The original plan was to head to Jo's Coffee on South Congress, cross at Elizabeth to 1st street, then BSR to BSS. WELL--

Before the "race" we heard rumors of a "secret first landmark" which might be at 3rd and San Jacinto.Well, when the announcer telling us to line up said "y'all got the first landmark clue, right? it is the highest point in Austin".. that pretty much shot the Alternate secret Theory on Landmark #1. Which meant that I, in my silly sarcasm in the days prior to the race, had actually sealed the fate of the first landmark checkpoint: Mt. Bonnell. Because I had carefully done a gmap and casually tossed out, "well, this will be fine unless they include Mt. Bonnell, or recording a peacock scream at Mayfield park".. okay guys, I will NEVER do that again. My apologies..............

So, all bets off, we revert to Team SNAK gmap 257402. We head out, south on Congress to Jo's coffehouse, checkpoint obstacle #1 . Where we find the instruction:

Teammate #1 puts on goggles that have been blacked out (effectively a "blindfold") Teammate #2 hops on the back of Teammate #1 and proceeds to communicate to Teammate #1 by any means possible how to navigate the obstacle course of orange pylons going every-which-way till the "finish".

Shayla and I being of relatively the same weight, what the heck do we we do??? well, I, being of longer leg, and knowing Shayla said her back had been hurting, I chose to be the 'mule'. But Shaayla was a fantastic navigator. Much better, I'm sure, than my ability to get thru the course. BUT!! it doesn't stop there. After we finished the blindfolded piggypack course, THEN we had to fill up a bucket with 10 oz water cups from a kiddie pool. That is when I discovered I'd really hurt my left quad. I think Shayla had to do 3:1 trips to fill our bucket there. After she collected the bead at that checkpoint, I put Biofreeze on my quad and both of us sat there on the curb taking a rest. Wondering -- what the hell are they gonna ask us to do next??

So, our original plan was to continue on S Congress to Elizabeth but since the cops were directing traffic, we made a left turn out of Jo's onto Congress to get back to BSR. We had talked about riding on the South side of the sidewalk of BSR to get to BSS and as it turns out, that might have been the way to go. Only we were trying to really follow cycling rules as relative to "Vehicles".

Checkpoint obstacle #2 on our itinerary was Bicycle Sport Shop (BSS) on S. Lamar, only the rules stated you could NOT RIDE on Lamar, only cross it. So we waited at BSR/Lamar for the light (as pedestrians) and got to BSS for our turn at the obstacle - a pleasant "think of when you were 8 years old" scooter course. Took about 1.5 min. Then we went back up the sidewalk to BSR and headed west to

Checkpoint obstacle #3: Jack and Adam's. At this checkpoint, there were again TWO things to accomplish.
Teammate #1: put an approx. 6 in length of PVC pipe between your legs and hop about 20 feet to meet your teammate. Teammate #2: put a plunger between your legs such that the "handle" sticks out the back so your teammate can put the

piece of PVC pipe onto the handle. Oh yeah, you can't use your hands. And you have to repeat it 3 times.

THIS IS JUST THE FIRST PART OF J & A's "obstacle"

THEN you have to, as a team, go into an inflatable "Something" filled with SOAPSUDS and locate 3 objects: A snake A frog A fish

I quickly found a snake, then Shayla found a fish and a frog. Collecting the bead once again, we headed out on BSR, trailing soapsuds from our thighs, for about 30 ft. I had left my fanny pack. So I had to go back for it. No biggie.

Back out onto BSR, we took a right turn onto Stratford to

Checkpoint #4: the Rowing Dock.
Of course we knew we'd be getting wet here, so it was a given to abandon all inhibitions. While in line, we saw Matt Bush's team "Brew" something?? and Team Insommia (Pam and Jeff) as well as team Hand Turkeys (Amy and Laura) and Z-Cats (Lee and Jay) all finish ahead of us telling how cold the water was!! Susan and her friend Richard were just ahead of us in line. The challenge: teammate #1 get on inflatable DUCK. Teammate #2: propel (by whatever means) teammate #1 on the duck, out to buoy, and back to dock. They gave both of us PFD's, which was lucky cause when I jumped on the duck, I fell on Shayla's head. Neither of us was on the duck. We both held onto the duck, swam to the buoy (which, by the way, was in shallow water), turned around, then swam back to the dock. Shaayla hoisted me out of the water and, dripping wet and 30 min later, we were done with checkpoint #4. I vowed to check, next time I buy a bike helmet, to not only check how many AIR vents it has, but how many WATER vents. I never swam in a bike helmet before.

Back out Stratford up a slight hill and headed to Mopac foot bridge (cause you could NOT ride on mopac -- not that anybody would want to). We stopped at the stretching rock to discuss strategy.

At this point, Shaayla's knee was hurting and my left quad had been killing me since Jo's, so we made an executive decision to skip the Mt. Bonnell landmark checkpoint ('specially since we had 'phone a friend' set up). So we went to the parking lot by Austin HS and out the back to the hike & bike Trail which dumped us out onto 5th street. Which led us to:

Checkpoint obstacle #5: Pure Austin. Big Green Machines - BIG WHEELS!!!WOO HOO!! THAT was fun. Got the bead, headed out on 5th, got on Rio Grande heading north.

At Rio Grande and 14th, Shaayla retrieved message/talked to Amy about the next landmark checkpoint. It was the south entrance to Old Main, only I didn't hear that part, all I heard was get to the Tower Building, so I figured out how to get us to the tower building, (Landmark checkpoint #2) we got our bead and the next clue which was a no-brainer: "I am over 500 years old and 300 feet tall. In 1989 some JERK tried to poison me". I knew where we had to go, only we had just passed it a few min ago.... but no biggie, it was near the finish and I figured we'd hit it on the way back. We called our friends to tell them, only they arrived about 90 seconds later, after they'd been to Mt. Bonnell.

From Old Main, we crossed Guadalupe and got back to Rio Grande (sorry to use Rio Grande so much, I lived on 28th and Rio Grande, so I kinda knew the area??) This part was not in the original plan, so we had to improvise from now on..

We navigated to Checkpoint obstacle #6: Ozone Cycles on Guadalupe (again, we could not ride ON Guadalupe, so had to take backroads). This was a "dribble a basketball around the course and then take your shoes off and slide on your belly across the water slide" obstacle. Then they had watermelon and cold water. Yay.

From here we took 34th street to Medical up to 44th.

Checkpoint obstacle #7 (the final one!!): Chipotle. Our friends Lynn and Ed Sparks were there. With cowbell. I know they'd been there a while and we really appreciate their support!! This was another "dual event" checkpoint. First, both teammates had to make 5 turns at the "dizzy bat" (put the end of the bat on your forehead , the other end on the ground, and spin around 5 times). THEN we had to pull out clothes from the potato sacks, put them on (Shaayla, unfortunately, got a WOOL BLAZER), then put two legs(one from each person) in the sack, walk 3-legged around the cone and back to the start. My clothing consisted of two shirts so I put on one, then tied the other around my waist (it's all about layering, right?). Ed took many pictures and Lynn made sure we were well hydrated and physically healthy and gave us a special wristband, on top of the bead we got at that checkpoint, to prove we were there. WE REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR SUPPORT!! You are awesome!! (we later found out that other people who had chosen a different potato sack had to don 'nasty underwear')

We decided that since we had to go to Treaty Oak instead of the finish line from here, that we'd go ahead and take our original route, only not that that 'bitch of a hill' at 34th to cross Lamar. Shaayla wanted to go to 31st. Right. That was a steeper hill than 34th!! (But she didn't know that from just looking at a map). Oh well!! we went across Lamar and navigated thru the maze of one block streets/half streets/oneway streets and got on West Ave at MLK. West took us to 6th where we could turn west and cross Lamar to

Landmark checkpoint #3: Treaty Oak. Bead to prove we were there. And Ice Cream. At 11:57am, just before cutoff.

From here, we went to 5th street (With a light!!) haul buns to Guadalupe/Cesar Chavez/finish line. On the way to Run Tex, saw Jay and Lee who said the final obstacle would cool us off.

final Obstacle: a hot inflatable something followed by a climb up a ladder/slide down water slide. When Shaayla presented our beads, they said our time was 4:01.

Met up with Amy/Laura/Susan/etc. had Chipotle and beer and slogged back to pick up bikes, put them in cars and head home. And when I got home, I washed my car since I was already wet/muddy. And later I washed me.

It was fun, but I hurt... Thank goodness Monday is Rest Day..