I recently went on a month vacation in South Africa for the World Cup. Whilst I was there, I saw many wondrous sites – and of course fit in some geocaching. One place that was incredible was the World Heritage site and one of the Seven Wonders of the World….Victoria Falls.
In planning our vacation, I created the geocache maps for each location we were to visit so we would be prepared with the local GPX files. This is what I saw in Zimbabwe and the Victoria Falls area.
Not many located in that 5 mile radius when in Cape Town there were over 100. We were determined to get at least one geocache in every place, and especially in each country we visited. Who knows… maybe one day we can aim for having a geocache from every country where available…I know a few geocachers that have started this mission.
So we woke up and walked to Mosi-oa-Tunya, meaning “The Smoke that Thunders,” and is the indigenous name of Victoria Falls. The walk there was filled with locals selling their wares such as wood carvings and braided necklaces. It was very sad to see the plight of this nation and how the local people seemed defeated in their economy. Having recently abandoned their local currency of Zimbabwe dollars, they were very happy to see Americans and their newly adopted $$$. They sell their old currency of 100 Trillion dollars to use for $5. It’s worth $0.60 but we pay the ‘tourist premium’.
We arrive at the entrance and pay the $30 US entrance fee. And off we enter with our yellow rain jackets we rented for an additional $3 each. There are 14 different view points to stop at and some are very dry and some are very wet. We visited all of them….so you can guess if we came out wet or dry!
The geocache we were after here was GC28A6Z and it was an Earthcache. This is a cache that people can visit to learn about a unique geoscience feature or aspect of our Earth. EarthCaches include a set of educational notes and the details about where to find the location (latitude and longitude). Visitors to EarthCaches can see how our planet has been shaped by geological processes, how we manage the resources and how scientists gather evidence to learn about the Earth.
For more information about EarthCaches, visit http://www.earthcache.org/.
So we arrived at the location and it asks us to do the following to log this geocache:
- What is the area of the sheet of falling water?
- Calculate the amount of hydro power in the Falls- the equation you need is Power= Height*Flow*Gravity, where Gravity= 9.8 m/s^2.
- What is your elevation at your current position?
- Attach a picture of yourself at this location- though in high season the spray might make this very impractical!
We sent off the details for the above (Google is always a help on these things) and you can see the photo below. I guess we got a little wet!!!
This weekend was a quick trip to Mexico for an adventure race hosted by Equinox.
The trip down from San Diego was a little longer than the expected 2.5 hours at a whopping 6 hours!!! Seems like a lot of people head to Mexico on Saturday morning…
The little village of La Bufadora was a welcome surprise and we quickly got into vacation mode – a nice nap, walk along the pier, a beer or two, and THE best churros ever!!
Coming here with friends makes the experience something to share and stories unfolded into the night…with the promise of the next day filling all with anticipation.
So race day morning arrives and now the test starts…did we pack everything we needed? I did have a list in packing (learnt from not doing this before) which meant we had all stuff in car.
But I didn’t have a ‘race day pack’ list. And no transition points to leave stuff – so take all that you need. Very hard to do when you don’t know the landscape.
- Will it be hot or bloody hot (so more water)?
- Will it have steep uphills on hike (so take poles)?
- Will you need shoes for the kayak section (or just go barefoot or make do with wet running shoes)?
These things matter because of weight. Carrying a pack that has 1 pound of weight you didn’t need can add probably 15 minutes to a short race. And carrying poles or tying shoes on the bag make it harder for manoeuvrability…biking through a bush and getting poles caught is NOT fun!
So we spent too long thinking and missed the kids race. Darn – as we heard good stories about the water balloons.
Race time was coming up and we made our way to the debrief. It was in Spanish and I don’t speak a word except for ‘cerveza’. Barrie saw our looks of terror and produced a map and instructions in English. Hooray!!!
Standard adventure race with the 4 disciplines – kayak, hike/run, mountain bike, and orienteering. I should really add food and mental attitude as additional disciplines because they can make or break you. We tried adventure racing 4 years ago but our communication and mental attitude was to yell at each other the whole time…not fun or successful!
Race time approached and we set up bikes near the beach and walked down the stairs to the kayak. Bangers (other team member of our bangers and mash team) quickly thought that kayaking without socks would save our feet in running in wet socks and we raced to take these off. Back to the kayak and got set off into the wave breaks with the help of the crew. Made our way to the start line where 19 teams jostled in their kayaks ranging from first timers to seasoned vets.
3 – 2 – 1 and we are off!! I started us off with a successful technique of singing the pace. Make a song that calls the numbers and some bad rhyming and off we go.
Ocean swells were quite high so had to adjust for this on the route by not keeping too close to the shore. We saw seals and jellyfish making the paddle more entertaining. Got to the cove where the checkpoint was and set the kayak ashore. Sent Bangers running up the hill to get the checkpoint.
Paddled back with even higher swells and managed a safe landing.
Transition to hike…except Equinox added a little twist. Bike to the transition point to start you hike. So 2x shoe changes. At least we had dry socks (good call Bangers!)
We were #7 in kayak so as I looked for our bike route I scanned the landscape for others. Nothing. So we started on our way but just could not find the route I was aiming for. Frustration alert!!! Found a break in a fence and took that and back on the route we needed. Phew!!
Arrived at transition. Deja vu for the shoe change. Consulted my map again and told team mate what to expect – communication is vital so team knows what to expect, can keep a lookout, and has confidence that on the right path. So I stated “we’ll hug the ocean along a ridge line” and we head off. But 3 other teams turn up the hill and no-one goes the ridge line path.
Navigator dilemma – did I make the wrong choice? Do they know something I don’t? A hard call to make – but I was confident in my choice and off we went. Bingo!!
The hike was not on a ‘path’ and was actually like hiking up a cliff. Yes, a 1 mile uphill cliff scramble. Except a cliff would have rocks and this was just loose gravel with cacti and bush. Slow and steady…and don’t look down!!
Good tip from other was to use a branch from old cactus as a stick. Much better but it took a good 45 mins to get up that cliff. At the top was a friendly gringo smiling with a glass of water. Love ya Burt!!
Picked up checkpoint and back to transition. Biking again. Was not really looking forward to this as woefully out of practice on the bike. And I’m still trying to build up my confidence.
So we chose a path and hike-biked our way to the first checkpoint. Time was not looking in our favor with 1.5 hours left to do 4 checkpoints. We knew we could get 2 and had to choose whether to go for a 3rd. The 3rd of course would be far far away in another galaxy … But hey if you’ve travelled this far for a race, then make the most of it.
So another hill climb on the hike-a-bike adventure (seeing a theme yet on this leg?) and we at least have some flat to ride on. We play a continuous game of ‘hey we’ve seen you before” to 2 teams of Mexicans. They look like they know what they are doing (ok I lied here but it makes me feel better – and they did have fancy matching jerseys). We choose the easier of the 2 checkpoints and head back towards the water. It’s now 2:40 and we are meant to be back by 3pm. Uuurrrggh not even sure we will get back in time let alone get that extra checkpoint we wanted.
Choice??? Some races will disqualify you if you miss the time so we headed back. And Barrie smiles at the finish and says “I don’t even have a watch on”….Just another day in Mexico!!!
Thanks to Barrie, Steve, and Victor from Team Equinox for another fun filled adventure race. See ya next year!
Tags: adventure race, equinox, hiking, kayaking, mexico, mountain biking, orienteering
I just spent 4 weeks in South Africa (and nearby countries Zimbabwe and Botswana) for a vacation. And of course….football!!!
It all started at New Years Eve 2009…when I was looking at the new year about to start and thought “what adventure are we going to have in 2010?” I started to surf the web and found the FIFA website.
This triggered all the things people said about how great Germany was and the atmosphere. I’ve wanted to go to Africa and this seemed like a great way to combine a new place to explore and the World Cup 2010. So I put in my bid for 15 tickets and waited…..
Feb 28th 2010 – An email arrived with “Congratulations you have 7 tickets….and we charged your credit card $3,000″
So the next few months were planning out where to go and what to see.
Of course, I thought “I wonder if there are any geocaches in South Africa?” and not really expecting much….
I ran a few pocket queries and woah, was I surprised….this is just a few miles of Cape Town…
And this picture is a 10 mile radius. Incredible amount of South Africa geocaching!
We ended up with ~50 South Africa geocaches and got one in every city with a football match we attended. Not bad.
To see more about the football, you can see a prior post with a short video on the goals, cities, games, and fun!
Tags: geocaching maps, go geocaching, south africa geocaching, world cup
Welcome to the latest geocaching tool that we have added to our arsenal…Watson the geodog!
Dogs can be great as helpful geocaching tools because:
- They have great smell to sniff out the box underneath a rock
- They have great hearing to alert you when a muggle is coming around the corner
- They are man’s best friend so you can share in your delight when you find another geocache!
He’s only a puppy but as a terrier mix, he has bundles of energy and in 3 weeks we have yet to wear him out on a walk. So we decided to test his hiking and uphill skills out on Iron Mountain in San Diego.
This is a hike that many people take their dogs on, and indeed on Iron Mountain we saw over 30 dogs in 1 hour of all shapes and sizes. We asked if the little ones (dachshunds, yorkies…) had made it up and the owners all said “of course!!”
I ran the Iron Mountain Geocache Hall of Fame query and focused on the Iron Mountain side of the park…we managed to find 10 today including a puzzle (hooray for me and those Cryptogram puzzles). Congratulations to Watson the geodog on his first hike, completing 2 miles.
Here’s the link to the geocache if you want to solve and find it yourself. GCWGE1 Cryptogram
Tags: geocache hall of fame, geocaching tools, geodog, hiking, iron mountain, san diego
Hooray – we just got back from the World Cup 2010 tournament in South Africa.
We had a great time…and more will come, but loading up this little video of just the football fun we had.
You might even see us playing a vuvuzela….but we deny all knowledge of this publicly.
PS: We even went geocaching too in South Africa…more to come.
The Mount Laguna Adventure race was this weekend and was our first chance to test out our fitness skills on a longer terrain. It’s a fun training event first then race second rather than the other way around.
The event was put together by Team Equinox (Steve & Jake) where they had spent long hours thinking and trekking and testing the trails in Mount Laguna. They then had a group of like minded fun adventure racers to come and put then through their paces. They did an awesome job and it is much appreciated!!!
So seeing as it was my birthday….what better way to spend the day than to push myself to a new limit of physical and mental exertion. And indeed I did.
Race Report Summary
27.1 miles total in 8:55 mins
15.7 miles of hiking (expected was 11 miles)
11.4 miles of mountain biking (expected was 20 miles)
Race Report
We woke up at 5am but the week had been quite busy with work, geocaching adventures, good bye parties, and my birthday. So it was very difficult to drag myself out of bed to get into the car to get to the race….We arrived at the El Prado Campground at 7:45am with the expected race briefing to be at 8am. Thank goodness it was not a formal race because they did not start the briefing and map handout until 8:30am. This meant that all the stuff we had just thrown into the car at 6am could be sorted out into some semblance of organized chaos.
I thought of little tips along this day of learning….some of which we did and some of which we didn’t.
Tip #1: Organize your stuff the night before. (did it)
Tip #2: Pack it into the car the night before as well. (should have done it)
Tip #3: Have a standard checklist at hand to tick off what you need pre, during, and post event (we were not even close)
So we faffed around and checked our stuff, handed water to Steve to take to checkpoints. It was already 70 degrees at 8am so we knew it was going to be a hot day of racing. Water was going to be a key resource.
We got the maps at 8:30 and sat at a picnic table and talked with 2 ladies from the team called So Cal Hoycats. They knew the area and were helpful in chatting with us and discussing their thought process. We discovered that we needed to plot UTM coords for the long course and that was a nice “uh-oh” moment. We’ve never plotted a UTM coordinate before and did not have the ‘plotter’ tool. The ladies explained it and I had my “ah-ha” moment that it was not as hard as it sounded. Just using a ruler to measure distance. Our GPS geocaching adventures meant I knew what I was doing.
Tip #4: Know what a UTM coordinate is and have one of those plotter things handy (we kinda had this)
We also picked up a new crew member at this point, Keith from our weekly hiking group. He didn’t bike but came along for the atmosphere and asked if we were running or hiking the first section. “We aimed to hike it but we are going at a Barrie pace” And our team “Bangers & Mash” became “Bangers & Mash & Gravy”
Tip #5: Know who’s on your team at the start and set expectations for pace and style (did this)
The whistle was blown at 9am and we took our time to plot coords. Seemed logical where they were placed giving me confidence I’d plotted them correctly. I had a good plan of action for the route we were going to take, knowing that there were some places to check and adjust if needed and of course to expect the unexpected. If Equinox put on the race, they like to put some little twists to teach you!
Tip #6: Have an initial route plan laid out, using existing trails as much as possible (practice here has ticked this one off)
Tip #7: Be ready to adjust the route as needed or before (got this part but learnt a new tip added later)
We started by mountain biking to get to the first transition area. It was 2.5 miles and took 20 minutes. Enough people were around that meant you didn’t need to follow the map as much at this point. It was hard to get started and uphill with a full backpack got my first mental test “will it be like this the whole way?!” freakout moment. Now I know that this is just the start up jitters and the loosen up of the legs…so don’t fear the first 30 minutes.
Tip #8: The first 30 minutes are about loosening the mental jitters. Expect it and it’ll shake out.
Hiking adventure begins! Got the map, got the route, and ready to go. The start section is exciting, all the team is in jovial spirits and because it’s my birthday, Bangers had set up little ‘points mean prizes’ activites along the way where he would ask questions about the tv series Friends and we had to answer questions. This was a nice touch for the birthday – but actually a great adventure race tip as well for mental agility and focus. We’ll repeat this one!
Tip #9: Have a trivia topic that can engage the whole team and last a whole adventure race to kee a positive mental spirit.
Part 1 of hiking was complete with 5 miles down. Stopped for water – we had already drank 100 ounces of water already. Continued on and the first section where the long adventure racers had to choose diferent options to get to their checkpoints. I discussed the choice with the team and why (take the road up and around or the closer trail and expect bushwhacking). I chose the latter and was happy with the choice. During the navigation – I was vocal about the route we were taking, expectations of landmarks they would see (sharp bends, up hill sections, hills to the left or right) and also the expected timing. This meant my team members always knew what was going on, what to expect, and had confidence in me and in themselves.
Tip #10: Navigators need to be open in communication with the team mates of what’s happening, what’s expected, and distances and times. (got this one from a few good practice sessions and training from Barrie)
We go the R2-L checkpoint at the water dam and headed back to the trail. This was a BIG decision for our route. We could backtrack to hook up with a clear main trail or carry on the way we had seen another 2 teams. The map didn’t show a clear reason why they had chosen this….so we went the backtrack route. All went well to get to checkpoint 3.
At checkpoint 3 it was now under the mid-day heat, we had eaten all the good food and were sweating a lot. Not overheated but not feeling peachy either. We had done 8 miles of hiking, the limit we did on the weekly Wed hike. This was my biggest navigation learning that I did not do and Jake gave me tips at the end of the day.
I had plotted the option to go to R3-L after Checkpoint 4 because there was not a trail showing on the map. It didn’t look like an easy trail from CP 4 but was trying to use prior tips of “always stick to trails if there is one”. I did not look to adjust until after we had gotten to CP4 whereas I should have used the higher vantage point we had at R2-L to see if I could see any unmarked trails in the valley for a possible alternative to R3-L.
Tip #11: Use higher vantage points on hills to scout out navigational points across the whole course – even 2 or 3 CPs ahead (my biggest race learning)
By not using this tip we had to use a harder trail that had more elevation gain and was less well marked creating over 1:40 minutes of a hunting detour. We came to a road and I was not sure if it was the road on the map – it looked abandoned rather than a “road” (now I know a road is a road is a road). We walked for a few minutes and kept checking and asking questions to see if we were on the right path. But 5 minutes turned into 15 turned into 30. We knew we had to head back to be at the transition area before 3pm and i was now 1:40pm. That’s when we saw the trail we were looking for.
Do we go or skip it? I REALLY wanted to tray and get it, if we didn’t then we had no option to complete the long course. So we followed the trail, but we had the same issues with 5 minutes becoming 15 becoming 30. At 2:25pm we had to turn back and knew we’d miss the 3pm deadline too at the transition area.
*LOWEST MENTAL POINT* reached at this point for me and the team. Felt dejected after so much looking, lacking energy and cold water, and had been in the hot sun for hours.
Tip #12: Have a plan to get out of these mid-race mental funks (we didn’t)
We hiked it back as fast as we could and got back at 3:45pm. Christine was not pleased to see us so late at the checkpoint (sorry!) and we were close to having a search team started. Another kicker to the mental low point.
Decision – do we just call it a day then? We would not be able to finish even the short course in time….and we were tired….and our feet hurt. And we were cranky. But we were here to practice and see what we could do. The point was to make mistakes and see how you recover. We settled on just biking back to camp.
So we got back on the bike after a 40 minute break. No rush from our decision and it let the throbbing feet cool down. We started the bike and it was not easy going back uphill. But a funny thing happened after 15 minutes. We had reached the trail split off point to the camp or to the checkpoint. We looked at each other and felt just a little bit of energy to tackle 1 checkpoint and then we’d go back to camp.
The trails were nice and flat with a few tree roots and rocks thrown in for some technique practice. But overall very do-able for us both. We took 20 minutes to get to the checkpoint and cheered to ourselves. Let’s get 1 more and off we did in another 20 minutes. Time was now at the end and we had to get back before the deadline of 6pm. So we biked back and rolled in at 5:55pm.
We felt fantastic – exhausted from the heat and 9 hours of being out there, but elated that we had lasted 9 hours and had pushed past a mental barrier and not given up. We heard the stories of others and found that only 2 teams completed the long course – most did not find the R3-L that we had spent so long searching for. We also found we were only 200 feet away and had touched the early orange marker flag. Vindication in my navigation!
Overall we did the most time we’ve ever done at 9 hours, the most total distance at 27.1 miles, the longest hike ever at 15.7 miles….and all whilst having fun and exploring a beautiful new area of San Diego. A great way to spend a birthday!
Thanks to Steve and Jake for setting up a fun course! If others are interested in trying out a race, their events page has some great upcoming events….including canoeing in La Bufadora.
Tags: adventure race, hike adventure, mount laguna, mountain biking, san diego
This week has been quite an adventure for our geocaching! We managed to get our 1000th geocache AND finished the Black Mountain Hall of Fame geocache series!
The ones that are not smiley faces are actually not active or are geocaches we have placed….so this is the complete Black Mountain Series.
It started a couple of months back when FlagMan set out challenge for people to complete all the geocaches that were located in a certain area. Lots of beautiful mountains and trails in San Diego, with thousands of geocaches on those trails. So why not set the geocaching hike adventure challenge to find them all…
This was a nice challenge, but Bangers & Mash were only at ~800 geocaches and no way or time to go and get the remaining ~2000 on the complete list. This would be more of a goal in 2 years than in 2 months.
But last week we then got passed the M.A.S.H geocache event details….on June 6th there was an awards ceremony for all the geocachers that had completed one or more of the Hall of Fame series in their geocaching hike adventures.
We checked out the names and saw Black Mountain. A local for us that we had done many geoccahes – indeed even had placed a few there. With 8 days to go to the geocache event we needed 20 more. But this included 4 puzzle geocaches and 2 multi-caches.
We looked at each other and our calender for the week (which included hosting a goodbye party, a race in Mount Laguna, and my birthday, and some deadlines at work) and just shook our heads. Absolutely no chance to squeeze in a hike adventure to make the Black Mountain Hall of Fame.
But then we just kept saying…”if we get up at 5am and do 2 hours before work”. “The sunset is at 7:30pm so we could get a few in the last hour before this on Friday….”
And off the last week of geocaching hike adventure began….
- Sunday - 5 hours on the mountain trekking and bushwhacking including #1000
- Monday – 1 sneaky puzzle geocache before work
- Tuesday – 2 hours at 5am for the multi-cache
- Friday - 2 hours of sunset geocaching to get the puzzles
- Sun June 6th (day of M.A.S.H geocache event) – 4 hours of geocaching 4 different areas of the mountain to pick up the last one in each area.
WOO-HOO!! We made it to the Black Mountain Hall of Fame! And got an award at the M.A.S.H award ceremony. The M.A.S.H reference is to the old tv series and was also a costume event, so double fun.
If you are interested in going to Black Mountain – here is a link to the trail map.
Tags: black mountain, Geocache Adventures, geocache event, geocache hall of fame, geocaching, hike adventure
OMG I just did my first triathlon today! I am on such a buzz – it was amazing!
I signed up 4 weeks ago (yeah I’m not much of a long term planner for these things) after hiking with all these guys that kept talking about all of the triathlons they’ve done. It made it seem possible that I could do it too…So I found a local race. It was a Sprint triathlon which means it was smaller and a good beginner triathlon.
I’ve been training hard and even practiced on the actual course. But the big day is always different. First the hubby “Bangers” got sick so was out the running, which left it to just me “Mash” for the day. We woke up early at 5am to get to the course for 6am at Mission Bay, San Diego.
I arrived and had to pee – man those lines are very very long. I was still in the line at 7am when the first wave of races started. So I got to pee and then got marked up for the race. They put your race number and your age on your body. OMG – if you are age sensitive, this is not for you. It’s declared to all. The reasoning is that you can then spot other racers in the pack and determine where you are in your race wave.
The sprint triathlon starts with a 400m (0.25 mile) swim in Mission Bay in San Diego. The water was not warm but with a wetsuit it was perfectly fine. People varied in what they wore from speedos to a full wetsuit. I’m glad I had the triathlon wetsuit for the first time, but think it was really hard to get a full arm rotation and might think about the sleeveless triathlon wetsuit in future. More money $$. On thing, getting the kit in your garage for these races is NOT cheap!
So, I was wave 6 and they called us over to get in the water. It was a little slimy and the water was green, but you just ignored it with all the people. I spoke to a couple of ladies and said good luck. Got a last minute tip to stick to the side that I lift for my breath to be able to see the other swimmers, so I went to the back side to start. And then they said “go” and the rush of adrenaline was amazing! It was REALLY hard to get into a breathing rhythm. I had practised a lot and felt comfortable in the 3 strokes and rotating side to breath on. But in this race I could not get into this and was on the 2 strokes and a breathe.
People had warned me that the swim can be quite a blender of arms and legs flying at each other. I’m glad I had that tip because it would freak you out if you didn’t expect it. Turns out it was not as bad as the videos or stories I heard. I kept to the side to avoid it and it mainly happened at the corners of the turns. After about halfway I got a rhythm and just kept to it – but it never felt as easy or as good as in the pool. So more practice for me!
In the last corner, I went for it (to look good for the crowd) and ended up going in the wrong direction! Course corrected and got the finish. Ran out the water and boy was I knackered. This was the harder transition by far and not expected to be this hard. My breathing was thick and I needed some water (because I had swallowed some sea water – yuk!). Time was 17 minutes…
Ran to the transition area….laughed with another person about the swim and changed quickly into my bike gear. I had read a few articles about how to lay out your gear and walked through it mentally a few times in the morning, so it was smooth and easy. Ran the bike out the transition to the mounting area and ….off for the bike! Time was 20 minutes, so a 3 minute transition.
Here was my biggest learning of the sprint triathlon. DO NOT USE A MOUNTAIN BIKE. I knew I would be slower for this and due to time and not wanting to add another new element into the race kit, I did not get/borrow a road bike or get slick tires for the mountain bike. I felt like molasses compares to everyone around me. I was passed by everyone and their mother – and it was a hard mental fact for me to deal with. I had my pace set in my head and stuck to it. Counted out the time and sang a Scooter song to help me keep to my pace – it just was not anything compared to the slick road bikes…..
So I came in after 9 miles of biking at 00:57 mins which meant 37 mins on the bike. Final transition…3 minutes again. So I started the run at exactly 1:00 hour.
Okay, so my first goal was to finish the race and my second was to get under 1:30. I knew I was not in the league of the fastest at 1:00 (especially with the bike!) so was after my best I could do in my first triathlon.
Running is not really my favorite thing to do. Its boring and slow and I don’t have that ‘runner’s body’ that you see in the best. But I’ve been really trying to improve here and managed to run over 5 miles a few times in the past few weeks, which meant I was confident I could do the distance of 3 miles.
I started up and went at my pace – a 9/10 minute mile. I knew I had 30 minutes to get to my time goal and was going to be cutting it close with a 10 minute pace. I kept that focus in my mind and pounded the pavement. After the bike, my hopes of being any good was low – but I seemed to be pretty decent at running. I was able to pass a lot of people…which boosted my confidence and I could keep up my pace. I had to walk a few times to catch my breath, but when I ran I could pick up the pace easily and pass a few more folks. It felt good to pass others and just a tiny bit of vindication for the bike ride. 
On the last section I knew I had to push harder – all those people watching you makes you nervous and you can’t walk it. The feet were tingling but I pulled in deep and sang “I’m your pusher” by scooter again. Came round the final bend to the music, the cow bells and the FINISH sign. I was running close to the 1:30 goal so sprinted to the finish!
FINAL TIME: 1:28 Fantastic. Such a rush of achievement, excitement, and exhaustion for my first triathlon! What’s next?
Tags: sprint triathlon, triathlon
An update on the Races from 2010 so far…
Jan 27 – Equinox Mid-Week – Night Orienteering
First time out at night, first time really trying to read and use topo maps. We got all the points, but have to say our trusty guide, Barrie, helped a lot!
Feb 14 UCSD Valentine Orienteering
What better way to spend Valentines than running around holding hands and finishing as many checkpoints as possible in 1 hour time limit? We got 13 from 30, and happy with that for firs time on our own using those topo maps. Have to say that as the orienteering was around building, this helped the navigation most of the time. On one area I was fixed on the building ‘knowing the campus’ and lost 15 minutes for 1 checkpoint!
Feb 20 – Scavenger Dash LA
A race around a city we don’t know, dressed up in matching t-shirts (thank you Spreadshirt!), answering clues from friends in Chicago (thanks Ali) and doing crazy stunts like getting arrested! Fun, fun, fun! Finished 13th on this one and then had to try and beat in San Diego a few weeks later….
Mar 6 – Scavenger Dash San Diego
Return of “Bangers & Mash”. We knew the drill so mentally had an advantage until the owner said he changed the course just for us! Oh no! Our confidence in maps and getting to checkpoints was much better from our practice and even with a fatal mistake of missing one clue (which added 2 miles and 20 minutes to our time) we finished 9th. We later got bumped to 8th because of a disqualification from using a pedi-cab!
Mar 14th – Orienteering in O’Neills Park, Los Angeles
A combined trail run event as well as a advanced orienteering race. Was worth the drive to a new place and we enjoyed having to navigate in the open park land. It was meant to be 5k which of course meant we did double that because of our ’shortcuts’! We will learn how to read a map eventually…lots of thistles on this run which led ot some lovely scratches on the legs!
Mar 27th – Peaks & Valleys Adventure Race
The full race report is available for this one in another blog post, including a bonus video! We are getting better and able to go for longer distance and time (4 hours from 1 hour in 8 weeks). Yeah!!!
A goal is to get up to a 12 hour race this year….but as most are in the summer, we might be pushing too hard to get to this one this year….
What’s next?
Apr 3 Urban Dare San Diego
May 2 Sprint Sprint Triathlon
May 16 Central Coast Sprint Adventure Race
Are you attending any of these? We like to hear from people that are attending or training….we need the tips!!
Tags: adventure race, geocaching, hiking, mountain biking, scavenger hunt, urban dare
Another fun filled weekend for Bangers & Mash. This time it was the Urban Dare race held in San Diego. The weather held out to be a lovely sunny day. We all met in Maloney’s Bar in the underground section – quite odd to be in the dark in the beautiful sunshine.
It was a BIG turnout with over 60 teams – we had a last minute scramble to find help – our usual friends were enjoying spring break – leaving us with only our wits and an iPhone. Glad we had the iPhone!
The bell rang and the paper was put out to grab….off we go!
Tags: adventure race, san diego, urban dare
