Team Verve has taken part in three races. Two unofficial, one short one.
First - Colinoba, with very untraditional Team Verve, consisting of Pēteris and two of his Latvian friends - Ģirts and Gunta. An urban course included beer drinking at TAs and for failures in special tasks. We came second from the other end. I did acquire a magnificent beer botttle named Fantome, supposedly one of the best beers from Belgium. I'm drinking O'Doul's though.
There are a lot of pictures available: Colinoba from eyes of team Verve
The second race, testing us mentally and physically - Gorge Winds II. Second training race by Dave Russell, put on in Dodson, Oregon, Columbia river Gorge. A rather enjoyable trek, followed by kayak with foot loops and finally bike with some more foot loops. We kept trying to catch the first teams when they had already stopped racing.
It was really, really cold. Twice. First time was the creeking exercise, less than an hour from the end of kayak loop, where we were clever enough not to use our wetsuits (AND WE HAD THEM). So we did not reach the waterfall in the creek. The most interesting feeling here - my legs were all cold in the water, but once they were partially out, the parts out had a feeling of burning. And I was in that water at most 10 minutes.
The second time was our biking loop (road bike, in fact), we were trying to reach altitude of 2600 feet in the coldest time of day (around 5 am, just before light) and we went morally bankrupt in the fear of cold of coming down just a mile short of our aim.
And the results? The rest of the teams had stopped the madness around 1 am. We finished at 8.
More information - Christi's blog with some Murray's text. Pictures, pictures - from our support crew and from the team's camera.
The third race to be mentioned - first Beastrace of this season, location Issaquah, High point, N side of I-90. A rather muddy bike route with an urban O' in between. My bike keeps eating chain on the smallest ring in front, so most of the uphill I did with the middle ring. Rather painful. I had some three small navigation mistakes, which cost us 2nd place. We still came in third, being the first co-ed team. Matt Hayes and Lotto guys beat us by some 13 minutes and a solo guy (I wonder who exactly) by some 2 minutes. I took some 10 pictures, they are here for your viewing pleasure: click here.
Besides races the last week has been pretty heavy training for me: I have done 4 mt Si's and one Marathon around Bridle trails park, Kirkland/Redmond. Before marathon - 4 hours with MTBs and Christi in region around Tokul, visiting Fuller Mt geocaches as well. Very exhausting, but Desert Winds are waiting us.
An update on Desert Winds: Miles Ohlrich will be joining us for this race. Super strong athlete, a regular 50k+ runner and AR Nationals participant with team Mergeo.com.
