Tahoe Adventure Race

Well, I must admit am very behind on posting this blog - mainly because I have still been traveling a lot. But, better late than never.

So Tammy and I signed up for the Big Blue Adventure Race in Lake Tahoe. It consisted of two-legs of running, two-legs of mountain biking, and some kayaking. By the way, while I use the word "race," it is really an overstatement of our intent. It was a team event, so Tammy and I once again set out on our way. I had two goals: (1) have fun and (2) finish. No real "racing" involved.

When Tammy and I signed up we had grandiose plans of training consistently for the event. But as Steinbeck said, the "best laid plans of mice and men will surely go awry." Now we did do some training, (we rode a few times - a 40 mile ride down to the beach once), but we did not do anything near what should have been done. For me, I spent far many more hours strapped to an airplane seat than doing the training I had wanted to do. But I digress . . .

So Saturday September 20th was the day of the race - a day that was full of ups and downs - both literally and figuratively. Getting to the start: You know you are a novice at something when you are not even sure how to get to the start of the race. The race started at a place called North Star, which is about 7 miles by car from Lake Tahoe. (Store this piece of information someplace special, because it will become relevant later.)

Once we drove up to North Star, we then had to take a gondola up a 500 hundred feet or so. Here is a picture as we are a good way up the gondola ride:

But we were not done. We then had to take a ski-lift up to the top. The funny part of the ski-lift was having to load your bike properly and then have enough time to get in your own chair. Here is a picture looking back down the ski-lift: So, we are now about 1,400 feet above the "Village" where we will finish, and the "race" started once everyone made it to the top.

Part One - Short Run - The first up and down.

So the first part was a short 1/2 mile or so jaunt up the multi-use trail. The start was a bit crazy, as the trail was soft and everyone was kicking up dust. The goal was to get up to a certain point, show yourself to a race volunteer and head back down to where we started. This was an easy way to start on a beautiful, crisp morning, and merely an attempt to space everyone out before hitting the bike trails. So, Tammy and I came down in good shape and transitioned to the mountain bike.

Part Two - Mountain Biking - Down, Down, Down: The second part of the day was down a variety of trails, ultimately leading us to Lake Tahoe itself. It is about a 1700-2000 foot descent over about 7 miles or so.

The beginning of the mountain biking was a bit steep, with a serious of 5 or 6 moguls. It was not too long, when Tammy went over her handle bars. I give her credit, because while she could have tried to quit then, she got up and kept going. (Side note - this is a decision she ultimately regretted about two hours later.) She was not the only one who had departed from their bikes, as we saw more people who had dirt on their shoulders that only could have gotten there if they somehow hit the trail.

The ride down was a great deal of fun for me, it was bumpy and dusty and just plain fun. The forest was beautiful, and at one point, we had a great view of the lake below us (yes the lake we were riding down to . . . )

We lost about 15 or so minutes on our way down when we stopped to help a couple of guys who had a flat tire. Apparently they did not have a pump. Being the OCD people we are, Tammy and I had two pumps and CO2 cartridges. We wonder how many people passed them by, but it had not even occurred to me not to stop and see if we could help.

Part Three - Kayaking - Circles The next part of the race was simple - or at least should have been. Get in a kayak, kayak out to the buoy, around it and back, about 2-3 miles. No problem, right? NOT. What we thought it might be the easiest part of the day, turned into another ordeal.

Now a little background on this part of the race. Tammy always felt this would likely her strongest event, but had BIG concerns over the inflatable kayaks. I think she was concerned about stability. We had both done some kayaking - even in currents. But neither one of us had used an inflatable kayak before and had heard they could lead to over steering. I think if someone were watching us the entire time, they would have thought we were both retarded . . . But I will let you be the judge.

So we grabbed life jackets, a boat, and headed into the water. Tammy jumped in the front, I pushed her out, and then jumped in the back and we were on our way. Or so we thought. The first obstacle we fought was the tide and wind. It seemed like we were barely getting anywhere and in fact, were being pushed back to the shore. So what did we do? We tried to paddle deeper and harder. Anyone know what happens when you paddle deeper and harder in an inflatable kayak? You over steer and end up going literally in circles. The image you should have is something swirling in a drain. And for those of you keeping score, going in circles is not really the most efficient way to kayak a few miles.

So the first 5-10 minutes were spent trying to figure out how to paddle without completely turning ourselves around. It went something like - Left, Right, Left, argh, left back. Now we were completely stopped. Then, Right, Left, Right, argh, right back. I think you get the picture now. By the time we were about 1/4 of the way from the shore, I think Tammy was so tired, she would have quit. But as we were in the middle of a lake, no matter what we had to paddle. So we finally got some rhythm to what we were doing. We took some motivation from the people coming back from the buoy who said, "oh it is much easier on the way back." So I thought, "cool, get the hard stuff out of the way, and then we can just cruise."

So, we make it to the buoy, round it, recognize we are now somewhat with the current, all excited to head back to shore quickly, and . . . We are barely going anywhere. And to make matters worse, we keep getting turned around. So we keep pointing at the buoy rather than the shore where we were heading. After about 3 minutes of intense struggling, we just stopped. So much for "oh, it is much easier on the way back." I decided to row backwards for a bit, I figured if that is the way the boat wants to point, I'll go with it. We eventually turned around, and slowly made our way back to shore.

So, we put our shoes and socks back on and got ready to ride our bikes once again. Here is a picture of the lake as we were transitioning to the bikes:

To our credit though, we did not end up in the water or get submerged. Apparently, another team of adventure racers had to be rescued by the coast guard. So we did avoid that!

Part 4 - Mountain Biking - Up, Up and Away We have all heard that saying, what goes up must come down. Well in our case, what goes down, must go up. We now had to ride up most of the way we just rode down - probably about 1500-1800 feet over another 7 miles or so. I will say, Tammy was not happy with the thought of having to ride all the way back up. I joked with her that if she had her cell phone on her, she would have called for a ride. But she had no cell phone and was stuck with me pushing her all the way.

So we rode and walked our way up the mountain. We definitely spent the vast majority of the time getting up the hill, and I was glad there was not too much downhill, as my back brake cable was not working correctly. I think Tammy got tired of me telling her that I did not care how long it was going to take us, we were not going to quit. So we kept going and made it back to the top, and then we got to ride down again - back to the top of the gondola area, and then ride down the trail to the village below.

At this point, I was exhilarated and ready to run. Tammy was spent and ready to be done. Run or done? Yup we ran.

Part 5 - The Run - Up and down yet again!

As we dropped our bikes and helmets in the transition area, the person next to me said that the last run was about 2.5 miles or so, and the first half was a steep uphill and that they ended up walking most of that section. I was feeling pretty good, grabbed a snack, and dropped my camelback (I was tired of dragging water around and figured I did not need it for a 2.5 mile jaunt.) The truth was I was excited to tackle this last run and finish the race.

We started up the hill. I think this was the time Tammy really wanted to kill me for my repeated statements that we were not quitting. But I got her far enough away from the bottom that she knew she might as well keep going. So we kept hiking up the trail, and up, and up, and up. It then dawned on me . . . The race directors were having us hike up to virtually the top of the gondola, exactly where we were riding our bikes down from just a short while ago. I remember thinking it was a bit perverse, but also knew that we only had a bit more to climb and it was all down hill from there.

I tried to get Tammy to run the downhill part. But she was tired, and her knee was hurting from the bike incident. I was just excited that it was all downhill and we were done.

But nevertheless, we did run across the finish line - some 5 hours after we started. Like I said, more than half of that was spent coming up the mountain, but I did not care. I was happy and proud of us for finishing.