Most of our region’s best adventure racers came out to Falls Lake to enjoy 8 hours of trekking, paddling, and biking. With a hurricane passing to our west, the weather was iffy and we learned the night before the race that the park would be closing the mountain bike trails. Bikes could still be used on the roads, however, which probably shaved a few minutes off of the times of those who brought them.

The course offered four loops, and as long as they obeyed the park rules, racers could decide for themselves whether they wanted to run, bike, or paddle to the CPs on each loop. The cumulative point value for the whole course was 69; however, there were also 29 bonus points available, revealed at random CPs, that required runners to visit additional CPs. Finally, a two point bonus for scoring a point on each loop made a grand total point value for the race an even 100.

After a couple hours of relative calm, a serious thunderstorm moved through the park. Racers were not allowed to paddle during this storm, which lasted a bit longer than an hour. After the storm passed through, it was quite a beautiful day.

The trail closure and the storm did not really dampen racers’ spirits, and it’s not even clear that either slowed them down too much. For the first time ever at this event, the winner was able to clear the course. Kudos to Matt Kirk for managing to visit every CP, and get back with just over two minutes to spare. Matt was neck and neck with Phil Tosteson throughout the race, but in the end the paddle on the windy lake slowed down Phil just a bit too much and he had to settle for second place. You can read Matt’s account of the race here.

Be sure to check out the LiveLox page for this event here.

Many thanks to Brian Pike who could not make it to the event, but instead ran most of the course beforehand. Brian’s feedback was super helpful for improving the race, tweaking the map, and for estimating realistic winning times. Brian also helped with CP setup on Woodpecker Ridge, as well as CP pickup. Thanks, too, Debra and Jeff Rezeli, who helped set out controls in the New Light area of the couse; and to Kevin Wilkinson who set controls in the central region. Finally, thanks to a great CP pickup crew of Lina Lindberg, Joseph Huberman, Sandro Gisler, and Brian Pike, we were able to get everything out of the woods by early Tuesday. Results follow.

Old Skool 2026, Split times

2026-10-11

Created 2026-10-12 09:12:13 with SI-Droid Event 1.17.1

Filed under: Event Results, Latest News by David Waller