Buff Betty 2025

 If you want to get to know someone, you have a few options. You can invest loads of time meeting up casually for coffee, or playdates with your kids. Maybe have them over for dinner a few times. You could work alongside of them for a few years or go to the same gym for an extended period of time. Or you can race with them. Racing with someone strips away a whole lot of silly fluff we all like to prop up around ourselves. You can see how they deal with stress, pain, annoyances, and even glee, victory, and defeat. And while the longer you race with them, the better you get to know them, even a short little 10-hour race will get you pretty well acquainted. 

Brittany and I had a crash course in each other's company this past weekend, and it was a hoot. Originally, we met last year at the 2025 Sea2Sea in Florida. Both in the 2-person coed division racing with our husbands, we were each other's competition. We chatted at the prerace dinner and ping ponged with each other over the 72-hour course. They were upbeat, fun, and jovial. I enjoyed every time we crossed paths out there. A few months after the race, Brittany reached out to me asking what my plans were for the Buff Betty in Virginia. I had toyed with the idea of racing with my daughter, which is always a good time, but the thought of racing with a totally new teammate had its appeal. Only ever having really raced with my main teammates from Delmarva Adventure Sports, in varied combinations, the lure of a new pool of teammates was enticing. (Certainly not to say I don't enjoy my solid crew on the shore!)

After talking with Chris, I decided to go for it. Our team would consist of Brittany, Kylee, and myself. Kylee is the niece of another racer Brittany was familiar with, and she had raced alongside her a few times. We each had multiple races before Buff Betty was scheduled, so we were in a holding pattern for planning until the race was almost upon us. After a video chat (truth be told, it was the very first time I had submitted to anything remotely like a zoom call. Ever. Be flattered, Brittany.) we had our game plan in line. We hoped to be competitive, ideally clear the course, and certainly planned to podium. High aspirations lead to improved outcomes, right? Logistics were worked out well. I was the closest to the race event with a 5-hour drive. Brittany would have had a 10-hour drive and Kylee was totally cool with her 16-hour haul. Wild. The plan was for me to swing over to BWI and pick up Brittany on my way around Washington and together we would make the trip down to Yogaville where Brian and Michelle, Kylee's aunt and uncle, had rented a VBRO. 

As is the case in life, a snafu hit just before race day. Kylee had succumbed to a dreaded, and vicious, GI bug and would not be leaving the state, let alone her bed, for the weekend. As sad as it was to miss out on meeting and racing with a new teammate, I was thankful she made the wise decision to recuperate at home and not on a 16-hour drive across the country. 

And then there were two. BWI was absolutely user friendly and straight forward. We were headed south within minutes of loading Brittany's gear into the back of my 15 passenger hoopty van. We chatted easily and enjoyably the entire 4-hour ride down. After swinging over to grab a few last-minute race items, we arrived to the VRBO and had an endearing evening with Brian and Michelle. 

We popped up bright and early around 5 am and were pulling into James River State Park by 6:15. After grabbing the maps and Rules of Travel, we scurried back to the warm van and poured over the beautiful cartography compliments of Mark Lattanzi. There would be 5 legs: Trek, Bike, Paddle, Trek, Bike. We only were provided with 2/3 of the maps. Deviously, the third map, which had the big trek stage, would be distributed at a TA later in the day. We planned our attack and maintained the optimistic hopes of clearing the course. Michelle, the race director, had made mention in the prerace briefing that the course was, in fact, clearable. (I'd like to see the image of the "Buff Betty" she had in mind who could perform such a feat.) 

There was to be no prologue, but the first trek was a small orienteering section with 3 CPs dispersed within a kilometer or two of the start/finish. When the countdown ended, half the teams went south and half the teams went east, with just a few clever ladies heading north. We were in the East pack, and within a few seconds, we were in the lead. We had agreed to do an "AR shuffle" as often as we could on the flats and the downhills. Cool cool. What Brittany was pacing at was more like my 5K race pace. If at any moment in the race I had a thought that it might not all be sunshine and swimming pools, it was then. I peeped up with a breathless "This isn't an AR shuffle; in case we have a skewed definition of it." She piped back "yea, but this is a road, so come on!" Ok. We're leveling up here. Challenge accepted.  We kept up the tempo down the hill and around the corner to the first CP located on a small creek. I felt like we were doing amazing things, leading the pack, until I saw other women popping out of the woods from the other direction. It hit me that I hadn't even considered their plan of attack. But, we were all hitting the CP at roughly the same time. They were just a little less breathless than me. Route choice. It all goes back to route choice. I'm learning, forever learning. 

We nabbed the other 2 CPs without a hitch and came trotting back to the start/finish with the first wave of racers. Nearly all the bikes were still glistening in the morning sunlight, albeit a few power women who were already speeding off. We transitioned rapidly and headed off to grab the 4 points on this initial bike leg that would bring us to the boat ramp at Bent Creek. I had unpropitiously forgotten my map board, and so Brittany was nominated lead navigator on the bike legs. She did well getting us efficiently across the map and with 4 more punches on our passport. On one of the long straight-aways we were gaining on another 2 person team and the competitive minion in me reared it's ugly head. We kicked it up a notch and passed by the team Some Assembly Required. I didn't recognize their faces, but I knew their team name and knew they were heavy competition. We kept up a lead in front of them for a while until I blew past CP7. Had we thought about it, since Brittany had the maps, I should have been in charge of the clues. Cause had I been on top of the clues, I would have known to NOT LOOK FOR A FLAG at said blown-by CP. Well, at least we deduced that we had to work a little more efficiently from here on out. We realized I missed the point, back tracked, and Some Assembly Required scooted on down the road as we bopped the punch. I wish I could say we ended up flying past them again, but I think our lead on them ended just as quickly as it began. 

We arrived to the TA, checked in and loaded our bikes onto a blessedly nearly empty U-haul. While I think we did well, we didn't transition as fast as other teams, and at least 2 solos and our rivals were out on the James River before we got situated and pushed off from shore. I have to say, we were pretty stellar as a paddle duo. After a little learning curve, Brittany was awesome at steering the canoe and learned to read the river really well. When I race with Chris, we always have him in the front paddling strong, and me in the back navigating. The problem is, I can't always see around his big man-shoulders, and he isn't quick to read the river. Brittany and I were a well-oiled machine by the end of the paddle. We may have unintentionally beached on a few rocks here and there, but overall, we could have earned our back woods river boat captain licenses. 

There was one sole CP on the paddle, which had no flag or punch. All that was required was a picture of at least one teammate physically ON the island. Say no more...

We kept the lead 3 boats in our sights for a majority of the paddle. By the time we arrived to the paddle take out all 3 teams were still pouring over the newly acquired trek map. We hauled our canoe up, packed up our paddle bag, organized ourselves, shoved some food in our faces, and sat down to plan our trek. 

The sheer amount of checkpoints on this leg was daunting. We had a little more than 6 hours left on the clock, and we had planned to have at least 2 hours for the final bike, that left us with 4 hours for the 20 CPs on this trek. We had cleared the course so far, why wouldn't we keep it up?! There was an obvious general flow to the trek, but the question was in the route choice. Always the route choice. We had a loose plan for the first handful of CPs, so we set off. As is nearly always the case, hindsight is 20/20. While we were able to find the first 4 CPs without a hitch, we got sucker punched by CP 11. After twirling around in circles in the woods like a couple of hippy hobos we finally got serious and used all the navigational tools in our little box and finally found CP 11. Unfortunately, we dropped at least 45 minutes on that doozy. Deciding to hit CPs from the road, things went whole lot better for the next few points. We turned back into the park after CP15 and headed on what looked like the clearer path to CP 16. After some time spent with nearly impenetrable baby pine trees and massive pricker vines, we came to a much clearer area of the woods and found CP 16. We then set our sights on CP 17, but our luck ran out. Like ran out the door, down the road, over the cliff and headfirst into the deep sea of "your navigation abilities mean nothing." We searched and searched, reattacked, searched, reattacked, and searched. Whatever time cushion we thought we had was but a whiff of mist in the woods by the time we threw in the towel on CP 17. Disgruntled and realistic, we realized we had to drop a boatload of points. We figured we would only go for the on-trail and super obvious points. But then. How could we NOT go for that one CP that looked so easy peasy? So we went for 18. It took a few attacks, but we got it. We then high tailed it and trail-ran/shuffled our way to 23, 24, 25, 29, and 28. Looking back, out of the 20 CPs on this leg, only 2 of them were on trail CPs. They did not hold back on navigation because this was a female-only race. I can say I feel like a more experienced, humbled navigator now. 

We ended the trek with a steep drop down a reentrant and emerged from the woods with a smattering of other teams to the final TA and our awaiting bikes. I had run out of water in the last 20 minutes of the trek and eagerly refilled my bottles at the TA. The RD and volunteers at the TA were super encouraging and fun. We were in and out of the TA within 15 minutes. We had planned to have at least 2 hours for the final bike leg, but between our navigational snafus, and needing to completely refill our hydration at the TA, were down to about an hour and a half. We started out the leg with some steep uphills and quickly realized there was no way for us to clear this final stage. Thankfully, we had planned to save the final push to the finish on the flattest part of the leg. We grabbed the first 2 CPs on our planned route and decided to try to take a more downhill trail toward the last clump of points. While we did continue relatively downhill, the direction we took was far longer and slower than we had thought. Looking back, we should have turned around, dealt with the little bit of uphill, and capitalized on the tight group of CPs that were nearly on top on each other, and then make our way down to the flats. Hindsight is a huzzy. Still, we picked off 10 out of 16 points on the leg. We ended the bike coming up the field behind the finish line. I regret not digging in deep and riding our bikes to the end, but near exhaustion caused me to hop off my bike and push it up the last tenth of a mile up the hill. Finish line cheers and high fives are a beautiful thing, especially when they are all genuine. I like racing with and alongside men. I'm not a man hater. But there is something really cool about feeling like you are on a level playing field when you're in an all-female race. I don't mean totally level, cause some of those women were next level navigators. But we all think similarly, we have solidarity, and we are pretty dang sensational. 

The post-race feast hit the spot. Soda, sammies, shrimp, and sweets. What more can you ask for?! I wish I could have connected more with such a beautiful and awesome group of women, but I really enjoyed hanging with my fantastic teammate and chatting with a few familiar faces. 

We had goals. Be competitive, clear the course, and podium. We ended up accomplishing 1/3. We came in 11th overall and 4th in our division; so close!  We got 36/50 points, meh. But I think we were wonderfully competitive out there. Standing around at the awards, Brittany leaned over and said, "You know, neither of us have been doing this for all that long. Imagine how amazing we would be if we were like 20 years in." And in that, I have confidence we're only going to get better. A race where you learn something that can improve your abilities is a bigger win than podiuming and not learning anything. And, a race where you come out with another amazing teammate on your personal race roster is a huge win. So, I can say I solidly won from this non-traditional win.