Central Coast Adventure Race

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. :o)

Outrigger Paddling

My son Dylan started paddling competitively just a month ago. He paddles down in San Diego on a coed team and really enjoys it. This weekend they had their first race since he joined the team. This particular race was not coed and they raced in the all boys division.

It was quite a surprise to my son when he found out the race was 1 1/2 hours long, and just the boys - no adults like practice. There workouts were typically an hour long and were supervised by an adult.

But as it turns out, they did just fine. They got 3rd place overall and as one of the photos shows, they're sporting there medals (turtles). He was proud and tired at the same time. What a great workout and good time. I'm so glad he enjoys the water as much as I always have. Some great pictures below taken by a family friend that actually got him involved in the outriger paddling.

Soccer on the Beach?

If you've read my Blog even a little bit, you've surely heard about my son Jacob. He's quite a little athlete and I'm a proud papa, so I talk about him.

Well a few weeks ago we got a note home from school. I know what you're thinking - same as me when my son told me he had a note from his teacher. But it turned out to be a note from the PE Specialist. The note said that this teacher had "rarely seen this level of athleticism at this age" and since he coached a local competitive soccer club he wanted Jacob to come try playing soccer for him.

Truth be told, Jacob had asked to play soccer, but it had conflicted with his rec baseball, travel baseball or football schedules, and we'd just never made the leap. One other factor was the expense of it. Competitive soccer in our area runs from $1000 to $1400 per year, money we just don't have.

I called the coach and explained our situation and he encouraged us to let Jacob give it a try at least and we'd go from there.

He went to 2 practices before he was invited to play in a weekend Beach Soccer Tournament - one of the largest soccer tournaments in the US. Strangely he was not committed to baseball that weekend and we went to play in the sand. He did fantastic.

Afterwards the coach told us that Jacob was right where the others were after a year of coaching and he'd just started a few days before. I thanked him for the opportunity but told him our time constraints and financial concerns.

He said if Jacob wanted to play, and we'd allow it - he would "make it work" and would cover the cost of the soccer. We couldn't believe it. Was he "that" good? Maybe so, and as nice as it was to hear, and even flattering - it's just too much. The poor kid wouldn't have a spare moment to himself.

We sadly had to decline the invite and told the coach maybe after baseball. He insisted we keep the uniforms he gave us and bring Jacob out when we could and he'd see to it that his skills would improve.

I'm still thinking as a retirement plan - Baseball is where my future is, but Soccer's not a bad backup. :o)