After 5 months with hardly a drop of rain in the NW, the first big front of the year dumped 1.75 inches on the course as the Wicked crew was setting up. The drive out to the coast was thru torrential downpours. It didn't look good. After check-in, most of us "hard-core" adventure racers who had plans to "camp out" snuck into town and filled up the hotels.

During the morning prep and 7:00am start, amazingly, the rain threatened but held off. We got pretty darn lucky and stayed dry most of the day.

The Course: View map

Bike
We started on bikes down on the hard sand next to the surf. It was a fast paced few miles of splashing saltwater and sand into our gears along the beach to CP 1 at the edge of Manzanita, then the pack headed up along hwy 101 to TA2 located in Oswald State Park.

Trek
Transitioning to foot, next was a 7 or 8 mile trail run out to Arch Cape at CP3. There you had a choice of timing a dash around the cape and wading thru the surf to cut off about a mile from the route, or turn back and retrace your steps along the trail. The first 10 teams made it around, the rest didn't as the tide came in. After about a mile of coasteering - dodging and splashing thru the surf, (my favorite part), it was back up to the trails for another several miles out and around Cape Falcon to finish back at TA2.

Bushwhack
Expecting to get back on bikes, instead they handed me a supplemental map with two bushwhack CP's to bag. After some thick brush, two steep hills, a bit of nav confusion and 2 hours later with now really tired legs, I finally started the bike leg.

Bike
The bike route was not extensive, but given what we had already done, it was plenty. The route I chose was steep fire roads up to the top of Neahkahne mountain, I was doing plenty of pushing up hills that my brain insisted I could ride, only my legs said otherwise. Punching CP 8 at the top, it was a fast blast back down some chunky gravel, thru town and out to TA3 &; race headquarters on Nehalem Beach.

Kayak
Transitioning to kayak, next was a 7 mile paddle amongst small islands in the Nehalem River and across the bay, we had 5 CPs to find. Aside from running out of water as the tide ebbed, none of the checkpoints caused any issues. The sun even came out for awhile and made for a real nice leg. Returning to the TA, I remember thinking I'd be perfectly satisfied if this was the last leg and just had a short jog to the finish line. Nope--still more "adventure" to be had.

Orienteering
Exiting the water, they handed out a new orienteering map with 8 more CPs to find sprinkled around the beach park. Jogging along the beach, I snagged the first one pretty quickly &; headed for # 8. After 40 minutes of logic and map skills proved fruitless, I finally managed to stumble across it by dumb luck. Unfortunately, this set the tone for the rest of the O-course. Either I was navigating whacko, or some of the CP's didn't quite match the map. Eventually, I found them all, but with escalating frustration.

Finish
I ended the race with a beautiful 2 mile jog along the beach just as the sun was sinking into the surf with only the final CP 3 left and 100 yards to the finish. Except I couldn't locate the damn thing! It wasn't where I expected to find it &; my brain morphed into hissy-fit mode instead of puzzle solving. After some swearing and bitching, I finally found it and crossed the finish line in a foul mood. It took 2 veggie burgers, 3 waters and a huge piece of cheesecake to return my blood sugar back to normal before I was allowed to rejoin polite society.

All and all, it was a true, tough AR race that lived up to its championship billing. It was plenty long for a day race. My time was 12 hrs and 1 minute. Going solo was a new twist--which I enjoyed for the most part, (except when I had to tow myself). Nice job Shane, Kathleen and crew.

Dave Russell - Team Oceanic, Pro/Solo
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