Dragout fight to the finish for a podium spot!
Monday, April 5th, 2010
The Dirty Avocados came to the Big Blue Folsom Lake Sprint Adventure Race expecting a super opportunity to work on some teamwork and have some fast fun. What resulted was a knockdown, dragout fight to the finish for a podium spot!
We were actually 2 teams of 2 (Adam Doti and Brian Schmitz; Adam Armijo and Andrew Crisp) that agreed to work and stay together in order get some quality time as a larger team. The race was held at Folsom Lake California, a super fun and super fast place to run and ride. The lake is also fun, as it can dole out conditions that rival the Pacific! Minutes before the start we were issued a map and simple instructions. We learned that we had a super quick beach run to break-up the pack; then some more running in between some mountain biking; and finally some paddling. The start was blazing fast, as usual. We made our way through the scrum and mounted our bikes. As we quickly blazed through the super fast and swoopy Folsom Lake trails, we eventually dropped our bikes at the first transition area and traded our bikes for running shoes. We high-tailed it out to the far end of the racecourse. Eventually – to our surprise – we caught the guy that was on his way to place the very checkpoint we were chasing. We were handed the checkpoint flag and instructed to place it. We did and motored back to the transition area. We fired up our bikes once again and made our way to the other end of the racecourse to bag one more checkpoint before we hit the water. At this point, it was hard to tell where we stood in the race, given there were route options early in the race that broke up the pack. We eventually bagged that checkpoint and made a beeline to the water for the paddle. As we pulled into the paddle transition area, we realized that the podium race was a horse race with 5 teams (including a solo) all hitting the water within seconds. We decided to split into our actual DA teams (Adam Doti and Brian Schmitz as DA 1; Adam Armijo and Andrew Crisp as DA 2), as this “training opportunity” instantly turned into a RACE. Game on!! Both DA teams – like many of the teams – struggled, cursed, prodded, and attempted to paddle the yellow pigs that some call a kayak. Surprisingly DA 1 was actually closing the gap on the 3rd place team. Seriously!? In these boats!!?? During the final stretch, DA 1 made the pass, eventually beached their yellow pig, and raced it up the beach to the finish. Good for 3rd overall (second in the category)! DA 2 soon pulled in for a strong 5th. Nice work! And good times!!
