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Tuesday, August 14, 2007

DART-nuun gives a clinic at the Lake Tahoe Big Blue 24 hour race

Clinic on navigation and how to race successfully in a 24 hour race

Friday August 10th, the night before the Big Blue 24hr adventure race at Lake Tahoe, DART-nuun adventure racer Glenn Rogers gave a clinic on the art of navigating in an adventure race and then covered many other tips that help DART-nuun win races.

The clinic covered many topics including plotting coordinates, using special plotting techniques used in Big Blue Races, optimizing route choices for your specific team, staying found, and what to do when things go wrong in the middle of the night.

When speaking to the group of about 20 racers, Glenn used his many years of experience to personalized the class and bring home the point that even the best teams face challenges when navigating. â??I explained that in one race I used a gate across a road that also was on the map to help locate where we were after being turned around a little in a maze of dirt roads. Little did I know that the following day ,during the race, we'd once again rely on a gate to help confirm where we were. I hope the suggestion at the clinic also helped other teams."

Glenn finished the clinic by opening the floor to questions. He discussed proper hydration by using nuun, nutrition, transition speed and other gear related topics including proper shoes, and packs for a successful race.

DART-nuun gives clinics at all the Big Blue Adventure races they compete in as well as numerous other places like REI to help new and experience racers alike to fine tune their adventure racing skills. During these clinics, the team exposes the participants to top quality products made by their sponsors in an effort to educate racers to what gear it takes to succeed out in the wilderness.

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posted by Velokamikaze @ 3:17 PM   0 comments

DART-nuun wins the Big Blue Kit Carson 24 Hour Adventure Race - a USARA National Championship qualifier

... one of only two teams to complete the entire grueling course

Spooner Lake State Park, NV (August 11th, 2007) â?? The final 24 hour race of the 2007 Big Blue series had racers compete in the stunning Lake Tahoe area where they paddled across the lake, ran through rugged terrain, and biked through the breathtaking Sierra Nevada Mountains. The difficulty of the course confirmed why this race was a USARA national championship qualifier as teams quickly switched from competing against each other to trying to survive the challenging but well designed course. Team DART-nuun, comprised of Mari Chandler, Andy Tubs, and Glenn Rogers, won the race in a little over 20 hours and, when the dust settled, was one of only two teams to complete the entire course.

The race started with a 15 mile paddle on the beautiful blue waters of Lake Tahoe. â??We could see the course laid out in the mountains before us as we paddled,â?? commented Mari. Coming off the water, the team was just minutes behind the lead team. After a quick transition, Mari took charge and set a blistering pace to catch the leaders. As the team climbed up into the mountains, they passed the lead team as Mari continued her relentless drive.

Arriving in the second transition just minutes ahead, the team expected to transition to their bikes but were pleasantly surprised to find a 3 hour Rogaine (orienteering section where teams have to find checkpoints in any order) awaited them. â??I was elated,â?? claimed Glenn, Team Captain and 2006 US Rogaine Champion. â??I knew that I could lead the team quickly through this section and solidify our leadâ??. At the finish of the Rogaine, the team had indeed increased their lead to 20 minutes.

They then headed out into the night on their bikes for what was to be an epic 12 hour bike section. â??I was concerned that many of the local teams would know the area and flawlessly navigate through the maze of trails and roads,â?? recalled Glenn. His concerns were thankfully unfounded. While slowed because of darkness and difficult terrain, the team made great progress. They finished the bike section with a ride on the famous Flume trail at sunrise. â??Looking out over Lake Tahoe at sunrise was an unbelievable experience,â?? added an elated Andy.

As the team came into the finish, they had no idea what position they were in because the race director allowed teams to acquire the check points in any order. The team was pleasantly surprised to find that not only had they won in approximately 20 hours, but that only one other team would manage to complete the entire course of this demanding race.

Next, DARTâ??nuun will compete - at the end of August - in Australia's most grueling expedition race (XPD Australia) that will take teams on a 800 km (10 day) course from the Great Barrier Reef to the magnificent but harsh Outback.

The team's successes would not be possible without the generous support of their hand picked sponsors. Each sponsor was carefully selected because their products are of the highest quality, perform brilliantly, and are of the utmost reliability. "We trust our lives to these products while competing in world's most demanding conditions," - Cyril Jay-Rayon, Team Captain.

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posted by Velokamikaze @ 1:12 PM   0 comments

Sunday, August 12, 2007

DART-nuun Wins Tahoe 24 Hour Adventure Race


DART-nuun crossed the finish line in first place at 6:45AM after a 12 hour mountain bike section that stretched from the eastern part of the Lake Tahoe peaks down into Carson City, Nevada, and back.

Dirty and bleary-eyed, the team congratulated each other at the finish line for an excellent all-around performance, from yesterdayâ??s kayak, run, and orienteering sections through the grueling night-long bike. Yesterday evening, the team had headed out on the 50-mile bike section with a half an hour lead on the second place team and pushed hard to maintain their lead.

Unbeknownst to DART, they pulled further into the lead throughout the night, as the second place team stopped racing due to a team member's exhaustion.

â??Mari was driving hard the whole time,â?? raved Glenn at the finish line.

DART-nuun now enjoys well-deserved hot chocolate and warm clothes at the Spooner Lake State Park race finish. No other teams have completed the full course.

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posted by DARTvg @ 7:32 AM   0 comments

Saturday, August 11, 2007

DART-nuun Takes on Lake Tahoe 24 Hour Adventure Race



Hello DART-nuun fans! Welcome to coverage of the 2007 Big Blue Kit Carson 24 Hour Adventure Race from Lake Tahoe, California.

The race began this morning at approximately 10:30am on the white sandy shores of North Lakeâ??s Tahoe City. Once race director Todd Jackson held his pre-race briefing and distributed maps to eager team captains, a blizzard of paddle blades from the 28 teams scrambling their kayaks into and across the lake turned the morningâ??s remarkably delicate, turquoise waters into a teaming mix of splashing wakes.

This weekendâ??s DART-nuun squad, made up of Seattle-based captain and navigator Glenn Rogers and San Francisco Bay Area residents Mari Chandler and Andy Tubbs, pushed off from the beach in their triple kayak and quickly paddled out through the other kayaks into the front of the pack, where the other triple boats planed across the water.

The raceâ??s first checkpoint steered the brightly colored kayak armada southwest a couple of miles and around a triangular, inflatable orange buoy no further than 30 meters from a popular Tahoe City beach. DART-nuun arrived to CP1 only seconds after the first place team, Dogs and Space, and immediately turned back to the northeast toward CP2. A red, yellow and blue Salomon banner fluttering in the warm breeze guarded the entrance to CP2, which was nestled in sun-bleached boulders resting on the shallow sands off Crystal Bay Point near the California/Nevada border.

Dogs and Space held onto their slight lead on DART through the rest of the two and a half hour-long paddle leg that finished on the bikini-clad beach of Sand Harbor located on the east side of Lake Tahoe.

DART-nuun and the two other lead teams, after stowing their boats and quickly changing into dry gear, hoofed it on foot up the paved road that turned south out of Sand Harbor en route to Spooner Lake State Park, the main transition area where bins of food and bikes awaited.

DART-nuun made good time on this running leg. The team arrived off of the two hour run first at Spooner Lake State Parkâ??s CP4 looking in good spirits. Nipping at DARTâ??s heals and also looking strong and confident, Team Dogs in Space arrived at CP4 only 2 minutes behind DART.

Instead of going out on a biking leg, which many racers were expecting since their bikes awaited them in the transition area, race staff handed the teams an intricate, new topographic map for an embedded orienteering section around the Spooner Lake area. DART team members seemed delighted by this surprise. No wonder, as they are strong on foot and Glenn is skilled in Rogaine-style orienteering, which allows teams to attack the control points in any order. In the transition area, Andy and Mari refueled and repacked packs, while Glenn studied their new map and highlighted what he thought the quickest route to obtain the required 20 out of 25 control points would be. And then DART headed off again running into the woods.

Race staff estimate the orienteering leg will take the fastest teams roughly 3 hours to complete. This leaves DART-nuun plenty of time to finish the orienteering section before nightfall. Slower teams may be forced to complete this section during the night with headlamps.

More to come when teams return from the orienteering section and head out on their mountain bikes for a long night of exploring East Lake Tahoeâ??s 9,000 foot precipices and alpine forests.

Dart-nuun team member and race-volunteer-for-the-weekend, Jen Ratay, reporting out.

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posted by DARTvg @ 6:40 PM   0 comments

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