Hood Canal

Epic training on Sunday with JVG, Glenn, Matt and Myself! Matt was at our door at 6:15 in the morning and we biked down to the Fauntleroy Ferry in West Seattle and headed to Southworth where we met up with Glenn. From there we embarked on a 160 mile loop around the entire Hood Canal.

We headed North on highway 16 for the only not so good section of the loop and even this was still pleasant. From there we crossed the Hood Canal bridge (See picture) and hit up some epic road with some views to die for. The clouds opened up after we passed through Quilcene? and Mt. Washington was staring us straight inthe eye...awesome. The loop brought us south along the West coast of the canal, through the Skookum Indian Reservation and then back north through Belfair and back to Bremerton. Glenn planned out a magnificent route and is the man.

As a side note it is amazing how road cyclist get treated, especially when you are in the sticks. There were numerous signs posted that reminded drivers to share the road, but still we got honked at, flipped off and a bottle of Mt. Dew thrown at us. We survived :-)

Horse Certification for PQ

Saturday Matt and I headed out to Enumclaw and got certified for the horse riding section of the biggest race of the year, Primal Quest. We weren't quite sure what to expect, but were pleasently surprised with the lesson, the instructor and all that we learned.

We went over a handful of skills including:
-Using a hoof pick
-Understanding when a horse is dehydrated.
-Taking horses through features like running water
-Handling skills

All in all it was a good 3 hours in the saddle accompanied by a little chaffing, but nothing some neosporin will help with. It is definitely appearant that I will be wearing long tights when riding horses in the race.

After the horse session we headed to Lake Sawyer in Black Diamond for a couple hours of Running.

Colinoba II

JVG and I competed in the second annual Colinoba adventure race and got paired up with Missing Link's Jerry Gamez. What a combination! The race is held in observance of Colin Ness' birthday and proved to be a blast. We had 25 checkpoints, three of which were Pubs, and 5 bonus checkpoints that would serve as time bonuses. Were were all dubbed team names associated with Colin's favorite beer and we ended up as team Guiness...of course there were remnants of my true DART-nuun colors flying as the day wore on ;-)

The competition was hotly contested and the Yeager brothers, the producers of our favorite NW adventure racing series ( Trioba ), crossed the finish line first. They had elected to forego riding the roller coaster at the Seattle City center which gave us a 20 minute time bonus and bumped us from finishing 9 minutes behind them to an unprecedented 11 minute lead.


We utilized a lot of strategy but in the end Jerry's uncanny ability to chug a guiness really paid off! Not only did we win the Guiness cup, but we were awarded the best dressed prize as well. We are looking forward to defending our title at next years Colinoba.

When it was all said and done we did almost 4 hours of running all over the city of Seattle...the pavement was kind to us but had me dreaming of running on trails.

DART presents Adventure Racing 101 at REI

DART Adventure Racing Presents:

Adventure Racing 101
3/15/2006 7:00 PM
Seattle Flagship:
Clinics and Events

Is adventure (multi-sport) racing as crazy as it looks?
Members of Washington adventure racing team, DART, will pull from their years of adventure racing experiences to bring you informative tips, training advice, gear suggestions and suggestions on how to get started adventure racing. Come and get hooked up with some great resources! This is an informative discussion of gear and racing techniques.

Location: Seattle REI Meeting Room
Contact: Seattle REI 206.223.1944
Cost: Free
Registration Required? No.