- by Jen Klafin (baarbd.org)

How can you go wrong with a race named after my favorite distilled beverage… well, that’s next to Scotch, but since they’re in the same family we won’t get picky. At 3 AM we’re all delirious!

So the story begins when the DA’s (Dirty Avocados) invited me to join them for this race. I’ve been out of the racing scene since my tried and true teammate JO (Jonathan) was rendered a bit incapacitated earlier this year. It was time to slip in at least one 24 hour race for the 08 season and the DA’s are a great group of racers and friends.

The event actually started the week before at Doti’s surprise party!

Fast forward to Friday morning - my parent company colleagues decided to come up that day so I HAD to go into work. The plan was to pack the car and skedattle as soon as we were done, but that dissolved when I went out to start the car and it did not turn over. Eh? Despite the fact that I drive once a week, I had driven the night before to visit an old friend in East Bay. Made the emergency call to Brian to wait for me - he was planning to head up that morning and wait for me in Santa Rosa.

FF again - I meet Brian around 3, pack the truck and head north to be greeted by that infamous traffic… ugh. We make it to Doti’s to find out that Brenda’s phone was now in the hands of some weird white trash chic paranoid that she and DP were tracking her down with the GPS. God help America. Just give her the f’ing phone back genious… oh, and please don’t procreate while you’re at it.

Hours later we arrive an our roach coach, just happy to have a bed! Oh wait… that was eventful as well. The phone rings and Doti starts negotiating. Right, the reservation was for one. Me myself and I … two of whom happened to embody other people. Damn! So we had to pay the extra fee. (yes, it was in the ‘rules’)

Ok, now on to the part that you *really* want to hear about - almost. We get to the start - beautiful weather, amazing country (aside from the evil damn life-sucker give-us-nightmares drainage hole), and teams busy getting ready for 24-30 hours of racing ahead of them. We start to unload and it hits me. &$#@!!! My bike shoes are neatly sitting in the back seat of my useless vehicle, now donning a street sweep ticket in SF.

I freak out, calm down and work the crowd for an extra pair of shoes. I think it was Sean who offered me his pair - though we all got a laugh out of me sticking my feet into size 11 shoes (I didn’t even need to take off my shoes to try them on). To my ultimate LUCK, Tracy lives in town and offered to take me there - on top of being my size - the gods finally arrived after our weird sequence of events. THANK YOU TRACY!

Thanks to Rich and Tom for delaying the race a few minutes to give me time to get ready (and hit the WC!) before the gun when off. We started the ride which soon turned into a grind to the top of Shasta Bally.

Once we started to gain elevation the views improved which made the suffering all worth while. We also had a few amazing views of Mt. Shasta!

Once at the top, we got the CP and headed for the first round of mtn biking - hoping for some epic single track!

We had a few nav choices and decided not to bushwack, so it was a long, but seemingly nice (no more crazy ups or downs) coming. Nice butt Bri

A short while later we came to a little unridable stream crossing. I made the mistake of riding the fords and got a bit chilly with the wet, though as happy I was to have Tracy’s shoes, they were a tad painful so the more I could ride the better off I was. Adam definitely set a new fashion trend on this leg - hey sexy…

Oh, and before we start descending again, we get an awesome shot of Mt. Shasta! After this summer I was SOOOOO excited to see it topped off with snow already.

We had some more fun CPs and nav choices - Doti did a PERFECT job of nav’ing the entire section - you ROCK!

We then headed to the kayak all bundled up knowing that we’d leave in day light, but return in dark. Having the mammoth triple was a blessing - makes the paddle as enjoyable as it can be. We nailed 2 of the 3 before we soccummed to the cold (I was soaked, failed gore) and difficult nav without being able to see many features.

We headed back to the TA for more mtn biking before a trek. Well… little did we know that we would not return to that TA until about 7 AM the NEXT DAY. A few bike CPS threw us and other teams scouring the woods. By the time we hit the trek we were at pace with a few other teams and bonded together. Team TechNu was rock solid and shared nav with Doti. It was really fun in a group that big - a rarity in AR.

The night was long, a tad cold and a bit slow… we suffered together, but it was what makes AR what we LIVE for! Life crammed into the span of 24 hours. I recall snippets, I’m sure others recall different ones. Here’s a photo of Brian once it started to get light again - honestly I’m so glad I had my camera… I don’t remember taking this, but hey it’s a cool memory.

At the end of the trek, we were with Tech Nu and baarbd - all of us had been leap frogging all night. We headed back and made the call to skip the OTHER bike section. I’m not much of a biker, but even those who are were a little tired of it, so we headed for the 2 mandatory trek points.

One more cool shot, not quite sure where we were…

After 1 mandatory CP with team Tech Nu, debating an optional one and deciding against it, we got the 2nd mandatory with a touch of PO (poison oak) mixed in for good measure - have to support our sponsors I suppose… and of course team Tech Nu was happy.

We were then DONE! 5th was not too shabby after 28 hours of racing. We cleaned up, chowed down and power napped before the 5 hour drive back to SF. Ironically enough the full moon weekend was not yet rid of its oddness… 4.5 hours down, 30 minutes left to go when Brian and I dropped off the kayak at Sea Trek in sausalito when I said, “That’s weird, I’ve never seen factory smoke here before.” Seconds later I pronounced, “Angel Island is on FIRE!” Brian was in disbelief. We stopped in downtown Sausalito to gaze in shock.

At that point there was nothing that could top that entire weekend… companions, race and events in all. As odd as it was, this is what we live for and why we adventure race. No bar can compare to that!

Many miles ahead, Jen

This entry was posted on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 3:13 pm and is filed under Race Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. [Permalink]