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Upcoming Races for 2012
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Reveille Peak 100
There couldn’t have been a better venue to create an epic, Texas Mountain Bike race. Nestled in ...View
HFAR Werewolves Masters of the Universe wins Overall!
HFAR Werewolves Masters of the Universe (that’s a mouthful) won the 2011 Overall Terra Firma Extreme Adventure Race and are the Regional Champions...View
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Sprint Race #1 - Jack Brooks Park 6/16/07
Sprint Race#2 - Ft. Worth Camp Carter YMCA 6/30/07
Sprint Race #3 - Houston Urban Downtown 7/14/07
Sprint Race #4 - Austin Muleshoe Bend 7/28/07
Justin Burger - "In Memory of Roger Burger" racing to 2nd place Overall at Jack Brooks Park 6/16/07
(Photo Courtesy of Jennifer Reynolds at Galveston County Daily News)
Article From Galveston County Daily News:
Winkleman, Bain win adventure race
By Bernice Torregrossa
Contributor
Published June 17, 2007
HITCHCOCK — The long race to the state championship adventure race title started with a sprint Saturday. The first adventure race in the four-race championship series drew 74 two-person teams to the event, which combines running, biking and paddling.
Huntsville mountain biker Nathan Winkleman teamed up with Sean Bain of The Woodlands to capture first place, completing the race in 1 hour, 22 minutes. The team led throughout the race, padding a four-minute lead on the run with a strong cycling performance that increased its lead to six minutes over the second-place finishers, Patti Plagmann and Dave Boyd.
Winning times reflect the time each team spent on the course, with both members completing all elements of the race. Team members are required to stay together, within 15 feet, throughout the race.
Winkleman last competed locally in May, when he won the Webster Bicycle Duathlon at Highland Bayou Park.
“This was my first adventure race, and it was really challenging,” Winkleman said. “The mud wasn’t that much of an issue for me, but the paddling was pretty different.”
Intermittent rains turned the two-mile run and seven-mile cycling course to thick mud.
“There were times when my back wheel wouldn’t move because the mud jammed it,” Andrew Royle said. “I had to stop every 10 meters and pull out the mud. There was so much mud on my bike that it added about 20 pounds to it.”
Royle and his Team Newfoundland teammate, Jason Maloney, went on to take second place in the men’s division with a time of 1:30.
Co-ed winners and returning champions Plagmann and Boyd struggled with the mud as well.
“Patti crashed on her bike because the bridge was so slippery,” Boyd said. “That bridge is like ice when it gets wet.”
Despite the slip, Plagmann and Boyd used the bike portion of the race to overtake Houston Fit Adventure Racing’s Ashley Edwards and Kelley Simmons, who had led the co-ed teams after the run.
“It was a good day for us,” Simmons said. “In terms of pure speed, the course is pretty fast, even though the mud slowed us down a bit.”
Simmons and Edwards have only been partners in four races, but have already claimed a victory together with a first-place win in the co-ed division of Austin’s Muddy Buddy off-road duathlon.
“They went out fast, but I knew we had to be consistent and run our own race,” Plagmann said. “We tried to capitalize on our strength during the mountain bike section and then hang on through whatever else followed.”
Adventure racing is one of the few sports in which leaders may actually refer to “whatever else,” because the races feature mystery events that test athletic abilities and teamwork skills. Saturday’s mystery event was a cycling barrel race in which one team member, on foot, pushed their partner, who rode a bike.
“I didn’t know what to expect on the barrel race,” women’s first-place winner Lisa Helm said, “but, basically, it wasn’t that different from mountain biking on the trail. There were points on the trail where it was faster to get off and push your bike. Part of the strategy is in knowing where those points are.”
Helm and Kovach are Fort Worth triathletes competing in their first adventure race. They finished in 2:07.
“It was an adventure, all right,” Kovach laughed. “My whole front wheel popped off at the beginning of the bike race. We lost some time to mishaps like that, but we just hung in there.”
Kovach and Helm had trailed Austin women Alexandra Tirado and Julie Black after the run, but blasted past them once their bike problems were under control.
Black and Tirado, also veterans of the Austin Muddy Buddy race, attributed their 2:14 second-place standing to time lost in the water.
“We were paddling in circles,” Black said. “We probably went twice as far as we needed to.”
Black and Tirado will cross paths with Kovach and Helm several more times, as both teams plan to compete in all four races in the championship series.
“We’re primarily runners,” Black said, “but we enjoy doing this, and it’s great cross-training for the New York City Marathon, which we’re both running in November.”
Defending champion Justin Burger ran a solo race in tribute to his father, who passed away last Saturday. “He was really and truly my partner, whether we ran together or not, so I wanted to run this one with him and for him.”
The championship series returns to the area July 14 for an urban adventure race in downtown Houston.
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