YogaSlackers win (soundly) Desert Dash III

As this blog is being written, many teams are still on the course of the Monsoon Adventure's Desert Dash III. But not team YogaSlackers. Racing as a 4-person team, the yogis cleared the course in a record 2hr and 49 minutes....over an hour ahead of the next racer. Sam and Jason were racing with two first time racers, Deb Huie and Chelsey Gribbon, both of whom are students of Jason's at the yoga center where he teaches. In fact, both are taking part in the 250 hr teacher training program, which happens to meet for a 6-hour yoga session at 1 pm the same day of the race.
"We were pretty motivated," Jason says, "it would look really bad for me to cause my students to be late!"
The two women had missed out on a big yoga training session just two days earlier due to a mountain bike ride (also with Jason and Sam) that had turned epic.

The race had lots of off-trail navigation, across typical rough high desert. The racer's ran the entire course and their legs bear witness to the difficulty of mountianous desert running. At one point Jason was help completely immobile in a giant cat's claw bush. "I seriously could not move, and I felt like the bush was trying to eat me."
According to Jason and Sam, the girls legs have never looked sexier - crisscrossed with cuts, slashes and filled with needles. (I guess it depends on one's perspective...)
Will Deb and Chelsey race again? that remains to be seen, but Jason and Sam hope so.
"It certainly changes our teacher/student relationship a bit," Jason said. "Deb is now calling me the dictator or nazi or something like that....and I was thinking that it was a pretty low key compassionate race for me..."
And of course, as Deb and Chelsey are already accomplished yogis, they spent a bit of time at the finish line doing AcroYoga.
The crew tried to wait around, but in the end had to pack up, and had left the race site before the 2nd place team had finished. They girls were off to 6 hours of yoga, while Jason and Sam went to do and AcroYoga demo, before Jason headed back to teach the final 3 hours of the girl's class. Then the whole crew would be off for 4 hours of Brazilian dancing. After that, a few hours of sleep, then up early to go climbing before a 3-hour AcroYoga workshop in the afternoon....Immediately after which Sam would begin a non-stop drive to North Dakota for a climbing competition....
Such is the life of a slacker.
A big Congrats to Chelsey and Deb, who won despite improper footwear (no Inov-8 shoes, but we are working on that). Jason wore the 230's and Sam the 285's. Can Inov-8 make some sort of cactus protection cover - PLEASE!!!!
Pictures of the race coming soon!