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Team Santa Fe Newsletter
October 2002
Eco-Challenge Fiji
(www.ecochallenge.com)
October 11 – 21, 2002
Eric Jacobsen, Jay Shotwell, Kim Bear, Jan Bear
This year’s Eco-Challenge was full of difficulty and challenge as Mark Burnett
predicted. The race began with organizing our team. Eric Jacobsen
was given the slot, so the final determinations were for the captain of Team
Santa Fe. He took his task seriously and recruited Jay Shotwell of
Park City, Utah whose background included mountain guiding, river guiding
and orienteering. He had led an expedition to K-2 and his experience
would prove to be invaluable. He turned out to be a great team member
with a personality of optimism and humor. Eric and Jay trained rigorously
together in Utah. Many conference calls were held in preparation.
Kim and Jan would first meet Jay at the LA airport on Saturday October 4.
The flight to Fiji would cross the dateline thus loosing a day by arrival.
They flew in at 4:30 am and walked across the street to their new home, the
Raffles Hotel. We got some sleep, gear nattered and then went exploring
the town of Nadi. (Pronounced Nandi as in Fiji, d is pronounced as
“nd”). It was a holiday, similar to the fourth of July for us,
but we still were approached by many vendors in the city. Eric would
arrive later the next day.
Gear checks were less rigorous than last year. At the opening ceremony
it was explained that certifications were acknowledgements of our skills
and that we would be put to the test on the course. Any more race information
would not be given until the start of the Eco-Challenge. The teams would
be bussed to the start at 10pm from Nadi. We were to pack into a gearbox,
bike box and pack raft dry bag; each were to contain 2 – 4 days of food.
That was all the information we were given as our equipment was transferred.
We still had no maps!
We left on 8 busses at around 10:30 pm, Thursday night and arrived at the
start at around 9:00 am, Friday morning. It was a long night; most
of the drive was on rough dirt roads. After a welcoming ceremony at
a Fiji village, we walked down to the start. Here Mark Burnett unveiled
the map of the race and each team was given the first set of maps.
After 10 minutes, we began day 1 of Eco-Challenge Fiji. Off we went
down a river, canyoneering and searching for our first Tiki. We missed
the turn off, but quickly recovered to find Tiki 1. The day went quickly
trekking and crossing many rivers. We came into a village around 5
pm after a long day in 75th place.
Now was the first of many Mark Burnett
changes, we had to build a native bamboo rafts called a Bili-Bili.
This was done with the help of local villagers. Quick learning of how
to propel the raft was obtained from the local villagers and off we floated,
“poling” down the river. This was done with a long bamboo pole, which
you would push down to touch the river bottom and push to propel the boat
forward. The people were very friendly coming down to the shores and
making fires. They would yell out “Bula!” which means “hello!”
We got a surprise “Bula!” at around 10 pm as one of the teenage boys came
out to our boat and tried to grab our packs. He was unsuccessful except
for one of Eric’s trekking poles. We felt fortunate and actually forgot
about it quickly as our next encounter was with locals who actually ran back
to their village to get us a better bamboo poles to use as ours were breaking.
Our other adventure on the Bili-Bili was we missed the main river in the
dark and went off up another river. Eric quickly realized our mistake
and after deliberation, we finally turned back even though there were many
bili-bili boats who had made the same mistake. We headed back to the
river and uneventfully found the transition. Mark Burnett was there
monitoring the race progress. Here we had to unlash our boat and carry
each bamboo pole up a muddy slope and add them to a growing pile.
We washed up after this “torture” at one of the villager’s water faucets
as the sun was coming up. From here we took off trekking. After
a couple of hours, we took a short power nap in a village by a health clinic.
We took care of our feet and prepared for a very long trek. We finally
arrived in a village where 2 villager boys led us to Tiki 3. We reached
it with just a couple of hour’s left of sunlight. We know it would
be a difficult navigation on the river and wanted to get as much done as
possible. We finally reached an unmanned station at around 11pm.
Here all of the sets of numbers on the Tiki's we had encountered were linked
and resulted in the combination to unlock a box were the map of the upcoming
bike route was stored, here we had to copy the bike route onto our maps.
We radioed in as was instructed. It was drizzling; we took off knowing
this would be a challenge. Decisions were made and remade; when all
was said and done we headed back the way we came and took the (easy?) road
to the next transition area to biking. We arrived that next night and
many teams that we were ahead of were already there. We knew we must
continue; Eric plotted the maps and bikes were built. We were getting
ready to leave and Eric went to have blister care, which caused him to ultimately
need an IV. This gave us a 4-hour time penalty, which we used for sleep.
The next morning, Eric was revived and off we biked. Kim woke up nauseated
and proceeded to throw up while biking. She didn’t feel bad, it was
just a little annoying and the downhills were interesting. She really
didn’t recover for about 6 hours. The heat rose to a record 102 degrees.
We finally reached the next leg, river kayaking, which had a dark zone, as
we were not allowed on the river until 5:30 am. We took apart our bikes,
ate food bought from the locals and headed off on foot for the boat take
out area. It took us 3 or 4 hours to get to the take out. We
carried the boats to the shore, inflated them and slept a couple of hours.
We would be the fourth team on the water that day. The scenery was
spectacular in the slot canyons, waterfalls and lush vegetation. Eric
and Jay were “at home” on the white water. Kim was just glad to have
someone to follow down the rapids. After 5 hours, the take out appeared
and we transitioned back to trekking.
We crossed a rapid river and
proceeded through our first of many villages where locals offered us tea,
food and conversation. We were “entertained” and nourished. The
day turned into an epic hike we embraced the locals, their way of life, their
homes, humor and generosity. It was truly a highpoint. As we
entered our last village of the day, we were taken in and put up in one of
the homes. We slept more than planned, but just had a hard time convincing
ourselves to get out in the rain, jungle and night. We left at 6am
for another huge jungle trek. We were becoming increasing respectful
of the navigation of the locals and their ability to go everywhere barefoot.
It continued to rain and be very muddy in the jungle. Our guide took
us to a village where we received a new guide to the waterfalls. We
passed many teams during this section; the “challenge” was catching up and
taking its toll on teams. Our guide abandoned us before we reached
our destination of the waterfalls, but we still arrived with daylight.
The mountain guides were just closing the ascending course because of all
the increased precipitations. We chose to continue the climb to the
top. Through the night we picked our way up a muddy slope and once
arriving around 3 am, set up our hammocks to sleep. It was a very cold
and wet night. Almost all of our clothing was wet. The next morning
we got unlucky and lost 2 locals who were going to lead us the rest of the
way to the dam. Instead of 3 hours, we spent 9 but it was an amazing
navigation and got us the where we would transition to our pack rafts.
This trek required the machete, which Jay mastered to cut our trails.
We climbed up waterfalls, used ropes to climb through some areas and finally
arrived at a ridge where we could see the dam and people walking around.
Two hours later we were swimming through a swamp to get to the road.
We walked into the transition area at 2:50 pm. We would have 1 hour
and 10 minutes to be on the river in our pack rafts. We made it with
1 or 2 minutes to spare. As we began paddling UPSTREAM with little
hand paddles, chatter about how difficult it was going to be to make the
cut off was going on. Some said it would be impossible. The river
current was getting stronger and more difficult. We had been cold and
wet for the past 3 days. It was probably our lowest time and we were
susceptible to believing that we would not make it. We turned around
and headed back to the transition calling it an end to Eco-Challenge Fiji.
We lasted longer than a lot of teams, and had memorable experiences with
natives. These are the memories that we would hold.
Gear that saved us: LEKI trekking poles were needed for climbing, descending
and maintaining balance during crossing rivers with fast moving water and
on slippery rocks. Kim and Jan rode their Litespeed bikes with disc
brakes that worked great in the mud. The team all used their “Bolle”
sunglasses with different lens. Jay was hooked on the pink lens to
give him better perception in the jungle. Kim lucked out by packing
her NRS hydroseal shirt and shorts, as that became her uniform in the wet
jungle.
October 19, 2002
252 miles - 12 hours and 47 minutes
Lisa Barnes
The Cochise County Cycling Classic is a ride sponsored by the Perimeter Bicycle
Association of America. The event has multiple distances but their
premier event is the 252 mile ride around Cochise County, Arizona.
The ride starts in Douglas and then goes through Bisbee, Tombstone, Benson,
Wilcox, into New Mexico and then south back to Douglas.
My main goal was to finish in under 14 hours in order to achieve a Platinum
finish. I was also hoping to finish as the top female. My husband
Todd decided to do the ride with me and our friends Wayne and Steve supported
us
There were 32 men and 5 women registered for the 252 mile event. The
ride started at 2AM Saturday. That was a short night of restless sleep
as we got up just before 1am to get ready and get to the start line.
We had our adjustable NiteRider bike lights with us so that we would have
plenty of light since we hit at least 40 mph descending Mule Mountain Pass
out of Bisbee. The weather felt pretty good at the start, about 50
degrees, but there were some sections in the valleys that were in the high
30's. We were never too cold as we worked hard through cold valleys
in an attempt to put some time between us and those following us.
The group rode pretty easy the first 20 miles or so until we came to the
climb up Mule Mountain Pass that climbs through Bisbee. The group split
up as the mountain has some steep sections as it climbs around 1,000 feet
in the last 5 miles. The riders were now spread out and we were in
the front 3rd or so of the group. We rode fast down the other side
of the mountain and as we passed a few riders we had a couple of people join
us. A tandem bicycle also caught us near the bottom and we began to
work a bit together. The miles passed quickly and we soon came to the
first time checkpoint. It was still pretty dark (a little after 5:30
am) and at this point and we had completed 70 miles.
We now had a long section of riding on Interstate 10. Soon after that
we started a long climb and the tandem dropped off. There were now
three of us left riding together, with seven riders in front of us.
We stayed on the road shoulder to the right side and tried to miss the various
objects on the road. We felt really good at this point and the miles
continued to go by.
100 more miles passed and we reached the end of the freeway. We had
been looking forward to that milestone for a number of miles (and hours).
We stopped at that corner, Road Forks, to turn south on Highway 80.
We had 80 miles left to complete and it was only around 10:30 AM so we decided
to up our goal a bit and try to finish under 13 hours. We started riding
hard, but I needed food and Todd started to get a side ache, so we eased
up a bit. We were getting tired and various body aches now appeared.
We found we had to stand up more often while riding and tried to stretch
those sore and tired areas. The other rider who had rode with Todd
and I along the freeway felt so good that we told him to continue on by himself
if he wanted, as we needed a slower pace for a while. He wished us
well and continued on ahead. We rode easier for a bit and then were
slowly able to increase our speed again to keep the 13-hour goal achievable.
We finished in 12 hours and 47 minutes, averaging nearly 20 miles per hour,
and we had about 9 minutes off the bike for a few short breaks and a flat
tire. Todd and I finished 9th and 10th overall and I was the first
female to finish. The weather treated us great and our support crew
was awesome.
Carl Gable
Stavanger Marathon (http://www.kondis.no)
Stavanger Norway (58 degrees north)
August 24 2002
Offisiell tid: 3:37:33 Snitt per kilometer: 5:09
10th Place Men 40-45
I spent two weeks in Stavanger Norway on business
and during one of my evening runs (it gets dark at 10:30pm), I noticed newly
painted arrows and numbers on the sidewalk and road. The numbers had
values like 6 and 7 so I thought to myself, 'Hm, maybe there is a 10K'.
A bit later in my run I saw a number 35 and said, 'Hm, this looks like a
marathon'. I asked at my hotel and they had no idea but the next day
at work people found on the web that indeed, the Stavanger marathon was the
next day. My immediate thoughts were, why not do the marathon, so I
went to race HQ after work and signed up. Team or club affiliation
was a standard item on the registration so I signed up as Team Santa Fe Adventure
Racing. At that point training was not an option so all I could do
was eat a big dinner and drink lots of water.
The next day, when I woke up I really wondered what I could have been
thinking. I was going to run a marathon on a whim? But the time was
near. I talked with Barb on the phone and she offered encouragement
and said I was not a complete idiot to do this. She also looked up km
splits since my brain is used to thinking of mile split times.
To make a long story short, the run went well with nearly even splits.
My second half was 1:30 longer than the first half. The course had
lots of loops around Stavanger with a total of seven times across the
start/finish going both directions.
They used a different type of chip timing. Instead of a chip on the
shoe that an electronic pad can detect, we were each given a small
clock about half the size of a credit card. This attached to the back
of your number with adhesive. At various points around the course, a
simple antenna device would trigger the clock to register a split
time. The clocks were collected at the finish and all the split times
were downloaded from the clock to a computer.
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