30 Days of Awesome - Day 13
The anticipation that comes from three weeks worth of prep, training and trash talk culminated this weekend for the Vitalyte Teams at the 2009 Muddy Buddy in Boulder, Colorado.
Most of the Team’s 1 & 2 spent the night in Boulder to avoid a long early morning drive to the race, with the exception of my partner who had the Denver Puttin Pub Crawl on Saturday and didn’t make it up to Boulder until 6am on race day.
Luckily the rest of Team Vitalyte got to spend the day in Boulder at the pre-race festivities hosted by REI - A Vitalyte Partner - and Baker Street Pub who was kind enough to offer drink and food specials for the racers.
Saturday was great day to hang out with friends, enjoy some good food and relax for the battle to come. In bed by midnight and up at 5, I was ready to get dirty.
Sarah, the better half of Team Vitalyte, met me at the hotel at 6am for our short ride to Boulder reservoir where the event was held. After the costume contest and a little pre-race brief it was time to begin. The strategic decision was to let Sarah run the first leg while I biked. Bikers began 2 minutes before the runners to give them extra time to catch up after the 1st transition which required you to military crawl under a cargo net before beginning the second leg.
Evan getting ready for the race.
Pre race at the lake
Brian and Evan Pre-Race
One of the costume contest entries.
Team Vitalyte Too had Tami riding first and Brain running first. At the transition Tami and I were neck and neck heading into the run. At some point I found myself ahead of her and about halfway through the first mile of the run I saw Brain pass me. Since Brian and Sarah started the run together I figured it would only be a mater of time before Sarah passed me on her way to transition two. By the time I reached transition two, Sarah still hadn’t passed me and i watched as Tami passed me by, not before she could pat me on the butt as if to say” We’re going to win.”
Transition two required me to climb a rock wall and drop down a cargo net before taking off biking on the third leg. This is where our race went to you know where in a hand basket. Sarah had never rode our bike before and was unfamiliar with the gears. I sent her into battle with an untested weapon and it came back to bite us. The Specialized Mountain Bike we had for this race had a unique gear shift system which I forgot to mention to her before starting. As such she had to run the 2nd leg all in the highest gear.
By the time she got to the second transition I had been there for roughly 7 minutes. This threw off the rest of the race as we had to wait for each other at transitions instead of leap frogging.
We pushed it fo rthe next 4 miles and did a great job of making up time but the first transition and the subsequent waiting that came as a result put us about 10 minutes behind the other Vitalyte Team.
However, in true Vitalyte fashion, we met at the end, crawled through another cargo net and splashed face down in the mud for our 100 yard crawl to the finish line where we were met by the victorious Vitalyte Team.
After a cowboy type shower in the lake, we all got together for some group shots and talk of next years race where, hopefully, Sarah and I will take back the coveted Muddy Buddy crown.
Tami and Brian in the mud
Sarah and Evan's plunge into the mud pit
More mud crawling
All in all, an awesome weekend.
Check out the events section of the website for more pics and coverage of the event.
