Dawn's Extreme Heat Adventure Race Recap

When Dawn asked me to add "Extreme Heat Adventure Race" into her training schedule, I was skeptical.  Really?  Extreme Heat?  But Dawn assured me the race was just a fun day with a good friend.  Turns out Dawn and Andi had a great adventure in the desert near the Salt River.  Here is her race recap.

We had a blast!  Andi and I signed up for that race a little over a week ago with extremely LOW expectations.  It just looked fun and it was close to home.  I like to accessorize with a little team flair so I dressed us up in tutus and matching bandanas.  The event was very small -- only 20 or so teams. They  explained the rules a few minutes before the race began and handed us all maps and punch cards and we were off!

As soon as I looked at the map my eyes went crossed!  The organizers did not tell you on their website that you need to be able to read a topographic map!  Luckily Andi had used one before and she was our team navigator.  (If she did not know how to read that map this report would be VERY different!)  We were told to follow the map to all of the check points and punch the card at each point.  The map led us all over Coons Bluff and up some VERY steep hills.

After the first three check points we had to head back to the start and complete an obstacle where one person wears a blind fold and the other tells them where to step making sure not to hit any of the cones.  After that we were back orienteering for another 5 check points.

Once we completed the "trek/run" portion of the race we had to head back again to the start and do another obstacle.  This time we got one Dixie cup and one 20-ounce big red cup and we had to fill the Dixie cup with water from the river and bring it back to a picnic table and fill the big red cup.  I stayed down by the river and Andi ran back and forth between the river and the table.  Once that was done we were told to grab our rafts and continue following the map.  We had to run for a little over a mile with our raft, paddles and PFDs and hit another obstacle along the way.  This time we needed to balance a Wiffle ball between two strings and get the ball to sit on top of a pole (super easy).

 

Once we finished that we headed to the river and put in where the tube rentals are.  This was the hilarious part!  We are both avid kayakers and did not think anything of paddling a raft down the river…little did we know the raft is so light trying to paddle and stay in the right direction is very challenging.  I spent most of the time in the back cracking up watching Andi paddle with her life jacket, tutu and bandana!  It was such a comical sight.

The river was beautiful though…complete with a herd of wild horses, bald eagles, and every other kind off river bird.  Once we finally mastered the art of paddling a blow-up raft we were at the finish and happy to take 4th place overall.  Not bad for our first time!  There was no medals or t-shirts but they had Diet Coke and all sorts of snacks.  We will for sure do this again next year!  I think the course was a total of 12K.