Buff Betty Adventure Race
Well. This was interesting.
Yesterday was the Buff Betty Adventure Race in Thurmont, Maryland, very near where Camp David is located. I didn't really know what to expect but I talked my two neighbors into doing this all-women adventure race with me.
We knew there would be mountain biking, canoeing, trekking (hiking), and orienteering in it, but that's all we knew. It turned out to be an interesting day of canoeing across a lake to find the secret word posted on a tree, canoeing back to another point in the lake to find another secret word, then canoeing back to the start and carrying the canoe up a small hill. We weren't very good at going straight so we were maybe the third to last team out of the water.
Then we "mountain biked"--actually it was a short portion up a gravel fire trail and then a paved road--up a 1.75 mile hill. At the top of the hill we hiked across a rocky area to a checkpoint, then down the road to another checkpoint, then back. This was very hard for me, as I was in my mountain biking shoes and the cleats kept slipping on the rocks, and I stepped into a bog and got mud up to my ankles. Ick.
Then we got to do the biking downhill. That was fun.
Next we canoed across the lake again and did a fairly long hike up a big hill/mountain, about 1/2 mile flat and then 1.5 miles up up up. Again it was rocky and this time I was in sneakers, and the rocks just beat up my feet terribly. I'm not much of a hiker, and this again was hard for me. We reached the checkpoint and again got to go downhill (yay) which was also tricky because of the rocks. Back to the canoe, carried it all the way up the hill, and did the final checkin to get to Phase 2 of the race, orienteering.
We were happy to just have finished Phase 1 so our expectations were low of Phase 2. There were 20 checkpoints on the orienteering course, and you had to use a compass to go from point to point. Because we were slow on Phase 1, we only had time to find 6 of the checkpoints. (By the time we finished Phase 1, some teams had already finished Phase 2 and found all the checkpoints.) We don't know how we placed, but we know we weren't last. We were one of the oldest teams competing (avg age over 40 was a masters team).
The entire race took 6 hours (there was a time limit) and it was exhausting. I discovered I'm not really buff enough to be a Buff Betty, but I had a good time with my neighbors and I'm really, really sore this morning. It was a fun experience, but I doubt I'll do another one.
