Here is the Start Map (not all checkpoints plotted)
The race started with a short run (spread out those teams) followed by a bike leg. The provided maps only had 2 bike CP's - but we would be able to copy additional CP's from those 2. We headed first up to Bike CP11, where I promptly in a hurry marked one of them incorrectly. Even though we had an easy time of the ones I marked correctly, about 20 minutes of looking for CP4 in the dark and we decided to move on and hit it later. We went to BCP1 picked up a couple more checkpoints and headed to the bike drop. At the bike drop we headed out on foot,
The format was the same for the foot section, we had 2 plotted checkpoints. I was running just fine, but was having a hard time staying mentally focused on the map. Sure enough, after easily getting the first 2 CP's I headed us totally in the wrong direction for Foot CP4 (something about the number 4) and wasted another 20-30 minutes looking in a totally wrong place (with one other team) for the control. After realizing my mistake I kicked my ass in gear, drank a 5 hour energy and decided no more mistakes. We had no other issues after that, but also knew that we had probably put ourselves in a catch-up position.
We headed back to the bike drop and then started the bike section to the east, after finding CP8, we had 2 more CP's added to the map (CP9 and CP13). Even though the terrain was at times tough we pushed through and the final ride was nearly all pavement (with one detour down a new path).
We were on the water just before 7 AM. The paddle section was a lot of fun, and also since it was an out and back it confirmed that we were running in 2nd place. This got us charged up to push to catch up with the 4 person male team in front of us. We pushed the paddle pretty hard and hit the transition area around 9 AM to head out on the final run.
We moved very well on this run, with only one slow down as I decided to go straight across the woods northwest from FP 9 to the large berm road. This turned into a couple of swims and a lot of thick palmettoes - but we still kept a good pace. Once we hit the road, it was all running. As we approached FP7 we saw Aaron and May-Li and then shortly after saw the team we were trying to catch. We had narrowed the gap, but were still about 10 minutes back (by my calculation).
As we came across the line we learned we had crossed in 2nd place, and were followed shortly by May-Li in 3rd.
Kudos to Kip for a truly challenging courses - here is the map with all the checkpoints. I will post my track once I pull it off my GPS tracker I had in my pack.
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