TEAM COMMIE BAR 1st place coed 2 person at Swampfox 12hour!

Mark Bolyard and Val Hardin led the effort at the Palmetto Swampfox 12hour Adventure Race this past weekend in South Carolina.  After running/trekking, mountain biking and paddling the two person coed team placed 1st in their division.

Our 12 hour adventure started with a bus ride to an unknown location where we started on foot.  We were able to figure out our location by following the map.  The race director did not give a whole lot of instruction as to specific foot or bike points, but you knew you had to get to the paddle transition so you could get the paddle CP’s.  So you could get the minimum foot points in the most direct route to the paddle, then after paddle, collect the rest of the foot/bike CP’s on the bike back to finish, or you could collect the cluster of CP’s that seemed like foot points before you got to the paddle.  This was our option.  Mark did a great job navigating as well as tackling some ninja obstacles, and we made good time on foot.  Part of the paddle included a 1 mile portage, but luckily we had portage wheels we could use.  However, your truly did not fasten them quite right to our 2 person kayak, and it created quite a drag for the first part of paddle.  We were finally able to resolve that and then were able to cruise along collecting all paddle CP’s.  We got on the bikes, which was mostly fire roads with some really sandy trails and got to it, deciding we would have time to clear the course under the 12 hour limit.  Teams were all over the place, so hard to tell how you were doing, but our goal was to have fun, clear the course and go as fast as we could.  The weather cooperated, it was a cool and cloudy day, and we finished as the number 1 coed 2 team, and as of this writing, no official results, but i think we were in the top 5 overall out of 55 teams.  Kudos to Mark on his excellent nav skills!  It was a really fun day.  As a side note, the first 2 teams were docked 2 of the 4 paddle points because they decided to bike and swim the paddle and not actually paddle.  The directions were ambiguous, and they tried to argue their point.  But the RD stated that the paddle CP’s could only be collected with a canoe or kayak. I’m glad we did it in more of a traditional way.

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