GNAR

 So, after nearly pushing myself too far on Saturday at the P111K,  we slept in on Sunday to start the kid's 8 yr birthday celebration day.  He would later sum the day up by calling it " The best birthday present ever"!

After a hearty strawberry pancake and bacon breakfast, we headed out to Camp Pinnacle for GNAR,  the gnarliest kid's adventure race ever.  The elements had not advertised so we did not know what to expect, other than a huge slip and slide and we needed our bikes. 

We arrived at the venue, checked in and walked to course.  The kid was soaking it in and I was excited to share my race knowledge with him.

 At the start line, with  8 minutes to go, I shared with him my techniques for calming amidst the chaos.  We were right next to a nice lake which is what we chose to focus on,  I pointed out the small things that made the lake beautiful and we found some chill space for a few moments in time.

 Then it was 2 minutes to go, and finally we went,  hard.  A sprint for a 1/4 mile to the belly crawl,  I seriously thought my body was going to give out, but there was no way, I was going to make the team slow down.  Skin tingling and lungs burning we dove onto the hot dry grass and hopped onto our bikes.

Suddenly, even though my heartrate was way too high, I felt comfortable,  I was in my element and I could relax.  The mtn bike section was a long grassy climb to double track that dumped us onto a long swoopy downhill finishing on the pump track....awesome.

 

 We dumped our bikes and headed into the woods, traversing the climbing wall, and then to the rope swing, balance beam, target shooting, hoop throwing, tightlining fun times.   Coming out of the woods, we were excited to get into a boat.  There was a time when I was ACA whitewater canoe and kayak certified, and it had been a while since I had been in a boat.  It came back quickly and we were greeted with cheers of excitement as we slid through the water.   The kid did a great job in the bow, executing a perfect backpaddle to get us turned around to head back to the dock.

 Out of the boats, the course took us up the hillside,  through a cabin and onto the slip and slide for the finish. We dove and slid like nobody's business under the finish banner. 

Airborne

 After the race, no results were posted until the awards ceremony.  We hung out with the rest of the families at the camp, swimming, sitting in the shade and eating some BBQ.  I was cooked and enjoyed the down time, chilling with the fam. 

The awards ceremony was a bit nerve wracking, and although we knew we were fast, we had discussed earlier not to get hopes up and count on a medal if we didn't know for sure.  Yet, finally, they called out," with a time of 16m 23 sec for First place in the Adult/Child category: Lazer Penguins ( the kid's choice for our team name). 

I'm proud of my kid.
(thanks to the wife for taking photos)
We'll be back next year!