Silicon Valley Series #1, Newbie Report

[dolface]

This the story of a newbie, heat, and his first adventure race.

Background: I'm a trail runner, or at least that's how I identify myself as an athlete, then I'm a rock climber, then I'm a road cyclist. I recently became a mountain-biker (if owning a mountain bike and falling off of it a lot qualifies you for that title).

I've been wanting to get into adventure racing for a while, but had no idea how to do it; how to find a team, learn the skills, find a race, et bloody cetera, so when SVS #1 (a sprint put on by Shooting Star Adventures) showed up on the calendar (with no paddling) I figured I'd be able to put a team of newbies together in time for the race and we could all do it together.

That didn't happen; despite trying to bully friends into it, posts on craigslist and the yahoo group for the area, I came up empty, so I signed up as a solo, racing as team baarbd wire. (partially as a consequence of my difficulty in finding teammates, Jen Kalfin and I put together www.baarbd.org, one of the goals of which is to make it easier for newbies to break into the sport, at least in the Bay Area).

The race takes place in the South Bay, east and a little south of San Jose, in Joseph P. Grant state park, and I live in San Francisco, so I was a little worried about the heat. (For those of you not familiar with the weather in the Bay Area, San Francisco is blessed with cool foggy weather in the summer, perfect for endurance sports, and the South Bay sizzles like the griddle in a greasy-spoon at breakfast. It's not pleasant.)

Add to that a relatively late start-time of 10:30ish and you have all the ingredients for a nice dish of sun-cooked newbie, and that's what was served.

The course (shortened from the original plan due to to a bumper-crop of poison oak) started off with an out-and-back trek with a 4-control orienteering section at the turnaround, followed by a bike-orienteer-bike leg.

As I sorted through my gear, sneaking glances to see what other racers were doing with theirs, and trying to look like i knew what i was doing, a couple of guys from the Dirty Avocados came over, said hi, and offered a few pointers about the maps.

I paid attention, made some adjustments, thanked them, and planned to follow them the whole way if i could keep up. That didn't happen either.

We headed out on the trek a little after 10:30, the temperature already above 80*F, and promptly ran straight up a wall; dusty, steep, and long. I stayed up in the front part of the pack, content to let the leader (Jonathan Owens, the eventual winner, racing solo for team baarbd [http://www.baarbd.org/team_baarbd]) build a gap. It was good I was content, because I didn't have a chance in hell of catching him.

I ended up traveling with Team Nomad for a while; we got the first control on the o-section together, and I plotted my course for the next one (plotted in this context means 'took a rough heading and started running').

The first control was on top of a small hill, and the next three were down in a creek, so my plan was to run to to the the western-most control, and then follow the creek south and east to get the other two.

It was a great plan too, and Team Nomad had the same one. We headed for the creek, slipped and scrambled down some steep, poison-oak-infested hillsides, and went west in the creek to get the next control.

And went west and went west. By the time I figured out I'd missed it I was at least 20 minutes up the creek (and yeah, no paddle). So I turned tail and bolted east, and found the control about 100 feet EAST of where I hit the creek.

Did I mention I'm new at this?

The rest of the controls were easy, and wading through the creek felt GOOD. I was sorry to leave it.

As I trekked back to the start/finish/TA I started to feel not-so-good; legs wobbly, having to walk really minor climbs, and wondering what the hell was going on. I made a point of sucking more electrolyte out of my pack, ate a bunch of food, and figured I'd feel better on the bike.

I was wrong.

BOY was I wrong. It was pathetic, and I had no idea what was going on. I was pushing my bike up stuff that normally wouldn't even have registered as being up-hill, my quads felt like bags of cement mixed with lactic acid, my calves, the ones that carried me through the quad dipsea with no complaint, were cramping, my heart-rate was sky-high and wouldn't come down, I had chills...

WAIT a minute; cramps, exhaustion, chills, racing pulse, I know this one!
So I took an electrolyte tab, pounded a bunch of liquid, and kept going. I was still slow and still felt like crap, but at least the cramps and chills went away, and as I went, I daydreamed about fog.

I was still hammered when I hit the bike-drop for the last o-section, but as I laced up my shoes at least I knew I'd make it to the finish. I bushwhacked down to the creek, reveled in the cool water on my feet, and headed upstream in search of the two controls I knew were there. The first one was close to where I hit the creek, and I pushed on, making a point to walk through any of the deeper pools I came across.

I found the second one at the base of a waterfall, hanging over a wonderfully deep and refreshing pool that came almost to my waist.

After getting the control I scrambled straight up the side of canyon, making a half-hearted attempt to avoid the poison oak, and made my way back to the bike drop, switched shoes, put on my helmet, and cruised back to the finish. (and by cruise I mean 'rode very slowly', but at least I didn't have to walk up any of the tiny hills).

Final: I finished 8th out of 22 teams, which I can live with; I don't like heat, but if I'm going to race in it I need to train for it and learn how to hydrate for it; and it would have been way more fun with a team. It's nice to be able to go at exactly the pace you want to, but one of the things that attracted me to AR was the team component and I'm looking forward to experiencing that.

-galen pewtherer
team baaarbd wire
www.baarbd.org

[adoti]

Wholy crap it was hot!
http://www.dirtyavocados.com/dablog/archives/2006/06/shooting_star_a.html

Excerpt from report:

"...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. ..."

Entire Dirty Avocados race report posted here:
http://www.dirtyavocados.com/dablog/archives/2006/06/shooting_star_a.html

Thanks for reading. Thanks to Mike and Jackie! And don't forget about the baarbd party Friday night at the 500 Club in the Mission Dist San Francisco!!!! http://www.baarbd.orgfor more info.