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June 2007 Team Santa Fe Activities
RACES:
La Tierra Torture Mountain Bike Race
2007 New Mexico Off Road Series, Race #3
Santa Fe, NM
May 6, 2007
http://www.latierratorture.com
Jan Bear 1st/of 6 Expert Master 50+ men 02:31:16.00 (3 laps)
Kim Bear 1st/ of 9 Sport Master 40+ women 01:57:29.0 (2 laps)
Angie Cline 4th/ of 9 Sport Master 40+ women 02:16:56.0 (2 laps)
Gary Johnson 6th/of 6 Expert Master 50+ men 03:16:51.00 (3 laps)
Deb Werenko 4th/of 4 Expert Master 40+ women 3:15:21 (3 laps)
By Kim Bear
Jan Bear was once again one of the main race organizers for La Tierra Torture
soliciting prizes, marketing and helping with registration along with the small
group of local mountain bike and trail enthusiasts. Deb Werenko and Kim Bear
also did some volunteering for this fun local race. There were 218 cyclists that
finished the race. The race is unique in that it offers bike jerseys to the first 100
entrants that sport the Santa Fe theme of La Tierra Torture! The course was 9.5
miles per lap located in Santa Fe's Northwest Quadrant. It had a mix of rolling,
technical, rocky fast and fun single-track and double track along with a giant
roller coaster of an arroyo crossing. The course was different from last year, plus
the weather was much better as we had been receiving rain making the track
more ride able; sticky and fast! We all had fun and the weather the day of the
race was perfect with some cloud cover. Gary struggled with some mechanical
issues, but still finished the course. We were also lucky as it did not start snowing
until the awards ceremony!
Thank you to Team Santa Fe Sponsors: Litespeed, BTI, Bike & Sport, ThorLo,
GoLite, Gaerne, Camelbak, Dermatone, CW-X, SofSole, Shain, Polar, Hydropel,
Wingnut Gear and Bolle.
Adventure Racing World Championships 2007
Fort William, Scotland
May 24 – June 2, 2007
http://www.arwc2007.com/homepage.htm
Kim and Jan Bear, Dale Blankenship and Nick Norris
By Kim Bear
Team Santa Fe was fortunate to qualify to race in the World Championship
Adventure Race in Scotland. Most of the four person teams were composed of 3
men with one woman, and I paired with Dale and Nick friends from past races.
The rule is each team needs to have at least one member of the opposite
gender. The course was about 530km long. We could expect 200km of trekking;
200km of mountain biking, 125km of kayaking, 2km of swimming (not in one go)
along with rope activities of course. The total ascent in the course would be
around 22,500 meters.
Kim Bear, the smile never quits.
The event began on Saturday May 26 with a ferry ride to the Isle of Rum. Once
on the island the race began with a prologue where we swam ½ mile across a
bay, then changed to trekking clothes and ran/hiked all over the island capturing
checkpoints that were placed on every summit top. We covered about 25kms
and climbed three 700-meter peaks. We finished very late in the afternoon and
went to set up our tent, sleep and get ready for the "real" start the following
morning. The camp was set up directly in front of a beautiful castle. It stayed light
until about 10:30 pm due to the northern latitude.
Jan Bear getting a Scottish sun tan.
The next day the race began at 8 am with a paddle past the island of Eigg (where
a CP was located in the main bay) and then back to the mainland for CP #2 and
then north along the coast. The paddle was beautiful with crystal blue water in
some of the straits. By the afternoon, the winds had picked up and we were
moving so slowly that we decided to drag our boats on shore, through a very nice
woman's yard and then place the kayaks on wheels to go by road to the loch that
was the next part of the paddle. This was called "portaging" and we would find
that the Scots love to portage. We were not the only ones who decided on this
tact as we ran into several other teams on the road. Finally we arrived at our
destination loch and paddled to another portage where we now had to complete
an orienteering course.
Jan and Kim Bear, Adventure Racing World Championships, Scotland.
We struggled to find the first checkpoint. It soon turned dark and finally we found
checkpoint one. After that, the rest were much easier to determine and we
ended up back at our boats after several hours. Unfortunately we had missed a
cut-off as did several teams so were put on a modified course in the next trekking
section after finishing another 20 km in the kayaks. This just meant instead of
climbing 3 peaks, we only had to climb one…but it was a doozey and the decent
was amazing on razor like ridgelines. We would find out later that many people
missed the cut off times.
Kim Bear beginning the rappel, Scotland.
After the trek we got on our bikes and rode about 100 miles of fairly difficult
double track and lots of climbing to reach Loch Ness. On this route, we had a
stop to do a short trek and a Tyrolean traverse and then continued with our bike.
Once we reached Loch Ness, we made the decision to sleep 2 hours (our first
rest now about 2 and ½ days into the race) as we would have to swim the loch
unless it was dark. It was raining and the transition had a tent so this worked
well for us. We took off in boats around midnight, crossed Loch Ness, changed
into trekking clothes, and Nordic walked 20 km into the next small town. There
was supposed to be a canyoneering section, but it had been cancelled because
of all the rainfall, did I mention that it had been steadily raining now for more than
30 hours straight! We continued trekking through fog, tundra and rain finally
reaching the checkpoint where we received a "chocolate" for all our efforts but
had more trekking ahead to reach our bikes. We came back to our bikes and
cycled to the Foyer Falls where we stripped, made a plunge into the water got
dressed again, back on our bikes and took off to the Laggan World Trax
mountain bike centre.
There were few options to sleep there as we had planned, so we rode the bike
park with boardwalks, drop offs and other challenges. The bike shop owner fixed
us up with a place to sleep, so we continued riding until 2 in the morning and on
the 4th night finally got 4 hours of sleep at Mr. MacDonald's house. We left the
house at 6 am and rode to another beautiful castle, dropped our bikes and then
hiked to the top of a mountain where we did a short ascent followed by a rappel.
From there we hiked back to our bikes (it had stopped raining and the wetness
was replaced with mosquitoes) to a paddle section that led us to an all night
portage with our boats on wheels. We were very happy to see the loch where we
could finally paddle our boats, at least for a short time. This was another huge
challenge as we had to go upstream and then pull the boats loch to loch as there
were no roads. It was a very hard section. It would turn out that we had carried
and pulled those heavily laden boats for more the 20 km on road and moor.
Luckily the next section was biking as well as some hike a bike but we were able
to get off our feet for most of the section, but we had missed another cutoff.
However, we made up the time on the bike and finally made it to the base of Ben
Nevis. It was here that we were told there that we would have a 12 hour penalty
if we completed Ben Nevis and a 14 hour penalty if we returned to Fort William
and finished. We decided to complete the race and finished 24th of 49 teams.
A special thanks to the following sponsors: CW-X, those shirts and tights kept me
warm day after day through the rain and cold, what a great base layer, then also
controlled and protected sore tired muscles. This race kept us wet 80% of the
time and CW-X kept me warm. The Princeton Tec lights were great except the
constant wetness seemed to affect them as the race wore on, yet the light output
with the Apex was excellent. Leki trekking poles were an absolute necessity with
the terrain being dramatic ascents, descents or bog. GoLite outer layers kept us
as dry as cold be expected, we couldn't have survived without the waterproof
layer. Osprey backpacks held our gear comfortably yet were stable whether on
the bike, trekking, running or even swimming. All the features of the pack were
put to use and worked very well.
AdventureXstream 24 Hour Adventure Race, Durango
Durango, CO
June 16, 2007
http://www.gravityplay.com
Kim and Jan Bear, 2nd Place/4 Coed Pairs 22:39:00
6th overall/ 24 teams/soloists
By Kim Bear
This 24-hour-race was staged out of Durango Mountain Resort. It started at
midnight with maps and UTM's being handed for a mini-Rogaine. This year we
plotted right on the plaza and took off in the middle of the pack. We were
thankful to have good dependable lighting provided by Princeton Tec Apex that
kept us going all night long. This light has different choices for burning, so if we
were on a dirt road we could keep the burn lower as compared to a more
technical trail with roots where we needed more lighting. This feature helps to
save battery use. We did not have to change the batteries all night.
The orienteering course had 9 Checkpoints to find before 9 am the next morning.
A one-hour penalty would be given for every checkpoint not found. Time
penalties would also be given for every minute accrued after 9 am; however if all
the checkpoints were not retrieved then you had to wait until 9 am before
proceeding onto the next venue of mountain biking. The trekking would be about
30 miles long of "grunting" up and down the mountains of Durango. Jan did a
good job with the night navigation and found all the checkpoints that we went
after; missing 2 checkpoints. We worked with Team GoLite and enjoyed their
company. They were newlyweds, having married 3 weeks previous to the race. I
was not doing that great as we had only been back from Scotland for 2 weeks
and that was an expedition length race. I felt I had a hard time at recovering.
Finally we arrived back at the transition area at 8:45 am and quickly transitioned
onto the bike. Team Dinger had beat us back to the transition and then onto the
bike.
Jan Bear filling up on water, Durango CO.
We headed out t ride Hermosa Creek, one of the premier single track courses in
the United States. However, this year we had to take a detour on Dutch
Creek. This was a 3-hour hike-a-bike. I had a really hard time with that as well.
Jan seemed to hold up great. Team GoLite passed us, however we finally ran
into Team Dinger and passed them on the Tyrolean traverse. Niki Dinger and I
both agreed that we just wanted to finish this never-ending bike ride. On the fast
ride down to the water section, I got a flat where the Dinger Pair passed us
again. We would not see them again. Once on the Animas, it was fast moving
with a lot of debris. We got hung up on a log and Jan got tossed downriver. I
was able to unhook off the log and paddle to get Jan back in the boat. We
finished just as the sun went down getting second place behind the Dinger Pair.
(We were surprised to get second as the strong biking pair Team GoLite had
gotten penalties for coming in late from the trek.)
Thanks to our sponsors, Litespeed, BTI, GoLite, CamelBak, Leki, SealSkinz,
Dermatone, Boulder Bars, Hydropel, Montrail, CW-X, Polar, Terry, Petzl, Black
Diamond, Bolle, Werner, Suunto, Shain, SofSole, Bike and Sport, and E-Caps.
AdventureXstream 24 Hour Adventure Race, Durango
Durango, CO
June 16, 2007
http://www.gravityplay.com
Team RHOC Santa Fe: Carl Gable, Joel Krypel, Elberta Seybold, Pete
Wilson, 7th of 10, 4 person coed, 26:59:00
12th overall/ 24 teams/soloists
By Carl Gable
(Additional photos can be viewed at: http://picasaweb.google.com/cwgable/RaceDurango24HourAdventureXstream )
We definately got our monies worth out of this twenty-four hour event, finishing
just before midnight, twenty-four hours after the start. The additional three hours
added to our time were for three missed checkpoints in the orienteering course.
Our navigation went well with no extra steps to find checkpoints; we just were not
moving fast enough to get all the points. Mountain biking, with the extra loop up
Dutch Creek, took a lot out of us. By the time we reach the high point, we were
not climbing very fast. We ended up skipping the ropes section and taking the
one-hour penalty. That allowed us to get to the boating section by 7 pm, 1 hr
before the cutoff.
Carl Gable at the start of the bike riding leg.
The upper section of water was moving a lot faster than the 'flat water' paddle
we had expected. I think this was, in part, due to the fact that it was hot earlier in
the week so there was a big pulse of runoff resulting in water levels of 3000cfs.
The paddle seemed to be going smoothly until we got separated by a split in the
river. There are a lot of them but the one where we separated (Pete and I going
left, Joel and Elle going right) was one that did not rejoin for nearly a mile. We
spent nearly an hour trying to regroup, not being able to figure out where the
other boat was. By the time we rejoined, it was nighttime and pitch black.
Joel Krypel and Elle Seybold beginning the kayak. Not the high water and trees in the water.
The rest of the way down the meanders was rather uneventful although the finish
was a bit chaotic. About one half mile from the finish line the river in Durango
starts to pick up speed. We had joined up with a solo in a hard shell racing kayak
and a pair in an inflatable. As the river picked up speed we all eddied out
because it sounded like rapids below and we were in no mood to plunge into
rapids at 11pm in pitch darkness. I bashed through the bushes with a guy from
the two-person team and we ran down the railroad tracks to try to scope out the
river. It clearly had rocks, holes and fast water. We all agreed that none of us
wanted to dive into that situation so I ran down the tracks to the finish and
informed the event organizers of our situation. They agreed that we should not
run the rapids so the next hour was spent getting cars around to were we were
eddied out, loading up gear and then returning to the finish area. After all of this
was done, we clocked out with an official time of 11:59pm. We were glad that it
was finally over.
Training Events:
Cochiti 100m/100k Mtb Bike
Cochiti, NM
June 9, 2007
Deb Werenko and Gary Johnson
By Deb Werenko
Gary Johnson and Deb Werenko participated in this NM Endurance series event
with about 20-30 other participants. We had an absolutely spectacular day.
Starting off in the wee hours of the morning we completed the 100K in about 10
leisurely hours. Our elevation gain was about 5500 ft and distance was about 66
miles. We completed 2/3 possible loops and as far as we could tell there was
only one person who completed all 3 loops. The first of the two loops circled the
Jemez via the Dome Road to Mid-town and Carl Shipman trails to FR 268, on to
Media Dia Canyon Trail and back to Dixon's. The second loop went up Bland
Canyon, and around to the Alamo switchbacks back into Cochiti Canyon, down
26 water crossings and back. The course was challenging, including forest roads,
and a lot of fun single-track. We had perfect weather and besides a few "splats"
our equipment held up extremely well. I highly recommend the next ride in the
series that is a 70-mile jaunt, utilizing several loops around Santa Fe, on July 7.
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