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Contents 1 Website 2 Map 3 Results 4 Reviews 4.1 Amber's Take 4.2 Dylan's Take 4.3 Jack's Take

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YMCA Challenge Four Youth Race

Map

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Results

Reviews

Amber's Take

On the day of the race I was getting very exited!! When we got there i was claming down. As we were sitting there wateing for the dude to give the... whatever it was, my brother and i were soooo pumped! we all lined up... GO! first we ran to where we were going to get the map and this other paper... my dad & brother were tring to figure out were in the world we were supposed to be going. so we figure out... and it leads us straight to a 40 foot rock wall, which i had to climb, i was about 8 feet from the top with my hand sore & shakeing, i fell to my death twice... she said that i had 2 more mins and then she would have to letme down ... bam i shot up touched the top & fell ... owwww my hands still hurt alittle bit.

Dylan's Take

I was very excited once we got there i was looking at all the other temes trying to figure out there weekness. Soon the race was going to start we all started to line up at the start line we were stretching and getting in postion. 3 2 1 Go!! we took of running i didint know were to go so i decided to follow My dad And sister but i was in front of them so i had to fall back onc i got ehind them we ran to get the map we were kinda confused were to go. once we figured it out we went to the first checkpoint there was a big rock wall about 40 feet my sistor climbed once the lady said 2 mins i was getting woried that we would get the 15 penalty for not gettin to the top. my sistor shot up and tuched the top then came down. We were going to the next check point it was in the woods we had to bush wack a little actualy it was alot towads the end but we had to go through this 4 Feet high grass just the thickest it can be. not to minchen what could be in the grass it was like a mind field i mean you don't know if there could have been arattle snake ight there or if there was a copper head all you know is that was itchy. After 6 other check points. we went cannoing after that 3 miles on a lake 3 check points the 3 one was the hardest to get because you had to climbe this 5 foot cliff and there was nothing to grab on to so my sister comes over there to help me it didint work. My dad told her to put her hands out i steaped on her hands like a stair and she boosted me up there when i got on top i had no idea were it would be so i looked aroud my dad said to follow the edge of the cliff i did and then i found it ran back jumped of the edge ran to the canno an paddled of to shore when we got there we ran to the bikes we got on the bikes and paddled of. We went for ever up mountains and finding check points and ramping roots. When we got to the last check point we were in first place we were dead we felt like we just could flop on the grond and pass out but we kept going my dad kept egging me on saying "com on dylan we can make it were almoste ther" of course he's done alot longer races then me so it was a strech for him. when we got on the road to the finish i felt realy good when we went throgh it i felt like wow we actuly did it first place. ps: Definatley an expieriance

Jack's Take

First, I'd like to say that the above write-ups really say alot about the public school system.  ;)

Now the race:

I over heard one of the race directors saying that he had to place the CPs at 7pm the night before in the rain. This information impacts us later... We had to race across the field as a team and find our packets that contained the map, passport, and instructions. We took out the map and instructions, and I was relieved to read that the order of the race, was foot, canoe, then bike. This is probably the easiest order, in my opinion, as it gives your legs time to rest between the foot and bike portions. I figured we should get the climbing wall (40 ft) out of the way first, and it was pretty close to our location. Only 2 teams ahead of us at the CP. We tossed the packet envelope in the trash on the way to the wall. When we got to the wall, we realized that we we had thrown away the passport with the envelope. Doh! I asked Dylan to discreetly run back and grab it out of the trash, while Amber was in line for the wall. He found it and brought it back without issue. I was a little worried about being disqualified this early in the race for not staying together as a team, but no issues there. Amber got up the wall until a tricky spot about 8 feet from the top, then she got stuck. We had 15 minutes to make it up the wall, or we got a 15 minute penalty (only one member of the team had to climb the wall). The belay lady yelled a 2 minute warning. Amber scrambled to the top. Then we were off to CP2.

CP2 was on a "reentrant"...knowing what that meant would have helped alot. We found a CP, but it was labeled CP1. Now, 3-4 teams were here, and we all figured it was mislabeled (since it was done after 7pm in the rain...), as our map showed only 1 CP in the area. Little did we know that this was a CP for the adult race!! We later found out that a reentrant is the valley between 2 descending ridge lines...kinda like the fingers on a lake on the topo map. A "spur" is the finger (descending ridgeline) on the topo map. Hope that was clear...

From there, we went across E. Bells Ferry to Lewis Park. Instead of going to the trail head, we bushwacked straight across to the trail (maybe 100ft). This put us ahead of several teams. We found CP3 easily, almost exactly where we came out of the woods and hit the trail. CP4 was not where it description said it was, but was about 100ft down the trail. Just took a few extra minutes to find it, but it was obtainable. This CP was later ruled as "misplaced", and everyone received credit for it--regardless of whether you found it or not. Back to the central transition area (CTA) for us.

We checked in and headed out for the canoes. Now being a YMCA member would have given you the advantage of knowing that there was a trail from the back of the pavillion straight down to the canoes (not on the map). Since we'd never been here before, we took a trail to the road down to the canoes (a bit longer way). We got all CPs on the lake without issue, except for the last one. Dylan had a bit of trouble getting up the eroded "cliff", so I sent Amber to boost him up. He was in and out in a flash. Then it was back to the dock, with a short portage up the boat doc to the parking area, and back up to the CTA. This time, we saw someone else heading up the trail that we missed on the way down.

We checked in at the CTA and grabbed our bikes. The instructions said we had to stay on "the" trail, but made no attempts to tell you where the trail actually started. We caught the "connector" trail that we had used earlier on foot and started following the trail. There were plenty of streamers guiding the way, until we came upon one that blocked the path. On the other side, it said to turn a particular direction. We went that way and came up on a race director. He looked at us like we were crazy, "Where are you guys coming from?" I said, "The trail...they didn't tell us which one." He pointed us in the right direction, and we rode out to CP10. We came up on about 6 bikes on the ground in a spot which I thought was way to far away from the CP. Sure enough, we kept riding after checking the map and found several teams running back, after they figured out they dropped bikes too soon. We got CP10, and followed the directional signs back to the race director that we saw earlier. Now I understood his confusion, as this was the way back from CP10. He never saw us go out, so I can understand his confusion when we showed up... We found CP11 on the way back, but Dylan was hurting. He wanted to stop several times, but we motivated him to continue.

We finish in 2 hrs 7 minutes, but took a 30 minute penalty for punching the adult CP1 instead of the youth CP2. The real burn was not getting credit for CP4. I wonder how many of the other teams found it...