It’s day three and Andy can only get one ear up!
Team Silly Rabbits came into TA3 in high spirits. We were happy to see smiles on their faces and a little pick up in their step to our transition area. This was a good sign for them. Many of the other teams who came in before them looked tired and were moving slow. It showed the Rabbits have been playing it smart. They took 3 short sleeps out on the course and made some good nav decisions to make up minutes on the competition. They seem to be settling in to their pace for this race and getting used to racing 24/7.
The Rabbits also ate very well, which is another good sign they are feeling good. It’s very difficult to keep your digestive system functioning normal in these races, and important to get nutrients, fiber and calories into their bodies early in an expedition length race b/c everybody’s bodies start to reject food, so the more we can get in now, the better they will be fueled later. They each ate a big bowl of raviolis with tomato sauce and homemade fruit bread (with hidden bran that Andy’s Mom made—our secret digestive weapon!) with loads of butter, some Gatorade and soda. And off to bed they went…
While they were sleeping, Team Silly Bunnies (the crew) had some time to be silly. As our buddies, Carl, the TA captain, slept, we crept up to him and ‘bunnied’ him. He didn’t feel the ears on his head and when he woke up minutes later, walked around with those ears on his head doing his official TA work with a pair of pink ears on his head. It was all we could do not to laugh, especially when Team Silva Sweden came up to sign out and they were giving him funny looks…but he eventually noticed them and took them off with a giggle. Watch out, you could be the next unsuspecting soul to be “Bunnied”!
The team awoke ‘naturally’…actually we used our hand cranked blender as an alarm. That thing is louder than a generator, but makes great tasting smoothies even where you have no electricity. It’s always better if the team wakes up on their own…we were just helping that process with a little environmental noise. So when two of them heard the sound and emerged for a pee, we told them, “Time to get up! Breakfast is ready.” The smell of eggs and French toast with maple syrup lured them to stay outside. Jason asked, “Has it been 3 hours already?” Well, actually it hadn’t, but the crew made an executive decision that if the team wanted to move up the rankings, 3 hours was too long of a sleep and they were missing a much needed hour of daylight.
Our goal was to get them out in 2 hours, but make them think they had 3 hours of sleep. Diabolical, we know…sneaky Bunny crew. So when Jason asked, we said, “Yes, 3 hours. You went to sleep at 4am” They really went to sleep at 5am, but we knew Jason would be too tired to remember that. He looked at his watch quizzically, shook his head and then proceeded to get the rest of the team moving. Ah, ha…the plan worked. They were all looking rested and talking coherently, and they ate tons (well tons for an adventure racer midrace), so we were very happy. They got off in 15 minutes after waking up.
Off they went in 12th place, with much of the competition leaving within a couple hours of them on another long mtn bike ride. We won’t see them for about 10-15 more hours. Off to TA4.
Hop on, Rabbit fans...
