Course by Ann Hall and Ian MacDiarmid
October 17, 2009
San Elijo Hills is a new community in the North of San Diego County. So new that if you used Google Maps to “look” at the area many of the homes, roads and trails are not on the photo Google shows. Likewise the topo map has little information about the now graded hills or the trails the home builders have enhanced and landscaped. Fortunately for Adventure Racers the trails are true rugged, rocky paths, connected by community roads and a county trail system.
Ann Hall wrote this event as a fund raiser for the 3-Day Cancer Walk she and Lynn Wright will participate in later this year. A big thank you to everyone who donated to their fund-raising.
The race started at 9 AM, with nearly 60 racers heading out on a 7 mile trek. It was a run for some, but the initial zig zag up the first hill had most people fast-hiking. At least one team saw the gate into one of the “gated communities” open and took a quick road to Trek checkpoint 1 (good to think on the run, they were first to T1).
- Start and first hill
Using a community map helped most racers, though the trails were marked heavy and the roads lightened so it was the opposite of using a regular map. Yes, on the map below I correctly plotted T4, which was in the wrong place on race day (my bad, ba).
- Community map (click map to enlarge)
For people who were interested in a shorter race, the instructions asked racers to locate T1 and T2, then EITHER T3, T4 and T5 OR T6 and T7. Most of the racers completed all the run checkpoints with the leading teams taking just on 1 hour to run the trails.
The trek section of the race was never flat with steep uphill’s and some fast downhill’s as attested by Mike who was tripped by a Manzanita root. (see scrapes in the photo below
).- Mike took a fall - Mountain Lions in the area
Returning to the Start / TA, decisions were made on how much of the bike section to ride. The temperature had already climbed to the high 70’s and it was just after 10 AM. The first part of the bike was about 8 miles (mostly on fire-road and single-track) and the second part added 7 more miles.
The bike section of the race involved two distinct areas, both involving steep hills. Bike checkpoints 1-5 were in the Rancho La Costa Preserve which is a hill between Encinitas and San Elijo Hills. The second part of the ride was on single track and roads in the Cielo Azul area (about 3 miles north of “The Bridges” golf course – which some racers found
) and south of Elfin Forrest Road.- Initial part of bike section (click map to enlarge)
All riders found the first two checkpoints with no problems, other than getting very hot hike-a-biking up to B2. At the top of the hill some racers called it a day when they saw that B3 was down the other side of the hill they had just carried their bike up. But 24 of the 30 teams who finished the race continued to at least bike B3 and B4 which was considered the short course.
- Teams having fun
The winner of the short-course finished their race in 2½ hours.
With the temperature into the low 80’s and seeming higher as they raced, three groups completed the full course (7 trek points and 10 bike checkpoints). Turtle and the Hare (Jacob Bencke, Dave Krosch and Jared Gustafson) were in first place, finishing in just over 4 hours. The Crazy J’s (Chris and Nicole Jones) were second and a first time racer, Kevin Swartzlander, racing solo was third (he thanks his fan club who took water out to him on the course).
Thank you to everyone who came to the race. Our events are really training events as we take no money for entry, give no prizes for finishing, and expect everyone to take responsibility for their actions.
- 3-Day banner at the TA
We had a good mix of experienced racers – some from many years ago who consider they are now retired, as well as new racers doing their first, second or third race and still learning the disciplines of Adventure Racing.
We appreciate those who traveled from as far away as Bakersfield and Yuma Arizona.
For results please follow this link http://www.baAdventures.com/event09Elijo.html
