Ocean Springs Adventure Race

September 20, 2008 - Ocean Springs, MS

Team Name: Hefner Bunny Pie (HBP)
Team Members: Paul Engeriser, Lori Zeringue, Kirk Zeringue

Since the race was postponed a week due to Hurricane Ike, Matt Abbrecht was unavailable to race with HBP. Therefore, Paul and Lori gave me a chance to redeem myself from my previous sub-par performance racing with HBP in the 2007 Mobile Urban Adventure Race.

The race started with a run to retrieve CPs 1 – 3. Lori and Paul are both faster than me so I did everything I could to keep up during this initial sprint. We then jumped on the bikes to get CPs 4 &5. I immediately noticed something wasn’t quite right with my rear wheel. It appeared the tire was rubbing on the inside of the bike frame. I only really noticed it around turns and when I pedaled very hard. I tried not to let it slow me down. After CP 5 we biked back to the TA where we were to complete a mystery challenge. In short, it was a challenge requiring all three people to have good balance... Paul and I proved that we were balance challenged. Eventually, after falling off the beams one time, we completed the challenge and biked to the canoe put-in. We were to paddle and retrieve CPs 6-10. It appeared we were the 4th team to get our boat in the water. This canoe leg proved to be one of the physically hardest paddling legs I have ever done. We paddled in and out of a bay, up and down some winding bayous. The high winds made paddling and steering extremely difficult. In the end, we passed up one team and were the 3rd team out of the water. Next was a bike leg that began with biking on the beach…in the sand. I really struggled with this section. At first, I thought I just sucked at it. Then I realized that my rear tire was rubbing on the frame pretty badly making the pedaling even more difficult. I was moving so slow that I though I could move faster by just pushing my bike. So I did. Other teams were easily passing us (me), so Paul offered to switch bikes with me. That helped a little, but I was still moving slower than the average person. In the end, I decided that my bike was partially to blame but I really just suck in the sand. We finally made it off the beach and could return to pavement. We caught a break while biking to CP ??? when the teams that passed us on the sand crossed went to the wrong side of the river to find the CP. We stayed on the correct side. This allowed us to make up the time I cost us in the sand. Yay!!! I was pretty upset about my beach performance, so this made me feel a little better. We were now back in the race. We finished the bike leg (this proved to be the last ride for the yellow Diamondback, RIP!) and took off running for the final 3 CPs. At this point, we were slightly ahead of Team Without a Paddle. HBP really needed to beat them. My chance at redemption would come down to the final 2.5 mile run. We (I) did it. We (I) held them off by 25 seconds. I say “I” because I was the slowest one on the team, so all Without a Paddle had to do was pass me. They couldn't and HBP came out 2nd in the Coed division and 4th overall, which is exactly where they would have finished had Matt done the race. Redemption!!!