Adventure race day. San Elijo Hills in Northern San Diego county was the site. Format was trek (run when you can, walk when you have to.) and then hit the hills on a mtn bike. Lot of hills and mtn biking was more push your bike up the hills and ride the brakes down. At least as far as we got...

Teamed up with a guy from Orange County named Greg. He assured me he was in it for the fun and also wasn't a strong mtn biker either so we decided to team up earlier in the week. he also had experience in this type of event and knew how to read the map to get us to the checkpoints.

So race morning headed out and got to a park that was our transition area and hot dog headquarters. You have to know the only reason i entered this race was cuz of the promise of HOT DOGS at the end! Made sure they had hot dogs and proceeded to check in. Greg was already there and had checked out the maps . Which was good seeing as though it was all Greek to me. He plotted our most likely routes. I met Ann and her Black Lab who was putting the race on . Not the Lab, Ann! Got the briefing from Ann and then Barrie, who from what I understand set up and plotted out the course. He's also the hot dog hander outer!
Once we got started it was up for awhile and then up and down up and down for a ways. We got to the first checkpoint pretty easy and headed out to CP 2. A little harder than 1 but Greg got us there . Other teams were searching too. CP 3 was easier than we made it out to be. Could have went straight to it but was a little deceiving on the map. To us. But actually we made good time getting there and then we headed downhill to CP 4 and 5 which we made both fairly easily and fast. Once we got 5 we decided to back track to the start instead of taking a new unknown route. Made good time back and finished our run at 1: 17 from the start time. Not bad.

Made the transition kinda slow but with a purpose. Greg grabbed my extra water I brought. I had an extra nice and cold water bladder for my Camelbak
, ate half my sub sandwich, a Gu and salt tablet. Headed out on the bike thru the center of town. Connected up with the trail and bike CP1 was there almost immediately and then it was flat for awhile but looking up at the mtn we knew we were going up, up and more up. And it wasn't the more gradual switchback up, it was basically straight up. Rode to the base of the mtn and a little bit up but not too far up and then it was hike a bike all the way. It was getting real hot and absolutely no shade.
Greg was struggling and not feeling real well and we stopped a few times to rest a bit. Gave him 1 of my Gu gels and a salt cap. I also took 1 too. Just in case. Finally, after a few stops we made it to the top. And bike CP 2 was right there. What a view at the top! Greg decided he couldn't go on . We still had 2 more CP's to hit and the next one was almost to the bottom of the mtn and then we would have to head back up to get the last one. We decided just to head back down the trail we pushed our bikes up. Quite a bit easier going down. But had to watch your speed! Saw a number of teams pushing up the mtn. Ran into 1 team as I was going by asked me if I had a salt pill. Jammed on the brakes and said yes I do. Was glad to help him out as he was cramping really bad. Saw them at the finish and he said he couldn't have finished the way he was cramping. Anyways, we got down the mtn and hit some flatter land, back to the road thru town which was uphill this way.
86 degrees when we finished and fog still at the 5 freeway on the way home.

Finish area got my promised hot dogs. Only had 4 though, trying to cut back! No, could never cut back on hot dogs. I'd enter any race with the chance of getting a hot dog!
All in all it was a good day. A little shorter than planned but when you are a team those decisions have to be made. My first adventure race learning to read maps, good teammate, great people who put it on and it's amazing what we put ourselves thru all in the name of FUN!