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July 17, 2006
Gold Rush Summer Challenge Sprint Race Report - Dirty BAARBD & a Naked Girl in a Cowboy Hat
This race report was written by Galan and was so good i decided not to write another one myself...just add a little of my own commentary here and there. My Additions are in Italic after each paragraph.
Bottom line i raced with two Newbies, well somewhat newbies because both Galen and Guy brought more of a skill set with them than most other new teams Ive seen. Especially regarding navigation. They both new the basics of navigation going into this race. That is more than i could say about my first race.
This is the story of a newbie, heat, and his second adventure race.
After my experience at SVS #1 (report is here: http://www.zdap.com/racereports/viewtopic.php?t=6508), I was eager to try another race, this time with a team, and hopefully in a cooler location.
I got half my wish.
Team Karma's Summer Gold Rush Sprint takes place east of a town called Oakdale in California, which is on 120, the road that leads from the Bay Area to Yosemite. It gets hot out there; triple-digit hot, which, for folks accustomed to the cool and foggy climes of San Francisco, may as well be the surface of the sun.
After a bunch of fruitless scrambling to find a team, Donato Polignone contacted me and said that he was doing the race with a first-timer, and that I was welcome to join them. (The race rules specified 2-person teams, but the organizers were really good about being flexible).
We needed a crew-person as well, and I managed to convince my friend Jeremy to help us out, so we were all set.
Donato went up on Friday night, and at 4:00 a.m. on Saturday morning Guy, our other teammate, picked me up, we swung by Jeremy's place, and were on our way.
When we got to the start at 6:30 it was already 70*F, and we knew it was going to get worse. We registered, made arrangements with the organizers to get our second car and kayak driven to the appropriate TA, and started sorting gear.
Maps were handed out at 7:30, and we started transferring points from the master-map to ours.
None of us had ever done nav for a race, but since Donato had the most racing experience we decided that he would be the default navigator, but that most nav decisions would be made by consensus.
This was also to make sure the guys learned/shared in what little i knew about navigation and so, that when/if we got lost it wasn't just my fault. Well, i guess it would have been my fault but i would have had some excuse ;-)
There were 11 CP's, 1 – 5 were trekking, 6 – 8 were on the bike, and 9 – Finish were paddling, and the nav looked very straightforward.
Final instructions came at 7:55 while we were still struggling to line up one of the map segments and think of a team name (we settled on "Dirty baarbd" since Donato races for the Dirty Avocados [ http://www.dirtyavocados.com ] and I'm one-half of baarbd.org [ http://www.baarbd.org ]), and we got it together just in time for the 8:00 start.
We were allowed to hit the controls in any order, and CP 4 was very close to the start, so we grabbed that first (almost all the other teams elected to go for CP 1 first), then headed through the scrub towards CP 3, which was on top of a hill. We were moving pretty fast, with Guy leading the way, Donato following him, and me struggling in the rear with a pair of Achilles tendons that had decided that that was the perfect time to get really tight.
Choosing CP4 first had me a little worried as we were the only ones to take that route choice. Not being a primary navigator had my slightly concerned. But, we had a decent plan of attack for the O-Course and it worked out well in the end.
We landed right on top of the control, took a minute or so to look at the map and make sure we were confident of where the next CP was, and made a beeline for it.
I'm using a pretty loose definition of beeline; there was a LOT of thorny scrub (some kind of ceanothus I think), and we did our best to avoid as much of it as we could, which involved a lot of running back and forth, so maybe 'snakeline would be a better word. Inevitably we got scratched, and for some reason I got it particularly bad (my theory is that my treacherous Achilles were keeping me from zigging and zagging efficiently).
Galen's legs after the O-course looked like he had run through a cheese-grater. Galen, welcome to the wonderful world of AR!
We tagged the rest of the trek CP's pretty easily despite the increasing heat (we spent about 10 minutes looking for CP 1 because we were higher on a ridge than we thought we were) then high-tailed it for the TA/CP 5.
As we made the switch to the bikes, Jeremy told us that we were second in. Team Rabbit Fire was about 20 minutes ahead of us, and we figured we wouldn't see them until the finish. We were right, but too pleased about being in second place to care much.
Before we left the TA, we took a couple of minutes to make sure we were confident we knew where we were going, and took off.
The bike was even more straightforward than the trek; the leg was about 22 miles long, all on roads, and the CP's were right on the road. Cake.
CP 6 was less than a mile down the road, and of course we rode right by it. We quickly realized our mistake, rode back 100 yards to get it and continued on.
It was almost all down hill (most of it on pavement) to CP 7, which, while kind of boring, was nice as the mercury was really starting to climb.
This is where things got weird, and I'm still not sure I believe what we saw. About a quarter of a mile before CP 7 we stopped to look for the CP. We were in the wrong place as we quickly figured out, but there WAS something there. Namely, a couple of young women in various stages of undress (I think one of them was wearing nothing but a cowboy hat) and a photographer. Draw your own conclusions.
Needless to say I stopped in amazement and tried to make sure the fellas saw what i saw. They of course turned to me to remind me that we were still in a race and had to keep moving. (wasn't i the one that was supposed to keep them moving?) It was a difficult decision but after about another minute I finally rode off towards CP7. That is the strangest thing I've ever seen during a race and it wasn't a hallucination???? I'd like to blame Teams Cycle Path and Well Oiled for slowing me down by putting the naked women in the cowboy hat behind the fence but they weren't at this race...or were they?
CP 7 had a crew to hand out water, and they told us we were first-in, which didn't seem possible as we knew that Rabbit Fire ahead of us. As we rode on we wondered a little about it and eventually we decided that they must have come through before the support folks got there.
The road had changed to dirt right before CP 7, but it was still mostly flat, and we were moving pretty well (which was good because the heat was getting bad and the breeze of our passage helped cool us a bit) when Donato and I heard a shout behind us. We looked back and Guy had stopped, and he didn't look happy.
As soon as we got off the bikes the heat came down on us like a hammer, and there was no relief anywhere. To add to our misery, the light-colored dirt of the road surface was bouncing it back up at us. It was like being a rotisserie chicken, basted in an unappetizing mix of sweat and sunblock.
Guy's left quad was cramping, and badly; it looked like someone had stuck a cantaloupe in there as a joke. On top of that he wasn't feeling well. Something (he was pretty sure it was his energy drink) was causing his stomach to bloat, and he was really hot.
Guy's leg wasn't in good shape and we knew he as suffering from the heat. He/we got through it the best we could. Again, this time, Guy, welcome to the wonderful world of AR!
He didn't want to stop, even though he was clearly suffering, but he couldn't ride. We talked about putting him on tow, but his leg was cramped so badly that he couldn't sit on the bike. We got him off the bike, and he started walking, very slowly, clearly in a lot of pain. I walked ahead of him pushing both our bikes, and Donato rode slowly next to me.
After a few minutes the cramp went away, and he got back on the bike, but within a few minutes he was cramping again. We knew that we only had to climb a few hundred feet to the top of the ridge in front of us, and then it was all downhill to the TA and the switch to paddling, so we alternated between riding when Guy was able, and hike-a-biking when he wasn't.
Once we hit the top of the ridge we were back on pavement, and had a pretty straight, downhill shot to the TA.
At the TA there was still no sign of Rabbit Fire, which was weird, but we didn't worry about it too much, we were in first and had a lead to protect!
We had 2 kayaks, a single that Donato would paddle, and a tandem that Guy and I would share. Since this would be my third time ever in a kayak, and Guy was fairly experienced, he took the rear and I took the front.
Standing in the river as we put in was a truly wonderful experience, the water on my scratched and roasting-hot legs felt heavenly, and I was reluctant to get out.
As we pulled away we saw the Dirty Avocado “Pits: Jen and Will” come into the TA, and knew we had to hurry.
Despite having a team hot on our heels, it was impossible not to enjoy the paddle. We were finally cool, the river was teeming with birds (white herons, kingfishers, even an osprey) and there was a cool breeze.
While we were out of he boats looking for CP 9, the Dirty Avocados landed, which meant they were gaining on us, but we managed to get back on the river without bumping into them.
We got CP 10 with the Avocados hot on our heels, and lost a little time going through a fast-moving chute when all of Guy's experience was not enough to offset my lack thereof, and we briefly got stuck on the bank.
Finally, the Dirty Avocados passed us, paddling like a machine and moving fast. It would have been an inspiring sight under other circumstances.
They gradually pulled away until they were about 2 minutes ahead, and then turned and beached their boat.
We pulled in right after them, sprinted the 200 meters to the finish and crossed the line a few minutes out of first but far better than the 'just finishing' goal we'd set for ourselves.
As we sat and ate and worked on the cooler of ice-cold beer that the heroic Jeremy had managed to scrounge from somewhere, the other teams made their way in, including team Rabbit Fire. Apparently they'd made a wrong turn shortly after the first TA, and had to ride an extra 23 miles.
Overall the race was great; the trek-bike-paddle sequence helped mitigate the heat a bit, and while the bike was kind of boring, the paddle was top-notch.
Nav for the trek was, as I mentioned, pretty basic (easier than an orange O course) so overall I'd say this is an excellent race for beginners, despite the burden of coming up with support crew.
The organizers ( http://www.teamkarma.com ) deserve big kudos for putting on a well-organized and fun race, being very accommodating with regards to team vehicles and configuration, and creating a low-key and relaxed atmosphere.
-galen pewtherer
team dirty baarbd
www.baarbd.org
Additional Commentary by Donato Polignone
www.dirtyavocados.com
PS Guy/Galen you may have been new to AR Racing but you guys raced like you have been racing for a long time. You are both going to be good AR Racers...you already are!
Also the MotionBased Log of the event is posted here: Open episodePk=1063361
Posted by donato at July 17, 2006 06:42 PM
