Short recap of the Shooting Star Adventures SVS Sprint this past Saturday at Grant Ranch Park outside San Jose.

This go around it would be just me (Adam) and Donato stepping up to the plate for the SVS Sprint in hot San Jose. We weren't hell bent on trying to put together a 3-4 person co-ed team due to the SVS #1 was not a regional qualifier for Nationals and due to our busy schedules we also did not have a lot of time to do recruiting for a third female that was available. Donato picked me up in Marin and we drove down together. At 7 am it was already hot! Bad sign of what was to come.

Upon arrival we checked in and started seeing familiar faces. Bull Moose Extreme, Mark Manning from ARNavSupplies, Brian Ridgeway from Loose Screw and relative newbie to AR Galen from baarbd.org! Over all about 23 teams showed up that consisted of a mixed bag of solos, 2, 3 and coed configurations. We were given our swag and O maps right away. There was no official course map since it was a "marked" course. However we did pick up a freely available park map to supplement our route choices. We gave the course a look over but again since it was a marked (flagged) course to a from the O courses there was not much for us to do but get the general feel for the segments.

Donato: In full support of Team NOMAD/AR NAV Supplies, I even bought and tested Marks very cool, simple and light Bike Map Holder and at $35 beans nothing beats it!

It was getting quite hot by now and I was a bit nervous for what was to come. You see, heat is probably my biggest kryptonite. Once the sun sets, or we enter a dark shady canyon I'm a new man, but the heat will kill me and I know it. I tried to drink as much as I physically could anticipating mild dehydration setting in.

Donato: Before the start we checked in with Galen to make sure he was OK with the course, the route and give him a little last minute encouragement. After all, this was his first AR Race and he was going it SOLO. He seemed fine and was ready to go!

We lined up for last minute instructions and then we were off. Donato and I held a firm hold on the front of the pack fluctuating between 2-5th pace through the run. About 3/4 of the way to the start of the O course we came across a pretty large mud pit that spanned the trail. Donato seemed to walk on water over it taking a line mostly in the sun thus a little firmer ground. I however was not thinking on my toes literally and opted for the shaded side and got stuck half way across. My shoe came off and I had to scrape the goop out before I could even unlace and relace back up. We lost some time here. In a sprint race these minutes are crucial as we will discover later.

Donato: Jonathan Owens took off from the start and was soon to not be seen again until after the finish line. Teams from 2nd to 6th position started together and would swap places most of the race. It was a nail biter right from the gate. Half way up the first climb on our trek (I mean trail RUN), I noticed Adam breathing too hard for the effort he was putting out. The heat and the pace we started off at were already getting to him. I just tried to make sure he started drinking fluids and not stop moving. He hung tough.

We made our way down and to the start of the O course. We saw some teams making their way up the trail then making a 90 degree turn to head for the top of the knoll where the O point was in the middle of a group of trees. I decided since the terrain was easily passable we'd make a straight shot across the field up to the point We hit it dead on and were able to split the saddle and drop over the back side down a canyon following the ridge to the stream that popped us out right at the second O point. We then followed the stream down t to the south east to pick up 2 more points. On the way down we passed a few teams that opted to take the controls in the opposite order. On the way out of the stream and back up to the road we decided to hook up a tow because my legs were losing power. This helped us out a lot! I've been on a bike tow before but cant say I have done a decent run on a foot toe. Donato was a mule helping me up and over the hill and back down to the transition. We were able to gain a couple places due to this. Use the tow, don't be embarrassed! We all bonk!

Donato: Adam’s NAV choices in the first O-course brought us from 6th place (maybe 7th) to 2nd. I wanted to try to hold this position, or as close to it as possible into the TA (swith to Bikes). Even though I knew that Adam might just puke at any minute as the heat was really killing him. I figured 2-3 miles back to the TA. I can tow him no problem. Well at sprint race speeds it’s a lot harder. I must have maxed my Heart Rate 10 times on the way back. Didn’t care, just kept telling myself, almost done running now. Soon we will both be on our bikes and I I won’t need my running muscles anymore today. I believed my own lie.

We transitioned (quickly allowing enough time for Adam to drink as much gatoraide and hammer Heed as he could swallow) to the bikes and headed to the south-west end of the park and along a ridge line that had great views of the San Jose valley. We played leapfrog with a couple of solo racers and rode with Loose Screw for a bit before passing them due to a mechanical problem. Later we found out that they got a flat, on a rear tire. Again in a sprinttough, every small thing takes minutes you cant loose. in a 24 hour race that would have been nothing. Making sure they were ok, we pressed on. At times I was sliding down hill uncontrollably because I still had my semi-slick on from the previous weeks SF Night and Day Race! We pulled up to a intersection with a couple of teams mulling about the route choice. Seems that there was a yellow flag up a hill as well as yellow flags indicating a trail in another direction. Also a sign up the trail stating This is NOT a trail. TO me it was a no-brainer, but Donato went up to check it out with another racer (from BullMoose) and upon further inspection DP noticed the flag was not one of our Home Depot flags and we pressed on in the original direction of travel.

Shortly we came to the bike drop for the second O course. We scrambled across a field and down into a ravine. We were now right along with Bullmoose Extreme once again for at least the 4th time today. We picked up the first and second points as a group. The water felt great however I started notice that I was pushing right through a lot of poison oak. Oh well too late for that now. I'll just have to take the Technu bath when we finish. We decided to scramble straight up the hillside instead of backtracking out of the canyon to the bike pickup. Bullmosse did the same but picked a slightly different angle thus popping them out down the trail about 100 yards closer than us. That was critical as this was the final push to the finish and they were right in front of us. We hoped on the bikes and rode our hearts out to the finish all the while seeing them just up ahead of us a few turns. They were fast, too fast for us to catch, but lucky we did press hard because right behind us by a few minutes was Loose Screw. We couldn’t see Mark Manning, but knew he was near by. Had to keep the pace up or these two teams would blow right past us.

Donato: Got to say this was a cool O-Course, bouldering right up a stream to a small waterfall. The cold water was a welcome relief and it was the coolest part of the race…nothing like bouldering through a stream.

The 2, 3, 4 and 5th place teams all finished within 10 minutes of each other. It was a pretty exciting final few minutes. Shortly afterward finished Galen from baarbd came across the finish line in 8th place! It was really good to see him do so well. Both as a first timer AND a solo he did fantastic!

Official result put us in 1st for 2 person male category and 4th overall. After a bite to eat I took a Technu bath at the water spigot and then chatted with the other teams for a bit while we cheered the remaining teams across the finish. I have to say I think that was my favorite part of the day. Just relaxing, swapping stories and getting to know my fellow racers was well worth it. I hope we have the opportunity again. Wait, we do! This Friday night at 7:30 is the baarbd.org kickoff party. See you there!

I tracked this race with the TrackStick as I did the Kernville and SF Night & Day. I got decent results but had some difficulty getting them uploaded into Motion Based. Seems some recent upgrades may be the cause of the upload issues... not sure. However after converting the CSV data to a GPX file with GPS Visualizer and then opening and saving the file in G7ToWin as a G7T file Motion Based finally took the data. I had the TrackStick on a 5 second ping vs. a 1 minute ping I had a Kernville. I also had the movement sensitivity way up to it's max. I figured since this is such a short race I would want very detailed data. The TrackStick was about 40% full on those setting for a 4 hours of data collecting. I tried a new plotting tool. Wayfaring.com. Pretty cool tool. You can view our course here. Or view one of our other formats below.

.. ok maybe not such a short report.