Each time I think a Selden Hill event can’t top a previous event, I’m wrong. Todays event will certainly be one to talk about in years to come.
When I heard there would be a SHW Amazing Race scenario in our beloved trails, my first thought was “nope.” I’m not outdoorsy, I don’t like dirt and besides Robs Run, I’ve never ran in trails. When I found out I didn’t have to work on the day of the AR, I figured, why not take part? How hard could it be? I should face my fears of being dirty and possibly contracting Lyme disease. Lou and his team of mad people created a route as well as placed team markers throughout the course. The objective, get all your team markers and win win win. 8 teams of fun, fast and fierce folks were assembled.
No surprise Jaime and I were paired.
We arrived at 7:45 to the entrance of Connectiquot and were given out instructions. 8am, off we went. We were told not to run too fast as we may miss our markers. Run run run…oh look, we see a number, yippee. Boo, not ours! We yell out to those behind us the number we found! But we had to look for four 0s. We were keeping pace with Nichole and Elena, as well as Sarah and Noelle. Then, we slowed down to keep our eyes peeled and I kept tripping! Run run run, we come to 3 forks in the road. Ugh oh, where do we go? We take out the map, we can’t see anyone ahead of us, where are we???! We just stand there, we really had no idea what to do. Then, behind us we hear voices, oh, it’s Gina mom and Nancy. They look as confused as we do. Which way? No one wants to make a decision and we stand there. Then, what’s that we hear? More voices. The 4 other ladies come running back towards us from one of the forks we didn’t take. Guess what? They too are confused as to where to go. We are all lost!!!! What to do? After about 10 minutes of literally running in circles, Sarah and Noelle decided to take their own route and 6 of us went another. Thankful Nichole’s trail smarts got us back on course. Sarah and Noelle circled back! They may have ran in a circle again as well. We still had 2 markers to find. With the help of these amazing ladies, we found our markers and some more of our team mates. Finally. We made it out of the trail and back into our car. Lata Connectiquot!
Stop 2, San Souci park in Sayville! Goal, follow the trail, grab your 4 additional markers. This time letters (we had to find B.) Off we go, Jaime and I are actually ahead of all the teams. We run run run, we see our marker, we grab it, a mile or so up, we see the other, I’m reading the directions and we are cooking. Then, quiet. We run, but we don’t see any markings, not even the red SHW ribbons. We don’t see any of our team mates either. Did we get that far ahead of the others, Hmm? We run, then we see John coming towards us? Towards us!!!! not behind, are we going the wrong way? We don’t ask, we keep going, then we see Sarah and Noelle come towards us? Wtf? Are we ahead or are we lost? Are we the ones now circling back, we have no idea. We don’t follow them, we just keep doing our thing. We still only have 2 of our markers, we need 4 to win win win, what to do? As we continue, we don’t see anyone! I’m getting increasingly cranky, and of course, I’m fearful Jaime will get hungry. For what seemed like an eternity, we hear feet, we see Cliff coming at us, we are once again going in a direction our team mates aren’t. We ask them if they’ve seen any markers, the yell back to us that they have. Damn, we pass the same little bridge, and a Gnome in a tree, who at this rate, after passing 3 times, I swear is mocking me. He’s not the travel gnome, he didn’t offer any help, or even directions. Jerk. Now we see Nichole and Elena, again two people not going in the same direction we are and she tells us she saw one of our markers from the direction she just came from, so Jaime runs ahead as I stay and talk to the tree Gnome. Seriously, losing my mind. I hear Jaime yelling, she found one of our markers! This makes 3, one more to go. We run, we walk, we trip (well, I trip, a lot) and we go. We once again see Nichole and again she’s going in the opposite direction as we are. She stops and they help us navigate as she again told us she saw one of our markers. We circle back, we see Cristina and Theresa, we forge ahead, we see the lake, we make the turn, we run and Jaime finds the 4th marker. Now to get the hell out of these trails. With the help of our friends and team mates, we made it out. We were the last team to finish, though being we found all of our markers, resulted in 3rd place.
This event was as much fun as O2S and even with getting lost, becoming tired and frustrated, every single person out there today was kind, assisted others and worked as a team even though we weren’t paired. Thank you Lou, Erica, Ja Na, Jennifer and Rick for the planning, placing and awards! Congrats to my fellow SHW team mates on a tremendous day! 10 miles for me and Jaime turned into 14 total. We are all winners. Now, don’t ever trust me, clearly I am directionally challenged.