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“It doesn’t have to be fun to be fun.” — Mark Twight |
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Team Ruination “The beer drinkers from Tucson” |
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Our races |
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Gilmore Adventure Race, September 2004: We entered the 24ish mile Gilmore race as our first ever feet-on-the-ground race. We finished with a respectable time of 6 hours 2 minutes, third place in the coed division and 4th overall. We had more fun than we could put in a bag. We learned that inflatable kayaks are not a match for hard shell boats. Desert Rage III, October 2004: We entered the longer 45ish mile DRIII race at Lake Pleasant ready to see if we could keep up with the big dogs. We finished 5th in coed division and 9th overall in the race. We used borrowed hard shell boats. Again we had loads of fun and did not embarrass ourselves. Phoenix Woman’s Adventure Race, November 2004: Jane “Animal” elected to enter the race as a solo racer because Jim and Gerry were excluded from entering due to the obvious restrictions established by the race director. Animal managed to finish first in the solo category and second overall out of 50+ teams. See what Stac from team Outek had to say about it. Tucson Marathon 2004: Jane “Animal” Larkindale ran the Tucson Marathon. Jim and Gerry, spineless worms that they are, provided encouragement from afar. Animal finished her first ever 26.3 mile race in 4 hours 17 minutes. Jim and Gerry did experience sympathetic pain in their legs the following day. |
2004 Race Activity |
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Gerry and Jim carrying Jane through the string maze at Gilmore 04. |
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Actual photo of Animal running marathon → Looks like she’s way out in front doesn’t it. . . |
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Jane starting paddle section of Woman’s Race |
2005 Race Activity |
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Desert Rage II, March 19, 2005 aka Mud-Fest 05: What are the odds that it will rain on an adventure race in Arizona? After the Mud-Fest we went through at Camp Verde, I guess they’re pretty darn good. It was cold and drizzly as the teams began staking out territory in the Transition Area. It stayed that way pretty much all day. It was a great day for a race! This time, we finished 5th over all out of 30 teams. We were OK with that. Except for the Monster guys from Racelab who won the thing, the next four teams 2nd—5th place were separated by a total of 13 minutes. We are getting better. Click here for a detailed race report
Desert Rage I, February 5, 2005: Horseshoe Lake, AZ. Our first race of the year. We were a bit anxious as we looked around the transition area at the start of the race. We saw the familiar faces of the Monster Energy guys, Adventure Racing Concepts, Ascent Adventure Racing and many other not-so-familiar, but intimidating racing profiles. It was a good gathering of 33 teams ready to hit the desert trails around Horseshoe Lake. We were happy to finish 5th in the 3/4 Coed division. We spent the day nipping at the heals of the big dogs. One of these days we’re gonna bite’em. Until then, beer, beer, beer. It was a fun race. Captain Rudder will post a longer race write up as soon as he gets around to it. Or not. Please note the actual race pic to the right. We had to buy it — none of our groupies showed up to take pics of us. Jane hates the pic because she is wearing baggy pants; Gerry doesn’t like it because his running shorts look like a diaper; Jim’s grinning like the Cheshire Cat — he loves it. |
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Team Ruination finishing trail run at Desert Rage I |
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Race Director, Rick Eastman (in yellow jacket), talks to a team about placement of gear in the Transition Area at rainy Desert Rage II, 2005. |
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Full Moon Over Phoenix Night Adventure Race, April 23, 2005: What’s with Rick “Rain-man” Eastman and these rain soaked desert races? Our bikes barely survived the mud at the Verde River Desert Rage II race and now, as we sat at the starting line waiting for the 6:00PM start of the Full Moon over Phoenix Night Race we watched a storm front sneaking in from the southwest. Carter’s watch (he’s the race paramedic) informed us that there would be clouds, but no rain, even as the first drops fell. Little did we know that we were in for a long, cold, rainy night. When it was over, we were the last team to finish ……. We came in second. Eleven teams started and only two finished the difficult and demanding race. “It doesn’t have to be fun to be fun.” (Mark Twight) rapidly became our mantra for the night. Click here for a full race report. |
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‘05 AdventureXtream Durango, Colorado, June 11, 2005: Yep, little ole Team Ruination drove all the way to Durango from Tucson just to do an adventure race. Why? That’s a good question, for which there may not be a really good answer. To race? To race in a different venue from the desert? To us, single track is sand, rocks, dust, cactus, rattle snakes, barbed wire fences, and sunburn. What we found in Durango was rocks, mud, unbelievably cold water, ultra-slippery tree roots, and big trees lying across the trail – lots of them. We had heard that navigation was not too challenging at these races and we found that to be very true. Jim actually plotted the entire race (to include transition areas) a couple weeks before the race. He didn’t cheat. He simply took the race profile AdventureXtream published and applied it to maps of the area and figured out the likely course. He was spot-on in all respects. Apparently being a traffic engineer and superior back country navigator has some merit. We checked in on Friday and were handed maps and coordinates for all checkpoints. Maps and check point info before the race? We took the maps to a nice restaurant and confirmed Jim’s predicted course while we ate pasta and beer. The AdventureXtream people would not let us race as a team of three, therefore, we had to enter as a two person coed team and a solo team. Consequently, once the race started we had two quite different racing experiences. Jim and Jane finished 2nd in the Two Person Coed Division. Gerry? Well let’s just say he wasn’t last. Read Gerry’s solo race report. |
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Gilmore Adventure Race, Prescott, Arizona, September 17, 2005: Team Ruination arrived in beautiful Prescott late Friday evening and promptly ran into a bunch of old friends and competitors at the Watson Lake camp site (Sierra Adventure Sports, Adventure Racing Concepts, and Ascent AR). The whole group wandered into town and found one of the slowest Italian restaurants in the state. The food was excellent, but the slow service kept Gerry up way past his bedtime. Saturday morning arrived very early and all the happy campers packed up and dashed over to the Transition Area (TA) at Willow Creek Reservoir to sign in for the race. |
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Desert Rage Las Vegas, November 5, 2005: Team Ruination was all set to grow by one for the Las Vegas Race. Four person coed was the premier division, so we decided to try and find an additional teammate. Butch Nelson of Team Monster Energy was nice enough to recommend one of his racing partners, Brian Karasek. Brian agreed to race with Team Ruination and we were set with a very solid team for the LV race. The plan was for Brian and Jane to tow Gerry and Jim.
But then life happened. Read the race report with pictures |
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Desert Rage III, December 3, 2005: Back to its original three members, Team Ruination broke camp at 3:30 am to prepare for the 5:00 am start of the final race in the Desert Rage series. As Race Director, Rick Eastman, advertised, it was the warmest race you could do in December. Barely awake, the team formed up at the starting line right behind Monster Energy in the dark, moonless morning. The 40 mile race began with a three-point orienteer/scramble to gather maps and race coordinate information. No problems there, other than a shared moment of confusion when a mass of teams all headed up the same road, where checkpoint 2 was noticeably absent. A short period of confab with the other teams, and we headed out to checkpoint 3, planning on finding CP 2 on the way back. Luck was on our side, as we stumbled across CP2 on the way out….. We dashed on to CP3, and set out on the 27 mile bike leg with high hopes and bright lights. Read the race report with pictures |
2006 Race Activity |
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Desert Rage I, February 3, 2006: Team Ruination prides itself on navigation - day or night, rain or shine we find our way. After all, how can we not? All three members are experienced navigators with excellent map and compass skills. That said; Team Ruination started off the 2006 Desert Rage I Adventure Race by quickly knocking off the traditional Desert Rage three point scramble and then charging right past the hill upon which sat the first trek checkpoint (CP). That’s right, the CP was on a hill, not a tree, not a rock, not a bump, not a stump – No, it was on a hill, a small hill, but a hill just the same. Did it help that Jane saw the hill? Did it matter that she said she saw the hill? Did it matter that she started up the hill to “check it out” only to be called back by the other team members? Did it matter that she reported seeing other racers on top of the hill? No it didn’t because we were in a hurry. |
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Desert Rage Roosevelt Lake, April 29, 2006: Team Ruination’s three sleepy team members crawled out from under their respective rocks at 2:30 AM in order to stumble around setting up the team’s gear to be ready for the 3:30 AM pre-race meeting. Jim fired up the Jetboil and made coffee, without which we all may have simply crawled back under our rocks and bagged the whole thing. Read the complete race report here |
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Explore the West, Southern, Nevada Race, May 13, 2006: Having, for some insane reason, decided that we don’t suffer enough in the Desert Rage races, we decided we wanted to enter a longer race. We chose the Explore the West race based at Lake Mead, thinking that it would be longer than 12 hours (our longest race to date), but not by too much. Paul Romero and Karen Lundgren did not disappoint: the race was long, hard and an enormous amount of fun (in a masochistic kind of way). All was going well to start with on Friday evening: our gorgeous rental kayak was waiting for us, the lake was placid, and the temperature pleasant (it was, after all, 10pm). We settled into our tent and failed to sleep (as always before a race). We were a sadly depleted team as Gerry couldn’t come, so we were racing as a 2 person team minus our main navigator. The morning of the race brought flashbacks of our first races in 2004: a whole bunch of zero-body fat lycra clad athletes with fancy gear, who we were going to try and compete with for some reason. Of course, we’ve invested in some lycra too since then, but we keep it decently hidden from view. Read Jane’s complete race report here |