Qstarz,

I'm writing to thank you for your recent sponsorship of the Santa Cruz Street Scramble. As the overall winner I received a Qstarz travel recorder, which I'm genuinely very excited about.

I just started adventure racing. I spent the last two years gradually getting back in shape and learning mountain biking after my second knee ACL reconstruction (I'm now officially done playing field sports on astroturf). With a friend I did my first adventure race at the 12 hour Dawn to Dusk near San Luis Obispo in mid-May. Wow—it greatly exceeded my expectations for being a thrilling adventure. I was so enthusiastic about that experience that as soon as I was home I went online to find out what else there was going on in California and realized that in just a few days there was the Santa Cruz Street Scramble coming up here in my home town.

My racing partner had to work, so I showed up on my own for the Street Scramble, not knowing entirely what to expect. The race was fantastic—it took me to quite a few corners, parks, and trails of Santa Cruz that I haven't been to in my 4 years of living here. I definitely ran my heart out in the 3 hours, but as a lifelong lover of maps and navigation, I am hooked on the format of these kinds of races compared to the few half and full marathons I've run.

I was pretty surprised to have won, though, and at first didn't know what the heck the Qstarz device was until the race organizers explained it to me. I actually didn't yet know this category of device (tracker, and hence legal in the adventure races) existed—awesome. After the Street Scramble I'd taken my crumpled race map and highlighted my route on it from memory, but obviously I'm far more excited to be able to use the tracker to create the maps + data after races. My wife might hold me back from tracking and publishing to the web all of my movements 24/7 using it, we'll see.

I'm also enthused to volunteer for this race in the future to help grow the Santa Cruz turnout—I hope you will continue to support the race. I think that as it repeats it can get a large following here.

Thanks again—I'm a new fan!!

Sibley