Desert Dash

May 29th under the full moons....yes, there was more than one!

Hey everyone!  We're not even sure where to start with this race report?!  So much happened at the event, the turnout, the donations, the 3 full moons and 2 hula girls, the amazing energy level, our incredible volunteers, and the perfect setting for a nighttime run under the moonlight, we're still buzzing from it all!

Let's start with some business actually!  This was our best attended event with over 100 of you running out there AND NOT ONE PIECE of garbage was found!  This means so much to us, so give yourselves a pat on the back for that!  For everyone at the event, we gave a shout out to our BLM Ranger Lee Kirk, and if you could tell, we really work hard to find all of you great places to run and he is one of the important people that make it all possible.  So, for us to have all of you out there leaving the trails pristine, it's awesome!  For the whole event, with over 150 people there total we only had half a bag of garbage as well.  All the green initiatives we put into place right from the start are so evident when we clean up from an event and we have less trash than the average household!  If you are ever out running or biking at Cottonwood and see Ranger Lee, please let him know how much you appreciate all the work he does on the trails we all enjoy...it's hard work to keep the trails like they are, which is totally amazing!

Now, besides the fact that none of this could happen without all our athletes, it definitely cannot happen without our volunteers!  Super volunteers extraordinaire at the event were Dana, Tim O., Tina, Richard, Tim H., Troy and Shad.  These men and women spend hours with us, helping to set up, helping get everyone registrered, being our medics and keeping you safe and then helping to take everything down, including clearing the course markers.  If you see any of these awesome individuals out there on the trails or at our other events, please give them a thank-you!  Having the best volunteers around is such a huge help to us!  And, Jeff Hobbs and his crew need a big thanks for helping set up the race too...they were lifesavers!  And, our biggest cheerleaders!

Another huge thanks is to everyone who brought dog food...WOW!  We received hundreds of pounds of food for the German Shepherd Rescue Las Vegas plus some cash donations.  I'm not sure if you all even know what it meant to us and the rescue to see athletes coming down the road carrying big bags of food.  We want to thank Belinda and Barbara so much for all the work they do for these beautiful dogs and a special thanks to Belinda for bringing Atlas to the race for everyone to meet.  He was a beautiful dog and our race mascot Century was thrilled to meet him too!  If any of you can provide a forever home for a dog, please contact them!

We did things a bit differently with our prizes at this event.  We still did the overall winner shirts but another big thanks to Jeff Hobbs for making those fantastic plaques for our overall male/female winners as well.  Then, we decided to do our random prize drawings before the event so winners could collect their prizes at registration.  We had waistbelts, shirts, nuun electrolyte hydration tabs, Boulder Dam Brewing Co. gift cards, Trail Runner subscriptions, bags and a free entry for a team of 2 to our next adventure challenge.  We'll post who all the winners were but you know who you are, we hope you enjoy the prizes!  So, you may be wondering, how do I get entered to win cool stuff??  Easy, pre-register for the event and you are automatically entered!   Race day sign-ups are not qualified for random prize drawings, so you just have to get yourself registered!

And, a final thanks to our "2 full moons and 2 hula girls!"  We had no idea what was going on out there but one athlete after another was coming into the finish line and exclaiming "there's a naked man out there!"  One after another of you were giggling and commenting on this, it wasn't until the crew came running across the finish line that we realized that our awesome group run leaders Roger and Maraya had recruited some of their friends to be 2 more full moons and 2 hula girls cheering everyone on as they ran the course!  We appreciated the entertainment for sure but we think some suntans may be in order because those were some white cheeks!  This is the kind of fun you can be enjoying at group runs, well except that there's more clothing on at the runs!

And, finally we hope everyone loved the Porta Jane and John!  We had a great time working with this company and they did a donation from us to the German Sheperd Rescue as well which is fantastic!  We also were able to do our biggest donation to date to the Las Vegas Track Club!!  If you haven't read it already, this group works hard to provide scholarships so that kids can keep running once they go to college, it's a great way to support our athletes that are just starting! 

 So, next Moonlight Madness and season finale for the moonlight races is October 23rd.  We have some great stuff planned!  Plus, everyone that has done all 3 races gets something sweet!  We look forward to seeing you all there!  Or, earlier at a group run, our October 2nd daytime race..oh and maybe afterwards at our final Adventure Challenge for the year, October 30th!

Race results here.....

       Photo by Kandice Marks

What an incredible day in the desert, on the Colorado river and in the canyons!

What more can we say but thank you everyone!  We worked for months to get this course together and at the end of the day, seeing all the smiling faces, it was all worth it.  Putting together this course required a lot of help from a lot of great people.  Not only having all the athletes that came out to support us and encourage us to continue doing these events but the behind the scenes folks that helped us pull it all together! 

First and foremost Kathleen from River Raft Tours!  Without her in our corner this race would never have happened.  She was a beacon of light throughout the incredibly long permitting process and during the race she saved the day when she brought out the big guns and came down the river with a boat with an engine to help take the kayak and all that gear back to the finish line!

Our volunteers!!!!  Our medics Kristen and Tim were amazing and we are so thankful they were able to spend the day with us.  Debbie went above and beyond helping us to scout out the perfect location for the rappel, Christine was working with us through emails and phone calls and then on race day all three ladies, Debbie, Christine and Sue put together an incredible treat for everyone with the rappel station.

Dana, what would we do without her!  She was there bright and early in the morning helping out, everyone's favourite person at CP 1 and then she helped Colleen follow behind the athletes while they made their way down the river.  Then, she went up the canyon with Glenn...not a bad way to spend an afternoon volunteering!

Rae from Ragnar saved us by setting up a finish line for us when Colleen was delayed..well, battling a raging Colorado river is a pretty good excuse!  And, thanks to the YogaSlackers for setting up a slackline as the final challenge and for people to play on!  It was a good time for everyone and a new experience on the slackline for everyone too!

For those that didn't do the race, you missed out.  We told everyone for months and months that this was an event not to miss.  If you have been looking at the videos, or pictures on our Facebook fan page, you will have an idea of the fun that was had!  I am including a link to a race report put together by Jeff Hobbs from Team "One Jerk and a Squirt".  I think his report sums up the race beautifully!  So enjoy!

Race Results

Race report from Team One Jerk and a Squirt

And don't forget that Tracey from TrayLynn Photography did some great pictures of the athletes at the rappel station!

Sweet singletrack at Bootleg Canyon

Wow!  Could we have asked for any better weather?!  What a great day for racing!  Thanks to everyone that came out and supported us and our local groups that we support; Las Vegas Track Club and German Shepherd Rescue Las Vegas.

We have the results posted here, for those that changed what distance they were doing part way through the race, you will see your result under that distance.  Everyone, you were amazing out there, the courses are fun but they are also tough!  We had a lot of great comments about the marking, the courses, our volunteers and even the race dog Chewy!  We are starting a testimonial page, so if you want to send something to go on that page please do!

A couple of things, you may have noticed Tracey from TrayLynn Photography out there, we have seen some of her proofs and they are great!  She will be putting up a page soon for you to view your pictures and you can contact her about purchasing.  We thank Tracey a lot for spending the day with us!  And, to Richard Pipkins for helping her out with taking photos.

Our volunteers!  We could not have done the race without them and all of them commented on how nice all the runners were, so we thank both them and all you runners for making their day great!  Christie, Billy, Maximus, Steven, Eric, Bruce, Bridget, Monte, Maraya, Roger and Jake and Chewy the dogs we are so happy you joined us!  And, where would we be without our invaluable medic Kristen!  We told her she wouldn't have much business but she had a few scraped knees and hands to keep her busy!  Plus, Dan who is the caretaker at Bootleg Canyon, he is amazing and we appreciate all the hard work he puts in to keep that place so amazing!

We hope you enjoyed yourself, the race, the food and the swag.  We try to do what we would like at races and do swag that is a bit different than the regular t-shirt!  As always, those that raced with us for the first time the water bottles and gel flasks are for the season, please bring them to any races you do with us.

Garbage...hmmm it's a hard call on this!  Colleen and Bruce did a walk through of the course yesterday and we found only ONE Hammer gel raspberry wrapper.  With there being no other garbage on the rest of the course, we are going to say it may or may not have been a racer, could have been a biker?  But, regardless, thank you to everyone for packing out what you packed in!  It is a huge help to us!

We hope to see you all out there again, next race is the Adventure Challenge on April 3rd, then we have a Moonlight Madness trail run on May 29th.

Results

Race photos from TrayLynn Photography...click here!  And, if you want a cd of photos burned, just contact Tracey directly here... 

A great way to bring in the new year!

RESULTS

Colleen and Ron Lillis our fastest male in the 5k - way to go Ron!

A great time in the desert!

Results

Official start time was 11:15am

Team                                Finish time                               Time on course

Andy/Russ                              14:10                                  2 hours 55 mins

Tony/Gary                             14:20                                  3 hours 5 mins

Mountain Trekkies                   14:45                                  3 hours 30 mins

Roland                                   15:00                                  3 hours 45 mins

Timothy/Matthew                   15:10                                  3 hours 55 mins

Laura                                     15:30                                  4 hours 15 mins

Rick/Brian                              16:30                                  5 hours 15 mins

Flipper Girls                           16:30                                  5 hours 15 mins

First place was a tie between our 2 teams Andy/Russ and Tony/Gary!  Congratulations!

Mountain Trekkies got second place, this team was Jeff, Matt and Tyler!  Congratulations!

And a big shout out to Roland, he actually had the perfect score for the race!

Timothy/Matthew rocked the course, they started a bit late but made up huge amounts of time!

Laura was a super strong female competitor, we look forward to seeing her at more races!

Rick/Brian, wow!  This team had some crazy gear issues, including breaking a chain but they kept on going and did a great job!

Flipper girls, Andrea was the best partner a race director could ask for!  Yes, one of the race directors was on the course!  We love to be able to be out there to help if needed and to see everyone having fun on the course we created!