Run, Row, Rock & Roll Adventure Race, Nebraska 2014

2014 Run, Row, Rock & Roll AR, 10th Anniversary
12 Hour Adventure Race by Angry Cows
Endicott, Nebraska

Another first for the Team racing in Nebraska. RRRR was a 12 hour sprint Race in the we'll call them rolling valley lands of Nebraska. We go into Town an hour before the pre-race meeting where we were given our maps and able to plot ALL 52cps on the course. With one map, the course was laid out in a large loop with some interesting team relay choices to make along the way. After Plotting we dropped two of the bikes at one of the volunteers house while the third we dropped along a river far to the southeast. Race started with a group prayer and then our pain began. The first section was 10 trekking CP's in any order then to the first TA.  This was not a good start for us and put us in a whole from the start.  We hit the first CP with the rest of the pack and then pretty much took off in all directions, our challenge started.

The terrain here was a little tricky as we had to change our normal nav "train of thought"..everything was flat and DOWN instead of Mts and UP.......which this took us overshooting the second CP. We backtracked at that point and stumbled upon CP5 so we regrouped and got back on track as the rain hit us. Again,  everything in this area was really navigating from the top down rather then looking up at mountains for bearings, we had to acclimate to everything was a valley or down. We managed to get threw the rest of these in decent time but we seemed to just never make up enough at the end. At the first TA one person Paddled and the other two biked an short bike O section. PWild and JZ took the first leg biking.  Then the second longer paddle Pwild did and JZ and Derek took off on the longer Bike O.  The way the second bike O section was described was that there were plenty of trails in that section, So we figured Derek and I could hammer that and make up some time. That didn't happen, many teams spent a lot longer on this section including us. We saw just about everyone getting a little frustrated in this area. We wound up leaving one CP out there and went to the paddle take out were Pwild was waiting for awhile.  PWild was so worried we would be waiting for her she killed that paddle section!!  

At this point we had to decide what we were skipping as time was running short and so was out patients. We were not firing well at all as a team on this one. We just desired head back to the start/finish and hit the points along the way and try to get there in time to get the final four Bike O points near the start/finish, which we did. We had to settle for fourth in this one. Congrats to NSpire and Unplugged Adventures for earning the top spot on this one.

We all as Racers have those bad races but taking away the lessons and learning from them is what makes us better. Thanks Craig and Jim of Angry Cow Adventure for putting this race together.

**Sorry photos will not stay upright, have more just wont load right**