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What is ‘head clearing’? It’s when I do a download…a mind dump to get stuff off my mind.

Work – too much. I remember now why I didn’t like having a ‘job’ and a boss. It’s not either the job or the boss – I have two jobs now, and two bosses, and really like both. But it’s the loss of freedom. I’m an entrepreneur at heart. I like to be free to make my own path, my own decisions and work – at least mine – just doesn’t lend itself to that.

But, times are tough out there, and I need to feed my family, pay bills and take care of business – so I suck it up, shut up and go to work.

Kids – love ‘em. I have four kids. They’re all so unique and different and I love each of them for their own merits. My oldest son Cole is turning 18 today. Wow, feeling old right about now. My youngest, Jacob is 8. And I have two in the middle, Dylan 12 and Teddi my daughter is almost 16.

The older two live with their mom locally, and the younger two with me. The younger two keep me busy and unfortunately between their Baseball, Boy Scouts, School, and my two jobs, I don’t see my older two very often. Add to this that they’re teen agers..heck adults and they just don’t really want to hang out with Dad too much. It’s kind of a bummer – but life I guess.

Location – we’ve been trying to move to Big Bear, California for a few years now, but with the housing market stinking it up out here in California, it’s just not happening. We talked with a mortgage guy the other day about refinancing and that’s not going to happen either. So, the newest plan, save some money, pay off some debt and move to Big Bear and rent our home and hope and pray for the best renters in the world. Cross you fingers.

Racing – I haven’t done any Adventure Races in months. If you’ve known me for long, I did 4 two years ago I think, and 7 last year as I recall. Love them…but need to be fit and honestly it’s been tough…well if we’re being honest – I’ve been lazy. With my schedule, when I did have time to train I usually opted not too. But, I’m back at it. I have a snowshoe race coming up in 2 months. I got third last year so I’m going to start shooting for that. I’ve been running 5-6 miles 3 days a week – either road or trail runs, and riding my road or mtn. bike the days in between. I usually don’t do any workouts on the two days that I work my day job and then night job in the same day – my ‘double’ as we call it, pretty much zaps me. They’re 16 hour work days and they’re always back to back so I just can’t do it. But other than that I’ve been pretty disciplined lately. I wanted to get some kayaking in again and some high altitude hiking to get my legs and lungs strong for the snowshoe race as it’s up in Big Bear at over 6,000 feet to START and climbs around 1000 to 1500 feet from there.

Halloween came and went, before you know it Thanksgiving will be past and Christmas is just around the corner. Dang, it only reminds me we were hoping to be in Big Bear by now. Bummer. We booked a week up there at Christmas…keep the dream alive!

Ok, so you’re all caught up. I’m busy, but doing well. Hanging in there – you do the same!

Central Coast Adventure Challenge – This was a 12-hour race – with cut offs.

We started with a kayak leg that took us about 45-50 minutes and took us from one end of Santa Margarita Lake to the other. It was about 5 miles in our estimation. We paddles the 3-person Kayak with Randy, Myself and Veronica and Blake was in the solo Glider.

We were out of the boat in good position, maybe 10th out of the 50 or so teams. Next we had about a 2 mile run to the Bike Transition. Unfortunately about 100 yards into this run, Randy rolled his ankle severely spraining it, or possibly breaking it (no word yet).

I hooked him up to a tow system and helped him to the bike TA. We got him mounted and took off on the bike leg. I had made two tow rigs with some PVC and surgical tubing for Blake and I to tow Randy and Veronica. But, we hadn’t anticipated Randy’s lack of ability to really pedal much at all. One other surprise was a 17-mile fire road climb. YES – 17 miles of climbing – almost non-stop. I towed Randy the entire way except for a short distance when I just needed a break and Blake pulled him and I towed Veronica. Once on top of the Mountain we descended over rolling terrain hitting checkpoints flawlessly thanks to Blake’s excellent navigation and pre-scouting the terrain. There was 1 CP that I had to run to in my Bike shoes about 1 mile off the bikes and do a bit of rock-climbing to get the CP. In total the bike was around 30 miles and with all that climbing took us nearly 5 1/2 hours. Still we were encouraged when we arrived and found ourselves still in great position overall, but knowing that our teammate couldn’t continue. We’d come in right with Feed The Machine and a few other very well known competitive teams with “kids” (young adults in there mid-late 20’s) and we’re all mid-40’s, me being the ‘baby’ at 43.

We dragged Randy to the medic who said it was an absolute no-go for Randy. Ice/tape/rest was all he was having. At this point our 4 person team was disqualified – and all we’d earn was a DNF (Did-not-finish).

We decided to go after a few more checkpoints anyway – for the training anyway. We had 3 1/2 hours to get the last points, get the boats and get them back to the start/finish TA. I’ll make a long story short, we made a nav error – not Blake’s fault, but a team decision, and wasted a bunch of time/energy/water and fuel not getting where we wanted to go. When we did find where we needed to be we had run low on time/water and needed to abandon. We still had to get out to the other end of the lake and paddle the kayaks back.

What should have been an easy task was made more difficult when we ran into a bear cub about my size on the trail. A cub – but with Momma’ bear likely close by, we quickly changed course and had to re-navigate our way back to the boats.

At this point the light was gone, we’d been out almost 10 hour and had an hour paddle back to the boats with little fuel/water and no lights. Luckily between Black and I we remembered the layout of the lake and found our way through the darkness and 1/4 moon’s glow to find the finish.

Randy was there waiting for us. We packed up the bicycle/kayaks and finally left the TA at around 10:30pm after having arrived at 6am.

So….not the race we’d hoped for, but we learned a lot. I did anyway, and had a great time. Tough? – Absolutely. I was toast!

Can’t wait to do it again…can’t wait for the Poison Oak to set in. )

Today was the Orange County Adventure Race…with nearly 250 competitors…the largest AR in recent history for sure.

I raced with a team I hadn’t raced with before. Team SCRAT (like in the movie ICE AGE “It’s all about the acorn”).

One guy was a guy I’d seen at races and even talked to a few time, his sister, myself, my friend Michael who I’ve been doing trail run/rides with regularly and a new guy none of us knew until today.

Anyway, we got together for the 5 person Co-Ed race – the premeir division and….smoked the field! We got 1st place for 5 Person Team, 1st Person for 5 Person Co-Ed and yes…. 1st Finishers overall.

We were happily surprised and felt good about the showing. Details of the race are below.

Ok, the race was sprint distance…it started out with about a 1 mile run to three checkpoints. The first you picked up a paddle ‘handle’ (4 foot stick), at the second CP you got the blade of the paddle (a 10″ x 1′ flat board with 2 holes drilled in it), and at CP3 you got 2 zip ties per person. Then back at the staging area you had to construct the paddles by putting the blade on the handle and zip tying it together. While that was going on you had to inflate your raft. As a 5 person team we had a 3-man raft and a 2-man raft so we inflated both and were off to the water.

The paddle was about 1 mile or so – short, but no easy task in a raft with funky paddles. The CP was a floating buoy out in the middle of the lake. We were the first team to get there and return to shore.

When we got back our team had to direct two blindfolded team members through a maze of sorts collecting rocks from buckets and then direct them out of the pen.

Now we were off on the Mtn. Bike section. 6 Checkpoints covering about 7 miles of trail. Not a big deal – nothing technical at all, just fire roads. We flew through it and returned to the staging area.

Upon our return we had to do an obstacle course of sorts – nothing to challenging and then off on the run.

The run was about 3-4 miles of trail running with some fire roads mixed in. We flew through it finding the checkpoints with no problems. We came in just under 2 hours for what was billed as a 4 hour race.

As I said – 1st overall, 1st in our division…1st, Numero Uno, Number 1, Tops, The Best, Fastest…should I go on?!

We had a great time, had excellent teamwork and that’s what it’s all about!

I’ve been doing mtn. bike/trail run workouts every other day for weeks now and my legs were starting to feel seriously toasted, so I opted to take a day off both and go for a nice paddle. I usually head down to the lagoon and paddle, but decided to head down to the beach and do some ocean kayaking. I was in for a treat.

I paddled out through the harbor and headed south running parallel to the beach. I was about a mile from shore I’d estimate had been paddling about a 1/2 hour when I saw a few dolphins maybe 1/4 mile ahead of me. I hoped they’d stick around as I drew nearer.

Not only did they stick around, but they were breeching within feet of the kayak. I literally got splashed like a visit to Sea World! I almost rolled the boat. It was absolutely incredible. I’ve been in the water bodysurfing or boogie boarding when there were dolphins nearby, but nothing like this. I sat and didn’t paddle for about 5 minutes while they played nearby. As I began to paddle again, I saw them skimming the water right next to me, below me, in front of me. There were about 7 of them I’d guess.

I continued to paddle South down past the Oceanside Pier and then turned around at 45 minutes. On my way back I saw them playing nearby but paddled a more direct route back to the harbor.

I was out for an hour and a half or so and probably did around 6 miles I’m guessing…no way to know for sure. I’m so glad I went to the ocean today and skipped the harbor. Very very cool day!

I was mountain biking around Calavera Lake with a friend the other day…look what we came across. This big rattler was close to 6 feet long and quite thick.

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been since January since I posted, almost 5 weeks. Time flies when you’re having fun – right?

Not too long ago I had another Adventure Race. This one was up in the Temecula, California area at an area called Vail Lake. It’s a private resort actually, but they allowed us to use the facility for the race.

I raced with the same guys I raced the Lake Hodges AR with and we placed then, so we were hoping for another podium finish – and got it!

Well I took 3 full days off…did nothing to try and kind of get my fresh legs back for my race today. It was killing me doing nothing – but I guess it paid off.

The race started at 7:00am with 3 hours of Mountain biking. We had 10 checkpoints to get. You could get as many or as few as you wanted, but each checkpoint counted as 5 points and you got a 1 point penalty for each minute you were late over 3 hours. We got 9 and got back at 2:59…with only a minute to spare. We later found out, not one team got all 10, so we felt pretty good about our bike peformance.

Next we transitioned into the Kayaks. 2 hours, 6 checkpoints and around 6 miles of paddling. We cleared the course with 20 minutes to spare! It was touch because the checpoints were always about 100 yards from shore, so you’d have to get out of the boat, run (which is tough when you’ve been sitting and paddling) and then get back in the boat and paddle again…6 times!
Last was the run, or as they call it the trek. There were 9 checkpoints, 3 hours and about 8 miles of terrain to cover. We worked well together and pumped out 8 of the 9 and came in with 30 minutes to spare. The one we missed was about 20 minutes away, so it would have been 40 minutes round trip or 10 minutes late, which would be a 10 point penalty to only get 5…so we ditched it.

We normally race 3 guys and a gal, but the gal has been MIA lately so we raced all guys. First it was 3, then 4…then a 5th mate…too many. You can only have 4, so we ended up racing a 3 and a 2. But we stayed together during the race anyway.

At the end of 7 hours of racing you don’t really know how you did because you don’t know how many checkpoints everyone else has. And if the points tie, it comes down to total elapsed time.
Our team name is “My Kind Of Party”, so we had MKOP1 and MKOP2. When the awards were dolled out – we got third place…for the 2 man team and the 3/4 man teams. It was a great day for Team My Kind Of Party and for me!

I love Adventure racing. It is so freaking hard. At the end of the bike leg, I got off to run into this ravine to get a checkpoint. Both my quads immediately cramped. When I got out of the kayak to run up the banks, my hamstrings cramped. And when I ran for 8 miles with a pack all over the countryside, I was fine.

There are so many variable – physcial and mental. For an 8 hour, very physically demanding race you have to remember to eat and drink or you’ll seriously bonk. You have to be able to use a map and compass. This is critical as thats how you find the checkpoints. One mistake and you could be wasting time looking for a checkpoint that not’s there. You have to stay within 100 yards of all teammates, all the time. So it’s a team event – no one wins alone. We towed someone in our kayak because they were tired. We wait for slower runners. I pushed someone up a hill on the bikes…we’re a team. I just love the whole sport. I like triathlons, but AR has just taken multisport to a new level for me.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m doing some adventure racing – the sport includes trail running, mtn. biking, orienteering/navigating, kayaking, climbing/rappelling and more.

In an effort to prepare for these 6-24 hour long races, I’ve been doing quite a bit of training trail running and mountain biking, both in the daytime and after dark with lights.

Well, I couldn’t resist a downhill video session with my new helmet cam that Santa brought me.

It’s pretty bumpy and I’m still figuring out what the ‘view’ of the camera is, so the orientation is a bit low on the horizon, but it’s still fun! Enjoy…

So some of that weight loss I wrote about in my last post came from an extensive amount of exercise. Over the past 20 years I’ve raced bicycles, played semi-pro paintball, done triathlons, raced inline skates for RollerBlade around the country, swam, ran and rode all kinds of things. But this past year, after losing the bulk of my weight, I started doing more triathlons.

I completed 6 or 7 triathlons this season – mostly sprint distance and a few international distance. These races typically start with a swim of up to 1000 meters, followed immediately by a bicycle ride of up to 25 miles, followed by a run of up to 10k (6.2 miles). Some have different formats or distances, but that’s the typicaly scenario.

I also competed in several swimming events including a 5k open water swim…that’s a 3.1 mile Ocean swim for you metrically challenged folks. )

Well after having done the triathlons, bicycle racing, swimming…everything else I was of course looking for the ‘next thing’ – the evolution of my sports.

Let me shift gears a bit and come back to this. About a year ago – or more, I started planning a move for my family. We’re moving to Big Bear, California. It’s a small mountain town of around 5,000 people (at the most), East of San Bernardio/Los Angeles, California. It’s gorgeous up there at almost 7,000 feet. We spend nearly all our vacation time there hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding and kayaking and boating on Big Bear Lake. Nic and I work at home full-time and we can do our work anywhere…so why not Big Bear? Oh yes, I almost forgt to tell you… I can buy a house for around 200,000 dollars less than where I live now! Anyway, with the mountain aspects coming into play I thought Adventure Racing was the natural progression for me…

Ok, back to the ‘evolution of my sports’. Along the way I heard about Adventure Racing. It’s a triathlon “plus” if you will. Like a triathon the distances and disciplines vary, but essentially here’s what they’re about. You will Run/Trek/Hike, Swim/Paddle, Bike/Mountain Bike, Climb/Rappel, as well as normally do some other tasks requiring teamwork or using your brain – like a mental type puzzle or riddle – oh yeh, and you do all this while navigating using a compass, topographic map and coordinates – no GPS. You can do them solo, but typically you’re on a team of 2-4 people. They’re a team event with everyone having to stay within 100 yards of one another at all times. They last anywhere from 6 hours to 6 days…yes nearly a week!

Well I got my first taste this summer with an Urban Adventure Race in San Diego. My buddy Josh and I finished 2nd place overall. This was essentially just a bike race with some fun events thrown in the middle. At approximately 5 mile intervals we had to walk on stilts, ride a big wheel through an obstacle course, jump on a giant hippity-hop, do a bean-bag toss, and do a wheel barrow race with a teammate in the wheelbarrow. It was fun and got me thinking about a ‘real’ adventure race doing the things I like and excel at – Mtn. Biking, trail running, kayaking…

I got my first chance last month in the Lake Hodges Adventure Race. It was billed as a 12-hour

race. Here’s what the race entailed: First we kayaked 1.5 miles across the lake and back to retrieve a small foam ball (again – the checkpoints are not given – just the coordinates and you have to navigate using a map/compass to find them). Upon returning you carry the small foam ball on a golf tee around a short course without it falling off. Seems easy enough unless you just kayaked for 1/2 hour and your arms are shaking and you’re out of breath. My two teammates Louis and Cory and I all did fine and soon we were off to cover around 20 miles of terrain on our Mtn. Bikes. We used the coordinates of checkpoints and a map to follow trails to the 6 checkpoints we needed. The checkpoints took us to the top of the tallest hill in the area – no small feat on the bikes and negotiating the course with the other 75 competitors. Cory got a flat on the way back, but that only set us back about 3-4 minutes.

At this point we were instructed to build a small waterfall out of pvc tubing – 20 pieces max that had been provided. There was a funnel at one end and a bucket at the other. Our goal – fill the bucket with 3 dixie cups with water from the lake 50 yards away. So for 10 minutes we ran to the lake, and back with our 6 oz. of water – pouring them in the funnel, having it run down our version of the waterfall we constructed and into the bucket. When the bucket overflowed we got our next set of 3 checkpoints to navigate. They were on the water…

Back in the ‘yaks for another 5 miles of kayaking. By the end of this leg of the race my arms were ready to fall off! But we made good time and passed several teams on the water. This leg was nearly 2 hours on the water…

Along the way you have to remember to eat and drink or you’ll simply run out of gas in a 12 hour race of non-stop exertion. We all did well at this with an alarm we set to chime every hour to remind us to eat drink.

When we got out of the boats we got our next 5 checkpoints to navigate. They had to be done on foot. Trail running/hiking only. According to the map it would be around 6-8 miles of ground to cover. And off we went. We found the first two checkpoints right away. The next two proved to be challenging as they were each at the very top of two large peaks of at least 1000 feet of climbing each…ouch! Eventually we found them and hit the last checkpoint on the way back to the Start/Finish line.

What a great feeling it was to be jogging down that last bit of trail and see the finish. I was seriously pooped out. It took us 7 hours to complete the entire course and we finished 1st place for the “Masters” group – which means our teams averag age was over 40. ) We finished 2nd for 3-4 person teams and 6th overall. Not bad at all.

This truly was an adventure, and I can’t wait for my next AR!