Colinoba 2010

One of my favorite underground Adventure Races, or birthday bashes went down on Saturday March 6th, in and around downtown Seattle. I think we ran between 8-10 miles throughout Seattle on an urban adventure of a lifetime. After climbing fences, dodging cars, getting our picture taken with a pink dildo and drinking a beer or three we were all smiles.

This was a fun way to hang with a lot of peeps from the local AR community, take a small break and see Seattle...all dressed up as mimes :-) That's right, this is how we do it:

2010 Colinoba

We are in training for the E-Fix in West Virginia in 3 weekends. We are looking forward to seeing a new part of the country and doing a new race. 2 guys and 2 girls toeing the line for DART; JVG, Hayes, Jenn Rinderle and myself. We probably wont do that race as mimes.

See you on the trails.

2009 USARA Nationals

Good race, bad results. We worked well together and had a great pace when we were able to do work. Fitness was never an issue for us, we were fast and could pick it up when we needed to. Mechanicals and rookie mistakes got us in the end. We did not deserve to win... GraniteAR raced a good race and are the new National Champs, well done guys!

Here are our cliff notes from the race:

• -It rained 5" the day before the race so everything was under water and real wet/muddy.
• -Race started almost on time at a cool location.
• -Hammered out to lead on bike
• -Got flat tire
• -Hammered back to peleton
• -Got flat, found torn tire in tread (Not sidewall). Used a bar wrapper and duct tape to fix.
• -Hammered on Canoe, forgot to get CP 5 when we paddled past it.
• -Portaged 2 miles in kick ass recovery move with canoe, finished 15 minutes out of first
• -Bike, run, bike, flat, run, 2 Flats (Mari and RVG), switch RVG rear tire with Mari's front tire, problem solved.
• -Mud bog on bikes
• -RVG birthday celebration begins at midnight
• -Realized we did not bring second map, poop pants, then wait for team to follow on a large out and back section.
• -RVG got attacked by an armadillo on his bike. Almost decapitated critter with rear spokes.
• -Swam to an underwater earthen dam at 3:30am. RVG finds large snake in water under control flag, mostly likely poisonous type that likes the south. Glenn Tells RVG to throw a stick at it an get going
• -Crawled, bushwhacked in swamp and thorns for 2 hours, nearly found the CP and started over again. Glenn finds snake in another bog and runs away the wrong direction while RVG suggestes that Glenn just throw a stick at it a press on.
• -Hammered the mud bog.
• -Finish, eat, sleep, eat waffle house, sleep, last team at party since our room was next door.
• -Road trip after party to Gainseville with CPZero for Ice Cream.
• -Try to go to a cowboys game after dropping MC off at airport. Instead G goes to church at the hilton with Rev Jeremy and I people watched in the lobby.
• -Go to tequilaria to night cap in DFW airport.

Peterisoba

My schedule finally aligned itself with the annual race known as the Peterisoba...which follows suit with the Colinoba as an underground adventure race which costs nothing and gets you racing in un-permittable areas in our backyard (follow tie in with Trioba). Peteris out did himself with a 12 hour Creekteering, challenging Mountain Bike, rapel, ridge running and boulder hopping course followed by a 12 hour rogaine.

23 hours later my trusty team mate Aaron and I found ourselves in a baja rally car with Peteris behind the wheel. He exclaimed in his Latvian English that he could drive this road blindfolded and that if he had a real rally car we would have a better excuse for holding onto the Oh Shit handle. We also got the details of the traffic patterns on the North Fork road and that we could be assured that cornering on the inside of a blind turn at 45 mph was ok because in the last year only 3 cars had been seen between 4 and 5 am...did you know Peteris knows how to drift on washboarded logging roads?

In the end we climbed, ran, walked, slept and boulder hopped our way through the course and got to see a bunch of friends out there doing the same thing. I wrote another report here for our teams PQ training, check it out if you want more...big THANKS to Peteris and other volunteers for including us and having a well planned course. I am now considering PQ training for next years Peterisoba.

Pics and other reports:

Peteris' Pictures

Colin and Connies Pictures

Verve's Race Report

Whats next? Big Blue Lake Tahoe as team Trioba.com then taper for PQ. Getting excited about racing in SD and checking out the Badlands and the Black Hills.

-Photo credit to Colin Ness, love that picture!

2008 USARA National Champions!

2 weeks after a victory at the Upstate Adventure Race in South Carolina, Glenn and Mari headed back out East to compete in the USARA National Championships with Sean...this team is something to be feared. Mari is on top of her game, Sean is a self proclaimed dream crusher and Glenn is a cunning strategist with nothing but victory on the mind.

These guys had a sensible game plan and they executed on it. If you read Attackpoint you can read Glenn's race write up here. It is by discipline, but easy to figure out and follow.

Congrats to the team and our sponsors for a well fought season, capped by a 6th place at Worlds and a national championship. Last stops for the season will be the Fall/Winter Beast and Abu Dhabi in early December.

AR Worlds and USARA National Championships

There is soo much going on for the team right now!

DART-nuun (Seegs, Cyril, Rinn and Matzke) just crossed the finish line in 6th place yesterday in Brazil at the AR World Championships. Placing 6th among one of the toughest fields to to the line is very respectful and our team is extatic. Can't wait to get the details and pictures! Of course we will some how find it within ourselves to strive for some type of improvement, but not just yet as the team should revel in their great accomplishment.

There are some good articles on Sleepmonsters and Ecomotion did a good job of having somewhat infrequent updates. Seegs mom updated her site with some good nuggets of info. I loved this article on sleepmonsters as I could see it unfolding... It was also nice to see Orion have another good race and edge out Nike...this seemed like an impossible task for quite a while. The Orion team is filled with good individuals and they deserve the title.

Back to the US...Glenn, Sean and Mari are on the race course in Georgia at the USARA National Championships and are driven to give it their all. Sounds like they came off the prologue in first and are off on a 24 hour escapade in the south. You can follow them here and hopefully the updates keep rolling in!

Go team!!!

Upstate Adventure Race

We are off to the Upstate Adventure race in South Carolina this weekend...hoping to represent the West Coast and enjoy exploring a new state for me. My maiden voyage to South Carolina, I can only think that the colder and nastier the weather the better for us...outlook good.

Friday...rain and in the 50's

Saturday...Scattered showers 60's

Sunday...Scattered showers 60's

Here is the website: http://checkpointzero.com/upstate/

and there should be live tracking and updates here

Gorge Games 2008

The Gorge Games have come and gone and they lived up to the hype and expectations. DART-nuun took home the victory in a well fought battle between Mergeo, Yoga Slackers and Wedali was up there too. The race was in a rogaine fashion and yielded a spider web of of racers heading in all directions at all times.

The first leg of the race was the paddle section, which was canceled due to high winds and 6 foot standing waves out in the mighty columbia river. Thankfully the race director, Shane Gibson, had a back up plan. We were able to paddle ~2.5K loops near the shore to an Island and back. Though this was not very scenic, after the first 4 loops, it was still exciting in that you got to see your competition and gage your pace against others. We were able to lap the field and put in 12 laps, each worth 200 points.

The next leg started at 9pm and was a 3 hour leg on our bikes. We would climb nearly 4000 feet up to the next TA and we decided to try and clean the course. We knew this would be tough but wanted to go for it. After cleaning the course we ended up in the TA with 30 seconds before penalties would be assessed. Oddly enough we were the second team in the TA behind Mergeo, who had mis-interpreted the rules and thought they had to be in by 11:30. We all remember Shane specifically stating that the end for each section was the beginning of the next. This seemed to be a point of contention for Mergeo as it affected their decisions on course as to what CPs they could get. It seemed like ever team but DART-nuun and Mergeo would have penalties, not sure it played out that way. Oh well, on to the trek and 10 hours of foot travel.

Glenn navigated while on foot, Mari navigated the paddling and I navigated the biking sections, and after warming up on CP 181 Glenn was dead on. We crossed paths with Mergeo shortly after we headed out, doing the same clockwise loop that we had designed, and got spun around at 1:30am looking for CP181. We abandoned ship and moved on deciding we had wasted an hour looking for and not finding 181. As the trek moved on we made good time and ran all downhills and flats and moved briskly on the uphills. We had a decision to make with 4 CP's left and 1.5 hours until the cut off. Do we go back to 181 (worth 181 points) or get 3 closer and easier checkpoints whose value add up to less than 181. We went for the big one and Glenn nailed it with enough time for us to round up the remaining CP's, clear the course and get back in time to prepare for the final bike.

The final bike course had us heading up Mt. Defiance (again, we did it in the trek too) and working hard until the end. There were far too many CP's to clear this course but we biked and got check points until 4:55pm and we able to best the field.

Overall we loved the terrain and good use of it. I've spent some good time in Post Canyon where the race was but had not seen a lot of where we raced. We spent a lot of time travelling near or on trails we had been on for different sections, but were still kept on our toes (and tows) by having to constantly navigate and pay attention. Nice race everyone!

Here's my favorite part of the race...the finish line and party! Thanks for the picture Colin Ness of Peak Physique.

Results top 5 points for Co-Ed Teams of 4:

DART-nuun: 12,452
Mergeo: 11,324
Yoga Slackers: 10,963
WEDALI: 9286
Our Angel Nicole: 7,693


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Lots going on right now with the Mountain X Race in France and a Trioba news release out, more on this later.

Desert Winds...we beat the heat

Desert Winds II was nothing short of an epic race in great terrain. We started out hot and I was thankful that the first of three legs had swimming mixed in with the desert trekking. I'll let the pictures do the talking, overall it was a successfull weekend and I achieved my goals of not having another heat stroke and enjoying the race. It was cool to race against the other DART team too..a new perspective for me.




Heading into this race, which is my first 24+ hour after entering fatherhood, I had some reservations about where I was physically and whether or not I would be ready to handle a fast paced race in the heat of the desert.

I focused most of my training over the last 4-6 weeks on running and treking, basically spending time on my feet in rugged conditions. It paid off, as this race was a meat grinder on the feet and was a real push.

As far as the heat went, I focused on being hydrated and staying out of the sun as much as i could. This meant that I used nuun in all of my bladders and water bottles and I carried a bit more than I normally would. For clothing I made sure that I wore a long sleeve, white and breathable layer as well as something on my head to be able to keep cool.

The race itself was fast paced and we found ourselves jockeying for first with the other DAT-nuun team comprised of Cyril, Aaron, Aaron and Mari. It was a blast beign competitive with them and at the same time enjoying some humor here and there. I think I saw Rinn sneaking some rocks into Glenn's pack and we tried to gang tackle them, didn't work. We held the lead after the first leg and got passed by the other team in the second leg...the third leg saw teh lead change a number of times until we threw in the towel and decided to complete the race together, it was an easy decision.

It was also nice to get the victory, you can see the results here.

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Here are a couple of paddling pics from the race director...

Desert Winds adventure race

What's next for DART-nuun you ask? We will be sending down two teams to the third Desert Winds AR in Vegas Baby! Or Lake Mead, but it is close enough to Vegas to get a bit excited about it. We will be fielding two teams; one comprised of the Primal Quest DART-nuun team (Cyril, Aaron, Aaron and Mari) as a primer and the other including myself, Glenn, Sean and a new face to the crowd Karen Stokes to try and get some CP Tracker points for the season and push the other team.



This is a picture of the race course! We are pumped to get into the sun and have some fun!

What is it? A 28 hour adventure race. Last year they were able to keep the top teams racing to the end with a Rogaine style finish...nothing like treking through the desert for 28 hours.


Disciplines? No biking this year, this will be good for me as I usually fall back onto my biking for my advantage. This year's race will be filled with Treking, Canyoneering, Swimming and Kayaking.


When is it? May 10th, right around the corner.


Who's going to be there? Our buddies on Mergeo.com are sending a team, Sol?, I heard through the grapevine that Robin Benincasa will be there racing as a double with her PQ team mate Travis macy. (Rumor or truth, I don't know)

USARA Updates!

News Update! USARA Live updates here
DART in 4th place...looking strong and Yak from CP Zero noted:
"DART-nuun was all business and didn't have too much to say as they dashed out of the TA. They reported no problems and were having great time."

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Just got off the phone with Mike Bitton in Missouri...DART-nuun moved into first with EMS and Moat trailing...they have created a 15 minute gap between to top teams. The race is only half way done and lots more to come. Gotta love Mikey Bitton and CP Zero team keeping the world in "the know"!

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Update from CP14
Friday 7:42 PM
Just talked to Rob who is at canoe takout and so far 13 teams have gone through: 1. MOAT at 6:08 pm 2. Dart-Nuun at 6:12 pm 3. EMS at 6:21 pm 4. Timberland at 6:44 pm 5. ATP at 6:51 6. Springfield Bike at 7:08 pm 7. ??? 8. EMS (Masters) at 7:27 pm 9. Alpine Shop at 7:28 pm 10. Berlin Bike at 7:29 pm 11. ARFE at 7:31 pm 12. Bike Iowa II at 7:34 pm 12. Lab Rats at 7:34 pm

USARA

Now onto the USARA National Championships. DART will be sending a team comprised of Glenn Rogers, Mari Chandler and Matt Hayes. The race is a 24 hour race with zero assisted transitions. This means that the racers will be carrying everything they need for the entire race on their backs...wow! Glenn and Mari are seasoned veterans of the team and Matt joins the gang from Mergeo as a long time racer/friend of DART from the Pacific Northwest. These three will be moving fast!

The race is in Missouri and should be a good one. The individual who produces the race through Bonk Hard Racing produced the Mighty Mo of yester year and is doing the Sunflower 24 hour race going forward. This will be a member of the CP Zero 24 hour series next year.

For a look at the teams check out this link.

Top 5 contenders: DART-nuun, Nike-Beaver Creek, MOAT, EMS and any other sleepers in there? Maybe they aren't sleepers just unkown out here on the West Coast...

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See next post for updates

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side note from last week, Buff won EcoMotion in a dominating fashion. I was glad to see Orion and Sole up in contention for first as they are quality teams with good peeps racing on them.

Big Blue

The Big Blue series has come and gone this year and it ended with the 12 hour race in sunny Lake Tahoe. Wait a second I said sunny...We got rained, snowed and sleeted on. But that was all part of the fun. We finished by running accross the finish line in the SUN, so that was a big treat. It was a great race and a stellar production. We will be back for more Big Blue adventure races for sure.

The race started with a 1.5-2 mile run to the boats. We got there with a couple of other teams and I had a tough time squeezing into my boat so we took off a couple of minutes behind the two front teams. 2 miles later at the first boat CP we were just about 3 minutes behind the two lead teams and slowly moving in on them. Lightning cracked out on the lake and within minutes the Coast Guard moved in to tell us we needed to turn around and head back before we could get the last CP on the lake.

It would be a full on restart with no advantage given to the leaders. It was raining and very cold during this time and gave everyone an idea for how cold we were going to get while climbing up an additional 2500-3000 feet. Who brought their ski goggles?

We were off again... the rest of the course was laid out in a Rogain style. Five check points to get in any order and at one of them you would be given a new set of maps for an orienteering section. We chose to do most of the climbing on our bikes first and to do the orienteering last. Most of the competitive teams chose a similar order and we were surrounded by other teams on the first big climb. By the second CP we had a solo racer and another coed team on our tail...but the field was no where to be seen. We had also biked our way into the middle of a snowstorm.

With the feet feeling like ice blocks we began to distance ourselves from the field and worked our way to the orienteering section. We were required to get 8 of the 11 checkpoints in the field and we were off. The key for us was to stay moving so that we would not get too cold. Once we were on our feet we began to warm up and this also allowed us to eat. With the cold weather we had not really been eating as much as we should. With two more CP's to go we ran into the 2nd and 3rd placed teams and it really lit a fire under our butts. Of course we had no idea where they were in their orienteer or how many CP's they had but it got us moving again. It took us 53 minutes to complete the O and then we bombed due south into the TA, where we dumped bikes, put on our running shoes again and ran into the finish line. Woohoo!

See reults and splits here.

Great race, fun competitors and sweet location. Cheers to Dogs in space, Dirty Avo's and everyone else that made this a fun event. We will be back for sure!

4th Dimension Adventure Race

Last weekend saw the introduction of a new race, the 4th Dimension 24 hour adventure race to the Pacific Northwest. Produced by Roger Michel and Glenn Rogers (Fellow DARTer) this was the real deal in 24 hour racing. It was a very challenging course accompanied by some difficult weather and especially visibility at night. I needed a fog light.

Here are the pictures that I took, the first 3, and then Roger subsequently took the rest with my camera when I left it in the TA with my PFD by accident. I really let myself and the team down by leaving the camera behind...we try and subscribe to the philosophy of "no camera left behind!"

4th Dimension AR

This was one of those courses that you will not forget easily as there were a lot of decisions to make from a navigation standpoint from start to finish. This kept us on our tows and off our toes I guess. The race started with a 16 mile paddle, follwed by an epic 69 mile bike section that climbed over 10,500 feet and finished with an extra large Rogaine.

We rode most of the bike with the exception of pushing our bike up the Church Creek trail and right around check point 9 where the grass was 4 feet tall. It was great to see so many familiar faces on and off the race course. There were lots of local racing stars at checkpoints around the course and helping out with the race in general. (ie: Duncan, JVG, Tyler P., Patrice, Stacy(in by association))

We held the lead for most of the race or shared it with the two person Mergeo team (Dave and Peteris). Did anyone do the bike whack from CP9 up the hill? We started the climb with Mergeo 2 person and then backed down at the alders and overgrown road. The option to ride the hill proved to be worth its weight in gold...our first big mistake was at CP13 where we bombed the hill right past the overgrown road and had to climb back up a couple of kilometers to get it. After that we had the 4 person mergeo and the 2 person mergoe team running around with us. Too bad they caught us as we made heads or tails of the geography and figured out CP 13. We put it on a silver platter for them. It probably did not make much difference in the end.

We finished the bike leg strong, transitioned lightning fast and paddled into the last TA to the trek/rogaine transition about 25 minutes ahead of Mergeo.

This is where the wheels came off a bit. We were moving fast but focus was not with us (Very sleepy) and we made the 2nd big mistake of the race by chosing to navigate the south controls first and hopefully move to the north section in the morning. In retrospect the more concentrated controls up north were the place to be at night and we should have gone there first.

We got turned around a couple of times in heavy fog with a couple of sleepy choices and ended up running out of the time that we needed to bushwhack to the north side. In the end we simply did not cover the amount of ground we had planned on. It looked so easy on paper ;-)

We've decided it is time to work on the Rogaine a bit. They seem to be a bit more prevelant in Adventure Races these days and in my opinion they are a good way to allow the field to finish close to one another, instead of 12 hours apart. Shane who produces the Wicked AR series is asking whether or not racers liked it here on his web page.

We ended up gathering 10 controls and fell short of Mergeo's 13 controls to take 2nd in the 4 person co-ed division. Mergeo looked strong everytime we saw them and they nailed the rogaine...we are looking forward to the next time we meet.

Now on to Tahoe for the Big Blue 12 hour adventure race...2nd to last race of the season.

I would bet we see more Rogain style finishes in AR in the future,

Viva la RTNX

We, DART-nuun, finished 2nd and had a great race against a competitive field. We are happy with our results and had a good time up North with the Canadians...

Climbing Mt Moreseby

yours truly...

We made it back after 102 hours of racing and 19 hours of non stop driving to Seattle and home.

Here are a couple of my initial after thoughts about the race:
-Totally Awesome!
-Real Wilderness
-Real Navigation
-Endless beauty
-Wildlife, saw my first wild bear. I felt safe from the confines of my boat.
-Great competitive field, everyone there was happy to be there and had a lust for life!
-Kick ass after party

It was amazing that FAR pulled it off after soo many hurdles. Many props go out to Geoff Langford and Laurance Foster(sp?) for an absolutely great race and class act. Put the RTN on your calendar in 2008 if you want the real deal.

Here are some good photos from the trip...


You can also find more pictures at our team website.

Trioba Sprint

This past weekend was the Trioba Sprint Race near Ellensburgh, Washington. I raced with Aaron and Matt as DART-nuun. We ran hard and biked harder and were able to edge out Team Mergeo who was comprised of Mike, Ruaraidh and Matt (All great guys!). It boiled down to navigation and we were able to move through the course pretty swiftly and nail just about everything, except a couple slight mishaps early on. Our team manager, Erik, was on hand providing real time race reports via an extension of our team site on the DART-nuun News Site. After the fact I had a chance to get caught up on his reporting and found it to be right on.


We had our heads down and almost marched right past CP2, in fact we did and Matt realized we passed it by seeing some yellow Montrail marker flags that the directors use to surround their check points. This put Mergeo about 45 seconds in front of us up to check point 3. From there we jockeyed with them back and forth all the way into the transition. I think we got into transition a minute or two ahead of them and left seconds before them...support helps in TA's. They had adventure racing extraordinaire AV in the pits for them getting them out and on our tails. Props to AV for my posted pictures...he is moonlighting as a photographer now inbetween drag racing, adventure racing, Mt biking and Dancing with the Stars.


The bike had climb after climb and was right up my alley. Did I mention I like a good hill climb? There were some route decisions to make and we ended up opting for the most direct route on all of them. Particularly after check point 14 we shouldered our bikes and headed west about 100-200 meters through the forest to pop out to the road that 15 would be off of. This did not take long and had us back in the saddle in no time. (Any body else do something different?)



We also bikewhacked after CP 16 down to a road that lead us straight into CP 17, I would bet most teams did this as well, it was smooth enough to ride so we stayed on our bikes. Aaron got a flat at CP 17 and we tried to throw his bike on my shoulders for the trip in, then matt tried to run with his and aaron's bike, then Aaron ran with his and finally he opted to ride it in on the rim...we were looking over our shoulders the whole time expecting Mergeo to swoop down, but we had built a cushion that allowed us to get into the finish in first.



The Yeager brothers put on another exceptional race and we LOVED the course. The treking was all off trail and required some good navigation, the biking was all rideable and also had some route choices. Good stuff.



I am still not sure how much I like the open category, it was fun and different, but I think I enjoy the more traditional coed format that Adventure Racing was built on. That's not to say it was right or wrong...I guess just different.

Eventful weekend

DART-nuun had a busy weekend of racing. We had a team compete in Las Vegas at the Desert Winds and another team at the Momar race in Squamish. On top of all this, Jen Segger (DART racer extraordinair), designed the Momar course.

We were going to have two teams competing at Desert Winds (Including myself and JVG) but something cam up and we were unable to make it. This is why we roll with a big roster and how we cover each other. I had a good weekend filled with running and biking with JVG .

Race updates:

DART-nuun takes second to Sole. Cyril said it was a great race and a must do for next year. He said the paddling was very scenic and the treking/rogaining was like nothing we had seen before. He said Glenn and Patricia kicked butt.

Aaron lead a sport team in Squamish which had a new racer and their female team mate got sick and was not able to make the race at the last moment. In the end the Momar packed as much fun as people have grown to expect from the well ran race...and the party lived up to the stories! Rinn said that Jen Segger's course design was superb and all the racers involved had smiles on.

We are looking forward to Trioba next weekend! The line up is going to be Rinn, Hart and myself, lets get it on.

Sea Otter...success!

What a weekend!

This bike festival is a must visit. If you ride bikes, any bikes, then this is the place to be. I read that there were over 13,000 athletes competing in every type of bike race you could imagine. Cross Country, Downhill, Road, Gravity Assist (Big Air), BMX, Dual Slalom, Short Track, Freestyle, Trials and what ever else happens on a bike. Did I mention Adventure Racing! We had 2 teams competing in the race and were picked up by Thule to represent them. We both raced as DART-nuun powered by Thule. We were Cyril, Jen Ratay and Myself and the other team was comprised of Aaron, Glenn and Seegs. (Team Roster)

Our race started bright and early Friday morning and we really lucked out with the weather. There was talk about the paddle being cancelled because the winds the day before were so strong, of course after our battle in Mexico with the strong winds and sea we were excited about getting back out there in our NW Kayaks and paddling hard for some redemption.

The paddle was a 4 mile out and back (8 miles total) that took us west out of Monterey Bay. The tide was going out on our way to CP1, so we had that speeding us up and we had a small 2 foot swell helping us surf our way back into the Transition. We had a blast and finished with the other DART team in 2nd and 3rd, just behind Wingnut (our friends Team Sole racing as Wingnut) and ahead of Nike. These would be the teams battling it out for podium space in the end.

We headed out on our bikes for what turned out to be the main component of the race. The bike section was 30+ miles and had us on about 10 miles of roads/paved trails to get to Fort Ord and then mostly single track and some great riding. We caught Wingnut in about 10 minutes and traveled as 3 teams in a good pace line through CP5. As we headed into the hills and technical maze of trails our pace slowed down and navigation picked up. Soon enough Nike joined the navigation party and we were all off. At times the teams would split and then rejoin at the next CP. The CP's could be done in any order (Rogaine Style) but we all seemed to have the same idea about the order in which we would race.

About 3/4 of the way through the biking section the teams all headed in different directions and this proved to be the breaking point. We chose a slightly longer route to CP14 than Wingnut, who we were still with, but it proved to be much faster as it had less climbing and was paved for about 1/2 of the approach. We showed up to where it should have been placed and it was no where in site. The directions stated the intersection of Trail 3 and 33. We proceeded to bike the loop that was made up by trail 3 and 33 and still did not find it. We bumped into Wingnut coming from the other direction as wecompleted our loop and they let us know they had not found it either. We agreed to return to where we both agreed it should have been placed and took a picture for the record. It turns out it was placed about 1/2 mile south on 3 from where it should have been and Nike stumbled accross it in route to where it should have been.

This lucky find turned out to be the winning move for them. We spent 15-20 minutes looking and riding around trying to find the CP. Our lead over Nike was shot and we went from 1st to 3rd just like that. After that we moved well into the TA and set out on foot. We enjoyed the whole bike, lots of great trails, fun climbs and killer descents.

The run was about 5 miles and had some good bushwhacking and route finding. I enjoyed the fact that you had to locate the CP's by plotting bearings on your map and do some technical navigation over a short distance. We noticed between 15 and 16 that we were running through a small field of Poison Oak, I picked up a bit on the legs (hate it). We had a visual on Nike and the other DART team and followed them into CP18 and the finish.

Overall a fun and great race and it was nice that we represented at Sea Otter. This race will definitely be on our calendars in years to come and is a great place to go to celebrate everything you can on a bike.

Sea Otter here we come

Now back in the comfort of rainy and grey Seattle we are focusing on preparing for our next race, Sea Otter, in Monterrey, California. We are competing in the 6-12 hour race and will have two teams of three people racing. This will also stand as our first race in the Big Blue Series this year and we are hoping to compete in the series and take home the title.

As it stands, Big Blue AR is the last West Coast series with 24 hour races included. There are other 24 hour races including the Desert Wind race in Lake Mead, but no series to compete in. Wicked AR out of Portland and Explore the West have gone away, hopefully they will return, and Trioba has reduced to two sprint races. We will most definitely still compete in the Trioba series and the new 4th Dimension AR .

Needless to say we are still organizing the calendar and trying to make things work out.

While at Sea Otter we will have the opportunity to spend time with sponsors, be surrounded by thousands of athletes and hopefully soak up some more sun :-) Look for a DART racer in a booth near you if you happen to attend the bike festival. Most likely we will be seen next to our friends at the nuun booth or rallying around our other great sponsors Rudy Project, Hydrapack, Full Speed Ahead, Michelin Tires and Light and Motion.

See you in Monterrey!

Colinoba III

As defending champs we had a lot of pressure and the smack talk started the week prior to the big event. Mud slinging came from every direction, luckily we were racing in our backyards and I was able to rely on my college beer drinking as training for the event's multi sport disciplines. Drinking beer and running were in order on Saturday.

The line up of teams was daunting and we knew that this year we would have to bring the "A" game to keep the famous Guiness Cup in West Seattle, where it has resided for the last year.

Here are the photos and video with audio working:

20070310 Colinoba III

On a damp Saturday morning in the Pacific Northwest...I'll let the video tell the story.

DART-nuun selected to compete in the AR World Championships!

The official team list has been released and we have qualified for the 2007 World Championships. It has been added to the calendar for this year. We are looking forward to it and can't wait to compete in Scotland. It looks like an all star line up of teams will be there and we will be looking to represent.

This banner will take you to the teams that qualified and are registered.