Season's culminations, 8th place at USARA championships!!!

It has been a good, hard, long season, and last weekend Eric Bone, Julie Schnepf and I headed down to Santa Barbara in California to take part in the U.S Adventure Race Championship, a spot we earned by beating Team DART-nuun at the Trioba 12h race at Snoqualmie Pass.
I had not raced with Julie before but Eric did and they were supremely successful, so I was not the least bit worried, and found out soon I did not need to be anyways.

We arrived at San Jose Airport and were picked up by Eric who drove down with all our bikes and gear, and off we were to Santa Barbara. We were planning on arriving early to have plenty of time to prepare, but the day ended up a blur of constant running around checking in, picking up race maps and infos, going to meetings, getting the gear ready, working on maps very late and dropping in bed to catch 1h of sleep from 3-4am... knowing we will not get any sleep the night after anyways unless we drop out....

Race start had an interesting twist... a warmup... one had to ride to the start... it was about a 6 mile ride on undulating roads to the start, where we then coasteered along the beautiful coast (we ran across Kevin Costners lawn.... sorry!!), all the way back the the hotel where the kayaks were waiting... (not really worthy of the name, pretty sad that they used Sevylor Tahiti inflatables for such a big race!).

There were 50 teams present, two boats per team, makes 100 boats... and one was deflated... ours DANG!! Could not believe it... had to run around and find the guy responsible who then pumped up and fixed the boat... then Eric in a Boneheaded usual approach to try to stay as dry as possible was trying to enter the surf way too early and capsized.. not once, not twice, three times... we were on the water in probably 48th or 49th place..... wow, what a start....

Our paddling skills did not help, I was sitting way too low in the boat and did not get enough power so we only passed about 5-6 teams on the water and came out in the early 40 range, ready to rumble! The first bike leg went well and we moved past team by team... the only good thing when you are way in the back....





Eric powering up the first hill of the day...

Then we got to the trek and had a superior run, partly because we ran well and Eric's navigation was solid, party due to a misplaced checkpoint that two teams nicely enough mentioned and we found it in the wrong place immediately... after 7 hours or racing we suddenly found ourselves in 6th place!!! The race was on!
After we got on the bike we were once again plagued by bad luck, Eric's light gave out and mine had connection issues so apart from having to deal with the issues we had inferior lighting once darkness set compared to the other teams out there. It was necessary, the downhill sections were brutal and Dan Barger, in his usual, slightly arrogant fashion, proclaimed that the night before with "I dont like easy races...!", yup.

We fell back to about 10th place throughout the night's uphill fireroad battles and downhill singletrack maddness, and as the sun came up I caught second wind. This is something peculiar with me, I get a huge surge of energy the morning after a long hard night, and used it to tow Julie at first, then Eric, and then both, and we managed to pass a team up to the last hilly checkpoint... from there it was downhill to the beach, finish a reasonably short Orienteering section, and along the coast to the finish. With strong headwind, cramping muscles and big smiles we rode the last few miles along the beach and finished the US Championships in 8th place... superbly happy with this race... could we have done better? Always, there s not a team that does not drop minutes, maybe hours in a race that lasts 27h30minutes.. but overall this race went about as well as we could have hoped for.. after all we were ahead of many very strong and well funded adventure race teams such as Golite Timberland Sprint, Wingnut and Mighty Dog... this is it for me for a while... I am taking a mini-sabbatical from MerGeo, stepping down from my captain role and will only race the fun races next year... its time for others to step up and for me to take it a bit easier.....


Done! A well deserved 8th place...

My first 100 mile run, Cascade Crest 100

When I told my mom I was going to run 100 miles (omitting the fact that there is also 22'000 feet of elevation gain in it) she righfully asked "now why would you do something so stupid?"... for which I had no real good answer.... because I can? Hmm... I can also run into a burning building but I am not going to do it anytime soon....

So I stopped trying to explain why I love the things that most people find a wee bit cooky... watching Amerian Idol or reading about who Paris Hilton did last night is a cooky pasttime for me and noone will ever really be able to sell that to me....

Anyhow, I love doing what I do and so getting ready for this race was exciting.. after a couple of AR's and rogaines I was ready to train for the Cascade Crest 100 mile trail run, but my excitement got a pretty good damper when I fell and hurt my knee on the Skuookum Flats down in White River while mountain biking. One rock in the wrong place (or Roger's bike in the wrong place I guess) and I heard the pop... some ligament had been pulled... and while I could ride ok running was totally out of questoin for almost two months... it was exctuciating not being able to run... and after 5-6 weeks when I was able to get back into it we were in Amsterdam, about one of the flattest cities in one of the flattest countries in the world.... so much for good training....

Cross training came to help and before I knew it it was two weeks before the race and the knee felt fine.. two double Mt. Si trainings and I was about as ready as I would ever be biven the circumstances.
I had great support, Yumay was going to wait for me at Mile 32, then Jerry Gamez took over first pacer duty from mile 45-67, and Yumay from 67-100....
Early on in the race I started running with Diane VanDeren, one of the most amazing women I have ever met... once a star Basketball and Tennis athlete (she was good enough to play at Wimbledon) she began having seizures after a bad fall from horsebackriding when she was younger... after three kids and a successful tennis career the scar on the brain broke, and the seizures came back with full vengeance.. ten years of crippling seizures every day left her no choice but to go for it, a large part of her brain was amputated in an amazing surgery, and she was left with very little short term memory and bad vision at night, but otherwise healthy... she took on ultrarunning and is now on the NorthFace Ultrarunning Team and one amazing athlete!
It was a pleasure running with her and listening to her talk, and the time passed very quickly.


Off they go... start of the CCC100, 70 or so racers....




Diane Vanderen, my running buddy for the first 45 miles....


Water, nuun, lots of Clif, Ipod.... good to go!!

At mile 45 Jerry took over and I started to fade... I wasnt running fast to begin with, Diane slowed me down and rightfully and smartly so.. but somehow I got worse anyways... just as we were entering the (in)famous Snoqualmie Tunnell.... I was passed by Van Phan who was pacing another 100 miler virgin and they were moving fast... was I done?
My stomach was feeling bad, after a full day of strong heat many people had troubles, but somehow miraculously it went away and never came back immediately after we exited the tunnell... 50 mile mark was reached.. barn door was open (still very far away but open!), and Jerry turned up the cranks!! He gave me some kickass tortillas with cream cheese and ham, and after eating Clif Bars, Shot Blocks and Shots all day my body loved the change and responded very well.... I hauled up the hill passing three people and figured I was proably in about 25th place..... not bad...
After Mile 67 Yumay took over, Jerry said bye (thanks again!) and we started getting on the trail from hell...its called that for a good reason... nevertheless I did really well in this section with Yumay's help and we passed another few people...


As night comes, Roger is visibly tired, roughly around mile 65...

Then came the needles... short very steep pinprick needle climbs, over and over and over.. and I continued passing people until we met up with Jeff Arnd whoe Yumay and I (he had no pacer) ran with until the end... 14th place overall... extremely happy given the midigating circumstances.... and made me want to come back for more!



Done! Mile 99.9, a few steps to go!

And the infamous Borat picture Eric A took and modified... yeehaw

RAMSHOD!

In honor of RAMROD, we did RAMSHOD this past weekend, Run Around Mt St Helens in One Day....

DART organized the training/outing and invited us and Yumay and I were in without a doubt, what a cool way to spend the weekend, drive down friday night late, sleep in the car, on the ground or in a tent at the trailhead (all versions were used, we went for tent for the 4h of sleep we got), then head out supremely early (3am up, 3.30 start).


Erik Nachtrieb getting ready for the day ahead....


Aaron Rinn and Yumay powering up the gravel...


4.45am, getting light out...


Group picture in the early AM

The run can be done clockwise or counter clockwise (D'UH!) and that depends on when one wants runnability and water (east) or slow going and dry, super volcanic rocky ground (west)... we wanted to cover as much ground as possible first so we ran at night in the open flat east fields and were making great progress... the run is about 34 miles and 8000 feet of elevation gain/loss in this lollipop loop. Amazing views down and up the mountain (one can see smoke/fumes coming out of the crator!) were plenty, as was wildlife and different vegetation zones. We ate blueberries galore and treated our water from streams that came off the mountain... an incredible outing.


Narrow volcanic paths....

Happy to be out there...

Cmon how hard can it be to navigate around a volcano!

Aaron running down the volcano...

On the rockier, gnarlier southwest side of the volcano

Double fun! Devils Gulch, Mission Ridge

Last weekend I rode with RVG, AV, Ryan Fleming and Glen Rogers in Wenatchee.... it had been almost two years since the 24h Trioba (man those were the times when Trioba still organised hard and unique adventure races!), and I had not been back since.

Now thats what I call carpooling!!

Little cool-off for Glen...

We got a pathetically late start (as always when too many people are involved) and drove out there, not making it to the start until about 11pm... but we were all excited and ready to rumble! I had trouble initially keeping up.. the DART boys and AV were hauling up there! They waited and soon we got into a good rythm and made it up there to the top together, riding with a guy on a single speed that we met on the trail. Amazing that he kept up, after all we re not so slow out there... but we soon found out he is a 24h mountain bike racer and had won a few very prestigious races on single speed...

Ridin up the gulch...

After the Devils Gulch up it was Mission Ridge down and being tired from the upupup (5000 feet roughly) the down down down was just as hard, if not harder... I combined for about 5 falls, some pretty dumb and spectacular looking (e.g. dead bug pose fall, falling on your mountain bike, rolling over, not being able to unclip so that i landed on my back and my bike, still attached to myself was sticking straight up in the air... oh yeah and i ran into a tree too.. that hurt!)

Back at the trailhead.... nice ride!

We made it, the weather was gorgeous, and I ll be back less than another 2 years again, that ride needs to be a yearly occurrence!

X-adventure, Idaho

A year ago we competed in the X-adventure and got a whiff of the glorious racing scene that lies beyond Washington State... and this year we came back for more. Aaron VanderWaal reinforced our team in the late fall and we were able to train and build a larger, hopefully even stronger MerGeo.com team for this season!

The race was near perfect, with grueling bike and trekking legs, a 400 foot rappell!, class IV whitewater paddling, and snow up the whazoo.... X-adventure pure! We did not fare as well as to be expected... but again learned a lot in terms of minimizing lost time and racing together well. Its a hectic race and takes a couple of times to fully get used to..... we ll probably be back again.


MerGeo.com with the padding gear...

24 h in circles? That exists??

Those were the words of a friend... what? Why would you do that? That exists? Thats stupid!
All valuable questions and statements but not to me... why do I choose to run around in circles for 24h... because I can and want to see how long/far I can do it for... this time I only ran the 100k, basically around the same lake in a 1 mile loop for 62.5 times.. which equaled 100km... my knee was bothering me and I did not fuel very smartly (used too much bad food at aid station instead of my race food such as Clif), so I called it a day after 12h53, making it the farthest plain run I had done to date... it was good training for my 24h rogaine race and 100 mile runs to come, and I enjoyed the scenery even though it repeated itself a few dozen times....


Roger coming out of aid station early in the race...


My own little aid station, to be accessed every mile....


Done! 100k in 12h53...

Colinoba II, Guinness Rules!

Yumay, Roger, Bill (aka Ducky Boy) and a bottle of Prangster Beer!

My AR buddy Colin Ness had his 45th birthday this past weekend and what better way to celebrate it than with friends, and what better way than outdoors and what better way than with a mini AR course with lots of special tests and events....

The idea is simple... its an urban adventure, places on maps that one has to find and then take pictures of the whole team plus their mandatory team beer bottle.. (not that s a mandatory team item you dont usually have in AR!)... and lots more....

Yumay and I raced with Bill, a coworker of Colin's and we had a blast and ended up 2nd behind DART/MissingLink/Guniess (there lies the reason, its the strenght of the beer!! :)...


Reed and Andrea studying the maps and instructions...


Team Prangster Beer in front of the Cinerama...


Colin and Connie, what a great Bday!

Desafio de los Volcanes

January 1st.... I had just gotten up and no, I was not hung over but sore.. not from drinking but from doing 3 orienteering races in 24h... long story, not important to this one...
Aaron Rinn calls..... hey do you want to do a race...? Sure, what? Then I hear words such as expedition and patagonia and epic and team and hold on what? when?? reallly???
Anyhow the jist of it was that Team Big Bear's Heather Salzer and Ted Devito were looking for teammates to race the Desafio de los Volcanes (literally conquer the volcanoes.. though the volcanoes kind of conquer the racers...), and Aaron Rinn decided to race with them. In need of a 4th, they asked me, VERY LATE... just four weeks to race start.... at least I did not have to specifically train for it for months.. I had started my winter/spring training early and felt in good shape... well I guess we d find out... I had never done a race longer than 36h before... it was going to be epic... and in patagonia!!

So I said yes...
A couple of weeks of hectic borrowing and buying gear, learning how to ascent hundreds of feet with ascenders, and upping my kayaking, and there I was at the start line all nervous, what is it going to be like? How will I do without sleep for days? Will my body hold up?


Team Big Bear, Heather, Ted, Aaron and I


Cant wait, my first expedition AR, ready to go!

Ready, set go!!! There were 50 teams, two boats per team, 100 boats... and two capsized going into the sea.... and Aaron and I were one of the two... yikes!! Pumping out the boat and then still sitting in a gigantic pool of water in the first 70km kayak leg was not that comfortable, but we set into a good pace and worked ourselves from 49th place (there was one team that took even longer in the beginning) to about 15th place at the end of the paddle.


Heather and Ted, perfectly syncronized...


No words necessary...


Photos Courtesy of Aaron Rinn

After a quick 12h bike leg we were on the water again for another night of padding... it was scary as hell since the mountain lake was very choppy and we had fast, but tippy kayaks... pitch dark we tried to not fall in the water... and somehow made it...

After a mandatory rest stop where my teammates slept like logs I spent most of the time laying around wondering why I could not sleep.. hmm, adrenaline, fear? Anyhow I knew I was in it for a long one since our next mandatory rest would not be for 2 days....

We biked to a tyrolean traverse and traversed over this very cool waterfall to the other side.. only hooked on two single ropes that were attached to the same tree... adrenaline kept us from worrying about it.. the faster you go across the sooner it is over (or as they say the sooner you die the longer you're dead :)....


Heather, Ted and I on our way across....


Roger demonstrating a good style for tyrolean... head down, body up, bike between the legs.. and then pull as hard as you can!

After kayak/bike/kayak/bike we knew we were going to have an epic trekking leg... and we did... 37 h or uninterrupted trekking across two mountain ranges and an impressive volcano! Taking food and gear for 37 h is quite tricky.. how much do you need, what do you need.. we did not get any support for so long... our packs were very very heavy....


Made it!


Does not play well with others.. this is right after I fell head first into a bush of nettles.. .that hurt!

The trek turned out to be a disaster at first.. we lost nearly 7 hours trying to find a trail that was not on the map.. but we had to get across some raging river wiht apparently one place to cross.. the maps were from the 1940s.. you think I am kidding, I wish I was kidding... so it was more like using your spanish (hard to do at 2am when noone is awake) and your wits (hard to do when you got little to start with and not sleeping for 50+ hours)..... or then there is insanity... its when you do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome... so we combed the trails over and over... and eventually stumbled across a map someone lost (right when Aaron said "I know now we are on the right trail!") and realized it was our own we had lost about 30 minutes ago.... we had run aorund in a circle and come across our own map... thats when we decided it was not only time but essential that we took a power nap...
Power naps suck but even more so at freezing temperatures and being spooned by Aaron and Ted, oh gee! So we got up 30 minutes later and I made myself believe I was totally awake since I had slept an amazing 30 minutes in 50hours... hehehe...
We still did not find the trail but apparently made so much noise around one of the houses that one of the farmers came out and asked us what the heck was going on.. I was the only one on the team speaking spanish and was trying to explain to him. He was cool about it and very nicely pointed us to the right path, but I begged him to actually physically show it to us and so we trotted onwards and found it... by now it was 5am and we were going to have to cross a cold river up to our chest, so we added another hour of nap time such that we crossed when the sun came up so that our bodies would warm up and dry immeditaely....
This was our lowest point in the race and our lowest ranking (35ish) and then we finally got it right.


Aaron visibly tired powering up the n-th hill of the day...


Bridge crossings were not for the faint of heart...

We started passing people getting up to Puyehue, the volcano we had to climb, and then chose a particularly good route down it (with us I mean Aaron who was navigating very well by then, being backed up by Ted), and we passed several teams that got stuck in the many ravines down the mountain and had to backtrack up to 2 hours!

After an amazing night spent on the low plateau on various fire roads I had the most amazing hallucinations.... I was now approaching 70h with 1.5h of sleep, and it took its toll..... it all started when we were looking for a checkpoint in the dimming light of the night breaking in.. and I saw them.... two checkpoint personel sitting there.. I went over and told them how happy I was to see them, in Spanish obiously... only to be pulled away by Heather who pointed out to Ted and Aaron that I was speaking Spanish to cows now .... WHOA!! There they were, two life sized cows where I just saw people...


Border!! 1 mile to go to Argentina...


Amazing, ridiculously dangerous ropes section...

Made it though the night, found a town where we again had to find a little road but this time it was day and I asked every man woman and child for directions and we got through this section much quicker... arriving at our next CP after 37 hours...
2 times 1h of sleep and off we were again, a few hours of kayaking and then a 27h mountain bike ride... which went well and by the time we crossed the argentinian border we knew we only had one trek left....


My feet, the perils for the feet are many in such a long race... sorry

We managed to get that last section started ok but in the TA I was just too tired to care much about reading the spanish instructions about the leg, and the english ones were unusable as always, (since they just use babbelfish!) and so I dropped that paper and told the guy Si, Si when asked if I understood everything, and we got on course... it was supposed to be a short section, just a few hours....
After a few hours (we were making great progress) we got to this singletrack that led us straight to the finish (if it would have been a straight line) but then turned into this bushwhack and ultimately dropped us onto a beach with nowhere to go..... we saw some teams that rambled on about instructions and swim and all that jazz, that s when it hit me.... costeando is coasteering.... coly cr$p..., we need to get into that mountain lake....
So I told my teammates about that I forgot to translate that section... it was only a 1km section of alternatively swimming, coasteering along ropes and on beaches, but it was a mountain lake and 4am, it was soooooo cold! Aaaron Ted and I did not bring extra clothes but fortunately dry bags so at least we were able to drop the clothes in there.. but it meant in order to have dry clothes at the end of it we needed to go commando! So naked coasteering it was! The coldest 15 minutes of my life...

We made it through that and through the very scary ropes section and eventually dropped down into another gully that lead us to have to swim to the beach to run to the finish, but the coastguard (with instructions from race management) picked up every team to forego this (permit issues) and before we knew it we were done! Over 120 hours of racing, a team worthy of the 11th place we got, and very happy to be done! My first expedition race was with great people, great racers, and a phantastic support crew (thanks Rikky, Tom and Adi!)....


Bring out the champain we did it!!!