Discover Portland Urban Adventure Race 1
Mud Pools and an Odd Lake
Tracey Olafsen / 21.05.2007
The race started with an exciting orienteering butterfly relay section at Falmouth High School. One third of the field started on one of 3 legs of 3 checkpoints each. When that first field returned they handed the punchcard to the next teammate who ran a different course of 3 checkpoints. Some tidbits heard at the exchange zone were a teammate who had his thumb on the map in such a way as to cover the CP and thus could not find locate it. Another was colour blind and could not see the red circles on the green map. When the third and last teammates had run their leg, they received a packet of maps for the rest of the day and were off on their bikes for a 6.2 mile (shortest route via Hardy/Brady Rd) bike to the boat launch on Highland Lake. 10 teams headed out after the orienteering relay within a minute of each other lead by Eastern Mountain Sports, Cogg Wild and Trimaniacs. Some teams chose to go over Blackstrap Hill, which we learned is the local triathlon team training hill, which was a good workout during the race.
Anticipating a cold, windy ocean paddle, teams were pleasantly surprised to head northwest to the transition at Highland Lake where they would enjoy the comparatively warmer waters. Wicked Pissah was first into the water at the TA along with Eastern Mountain Sports and ARFE/SmartWool.
Teams quickly threw their canoes in the water and were off on the 5.1 mile paddle to find 7 checkpoints. ARFE/SmartWool, Eastern Mountain Sports and SPTU/DarnTough were so fast that you could have water-skied behind them and were first off the lake. Some checkpoints were in marshy areas so that teams were returning to the TA very wet and muddy with swamp water; but they looked and felt great!
Later teams had to contend with a wind shift, which meant they battled the wind in both directions.See All Event Posts
