Central Coast Adventure Challenge

I had teamed up at the last minute with Lori K and Kyle W from team Nuked as team “My Kind of Party”. They had both come off very good results at Sea Otter and Castaic courses which made me hesitant to team with them because I’m more of bottom to middle packer just happy to finish any race.

Kyle had a great attitude over e-mail and was very well prepared, and because “My Kind of Party” got destroyed by the heat at Castaic Lake (110+ degrees), I was motivated to go ahead and sign up for the race secretly hoping I wouldn’t hold them up.

To prep for the rappel section, we had to buy a lot of equipment and a couple of us took some rappelling lessons from the local rock gyms.

I would leave OC at 8p.m. Friday night, drive 250 miles in 5 hours, sleep for another 5, wake up, stage gear, plot then race, then be home by Sunday morning.

Gates opened up at 6 a.m. We got everything staged in time despite having to drive about 8 or so miles to stage the bikes at the other end of the lake and drive back. That’s where I met Kyle and Lori for the first time. Get back to TA, fitted Lori and Kyle in my yaks, pfd, paddles. Get our game plan together check packs and we were good to go. Race start was typical, rules maps handed out at 7:30, race start at 8.

I love it when the rules of travel end up only being about 3 quarters of a page long.

First section was a short 2 or 3 mile paddle to the infamous “boat slog” (if you’ve read the other reports). This was very hard on the hull of my Sedas, but we were able to carry the yaks on the way in. Drop the boats at the flag, short run to the bikes and we were off pedaling.

Here we made our first of two mistakes. We missed the left turn on the road to the “sandy check point” and we ended up on Pozo road all the way to the Ranger station. I would say it was about an extra 6 or 7 mile out and back detour of about 30 minutes, but luckily it was flatter pavement. When we got to the sandy check point I was encouraged to see a couple of teams still making their way, so I figured we weren’t that far off the main pack.

The next section I’ll call the “bike slog”. Much like the “boat slog”, we had to slog our bikes over some 4WD sand pits and of course some steep sections. We’re about 3 hours into the race and it started getting hot and steep. Race forecast was like 80 degrees, it seemed like 90 and I started having flashbacks of Castaic 3 weeks earlier. This is where I started having some problems with thigh cramps. We peaked at a manned CP, and then my legs decided to lock up. CRAP, a bit frustration set in and I wasn’t having fun anymore. At this point I thought my race was over. Lori convinced me to take some time to work through it. Kyle checked the maps during this time and showed that it was mostly descents for while. This turned out to be okay, because I descend very well on my bike and knew that if they got ahead of me in the climbs, I’d catch back up on the downs. From then on I was never more than 100 yards behind my team, and got a lot of team help from Kyle when I was having difficulty on the steeper sections.

We got a few more CPs (3-7 I think) on the bike and got to the first aid station where EVERYONE was out of water, including the first aid station. Never mind, we just need to get back to the Sandy Check point, then to the bike TA and then back to the boats. From this point, we took some chances, had a really good pace line and tow going on the bike and we were back in the middle of the pack at the bike TA (cp8). From here we were given our next coordinates 9-12 which required some more decision making and risk taking. Kyle plotted the next points while Lori and I gathered ourselves. It was a very fast and efficient TA, we made up a lot of time here (in and out in 5 minutes). But first, more “boat slogging”. By this time, my fiberglass yaks were too heavy to be carried, so we just dragged them. Ughh…. Actually Kyle and Lori did most of the dragging.

We finally get to where we can paddle across to another shore to get 9-12. We came up with some ideas and chances with fancy navigation and by the time we were back at the TA to drop the boats, we were in 11th place. Woohoo!. Drop the boats set out on foot to get the last 2 or 3 CP’s. This is where we made our Second mistake. 15 was a tough find, we ended up going up a horse trail, which took us in the direction of 15 and 16, but did not actually take us to 15. We spent about an hour trying to find a way down to 15 in a ravine, but it was not to be. At this point we have an hour til dark, decide to get 16 despite the fact that the rappel was closed and take another a stab at 15 on the way back.

We get 16, climb back down a bit frustrated that we don’t get to use all this new rappelling gear. Decide to skip 15 (probably the biggest regret) when we find we’re totally off course trying to find it. Run back to the finish for a Tecnu shower, and some tasty habanero chicken sausages and pasta.

Lessons learned:
We worked well as a team despite me being the slow-poke, we finished pretty high. Pacelines work, Towlines work well too.
Have food, gu, gear ready where you can grab them without having to stop and take off your pack.
Keep your receipts for gear that you may not use. I’ll be returning a raft, some extra biners and some climbing slings.
Carry too much water.
IVY Block works.
Jelly Belly Sport Beans are mmm mmm good.

Overall, it was a great race. As Blake from Scrat said as we passed, “It’s always something!”, something that will frustrate you, something that will make you doubt yourself, something that will get you out of your comfort zone. That’s adventure racing.

I want to say a big thank you to Lori and Kyle for a great race and picking up my slack.

Also a shout-out Yishai and volunteers for putting a very smoothly run (but tough) race.

Castaic Lake Race

How many different ways can you express the word "hot"? en fuego, scorching, flaming, feverish, torrid, fierce, fiery, fire, summery, sweltering, thermogenic. I think I'll stop there, but AFRICA HOT about describes it.

8 a.m start. We started off the run in LAST place because I forgot some mandatory gear in the transition area and had to go back for it. 1.5 mile run to the boats where we caught up a little bit to bottom 2/3's of the pack. From there it was a short kayak to the hike section where we had to grab 4 check points on foot. We made up a bunch of time there because we didn't bother to plot the hike too carefully. We decided to gamble and followed other teams. From the 4 CPs it was about 150 cliff decent to about a 75 yard swim across a lagoon. The water was about 55 degrees, very refreshing.

Back into the boats for 5-7 mile paddle. There was a bouldering section, up a canyon to get 1 check point. We had to dismount the boat and boulder on up a creek canyon. By this time we got back to the middle of the pack. Another few miles in the kayak and a run back to the transition area and we were in the top 1/3 again. Hey, we were very fast on the kayak - something to be said about owning a fast boat and having to big guys motor it.

We're about 4 hours in to the race and we were feeling pretty good. We're ahead of 2/3s of the field. It's about noon.

The next section was a long bike leg. "Great!", we think "one of our strengths", but it was not to be. The next 7 check points was about 18 miles of hell. I won't write much about it other than, 1) there was NO shade for 95% of the bike section, 2) it was very hilly 3) it was about 110-114 degrees. This took a toll on our time, along with one pain in the ass check point that cost us about about 45 minutes. We see about 3 teams drop out from heat exhaustion, life guards were out on the trail providing aid (water and sunscreen) to some struggling teams. We did not turn down the help.

We get back to the transition area to find that we have 2 more things to do, basically a hand paddle in an inflatable boat to get a last coordinate on foot.
With a sigh of hesitation we figure we've gone this far, we might as well complete the race. Ends up we were in the top 2/3's (technically not last because of some scoring errors), but 1/3 of the teams DNF'd (did not finish).

Hindsight: Not too happy about the last place finish necessarily, but while we were out there it was all about survival. The conditions were less than optimal with the heat and I would say a bit dangerous side, but everyone made it through or dropped out as their ability dictated - no ambulances that I heard of.

Next race - Central Coast Adventure Challenge in San Luis Obispo. I recovered pretty quickly and am training again for this one. I teamed up with Nuke as a 3 person co-ed, but we're going as My Kind of Party. This race is supposed to be pretty awesome, with great scenery. Looking forward to it.