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May 29, 2006
FYI--AR Yahoo! Groups
The following are some AR-related Yahoo! Groups that are worth joining. Simply go to http://groups.yahoo.com/ and search for each. This will tell you more about each group. The rest is easy!
AdventureRacers
This is an Adventure Racing (AR) Environment to discuss Adventure Racing in the US and abroad. Subject matter is on: Upcoming races, Purchase or selling of equipment, Gear Review and selection, Gear Retailers, Race nutrition, Racing stories, Locate a race partner or team for an upcoming race, Racing strategy, Team Dynamics, or general information in the AR world. Enjoy the site and good racing.
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/AdventureRacers/
AdventureRacingOrienteering
Adventure Racing and Orienteering disscussion group is to develop the orienteering portion of adventure venture racing by co-operative establishment of standards, training, and recreational events. To join this group, one must give a reason for joining MLC.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AdventureRacingOrienteering/
baar
The Bay Area Adventure Racing list is for anyone in the San Francisco Bay Area interested in the sport of adventure racing. The intent of this list is to facilitate team forming, share training information, and encourage the promotion of the sport specifically for folks located near the SF bay.
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/baar/
baoc
The Bay Area Orienteering Club runs events for map and compass navigation in the San Francisco Bay Area. This mailing list is used by the club to plan future events, discuss results from recent events, and discuss the sport of orienteering in general. More information and schedules can be found on the BAOC web site at http://www.baoc.org
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/baoc/
BAOC_events
The Bay Area Orienteering Club runs events for map and compass navigation in the San Francisco Bay Area. This Yahoo! group is used by the club once a month to distribute information about upcoming events. More information about the Bay Area Orienteering Club (BAOC) and its events, and about orienteering in general, can be found on the BAOC web site (www.baoc.org).
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BAOC_events/
Bay_Area_Running
This club is an informal information exchange area for runners in and around the Bay Area in California. Places to run, trail conditions, race critiques, training techniques, and area training programs can be discussed here.
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/Bay_Area_Running/
BeyondAdventure
Want a free newsletter about adventure racing. This list is for the website Beyond Adventure Sports, (http://www.beyondadventure.com)where you will find calendars and resources on this new sport.
Has adventure sport ever enlightened you BEYOND yourself?
While pursuing a physical adventure, have you ever transcended the moment, place, activity, or yourself? This is a list for the inner athlete, the pursuit of "the zone". New sports such as adventure racing, and expedition competitions provide the medium for these endeavors. Send in your articles about adventure racing, and if approved, will be published in the newsletter.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BeyondAdventure/
Caaralist
This list is for members of the Chicago Area Adventure Racing Association. Use this list to discuss training events and places, gear, races, network, and more. Please use this list for Adventure Racing related topics only and please limit any commercial posts.
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/caaralist/
Ultra_endurancelist
A public forum for all ultra-endurance athletes to discuss all facets of training, diet, nutritional supplements and
fuel sources. Endurance athletes such as roadies, ultra cyclists, ultrarunners, marathon runners, triathletes from sprint to double iron distance, nordic skiers, mountain bikers and adventure racers will be welcome to post.
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/ultra-endurancelist/
MinnesotaAR
"How do I get started in Adventure Racing?"
If you live in the Minnesota/Wisconsin/Iowa area and would like to get involved in Adventure Racing, we can help. We are dedicated to growing the sport of AR in the upper Midwest. Join us in our various training events and social gatherings or just ask questions of the group.
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/MinnesotaAR/
NewEnglandAR
The New England Adventure Racing Association was formed to foster the sport of adventure racing in the region and beyond. We offer novice and experienced racers the information, community, and skills they need to enjoy and succeed in the greatest sport on earth. The NEARA discussion group is open for discussion on AR topics. Ask questions, arrange training outings, find teammates, and discuss anything related to AR.
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/NewEnglandAR/
NYARA
The New York Adventure Racing Association (NYARA) is a not-for-profit organization working to promote, organize, and foster adventure racing and racers in our surrounding area, the United States and in International competition. Our mission is: - To promote adventure racing in the north eastern US - To join individuals with similar or complementary skills into teams - To offer formal and informal group and team training sessions and educational clinics
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/NYARA/
phillyadventureracing
Philly Adventure Racing Newsgroup A forum to communicate about Adventure Racing and related Multi-sport material. Feel free to post any AR messages. Other notable features: Consider checking out the group calendar. Members are free to post any races that they have heard about or plan on doing. This includes road races, adventure races, triathlons or group trainings. Also check out the Photo section for pictures from races members have raced. Feel free to post pictures of your team.
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/phillyadventureracing/
saar
For the Adventure racing population in the Sacramento Ca. area
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saar/
scarabs
Southern California Adventure Racing Buddies (SCARAB) is a club for Southern California adventure racers of all levels to meet teammates, train together and exchange the latest tips, techniques and event schedules. With over 2,600 members, SCARAB is the largest adventure racing club in the world, and the best resource for Southern Californians interested in adventure racing, from sprint to expedition races. Also, find teammates with the SCARAB Teammate Finder -- just click on the word "Database" in the column on the left. Visit our website at www.arbuddies.com.
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/scarabs/
SFTriClub
The San Francisco Triathlon Club, founded in 2001.
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/SFTriClub/
SouthBayAR
South Bay Adventure Racers - SoBar - is a AR club for anyone with an interest in adventure racing in the South Bay Area, CA and the surrounding areas. In no way is it the groups intentions to exclude anyone from other regions. This is a forum to share ideas, race information, find teammates, etc on Adventure Racing. Questions and/or announcements are encouraged.
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/SouthBayAR/
Triathlete
Information about the triathlon world via Triathlete.com. Site information as well as general triathlon-related info.
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/Triathlete/
USAdventureRacing
United States Adventure Racing.
The aim of this list is to bring together like- minded athletes who are interested in Adventure Racing.
Topics include finding teammates and workout partners, workout programs, gear selection, race nutrition, upcoming races, past race experiences, psychology. Mailing list subscribers are encouraged to e-mail questions and answers relative to adventure racing only.
http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/USAdventureRacing/
WriststopTrainers
All about the running and cycling speed and distance aspects of all kinds of Wriststop Personal Trainers (like the SUUNTO t6 wristop, POLAR S625X wristtop, NIKE triax elite, GARMIN forerunner 301, TIMEX bodylink,...). Also other comparison data is welcome (OwnIndex - workout VO2max, OvertrainingTest - EPOCtraininglevel, ...).
It is not the aim to compete with other excellent fora dedicated to all aspects of these personal trainers.
This forum starts where a comparison of the (technical) specifications provided by the manufacturers stop. Here you can share your evaluation files and comparison data.
Items covered: Working principles, features, real life behavior, best practices, bugs, workarounds, comparison tests, strengths and weaknesses, ...
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/WriststopTrainers/
Posted by Brian at 08:58 PM | Comments (0)
Cal Ecos Canceled!
If you haven't heard (which could be the case bc it hasn't been "officially" announced) Cal Eco Yosemite and Donner have been canceled. Big FAT BUMMER!!
Apparently there is a lack of interest; thus too few sign-ups. Well, from DA's POV there's no lack of interest.
As usual we are RIPE FOR RACING!!
Posted by Brian at 03:17 PM | Comments (0)
May 28, 2006
Tribal Council
Members of the Dirty Avocados convened Friday night at The Final Final in San Francisco to restrategize the remainder of the season in the wake of the sudden cancellation of the Cal-Eco series races; Yosemite and Downieville. Earlier this week we were floored by the announcement that California Sports Marketing would be canceling the next two races due to apparent lack of interest and team registrations.
We laid out all of the upcoming race options through to the end of the year. Everything from 2-3 day races to 3 hour sprints that will serve as good training days. Good thing is it looks like we will have some good options between Big Blue, ExploreCA and some out of state races like TRIOBA and AdventureXtreeme.
Take special note at the t-shirts Adam and Will are wearing. Bay Area Adventure Racing Babes & Dudes ("baarbd") is an upcoming Adventure Racing community portal that is soon to launch!
Posted by adoti at 12:25 AM | Comments (0)
May 25, 2006
Kernville 2006 - Skins
| Event Details | |
| Date: | Saturday February 13, 2006 |
| Location: | Kernville California - Google Map |
| Disciplines: | Kayak, Mountain Bike, Trekking , Short O Course |
| Time Length: | 24 Hr. |
| Format(s): | 4 Person Co-Ed |
| Price: | $225.00 p/p |
| Web Site: | CSM Events |
| SWAG: | Subaru Water bottle and Subaru duffel bag. |
| Race Results: | http://csmevents.com/results/Kernville06_results.xls |
| MotionBased.com Digest: | Click Here for MotionBased digest. Click here for Google Eath map of our route. |
| Reporting Racer(s): | by: Adam Doti of Dirty Avocados Skins and edited by Adam "A-Bomb" Armijo. |
| Race Report |
The next installment of the Cal Eco series takes us to beautiful,
and a bit strange, Kernville California. Kernville has been the host
of past Cal-Eco finals, the annual Fat Tire Mountain Bike festival,
and is now the home of the first race tracked by the Dirty Avocados
with an event approved GPS device. Prior to the race, we received Dan's
blessing to track AR races with an approved device that meet his requirements
of no visible information screen that could assist us in navigating.
The Avocados are currently testing a variety of approachs and looking
to set the standard in independent team tracing of races with GPS.
More on how we did this and what you need to do this coming to this
site soon.
For this race the Skins come together as a complete team with no substitutes for the first time this season. The Dirty Avocados Skins consisted of Linda McLean, Adam "A-Bomb" Armijo, Donato "Endo" Polignone and Adam Doti. We arrived in Kernville the night before the race and camped at the start line, Frandy Campground.
Saturday morning was spent organizing our gear and preparing for the 1:30pm start. We were a frisbee throw away from securing our spot at the start, which was determined by how close your team could land a frisbee next to a post. We were kind of glad to be positioned to see some teams enter the swift moving Kern river ahead of us. We ended up around 11th into the water. One at a time, and 30 seconds apart, each team launched themselves into the class 1+ (2+ if you ask us!) rapids.
As if entering these rapids in 2 person kayaks wasn’t enough of a rush, the experience was intensified as we were discovering too little, too late. At the start, race director Maria was yelling "GO! GO! GO!..." to keep people moving, and it worked!. We paddled like mad to stay in the groove of the swift moving water and rapids. It wasn’t until after Adam Doti was upright and speeding down the river when he realized he had lost his sunglasses! Of course, being blinded from the suns reflection against the water soon became the least of his worries when Adam realized that neiter him or Donato had their strap skirts in tact! (I can hear Waylon Jennings now…“Them Avacado boys got themselves in a whole mess a trouble.”)
Meanwhile, A-bomb and Linda were in the second kayak and virtually owning the rapids. They made it through the first few set of rapids with the help of the advice of the race directors at the pre race meeting. Unfortunately, they fell victim to the start line push (Go! Go! Go!) and started the rapids sans skirts as well. Needless to say, they took on boat load of water which made it harder to keep balanced, and eventually the river knocked them out. They cruised in the river with the kayak until they were able to make it to the side to re-embark and finish the moving section and begin the pleasantries of kayaking upwind across the lake.
Doti and Donato made their way down the river passing the competition
that had rolled, or had taken on too much water.. They were doing pretty
darn well, until they themselves took on a significant amount that
resulted in their kayak completely under water. They paddled their
brains out hoping to reach the mouth of the lake before they were forced
to dump the boat to clear the water. It must have looked pretty funny
from the shore to see two guys padding down the river in an upright
position with no kayak to be seen!
Luckily, they were able to reel the kayak back to shore with the tow
line. It took a dead lifted between the both of them to empty the kayak
clearing about 90% of the water, before they hopped back in and continued
down the river into Lake Isabella.
Once on the lake our team was reunited within earshot of each other. The high winds were coming at us head on. So, for the next hour we fought the high winds and huge swells with white caps (huge for a lake!) all the way across the lake to the CP just east of the dam. Some teams opted for the wide approach by arcing to the south west, and a few teams made a line for the south east shore and main camp grounds to complete the remainder of this 8 mile paddle. We were part of to the group that decided to make the straight shot right down the middle. No one route seemed better than the other. We had a visual on CP2/TA1 and passed a couple teams while dodging windserfers on the way in.
We had a great transition from the kayak to bike. One of our goals this race was to reduce our transition times which we did pretty well at throughout the entire race. Our other team, the Dirty Avocados "Pits", pulled out of the TA just ahead of us.
During the next leg, we made our way across the dam and over a few hills, to a short segment of road called Keysville Road and Black Gulch Road. An access/fire road took us up west, traversing a series of rims above the highway. This paved road dropped us back down towards the highway to a single track trail. The single track was a blast! This trail wasn’t originally on our maps. It was suggested that we copy it off of the master map during our pre-race planning.
Within the first few hours of the bike leg, Doti started to have a few issues with his stomach. He had taken a Hammer Electrolyte cap that made him feel kinda sick, sorta like it was burning a hole in his stomach. In hind sight, he probably didn’t wash that thing down well enough.
CP3 was a blast! We dropped our bikes at the top of the trail and ran down 400 vertical feet to Greenhorn Cave. In the pre-race meeting, Dan told us that there was going to be one CP that had a disposable camera where we would have to take a picture of our team. This, we now know, was to prove that we all ran down this wonderful hill, and didn't send proxies. After cracking a few jokes about taking pictures of our butts, we followed the instructions and climbed back up to our bikes. Good times!
And for our next trick, a hike a bike up 1500 vertical feet to Freeman Creek. Fotunately, we were playing leap frog with team Well Oiled, which proved to be quite entertaining. They were a great team to see out there on the course. Our intended trail was supposed to take us counter clockwise around Rough and Ready Mountain. However, our trail landed us down in a canyon just north of the trail that should have taken us up through Greenhorn and west of Quartz Mountain. We ran into the DA-Pits again, and rode together for a bit, chatting about the race so far. We eventually found Rancheria Road, which took us straight down to CP4 and the next TA. At this point, the Skins and Pits were mere minutes apart! The DA’s were having a great race all around!
The leg that would lead us to CP6/TA3 would be all on foot, clear up into the town of Fairview. Along the way, we would have to enter an orienteering course and get at least one of three points. On our way to Bull Run Basin, where the O course was located, team Police Defenders caught up with us. We ran along with them and chatted until we reached the first O point, which was luckily easy to find. The second O point was easy enough as well, located on the top of a knoll right off the trail. The rules were that for every point that you missed, you would get a 30 minute penalty added to your time. Since we were feeling pretty good, we decided to make an attempt for the third O point. On the O map, it was slightly west of due North from where we were. We made the mistake of taking too long to find this point. After not seeing team Police Defenders for at least 30 – 45 minutes, we ran into them again, and found that they were also unlucky in locating it. (After the race at a post race dinner, Dan tried to describe to us where it was located. Even with his description, and swearing we were all over that area, we had no luck piecing tgether what had happened.) While we were looking for the point, Will from the Pits was trying to get our attention with his headlamp and calling out for Doti, without being too loud of course. Apparently we were so engrossed in finding the point that we didn't hear him. They continued on course just in front of us. Eventually we left along with the Police Defenders and climbed out of the Basin back up to the road and Dry Meadow.
We switched off between running and a fast walk from the Dry Meadow, past Dunlap Meadow, to Tobias Meadow. We came across a solo racer that looked pretty beat up. He had a nasty cut on his leg probably, from a Manzanita tree, and looked like he was disoriented and confused. No doubt due to lack of sleep. He had told us he went down the ridge trail that we were coming up on, but that it ended and he had to start bushwhacking. At this point in the race for him, bushwhacking became too much and he headed back out on to the road that we had just come down. His amended quest was to find a ride back to the race start. We wished him luck, and decided to give it a shot ourselves.
Here is where our main mistake of the race took place, and unfortunately, it was a big mistake. We descended down the old overgrown fire road as the trail shows on the map, following a few switchbacks etc... But at some point, we wound up dropping too low on a trail down the south side of the ridge instead of staying on the very top of the ridge spine where we should have been, which would have taken us to the river intersections. For the next 4+ hours, we bushwhacked and fought our way through the valley between the two ridges, canioneering at times, and traveling directly in the stream. Running through the river sometimes made for faster travel, but the slick moss covered rocks were treacherous. At times we'd find our selves cliffed out and had to climb back up and over more ridges to get further down. It was very slow moving to say the least! Eventually, we made our way to the Tobias Creek intersection and picked up our intended trail which took us all the way into Fairview and to the campground where Lori, our crew, was waiting at the last TA. We hopefully didn’t worry her too much, considering that the last time we saw her was almost 12 hours prior!
When we approached the TA, we thought for sure that the race was over for us. We were stoked to hear that Dan was letting teams ride directly down the road next the Kern river back to the Start/Finish line! Hearing this lit a fire under our butts and gave us our, er, 15th wind, and we transitioned in mere minutes. We took off on our final bike leg for a 15 mile mostly downhill (yeah right) ride to the finish.
We heard the Pits came into TA 3 about 3 hours before us, and that
they navigated the ridge in about 2 hours, finding the trail off and
on. So, assuming that we'd not taken the scenic route, it would have
been an exciting race to the finish! Congrats to the Pits, and to the
entire Dirty Avocado team and crew for a great race! And special thanks
to the Cal Eco Adventure Series directors and volunteers for setting
a challenging course in such a beautiful area.
Dirty Avocado - Skins
| Images and Pictures |
| - Course Route. |
| Summary Data : TrackStick | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Ratings *Ratings are the usually the sole opinion of the reporting team member and in no way reflect the entire teams opinion on the race. | |
| Fun Factor Overall excitement and fun. |
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| Value Bang for the buck! |
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| Racer Relations Liaisonship, treatment and communications with racers. |
|
| SWAG The good stuff! |
|
| Scenic Race location and area traveled. |
|
| Overall Difficulty | |
| Skill Level Required | |
| Navigation Difficulty | |
Posted by adoti at 01:06 PM | Comments (0)
May 21, 2006
BAOC Shell Ridge
Brians Gazelle like reflexes eluded me once again! Closer this time though! Blasted you Brian (as adam raises his fist to the air)!
Brian pulled a 2nd place and I got a 4th place finish. Good times!
http://baoc.org/wiki/Results/2006/Shell_Ridge
Posted by adoti at 03:32 PM | Comments (0)
Cal Eco #2, Kernville, CA (The Pits)
Cal Eco #2
Kernville, CA
May 14-16, 2006
3rd Place Finish Coed 4 Person Team (5th overall)--The Pits
We arrived in Kernville to find the temperature at
90F+ , which was slightly higher that the 71F reported
by weather.com..
We started the race with a kayak down the swollen Kern
River. We had surveyed the river earlier in the
morning and the class II rapids looked doable, but we
were all secretly thinking that we were going for a
swim. Miraculously, we made it through the entire set
of rapids to the mouth of the river where the real fun
began with the 20-30 MPH wind gusts and the 2-3 foot
swells.
We crossed lake Isabella to the first TA to find that
we were in 5th place. We put on our bike gear and
headed southwest into the hills above the Kern River.
It was pretty blazing hot when we reach the booming
town of Keyesville, all one house and 2 pigs. We
continued up into the hills to the turnoff for CP 3
were we smiled big for our photo op.
On our way to TA2 we encountered a fence line with
several signs that said “PRIVATE PROPERTY” and “NO
TREASPASSING.” We arrived at this roadblock with
several other teams. We opted to just wing it and
take the unknown trail that wasn’t on the map but
headed roughly north. To our surprise several teams
followed us! Luckily the trails we took led us to
Rancheria Road and the straight shot to the TA.
We arrived at the TA with almost no food and water and
much later than our crew expected to see us. We
restocked and added on a couple of more layers of
clothes. We were all cozy and warm as we headed out
toward Bull Run, but then we started crossing the
swollen Cow Creek over and over and over again. So
much for warm and cozy!
Climbing back out of the canyon from the o-course just
after dawn gave us a great view of the canyon we had
just been through. We didn’t stay long because we
knew that we had only a few miles to our “easy”
descent down the ridge to TA3. On the map it was
marked as a fire road, but it really was a bushwack to
the bottom of the canyon. We reached the bottom and
jumped on our bikes for the quick spin back to
Kernville and the finish.
Kayak 8.8 miles
Bike 49.3 miles elevation gain 8,500 feet
Run 21.5 miles elevation gain 3,320 feet
Total miles 79.6 elevation gain 11,820 feet
Posted by Brian at 12:46 AM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2006
I'm a Suunto t6 Test Pilot!
I was selected by SUUNTO USA and Southern Michigan Adventure Club (SMAC) as one of six testers for the Suunto T6 Wrist Computer.
SMAC sought a group of adventure racers to use the Suunto T6 wrist computer, running pod and training software to improve their fitness and race results for the 2006 adventure racing season. I'll be using the t6 to calculate EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) as well as other values like TE (training effect) and will interact in a Web-based user group forum to work together to maximize their results.
I'll be sure to share and blog what I learn along the way.
Good times!
Posted by Brian at 12:19 AM | Comments (0)
