KM3

Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me was one of the defining albums of our high school years. And because of this and because there were 3 of us, KM3 became the name for my threesome of super-cool high school friends for Saturday's Women's Adventure Race.

Maysoun came from Manhattan and Laura came from Chicago to compete with me. It was a blast spending the day with them and showing them how fun adventure racing is!

I made shirts, though I didn't do a very good job:
The race was held at Saguaro Lake. It included hiking:

and biking:
and rafting:
For poor Laura, it also included puking, but I have no photos of that. She puked on the bike ride and she puked on the lake. Poor girl! We thought perhaps it was morning sickness, but a later test proved that theory to be wrong. I guess the combination of Thai food, Mexican food and a whole lot of heat and sun (of which there hasn't been much of in Chicago lately) were the culprits. But despite feeling like absolute crap, Laura hung in there and did the whole race!

Hey! Do you know what these are:
That's right... SAGUAROS!

Do you know what these are:If you answered SAGUAROS, ding! ding! ding! You are right again!

The race also had some mystery events. On one of our first orienteering treks we had to fill a bag with 40 pounds of sand and bring it back to the transition area. After the mountain biking and hiking portions, we had to walk on plank skis around a cone. This took much concentration!

Later we had to load up a sled with 4 of the sandbags and pull it around the cone and back.
Then we had to take a 5 gallon bucket and fill a 32 gallon garbage can with lake water until the water overflowed. The clue read that you could not displace the water with a non-living thing. Filling up the can:
Displacing water with a living thing:
The rafting section came after this. I took the solo raft and Maysoun and Laura took the double. Perhaps I suck at rafting or perhaps the single raft and the kayak paddle were not compatible equipment, but it was very slow going. Finally, Maysoun tied my raft to hers and she paddled the three of us back to the finish line. What a superstar she is!

And speaking of finish lines, we came in 3rd for our division! We got medals!
This is where I should probably mention that there were only 4 teams in the 3-person division. We were 12th out of 16 overall. Not quite as impressive-sounding as 3rd!! :) I should also probably mention that Christy and Leah beat us by 50 minutes (!) and came in 6th in the 2-person division!