Barkley Marathon

I've been thinking about the Barkley Ultra Marathon lately - it's 100 miles and 52,900 feeet of climbing. Only six people have ever finished this race. How bad ass is that? Here is a Fox Sports article on it.

I have also been discussing a double crossing (running) of the Grand Canyon with Krissy - 94 miles, 23,000 feet of gain, what an epic adventure that would be. For years I've wanted to mtn bike from Fruita to Moab on the Kokopelli trail in under 24 hours - 140 miles of beautiful mtn biking trails. Just kicking around some adventure ideas. We'll see what I can fit in with racing coming up really quick... May is packed:

• May 6: Krissy is racing in the Miwok 100k (63 miles) - I'll be pacing her last 20 miles (we'll get to hang out with the Copsons in SF too!)
• May 13-14: US Rogaining Championship - We'd do the 8 or 12 hour race rather than the 24 hour which we both want to do. Krissy will just be coming off Mikwok 100k and I have my big 24 hour mtn bike race at the end of May to prepare for.
• May 20th: TRIOBA Sprint Adventure Race. I was going to skip this to rest but NIKE ACG might be there. It's on their schedule.
• May 27-28: NORBA Northwest Regional Championship/WA State 24 hour solo mtn biking Championship.
  
  I'm am getting excited to race!

DART-nuun Primal Quest Training

Big fun weekend of

training for my adventure racing team DART-nuun. Not long and hard, but very specific – riverboarding and ropes training. Since this years Primal Quest will have a 5 + hour riverboarding section team DART-nuun decided that we should prepare for it.

We started Saturday with a hike up Mailbox peak. Then we met our riverboarding sponsor Art from Emergency Rescue. He designs riverboards and gear for riverboarding and was a wealth of knowledge. He taught us how to read the river and maneuver the boards through rapids. It was a blast!.

Sunday we met our ropes guy Pat,

and hit our secret ropes training spot to work on ascending fixed ropes, switching over to our rappel and rappelling back down another rope with a figure 8. Yeah for some reason Primal Quest is requiring us to use Figure 8’s rather than ATCs. After a failed attempt to paddle, RVG and I hit Tiger Mountain for a couple hours of Iverson and Preston trail. Great weekend.