Events 2009

2009 Equinox 24 Hr - The MUD Fest - Feb 7-8

A big thank you to the many volunteers, great sponsors and all who participated. Of the 24 signed up just 10 braved the rain to compete. We had to change the course as the event proceeded, due to mud, Mud and more MUD!. All teams kept going for the first 12 hours but then they began to drop and at the end, some 26 hours after starting 3 teams finished this adventure.

Because of inclement weather the swim and kayak was canceled, so teams started with a 10K run to CP1 in Del Mar. That was followed by a bike along the Hwy 56, bike trail which I understand got interesting for some teams, depending on your timing and the timing of the rain as some parts of the trail were flooded and getting around put the "adventure" in AR.  All teams attempted the first hike on Black Mountain to various degrees of success. The lead teams took about as long as we expected and the later teams also took a time we were expecting. But all of them were rained upon to some degree as the bands of showers and hail moved through. To put it lightly it was miserable fun.

Then began the interesting part, the first trail bike section. We had 2 teams leave earlier than the others. Kayak Lake Mediocre returned after an hour or so with bikes they could not pedal due to the mud. Tahoe Persuasion managed to get 2 checkpoints and were in the process of finding a paved road to be able to ride their bikes when we located them a few hours later and advised of our request to ride the roads to the O. That’s Right took a short course to avoid the first mud section but were able to find different mud. They picked up some checkpoints before we fortunately located them and asked them to ride the roads to get to the Orienteering course.

Teams in the parking lot when Kayak Lake Mediocre returned saw the mud bike and asked for a alternative course to the O, which was a huge road ride. Some teams saw the bike and elected to call it a day.

We had 6 teams do the O course and they took from 3 hours to get a couple of points to 9½ hours to get 9 of the 10 CP's. By the end of the O we were down to 3 teams able to continue. They had already been racing over 22 hours and the 3 teams finished with a road bike to Penasquitos Canyon where we improvised an 8K run as the creek was so swollen we were unable to get to the original CP's.