Met Michi (my buddy Michael Eglin from Switzerland, he s the one that got me into the crazy races about three years ago!) in Phoenix where we rented a car and drove up into the mountain boonies. We had two days go get acclimatized to the 10.000 feet of elevation (which is too little for most, unfortunately) so we drove right up to 8.000 feet and stayed at a nice motel, getting a beer at some shabby bar where come cougars (e.g. old mountain p.... yeah, that) tried to chat us up.... grosssss... one was so drunk she fell of her bar stool and could not get up anymore.....
Anyhow, the mandatory beer before the race was crossed off the list and the night after we made it up to the campground, where hundreds of campers were already getting ready for what was going to be an excellent 24h rogaining event on a new map in a very nice area. It was pretty flat up there at elevation, but nontheless there were plenty of hills to be climbed during the event. What the heck is rogaining? Rugged Outdoor Group Activity Involving Navigation and Endurance (ROGAINE) Seriously? Seriously!
24h of running around and finding as many checkpoints (which have different valued points depending where they are and how hard they are to find). That is the layman explanation I guess......
Map distribution and getting ready...
Got one! 50 points added...
Middle of the night, tired, sweaty, feeling a bit crazy...
They came from everywhere, 30 countries, Central/Eastern Europe, Australia, NZ, etc... some super fast, many just there recreationally, or fast for their age (e.g there were over 10 superveteran teams of each member at least 55 years or older!)
Michi and I wanted to go as hard as we could, and we did. To take it upfront we finished 16th out of rougly 200 teams, not bad ey? We stared off what I thought was slow but in hindsight was way too fast... I am slowly getting the hang of not being so ancy..... oh well. Moving along through the first day, we made great leeway on our planne route and had over a quater of the maximum points in a quater of the time. Thing is noone was supposed to get them all! And noone would. In a 24h race you make or loose ground on your competition after 12h.. some will come to a crawl (like us, Michi had altitude problems and I helped him for a while but soon became too tired myself to push the team along really), some move almost as fast at night as during the day.
We had a great time though, since I dont nav there was no disagreement there, plus Michi did a phantastic job, and we just got along great the whole time. I managed to jump into a lake shortly before night broke (dumbass me thought it was a reflection... of what??), so my feet never dried and were totally blistered up after the run was over. At night I got super tired for an hour or so but then got over it once the sun came up, was happy to see that I should be able to manage that well once I did more 24h adventure races .
Done!
Not much else here, a great event, Jeff was there too with his buddy Mark and had a great time as well. Michi and I limped to the finish with 2700 points, the winners (Team Nike/Balance Bar, Mike Kloser and Michael Tobin) had 3490... not THAT much more :)
Totally fascinated by the sport, will need to learn how to navigate!
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