of the Rock Cut CPs. (One of which was the holy buckets team challenge which I don't wish to discuss!) It was when we decided to double check the passport to make sure we got all of the points that we realized there was another CP for the section at a school outside the park that we almost forgot to get (you had to get all the CPs for the section in order to get double points). Before going to get it, we plotted the coordinates for the UTM section to see if any of the points were on our way. It turned out that one of the points we plotted was at the same school we had to go to next, so we headed to the school, got the CPs and headed back to transition.

We decided to stay near the transition area now since we only had 3 hours left before the cutoff, and we had no idea how long the radio orienteering section (I'll explain later) was going to go. There were a couple of team events to do near the area as well. The first being the 'diamond'. This is where two teammates..never mind, it would be too confusing to describe, we did it though. Next was the 9 foot wall that we each had to scale. We are all over 6 feet tall, so this was easy. Last was the zip line. This took a little bit of time, but was well worth it. What a blast. Last we opted for the radio orienteering. In this section, one person on the team (Peter in this case) was to stay at transition with the map while directing Christian and Me via 2-way radios. After a rocky start, we ended up with one of the best times for the section.

We finished the radio orienteering and had an hour and a half left before the cutoff. There was no way we were going to just sit around, so we headed off on the bikes to see what we could collect. Our hopes had been to make it to the last park and bag 6 or 7 trekking points, but after getting half way there, we decided our time was best spent collecting 2 of the closer CPs rather than risking being disqualified. We got the points and made it back to the trasition with 20+ minutes to spare.

What a great race! After our nervous 20 minutes until the end watching other teams come in, we ended up 2nd in 3-person male division, and 5th overall. We learned a lot about efficiency and strategy in this race. Look out for us next year because we plan on taking the whole thing. Thanks again to the Rockford YMCA for putting on a great race.