On Sept. 25 we went to San Juan island for San Juan Island Quest - went to bed at 1 am, woke up at 4 am and travelled for the first (or second?) ferry to the islands.
Very little sleep, but once the race started, it had little effect. The race was very different than the usual Washington races (Beast, Trioba, 4th DAR) - one third of the race for me was kayaking, the map was somewhat low quality, but it was bad enough for everyone - even local guys had issues reading it, the special tasks were extremely refreshing.
I came out of kayaking the very last or very close to very last one - my small kayak was certainly lower grade than the rest of the bunch dominated by some really nice double Northwest kayaks. But I might also be a rather weak kayaker, oh well. I started out fast, but was soon taken over by some fast folks including Roger and Yumay. Kayaking checkpoints where quite awesome - extremely large Out of kayak and an extremely fast transition - I kayaked in bike shoes and did not have bike shorts, so - out of kayak and ready to do bike polo. First two swings a miss and then finally a series of successful ones.
Biking navigation seemed confusing at first - I could not understand the distances and had trouble seeing trails, but after a while things came back. I went a long route around the smaller trails to get the furthest CP and then came back. One flat tire and adrenalin shaken hands while changing it. Some other teams had already gone through checkpoints I was getting afterwards, but at the end of bike I was the first. Well done.
The trekking was rather easy with the exception of tricky questions - good I know which country had kaisers and nobody wanted to know the 50 abbreviations of US.
Came back first for the last test - standup paddle board. Finish time 4:08. Second place - Roger and Yumay.
Small article with a picture of mine: SanJuanJournal, results here.
Big thanks to my wife who supported me with her friends and created pictures posted here.
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