The Team Commie Bar go at Sin City 72 hours...... much sleeze

Team Commie Bar - Chrissy Nacos and Jon Gamm
Finished 3rd overall, 1st in category (2-person co-ed)

Where do I begin ...

Day 1 - Back-country

- 60k paddle on the Colorado River and across Lake Havasu fighting near 120 degree heat and a flotilla of cigar boats and other yahoos crossing our path left and right the whole way

- 50k trek into the Mojave with temperatures between 110 and 90, rattle snakes, and no water resupply

Having survived a baking hot 7-hour paddle with no respite from the heat (water temperature was like taking a warm bath - no help there), and a non-stop parade of roaring powerboats full of drunk idiots out for Labor Day Weekend joy-rides the whole way, we pulled into the TA for a brief, stop to change clothes and fill water before starting the Trek in the Mojave. We were both exhausted and fighting the mental drain of the oppressive heat as we started into the dusk of the desert and hoping for cooler temperatures.  We were told that there would be a water drop about 2/3's of the way through the race.  Half-way through the trek, however, Chrissy broke out in a full body, painful and swollen heat rash (Chrissy had just gotten over pneumonia a week before the race so she was a trooper just to be out there!), and the other team we were travelling with had a member go down at the same time with heat exhaustion.   We called the race director for extraction and were told it would be 3 hours before he could get there due to the rugged terrain and distance. 

I and the other team member started walking ahead to get a couple more points and meet the vehicle to guide it in.  Along the way I almost stepped on a rattle snake on the side of the trail and just about pee'd my pants (if I had any pee left anyway).  Kim (the other team member still walking) and I felt good enough to continue the trek, but we decided it would be better to go in with our team mates.  It turned out to be a potentially life-saving decision as we found out that only 4 gallons of water (total) had been brought for re-supply for all the teams, and the 4-person team from Guatemala ahead of us had used it all (naturally - since they had no way of knowing there was no more to be had).  There was no more water even at the finish of the trek!  We also found out that the lead team (2-person male from Czech) had crashed with heat exhaustion and had to be extracted as well because they got to the water cache point before the race director had dropped the 4 gallons of water!  In the end only one team (the 4-person Guatemalan team that got the water) finished the trek, and it took them 16 hours to complete the 50k journey. 

When we got to the finish (which was in the middle of no where) we found there was no water to be had there either (unbelievable), but there was a cooler full of beer.  Also they didn't have enough vehicles to take us back to LV, so we would have to wait for the the 4-person team to finish. 4 hours and 3 beers (me anyway) later, we offered the camera crewman $160 to drive us back and he agreed.  Man oh man.  I'll say no more except that we survived Day 1.

Day 2 - Urban pro-logue

- Walk up and down the LV strip for 4 hours finding places in photos and taking selfies. 

- Drink 82oz of frozen margaritas and take in one hell of a lot of  second-hand weed smoke along the way.

So this was a 'stage' race with time in-between stages to recover a bit.  Much needed after Day 1 we went back to hotel (The Linq - on the LV Strip) to shower, eat and catch a nap before the prologue started at 6pm.  Feeling better we headed out to find 38 places shown in photos to take selfies at each and return.  Teams would start the next morning in the order of finish from this part.  It was still hot as hell (about 105 degrees) at the start, but it started out fun and got funner after we each got a huge frozen margarita to accompany our travels, but the combination of that plus the clouds (and I mean clouds) of marijuana smoke on the strip slowly drained our energy.  After visiting just about every casino on the strip we called it quits at 11:30 pm and headed back in to get some sleep before Stage 2.

Day 3 - Urban journey

- Tour de Sleeze, Uber, near-dead racers, armed guards, selfies and more selfies, beer pong

The race advertised this part as a combo of long distance trekking and biking combined with such adventures as dune buggy orienteering and zip-lining mixed in.  Well, there was one part where we had to hit a golf ball into a barrel 100m away (Chrissy did it!  I couldn't even hit it off the tee), and a really cool part where we went to a range and fired a magazine of ammo from an MP-5, but other than that the urban journey was mostly a tour of places where we just took more selfies.  One part of that was a trip to North (old) Vegas where we saw passed out drunks, hookers, and probably some drug deals going down.  Good thing I packed my mando 2" knife and lighter.  There was also an MTB portion on the west (desert) side of Vegas that began with us finding another racer laying flat on his back in the middle of the trail rigid from severe cramping (we stopped to give electrolyte and see that he got extracted), and ended with Chrissy and I wandering onto a golf course at midnight and getting escorted off the premises by security guards (they were quite nice about it -- just incredulous that anybody would be out at that time of night riding those trails).  Interesting part of this stage was that after a certain point we were allowed to use public transportation, so we all used Uber to get past some of the longer, hotter, urban bike ride portions.  That was a first - but it was 102 degrees and riding a bike on Vegas streets is like asking for somebody to run you over, so no one was exactly complaining.  Finally after the riding there was one last trek to snap some more selfies on the strip, and then end with a game (for some many games) of beer pong at the Linq casino bar.  Chrissy and I handily defeated our opponent (a race volunteer and one of the Guatemalan team members) about 3:30am, and then finished just about all the Grappa I brought.  Man oh man again.  One for the ages. 

Where do I end ...

Well, Chrissy and I worked well together again and had a sometimes painful, sometimes pleasant, but always adventurous race we won't soon forget!