Discussion: Cowboy Tough 2016

With seeing posts of shipped gear and having read this article, thought it was time to start a thread!

http://www.breathemag.ca/news/expedition-racing/ca...

(If there is a thread started I have missed, happy to delete.). Can't wait to spectate this race.

Re: the Breathe article, interesting that Joel doesn't mention Swedish Armed Forces.

I have to say, i am stocked to do some dot watching on this one. Raced this last year and found the race tough to follow, even while in the darn thing. Should be fun from home.

My Thoughts

Yes, should be good spectating. Rev3's strength is not broadcasting the competition side of things. We will have Aaron there with his camera and hopefully great access to WiFi to keep everyone abreast to the happenings at the pointy end on the Team Adventure Medical Kits FB page.

Tecnu will have a media team on the ground. Go to the Facebook Page for live updates and pictures as well as aerial footage from the drone.

Hopefully, we can make AP a hub if Rev3 doesn't do that. Simpy, as an experienced Cowboy, you may need to explain stuff to the rest of us!

I can't help myself. Here are my predictions for 2016 Cowboy Tough

Top 5 (in order):
1) Adventure Medical Kits - I have won the thing 3 times, but have never had any 4 person coed team pressure past the first day and a half. Looking forward to that changing!

2) Tecnu Brand - One would be stupid to bet against Stu and his multiple ARWC titles on at least 3 different teams. (yes, I'm stupid!) Not only is he probably the 2nd best adventure racer racing right now (w/ Chris Forne being #1), he is also very accustomed to racing as a mercenary on many teams and those teams usually win. w/o Stu I would have these guys in 3rd.

3) SAF - They got 3rd at Worlds last year. Malin fresh off a 2nd place at the åre extreme challenge, and their 5th man out placed 2nd as well. Dialed team. AND all 4 of them can kill me w/ their bare hands.

4) TNF Adventure - Ryan and Jay are quick China Stage AR racers. Not very strong alone for CT, but they have Brazilian AR and multi-sport power couple of Gui and Cami. Gui navigated for the team formally know as Adidas (GodZone Adventure Team) at Worlds last year and took them to a 7th place. As a couple they placed 6th at Worlds in Costa Rica, they won last year's race in Paraguay, and 3rd at the Ecomotion behind Columbia and Seagate. Expect these guys to put the pressure on with super fast TAs, and with the multitude of legs everyday this will add up to serious time.

5) Canada AR - These guys are all friends. Charles has become my training partner since moving to Oakland from Swiss. Matt Hayes has experience at CT and will add quite a bit to the team's nav. Jason is the most steady racer out there. Natalie will ensure things stay snappy. As much as i would like to see them higher, the teams above are tough, but these guys belong in this top 5, and I really hope to see them separate themselves from the rest of the field.

Top 10 teams (kinda in order)
Journey Racing - Looks like the strongest Journey team put together that I have seen. They all have experience at CT.

YogaSlackers - No Jason and Chelsea. That is a big hit to this team. Hope they can prove me wrong. They are ranked 10th in the world.

Silent Chasers - Phil and Kevin have done the race every year I believe and I am thrilled to see them put together a 4 person team. Their nav-game will be strong with the Garrison leading the charge. If Heather built up from the 18 mile run we did together over Xmas, then she will be towing the boys!

Ouside PI - Dr. Mikael has experience at CT and I think these are the guys he raced with at MMAC in Belize to 4th place.

Happy Mutant - Some quality racers here that are very experienced but VanDis is a big wild card. I'm not sure he has raced with a team as fast as this before. Hope he surprises me (and maybe himself) and moves up 2-3 ranks. Could even crack the top 5 as Julia is a goer, Shane crunches all the numbers, and Mark writes a blog on how to navigate for crying out loud!

NYARA - I haven't raced against the Courain bros in a long time, but Jason will keep things moving forward. I don't know Ms Swan...

NorCal - Canice just ran a sub 24 hour Western States last month so if he isn't destroyed he will be ready to trek. TK is a wise racer and navigator. He is a regular at PER and just raced the Teton Ogre 24 hour solo. Rolly has the cutest family I see that comes through my FB feed. This is a great oppurtunity for him. I hear Stephanie has never done anything like this before.

Thanks for that - have a great race!

Re: NYARA -- Jason is out, JD is in. Constant Forward Progress :)

5th eh? ;-)

Course outline. Hoping it makes it easier for people (my wife) to follow along...



We see bin A at TA07, B at TA08 and A/B at TA10. Some reason it dropped out and I don't have the time to fix it.

Great use of "'eh" JayXC, you are really embracing the use of our language since joing team Canada.

Not sure I would like the optional points so early on in the race. As a guy who would take advantage of at least one short course option and optional checkpoints, having them so early would make it impossible to know where i stood in rankings. I would much prefer short course routes over optional cps. I do however see how they are useful and some teams would like them.

Actually on this team 'que voulez-vois dire?' might work better.

good recap KP. interesting background on some of the new-to-me names and makes me super bummed to be missing out this year. will be such a throw-down! exciting for USA AR! have fun everybody.

Thanks Kyle and others. I'll be following. Do great things.

Thanks Kyle, JayXC and everyone. Excited to see the AMK racers get more competition! Hmmm, trying to outrace Stu.... ;)
Good luck everyone!

Bummer that most of the "optionals" are treks and vice versa. Not that a course should be designed for the slower teams but it is certainly something to consider. Unfortunately it looks like the slower teams will be primarily biking and paddling their way through the course. I may be wrong though.

Thanks for sharing JayXC

Nice preview. I'll follow with interest. Good luck to all the APers racing. Odd course set up with the majority of the trekking (and complexity?!) Optional.

I'll be there with bells on. I will at least try to link stuff here. If not find it on the CBT site and my FB page. Its hard to send to multiple places with iffy internet. Last year I was driving 2+ hours to find any wifi. If we have cell coverage life will be golden.

We'll reveal the actual course on Wednesday and will be covering and tracking all teams at http://www.cowboytoughwy.com/#!dashboard/c1uxz. Getting a signal is iffy in lots of places, so you may need to be patient and understanding at times, but we will do our best to keep everyone up to date. We're looking forward to some great competition from some heavy hitters, Glad y'all will be following along!

Rev3 will there be maps or course instructions to follow?

Yep! All posted on Wednesday once packet pickup opens at 11 am MDT.

Excited to get out to CBT this year with NYARA. Abby said it, unfortunately Jason had to drop out due to work, but we were able to get JD Eskelson to join up in his place. The nonstop format this year, as opposed to the "end of day camps" from prior years is something im looking forward to. i feel it puts things in the vein of classic expedition racing, vs stage racing.

Live Tracking Map
http://www.cowboytoughwy.com/#!live-map/c1j8w

A couple more articles to fuel the fire:
http://news.arworldseries.com/top-teams-getting-a-...

http://www.sleepmonsters.com/v2_races.php?article_...

I will be doing Live updates on the Rev3 Facebook page at the top of the even hours. When I have cell service. The first will be 8am MDT Thursday mornng.
https://www.facebook.com/Rev3Adventure/

Awesome, thanks Randy!

From AMK Facebook: "Pre race meeting! Maps have been released. 435 total miles, somewhere around 25,000 feet of vertical gain. Very bike heavy - 270 miles of biking. Lots of paddling too, and relatively little trekking, but there is a 3,000 foot climb with KOM prize for fastest time up 10,276 ft Laramie Peak that we will be gunning for. Will be a very fast course, leaders expected to finish Saturday evening."

Are the dots not working? Or is my phone not working? Can anyone else see the dots?

I can see all the dots. Huge bunch of people racing together on bikes at the front.

Surprised it wasn't broken up at the start to thin the bunches out a bit.

Anyone know if it was a mass start on bikes or a Le Mans start?

dots are moving! i am watching on a computer tho.

it was a mass start on bikes, controlled at 12mph by Casper Police until city limits (or some other designated point) and then they let everyone loose.

Lead pack (very early) on the bike of Yogis, Tecnu, AMK, Swedish AF, TNF, and Canada. no surprises there!

Whoops! You can zoom right into 30m so stretched a bit. Adventure Medical Kits out front, Yogaslackers & Technu close behind.

Yes! Looking forward to very little productivity for the next 3.5 days :)

Goddamit my work browser version won't support Rev 3 site :(

Thankful for my second, larger monitor. ;) Just took a peek and go Canada AR...I know it's early, but wish I knew what was happening on that river...

Anyone handicapping the race besides KyleRPeter? That guy is so biased:)

Who is the favorite? Odds for top teams to win?

I've picked Tecnu for the win, pretty sure Abiperk has AMK, brent has SAF...anyone want to pick the field?

To be fair, I said that I feel relatively good about my top three, barring significant issues, but could see any of them on top :)

She did say that, I can vouch. But to use an academic term abiperk might be familiar with from her non-AR life, I'm an absolutist :)

Ha, fair enough!

At 10:40 a.m., Tecnu and SAF are paddling together on the North Platte River. AMK is about 2 km back in 3rd with TNF right on their heels. Team Canada AR and Yogaslackers are about 1 km back in 5th and 6th. Hard to tell since their update times are different.

According to AMK FB page, AMK was first in the water.

Update times are synced (super helpful) but the Yogaslackers YB prob missed an update. They are now tracking ahead of AMK. But now TNF missed a ping. Either way it's a very closer race. Not really a true leader yet.

Yup, Yogaslackers are moving well in 3rd place now! They're within 1 km of the leaders at 10:50.

I may have misinterpreted it, but it looked like AMK may have gone back to TA soon after they got on the water? There was a close pack of 4 (AMK, Tecnu, SAF, Yoga) at the top, and then AMK's bounced backward. Could also have been a glitch with the tracking.

Maybe someone stole their YB and then threw it back ;-)

I think SAF have the jump here. Go for solitary furthest one first, time then running back across the bridge to plot next 2. Expecting them to be back out on the water first. Let's see what order AMK do them...

SAF went to the double first with Yogis. Tecnu did the solitary first. Looking like SAF got on the water a few minutes before Tecnu who will be a few minutes ahead of Yogis. Doesn't look like AMK will be far behind.

Has anyone found a breadcrumbs button?

Ah ok SAF must have blitzed the double then. With the current it should remain tight with SAF, Tencu, NFAR, YogaS, AMK and CanadaAR

Meanwhile, back on land, REV3 just posted for team 207:
"Whiskey Bend got a hole in their boat and are being transported to TA4. Mike and Matt are fine."

The best I can do for breadcrumbs is to click on the team name in the leaderboard and it shows their route. You can really on do one team at a time. There is supposed to be a replay feature (the gear) but it isn't working for me.

Thanks! I can't get it to work either.

From AMK FB page: "The team came into TA3 about 6 minutes behind Swedish Armed Forces Adventure Team and Tecnu Extreme Adventure Racing. What followed was a mad dash around the small town of Douglas collecting a series of historical checkpoints, including some old railroad cars and a local cowboy bar that involved a shot of whiskey for each teammate! Now the team is on a long, 8-9 hour paddle further down the river, ending at Glendo State Park, where they will have to tackle a technical MTB o-course in the dark, and then wait out the dark zone to continue paddling down the river starting tomorrow at 5:30am."

So unless there are time credits for the dark zone, it sounds like the top teams may come together for the start of Day 2.

Immersed in a WFR course, so unable to waste time like I do at work;)

Strong Machine is correct. I picked SAF before the race. We'll see! I'm thinking it might be overnight or even longer before we see any real order established at the top due to the format.

My current question: I can only imagine what pace the top 5 or so teams are setting. I'm betting that someone blows up a bit and falls off. Who will that be? It would be fascinating to know how Tecnu, AMK and SAF are approaching this strategically. Are they caught up in a sprint horse race right now since the course almost requires it? Or are they racing their own races? And can Canada and the less than complete Yogis (and others) keep pace at the top?

re: dark zone

I watched part of the FB live broadcast of the pre-race meeting. If teams have acquired all the CPs up until the dark zone, they will be off the clock until the re-start at 5:30 AM.

If teams have skipped CPs up until the dark zone, they remain on the clock.

also, broots has a great question. i think it's important to consider this in the context of this race so far is mostly a paddle race. so the teams with stronger biking fitness/skills haven't had a chance to put the hammer down, so to speak. plus it's hard to gain a lot of time on a paddle (usually). so i think it will be a sprint horse race, or fish race rather, til the end of the paddle and the start of the bike.

Ooh, word from broots. Not only are evenings at home quiet without him, but I'm missing his (second-by-second) race commentary with this one!

Any way to see the Routes? I'm poking around and not seeing it...

And I wish I had time for more second-by second race commentary! I'll try to drag some WFRs and WEMTs into watching dots with me...

OK, so making up for lost time...
it seems that things already moved with that small foot loop. Obviously it's early and they can climb back into it, but all the challengers seem to have let the "Big 3" get away from them on that foot section, some of them quite badly too.

Do teams have to build and break bikes in this one? If so, we'll get two interesting TAs for the leaders. Add in the impending mountain biking, and it will be interesting to see if they swap a bit or if someone extends a lead in the next several hours and overnight.

Looks like the first navigation challenge has separated the teams around at the front of the field. Journey and AMK seem to be the first two teams who took advantage of two stops on the peninsula, rather than only the one. Both teams leapfrogged teams ahead of them and gained quite a bit in time on front runners. Go Journey!

If the woods are open I am not sure 2 stops on the foot points were much of an advantage but I could be wrong. More time in and out of boat and spotting a place to pull ashore.

Looks like the separation between 1-2 and 3 is about 30 min.

Broots if you click on the team name in the leaderboard you can see breadcrumbs. And are you traveling or just having an unnecessary online conversation with your spouse?

Silkychrome thanks for the intel re: darkzone rules. I like that minor detail. Very logical.

What a difference a few hours and a couple of bikes make! Now its Tecnu (1) and AMK (2) waiting for the dark zone to be lifted and SAF on bikes alongside Canada AR. YS are in the mix, but their tracker is to the west of where I would expect them to be. In other news, there were some winds on the lake that held up some racers according to several FB reports and my peeps Koa Wahine (500) got caught in that. And also Journey, and Silent Chasers are performing really well!

@mayer22, broots is in New Hampshire for a Wilderness First Responder course.

@broots...woofer!

all...anyone want to calc the time credit given to the Tecnu, AMK, SAF, and Yogis?

TA4 in from paddle
SAF 21:40
Tecnu 21:45
AMK 22:20
Yogis 22:55

TA4 in from bike (appx)
Tecnu 01:55
AMK 02:10
SAF 03:00
Yogis 04:00

TA4 out on paddle (appx)
AMK 02:40 (wanted to nap at the put-in instead of TA??)
SAF 04:00 (wanted to nap at the put-in instead of TA??)
Tecnu 04:55
Yogis 04:40

start paddling
all 05:30

Estimated time credits
Tecnu 01:55 - 05:30 = 3h35m
AMK 02:10 - 05:30 = 3h20m
SAF 03:00 - 05:30 = 2h30m
Yogis 04:00 - 05:30 = 1h30m

check me?

ALSO...midwestern racers, are they paddling Gerry's fleet of yellow plastic bananas??

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/207419868/Resu...

Rev3 checked me.

Actual time credits from the first dark zone
Tecnu 3h36m
AMK 3h24m
SAF 2h30m
Yogis 1h34m
TNF 47m

so if you don't count TNF i was 9min off over the top 4 teams. thanks for teaching me those dot watching skillz AP!

Nice sleuthing, silky!

I hope SAF's bike issues don't affect the rest of their race. Would be a bummer to have mechanicals determine their race so early, and on such a bike-heavy course.

Interesting tactics/strategy now being determined on optional CPs that affects the tracking of top teams. Journey Racing and Canada AR deciding to take lots of sleep and not get any of the MB-O cps, KOLIfit snagging half. The North Face Adventure have actually moved up to 4th place. Happy Mutant, Silent Chasers, Outside Pearl Izumi also doing very well getting all optional MB-O cps.

Are they allowed to portage at Wendover road?
maybe along the rail bed?

I guess not

@silkychrome - YES, @StrongMachine and I agree - we would recognize those banana boats anywhere!

Interesting idea: Are they allowed to portage at Wendover road?
maybe along the rail bed?

Wonder if there is anything in the rules saying "no portage" or out of bounds?

Leaderboard shows Canada AR and Journey Racing having cleared the MTBO CPs - looks like maybe they didn't take their trackers along on that section? Dashboard seems to be geofenced so it's not accurate on the CP count.

I wondered that too arthurd, I couldn't imagine Canada AR skipping a bike section.

Weather.com is saying temps will be reasonable today but could hit 95+ degrees tomorrow thru the rest of the race.

As an aside, it's great to see our buddies Orion, Lupine and Chafing the Dream excelling in the 2-person race. Also rooting for Koa Wahine, Happy Mutant, Silent Chasers, Journey and NYARA - feels like kateness and I know half the field!

I agree - it was fun to see my facebook feed filled with so much pre-race prep, and to have so many people to root for now!

Nice job, Silky! From AMK Facebook, "We are in 2nd place, 10 minutes behind Tecnu, heading into the mountains [on bike]. Big climb up to TA6 ahead, then a couple trekking legs, including a timed ascent of Laramie Peak."

I don't think this includes the extra 12 minutes of time credit that Tecnu has over AMK.

Anyone know much about TNF team? Not familiar with them.

JayXC indicated they are contenders.

The AMK update did not include Team Tecnu's time credit. Here is a Kyle Peter's pre-race summary of TNF:

4) TNF Adventure - Ryan and Jay are quick China Stage AR racers. Not very strong alone for CT, but they have Brazilian AR and multi-sport power couple of Gui and Cami. Gui navigated for the team formally know as Adidas (GodZone Adventure Team) at Worlds last year and took them to a 7th place. As a couple they placed 6th at Worlds in Costa Rica, they won last year's race in Paraguay, and 3rd at the Ecomotion behind Columbia and Seagate. Expect these guys to put the pressure on with super fast TAs, and with the multitude of legs everyday this will add up to serious time.

"Team Adventure Medical Kits arrived at TA6 22 minutes behind first place Team Tecnu. Team Tecnu transitioned quickly and it appeared they left on the trek to TA7 just before AMK arrived. Swedish Armed Forces is solidly in third position. Team AMK and Team Tecnu are pushing hard on the trek and will try to do most of the push on Laramie Peak prior to the 8:36MT sunset."

Need to add 12 minutes to the 22 minutes so Tecnu is leading AMK by 34 minutes.

Bash, the 22 minutes included Tecnu's 12 minute time credit. They arrived 10 minutes after Tecnu. Gap is 22 minutes and looks to be closing.

Seemed like it was 10 min for the entire bike leg (at least everytime I checked) but actually looks like it just grew a bit. Up to 20 min on the course.

These are such small differences but with the race being so close that's what we have to work with.

SAFAT is behind another 30 min or so + how much time they lost before the dark zone

Other On Course Time Differences to Tecnu
Yogaslackers 1:30
North face 2:00
Canada AR 2:45
Journey 3:00
KoliFit 3:20
Happy Mutant and Silent Chaser ~5:00
NYARA 7:30

Looks like Summit AR/Commie Bar is looking to "summit" (harhar) some extra peaks. They seem to be off course and climbing Black Mountain.

AMK neck and neck with Tecnu on the KOM ascent.

Team Adventure Medical Kits and Team Tecnu are side by side as they approach the summit of Laramie Peak. Tecnu still leads with their 12 minute time credit. It will be a fast decent off the mountain.

Video just posted on Rev3's facebook page - AMK punched the CP first by a second or two -- 8:08pm local time.

Tecnu pulling a Yogaslacker and going dark right when it gets REALLY interesting...

Finally looking at dots and they stop. Figures...

Team Tecnu finally updated and it looks like Team AMK had a 15 minute advantage following the decent from Laramire Peak into TA7. Make them virtually tied for the race lead when you add in Tecnu's 12 minute time credit in from TA5 dark zone. This is shaping up to be another tight ARWS race.

Did teams get all the maps before the race or are they learning about the course as they go along? I'm wondering whether Team Canada AR's decision to skip CPs 5-11 was based on knowledge of what was coming up. They're the only top team to have done it, which means the leaderboard doesn't look as good for them but that will hopefully change as cut-offs approach for other teams.

AMK is biking to CP26 on their way to TA9. Tecnu has arrived back at TA8 after the optional trek. AMK left there 70 minutes ago. The size of their lead will depend on whether Tecnu stops to rest.

They didn't.

Actually, not sure that Team Canada AR skipped CPs 5-11, as discussed above (when I wasn't paying close enough attention!) The two leaderboards don't agree - sigh. As Arthurd pointed out, geofencing can be more confusing than helpful. We turned it down for Wilderness Traverse.

usually Rev3 hands out maps for the entire course the night before the race.

What's the deal with the White green blue highlight CPs on the leaderboard? I'm assuming day 1, 2, 3?

AMK is taking an obvious shorter route from the mtb O section to CP 33. But the suggested route is different and seems a bit longer. Are they on a restricted road?

And barring catastrophe, I can't imagine AMK being caught before the finish at this point. It's theirs to lose.

On the race map, the road AMK took looks rougher but shorter, whereas the marked route line appears to follow a paved road. The Rules of Travel don't say the road is prohibited but it might not be everyone's first choice.

Maps and rules are here.
http://www.cowboytoughwy.com/#!maps/c4b

Thanks Bash. We're always able to rely on you.

And I rely on Silkychrome!

According to Tecnu's Facebook page, a couple of team members have had some health issues and this is why they have fallen behind.

AMK is at TA10 at Muddy Mountain. There is a relatively short trek (7-8K) to pick up five CPs then about 35-40K of biking to the finish line in Casper. Tecnu is more than 2 hours back.

Sounds like Tecnnu may have only slept because they were struggling. Thinking they may have tried to push through otherwise considering they got sleep the first night and were likely to finish without going through another full night.

AMK is still about 2 hours ahead including dark zone time and it seems they've been able to hold that steady even now that Tecnu is "feeling better."

Tecnu took the same "shortcut" that AMK did. It looks like these two teams have separated themselves though. It seems unlikely that AMK will be caught barring an incident. I wonder if we might have had a photo finish if Tecnu was feeling better but I am sure both teams are still going pedal to the metal just in case.

Yogaslackers and SAFAT are both on the O course at TA9. Looks like we might still have a tight race for the podium.

NF and Journey are about 90 and 120 min behind Yogaslackers respectively.

Don't know about time credits for 3-6 place teams.

From Rev3 via Silkychrome:

Time credits from the first dark zone
Tecnu 3h36m
AMK 3h24m
SAF 2h30m
Yogis 1h34m
TNF 47m

Looks like AMK has picked up three of the five trek CPs and should be back at TA10 within 45 mins.

I'm so curious about AMK's route on the trek. For those stronger navigators than I, why would you go out for the eastern-most point and then backtrack to do the clockwise loop? Maybe to see if that N/S trail actually existed?

I'm trying to put together the sleep numbers but can't seem to figure out who slept how much. Seems like very little for the top teams!

So.. What's going on with Tecnu's route now? Skip the final foot O?

I know...wondering the same thing about Tecnu...

Does Tecnu know something AMK doesn't? Or did they blow by the turn out.

Abiperk. The far E CP is the TA.

Tecnu just turned around. Looks like they missed the turn. Overshot it by about 30 mins. Fortunately or unfortunately doesn't look like it will make a difference at this point. They will pass AMK on their way back though. That might make AMK wonder a bit.

Thanks, mayer22, that makes sense! I missed that.

just saw that they turned around also...that's got to be one heck of a feeling for the AMK team to roll past them to the finish. wow.

I can only imagine the confusion on AMK's faces as they pass

I think they'd prob figure it out but definitely a surprise at first. Looks like Tecnu lost close to 1 hour.

Yogis are 30 min ahead of SAFAT but SAFAT has an extra 1 hr credit. They are both taking the longer (distance) route. We can compare times on each route now though.

Tecnu is about 4 hr ahead of Yogis including time credit and mistake so about 3.5 ahead of SAFAT. Should be a safe lead barring more significant time losses.

Hey Andy!

Hey Brian! I see we're all dot watching...wild and crazy saturday night :)

Not exact numbers but I think Team AMK slept about 3.5hrs and Team Tecnu was about 4.5. Not sure about the other teams.

Team Adventure Medical Kits is at the finish. Congrats! So Kyle's pre-race predictions are looking pretty good so far...

There was a supplementary map for the Muddy Mountain O course. It seems Tecnu forgot about it and went to the original O course on Casper Mountain. They were informed and give the supplemental map at the race briefing.

Relentless gives a shoutout to AP on the latest video on Rev3's facebook page :)

That's the one - thanks, Bash.

I posted it here for FB, who is too cool for Facebook. ;)

Meanwhile, our friends on Team Canada AR have just chosen the longer route to TA10 (as have most teams). Racers have 14.5 hours to get to the finish; cut-off is noon on Sunday.

Thanks all. This was pretty much my only source for following the race this week and it was great. Loved that vid at the end too. Classic sleep deprived 'looks' and responses.... Not totally goofy, but getting there. :-)

according to Facebook, Journey Racing skipped the CP on top of Laramie Peak...is it closed, did they miss a cutoff, of are they in danger of missing a future cutoff ?

Congrats AMK and Kyle
Wow race on for 3rd!
CanadaAR could make top 5-6

In one of Randy's videos, Journey Racing says they purposely skipped the optional climb up Laramie Peak since it was just one CP that would take considerable time and effort for 1 point. They know it's a risk but they were hoping they could get more CPs than other teams by moving forward on the course.

Swedish Armed Forces are 40 minutes behind Yogaslackers, who are less than an hour from TA10.

SAF has 56 extra minutes of time credit over Yogaslackers so this is going to be close!

Great video (thanks Randy!) and a great shout out to AP

Congrats AMK, very well raced, very consistent and solid, pretty tough to make up any ground against that!

TNF also skipped the climb up Laramie Peak and possibly three other CPs, if the geofenced leaderboard is correct. Team Canada AR went up Laramie Peak and it is still unclear whether they picked up CPs 5-11. They probably did so they are probably in 5th.

Looks like the shortcut between TA9 and TA10 was not a timesaver for the top teams. Team Canada AR rode the longer route in 1 hour - about 15 minutes faster than Tecnu and AMK.

Tecnu finishes in 2nd place about 3.5 hrs behind AMK! Congrats to the top Canadian team! (Yes, I know they're listed as a U.S. team but there aren't any U.S. racers so we're claiming them.)

Congrats Tecnu! ("Tecnu Canada" ;) )

Thanks for comparing the routes Bash.

SAFAT still has a virtual 20min lead and both are at the last Ocourse.

Cortel, where did AMK sleep other than the darkzone?

According to Kyle the only sleep they got was the dark zones.

Huge congrats to all of these amazing athletes! And the virtual no sleep, oh boy. Meanwhile, back at the dots. Bummer the leaderboard has not refreshed. Great call Canada AR on the better bike leg. And Team Journey seems to be having a great race. Can't wait to read/hear the stories!

I second Work4justice, I am constantly amazed at how athletically gifted these racers are and all of the hard work they put in. Great show AMK & Tecnu, and all the other teams out there battling it out!

today is Dusty's birthday on Koa Wahine! so cool, hope they have a great finishing day.

SAFAT, Yogaslackers and TNF are finished. Journey and Canada AR are biking to the finish and will arrive soon. The geofenced leaderboard is almost certainly wrong. My guess (but it's only a guess based on limited data):

3) SAFAT
4) Yogaslackers
5) Canada AR
6) TNF
7) Journey

Hopefully, there will be real news somewhere soon - maybe on a Facebook page.

Just checking back in after a busy Saturday setting course for the Maine Summer Adventure Race. Sorry I ever doubted KP and AMK! What a race!

Still fun dot-watching as Silent Chasers can still move up the leaderboard if it keeps up the pace.

Rev3 Facebook just announced SAFAT as "unofficial rank of 3rd in elite Coed". They're 4th on the leaderboard because the geofencing missed CP12.

Journey and Canada AR are at the finish now. Have a good sleep!

I think no sleep other than the dark zone was preferable given the race length. They only had to make it through one night without sleep. Granted usually you might prefer to get the sleep on the second night instead of the first but still reasonable to push through. Like I mentioned, I imagine the reason Tecnu stopped to sleep was to aid the recovery of the "ill" teammates and they likely wouldn't have slept otherwise but don't know what their strategy was given the course layout.

SAFAT will get credit for CP12. (according to Mark) They were there but it was a language issue over the CP12 which was in a Railroad sleeper car.

Thanks, Randy! Please let us know any other ranking info, as the leaderboard is only approximate.

In case you missed the video of Greg McHale from Tecnu's Facebook page, Alex Provost was sick for ~10 hours and Greg was sick for ~6 hours with stomach issues. Racing that hard, I'm not surprised. Great job recovering and grabbing 2nd. And even more amazing job by AMK to push the pace so hard for so long without blowing up.

A final leaderboard has been published. It says TNF got CP17 (Laramie Peak) after all, which puts them in 5th, just ahead of Team Canada AR (who were credited with CPs 5-11 and thus cleared the course). Journey was 7th.
<https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/207419868/Resu...>

We plan on Live streaming the awards at 6:30 MDT on the Rev3 page
https://www.facebook.com/Rev3Adventure/?ref=bookma...