TooCoolRacing.com

Great Urban Race Austin

2008-11-06T10:11:00.000-08:00

yes, yes...i know it's been awhile. i just don't seem to have the blogger knack! the usual goings on...kids, life, Too Cool!

We (Art and I) did do the GUR (great urban race) in Austin on October 5th with a big austin mob! Here is a very brief race report;

The GUR came to Austin on October 5th and several Austin teams that had not already qualified for the GUR nationals in Vegas on Nov 8th were going to see if they could make the top 25 to qualify. Kip and Dave had won the Dallas race thereby qualifying. John and Marcy had won the Denver race thereby qualifying. So that left Art and I, Gayle and her partner, Scott and Sheila, Richard and Chris , Spencer and his partner and Rob and Jim. We had all sorts of Austin folks running ground support inc. Michelle (dave's wife), Leslie (team imoat) and becky (jim's wife).

The race started and ended at mother egan's irish pub at noon on sunday. i wasn't feeling great since i had not sleeped well for several days and was coming off a bunco weekend in wimberly ('nuf said). We got the 12 clues at noon and off we went. because this is a favorite kind of race for so many of us we have quite a system (it's top secret so 'nuf said!)

so we all took off while reading clues and talking to phone support. Art and i decided to head to town lake where it looked like there were going to be several special tests. all the teams were running together for a bit so we knocked off one of the clues right away where we were required to get a picture of 10 people in front of the frost building.

Art and i continued running towards town lake. our plan was to cut thru the four Seasons parking lot and jump on the hike and bike. when we got to the four seasons there was all kinds of construction going on that stopped us so instead of turning around art just took off thru the hotel. we went flying into the hotel, thru lobbies, down steps, past guests until we popped out the back entrance...it was very james bondish!

as we headed towards a special test near the holiday inn our awesome phone support, tom lane realized that we were going right by a 3rd clue...a rock that had 'howdy' on it...so we bagged that on the way to the special test.

we headed to the 3rd clue which turned out to be a special test designed to make you feel like you were being given a sobriety test after a six pack of beer! you had to put your head on top of a plastic bat, run around it 12 times then take off in a straight line around some cones and then come back again! let me just say this was not my strong suit! maybe a six pack woulda' helped!

at this point we realized we had not read the clues well and the 4th clue we were headed towards was not going to open up until 1 pm! it was only 12:30..oh well, we realized this would have to be our skip point since we weren't gonna hang for a 1/2 hour! too bad also since this was a segway tour and it sounded fun, albeit a log jam!

so we took off running towards emos...the next clue that made sense to bag. tom directed us to emos and then stubbs bbq then onto the bob bullock museum. on our way to emo's tom told us we needed to find the number 24 on something and take a picture of us with it! we were running with john and marcy so we passed that info on and also to rob and jim!

okay, that was 5 clues down (inc the skip) and bagging emos and stubbs put us at 7 clues wrapped up!

we took off up red river to the bob bullock museum. this clue would turn out to be the set back for some teams! fortunately, art's brother works at the museum so art called his bro to see if he could find the red stars on the texas sign...we found the sign no problem but there was another sign that was similar but it didn't have the required 'red' letters..it was white letter on a red background...uh oh!

next up was the cesar chavez staue on campus;

then off for ices on the drag...

a quick run past the renaissance market to nab a pin and then back to mother egans where leslie and becky had a can of tab waiting for us to complete the 12th clue! john and Marcy had come in 1st but were waiting for the austin teams to come in before they crossed the finish line (since they had already qualified they weren't worried about ranking...just the cash winnings :) jim and rob came in next followed by art and I...Chris and Rich and Dave and Kip actually came in after john and Marcy but remember the red starry texas sign at the bob bullock museum? they took a picture of the wrong sign! so they ended up taking a 30 minute penalty and still finished in the top 10!

It was an awesome race that was successful due to so many people!! thanks to all the phone supports, ground supports, clue solvers and family members that helped! it's off to vegas now, baby!

Only the good die young...

2008-09-07T10:55:00.000-07:00

It is with an incredibly sad heart I tell you our good friend Dave Boyd Died Thursday after falling during a climbing trip in Colorado. The entire Texas adventure racing community is in the state of shock as we all try to fathom how this could have possibly happened...

we will miss you Dave!

To Sweat or Not to Sweat...

2008-08-25T13:10:00.000-07:00

well Too Coolers, it's been awhile. my own too cool family has been busy adventuring this summer-snorkeling, white water rafting, hiking, etc. back in time for the last Too Cool event of the season... No Sweat 12/24 hr adventure race. I was a wee bit worried when the temps hit 100 at Parrie Haynes ranch this past friday...this race always has such heat carnage.

we had a little over 100 racers this year...a bunch of our regular guys were doing the hotter than hell bike ride...seems they like to torture themselves one way or another.

not too much carnage this year...we had one guy go to the hospital to get IV fluids..but he was out in a few hours and back at the ranch saturday night...unlike last year where the racer with heat issues spent 3 days in the hospital! btw, the racer from last year no longer adventure races (according to his wife!)

school started today for my little too coolers ...read kids.

Alan Henson of houstonFitAr...this has gotta' be my favorite picture!!

Hard Rock Cafe...

2008-07-15T15:21:00.001-07:00

We would be remiss to not mention a favorite Too Cool racer and volunteer John Beard who placed 18th at the Hard Rock 100 Ultra Run this past weekend. Way to go JB!!!

this and that...

2008-07-14T15:11:00.000-07:00

worked out at Parrie Haynes on Saturday for the Too Cool No Sweat race at the end of August. Water is low but is doable..it is an adventure race after all. Found some cool stuff to use. Still pondering the exact ropes section...hmmm, would love to be able to use that slingshot but that just seems like a bottleneck waiting to happen.

another pic of the fam at ARG Challenge

It ain't over 'til it's over....

2008-07-11T08:40:00.001-07:00

Our buddy Kenny Farrow from HART at PQ finish line

(sporting his Too Cool cap!)

Congrat's Kenny and team!

2008-07-06T10:04:00.000-07:00

Memoirs from TooCoolRacing.com and the ARG Challenge.

I would be racing this race with the women folk of my family...Cathy, Dani (my 6 year old) and myself. The men folk of my family (Garrett my 11 year old who I will refer to as 'little Garrett' from now on to not confuse him with the older Garrett Lewis. Although it would make more sense to call the older Garrett 'little Garrett' if you know what I mean!) would be running support and hopefully not causing too much trouble volunteering.
We were transported to the race start at fisherman's park after Debbie gave a brief but thorough pre race meeting. Because we rented a boat from rising phoenix adventures we got the deluxe ride in air conditioned vans. We happily chatted with the Luna Chix team on our way to the start.

race start (approx .5 mile) we ran carrying our paddles in a sort of train formation. We put Dani in the middle and worked at her pace which I have to tell you is considerably faster than her mommy's pace! slow down child! up some stairs to the top where we picked up an egg (uncooked) that had the name of one of our favorite adventure racing 'Texas' boys on it...Ross! now it was up to us to not let Ross down, or crack or splat or smush or...you get the idea, for the entire race.
Leg 1-paddle (approx 6 miles) this was probably the leg Cathy was worried about most I think she had visions of us losing Dani on the river. We borrowed a third sling seat for Dani and bought her a new Barbie PFD after she squawked too much in the one we borrowed from Curt (ok, granted she is not in the 30-50 pound range anymore). We had 3 checkpoints to pick up the last one being at the take out. Both river points were nicely placed on islands that were clearly visible on the topo. Little Garrett was waiting for us at the take out and we managed not to lose Dani!
Leg 2-bike to trek (approx 4-6 miles) after Little Garrett fed and watered us we were on our way. I was riding with Dani attached to my bike via a trail-a-bike. It looked like we would ride our bikes to pick up the first 2 cps where we would then drop our bikes and get the next 3 cps by foot. All cps in this leg would have to be gotten in order using an aerial map. The ride was along the road with views of the golf course and river. We had to walk up that ginormous hill that every race that has ever been in Tahitian village has a cp on top of! Then back down where cp 4 was along the road. Took a right down a pine needle path and dropped our bikes at cp 5. Off we went down a sandy creek bed to get cp 6. We found that skittles had amazing powers for all around speeding things up with my 6 year old! We bagged cp 6 at the bottom of some cliffs, turned around and hit 7, 8 , 9 respectively. Back on our bikes to TA!
Leg 3-surprise! Back at TA little Garrett was waiting for us where he informed us that we had a special test. We were instructed by Bobby Kitchen and Curt that we needed to fill up a lawn and leaf bag down by the river, carry it up a little hill and weigh it without breaking. Every 10 pounds of water gave us a 1 minute time credit. I think we squeaked out about 2 minutes give or take!
Leg 4-ride and tie (approx 1.5 miles) ok, at this point the temp had reached 1 million degrees, Fahrenheit, no, I'm not kidding! This leg had 1 cp on it and we elected to skip it knowing that we were not going to be able to get all the cps in the 6 hour cut off. Little Garrett was super concerned at this point that he was going to lose his entire family to the boiling pot called Tahitian village!
Leg 5-bike (approx4-6 miles) There were 5 cps in this leg to be obtained also with an aerial map. We had already been given the warning this was a very tough, hilly leg. Little Garrett, who seems to be enamored with the HoustonFitAr team he calls 'the Kiwis' told us it took those guys almost an hour to do leg 5 and they weren't hauling a little girl who rumor has it was not always peddling back there! So we decided to try to hit 3 cps and give ourselves to 2:15 to get back to TA so that we could finish the last leg in time. Off we went and being the excellent navigator that I am went right past the cp! Now in all fairness I was looking for a street called wannamucka pucka, no seriously if you have ever been to Tahitian village the streets all have these impossible to pronounce Hawaiian names. Anyway, wannamuckapucka was the street our street turned into I just didn't realize it. So because we were having so much fun we rode for awhile before we started seeing all these streets that didn't make sense kakapuckie, manalookie, wheretheheckarewekeke? I knew we needed to go over the railroad tracks which I distinctly remember passing ...hmmmm. So we turned around and went back. At this point we saw other teams that appeared to be just as confused as we were! We took a turn back down towards where we came from and saw that a dirt road went straight off the turn in the road that we hadn't seen before. Sure enough that road led to the RR tracks and the cp! I knew where I was now! So off we went on wannamuckapucka for a bit, then turned on mookahookawookie to hit the next cp. This one was on top of a hill (go figure) of sand. We hunted just a bit on some of the neighboring hills but found it pretty quick. Then we took off, up another hilly road to bag the last cp we were going for. This cp was on, you guessed it, a hill. After bumbling up the wrong hill first (Cathy was saying it didn't look right.) we went up the right hill next, hit the cp and went back to TA. We arrived about 20 minutes faster than we estimated and had plenty of time to finish the last leg.
Leg 6-trek (approx 1.5 miles) Little Garrett was waiting for us with cold Gatorade and special treat bags he had made for us with cookies, Fritos, gum and jerky in them! That is what I call amazing support!! The last leg had 3 cps on it and Little Garrett came with us after asking Debbie if it would be cool to do so. Off we went as a family unit, happy to be almost done, happy that we hadn't lost either of our kids, happy that we would soon be swimming in the river! All 3 cps were off of a very nice, shady walking path and easily bagged with the topo map. We saw lots of teams who weirdly enough started running every time they saw us. We ran in with another team, turned in an unbroken Ross who Dani did an excellent job caring for and then jumped in the river for a cool down! We had a great day on a very fun course that Mike and Deb designed. This was the real deal AR! Thanks to all the volunteers, especially Curt who says he was nice to my boy! Thanks to all the sponsors especially Sweet Leaf Tea and Luna bar who donated a cool bucket hat I won and immediately gave to Little Garrett, who totally earned it. Thanks especially to Dani and Cathy who put up with my obsessiveness with adventure racing!

a few pics...

2008-06-30T18:36:00.000-07:00

some of the super duper volunteers! some of the AAR chixs...

just a teaser from this past weekend's arg challenge.

like i said, my kids were awesome!!

green, green and green

2008-06-29T12:40:00.000-07:00

no, not green living...green as in amateur! first i don't post anything for awhile b/c i don't know how and then i write an entire page blog and delete it by accident, oy!

on the home front, my family raced in the urban assault race last weekend. Cathy and Garrett were toocoolracing.com and Dani and I were toocoolracing.com jr. we had a blast despite ridiculous lines at the obstacles and near death heat! Josh and the UAR gang have assured me they were aware of the problems this year and are going to make 'big changes' for next year! way to go Josh!

Yesterday, Dani, Cathy and I raced as toocoolracing.com at Debbie's argirl challenge. Garrett ran support and volunteered in between. we had a fantastic time and i can't express how proud i am of both my kids!

also, it's a good thing it's summer and i am between toocool races because i have been glued to the PQ website this week watching the texas teams in particular the werewolves of austin! Chad and Alan have done an amazing job blogging for the team and have the best PQ website by far.

Tom and Paul of werewolves at PQ catching a few zzz's in their TooCool attire!

2008-06-18T10:46:00.000-07:00

Toocoolracing.com and Toocoolracing.com jr. take to the streets of austin this sunday in our first family 'adventureish' race-Urban assault. i am getting ready today and taking care of my team (dani and I) route choices, on line quiz, bike borrowing etc. think i will head down to REI and get dani a cool max shirt...yesterday i got her a bike basket that i intend to put treats in to help her along the way! beer for mom, lolipops for daughter!