RICO Challenge

I joined my first (not counting the Beast Races) Adventure Race.
It was a somewhat informal race put on by Eric Abraham (aka "Rico") that started in Lake Samammish Park.
Roger told me about it and introduced me to Eric a few days ahead of time, and he told me to c'mon down.

So, I did, not really knowing what to expect. It was definitely worth the trip.

Leg #1: Kayaking Lake Samammish (5 miles). I was on a team with Ryan&Jen VanGorden and her father, Jim. Jen was 6 months pregnant, so she sat out the kayak while the rest of us did the course. I led everyone out past CP 1 to CP2 where we were supposed to find our team name on green flagging. I couldn't find it. Ryan and Jim showed up, and they couldn't find it. Every other team found _their_ name, but ours was missing. We left CP1 ten minutes after everyone else. Jim had trouble paddling the sit-on-top, so I hooked up a tow. While Ryan and I paddled, Jim yelled out directions like "go faster!". CP 4 was a "jungle river",
and Ryan found a nice portage over to the next beach while I checked in at the CP, so we saved a little time getting to the finish, but we still finished DFL. Hey, I had fun, though.

We put our kayaks away and hustled over to the start of the Mount Bike leg. Rico adds a "team swap" twist to it, where each team gets to pick a member from the team in front of it. Then, the first place team got to pick a member from our team. They picked Ryan (he's on Dart/Nuun AR team, and quite good). We picked up Rick ____. Jen joined us for the mountain bike, which predicted to be slow, so I settled in for a nice casual race.
We mountain biked over to Newport Way and up some hills to a playground area where there was a time trial on a little push scooter (I hear they're popular in Europe). My team went last. As we were ready to set off again for more mountain biking, a call came down that noone had shown up yet for the next CP, which was only minutes away. We went very carefully and found the trail "hidden" in the bushes that wound its way through the subdivisions to the next CP, and all of a sudden, we were 3rd. With newfound vigor, we carefully navigated through the rest of the CPs (Rick and I agreeing on direction, Jen and Jim keeping up), and made it to Anitaircraft Ridge for the run.
Before the run, teams got to choose a member from the team below them, and I was picked up by Aaron (van der Waal) and Connie as the navigator. We manuevred smoothly through the Cougar Mountain trails, Aaron using a tow on Connie most of the way, and I running ahead. The CP on Wilderness Peak had a picture of a trail sign elsewhere in the park for the next CP - a nice twist.
After the run, we drew straws with the other team that had finished, and my new team was now Roger Michel and Reed (from Portland). We were the "B" team and supposed to redraw with the next team that showed up, but noone did for a while, so we set off on the Mountain Bike leg back to Samammish. I got a flat (arrgh!). Roger and Reed and I all worked on it together and got it fixed in record time. I had a CO2 inflater and only one cartridge; never having tried it before, I sure hoped it worked, and it did, reinflating my wheel in seconds. Back in action, we cruised back to the finish.
Clifton Lyles cooked up some tasty grub for all of the finishers, so we relaxed and ate good food while watching the rest of the racers comes in. My team finished 6 hours after we started, coming in 2nd (out of 6?), although the places were all somewhat random given the team switching we were all doing. I met a whole lot of great people and am looking forward to the next race!