The race kicked off with a short 2 mile trail run. A split start led off with 2 Person Male Teams and Solos at 8:50am followed by 2 Person Coed and 2 Person Female at 9:05am. The fast trail run led racers back around to the Huron River to CP1 where canoes were waiting. Teams quickly put in and paddled 4 miles downstream to the Milford Central Park and CP2. The winter storm had dropped several inches of rain on Metro-Detroit over the previous couple of days. This raised the level of the Huron River and made for an even faster than normal paddle leg. Absolute Endo and Animals arrived first in just under an hour, followed closely many other teams of the field.

At the end of the paddle, teams transitioned to bikes and headed north out of Milford for Highland Recreation Area. On the way to Highland, teams headed into the Highland Mountain Bike Trails at CP3 for some single track. The three miles of single track was a fun and challenging part of the course. The rain and fall leaves had the left the single track quite slick, but the trails were, however, in surprisingly good shape. CPs 4 and 5 were place right on the single track. CP6 was the exit of the trails and the start of the Orienteering Course. The Animals and Vultures were in a dead heat leading the field into the O-Course with Endurance Sports, Absolute Endo and Jameison Geifer giving close chase.

At CP6 teams picked up a 1:15,000 OCAD map of the O-course and headed out for CP7-16 on foot. These points could be obtained in any order. There was lots of route choice in this section, included the traversing of several swamps for those who truly were willing to push the pace. All teams came to quite the surprise as they approached what they thought would be CP15. However, there was no flag hanging at this obvious point. The flag was stolen before any teams had reached the CP. All teams deserve a lot of credit for handling this point without issue. They followed the protocol set forth by the race staff in the briefing. It helped that the entire field was faced with the same situation and that the point was very well defined, but teams just verified their location, that there was no CP flag and they moved on: no time credits or penalties or protests. Wiked Evil Monkey Squad blasted the O-course to move into a virtual tie with the Animals while Vultures stayed just a minute back.

After leaving the O-course it was back on bikes, through Milford for CP18 and into a Bike-O section: CP19-28. These CPs were located back in Proud Lake, in and around the Mountain Bike trails. The race maps had the trails placed on the map and teams could use them to navigate to the points. Once again, these CPs could be obtained in any order and teams had to get at least two of these points before heading in to the finish. The trails could be ridden in any direction and teams could drop their bikes and head after points on foot from any location. Wiked Evil Monkey Squad along with Cooper Green and Ambush Adventure Racing hammered out the Bike-O for the fastest splits of this section.

Congrats to all teams who came out to the 2006 December Chill. It was an extremely fast and fun race, with the best weather to date for a December Chill. There were 19 optional points on the course. 48 teams were able to obtain all of them and get back to the finish within the 8 hour allotment. 100 of the 109 teams that started the race completed the course as ranked teams with 4 finishing unranked and 5 teams dropping.

The first team to finish the race was the Vultures. In their haste at the beginning of the race, they forgot to punch CP1. Obviously they had been to that location to put in the canoe, so they were assessed a 15 minute penalty, which cost them the win. Therefore the overall winners and in the 2 Person Male Division was the Animals, Mike Peterson and Tom Cross. (Ironically, the Animals had lost a race a couple years ago when they lost their passport on the final bike en route to the finish.) The Animals used great navigation skills and all out speed to win by just five minutes over Wiked Evil Monkey Squad. They bested the course in a time of 4:38. Winning the 2 Person Coed Division in a time of just 4:43 was Wiked Evil Monkey Squad made up of Joel Billau and Shannon Camp. In the 2 Person Female Division, the Dirty Girls, Jennifer Tew and Marne Smiley, took the top spot finishing at 6:59. For the Solo’s, Cooper Green bested the field in a time of 4:50 (3rd overall) and Susan Douglas was the top female in at 7:37.

We had a lot of great volunteers for this race including Michael Boks of GRAAR and Chad and Jenny Swander of the River Rats and we want to give them big thanks. Other thanks go out to Brian Hudson for photography and Chad Swander’s Mom for making the post race food. Special thanks also go out to Proud Lake and Highland Recreation Areas and Heavner Canoe for their cooperation, support, and use of their facilities. And as always a huge THANKS to all our wonderful sponsors for their terrific support throughout another fun year. We are already looking forward to a very exciting 2007of Adventure Racing in Michigan!

Race Staff

Infiterra Sports LLC

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