Training Log Archive: awentz

HMARS Taos 72 Hr AR (solo) - MTB #2. Set off for last leg of the race after a nice meal of beef stroganoff from Mtn House. Saw Off Course Nav near the Ta and then also got to see NMAR (Kim + Jeff) at the TA too! Stopped at Sonic on way through Taos to get a cream slush, nice and refreshing. Struggled to find good route up to CP#23, did a stupid hike-a-bike nav decision. Saw bear prints (maybe a bear too??). Hike-a-bike was tiring and time consuming (~800 ft of vert in < 0.5 Km). Got super confused on old fireroad when trying to find CP#23. Finally find way back to road 440 after wasting too much time. Raced sun back to finish, ran into a bunch of cows near the end and had to Shepard them off of the road. Refilled water bottle couple of times in the creeks. Fun last downhill, decided to take more techy/fun singletrack down instead of easy way down.

Learned a lot of useful lessons for future AR's, could have easily cut off ~4-6 hrs if it wasn't for a few small errors or spent less time chilling at TA's. Will post more extensive race report later on this week.

HMARS Taos 72 Hr (Solo)- Mtb Leg #1. Arrived at TA #1 early due to heat of the moment decision to skip CP6, spent ~1 hr there hanging out, talking to toby, refueling, and plotting UTM points...took long road route around (~+15 miles) instead of completing 3.5 mile hike-a-bike. Clean navigation this time around, struggled finding CP#13 for a bit off of S. Boundary Trail. S Boundary was a spectacularly fun single track down hill. Trail between CP#11 & 12 probably hadn't been used for 15+ years. Only one to find punch at CP#10 before the punch was stolen by someone. Lots of climbing, filled pack with solid food + 600 cals of tailwind in the hydration bladder. Rolled into TA#2 about 50 mins before sunset.

HMARS Taos 72 hr (solo) - Trek #2 + 1 hr of sleep on random picnic table.

Left for CP#15 up the peak from El Nogal Parking lot just before sunset, didn't see the bag for some reason. Found it later after climbing peak again with Off-Course Nav towards my finish of the leg. Long road sections on this trek. Saw NYARA on bike #1 around 11:30 pm ~5 mile uproad of TA. Later saw NYARA again near CP#16 about 4:30am. Had a nice little chat with them. Struggled for a bit with the sleepmonsters, hallucinated a little bit on the long/slow sections. Blister on ball of feet were pretty bad now. Found empty spot in a campground around 5am, took care of feet and slept for 1 hr on picnic table. Finished grabbing CP#16 and headed back to TA#3

Event: Happy Mutant Taos AR
 

HMARS Taos 72hr (Solo)- Trek #1. Hung around and chatted w/ NYARA till about 11:30pm. Both made a small nav error going from CP 2 -> 3, I followed it longer and didn't see them again till over 28 hrs later. AR nav is much different on 1:50,000 maps vs. O-Map of 1:15,000. Somehow found myself on 'The Knob' instead of near CP 6. For some reason decided to go back to TA, walked though cow pastures and climb a cliffy ridge to get near CP 7. did see a orange flash on left side of trail, thought CP would be on right (in my frustration at the moment, kept going back to TA1/CP8).

At this point in the race, already my longest AR and longest trek/run. Longest previous AR was 8 hrs and longest run at 26.2 miles

Nice easy evening run w/ Tyler + Leah. Gave them a tour around the Papago hills. Good conversation with some awesome friends. Things are a changing.

Hard Spin on the trainer while watching some lectures before Sushi night at Tyler/Leah's with the AFP crew.