Race Ramblings
Mini AR #4 for 2006 was not so mini. Advertised as a 7-12 hour race the wining time was 11 hours 8 minutes.
AVIA with Beth Dressler, Cory Fitzgibbons and Mike Gabor managed to get all 21 checkpoints, they were the only team to do so. But kudos to The Dancing Pandas (Masha Glanville and Dean Long) and Callaway Golf (Peter Ligotti and Bradford Galey ) who both got 20 checkpoints (they whimped on the swim to get O2). There was less than 1 minute separating them at the end of the race.
There were 57 racers on 28 teams. It was a long day, but there were smiling faces at the end so we consider it a successful day.
Thanks to all the helpers on this race. We normally try to go it alone with Steve Moore writing the course and me checking it out, or vise versa, as in this case. So blame me for those hard to find CP locations.
For this race we had Steve’s wife Ann and her friend Jill volunteer and that got my wife Jo pressed into service too. Jo did the registration and was at the manned run checkpoint. Ann and Jill were to work the manned kayak checkpoint on the O course, but nobody elected to do what we considered the fastest way of doing the O (more later). Thanks also to Larry Bice for coming to the race and helping with the newbie class, and Veronica Williams helped with the class while hubby, Josh, did the kayak section for team P.I.T.A.
The kayak was kind of simple, 4 checkpoints spread at all corners of Mission Bay. Navigation was simple, but the paddle was difficult as it was a continuous 12 miles (including a checkpoint on a buoy in the open ocean). The fast time for the kayak section was the 2-person surf ski with Beth and Cory paddling; 1 hr 53 minutes. Kudos to Kathryn Tubbs (Junk in the Trunk) who used a paddle board and learned what chaffing is all about, but she was faster than the sit-on-top of Team Hooyah (Dave Villasenor, Dalan Haas, Sean Wilmorth and Jason Maskell) who persevered and took almost 4½ hours. The double ski was a loaner from Ocean Paddle Sports (http://www.oceanpaddlesports.com), and it was for sale and available to anyone to test – some of us had a sit in it and we all ohh’d and arr’d over it.) Sorry if you never had the time to test drive, but if you are interested go to the web site and tell them you saw it at the race.
Speaking of Team Hooyah. Imagine this. You are a woman, alone, sitting in a car reading one of Vince Flynn’s new novels. Absorbed in the story - a group of rebels storm a hotel complex to take hostage unsuspecting tourists - you look up at this drainage ditch which comes out under the railroad tracks and the freeway. There, scrambling up the side of the ditch, are 4 young chiseled men in army fatigues, one with a bandana around his head – Commandos? Rebels? Are we being invaded? Who are these guys? Wow, heart rate max, about to lock doors when they ask “Are you the checkpoint for R1?” It’s Team Hooyah. It was funny when she calmed down, but Jo made a quick phone call to recount the eerie story. Especially after we placed her in an area normally only frequented by the homeless.
Speaking of the homeless. All racers got to find trails they never even knew existed in this urban setting. Many of the trails are from bikers and hikers who want to get from A to B and simply blaze a trail. But we also needed to use some trails used by the unfortunate when they are seeking shelter, some place quiet, and a potty stop. Yes, one team unfortunately came across the potty area.
Speaking of the homeless, part 2. When I picked up the orienteering markers on Sunday I was observed by one of the homeless getting O3. He asked what it was all about as he had “guarded that thing all night long”. I told him we just had a long race where they ran around finding these markers. He was quick to correct me, that only one person ran to this marker, there were 3 who came on bike and one used a canoe to get the marker. Wow, was I impressed. He was absolutely correct, Team PITA ran to this location, Andrew Radin of UCSD, Callaway Golf and the Dancing Panda’s biked here, and AVIA used the surf ski. So be careful, those homeless can be good witnesses.
Speaking of witnesses. I think we can all be pleased to witness that AR is addictive. Kristen Francis and Jake Bencke gave up 9 hours of their birthday to run this race. Kristen ran with Victor Leon (Shawii) and they came up from Ensenada for the race. Jake ran with his wife Angie (Benckatturio) and they ran till dark when they cut-out to go have a more-fun dinner and drinks. Kristen said she was staying in the US and making her husband take her to dinner and a movie (but that was after she took all the daylight from the race).
So what took the teams so long to complete the course? I guess we are starting to assume some things are obvious when they are not. We will try to look at it from a more simplistic point of view next race. But this was originally intended to be difficult and we never took away from that. I already mentioned the easy kayak. The bike was also easy but you had to have faith and a good memory of the photos we showed at the start – but racers never got to take with them. The bike course went up San Clemente Canyon and then on the narrowest of trails under Hwy-52 and I-805 over to the landfill area.
We understand some teams spent a bit of time convincing themselves that we would use critter trails to get there. Then came a difficult part of the bike course finding your way across a fence and into the nursery. Our pre-meeting told about getting through the gates and we plotted a waypoint so you would all go to the boundary fence next to the Miramar Marine base. But some racers shied away from the big "US Government property, Trespassers Prosecuted" (if they were still alive, as this looks like a shoot first ask questions later fenced area). That cost them 20-30 minutes and then they seemed to not take the road along the fence to skirt the nursery, but cut through the nursery and went into a canyon on the other side to look for the B3 checkpoint.
How were you meant to find B3? (1) The pre-race meeting told you about 2 gates into the nursery. If you went through the west gate under the power-lines you should have immediately turned right to go to the waypoint. If you went through the east gate at the waypoint you were already just west of the big fence to the Marine Base. (2) You then followed the fence until the road curved right. (3) Within 100 meters of the road curving right was a trail going north, a quick left after this took you into the canyon. If you missed the trail you likely curved round to be under the power lines directly east of B3. The road ended there but you should have known you were looking north into Rose canyon and therefore you were on the mesa so just had to find the second trail down into the canyon. It appears most problems were that people either (A) went straight through the west gate and ended up looking for the checkpoint in the circle marked 1 above, or (B) they followed the fence line into the canyon marked 2 above. For those who had problems with B3, we have left the marker out there. You are welcome to go find it again.
Another lesson on map reading. One of the novices asked afterwards why we use old maps. Easy answer, that is all we have as far as topo maps go. If we used the software street overlays it makes the maps far too busy (see above) and you cannot read contour features so well. The lesson here had to do with local knowledge; this racer was looking for a canyon where the housing ended (as he knew the area), but the old map never had the new housing area marked so the team took extra time to find the correct canyon.
Another question was; why did we have a 16 mile run back-to-back with a 10 mile O course (that is a full marathon!) We knew this was a lot of running but here was the situation. (1) If we did the run before the bike then you would have biked in the afternoon and evening and we had the possibility of the gate into the nursery being locked. (2) If you were running late on the bike and wandered around with HID bike lights by the Marine Base you may have gotten shot (see comments above). (3) We had a plan for short-coursing the run which we could not do for the bike. (4) You were not meant to run all of the O course. So that is why we had the Run and Orienteering back-to-back.
The bike was just 18 miles which we anticipated most of you would do in 2-2½ hours. We were obviously wrong as most of you were more like 3-3½ hours. Also, we never though anyone would have problems navigating the bike. The first newbie teams; Bill Brummond of Marco Polo and Mark Kinsey and Tom Colley of Endeavour took just 2 hrs 17 minutes on the bike, the first experienced team took 2 hrs 16 minutes. Everyone finished the bike section, though Kevin and Monique Fletcher (the skinniest Thunder Butts I have seen) found it most challenging. This was their first time navigating and Monique’s first ever Adventure Race, but they asked lots of questions after the race and I think they will do really well next time. The “kids” as I was calling them (Wheezing Mules and Idy-ut) seemed to have fun and we hope to see the Emanuel family back (Rich, Jake and Aaron) along with their friends Isaac Walker and Michael Thompson. They came down from LA to see what it was all about. To keep the fun-level up they did just the bike section because the boys liked to play in the dirt and slide on the trails.
Speaking of the Bike Section. AVIA, who were first in the kayak wanted to also be first in the bike, so after the canyon loop, when they had the 3½ mile road section back to TA, they got on tow. As I understand it Mike towed Beth who in turn had a line to Cory. They blasted down Santa Fe Street, tied together, single file, 10 inches between wheels, when they passed a group of roadies in their own little peloton. I think the jeer was something like “ idiots, that’s dangerous, how dare they pass us”. You get the drift.
The statistics? Cory had a GPS at the bottom of his bag. AVIA claim they covered 52.2 miles, we would not disagree. That seems to be confirmed by Peter Ligotti who used Google map after the race and figured they did 58 miles. Originally it was meant to be about 40 miles but as we pieced it all together it extended to 49 miles if you did the course optimally.
The optimal O course? You are at De Anza Cove, Fiesta Island is ½ mile away by boat (2½ miles to get access to the island otherwise). There are 8 O points, 6 on Fiesta Island, one on a small island next to Fiesta and one more across the channel at the south end of Fiesta. Racers could split up for the O, they could use bike, boat, swim or run to get the points (but bikes were restricted and not much use in the daylight). Running the island to get the 6 points was 4.7 miles. But if you broke up and sent your fastest runner to the longer points you could reduce the distance. We think the optimum was to take 1 or 2 kayaks to the island. Drop one person and have them run to get all 6 points on the island. Meanwhile the second kayaker paddles to get the point on the little island and then runs to get the point across the channel (they could paddle – but we think running would be quicker). The team then meets up and paddles to the finish. Total distance about 6 miles for each person on the team.
PITA did a variation of this. They had an evening commitment so skipped the run and ran the 2½ miles to get on the island. While Josh swam to the small island Veronica grabbed a couple of other points. They worked their way north then swam from the north tip of Fiesta Island with a short run to the finish (total distance about 7 miles each). Their run was in daylight which made finding points much easier.
If racers were running after 3 PM, our plan was to short course teams by cutting out R4 and R5, that took the run from 16 miles down to 9 miles. At 5 PM, in the darkness, we took away the bike restriction which allowed the O to be done on bike rather than on foot. Without the use of a boat the O course was about 10 or 11 miles and other than PITA and AVIA those who did the O course rode bikes.
Next up we will be back to a short race / class, we are just not sure where it will be. We had plenty of time to discuss ideas and instead of a race we will make it a navigation clinic where you cover 10-15 miles as a group so that someone familiar with the course will be teaching as you go. If we find a good combination of experienced racers as volunteers, it may be a semi-race. We hope to pair newbie’s with someone familiar with the course, it can then be racing while teaching about navigation and talking strategy, clothing, equipment, etc.. Keep your eye on SARABS for more. Also, we (Team Equinox) are working on our own web site for sometime in 2007, but we will still use SCARABS, Adventure Race Reports and Sleepmonsters to get the word out.
Have fun and remember – Finish what you Start (my new motto)
Cheers
Barrie
