BAAR BRAWL 2007
Published by Adam Doti March 12th, 2007 in Adventure Racing
A first timer to the infamous BAARD BRAWL, all I can say is holy wetness! Never before have I in endured such wet and windy conditions, if I didn’t love the guys on my team I would have told them to get lost. Shopping for purses would have been a way better alternative. Just kidding guys! As a matter of fact I had a great time and for the most part, the weather did not bother me until around the ninth hour when I realized that I was soaked completely through three all three of layers.
Our rainy day started out in the small town of Point Reyes. Most teams that were present were obviously prepping for their first race of the season. From a bystanders perspective, we must have looked like a herd of deer, all caught in the headlights. After a quick briefing all teams were sent off into the wettest race of the season.
Within minutes the Avocado’s had broken a kayak paddle and lost a new pair of sunglasses, it was not a solid start. The good thing was the sea loins that were present, at least we knew there we no Great White’s around. Despite the rocky start we rocked smiles and shared laughs to our first bite of land travel.
We landed in a cove off of Tomales Bay that had a more than a faint smell of decomposing sea life mixed with the smell of the most sulfuric hot spring. The smell was horrible, and there was nothing we could do to get around walking through the two foot deep mud pit. Through the mud and up the ridge, the Avocados quickly moved through the super fast coasteering section.
[DOTI] All other teems opted to travel counter clockwise, which had them take on the coasteering section first then return via the ridgeline down to the TA. We opted for the reverse psychology and try for the ridge line first thus giving us the advantage of spotting other teams down on the beach and access and entry points along the way. In the end, it probably only saved us a few minutes.
Through our travels we raced up hills, sprinted down hill’s, breezed by herds of elk, collected shells and rocks (Well maybe just me. I couldn’t help it; it was like a long field trip. I loved field trips when I was in school), saw hundreds of beautiful starfish, bouldered across ocean cliffs, crossed beaches that spit two foot streams of water into the air (Don’t ask me how this was possible, it just happened. I swear!), and finished up with yet another pleasant crossing of the muddy trenches.
Our ATTEMPT to paddle back to the put in the kayaks was a joke! A-Bomb and I struggled through torrential downpours, as white capped waves poured over into the boat, and freezing winds felt as if they pushed us backwards faster than we could struggle to paddle forward. I actually never looked up from my skirt, it was too maddening. Every time I looked up I realized we had not moved forward and I knew we had so far to go. My arms burned and my stomach was nauseated from the waves, and all I could think about was sitting in Karen’s hot tub. While lost in hot tub thought, I heard A-Bomb yell from the rear, “You remember how to get out of the boat if we flip over right?” I didn’t want to reply. Up to that point, I had completely avoided the thought of THEM, them being the Great Whites. I wanted nothing to do with swimming in the shark infested waters. Instead I kept saying over and over again, “Hot tub, hot tub, hot tub,” until the sound of my own voice created a cadence for me to paddle to.
The hot tub thoughts quickly pushed us ahead of DP and Adam, actually disturbingly far, they were obviously having problems keeping up. But there was nothing we could do. It took us nearly an hour to progress forward thirty feet of shore line. If we stopped then, we would surely loose an hours worth of paddling in a matter of minutes.
[DOTI] Yup, we were lagging alright. The cold/flu I had been battling for the last few weeks made me even weaker which led to a mild case of hypothermia. I don’t recall the last 30 minutes of the paddle. I lost most feeling in my fingers and had a hard time gripping or releasing my grip from the paddle. DP got up back apparently and me to my truck, helped me undress and get inside with the heat on. I think about 10 minutes later I started to mentally recall where I was!
Several grueling hours of paddling in the kayak brought us back to the put in. There was no sign of the Avocado Pits, and the site of DP and Adam was merely a speck down the turbulent shoreline. With rain still pouring out of the sky, A-Bomb and I switched out of our wet clothes and quickly loaded the kayak gear into the car. We had thirty minutes to get to bike start, a leg of the race that would we would come to learn would be wetter than our little kayak adventure.
The bike leg start was out of the Olema Campground. The Skins regrouped to find themselves about 45 minutes behind the Pits. It was then we found out that our navigator would no longer be leading us through the course. Doti had been suffering from the flu bug all week and the disgustingly trying kayak adventure put a massive toll on his body. With Doti gone we decided to join up with the threesome that called themselves the Venomous Ducks. The six of us headed off into the woods for some more wet fun.
We headed up Sir Francis Drake to the base of Bills Trail, where we would find ourselves peddling for hours up a single track that we should have been kayaking instead. Talk about up a creek without a paddle! Once we reached the summit we found ourselves being pounded with golf ball size rain drops that were traveling at what felt to be at 30 mph. It was then we decided to get back into the tree line, out of the rain, and head back to the bike finish. Not finishing the bike leg was ok with the group given the sense of accomplishment felt making it as far as we did in the treacherous weather conditions. Besides, it was DP’s birthday and we needed to do shots!!
It was a group decision to stop off at the bar in Olema right before last call was made for tequila shot; tequila, a great excuse for warming the frozen body. After we covered the bar floor with globs of mud and puddles water that dripped out of our clothes we decided to head back to the cars to change into clean, DRY, clothes.
The BAARD BRAWL would turn out to be another disturbingly difficult event that only the insane would finish. But in the end we walked away with smiles, pruning bodies, and relatively no injuries. What a start to 2007 AR season!
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