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It wasn't that my team was any slower. We just went a lot farther than most other teams.

Last Saturday at midnight, Doug, Ray, Jeff and I jumped into our canoes and began the toughest adventure race in America. We had been nervous about it all day, hoping we hadn't forgotten anything.

We were all in great shape. Jeff had been getting up at 3am for eight months to train. Ray had worked at the Eco-Challenge School and is a multi-talented athlete. Doug, a powerhouse, had just won a big mountain bike race in California. And I had been working out three hours a day since the first of the year and was feeling fit enough to race with Team Balance Bar.

"I'm frantic to scratch my oozing poison ivy sores, psychotic from lack of sleep and eating humble pie for not being in the top-10..."

Once the race started and we were in the canoes paddling, we calmed down. Ray and I were paddle partners, and did well keeping up with Doug and Jeff. At one point during the night we attached our canoes with bungee cords so the second canoe could draft the lead. With a good draft, the second canoe can move at the same rate using 10-20% less energy, which was important in the long haul.

We got off the lake in 10th place and headed down river for the next 38 miles. It wasn't technical at all, but mid-morning we flipped our canoe on nothing more than a ripple. I don't even know how it happened, but after that my confidence was shot. And the tough rapids were still to come.

Ray sensed how nervous I had become.

"Cathy, I want you to do something," he said. "I want you to grit your teeth and get MAD at these rapids. Don't let them push you around. Get mad, don't let them beat you."

As we entered the next set of rapids around the bend, I started swearing to myself and calling them names. They weren't going to get the best of me, and I wasn't going to let my teammate down. And it worked! I now had my attitude back and the whitewater was fun and easy. Ray's psychology had worked wonders, and we made it through the tough stuff just fine.

We spent 12 hours on the water, and as gorgeous as the New River is, it lost some appeal after paddling that long. So, we started making up New River jokes.

"Do you know why they named it the New River?"
"Because they new we'd want to get off it after 12 hours."

After jumping out of the canoes, we packed our climbing gear and jogged to the ropes section: 220 vertical feet of rock cliffs blanketed by vegetation.

"We stopped to check the maps and I heard a kitten meowing... I stuffed him in and continued pedaling to the cadence of his loud protests..."

"That's all poison ivy up there," the ropes expert warned. "So be careful."

I didn't see how you could 'be careful' — the ropes went right through it. It wasn't like you could pick an alternate route, or let go of the ropes to push it out of the way. I was getting concerned, but once I started ascending, my focus changed from the poison ivy to the task at hand.

The rappel down was pretty wild; we dangled in mid-air for 250ft, but at least there wasn't any poison ivy. I tried to just look at the cliffs and not turn around or even worse, look down. We did the rope work quickly and stopped for food at the next transition area and prepared to get on our bikes.

At the transition area, they told us we could not follow Route 42 on the bikes or we would be disqualified, which meant we had to totally change our route plan. Looking at the maps, this meant a long bushwhack to bypass the forbidden highway.

It was late afternoon before we began the 57 miles of hills. We all enjoyed the Virginia countryside as we biked along at good clip. We arrived at the bushwhacking section sometime after dark. There were no trails, so we pushed our way through thick forests for hours. The bikes kept getting snagged and tangled in all the trees, and though there were several other teams with us, there were no signs that anyone had been there before us.

Come to find out, there had been various interpretations of "stay off Route 42." Some teams stayed off it, but traveled through the cow pastures next to it. Other teams had been told to stay off it only at a different section of the race, but not this one. Rumor had it that one team turned off their lights and took Route 42 anyway. Whatever the case, a lot of other teams passed us on that part despite our good navigating skills. Fair or not, that's adventure racing and we took a major hit on that one.

We were enjoying ourselves as a team, though, and didn't let it get us down. We knew we had the ability to climb back into the top 10 if we didn't make too many mistakes.

"Our goof translated in to many hours of lost time. Apparently, we thought we were at one point on the map when we were really at another..."

After the hike-a-bike section, we still needed to find the next transition area. But we couldn't. It was after midnight, we were in the middle of nowhere and it was raining hard. We spent hours looking for it and I was starting to get a little worried about hypothermia. Then, out of the blue, we came across an empty tool shed.

"Hey you guys, come in here," a man from another team yelled from the door. Three other soggy teams were inside, huddled together shivering.

I have no idea what that tool shed was doing there all by itself; there weren't any houses around. As I was mulling the possibility of divine intervention, I noticed the rear brake shoes on my bike were worn down to the metal. I couldn't understand why, as I had tuned it up before the race and the race officials had given a thumbs up inspection as well.

Destroyed to the point of being incoherent, I can't even remember who else was in the shed that night. I vaguely remember somebody getting up to let me sleep on a piece of plywood instead of the dirt floor. Even though Ray was as cold and wet as me, he insisted I use his space blanket.

The next morning it was still raining and we had to put on our wet clothes and shoes and go find the transition area. We were dismayed when we discovered it was only a few hundred yards from the tool shed. Had we known, we could have had a hot meal and spent a warm night in the support van.

"Though the race directors had said it was 86 miles, our odometers said a lot more than that..."

But we knew we were strong and could still make up the time. We'd catch up on the next section, a 43-mile hike. We passed the hours hiking, running the downhills, and laughing. As we jogged through the flowering rhododendrons, my teammates told jokes.

Adventure racer: Sir, I am a lost adventure racer looking for the next CP and was wondering if you could help me out.
Farmer: CB? Sure, we've got one of those out in the truck. Who do you want to call?

Farmer: What kinda fishin' pole you got there, son?
Adventure racer: It's a trekking pole, sir.
Farmer: Well you ain't gonna catch anything without a reel.

We zipped through areas crisscrossed by horse trails and the Appalachian Trail. Our navigation was right on, until we go to one point that made no sense to us. We spent hours trying different trails and nothing seemed right.

Our goof translated in to many hours of lost time. Apparently, we thought we were at one point on the map when we were really at another. It was a good lesson, unfortunately learned the hard way. If the directions aren't making any sense there's a good chance you're not where you think you are. Top teams minimize their mistake time in these situations, but we were still green and it cost us.

Despite our physical and mental fatigue, everybody remained in good spirits. The joy of getting back on course kept us positive and strong. I reminded our bike expert, Jeff, that I needed my brake shoes changed before the next 86-mile bike section.

"I looked, and straight out of The Twilight Zone they were like new. I had hallucinated the worn out brake pads...."

After eating and repacking in the transition area, Jeff went over to repair my brakes.

"Cathy," he said with a strange look on his face. "Your brakes are fine."

I looked, and straight out of The Twilight Zone they were like new. I had hallucinated the worn out brake pads.

Since there were two stores on the route, we decided not to carry so much food and buy some along the way to keep our packs lighter.

Halfway through the day we ended up on another bicycle bushwhack with two other teams. Again, there were no signs that anybody had been there ahead of us, and we spent hours going just two miles through tangled undergrowth. We came out right in the back yard of the house where the checkpoint was, yet there was no checkpoint. Two other teams had been there for hours looking for it. Nothing made sense. After some time, we asked the man who lived there if he knew anything about a checkpoint.

He said they had been there yesterday but weren't there today.

So we were in the right spot after all. They had moved the checkpoint without telling us!

Such is life in adventure racing. Bad luck for us once again — we lost countless hours there. And by the time we got this all sorted out, the stores were closed and we had run out of food.

We biked into the night, toward the top of the second highest peak in Virginia. Along the way we stopped to check the maps and I heard a kitten meowing. There wasn't a house anywhere around and it appeared he had been dumped on the side of the road. Since I didn't have any food in my pack, there was plenty of room, so I stuffed him in and continued pedaling to the cadence of his loud protests.

At the top of the mountain we came across our crew person, Tim, and I handed the kitten off to him.

"What am I supposed to do with him?" he asked.

"Figure something out," I said as our team headed back down the mountain.

We stopped to sleep at 4am for an hour and continued on the next day without any food. I would have liked to have slept longer, but didn't want to say anything for fear of being considered the weak person on the team. I had been hallucinating and seeing double, but figured it wouldn't keep me from moving forward.

Some of the ride was pretty steep and Jeff attached a bungee cord to me and helped tow me along. I was the slowest cyclist, he was the best, and his help was just enough for me to keep pace with everybody. I thought he must be working hard, but he insisted he was hardly pulling me and it wasn't a problem.

Food was definitely a problem, though. Jeff was digging old PowerGel wrappers out of his pack and squeezing the last drops of discarded gel into his mouth. We found a packet of grape Gatorade mix and ate it straight out of the packet, laughing at our purple, frothing mouths.

After 34 hours of cycling, mostly without food, we arrived at camp at the end of the day. Though the race directors had said it was 86 miles, our odometers said a lot more than that.

"We stopped on the side of a road and were so spent we fell fast asleep in the gravel for 10 minutes..."

Tim had named the kitten Jumar, because he liked to climb things. Jumar had the makings of a great adventure racer. He had already spent half of his life lost and hungry. He ate what we ate (macaroni and cheese, turkey and Spam) and discretely left camp to pee in the bushes when necessary. He liked to ride around in the hood of Tim's sweatshirt and had mastered jugging up people's racing tights. We had ourselves a mascot.

During the next hiking leg, the sleep deprivation really started to affect us. Jeff and Ray were weaving but Doug somehow never seemed to need any sleep. He could just concentrate and keep going. He only stopped to sleep because of us. We stopped on the side of a road and were so spent we fell fast asleep in the gravel for 10 minutes. Sleep comes to an adventure racer as if you're in the hospital going under anesthesia. "Start counting backwards from 10...10, 9, 8..." and you're out.

After that we decided we had better find a spot to roll out the sleeping bags.

The hike continued into the next day. By then we had our navigating routine down — no problems this time. Everybody was still laughing and having fun despite the long day. "Jumar will be full grown by the time we reach the next checkpoint," somebody said.

The river crossing was refreshing. It looked scary at first, but was fun once we got out there. We scaled a 600 foot cliff on the other side of the river that was tough going. At one point, Ray said, "Cathy, I seem to be feeling good on this part for some reason. Let me carry your pack for you."

I didn't see how anybody could be feeling good after five days on a racecourse but handed my pack over to him anyway. The sooner we all got up the cliff, the better. My teammates were great about helping me when I was a little slower, no matter how tired they were. When you're a female racing with top male athletes, it can be easy to feel like a burden. Instead, they made me feel like an integral part of the team.

About two-thirds of the way up the cliff, Ray spotted a film crew waiting for us. "Cathy, quick put your pack back on," he whispered.

After helping me get it back on, he pushed me out in front of the camera ahead of everybody else, to make it look as if I were leading the team. Very few people would ever be so considerate, and here I was lucky enough to be racing with him.

We continued through the rest of the course, hiking, biking, and canoeing on the final leg. Our team didn't falter in five days, six-and-a-half hours, and though we were tired, our physical ability to finish the course was unquestionable.

We had a few bad breaks and made a mistake that cost us a top finish, but it's so easy for teams to start pointing fingers and have a meltdown when things aren't going well — but that never happened with us.

Our tenacity and positive energy never wavered nor will my admiration for each particular strength Doug, Jeff, and Ray contributed to the team. Besides, they all insisted on chipping in to fly Jumar to his new home in California with Tim. This is quite wonderful in the eyes of a female.

A day later, I am sitting here with blistered toes, swollen hands and feet, scratched arms and legs, and deep purple bruises on my hips and thighs. I'm frantic to scratch my oozing poison ivy sores, psychotic from lack of sleep and eating humble pie for not being in the top 10. Would I do it all again?

Absolutely.

— Cathy Tibbetts, Team Balance Bar

BEAST DISPATCHES