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Congratulations to everyone who participated in the Adventure Team Challenge - volunteers, racers, and people who generously loaned gear to the effort. Wow! Thank you, Dean, for signing Alteryx up as the sponsor. It was pretty impressive that Alteryx came in 2nd, 3rd and 4th – out of 13 teams. (Yes, Erik Weihenmayer's team of professional athletes did get 1st.) I am sure there are a lot of people wondering about our company's "secret sauce!"
In my opinion, there were challenges to go around for all during this event – right from the get-go with Caty racing against the clock when it came time to organize all the loaned gear for the crew heading out to the campsite by the river. Thank you, Caty! Then there was trying to sleep through the Reggae party going on not too far from our group camp site; trying to get the ear plugs in far enough into one's ear canals to drown out the coal/freight trains echoing and squeaking by the campsite at 2:00 am, 3:00 am, 4:00 am (was I looking at the clock?) pretty much every night. Oh yes, and the barking dogs at 5:00 am. I won't comment about the instant coffee at 6:30 am.
For the volunteers, after a sleepless night, the challenges continued out on the trail, where people had to head out before the racers, scale cliffs, route-find to get to their check points, stay hydrated in blaring heat and sun, negotiate flooded river banks, traverse narrow, old jeep tracks (with steep drops right into the raging river below) in cargo trucks that should only be on paved highways, and mountain bike on rocky and steep treacherous roads. A few folks thought they had near-death experiences, and the stories are still coming out.
For the racers, I found that there was something in this race to challenge every person on every team. Every day there were highlights and lowlights.
A lowlight for me, aside from facing instant coffee in the morning, was battling the head-wind on the paddle raft on the first day. At times, the wind stopped us dead in the water, and it seemed as though we were getting nowhere fast. It was very tiring. Another lowlight was when my tow rope (Michael and I towed Seth, our paraplegic, on his hand cycle) got tangled up in my mountain bike wheel right at the mass start on Day 2. We had to stop and get that sorted out while nearly everyone passed us. Ugh!
A highlight on the first day was me scrambling to keep up with Chad, who has a prosthetic leg, as we traversed across slippery skree on the way to a mine shaft. I could barely keep up! He is impressive! Another highlight was Seth rippin' it up on his hand cycle, pulling it up on two wheels on crazy-fast descents down rutty dirt roads. All I could think about was, "what is the wipe-out going to look like?" No wipe-out; just daring and skill. I could tell he was out to live large on that cycle.
On Day 2 the main highlight was that my team did eke out a stage win, beating the professionals by 2 seconds. We passed them at checkpoint 16 and managed to keep our lead all the way to the finish, where Michael Maynes leaped out of the boat and slid in to "home plate," donating a piece of his elbow to the cement boat landing. The boat touching the ramp was actually the finish, so we managed to get the boat in, too, and claim the stage win.
But in the end, the best highlight for me was when both Chad and Seth told me how proud they were to be on our team, and what a great experience it was for them. That was exactly my goal for the team--to give those two guys an amazing experience.
It was fantastic to see Dean, Maureen and Brett and their team out on the course, though once they seemed like they were going the wrong way, and to see Ned, Nino, Rob and the always-smiling Clarissa--her grin a little bigger as they passed by us on the trail to take the lead. It seems like there were Alteryx jerseys everywhere, and at times, the Alteryx teams were neck-and-neck: one team behind or passing or just ahead or around the bend. And allegedly, although I did not see too many of them, there were Alteryx photographers everywhere, too. (I apologize if I don't remember seeing you or speaking to you! I was busy!) Anyway, Alteryx put on a very strong showing from the race course, to photographers and support folks in the bush, to the support groups manning the tables and tents back in camp.
I don't know the specific times for the results, but the gist of it is: Team Terrorific got 2nd, Team Detour came in 3rd, and Team Clarissa came in 4th. I think the Atlas folks came in 11th.
Thank you volunteers and supporters, and again, congrats to everyone.
