Here we are! The first graded day of the Rebelle Rally! After yesterday's prologue, we were feeling MUCH better about understanding the flow of each day, but knew that we still had so much to learn!
Today consisted of the general area of the Prologue with a return to Basecamp #1. Our checkpoint listed showed "Monte Christos to Fish Lake Valley" and consisted of 17 checkpoints, three "X" checkpoints (more on this later), and starting the day with an enduro. Ah! Starting the day with our nemesis! Thankfully, we had a few kilometers to travel before the start of the timed enduro, but nonetheless, starting with an Enduro! Nothing like still chugging your first cup of coffee while driving an enduro and hoping your math is correct!
Irma was the driver for today and Mandy was navigating. Thankfully we remembered the ginger gum and sea bands before we left that starting line, so the nausea was a bit more under control from the get-go. We did discover that the enduros induced the nausea much more quickly than reading the prepared directions for each checkpoint, mostly because it's a lot faster pace with multiple turns throughout. Despite this, we opt to keep the bands on all day if we are navigating, just to be safe! Another important lesson we had learned from the Prologue day is that you should always have AT LEAST two stop watches going during a timed Enduro. We had only one stop watch going, and somehow during the Enduro we pressed a button that paused the time, so we had to guess our arrival time for most of the Enduro. Today, we had both the stopwatch and a Fitbit stopwatch, so we were slightly. more prepared.
We ended up scoring a 13 out of 15 available points for the Enduro from the three time checks. SO MUCH better than yesterday. This was a good confidence boost going into the checkpoints.
At this point, we weren't great at route planning and had the idea, based on our prologue experience, that we'd go for all 17 checkpoints. We had 10 hours to find 17 checkpoints, that sounds completely doable! Ha! Silly rookies! This marks the start of learning how to manage time during the day. 10 hours goes by soooo quickly!
We did attempt 15 of the 17 checkpoints, and being the rookies that we were, we went for two of the "X" checkpoints, after clicking the non-X checkpoints. The X checkpoints are fairly new and add even more strategy to planning out your day. The X checkpoints are often worth about double the points of the regular checkpoint, so if it seems feasible and you have the time, the X is a decent alternative, however, many times the X checkpoints are black checkpoints, meaning you are not looking for a checkpoint marker, rather navigating to where you think the checkpoint is based on your route plan and reading the terrain and your map. How much risk is it worth?! We did go for both the regular and the X, based on our confidence of reading the area. After doing that though, we now know that the more strategic approach would be to choose one of the two to save time, to allow more time for other checkpoints. Lesson learned.
The first day marked the start of naming annoying things in the road based on people we had bad experiences with, whether it was an annoying person at work or a crazy ex-boyfriend, naming things in the road kept us entertained. If your name is one of these names, we apologize. It was not named after you, rest assured! It's important to find silly things like this while you spend 10+ hours in the car together each day. It's a great way to get a laugh, especially if you are getting tired or stressed out.
Here's the list so far:
Flies were called Todds
Annoying rocks in the Road were Kevins
Washes, which were bumpy and rattled EVERYTHING in the car were called Williams
We returned to basecamp on time for an easy 10 points. This is an easy 10 points you should never leave on the table, but we managed to a couple of times throughout the rally. Whoops! This would be our last night at Base Camp #1, so we did some pre-packing of what we could upon returning to camp, before dinner.
When we got our scorecard back, we had received 187 points of the 214 available, leading to a score of 87%. This was good feedback, especially given it was our first official feedback given the tracker issue during the Prologue. We even got full points for two of the six black checkpoints we had attempted, and the ones that weren't fully points weren't far off. Definitely the confidence booster we needed! Or was it?! We'll find out in Day #2!
- Disclaimer -
Please remember, this recollection of each day is our view alone. Others definitely had different experiences. We wanted to share ours with you from our perspective, but definitely ask questions of other Rebelles and/or the Rebelle Staff if you are unsure of something. Also do your homework and read the rule book! Although we pulled snippets from the rule book, it changes some each year and is what you should refer to for the official Rebelle Rally rules and guidance.