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Team Santa Fe Newsletter
March 2005
Races
Old Pueblo 50 Mile
Endurance Run
Sonoita, AZ, March 5, 2005
http://www.ultrazone.us/OP50/
Barb Dutrow 11:15:27 10th F, 4th Master Female, 39/111 overall
Carl Gable 12:22:51 46th M, 37 Master Male, 61/111 overall
By B.Dutrow
Finding your way to the race start (and back), on the multitude of
dirt roads through grassy prairies, is one of the most difficult aspects
of this race. Beginning north of Sonoita at Kentucky Camp, the 50 mile loop
course provides a tour through the southeastern portion of the Santa Rita
Mountains. Nearly every substrate possible is included; forest service
roads, rocky trails, sandy washes, muddy creeks and dry single track.
In the pre-dawn hours of the morning, racers lined up after fighting
for the last of the coffee. At exactly 6:00am the race was on. Darkness
held for about the first half hour of the race, and then the sun rose,
only to be blunted by the heavy, thick layer of clouds. Arizona was having
one of the wettest winters on record, and this day was no exception. With
temperatures muted by cloudy skies, conditions were cool and excellent. After
running along Forest Service trails, up rocky slopes, along single track
where Carl nearly trail surfed but avoided the cactus during his tumble,
we arrived at the first of several aid stations and dropped our headlamps.
The course was rolling, scenic, full of variety and very runnable. Several
ascents and descents were warm-ups for the major hill climb about mid-way
through the course. The long climb up a gravel road culminated in stunning
views of the surrounding basins. However the incredibly rocky downhill made
running nearly impossible. Wild poppies colored the hillsides with vibrant
orange. The last 20 miles of course had numerous creek crossings, but I
kept my feet dry. About noon, the skies opened with cold rain, then hail,
then more rain. This continued off and on until the finish. Having been
chilled by the hail and rain, I stopped to put on my rain pants and wore
them to the finish.
This course was incredibly well marked with flagging, stakes and flour
arrows and lines to keep you from taking a wrong turn. Race Directors stated
they had used 250 lbs of flour!!! The aid stations were superb with a
variety of food and drink, friendly volunteers, and lawn chairs. Hamburgers
chili, chips, fruit and a warm fire greeted us at the finish. Carl ran
even though he'd been skiing for two weeks.
39. Barb Dutrow 10-F, 4 F40+ 11:15:27
61. Carl Gable 46- M, 37 M40+ 12:22:51
Thanks to our sponsors: Thorlo socks, Polar Heart Rate monitors, Hydropel,
CW-X, Montrail.
New Mexico Orienteers
March Event
Los Alamos, NM, March 26th, 2005
www.nmorienteers.org/20050326.html
Third place Green Course, 1:37:27
Jan Bear and Ries Robinson
By Jan Bear
The night before the meet I got a little worried; it was snowing heavily
in Santa Fe. Six inches of snow fell at my house and I was not anxious
for a cold wet orienteering event. However, I had promised to vet the
yellow course so I was obligated to drive up to Los Alamos. Fortunately,
it had not snowed as much up there and it was beautiful in the Rendija
Canyon area. I got there at about 9 AM and the picture below shows how
pretty it was. I did the Yellow course in about an hour and 10 minutes
without missing any controls, although number 5 was buried in snow. I
must have walked by it 2-3 times. After I finished my club duty of vetting
(checking the course for correct placement of controls) I had to wait a
short time for Ries so we could do the Green course. He was as concerned
about the weather as I had been. He had called several times about the
conditions of the roads and the weather in Los Alamos. He finally got
through the weather and we got started at about noon in blowing snow. There
were 13 checkpoints on the Green Course; the loop was about 5 ½ kilometers
with 180 meters of climbing. We had problems at two points: one where we
disagreed on the route and one which we overshot by about 150 meters. Otherwise,
we were fairly direct in our course of travel. As usual it was a great event
put on by the New Mexico Orienteers. The meet was well attended.
Team Santa Fe sponsor gear used on this cold wet day: SealSkinz, Montrail,
ThorLo, Lowe Alpine, CW-X, CamelBak, GoLite, Suunto, Bolle, Outdoor Research,
Crescent Moon and Schrade.
Santa Fe Fireball Ski Race
Santa Fe NM, March 27 2005
fireballskirace.com
1st place M Masters, 3/18 overall, 0:58:21
Carl Gable
by Carl Gable
This was the inagural Fireball and Hugh Driscoll, the race director, did
a great job putting together a well organized race, a challenging and fun
course and a competitive field. The race is an up/down ski race climbing
1660 vertical feet from the base of the Santa Fe ski basin to the top near
Tesuque Pk. Most of the climb ascended the ski runs however to give it a
backcountry feel, the final fifteen minutes of climbing was outside
the ski area boundaries in the trees. The decent followed the Gayway run
and had widely space GS gates for a bit of speed control.
All of the field chose to use either telemark ski gear or randonee ski
gear. I however, chose to go light with a twenty year old pair of skinny
metal edge double camber skis and light three pin bindings and boots. I knew
my gear would not make me fast on the downhill but since the race is 90%
climbing and 10% decent, I figured sacrifice speed going down. As usual,
the pack started out fast but with a steady pace I was in the lead by the
time half the climb was over. The climb through the trees was a bit tough
since the track had been put in but had blown in so I had to break trail
through a bit of new snow. The light gear paid off for the climb but not
the decent. Petra McDowell caught up to me at the transition where we pulled
off our climbing skins. She locked down the heels of her randonee gear for
the decent and I never saw her again. About half way down the decent, Rich
Seimer past me on telemark gear. In the end I took third, 1:27 behind the
first place finisher. If I had to do it again, I think I would still go light
for the up and suffer a slowdown on the decent.
Thanks to CW-X, ThorLo, Polar, Suunto, Bolle.
AdventureXstream Moab
12 Hour Adventure Race
Moab, UT, April 2nd, 2005
www.gravityplay.com/axs/Results/moab2person05.htm
1st Place in Coed Pairs division and 4th place Pairs Overall
Jan and Kim Bear
By Jan Bear
Kim and I had decided early on this year that we would give this event
a shot and try to work together as a pair. We wanted to change a couple
things from past events. The first change was to put Kim in the back of
the inflatable kayak to steer and I would try to be the motor. Second we
were going to be aggressive in the transitions and lastly we wanted to
run instead of shuffle along trails!
We left Santa Fe Friday at noon and arrived in Moab around 7 PM for
check in. This year we had no support so we used the Coyote Shuttle to
shuttle our gear. This was a great option that worked well. However
it involved giving up our bikes by 9 PM Friday night and getting to the
race start at 5:30 AM to shuttle cars to the finish line. Oh well, we
just got an early start. We began with a 20 mile paddle on the Colorado
River. This was a lot for us since we had not paddled since last years
AdventureXstream Expedition Race. Amazingly, we still ended up with a
good split for the inflatable kayaks finishing in 3 hours and 7 minutes.
The transition was quick and we were off to mountain bike up Long Canyon
and over to Gemini Bridges for a great rappel and 6 mile run. We did not
run, but jogged the whole distance. We made it back to our bikes for a
total split time of rappel and run being 1 hour and 18 minutes. It was
then back to the bikes for a sprint of about 20 miles to the finish line.
It had been hot and E-caps helped the cramping subside as we re-hydrated
climbing back out of Gemini Bridges. Our finishing time was 8 hours flat,
placing 1st for the Coed Pairs and 4th place pair overall out of 59 starting
pairs and 12 place overall of all the 97 starting teams. After the race,
it was off to celebrate with Keith and Robin at Eddie McStiffs. It was
a great event for the first adventure race of the season.
Thank you to our great Team Santa Fe sponsors for making this event
a great success; Montrail, Gaerne, ThorLo, Lowe Alpine, Leki, Bolle,
Litespeed, CW-X, GoLite, BTI, Shain, Suunto, CamelBak, Boulder Bar, Polar,
Hydropel and E-Caps.
Transition from kayak to bike.
Training Events
Continental
Airlines Cycling Classic
Montgomery, TX, Saturday, March 12, 2005
www.bicycletexas.com/houston.htm
By: Lisa Carr-Broome George Broome
It was a beautiful, sunny morning for the 2nd Annual Continental Airlines
Cycling Classic. A 25, 41 or 62 mile ride through Montgomery County,
we chose to do the metric century. A great ride through the rolling countryside,
the wind was the equalizer for the day thus we completed 62.4 miles in
17.6 mph for a ride time of 3:32.
This well organized ride by the Continental Airlines Cycling Team
attracted approximately 2000 riders. Rest stops were numerous and well
stocked with homemade muffins and many other goodies. Because of tire
troubles, we stopped at 2 for the use of an available floor pump.
Gear used from Team Santa Fe sponsors includes: Terry biking saddles,
Suunto wrist computer with Polar HRM, Polar wrist computer with HRM,
CW-X biking jerseys and sports bra, SofSole insoles, Camelbak hydration
packs, Shain biking helmet and Bolle sunglasses.
Bluebonnet Express
Prairie View, TX, Sunday, March 13, 2005
www.bicycletexas.com/houston.htm
By: Lisa Carr-Broome George Broome
The day started off overcast and windy for the 16th annual Bluebonnet
Express which is a 25, 48 or 62 mile ride through Waller County, 50 minutes
northwest of Houston. Starting at Prairie View A&M College we rode
the 63.26 miles in 17.6 mph for a ride time of 3:35...talk about consistency.
The wind was again the equalizer and remained a factor for the entire
ride.
Put on by Northwest Cyclery this well organized MS-150 training ride
was loads of fun and extremely well attended with over 4000 riders.
Gear used from Team Santa Fe sponsors includes: Terry biking saddles,
Suunto wrist computer with Polar HRM, Polar wrist computer with HRM,
CW-X biking jerseys and sports bra, SofSole insoles, Camelbak hydration
packs, Shain biking helmet and Bolle sunglasses.
The Great Escape
Pearland, Texas, Saturday, March 20, 2005
http://greatescape.pearlandcyclingclub.org
By: Lisa Carr-Broome , George Broome
Another great weekend for road rides in Houston, today we drove 30
miles south to Pearland, TX to participate in the first annual Great Escape
road ride. A flat but scenic ride through Brazoria County, approximately
500 riders lined up to ride 17, 40, 65 or 80 miles. We chose the 80
mile route riding 79.04 miles at 18.74 mph for a ride time of 4:12.
Winds blowing in from the gulf were the challenge for this ride.
Gear used by our sponsors includes: Terry saddles, CW-X biking jerseys
and sports bra, Shain helmet, Suunto wrist computer with Polar HRM, Polar
wrist computer with HRM, Camelbak hydration pack and SofSole insoles.
Tour De Cypress
Katy, Texas, Sunday, March 21, 2005
www.teamcure.org/tourdecypress.htm
By: Lisa Carr-Broome , George Broome
After a stormy and wet night, we woke up to a clear and beautiful
morning for the 12th annual Tour De Cypress road ride 40 miles west of
Houston. A MS-150 training ride, over 3500 rides participated in this
52, 61 or 84 mile ride through the backloads of Harris and Waller Counties.
We chose the 84 mile ride which was slightly longer than mentioned,
thus we rode 88.64 miles at 18.36 mph for a ride time of 4:49. Again,
the wind presented the biggest challenge for the day.
A great fundraising ride for a terrific cause, 100% of the registration
fees went to the Caring for Children Foundation of Texas which provides
direct access to immunizations for medically uninsured children and senior
citizens of Texas through its Care Van Program.
Gear used by our Team Santa Fe sponsors includes: Terry saddles, CW-X
biking jerseys and sports bra, Shain helmet, Suunto wrist computer with
Polar HRM, Polar wrist computer with HRM, CamelBak hydration packs and
SofSole insoles.
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