getting ready for an x-treme weekend...

in every sense of the word. I'm kicking off the '06 season with the Odyssey 1-Day X-treme Adventure Race this weekend: 30 glorious hours wandering through the Chattahoochee National Forest in North Georgia. The weather lately has been unseasonably warm; a dream to train in! But of course mother nature has to throw the winter wild card at us. It looks like the coldest temperatures of the season will converge on us. Lows in Blairsville are predicted at 21F Saturday night. That's the town, in the valley... knowing how sadistic race directors are, we'll tend to be at much higher elevations for the duration - so what, another 8-10degrees colder? And sure, throw in some of those nice nippy wind gusts that will surely greet us on the ridges. Right now there is a 30% chance of rain/snow. I'm hoping for the white stuff... A) it's exciting for me and B) nothing is worse that cold cold rain. I'm in for quite an extreme treat as you can see!

I am excited though... my teammates Tony & Daniel are great guys and lots of fun. Tony is the director of the SMAR & NGAR races that I've done in the past (with NGAR #2 coming up in March), so he knows this area pretty well. Daniel is a senior at UGA, a young whippersnapper with tons of energy. Despite the fact he is a bulldawg fan, he'll be a great teammate.

It's way too late for me to be up, but somehow I always get super busy the week before a race or vacation. Not that I need this extra stress, with gear to sort, clothes to figure out and food to plan for. I hope I can sleep tonight... tons of nervous energy running through me....

A bit about the race (we really don't know much more... that's part of adventure racing: the unknown).
approximately 115 miles total, including
-15-18 miles paddling
- 75 miles mountain biking
- 20 miles trekking
- navigation throughout

Get Live Updates! We're Team UnderDawgs....
We will be having live updates on our leader board for the One Day Xtreme. The leader board will be available to view on our website Friday night before the race. Have your friends and loved ones go to http://www.oarevents.com/event.asp?id=65&catID=1. This will take them to the One Day Xtreme page. In the right hand orange block, there will be a leader board tab to click on. The leader board will be updated as soon as the information comes in from the checkpoints.