Oh, XDog! How I Love To Hate To Love Thee!

Event 19 in the 50@50 Project was the epic 'Havoc At The Hideout'.  The name alone should tell you this was an XDog Events production.  As stated in my post about Event 18, this one was a polar opposite to the Heart Walk.

Horning's Hideout is located in North Plains, OR, west of Portland out Highway 26.  It's a private park that came to be when the OLCC cracked down on moonshiners in the mid-70's.  With copper stills confiscated by the Feds, the family had nothing else to do with the property so they opened a park.  As a jab at The Man, they named it Horning's Hideout, which is what all the moonshiners called it for decades and then some.  You see, the Feds had always heard tell of a 'hollow' (or more appropriately pronounced as 'holler'), where the wizards of whiskey hid their goods.  They could never find it, however.  The Horning family was the largest producers of moonshine in these parts, had the best equipment and the most intricate set of trails and 'roads' whereby they could escape if anyone came a'pokin' around.  The Feds never even got close to the place, though, due to their inability to follow the secretly coded signs along the main roads that mysteriously read the likes of  'Horning's Hideout - Next Left' and other such tomfoolery.  Only those in the know could ever stand a chance of finding the place.

Cool story, huh?  I made it all up.  The real story about Horning's Hideout can be found on their website at www.horningshideout.com  We WERE met at the gate and paid our parking fee to a guy straight out of Kentucky - long hair, big beard, bib overalls, no shirt, some teeth.

We arrived at the event and parked the SUV, receiving many compliments on our ride and how it didn't belong down the dirt and mud road we'd driven.  People like our SUV and are always surprised to see it pull in to places like this!  There were a lot of vehicles parked and more pulling in.  Seems there was a Frisbee Golf tourney taking place here, as well as our little running event.  We wandered past the Frisbee-ers (?) and marveled at how they each had little shoulder bags that carried dozens of discs.  Having never played the golf version of Frisbee, I can only speculate on what each of the discs is for - left turning throws, right turning throws, distance, high wind conditions, too many PBRs, not enough PBRs, out of PBR (!!), etc.

After checking in for our race, we people watched for a bit, then walked back to the car to drop our jackets and extra junk.  The crowd for Havoc had grown by the time we got back.  People were warming up in various ways - knocking a volleyball around, stretching, running up the hill from the stage area, drinking from the keg that was already tapped, sitting on the grass, comparing scars, etc.  The start always sneaks up on me with these races.  Cuz next thing we knew, they were telling us to line up and get ready.  Another conch sendoff and we were on our way.

The route zigged and zagged us all over the lower bowl of Horning's Hideout.  We frequently encountered the Frisbee golf tournament 'athletes' and, trust me, the farther we ran the more fun THEIR event seemed compared to ours!  The course rambled up and down short steep hills and took across some open meadows.  

Then came one of the longest hill runs I've ever encountered.  I'm still trying to understand how we could have climbed up higher, gaining more elevation than we ever dropped, drove, encountered on the way in.  It seemed geographically impossible to climb as much as we did when nothing around us seemed that high.  This climb went on and on and on.  Some of it was muddy, some was overgrown, mostly it was in good shape.  The park must have been designed by MC Escher, with ups being down and downs being ups and seemingly endless climbs that looped back on themselves.  Camera Crew did awesome, churning away ahead of me.  I wanted to sit down and cry, but kept moving forward and upward.  Finally.

We finally got to the top and my legs were shot.  I had to walk/trot a bit to catch my breath.  We got moving again and encountered some more up and down terrain - nothing like the Monster, though.  In typical XDog fashion the course brought us toward but not quite to the finish line.  Being so spent AND close enough to the finish line to hear music and hootin' and hollarin' (and maybe the aroma of beer?), the course took off AWAY from the finish.  Of course.  Every step took us farther away and deeper into the brush.  I was about ready to throw in the towel, although I have no idea what I would have done at that point.  Had to get back somehow, right?

Camera Crew was the rock this time and kept us going.  We came upon a lady who was eyeballing a creek that crossed the path.  Even though we were all a little muddy and sweaty, she was stalled.  She didn't want to run through the water and get her shoes wet!  Oy.  CC and I barely hesitated, splashing past her and carrying on.  A little more meandering through the winds brought us to a gully that had a tree fallen across it, sort of.  Very steep sides, we had to kind of slide down one side being careful not to impale ourselves on branches; scramble under the tree; then use roots and branches as hand holds to pull up the other side.  After that, it was smooth sailing to the finish!

The best part for me was that I didn't finish last, like in the Dirty Du.  Of course, there were a LOT more participants for this events, too.  We had beers and enjoyed the awards ceremony, had Mai Tai slushies and got our XDog dog tags ('Committed To Filth').  There is such a great vibe at the XDog events.  Kevin and his crew do a great job of setting the mood and making it a party atmosphere.  If you're not having fun, it's no ones fault but yours!

On the way home, we hit the infamous Helvetia Tavern for lunch.  Huge burgers with fries hit the spot!  Check 'em out at www.helvetiatavern.com  

Event 19 was in the books!  After a two week break for my trip to Guatemala, I am back in the states and ready to get back to the 50@50 Project.  Up next:
6/15 - Petal Pedal, 30 miles and we're riding with my sis and bro-in-law
6/16 - XDog's Mt. Hood Scramble, billed as the 'mother of all filth'

The following weekend, we're tackling four - count 'em - 4 events!

Crazy, crazy, crazy...