Team Hooyah wasn’t about to let a little run of bad luck stop them. About halfway through The Link, Lincoln’s first-ever urban adventure race, Todd Nott’s bicycle rim broke.

“When my bike broke I didn’t want to be done,” Nott said. So Nott ran for about seven miles and his two teammates continued to ride their bicycles, until race organizers found another bicycle for Nott to use.

About two miles from the end of the race, Nott’s teammate, Sheri Tweedy, discovered her bicycle tires were flat.

By then, Team Hooyah definitely had come too far to quit — so Tweedy hopped on Nott’s borrowed bike and he ran her flattened bike in to the finish.

“All considered, we did pretty darn good,” Tweedy said.

Team Hooyah was one of 48 three-person teams that competed on Sunday in The Link, an urban adventure race organized by the Nebraska Sports Council.

A portion of each team’s entry fee was donated to the YMCA Strong Kids Campaign.

Urban adventure races incorporate running, biking, hiking, trekking and mapping in an urban atmosphere.

The Link started and ended at Haymarket Park, with check points in various city trails, parks and around historical markers.

 Dave Mlmarik, executive director of the Nebraska Sports Council, said The Link provided a perfect showcase for Lincoln’s trails and parks, which are “as good as it gets anywhere in the country,” he said.

Jim Craig, who organized the race, said the course consisted of about 50 miles of biking and 7 miles of running.

Competitors also encountered obstacles along the way, such as the climbing wall at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Campus Recreation Center and a “four-legged run” at Holmes Lake where all three team members had to tie their legs together.

Teamwork is an important aspect of urban adventure racing, Craig said.

“A team is only going as fast as its slowest member,” he said.

During the race, teammates had to stay within 50 yards of one another at all times as they biked and ran to various check points through the city.

“You try to play off each other’s strengths,” said Nott, whose team managed to finish the race despite the two different incidents with flat bicycle tires.

Debbie Carstensen said the race was a team sport “in every sense of the word.”

And participants can make whatever they want of the race, said Carstensen, whose team, Little Debbie & the Snack Cakes, won the race’s coed division.

“There were competitive teams and recreational teams,” she said.

Others participated for fitness.

Michelle Thompson said races motivate her to stick to a more structured and disciplined workout schedule.

Thompson’s team, Desperate Wives, won the women’s division of the race.

Thompson and her teammates, Mary Amen and Kristi Newcomb, are married mothers who have been running together for awhile.

“We race all the time,” she said. “No couch potatoes at our house.”

“I think it’s a good example we set for the kids,” Newcomb said.

Like their mothers, the Desperate Wives’ children are also involved in sports.

 “We fully expect they’ll do some of these crazier things some day,” Newcomb said, laughing.

Reach Hilary Kindschuh at 473-7120, or hkindschuh@journalstar.com

The winners

Gold medal results:

Male, Bird Flu, Alliance, 5:02:40.

Female, Desperate Wives, Lincoln, 5:35:52.

Coed, Little Debbie & the Snack Cakes, Omaha, 5:10:05.