Linda, Adam D, Adam A and Donato planning their route during pre-race.

Last month we were really bummed because we were going to be missing the second annual SF Night and Day metrogaine held in San Francisco due to a conflict with CalEco's 2 Day Staged race in Yosemite. Due to a last minute cancellation of the CalEco race by the apparent lack of racer interest, this left us with a big hole in our schedule. Our busy schedules were all locked in and by any means we were getting an event in! As karma would have it, this was the same weekend as the Night and Day! Sweet! This was a no brainier for us. Adam and I would be returning for our second year in the event, but taking it up a notch at entering the 16 hour Co-Ed duathlon category (also considered as the classic AR team and race format). Last year we won first in the 7 hour duathlon event. Joining us this year was Linda and Donato, the other half of our current DA team. During the pre race events we ran into Rich of Primal Quest fame. If I had known about his sweet feature in National Geographic Adventure Magazine I'd have congratulated him. We chatted s a bit about PQ and general state of AR affairs before partying ways to plan our routes.

Avocados Skins with Rich Brazeau, Primal Quest CEO. How did he find the time?!

We received our maps about an hour before the start. It wasn't a matter of what points we were going to get, but rather what order are we going to get them all. For us there was no doubt, leave no point behind! Points ranged from 20 points to 100 points. The goal is to get the most points within the strict time frame of 16 hours. 1/2 of the race was on foot the second half was on bike.

Our plan was to grab the points around Noe Valley, Mission, Twin Peaks, downtown and a few in businesses that close at 5:30 P.M. first. We left a few on the southern part of Noe Valley and Mission for last in case we were ahead of schedule we could grab those or easily leave them for the bike ride out to Candlestick.

That's Oliver of True Grit in the center with the white shirt. In hot pursuit!

At the race start the field pretty much scattered instantly. I thought it would resemble the running of the bulls for at least a few blocks. But nope, were were on our own very quickly. For the next hour we would cross paths with a team here and there as we crossed streets of ducked behind a corner house. We caught up with Oliver and True Grit while crossing over Portolla/Market. That'd be the first and last time we'd see him.

Skins cuttin' corners bombing down Twin Peaks.

While in the Twin Peaks vicinity we made a game time decision to nab the top of Twin Peaks sooner than later. We'd planned on saving it for the bike but after popping out on a street that I knew was very close tot hr summit, we went for it. We opted for the much faster road route this year after learning last year the bush whack is not really worth it. Also you ay recall the skunk incident. We went up for another one of those!

We bombed down twin peaks towards the Haight and grabbed a few more points and the last time sensitive point on Market Street. We then worked our way through upper Mission and across market and up Van Ness. At this point we have been running at a very fast clip. Faster than our average AR race. Maybe were getting stronger, maybe something about the urban environment?

Somewhere on Van Ness and about Geary apparently a car drive by and yelled my name. I didn't hear it but A-Bomb swears they called out my name (Adam!) So if anybody is reading this and it was you... Hey back! At this point we were still ahead of our anticipated schedule so we decided to expand our radius and nab a few more points in the richmond and Palace Of Fine Arts. We made our way down Geary, then north over Pacific Heights and bisected Lucases new campus. Lots of new streams and bushes to run through! DP prayed to the angels while counting and we were on our way to the Fisherman's Wharf.

About time for a little prayer... actually DP's counting the angels at Palace of Fine Arts.

As we worked our way through Fisherman's Wharf this is where we got the most random comments. You can probably guess the drunken outbursts. Most were references the the Amazing Race.We worked our way through the heart of Fisherman's Wharf and down Columbus and the middle of North Beach, running right by Adams (A-Bombs) house! We found it a lot easier to actually ruin in the middle of the street due the the massive amount of people out on this nice day. We worked our way through Chinatown quickly and I just happened to glance into a Chinese restaurant and a backpack caught my eye. Of all the restaurants and people in the city today I happen to catch the one where ARNavSupply/NOMAD were preparing to chow down! I popped my head in to say hi and cheese! I was thinking how in the hell can you possibly eat Chinese food right now without it enacting revenge on you later?! Just up the block Donato was entertaining the crowd...

Look closely. You'll see Donato jumping high in the middle of the intersection crowd of people. They thought it was funny.

Then it was back to the Embarcadero and over to Pac Bell Park, I mean SBC Park, I mean AT&T Park, whatever.... Across Lefty' Bridge to grab another point. From here it was long slog down 3rd to Portero Hill. I started to feel it at this point. We'd been running for hours straight and no real rest. We slogged up Portero and then dropped down in the lower Mission. Its starts to get mildly sketchy now but not bad... but a good taste of what's to come later. All ad to the excitement ;)

Jerry Garcia's childhood home. Crazy.

Again because we were ahead of where we thought we'd be, we added on a few more points tot he foot segment. We headed southwest along Mission St. towards Daily City. This is the furthest point we'd go on foot south where we picked up a point at Jerry Garcia's childhood home. We then made our way over to City College and the Glen Park/Canyon area. By this points it's completely dark now. The scramble through Glen Park was interesting. Very reminiscent of an AR race in the Sierras. Totally didn't feel like an urban setting. Here was our first small mistake. I guess we got comfortable because we missed a right turn to take us northeast to the next point and wound up popping out into the neighborhood on the north side of the park. We quickly recovered and nabbed the point and then made our way back the the transition almost exactly at the time we wanted to at 11:40p.m. The bike leg would start at midnight exactly.

We left the transition on bike about 7 minutes after midnight. The pan was to loop south east then south and then work clockwise around the city and the return back. We rode back down Mission St. towards Daly City then broke left and headed east through a park just north of Cow Palace and west of Candlestick Park. Donato and Adam mentioned something about seeing another team a block or two over heading in the same general direction. We'd not see another team until San Bruno Mountain. Heading into the park we received another round of random verbal attacks and even a car swerved at DP and A-Bomb while they adjusted their bikes.

We QUICKLY bombed down the east side of the park and under the freeway towards Candle Stick. We rose fast fast fast out to the back side of Candlestick and through the peninsula park to the next CP. Barely putting the pen away we were already on our way toward the Cow Palace and up Carter St. Once up to the to the trail intersection on San Bruno Mountain we decided to take the radio town CPO first then the 2 on the north side on a trail loop. This would allow for us to drop out right into the neighborhood after the north westerly point. Seems like a lot of teams did the opposite and getting the radio tower last. But seems this would put them in a unfavorable position and more riding to get off the mountain a nd out of surrounding neighborhoods.

We made out way through the southern portion of SF and over to my Alma Matta, San Francisco State. This next checkpoint was probably the one I already knew the answer to before we got there. 5 years on this campus and I know it like the back of my hand.. or so I thought. Ironically this would be the one point we'd only get 1/2 points for. When we arrived to the memorial grove in from of the Humanities building there were what seems to be 4 teams huddled in a big group chatting about is this it, or that it etc... The answers didn't quite match what we were seeing. I also knew about the Aids Grove memorial just over a bit towards the gym building. Depending on how you interpreted the question the Aids Memorial was a better fit for the date range given. We were also a bit swayed by the other teams and the confidence they exuded... big mistake. Anyway we marked the answer and rode out the back of SFSU and around Lake Merced to pick up a point by Fort Funston.

DA's storming early morning Richmond neighborhood.

We made out way up the coast to another CP where we ran into the large group again and ARGear/Nomad. We now had to make a long ride into the inner Sunset and UCSF area to pick up a few that in hindsight we probably should have gotten on foot. We looped around and entered the park and worked our way west again.

After the Legion of Honor and the Presidio we had to pick up the one at Golden Gate Bridge. Small problem... the point was on the south tower east side. That side is closed to bikes after 6am (maybe it was 5). So that mean s we'd have to go on foot to the CP. That wasn't an option, so we option to play the stupid tourists and just ride through the gate and on to he path to the tower figuring if we'd get stopped it wouldn't be before we'd already got the point. We made it out and back without incident. We climbed out of the Presidio and through Sea Side to pick up another point. We had to make a quick out and back on Geary to get one we thought we might skip but had some spare time to collect.

Waiting at the corner of Stanyon and Fulton I had one foot clipped in and lost ky balance. I fell on my left side, but somehow I got my right calf caught and cut by my front crank. I was pissed that I feel so stupidly, but the shocked by the size and depth of the gash. We quickly pulled ourselves to the side and applied a bandanna directly to the cut and another higher up my leg to ct as a tourniquet. Surprisingly it did not bleed much. We made out way through the Haight and then down to Market and up Castro tot he finish where we pulled in about 7:40a.m.

We had actually hot all the checkpoints but were 40 points shy of a perfect score due to the SFSU mishap. That's ok we still finished 1st in our division a nd had a blast doing so. We moved fast during this race and we even reminisced that we were more sore then after Kernville! Maybe due to the pavement?

The TrackStick GPS didn't perform very well during this race. Might be due to where I had it positioned on my body. Seems to work best in the top of may pack only. FOr this race I had it in my hip pack pocket. The batteries also ran out way too fast! I'm supposed to get 3 says of data, so why they bonked so fast is a mystery. Well continue to test in the field and provide reviews on our findings.

Thanks, and look forward to next year!

Some quotes heard by passerbys...
"Hey! Amazing Race!"
"Run mother F-er, Run!"

Dirty Avocado - Skins

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.
Value Bang for the buck!
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