Launching of The New TJ79 Team Moziatex at 361 Adventures LBL 18Hr Race

Time to step up the game and to finally jump into the main Adventure Race category “Co-Ed”. Brooke joined Marc and I to create under the sponsorship of Moziatex, the new Trialo Jovent 79 official Adventure race team “TJ79 Team Moziatex”. Moziatex, sport wears personalizing company from Barcelona agreed to provide racing kits for the team in our pink and blue favorite colors. A big thanks to them for keeping us shiny and comfy in top notch technical sport clothes.

All the team met in a lodge at Kenlake state resort park after a “quick”
5hrs dive. 

All of us got hyper active setting-up gears and food for the next morning for the 18hr of race ahead.

Lot of rain and flooding had Matt and Shawn from 361 to re-shape at last minute the course and to cancel the paddling leg.

We realized just before heading to the checking that the direction changes a last time, after 30min drive we staged our bikes and bucket full of goods near the check-in.

After Dallas gave the pre-race details we plotted the 27 CPS plus 4 bike drops we will visit during the race which turn to be a gigantic trek with bike ride connections in between.

At 10:30 am all racers are launched in the wild to compete for the next 18hrs in a beautiful weather. We started at a good pace the first trek clearing the first 3 CPS easily. A too early turn south cost us lot of time and for the first time we found ourself totally lost. We finally cleared CP4 and went back on track.

The rest of the first legs went well and we reached TA1 after 3h30min to jump on the bike to connect to the next trek 7/8km further. Navigation and pace was good, Brooke started to have pain in her right leg after going through a waist high creek crossing, but she is really tough and without complaining kept going even whenwe had to take a long detour because of an too deep river. We reached the 3 trek, after 10/12k ride and got the first CP just before night. Full of confidence, we followed the wrong stream and it took us more than 1hr to find what should have been an easy CP. The rest of this Trek went good after being back in track. A bit of hesitation and confusion on the next ride made me realize that it was time for a caffeine pill as my mind was no more focus on the map.

The quick 2 CPs on the Trek 4 which seems to have other teams struggling, went really fast and flawless.

After 14k ride to reach the last trek, we cleared it after a serious dense bushwhacking to reach the last CP of the race. We left the bike drop in overall 4^rd position just before Roar 4 male team, trying to find a small trail to shortcut the way back. We did find the un-rideable trail and finally decided to take the long road way to the finish.

Finally, we finished in 15hr26min in 5th (overall) and 2^nd in Co-Ed division. A really fun day learning to race with Brooke. Couple of mistakes cost us maybe a better finish but the main goals of enjoyable time in the woods and qualifying for USARA national are reached.