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Extreme Heat I - Coon
Bluff - 7/12/08
by
Dave Marks
One of the
unfortunate aspects of being an endurance
athlete in Phoenix in the summer
is…(drum-roll, please)…it’s hot. Okay, so
that didn’t exactly surprise anyone. But,
one of the unfortunate aspects of it being
hot is…very few opportunities to race. For
some reason, race directors seems to shy
away from putting on races where people are
out for hours upon hours in the 110+ degree
heat. Go figure…
So, with races few and far
between during the summer months,
Sierra
Adventure Sports’ Extreme Heat races are a
breath of fresh air (or perhaps a cool
breeze is a better analogy) in the otherwise
heat-stifled racing season. |
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The
races are short and relatively
simple based on the idea that racers
will be across the finish line
before the thermometer starts rising
to unbearable heights. Throw in a
little water and voila, it’s almost
like it’s racing season again.
The
first Extreme Heat was held along
the Salt River at Coon Bluff
recreational area. This has been an
SAS staple for the last three years
and while it’s about as close to
“repeat” as you’ll get in adventure
racing courses, it keeps it’s charm
and appeal and regularly sells out,
primarily because the race ends with
a cool (both figuratively and
literally) tubing trip down the Salt
River.
Since
the Extreme Heat races are
mini-races in adventure racing terms
(Although your average couch potato
probably wouldn’t consider 2-4 hours
of all out running and/or biking a
“mini” event.) they’re set up for
teams of 2…meaning that our
Big Fish
roster would be split into factions
for the races. |
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As anyone who’s read
our reports or looked at the website
probably already knows,
Butch has no
cartilage left in his right knee
making the act of running fall
somewhere between excruciatingly
painful to downright physically
impossible based on how his knee is
feeling that day…thereby seriously
limiting his chance to compete in
any race that involves running or
trekking longer than a couple of
miles. Since this limitation
eliminates somewhere around 99.9% of
all adventure races, his chances to
get out and do an “AR” are few and
far between.
For the
Coon Bluff Extreme Heat though, we
came up with a plan. I would
basically do the race as a solo and
then Butch would join me for the
special tests, the run from the Coon
Bluff parking lot to the tubing put
in, and the adventure tubing section
to the finish line. |
We would have to
race “unranked” but
with no real
advantage over other
teams other than the
fact that I would be
my own slowest
teammate, it would
still give
Butch a
chance to get back
out there and
compete in a real
event.
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I should probably point out
at this point that in
addition to our unranked
team, Big Fish would also be
fielding a competitive team;
Vickie and her brother
Mike
would be donning the
Big
Fish jerseys and trying to
lock down an actual official
result for the team. (Windy
was supposed to do the race
with a friend who suffered a scootering injury shortly
before the race so she ended
up volunteering. Rough sport
this adventure racing.)
The race
started out with a couple of
quick “sprint” points and a
special test to find a
couple of car license plates
in the parking lot before
heading out into the Coon
Bluff hills to find 3
orienteering points.
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Although
it took me a little longer than I’d
hoped to find the second license
plate, Butch and
I got through the
carrying a golf ball on a tee
special test faster than I expected
(The golf ball special test almost
derailed Windy and I at the Dreamy
Draw Extreme Heat last year as we
dropped from first to somewhere
around 20th place before
rallying to pull out a close
finish.) and I started off the
orienteering section in 2nd
place behind team Flagstaff.
The Coon
Bluff area is a neat place to
orienteer and a regular venue on the
Phoenix Orienteering Club’s
schedule. The hills are steep and
rugged with a few trails and fairly
clear, recognizable terrain off
which to navigate. That’s not to say
that it’s easy nav…only one of the
points was on a trail and the second
one was in the one section of Coon
Bluff that I sometimes get confused.
I passed team “Flag” on the way to
the first checkpoint and felt like I
flying...figuring that
Butch would
appreciate any head start I could
give us on the run to the tubing
put-in seeing as how he couldn’t
really, well, run and all.
From the
first running checkpoint to the
second, I decided to take the
quickest route versus the clearest
from a navigation standpoint. I
probably saved a good 3 to 5 minutes
this way…that I quickly gave back
when I got confused. I knew I had to
crest the hill and drop into a
ravine. The only problem was, when I
dropped into the ravine, I wasn’t
quite sure if I was above the
checkpoint or below it. (The
“slower” route would have dropped me
in at that the top of the ravine and
I would have just traveled down
until I spotted the CP.) I checked
my map again and surmised (does that
sound better than “guessed?”) that
the point was below me. I traveled
down for about 3-5 minutes before
figuring that I screwed up and the
point was above me. I then traveled
up to where I dropped in to the
ravine and continued up for several
minutes before my “fog” cleared up
and I realized exactly where I was.
I was headed in the right direction
the first time (down) but just
didn’t go far enough.
I did find the
checkpoint exactly where I now
realized it was, but I was pretty
down on myself by the time I got
there. There was a good chance that
other people had struggled to find
it also, but my dreams of building a
good lead were gone. As I left the
CP2 on my way to CP3, I saw team
Flag up about a 100 yards ahead. I
definitely wasn’t in first anymore
but if team Flag had just gotten the
point, there probably weren’t a ton
of teams ahead of me. The next
section was a tough, bushwhack climb
and I pushed hard to make up for my
mistake. I tried to run where I
could see team Flag walking and
caught them a little before the CP.
Then, I figured I’d stick to the
trail and hightail it back to the TA
where I would find
Butch waiting. |
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Amazingly, I got back in first place
and after a quick “lead the guy
wearing the blindfold using only
your voice” special test,
Butch and
I started on what, in this race, is
really a 4th
event…pumping up the inner tubes. We
were about halfway done pumping up
the tubes when Team Flag came in.
Talking to them afterwards, they
tried taking a “shortest” route trip
back from the last checkpoint and it
ended up being a tough bushwhack.
(They had beaten Windy and I up in
Flagstaff earlier by taking a
similar risk that paid off.)
Butch and I took off
as Mike and
Vickie were entering the
TA. That put two strong teams not
far behind us and it would be
interesting to see if we could hold
them off. I shouldn’t have worried. |
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Butch
took off at a pace that saw him
pulling away from me and I yelled
out for him to pace himself both so
he wouldn’t burn out and so that I
could catch up. After the first
mile, we had another special test.
I’m not sure what the special test
was called but it was kind of funny
in that I’d never seen anything
quite like it (you threw a weighted
rope around a plastic ladder sort of
like vertical horseshoes) and then
back in Nebraska the next week at my
family reunion saw about 4 or 5
different families playing a
variation of it. I obviously don’t
get out much other than to train.
Butch stayed strong
during the next mile and half from
the special test to the tube put-in
and was running fast enough that the
strategy quickly changed from “Here,
give me your tube and paddle to
lighten the load on your bad knee.”
to “Here, carry your own damn
stuff.” And why were we carrying
paddles? Well, it might have been
tubing, but it was still a race so
our race-proven strategy (although
we can’t match the speed that
Windy
and Vickie, Olympic-quality tube
paddlers, can maintain) was to
paddle our tubes like kayaks down
the river. |
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Based on the
flow of the river and who
was on the faster moving
water over the next couple
of miles, I went back and
forth between believing we
were either going to cross
the finish line 5 to 10
minutes before anyone else
or get passed any second. In
the end it was somewhere in
between that; being
un-official we knew we
didn’t truly win the race
and wouldn’t appear at all
in the results, but it felt
good to be out there racing
and holding off some strong
teams.
Meanwhile, the real battle
was going on just a few
minutes behind us where
Vickie and
Mike were making
a tremendous comeback on the
water. |
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Paddling
their hearts out using the
foot-linked connection that
Vickie
and Windy have made at least
semi-famous,
Vickie and
Mike caught
and passed the team Flag getting out
of the water to secure another
overall first place finish for the
Big Fish Creative team. |
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As always none of this would
be possible (or at the very best would be a
lot more difficult) without our excellent
sponsors:
Big Fish Creative,
Maxxis,
Rudy Project,
Fox Racing,
Carb Boom,
Sierra Adventure Sports and
Racelab. |
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