WAR

Kristina and I did the Women's Adventure Race yesterday, and it was so fun! It's been a while since she and I raced together, just the two of us, and we had forgotten how much fun we have together. We laughed through most of it and ended up doing pretty well. It was out at Butcher Jones, and the weather was perfect. Once we got there, we unloaded all of our gear and waited to hear where we would find our maps. At the starting line, they announced that our maps were waiting for us w/ a guy in a kayak sitting out in the middle of the lake. So--we started in the water which we were so not anticipating. We threw our life vests on and paddled out--which was not the easiest thing in the world. Our "boat" turned out to be a little on the small side. It said on the box that it was made for two people, but apparently it's made for two very small people. We weighed more than the "maximum load" for sure. It was super uncomfortable and we had no idea what we were in for. Here we are testing out different positions before the race started. This is how we set out on our first trip in the water. It SO backfired. Our raft was full of water and it took us forever to get out.OK, we are in the green raft on the right. See how low we sit? So much for our 30 dollar raft. Or maybe it was the fat pregnant person weighing us down. One of the two.I realize this is the most unflattering picture in the world, but I still think it's hilarious. I'm trying to gracefully (haha) to get out of the boat. If you look closely, you'll see that Kristina is cracking up watching me.Anyway....once we got our maps, we set off on foot to find a couple checkpoints. At our first stop we had to take a burlap bag and fill it w/ 40 lbs of sand. Once it was weighed, we had to carry the sand bag back to the TA. Kristina and I took turns carrying it...we tried sharing the weight and carrying it together, but we couldn't get the dang thing tied right so sand kept falling out. Here we are going over the rules.Carrying the sandThen we hit the bikes for a few more checkpoints and ended up making good time. I was a little worried about the biking section....I'm a big pansy on down hills and was even more nervous w/ my belly. It gave me the perfect excuse to go slow, and I didn't feel bad about slowing Kristina down. She was a good sport! After the bike section, we had to do a balancing/teamwork event...then load 4 of the 40 lb sandbags onto this piece of wood and drag it from point A to B.

After that, we had to use a 5 gallon bucket to fill up this trash can full of water till it was overflowing. Lots of running back and forth from the lake.
Once we got it full enough, Kristina hopped in so the water would spill out and we didn't have to fill it up as high. The rules said "no non-living" things in the bucket, so we were safe.
I'm asking, "Are we good?"Then we hit a few more points on foot, followed by the last leg of the race....paddling. It was freaking long. We had to paddle all over that dang lake, and had the worst equipment. This time we tried a different tactic and started on our knees with me in the back instead of the front. Not good. Our legs cramped up and going from one position to another in the water ain't easy. We didn't fall out though. At one point we got out and had to empty our raft of all the water that had gotten in. Even though this was the hardest part, it was the funnest. We were cracking up like crazy. I was sunk so low in the boat I was practically sitting in the lake, so getting out to change positions was hilarious. At one point we were both totally stuck and cracking up so hard we were afraid of peeing in the raft. I don't have the best bladder control either so it was a challenge to keep it all under control. The volunteer in the kayak came over to check on us and make sure we were ok. We were laughing too hard to answer so I think he figured we were fine. Finally, after a stinking long time in the raft, we saw the shore and made it back. You can kind of see from this picture how sunk in I was. Here is Kristina trying to heft me out.

We made it!! It took us 3 hours and 12 minutes, right around the middle of the pack. We had so much fun. I'm suffering from a serious sun burn now though. I caked the sunscreen on my face but neglected the rest of my body so I hurt.

(Note to self: exercise more. I realized looking at all of these pictures, and more importantly--the ones that were too disgusting to post--that I'm not one of those cute little pregnant girls. I've got cottage cheese covering my whole body and it's ugly. I don't know when I lost my self control in the eating department, but it's gone. I've got to figure out how to get it back, and fast! And please don't comment on here that that's not true. Just let me wallow, please. :))