Finding Adventure Close to Home

You click from one channel to the next, pausing only when you see a man in what appears to be some insane sort of sporting event and in some sort of danger. He is an extremely fit man, but he has fallen and he can’t get up.

“It’s kind of captivating to see a man crying,” Danny Moy said. “He might be a Navy SEAL, but he’s getting his butt kicked in a jungle somewhere, or in the middle of a desert.”

This is not combat, unless you consider nature an enemy. This is an adventure race.

And, no, Moy isn’t a sadist. He participates in these races, and he and two friends have joined to offer Orange County a taste of adventure racing.

The legendary adventure races--the Eco-Challenge and the Raid Gauloises--present challenging courses in the most exotic of locales, including Ecuador, Madagascar and Morocco. Those races also require days to complete, months of training, and thousands of dollars for travel and equipment.

That’s a bit much for a novice. Moy competed in two Eco-Challenge races, and each time his friends would ask how they could try out the sport without the commitment in time and money.

So Moy of Newport Beach and partners Stuart Robinson of Newport Beach and Davar Novoselac of Hermosa Beach created the “Conquer the Coast” program. After two test runs, the program welcomed the public for the first time last weekend.

“It’s not like going out into a jungle in Borneo and being dropped out of a plane,” Moy said.

No camel racing, either. But, on a course that extends from Newport Beach to Dana Point, the program features rock climbing, canoeing, hiking, swimming, mountain biking and orienteering, all in a 36-hour weekend race and with all equipment provided.

Rappelling over a cliff? Hiking along a rocky water’s edge? Carrying a mountain bike on your shoulders until the trail widens enough for you to ride? Those challenges could present themselves. So could this one: Your team arrives at a checkpoint on the beach, marked by wooden boards on the sand. Your team must pass beneath the boards to continue.

So, in the spirit of adventure racing, your team huddles to plan. You start digging into the sand, digging deeper and deeper, until you create a hole under the board big enough so humans can twist their bodies through.

Adventure racers live by the “five in, five out” motto. Participants compete in teams, sometimes to the point of one person carrying two bikes to help an exhausted teammate. The races promote teamwork and self-sufficiency, qualities stressed even more here because this introductory weekend is not a race.

“To have to lean on people you don’t really know to get through it is really the most interesting part,” Shane Keller said.

Keller, 30, a self-described “computer geek,” drove from San Luis Obispo to participate. Jodie Stocker, 30, who works in marketing and lives in Newport Beach, finished the course despite a usual workout ritual she described as “roller blading on the weekends.”

Teri Sowers, 36, a Newport Beach accountant and mother of two, said she barely has time to work out at all. She finished, too, although she said she nearly broke down in tears on a hiking trail that featured a 1,000-foot gain in elevation within one-quarter mile.

“It was so steep, I started crawling up,” Sowers said.

Said Keller: “There are times when you are dead tired. It’s just one step in front of the other step. You’re thinking. You’re dealing with spiritual stuff. They kept saying you’d be talking to Jesus, but to me that’s just a metaphor for talking to yourself.”

And the weekend, more than an athletic event, is a chance to test yourself. If you can will yourself to complete the course--and participants stress a willing mind matters more than a toned body--then what can’t you will yourself to do?

The group that included Keller, Stocker and Sowers was supposed to complete its Saturday course at 8 p.m. The group finished at midnight, a 19-hour day in all, and didn’t even think about skipping the Sunday course.

“We were going to complete it,” Stocker said, “even if we were here until Wednesday.”

Conquer the Coast offers weekend adventure races in Orange County for $550, including food and equipment. Dates: Aug. 6-8, Aug. 20-22, Sept. 17-19, Oct. 1-3, Oct. 15-17 and Nov. 5-7. Information: (949) 722-8326 or www.conqueradventures.com.