We hadn't originally planned on racing The BEAR, but when the opportunity to purchase a used C-1 in Orlando presented itself, we needed a good excuse to make a road trip out of the weekend. We checked race schedules and this race was a perfect fit.

Since the main goal of the weekend was to pick up a new canoe, we didn't bring any of our usual race boats and instead opted to borrow a very fast wooden racing canoe from a friend who lived in the area. We checked with the race director to see if the boat would be ok, and got the thumbs up. This small fact may not seem significant, but as the tale unfolds, it was nearly our undoing.

The race started with a short run to collect some information posted on an information board in the Bayard Conservation Area. After writing down the clue and making it back to the main TA, it was off to the canoe leg of the race. We put into the nearby St. John's river, and noticed the water was somewhat rougher than what we had hoped for, but we managed to keep our boat upright for the 10 km paddle to the only paddle checkpoint.

As soon as we turned around, we were hit by a series of waves and were swamped. Our attempts to empty the boat and continue onward were squashed when the wind continued to pickup and the waves got even bigger. As we floated in the river and watched the rest of the race pass us by, we decided we'd just swim to shore and portage back to the TA. This turned into the longest portage I've ever done, over 7 miles in the hot baking sun.

Against all odds, and to the surprise of many racers and officials, we did make it to the TA, hopped on our bikes, and continued the race. The bike loop was short and relatively uneventful compared to our so called paddle. We made our final transition to another trekking section and collected the remaining checkpoints. During the last 2 sections we saw a lot of teams still on the course, but didn't have any idea how we were placed. To our surprise, we crossed the finish line and were told that only one team had crossed before us, but they weren't in our category. We had won!

Races like this one just go to show, in adventure racing, don't ever give up, you never know what can happen.