I have been into triathlons for the last couple of years and I love the outdoors so I have been searching for a way to combine the both. I have found the answer, "Adventure Racing". This is a loose term and can apply to any race that has multiple legs in the outdoors. Different stages consist of Trail Running, Mountain Biking, Swimming, Kayaking, Climbing, Rappelling, Orienteering....
Anyone that does triathlons or have looked into Adventure Racing knows that they are not cheap to compete in. In San Diego there is a great group of guys that put on Adventure races for
FREE. The group is called
Equinox Adventure Racing , Barrie is the main contact and replied to me within minutes. Actually he was so nice he lent me a bike for the first race. Check out there website as to that is where they post all the events for the upcoming year and full race reports (
Race Report for this race).
So I was able to talk a good friend, Jordan, to go out and suffer with me for over 10 hours. We ended up covering close to 30 miles by the time we got back to our car. And climb some serious vertical footage.
The race started out with a quick lesson on plotting check points (Future Post - How to). We did not know exact location or distance of the race. Beforehand they told us it would take most people 10 hours. That sounded good to us.
We started out racing our mountain bikes through some pretty fun single track. Most of our first check points were on the trail. The course took me through parts of Mission Trails that I didn't know about and are now sadly a housing development. And we had a few surprises on our way (Reptile Rangler handled it)
After the mountain bikes we transition to trail running for 6 or 7 miles then another leg of biking down back into the valley. The last leg of the race is my favorite, its the "O" or Orienteering course. You must map the check points and then find small flags with reflectors in bushes or behind rocks. This part really tests your map reading and route choosing skills. Plus for us it started to hail/rain.
We ended just after dark and are now hooked on Adventure Racing. Look for us at future Equinox Racing events, we'll be in the rear. That day we earned our team name and will forever be known as
TEAM KABOOZE
last to every transition zone plus we pack a beer for the finish line
Just like I did with the Belgian Pale Ale and Belgian Dubbel, I wanted to try other Belgian yeast strains on the same base wort (Belgian Dark Strong this round). And the easiest (and cheapest) way for me to accomplish this, is by using bottle dregs. When picking what yeasts to use I chose my favorite examples of Belgian Beers that work with dark malts. To be honest, I haven't really met a Dark Belgian beer I disliked. 
A simple 6-8 oz starter of 1.030 wort was used in the original bottle. This was allowed to build up over several days and then all of it was dumped into the 1 gal batch. There was active fermentation in less than a day and it was going strong. Active fermentation lasted about a week and then the batch was aged for another 1.5 month before being bottled. Fermentation ended at 1.008, which is 90% attenuation and 10.7% ABV.
