Monday, July 8, 2013

Pikes Peak Adventure Race 2013

This was our first Team Race in The Rocky Mountain Region. This Event was put on by BMAR (Big Mountain Adventure Racing). Being new to this area we had no idea what to expect, race wise. All we knew is that it was at the foot of Pikes Peak the 30th Highest 14er in Colorado at 14,110 ft. So we knew with start at about 7700ft we knew there would be some heavy elevation gain along the course.
Teaming up with a local racer named Ari, with the middle name Lupine, seemed to be a great fit....and it was.  Team Lupine arrived friday night at the S/F for check in.  And to our surprise we got the full pre plotted map(huh?), clue sheet and passport.  We looked at each other and said, wow, really?  Cool.  Did not make the course elevation any easier but the navigation seemed to be pretty straight forward so Not much excise for our Suunto Compasses this time around. 


The break down went like this with of course some “Skip CPs as needed in order to make time cutoffs” and you could do the CPs within the legs in any order not to return to the leg before.  Leg 1 was a short 2 mile run down the road and then a 1 mile climb up lower Pikes Peak on a dirt trail...then we started to tackle each cp A, B, C, D and then to the Boats at E(TA).  We estimated a 3 hour window for this run and did just fine arriving around 11am. Being a 3 person coed team we had to take 2 boats.  We immediately took the bungy and tied the second boat that had PWild and our packs, onto our boat.  The crosswind was not our friend on the paddle going out but the ride back was awesome, getting all points way ahead of our goal time.  Way to go TEAM!  PWild as usual was yelling “Punch and GO!”  The heat and altitude seem to take a toll of JZ and PWild but thanks to our Mule Ari (aka. Doc) he was helping the team push thru.  PWild even gave two other teams cramping electrolyte pills on the go. :)  We had to leave the TA off the Paddle by 1:30 with no penalty, NO problem.

 Now off to the bike leg, we were told this could take up to 9 hours for some teams.  CPs a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h(mystery event with extra points if made to before cut off of 4pm) and i(TA).  We were off on a short road ride straight to a flowing single track section.  Coming up other racers and enjoying the camaraderie.  The trails never seem to end!  Climbing higher and higher as we go, just as we think we are going down we turn and go right back up.




  :)  We get to the mystery event with some team struggles along the way, with altitude some sickness but we push thru.  This is when the real language of stories to tell started and will remain out of this race report to help keep it clean.  The mystery event was a series of team balancing obstacles and such. We knew the clues for the CPs of the mystery event bonus points but didn't get the map locations until we completed the mystery event.  This took some crucial time as there was a large bottleneck of teams here. We got the challenge done and got to transfer the 7 bonus cp points to our map and take off.  We thought we might be able to do them on foot(before we saw the map) but realized quickly that back on the bike we we go. 
Our favorite CP was the one in the “Gold Mine Shaft”, now we know why we needed our Lupine Headlamps as part of the race mandatory gear, I bet the miners would have loved having a Bright headlamp like the Piko or Wilma to find there treasure.
 
 Looking at the clock we had to be back at i(TA) by 6:30 or “harsh penalty” and we were at the farthest part of the course map right now.  Pushing up and down climbs on our bikes we grabbed the last bike points (d and a) and hit i(TA) before the cut off.  At this point we have cleared the course, leaving 4 bonus points.  We had i, F and Finish line to get now.  We made it back to the TA on bike after a very fast ride on sandwash bike trails down lower Pikes Peak.  PWild wrecked twice and got a bloody nose and pushed on (What a trooper)! LOL  JZ and ARI were loving it!  Got to the TA, changed quickly out of our bike gear, turned in our bikes and bin and headed out for the last few points making it way before the cut off.  
We took a short cut climbing down a large re-entrant that was cliff like and lots of boulders bigger than we were. Our Salomon Speed Cross and Slab Wings kept us sure footed on the way down, no problem. Thisway did not seem to take much time off, but what a VIEW on the way down. following the waterfalls all the way down :)  




 Coming into the finish we had a great time.  Team Lupine #902 (10....oh that's our number) finished in 10 hours? with bonus finish time was 9:08......



2nd Place Coed Team just 23 minutes behind first place coed team.                                                                                  Way to go Team Lupine Racing!




We found it a very different type of Race. This was a more point to point race and you had to make a choice of picking and choosing your points as a team. There were not too many teams that were out there for the full 12 hours due to harsh on course TA penalties. We had a great time out there and thank you to BMAR for putting on the event.