BotS - Team: BotS Eindhoven 2019

What is the BotS? 21 hours of adventure racing. You start on Friday evening and end on Saturday evening. The race consists of several stages where you alternate on each change point (WP) disciplines (bike / run / canoe / step .. etc). Points can be achieved during each stage. 70-80% of the points are checkpoints (CPs). You need at least 1 CP each stage to complete the stage. In addition, there are bonus points (BPs) to be gained every stage, if you manage to win all CPs in a stage, these BPs also count towards the final score. Between the stages there are also Special tasks (ST). These have to be completed and count together as a stage. If on average all STs are among the top 5 teams, you also earn extra points for the final score. To compete in the final classification, you have to complete all stages as a team (4 persons).

The day of the BotS had finally arrived; hours of preparation and big talk had given us a place among the favorites. Are we going to live up to our name? Everyone hopes, except for Paul, who wants to win himself. The last BotS in Eindhoven is already 10 years ago, and what would it be nice to once again be allowed to race through the beautiful nature of Brabant.

Panic! We are split up at the start, here we are not prepared ... The prologue starts for my half of the team in the pool. 102 ducks are thrown into the pool, each team has to find 3 ducks with his team number; total chaos. After some time we succeeded and we have to find 10 numbers, spread throughout the pool, which ultimately form the coordinate to get to the start of stage 1. Not as first, but reasonably smoothly we left. Two eggs in the bag that we have to keep very close to until we need them. Arriving at the Dom we receive an envelope with maps for the stages and the coordinates of stage 1. Of the other half of the teams there is still nothing to be seen, we just start with signing up. Look! A spacegegging, that must be Jacco; the other half of our team has arrived. With a good lead on the clock we start stage 1. Then we have to do all the points! On the mountain bike we are smooth and we finish all points one by one. We also arrive first at WP1, just after it has been opened. Time for the first special task; hopelessly, Wouter is the only one with a total of 12 balls to hit and score 3 points.

Then quickly continue with the run stage. We do this quietly, just walk through a lot. Still 5 of the 6 CPs to get, the bonus point in the water, we have let it down.

Stage 3: Bike. Here we are good at, so we will certainly go for all CPs, the BPs we decide later, if we know if we still have enough time. Our route is well chosen, where other teams have to cycle 3km back to the bridge because the CP still appears to be on the other side of the canal, we already went to the bridge to pick up another CP! After we have all CPs we see that we still have enough time to get the bonus points, so do it. The first is easily found, the second unfortunately takes us over half an hour because we come to a fence three times and have to turn around.

Starving we arrive at the second switch point. Time for that pizza that Jacco has described several times as the best pizza ever. The pizza certainly does not disappoint, it is cold, it does not matter, it is a heavenly change between all the sweet junk that you work in for the rest of the day. Totally boosted we start the run-bike stage, navigation goes bad, that the coldest moment of the BotS has started does not help. The score is poor, but there are some points punched in the card. After this moderate fourth stage we know how to win the special task, a kind of butter cheese and egg relay.

Stage 5 is another bike stage. The points are on two sides of a lake so we decide not to take everything in advance. The first point is at a bird hut on the lake, for this we have to go through the marshy polder over small bridges and gangways. The effort pays off, because after obtaining this checkpoint we can enjoy a beautiful sunrise.

Upon arrival at WP3 it is a busiest of luck. The smell of freshly baked eggs finds its way to our noses. This can only mean one thing; bake special task eggs. The most important question is of course: are they still quite? Carefully we roll them out of the towels. Hurray, everything still intact. Well, just bake an ESAC egg quickly, otherwise it takes too much time.

Next run stage (6) quickly grabbed some points and then enough time to catch everything at the bike (7) and step-bike (8) stage after that!
The last special task comes after this, but due to the enormous crowds it all takes a long time and most of the teams are waiting for their turn asleep in the grass. Because we had to wait so long in our turn and because this is still the last bike stage (9) we decide to give everything. With 30km / h we race in a train over the road and finally get 4 points.

Stage 10, canoe. We are still behind schedule so we can take the two nearest points. The rest for the legs does well after the all give bike stage. Last stage (11), run. We have another hour, so everything CPs must be successful. We walk through the dark from point to point at a solid pace. In order to contain the stress to some extent, we occasionally jog a bit. 18: 53u we arrive, 7 minutes before time. We have done our best, now it is only hope. After a few delicious refreshing pints and some food, it's time for the results. 62 points for the winner with a big lead, then we already knew it, the BotS from 2019 goes to Eindhoven !!

The BotS was again a super cool experience. And we will ensure that the 2019 is at least as fat!

Greetings from team 'BotS Eindhoven 2019!'
Jan
Jacco
Kasper
Wouter