Early in the morning on Saturday before the race started I had to a chance to speak with my friends Karl and Cynthia of Team Cyclepath. We all agreed that the race was going to be “an experience”. Saturday morning had a temperature around 31F degrees and brought freezing rain and snow to north Tahoe. The winds had picked up a bit and there was even some discussion about cancelling the kayak section. Luckily, the clouds cleared up a bit and the sun finally started to peak out. After a group photo of all the teams everyone prepared their kayaks and readied themselves to a mass kayak start. Todd Jackson, the Big Blue race director, counted down the seconds, yelled “GO!” and soon there was a flurry of paddles, mud, and water. Everyone was off. I had a bit of a difficulty getting out away from shore but soon I set a nice cadence. We had to reach a pier in the distance, call out our team number to a race volunteer, and then head back to the original beach. This section went relatively easy and soon I was back and transitioning to the first orienteering section. This orienteering section was a basic O-course on 1:10000 topographic maps. We had to grab seven checkpoints (out of 11?) in any order. The course was located in Burton Creek State Park, just north of Tahoe City. It was a slight run up a hill to the area and I started picking off the checkpoints one by one. Finally I reached CP #5 and then needed to head to CP #2. I headed south a bit and started following a foot path for a bit and finally I reached CP #2. AFter I punched it and continued on to to cP #3 I realized that it was taking a long time to reach CP #3. I was way off my navigation. After looking down at my punchcard I realized that I had gone to CP #5 twice thinking on the second time around that I had reached CP #2. Even now, I do not understand how this mistake occurred but thankfully it was my only large navigational mistake during the race. I continued on to the real #2 and then headed back to the beach for the rest of the kayaking leg.

I had to paddle from an area near Tahoe City to King’s Beach - a distance of roughly 8 miles. This was a brutal section of the race. The winds were coming out of the northwest and I was travelling roughly northeast into King’s Beach. This meant that I was getting some fierce side winds and had to paddle through some interesting swells. Towards the end of this paddle I was feeling awfully cramped in the boat and my neck and shoulders were starting to twitch with the pain of overuse. When I reached the beach I was supposed to pull my boat out of the water and portage it around a flag the organizers had set up on the beach and then relaunch and head to Sand Harbor. This was tough - doable but still tough. By this time I had been passed by a few teams and Team Cyclepath and another team were the only ones behind me in the race. The portage took me way too long and Cyclepath got a chance to pass me. I knew in their surf ski (a long thin narrow fast open-deck kayak) they would be off. The paddle to Sand Harbor was roughly five miles across Crystal Bay. Luckily were were going to be heading east-southeast so the wind would be at our backs. Cyclepath charged ahead and I was soon the only team out there on the water. Luckily, I had some great people from the Washoe County Sheriff Department’s deep-water rescue team track along with me with a jet ski and a large motorboat. This made me less concerned about any sort of peril and I was able to concentrate on keeping a good paddling stroke.

Finally, I hit the beach at Sand Harbor and hoisted my boat up to the transition area. Quite a few teams were still at the TA and I found out that a bunch of other teams had only left a little bit earlier. I realized that if I could transition into my biking gear swiftly I could have a chance at passing the teams that had passed me on the kayak. I jumped into action by grabbing my pump, tubes, extra food, warm clothes, and quickly checking the status of my brakes and gears. After surprising the TA manager with a fast transtion time, I set off on Highway 28 and started pedaling north toward tunnel creek road. The next section of the race was going to be long, brutal, and, ahem, “interesting”. The idea was that would would bike east up the mountain to a centralized area. We would then bike around to various checkpoints before riding the bike further east down into the Carson City desert valley. After traversing a small section of that valley we would then turn west and bike up the mountain again to Spooner Lake State Park. Epic.

I headed up the dirt path of Tunnel Creek Rd and on the way met up with Team Hey Blue We’re Your Daddy. Team Hey Blue and I would track each other throughout the entire race pretty much. They were a couple guys from the Bay Area and they had neatly setup an iPod and a speaker to a backpack and as I was riding by them I had the fun experience of hearing the band Counting Crows. Later on, I had the no-so-fun experience of trying to get a repetitive Counting Crow song out of my head. Thanks Hey Blue. Tunnel Creek Rd was a continuing slog and I had to walk a couple of the steeper sections. Finally I reached the top and was able to head off to the bike checkpoint #5. A cool Reno local was manning the point and I was able to chat with him a bit about the current order of the teams. Out of 15 teams it looked like the top eight teams had congealed into a racing pack about an hour ahead - more than likely it would be impossible to catch up with them. The rest of us were going to be racing against one another in our own separate group. I soon made my race goal to be 9th or 10th…leader of the “B” group, if you will. After CP #5 I gunned it to CP #6. CP #6 was the medical checkpoint and the hub of area. During the next couple checkpoints we would be returning to CP #6 regularly. After a quick check-in it was off to CP #7. This was a great part of the bike ride - CP #7 was located on a fireroad that was cutting into the mountain side. Along the fireroad were beautiful aspen trees that had turned into a brilliant display of golden color. Also, you could from #7 you could see into the Reno and Carson valleys and east to the desert mountains beyond. This was simply a great part of the race. I was able to put some distance on the teams behind me on the way back to the CP #6 hub and on the way I intersected with Karl and Cynthia. They were still looking good and I was glad that they weren’t too far behind. When I hit #6 the sun was setting and the next section of the race was going to be in the dark. I donned my bike lights and headed northwest toward checkpoint #8. For me this was a rough section of the race. It is essentially all uphill toward #8 - first on a steep fireroad and then on the more gradual Tahoe Rim Trail. I’m still conquering my fear of the dark and as I was biking along my mind began to play the usual tricks on me. I had to focus if I wanted to keep the bike section going as smoothly as it had been so far.

The Rim Trail was mostly covered with snow and the previous teams had laid out a nice track to follow. I was able to save some battery power by shutting off my headlight and by using the light of the full moon to bike by. This may have slowed me down a bit but I think it was a wise decision because I was beginning to realize that I would be biking pretty much until sunrise. After a steep hike-a-bike section up to CP #8 I met up with some very cool volunteers who were camped out on the mountaintop behind a rocky outcropping. I stayed awhile here and chatted with them while changing into warmer clothes - my feet were freezing because I was wearing thin socks with bike shoes. The wind had nipped through the aeration in the shoes and my toes were becoming painfully frozen. At the bottom of the hike-a-bike I saw several teams preparing to head up to CP #8. I recommended to them to leave their bikes down at the botttom because hauling them up was inconsequential. I also passed Cyclepath again who mentioned they were having lighting troubles. That was a not a good thing since there was still a LOT of biking left.

I quickly made it into CP #6 and the next section I was supposed to do on foot. We had to find CP #9 which was roughly a kilometer away. I headed off south on the fireroad and then after pace counting a specific distance I head off into the woods and up the hill. I reached what I thought was the summit of the hill (roughly where the checkpoint was supposed to be) and I saw a couple guys scrambling around on some boulders…we all thought we were in the right area. They decided to skip the CP and I took a look at the map. I still need to go further south and continue up the hill. I soon reached the checkpoint and headed down. After a bit of mucking around in a marshy area at the bottom of the hill I emerged onto the road and head back to #6. After a brief check from the staff member I prepared for what would one of the toughest sections of any adventure race I’ve ever done. I had to bike down into Carson valley (I’m guessing a 4000ft descent) and then bike back up to Spooner Lake. I’m not terribly fond of long downhill rides as they hurt my wrists and neck and while I can do long uphill biking - doing so at the end of a too-long day is a daunting task. Well, as the saying in racing goes, “If you are stuck in the middle of the woods, only you can get yourself out, and you might as well do it as quickly as possible”. This was my new mantra.

I set off down to Carson. I was able to cut loose a bit on the downhills and pick up some speed but I was wary about coasting off the hillside that the road was following. Overall it was a fairly slow and conservative ride into the valley. Being down in Carson was nice if only because it was 10 degrees warmer and a lot less windy. Plus, the course in this section went on city streets most of the time - I was able to make some good time on pavement. The intention was to head off to King’s Canyon Rd. This road starts out on pavement and then soon turns into dirt. Where it turns into dirt we were supposed to sign a timesheet to let the race director know when we reached that section. I took some time here to really cram a lot of food down. I was feeling sluggish and crampish and the rest of the ride would be steeply uphill. As I was sitting there I noticed a couple lights heading up the road. I didn’t want to get passed so I gathered my things and took off. The dirt road kept going uphill. And then it went more uphill. Varying sections I had to walk. Varying sections I could. Then it went more uphill and I could ride again. It was about 1am if I remember correctly and the idea is that eventually the road I was on would connect with Highway 50 which is paved. Unfortunately what I didn’t realize until later was that it would connect up pretty much at the end of this road - 4000ft of elevation later. Slog. Slog. More uphill. More uphill. I was bored, tired, hungry, hungry, tired, and bored. I met up with a couple guys and we discussed some nav issues and finally decided that we just need to keep going. Eventually my headlights ran out of juice and I was biking by moonlight alone. As I was hiking along a medic volunteer drove by in his truck and asked if I was okay. All I could muster was, “This road is long”. To which he exclaimed, “No sh**!” And he was driving the road. Not biking it. Finally, after singing several rap and pop songs to myself I reached the top of the ridge. It was more or less downhill down to highway 50. Downhill is my new salvation. I reached the beautiful pavement and cheered. The whole night was brutal and I still had the orienteering section.

As I was riding the final mile into Spooner Lake State Park I was looking forward to the final orienteering section. I had imagined it was going to be similar to the first orienteering course much earlier - roughly an hour long. Well, as soon as I hit the transition and received the maps from Todd the race director I knew this was going to be a long and difficult nav section. The idea was that you had to get checkpoints #1, #2, and #3 in order and then you can get the rest in any order you’d like. It was going to be long and it would take me until after sunrise to complete but I readied myself for it. I hiked off to CP #1 and after round a bend in a trail near the lake I was able to shoot a 150 meter bearing to the control. As I was nearing the control flag, I was looking down at the compass arrow and counting my pace. All of a sudden I sense a presence and I see green eyes staring at me. I moved my headlamp lower and I realize it was a bear hanging a foot or so off the ground on the base of a tree. I had never seen a bear before and I was immediately scared. I stared at it for a couple seconds and then slowly backed off and turned around, walking briskly back toward the main camp. As I reached the camp I asked Todd if I could skip CP #1 and after I told him why he sort of chuckled at me. Apparently, he does not understand my midwestern fear of bears but in the end he said I could skip #1. So, I decided that I would make my way to CP #2 and CP #3 - unfortunately these were right past CP #1 and the bear guarding it. I started talking to myself and making a lot of noise to scare off any potential bears. I made it to CP #2 after some time and then off to #3. I realized that I was a little too tired and a little too spooked to make good time for the rest of the orienteering course. At CP #3 I decided to end the race early. For me kayaking across the lake and biking over the mountains into Carson City was enough.

So, I headed back on the road to the main camp. I was walking toward the tents and the finish line of the race and I see Todd taking my picture with a camera. Very slowly he says, “Randy…bear”. And I look to my left and about 10 feet away was a large bear clinging to the base of a tree. I yelled, “holy sh** bear!!” and moved away really fast. The bear hopped to the ground and started going through other racer’s transition gear. It was looking for food. Todd eventually scared it off. And then finally checked me in and my race was officially over. Quite honestly I don’t know how long I was out on the course (between 20 and 22 hrs) but what a way to end that race!

The race was fun and brutal and long and one of the more intense things I did. I was able to conquer some of my fears and limitations that I had about myself. I was glad to meet up with previous friends like Karl and Cynthia from Team Cyclepath and see new friends like those from Eco-Squallywood. I’m glad we all survived and completed the race. Congrats to everyone!

Russo climbing at Lover’s Leap.

Russo relaxing at the belay station.

Ritwik and I at the top of the climb.

The view from the top of the climb.

The next day we joined up with a guy, Stefan, whom we met in the campground for some mountain biking at Crystal Basin. Crystal Basin is a large area of granite slickrock - you can basically bike anywhere you please on the slickrock while doing jumps, drops, and other technical riding. It was really just a fun time. The best part of the day was biking up this huge granite bowl and then cresting a ridge to Loon Lake. We were able to relax a bit and take a dip in the lake. We then explored around the lake’s edge to see if we could find a way to the other side but unfortuntaly the cliff line of some of the rock formations prevented us from biking further.

Also, the Crystal Basin area intersects with the Rubicon Trail - the most famous Jeep and 4×4 trail in the world. We were able to see some massive rock crawling machines do some amazing stuff over the boulders in the area. No comment on the *cough* environment impact of the area.

I’ll post some pictures from the weekend when they are provided to me with my fancy friends and their fancy digital cameras.

The 12/24 hike went well. Keith, Raquel, and I hiked 20 miles in around 7 hours and then I bid them farewell at Brockway Summit as I hiked an extra 30 miles solo. I ended up doing 50 miles in 19hrs 15minutes - as I was hiking I decided to either do 24hrs of hiking or 50 miles whichever came first….50 miles came first. The hike itself was very tough with a couple sections above 10,000ft. Eventually, I’d like to repeat the hike in the winter hauling sleds and such. That would be superfun and tough.

Last night I was able to get in some night mountain biking - I had neglected to charge my bike light so I only got 45 minutes of it before it died. Luckily I had my headlamp (and it was a full moon) so the ride continued. Mountain biking downhill in the dark is tough work!

Today I’m just relaxing and cleaning up my place for my parent’s visit next week. Tomorrow I’m doing an epic ride up at Tahoe - 30-35 miles on the Tahoe Rim Trail. Hopefully that will go smoothly!

Here’s the gear list if you’re interested:
- Backpack (mine will be roughly 1892 cubic inches)
- Headlamp with enough batteries to last 12 hours
- Water purification (either water tablets or pump-based purifier)
- Sunscreen
- Bug spray
- Camera
- Hat for sun shade
- Non-cotton t-shirt
- Non-cotton shorts or pants that can take some abuse and don’t chafe
- Warm jacket for night time
- Stocking cap for night time
- Socks
- Extra pair of socks
- Trail running shoes or hiking boots
- Toiletries you may need
- Whistle
- Emergency space blanket
- Trekking poles if you need/have them
- Spare compass
- First aid kit
- antiseptic wipes
- duct tape
- anti-inflammatories
- bandages/gauze
- small knife
- blister care kit
- Food
For adventure races I eat roughly 1 energy gel or energy bar every 45 minutes - then every 6 hours I eat a bagel, beef jerky, peanut butter, and trail mix. It is easier if you try to keep the weight of the food down since, ideally, you’ll be carrying a lot of water.
- Water
- Electrolytes replenishment (either in the form of gatorade or in E-Caps
form)

See ya!

Saturday, after travelling on Friday night to Sunnyvale with Dan, I got up early to head off to the SVS #3 put on by Shooting Star Adventures. This was put on a Almaden Quicksilver County Park near San Jose. I was doing the “adventure run” portion of the race - essentially just doing the trek portion of the multisport adventure race. I gotta tell ya…it was brutal out there. It turned out to be a really superhot day and most everyone did poorly on the trek. I ended up running out of water and making some huge navigational mistakes which really slowed me down. All in all it was good practice which was the intention but as a race I did quite poorly.

Saturday night I joined up with Shelley and Kate for dinner and then completely crashed afterwards - I was dead tired. Sunday the idea was to go mountain biking if Ritwik was back and town but he wasn’t so instead I napped most of the day and then headed back to Reno as I bid farewell to Dan who was heading into San Francisco for a few days.

Yesterday I slogged my way on the stairclimber for 45 minutes and then prepared for today’s ride with Keith and Raquel. Hopefully I’ll take it easy this week because this weekend is the 12/24 Tahoe Rim Trail Training Hike! A bunch of us are hiking for 24 hours straight on the TRT to prepare for upcoming adventure races - the TRT is no joke of a trail so hopefully everything will go smoothly this weekend!

The next 3 days are going to be busy and interesting. My friend Dan from back in the Midwest is showing up sometime - he called me from “somewhere in Wyoming” last night and presumably he’ll be showing up sometime today. Tonight I’m going to be racing a mountain bike race up at Northstar and then tomorrow morning I’m doing the Flume trail with Aaron and another dude. Afterwards, I’ll probably convince Dan to join me in scouting for the 24 hour hike that is occuring the next weekend. Then it’s off to the Bay Area - I’ll be racing the Adventure Run in the Shooting Stars SVS #3 and volunteering by taking down controls after the race. Sunday I’m hoping to ride in ECDM and/or Soquel with Ritwik if he is back in town. It’s going to be a fast paced busy outdoorsy 3-day weekend!

Here’s the profile:

Here’s the topo (clicky!):

Tonight I’m going on a run - first time in a week or so! Need to stay focused for September races!

Saturday night we had a get-together at Northstar for pizza and beer. The Norcamba organizers sponsored a raffle for some fancy bike stuff and I actually won a new suspension fork from Fox Forks! Fancy dancy! Everyone else got lots of great swag too. I was pretty tired from the days working and riding so I hit the sack hard on Saturday evening.

Yesterday we rode an epic ride starting from Tahoe City and going north up into the hills on the Western States and Tahoe Rim Trails. There was major amounts of climbing and descension and it was probably some of the rockiest-nastiest stuff I’ve ever been on. I got beat around on a lot of the trail but I think just riding yesterday has improved my confidence on technical singletrack 100 fold.

Anyway, it was great time overall!

This week I’ll be doing some trail running and mountain biking in preparation for this weekend’s trip to the Bay Area. The SVS trail run and mountain biking at Skeggs/Soquel beckon!

Brandon’s report: here.

After poring over maps and gear the Friday night before the race my racing partner Brandon and I arrived at the start of the race refreshed and ready to race. This was my first race with Brandon and I feel our goals and abilities perfectly aligned during the race. We decided to call ourselves Team High Sierra Haystacks in reference to Brandon’s parents’s company - such a sponsorship! Although there wasn’t a very large turnout for the start of the race it was nice to see so many good AR friends (Grant, Mark, Maja, Bob, etc) all geared up or volunteering. Mike of Shoooting Star Adventures gave the pre-race briefing and then Brandon and I were set upon our first task of the day which was a “roadblock”. The roadblock consisted of a crossword puzzle with various AR-type clues. Brandon and I had trouble coming up with the Doors (what can I say? I like rap!) which was the answer for one of Mike’s favorite classic rock bands. Once we were done with the crossword we were able to choose between hitting the bike (and the subsequent orienteering section) or going on the trekking section. We chose the trek section and headed south from the transition area and then up a steep hill. The trek was going to be a tough section for me because I am not a fast runner so Brandon was ready to give me a tow if needed. We made it up to the next checkpoint (dubbed the Photo CP because of the nice views and photo-taking opportunity). Maja (of Creating Adventure, LLC) was manning this checkpoint and here we had to do another “roadblock” which was a word scramble. We got this done relatively quickly and then headed on a nice run down the hill.

We nabbed a couple checkpoints and then Brandon and I spent some time looking for Checkpoint TF. TF was in a really confusing spot and we wasted a lot of time looking for it. After looking a the map for a bit I suggested that we go get the rest of the checkpoints and then comeback this same way and search for TF later. In these races forward progress is the most important thing and sometimes searching for the checkpoints can really waste time. We moved on grabbing several trekking checkpoints in succession. One of the checkpoints was located at the bottom of a steep hill and Brandon and I had a really interesting time working to avoid getting “cliffed-out”.

We then came back for TF. We searched again for quite awhile to find it but that was getting really tedious - part of the problem was that the reentrants in the area were really confusing and the other part of the problem was our reluctance to go crashing through the bush because there were several nasty plants in the way (poison oak, sting nettles, fauna-from-the-paleolithic that has yet to be discovered). We decided that it may be wise to go to the nearest known point and take a bearing from the there. The intersection of a trail and the powerlines worked perfectly and while it was somewhat of a long bearing (400 meters) it worked to help us grab the CP. I must also point out the sadism of Shooting Stars Adventures in that TF was located directly up above huge unavoidable mud spot. Mucky.

It was a run back to the TA from then on…I was really worked during this section and was putting all my energy into a fast run and into keeping pace with Brandon. I was really looking forward to the bike and to doing an “active rest”. We hit the TA, got our pictures taking by Jackie of Shooting Star, and then headed off for the mountain bike section. We decided to skip the Photo CP (one of the two dual checkpoints during the race - i.e., you had to go to them during the trek and the bike) and head directly off to some of the longer sections. There were definitely some big hills to climb during this section and even with all the practice on the Reno/Tahoe hills I was still getting worked. While Brandon is better on the run, I am a bit better climber on the bike and he definitely worked hard to tough it out on the hills. We nabbed a few checkpoints and then got stuck on checkpoint BO. BO was intended to be 10 meters or so off the road were mountain biking however on Friday night I had drawn the road on the map much too far to the east - we had the checkpoint being 100 meters off to the west instead of its correct location of it being 10 meters to the east. Needless to say when we discovered the checkpoint it was very embarrassing.

Anyway, we moved on from there joining up with Karl and Cynthia of Team Cyclepath to find a checkpoint and then it was downhill to the remote TA where we would change into running shoes and long pants for the O-course. On the way downhill I saw Team Snot Rockets flying up the hill. Grant and Mark, two guys that I met during the snowshoe orienteering event, are on this team and they looked intense! I was excited and proud that they were moving so fast. Later on they won 2nd place in the race - missing 1st by only 4 minutes.

We continued on downhill and we soon had our sights on the TA when all of sudden I took a nasty crash and went over the handlebars. The crash was instantaneous and I didn’t feel any pain and even turned back and flashed Brandon a thumbs-up (I’m always sort of proud of fantastic crashes where I don’t get hurt). Then I looked at my front wheel on my bike. Bent. Tacoed. Busted. Wrecked. Cracked. No more.

Oh well. At least the crash looked sweet.

It looked like we were done biking for the day but we could still complete the orienteering section. We changed into long pants and gaiters and set off on the O-course. My mind and body were definitely not into doing the course - it felt like my race had ended. Brandon took over the nav for awhile and we took a decidedly conservative approach to the nav. The O-course took us through this really fantastic creek section which was filled with all sorts of interesting boulders and cliffs and pools. Although we moved slow through this section this was probably my favorite part of the race. Toward the end of the O we were moving fairly slowly and really dragging but I spirits picked up when we reached the remote TA. By this time it was 5:00 and the race was officially over at 6:00. Bob, of Team-In-Training fame, had come to pick the volunteers up and wanted to take Brandon, I, and our bikes back to the TA. I did not want to get a ride back at all - I was feeling great, Brandon was feeling great…the only problem is that we had a busted bike. After some discussion with Bob he let us start the long hike home. Brandon rode slowly and navigated while I carried the bike. I was a bit worried about getting back in time for the barbeque but in the end it took us an hour and half to walk the bike home. No barbeque was left but there was definitely some extra cheesecake!

All in all, the race was 9 1/2 hours for us. It was probably the most challenging race I’ve ever done in all my 9-12 hour duration races but it was probably also the most fun (even with the nav mistakes and bike mishaps). Brandon was a great partner and our focus and goals really matched well. We also both tried our best which the most important thing.

Lessons learned:
- Be more exact with navigation - know when to move on from searching for a CP
- Practice orinteering and navigation with 1:24000 more often (once a week)
- Work on running speed and endurance
- Work on running more efficiently through dense forest
- Work on faster TA times (especially at remote TAs)
- Put more electrolytes in hydration bladder during races in coastal open-spaces.

Thanks again to Shooting Star Adventures and the volunteers for putting this race on!