Today was the 8th annual running of the Loveland Amazing Race. This would be the third year that my wife and I enter the race. She did it with another person in 2010, so this is her 4th in a row. The race (last year) was roughly a 3 mile run and 8 mile bike with 20 "Amazing Race" (TV show) type events/obstacles. The course changes each year, and so do the events. The map isn't released until the night before the race, so you never know what to expect/plan for. The race also sells out pretty quickly. The 2013 race sold out in less than one day, as they limit the field to 500 teams of two. I think they added 50 teams later though, as 539 teams finished today. Many teams register and never make it for one reason or another. They try to sell their slots on Facebook, for anyone reading this and thinking of trying it next year.
This race has been held in Loveland every year until this year, and now it in Milford.
Our start time was late, 11:57am. We had friends starting around 9:15am, and I think they sent the last team at 11:59 or 12:00. It's roughly a two hour race, and we'd be competing in the hottest part of the day. But, we got lucky and the weather was great. They started three or four teams every minute, until everyone was on their way. I looked at a copy of the course map before the start and knew that most of the course was road biking... This put a big smile on my face. My wife and I both brought our road bikes, and left the mountain bikes at home.
I noticed everyone in our heat, and the 3 or 4 ahead of us, were on mountain bikes. I had the furthest left slot and told my wife, "I'm going to let the ponies out. I'll see you at the first challenge." You have to do the challenges as a team, so no matter how fast either of us went we'd have to wait for the other at the next challenge. Running is her strength, and biking (lately) has been mine. As soon as the whistle blew, I shot off. I was gone, flying full speed, in a dead sprint. I rounded a turn at the end of the block and took a sharp left, with my wife and one mountain bike guy in second. I came upon the 11:56 group, all riding casually together, and blew by them. I was probably going 26-28 mph, no kidding. After another block, I saw the 11:55 group. Same thing, they were all on mountain bikes and just casually strolling. Maybe going 10 mph. Maybe? By the time I passed the 11:54 group I started to feel like an ass. I was going way too fast. But, this it the Amazing RACE, right? It's a race. These groups are just doing this for fun, I guess.
After I passed the 11:54 and maybe some 11:53's, I lost count at this point, we turned onto a road that would actually rival Indian Hill (almost) for a hill climb. This hill was probably 3-4% grade, and everyone was struggling on it. Hills are tough, whether running or biking, unless you specifically train on hills. Luckily I have been, so I shifted to my easiest gear (30 x 25), sat on the back of my seat (as I've read to do), put my hands on the top bar, and just kept a steady cadence (pedal revolution). I was cruising past many people on this hill. I thought I heard someone near the top of the hill say they were in the 11:37 group, but that might be crazy.
At the top of the first hill was the first event. My wife and I had to hold our hands behind our backs, and hold a kickball between our chests, then navigated an obstacle course. There was a volunteer guiding us, as we went slalom around cones, climbed over wooden steps, and ducked under a pole. If we dropped the ball, we had to start over. I stuck my stomach out far to keep the ball up and we went through fine. After each event, a person in a sombrero has a marker to mark your bib that you finished the event. We hopped back on the bikes, and headed back to the hill.
This was the routine, pretty much all day. We flew on the bikes, passing person after person on mountain bikes, then did the events fairly easily. Of the 20 events, we only had 2 penalties. There was only one team with two guys, one on a full carbon fiber road bike and his partner on a mountain bike (who surprised me by keeping up), that kept up with us on the bike. We really had a great race and ran well also.
There were all kinds of events. One was at an ice rink, where we had to make a hockey puck in a net across the ice rink, sideways. The cold rink felt great after running outside. There was a canoe event at the Beard Boyscout Camp, and we rowed out and around a buoy and back. Another event where I had to climb a 5 or 6 story tower (also at the Boyscout Camp) and then drop something to Leah (my wife) and then run down. My fear of heights had me on high alert here. Another event I pointed a bow & arrow at a hay target, then Leah blindfolded me, and guided me to shoot.
Our two penalties were on a golf thing (no surprise) and a trivia question (this surprised me). The golf thing was a 50-75 yard shot, we got 5 swings in a scramble style to get to the end. My first shot went way right (using a wiffle ball), and another team took it as their shot. We immediately saw this was time consuming, and our ball was gone, so we took the penalty. The penalty was to make a 5 foot putt. I got it first try and I think we netted a time savings by taking the penalty. Teams were taking each shot in the main part very seriously, and I think we saved time just giving up and taking the penalty.
The other penalty was bad. Trivia question. Our team name was Brains and Brawn, and for the last two years our strength has been the puzzle/trivia stuff. This year we seemed to do well physically and bomb mentally. The question was something like, "If you're in a linear race and you pass the person in last place, what place are you in?" We jumped with answer B, without reading C-E, and said 2nd to last place. After another second of thought, this is a trick because you can't pass the person in last place. You would have to be in last place. Anyway, we got it wrong. Trick question. Answer E said that and our penalty was to write on a chalk board "I will pay attention in class" 7 times each. This took FOREVER!!! I never write, and my handwriting is slow and ugly. This was embarrassing!
The last event was Tough Mudder/Warrior Dash like and we had to crawl in mud, get shot with hoses, then kids threw soap on us, and we simulated a car wash by going through foam things and crawling around for a minute. We were nice and clean, though sweaty, before this event. My poor shoes, though old anyway, got pretty messy here.
The biking wasn't all as glorious as I would have you believe. I put my crazy awesome bear trap mountain bike pedals on my road bike, since we were jumping on and off the bikes so much I didn't want to use my clipless pedals. Hopping on the bike after an event, I slipped a pedal and gashed my right calf pretty bad. It was bleeding and I joked to Leah, "I told you those pedals are bad ass." They rock for mountain biking with flat shoes, like Vans. Great grip and I can bail at any time.
Our final time was 2:03:39, placing us 92 of 539 teams. This puts us in the top 17%, which isn't bad. We were at 20% last year and nearly 50% in 2011. My wife's goal is always to just beat the average. In the male/female division, we were 46 of 273, again about 17%. Our improvement is tapering off year to year, but we're still getting there. We had a great time, and the events were fun. The camaraderie among everyone was great. I loved flying on the bike, and even heard a woman say to her partner, "Follow him, he's awesome." That pretty much made my day. Hah ha. I think we were just near slower teams to start. What about the 91 teams that beat us? They must have been earlier. I did barely make the registration last year before it sold out. Maybe it's first come, first serve. The fastest time of the day was 1:34:31, a male/male team. The fastest male/female team was a fellow Cincy Express member and her husband, with a time of 1:42:15.
I had mixed feelings about doing this again in 2014. On the one hand, it's a fun race that has become a tradition for my wife and I. On the other hand, we're hoping to do Olympic and half-Iron distance triathlons, and this shorter race might interfere with our bigger race goals. But, to hell with it. We signed up Sunday for 2014. They opened registration at 12:00pm, and I was online at 12:01 signing up. Hopefully, we'll get an earlier start time next year. We had early times in 2011 and 2012.
We don't have any more June races, and nothing in July. Our next race isn't until August's Warrior Dash at Clay's Park. That should be fun. Until then, I'll just keep my head down and ramp up the training.
Here is the 2013 LAR course map: http://www.historicloveland.com/larcourse.pdf
Sounds like so much fun!
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