After a night of sleeping in the car and several hours of following Goggle Maps to the wrong spot over and over I managed to find the right spot on Lake Mead. 24 adventure racers unloading boats,getting bikes ready,and all those last minute “things” you need to do before a race . This is why I like filming and not racing. I don’t have that pre race nervous feeling. I always hated waiting to start. When I am filming I start the minute that I get out of the car. Plus I like to annoy people and how annoying is it for someone to stick a camera in your face while you try to put the wheels on your bike.

The race field wasn’t that large but they came from all over. There was the 3 person CITOO from Canada, Militant Hippies from Park City and Durango, plus Teams from Arizona, California, and Nevada.

There were 2 first timers on the Kayak Lake Mead team.

At precisely some where around 9 the race started with a half mile portage. The Racers had to paddle out around a point to find there race book/passport.

Leg 1 was a 10k paddle with 5 CPs.

I headed for the high ground. I went to the top of o 400 ft ridge and had a great view of the paddling course. When the first team headed back towards the TA I raced them to their takeout. Downhill on foot beats kayaking when the distances are the same as at Desert Winds and the kayaks don’t know they are racing you.

The Militant Hippies were the first out of the water followed by Kayak Lake Mead a few minutes later.

The first leg of the bike was transitional to the trekking leg. The Racers stashed the bikes in a culvert and plotted the route. This was the make or break section of the race. I ran with the Hippies to the first CP, then climbed up out of the canyon to wait for the next team. It is more of a challenge to film a race when you don’t have the checkpoints on your map and in a GPS. I had to parasite off the teams the firsy couple of CPs. Then I could wonder around just like them.

TLM came up the canyon with a “we must be right,there’s the video dude” they were about 100 yds. from the CP when doubt crept in and fogged their minds.They went back to check another canyon. Awhile later they hit CP 1, just from the opposite direction as the rest of the teams.

Within a short time I was surrounded by adventure racing teams going every direction. Some going up some down and all looking hard at the map.

The desert is sort of like the Black Hills after awhile, all the canyons and hilltops look the same on the map.

After much wailing and mashing of teeth all the Teams finished the trek and headed out to get the last 2 bike CPs. Even with just 2 CPs almost all the Teams took a different route.That maybe one of the best parts of any race with navigation, the “how did you get there” conversations after a race.

The biggest surprise of the race was the time. Last year the 12 hour race was won in 15 hours.Some teams took 18. Race Director Robert Finlay wanted it to be closer to 12 this year. Apparently racers are getting faster, Canice Harte and Ian Hoag of Militant Hippies finished in 5:38:00. My guess is that Robert won’t let that happen again.

I had a great time and shot some super footage. I will be producing a DVD for the racers. I will be back in May for the 24 hour race, I suspect it will be at least twice as much fun.