Desert Dash Heat Wave I
Hot Competition
Jeff Hobbs (DesertDash) / 05.06.2008
The temperature was 90 degrees and climbing by 8 a.m. The racers gathered in the middle of MonteLago Village, a re-creation of a turn of the century Italian village located on the shoreline of Lake Las Vegas; a posh resort just outside of Henderson, Nevada. The sky was blue and the lake was calm. The starter gun went off at 8 a.m. sharp and the racers were off. Nearly 20 teams ran down the cobble stone roadway around quaint little shops and restaurants and out around the MonteLago Casino to a dirt field near the village bell tower. From there teams picked up the map of the first leg of the race. It was a six-mile run. The six miles was as the crow flies and many teams put in more miles than they needed to. Team Man-Beautiful for instance took 3 or 4 wrong turns and easily doubled the distance on the run. They completed all the checkpoints (CPs) but it hurt them in the long run. A valuable lesson learned by a rookie team.
Pro-Elite team Yoga Slackers Sr. made no mistakes, however. They were a powerful force to be reckoned with and made a statement from the first check point on. Hot on their heals were teams Yoga Slacker Jr. and team FLG. Team FLG was not a pro team but were no strangers to success. They earned their entry in this race by winning a race in Arizona. Their race pace made a statement that they were not to be taken lightly.
They were indeed on a mission to win this race. From the run, teams came in to transition and were given instructions for Mystery Challenge 1, “The Buddy System,� as it was called. Teams were asked to go from point “A� to point “B� with only the use of two feet for 3-man teams, the same two feet the entire way, across and back.
Some teams crawled with their feet up, some teams carried their team mates on their back, and some teams wheel barrowed their way across. The entire time the US Army was there screaming in the ears of the racers trying as hard as they could to distract them. Upon completion, teams were given instructions to do several types of exercises. They were told to read the instructions carefully, very carefully. Some teams did and some didn’t. The ones who read the instructions found that under instruction #13, it said, “Do not do any of the instructions above or below this number.� The entire time they had to endure a barrage of yelling boot camp style from the US Army who was helping us. It flustered many teams.
Then they were off to the bike. They had another mystery challenge at the first CP on the bike. There was a rope strung across two poles exactly 5 feet off the ground. They had to get their bike and bodies over the rope without touching it. This proved very difficult to many teams, but all of them accomplished it.
Team Yoga Slackers Sr. had a narrow lead at this point and made a huge gaff in navigation. At CP #9 they followed a wash several miles rather than jumping up on a smooth dirt road that would have taken them right to CP #10. They ended up bushwhacking several miles over mountains and dropped to 4th place. Team Yoga Slackers Jr. took the lead, and team FLG was hot on their heels.See All Event Posts
