Ski Utah – Eaglin Ski Vacation
This year for the family vacation we decided we would go out west and see if the snow in Utah is really the greatest snow on earth. We had a red-eye flight on Sunday that got us into Salt Lake City around noon. As we picked up our rental car we asked the local folks how to get the best deals in Park City and immediately found out one great piece of advice – buy your lift tickets in Salt Lake. The Park City Mountain resort tickets in downtown Utah (which was essentially deserted on Sunday) were $56 compared to the best available price in Park City of $75. I was wanting to ski for all four full days that we would have to ski so we bought tickets and some goggles and were ready to head up to Park City (about 30 miles from SLC). Hint #1: By your ski passes in SLC and save some money.
The whole area had just gotten a solid blanket of snow (about 2 feet) over the weekend – and both Catherine and Anna were eager to play in this substance they were seeing for the very first time. They were able to basically completely soak themselves and spent even more time playing in the snow after we arrived at the hotel. The girls also learned another lesson about snow – it was water and it was cold, they quickly found this out as they soaked their clothes and had to endure the frigid temperatures. After a dinner at the local Pizza Hut we retired to bed early to get the girls to their ski lessons the next morning at 9 AM (mountain time, of course it was 7 AM by our East Coast time clocks).
The next morning the sun was shining and it was a beautiful 15 degrees with a high around 24 F. Excellent skiing weather. The girls had scheduled lessons starting at 9 AM that would keep them until 3 PM, about 5 hours of skiing with a break for lunch. I decided to work with Linda who was definitely a ski bunny and did a great job of moving down the bunny slope. Our one attempt at a slightly faster slope (also green) had her zooming down the hill pretty much out of control. At least I was able to ski beside her during this one exciting run and give her words of encouragement. After that she decided the bunny slope was just fine. Meanwhile Catherine and Anna were polishing their skills and Catherine’s natural athleticism was apparent as she mastered all the “green” level skills. Anna had a harder time mastering the skills – but I also new her general fearlessness would have her doing advanced slopes by the end of the week. By about 8 PM that evening 4 exhausted Eaglins were pretty eager to hit the sack and be ready for an early day of skiing the next morning.
The next day was a lot of fun and the girls got to exercise some real independence as we simply let them go. I stayed with them some as they mastered steeper and steeper slopes. Linda meanwhile practiced her wedge turns and stopping. I did break a way to take the two high speed lifts to the top of the mountain where I was awed by the view. The girls were still very apprehensive about the high speed lifts that seemed to take skiers off into nothingness (you could not see where they went after they crested the hill). We also committed at lunch to hearing the timeshare “pitch” for the Marriott resorts (they had 2) in Park City. We already have one time-share in Las Vegas so I am not adverse to the idea of purchasing time share. It is hard to gage them as an investment – but they have been instrumental in helping us choose great destination spots and getting good accommodations. My only complaint has been the “must decide today” tactic. Any enterprise that requires you to make a decision involving multiple thousands of dollars without giving time to think it over is best avoided (of course I say this have bought one timeshare before). In the end we ended up getting $100 towards dinner that night which we had at an excellent restaurant, Chimarro (of course the bill was more like $200 – which seemed pretty normal for the good restaurants on Main Street in Park City. Still the food and service were incredible.
Wednesday was yet another day of skiing. Anna finally decided that she was going to make the trip to the top of the mountain with me for some longer ski runs – though Catherine was still a bit timid around the large lifts. Catherine finally met up around lunch time with a friend she had made at ski school. They wanted to have lunch at the top of the mountain and the other girls father was pretty nice saying it was fine with him – if I was OK, and they were off to the Summit House. Linda was still doing her bunny slope loop – but getting much better, We all had lunch while Catherine was off with her friend, but after lunch Anna was yearning for some challenging runs. We did all the Green trails we could find on this side of the mountain. I was still a bit apprehensive about letting Anna on any advanced slope. Her style of skiing was to turn the skis downhill and try to go as fast as possible. She seemed to have good control and rarely fell, and even then only when attempting some trick. Still – the grade of slope we had been on was keeping her speed down and thus keeping her out of any serious danger. She had also had some trouble making the tighter turns on the narrow slopes. By the end of the ski day we were pretty tired and we met up with Catherine at the Summit on one of her runs. Her friends father was ready to hit some more challenging slopes – Catherine was still not quite ready for the blue slopes, and was being extra cautious after taking some hard spills on the more advanced green slopes she had tried. After that we did a few more easy runs (you can get almost 4 miles of continuous skiing in a single run at Park City). We decided to retire to the hotel and get ready for the highlight of the vacation.
Wednesday evening Linda had scheduled us for a sleigh ride to the “Snowed Inn” lodge where we would have a cowboy dinner. We met at the bottom of the mountain for the short sleigh ride to the inn (visible about ¼ mile up the mountain). The ride, though short added an incredible ambience to the entire experience and our driver was great (we had our one sleigh even though there were about 50 folks going up for dinner). The Inn had a roaring real wood fire and waiters and waitresses in full cowboy gear bustling about. A cowboy was playing guitar and singing country music and we were greeted with warm mugs of cider as we were led to our table. Shortly the chef, also fully decked in cowboy gear, rang the dinner bell and told us the menu of soup, chili, filet mignon, chicken, trout, and assorted sides. The food was good, but the real pleasure was the atmosphere. With the cowboy and crowd singing Christmas tunes, the fire, the full surroundings, I simply sat back – warm and happy and took it all in. It was too soon when our sleigh had to take us back down the mountain, there is something to be said about a full belly and a warm fire. The dinner was probably the most expensive I had ever had (at about $80 a head) – but it was worth the experience for all of us and was one of the real highlights of the trip. We took the bus back to our hotel and quickly crashed for the evening. Thursday would be our last day in Park City and I was looking forward to another full day on skis.
The next morning Linda and Catherine decided they would rather shop (Park City has a lot of really cool shops on their main street) while Anna and I were going to ski. By this time Anna was ready to tackle pretty much anything I wanted to do. We made a few runs mixing green and blue slopes and pretty much decided the Home Run green level slope was the most fun when done “our way”. Our way consisted of taking the green portions of the run and at certain points “shortcutting” down unmarked blue level cuts through the trees. We would hurtle down these powdery paths and rejoin the green slope at a spot down-mountain, effectively cutting off portions of the green trail. Some of these were quite steep (aka nearly vertical at least at the start) and we had some hilarious falls into the deep powder. Anna’s bindings were quite loose and at one point one of her skis flew off making a beautiful arc through the air spearing into a snow drift backwards with a nice loud “poing!” Anna was fine on each of these – though I had one scare as I was hurtling back onto the green, a lady decided the point where I would re-enter the green trail was a good place to stop and rest. I flattened my body out (I was hurtling straight downhill) and skidded to a stop at her feet on my rear. One of the safety patrol just happened to be there and commented “nice stop” which was of course preferable to wiping out the poor girl.
Anna had wiped out on the same run, but as soon as we were on our feet we hurtled down the hill at full speed laughing about the way we both had flown through the air. We next decided to try a few more advanced slopes and for the first time we were going to be getting onto the small 2-person old-style lifts. The big difference in the old style lifts are (1) there is no safety bar, and (2) it does not slow down as it approaches you. I had learned on this type of lift – but the first time the chair hit Anna in the rear she slid forward and I found myself grabbing her and hoisting her onto the chair with one hand while I gripped the back of the lift chair with the other hand. She of course loved the lift because after you became airborne it would swing back and forth drunkenly. We did successfully learn to mount the lift – but got to have another scare as a small boy in the chair in front of us did not successfully get seated and fell about 20 feet into (thankfully) a snow bank. Of course everything came to a halt – but after it was determined the boy was OK, he was back on the lift and we were off again.
By this time Anna was pointing to some slopes that she wanted to try, one of which was Black. She had solidly made it down a few blue slopes and the black slope was boxed up on both sides so there was no chance of her dropping off the mountain so I decided to let her try it. On the approach to the black slope she somehow got up onto a ridge which required her to do a free drop of about 8 feet and also where I had to catch her to prevent her do about another 10 feet of free drop. She actually managed the drop well and stayed on her skis. I was apprehensive – but we were also committed, the only way to avoid the slope at this time was to go back up the hill. I coached her a bit, “keep your speed down and stay in control”, “go across the hill not straight down”. I might as well been talking to a tree – she saw the drop – turned her skis into it and was off. The initial drop was shallow (about a blue level) – but it was deceptive as there were deep moguls the entire way down. She read the slope fine, but was not prepared for the terrain. For about 50 yards she bounced up and down like a poor rider on a trotting horse. Her hat flew off, then one glove somehow came loose and flew into a drift. She landed on her rear and skidded the remaining 150 yards until the slope leveled out. I hurriedly headed down, scooping up both the hat and glove on the way down. As I reached Anna at the bottom worrying about how the experience would leave – I soon realized I need not worry. I was greeted by her wide smile and “That was awesome! – lets do it again!” Realizing that she was truly enjoying this we went full blast to the lift and headed right back up. The second time down was pretty much a repeat of the first run, but no less fun. At least this time she kept her hat and glove! It was getting late – so we did one last full mountain run, racing each other through the steep parts.
During the day we had incredible luck, the one time we got stuck on a lift (Silverlode) it was directly above the downhill trick race course and we got to see a race from the best vantage point possible – directly above it !) Getting a chance to spend an entire day skiing with my 8 year kid was great. It probably will not be long until they are ready to take off with their friend and leave boring old dad behind, but for now we can still race and stand on the edge of a precipice daring each other to go first. After the last run we bid the mountain farewell, called Linda and then headed back to the hotel. That night we ate at Grub Steak – another excellent restaurant.
Park City is awesome, flying into Salt Lake – you can drive there (highway the entire way) in about 30 minutes, or you can take a shuttle bus. Once there, you can get anywhere in the city in minutes, and with 3 incredible resorts within a few miles (Deer Valley, Park City Mountain Resort, and Canyonlands) it is a ski paradise. We hope to get back as soon as possible and enjoy more of the “greatest snow on earth.”
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Kelly Park FLO
Here are the notes from my flag pick-up at Kelly Park. This is to let others know what I was thinking and why I selected various route choices. I dashed my route in dark red.
S - 1: All trail and also an area I was familiar with. I ran by one as I was planning on having another helper pick it up.
1-2: The plan was to simply continue south at the trail bend and follow to the flag. A better route would have been to follow the trail past the dashed green and avoid the palmettos that left me with some pretty mice "fan" cuts as i was travelling fairly fast.
2-3: Maintaining a south bearing I simply headed to the visible border of the dark green and hopped onto the trail. The white wooded area in the middle of the green was obivous and I simply looked for a "hole" out of the southern boundary of the green and came right to the thicket and the control.
3-4: I planned to attack 4 from the dirt mounds along the trail ENE of the control, these were easy to find and the control was about 15 m E of the mapped distinct tree, but clearly visible from it.
4-5: A southerly bearing took me to the "wet" area 100 meters north of 5, it was dry, but it was also the deepest point in that depression in the (orange) open area. Due south from that led me straight into the control. I took a pretty good fall and twisted my ankle on this leg - but as my tendons are pretty much rubber bands from so many twists, it did not slow me much. CP 5 was on the north side of the control circle.
5-6: Due east with a plan to grab the trail and simply turn into it. The area north of the trail was painted green so did not match the map, so useless for attack - but the line of thickets and the vegetation boundary was visible from the trail, so this was relatively easy. Also the subtle contours were readable and had the control near the top of the low ridge.
6-7: The plan was to hit the trail and get some fast running. I hopped off the E_W trail near the ridhe top and planned to contour into the depression NE of the control, however the running was more open on the west side of the ridge. I attacked from the small depression and easily found the open (orange) and simply handrailed it to the thicket.
7-8: I used a bearing and got lucky enough to find the small hole in the green vegetation to the south. I emerged within sight of the control and even though it did not appear to be on a thicket (as described) I did not hang around long enough to look closely.
8-9: I had planned to simply pick up the first (subtle) hilltop and take the saddle across to the other one. The fennel was very thick in this section and was doing a real number to the open cuts on my legs (from section 1-2). I was not paying close attention to the hilltop attack and blew right past the hill backstopping at the trail. I located the ditches on each side, ran S along the trail to the mapped earth berms and re-attacked the control following the contours that had it in a shallow depression. Once I saw the depression the lone thicket was obvious.
9-10: I abandoned a quicker direct route as the fennel was now causing me some serious pain along my legs. My gaiters only protected my lowere legs and my thighs were pretty much a mass of blood and dirt - not a problem until you run sharp tall fennel weed along it at high speed. I bailed to the trail and wanted a fennel free route to 10. Luckily the earlier runners had trampled a path that took me relatively close to the control and I avoided the majority of pain. The control was realtively simple as there were few thickets and the shallow re-rentrant on the mpa was readable from a distance.
10-11: Ths should have been really easy. Once I hit the first trail I somehow got confused and though I was on the back trail and also that I was heading for 12. Realize I did not look at my map at all after leaving 10 (I was contouring and looking for an obvious depression). For some reason my brain skipped ahead to 12, but after 30 seconds on the trail heading north (uphill) - I slapped my head and went "duh!". I ran back - picked up 11 and then went to the more western and correct trail to go to 12.
11-12: My original plan was to use trail the entire route, but once I hit the first intersection - the woods were wide open so I bounced to the first thicket and then to the cloverleafed shaped oneand punced out to the trail. One i saw teh earth mound I attacked off the trail reasoning with a faiirly large depression behind the control - this would be pretty easy (and it was).
12-13: Plan here was to use trail as much as possible and my legs felt pretty good so I turned on some speed. After crossing the hilltop I attacked heading downhill, passed the small depression and then moved right into the control.
13-14: North to the trail and then follow trails.
14-15: Had mylegs not been shredded by palmettos and fennel I proably would have punched through the light green, but my leg muscles were realtively fresh and I simpyl went around the trails. Locating the flag was pretty easy on the deeper of the two depressions and dues south of the (visible) ranger station.
15-F: I hopped out to the road and sprinted in.
Overall - trying to tie the controls and stuff them in my backpack probably cost me some time though I kept moving at the same time. I was unable to keep track of my own time as my solar watch (which I really like) decided it was time to "recycle", which is a bad habit it has - it goes into some mode where it responds to nothing for 1-2 hours. Also it was important to get a good heading as I left a control as I was going to be concentrating on the tying the flags and not navigating for that period of time. I really enjoyed the course - it was long and relatively challenging.
S - 1: All trail and also an area I was familiar with. I ran by one as I was planning on having another helper pick it up.
1-2: The plan was to simply continue south at the trail bend and follow to the flag. A better route would have been to follow the trail past the dashed green and avoid the palmettos that left me with some pretty mice "fan" cuts as i was travelling fairly fast.
2-3: Maintaining a south bearing I simply headed to the visible border of the dark green and hopped onto the trail. The white wooded area in the middle of the green was obivous and I simply looked for a "hole" out of the southern boundary of the green and came right to the thicket and the control.
3-4: I planned to attack 4 from the dirt mounds along the trail ENE of the control, these were easy to find and the control was about 15 m E of the mapped distinct tree, but clearly visible from it.
4-5: A southerly bearing took me to the "wet" area 100 meters north of 5, it was dry, but it was also the deepest point in that depression in the (orange) open area. Due south from that led me straight into the control. I took a pretty good fall and twisted my ankle on this leg - but as my tendons are pretty much rubber bands from so many twists, it did not slow me much. CP 5 was on the north side of the control circle.
5-6: Due east with a plan to grab the trail and simply turn into it. The area north of the trail was painted green so did not match the map, so useless for attack - but the line of thickets and the vegetation boundary was visible from the trail, so this was relatively easy. Also the subtle contours were readable and had the control near the top of the low ridge.
6-7: The plan was to hit the trail and get some fast running. I hopped off the E_W trail near the ridhe top and planned to contour into the depression NE of the control, however the running was more open on the west side of the ridge. I attacked from the small depression and easily found the open (orange) and simply handrailed it to the thicket.
7-8: I used a bearing and got lucky enough to find the small hole in the green vegetation to the south. I emerged within sight of the control and even though it did not appear to be on a thicket (as described) I did not hang around long enough to look closely.
8-9: I had planned to simply pick up the first (subtle) hilltop and take the saddle across to the other one. The fennel was very thick in this section and was doing a real number to the open cuts on my legs (from section 1-2). I was not paying close attention to the hilltop attack and blew right past the hill backstopping at the trail. I located the ditches on each side, ran S along the trail to the mapped earth berms and re-attacked the control following the contours that had it in a shallow depression. Once I saw the depression the lone thicket was obvious.
9-10: I abandoned a quicker direct route as the fennel was now causing me some serious pain along my legs. My gaiters only protected my lowere legs and my thighs were pretty much a mass of blood and dirt - not a problem until you run sharp tall fennel weed along it at high speed. I bailed to the trail and wanted a fennel free route to 10. Luckily the earlier runners had trampled a path that took me relatively close to the control and I avoided the majority of pain. The control was realtively simple as there were few thickets and the shallow re-rentrant on the mpa was readable from a distance.
10-11: Ths should have been really easy. Once I hit the first trail I somehow got confused and though I was on the back trail and also that I was heading for 12. Realize I did not look at my map at all after leaving 10 (I was contouring and looking for an obvious depression). For some reason my brain skipped ahead to 12, but after 30 seconds on the trail heading north (uphill) - I slapped my head and went "duh!". I ran back - picked up 11 and then went to the more western and correct trail to go to 12.
11-12: My original plan was to use trail the entire route, but once I hit the first intersection - the woods were wide open so I bounced to the first thicket and then to the cloverleafed shaped oneand punced out to the trail. One i saw teh earth mound I attacked off the trail reasoning with a faiirly large depression behind the control - this would be pretty easy (and it was).
12-13: Plan here was to use trail as much as possible and my legs felt pretty good so I turned on some speed. After crossing the hilltop I attacked heading downhill, passed the small depression and then moved right into the control.
13-14: North to the trail and then follow trails.
14-15: Had mylegs not been shredded by palmettos and fennel I proably would have punched through the light green, but my leg muscles were realtively fresh and I simpyl went around the trails. Locating the flag was pretty easy on the deeper of the two depressions and dues south of the (visible) ranger station.
15-F: I hopped out to the road and sprinted in.
Overall - trying to tie the controls and stuff them in my backpack probably cost me some time though I kept moving at the same time. I was unable to keep track of my own time as my solar watch (which I really like) decided it was time to "recycle", which is a bad habit it has - it goes into some mode where it responds to nothing for 1-2 hours. Also it was important to get a good heading as I left a control as I was going to be concentrating on the tying the flags and not navigating for that period of time. I really enjoyed the course - it was long and relatively challenging.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Wild Turkey Burn 2006
Turkey Burn 2006
Team Travel Country Outdoors (Ron Eaglin, Greg Corbitt, Jamie Sheriff, Ken Richmond)
Wow! The Turkey has always been one of my favorite races, complex navigation, challenging terrain, strong competition – all these come together to make up an incredible experience. This year’s burn was held on the Tossohatchee State Preserve – one of the most incredible pieces of land bordering the west side of the St. Johns River. One of the factors that makes the TB such a challenging race is the Linear Rogaine format. For those of you not familiar with Rogaine and Linear Rogaine, in a Rogaine style race teams are allows to “get” checkpoints in any order with a minimum of rules. In Linear Rogaine there is a basic course made up of mandatory checkpoints – but the real race lies in getting as many of the optional or “bonus” checkpoints you can. Both of these styles have a time limit, so the challenge is in optimizing your time to gather as many as possible – while still making it to the finish within the time limit.
This year the race featured a 4 AM start – guaranteeing the teams some early darkness in the race. The real race for me though started at 3 AM when we received the maps, the time between 3 and 4 AM is a frantic effort to mark your maps, plot the unplotted checkpoints, make sure you have all the gear you need or want for the race (and have it packed and ready), make it to the starting line and then go all out. After receiving the maps we went to Greg camper (parked across the street from the start in a camping area) and worked non-stop until we heard the actual start. At that time I threw the maps in my map case and we took off running to the start. There were still a few other teams straggling in to the start, but the bulk of the pack had taken off pushing their bikes (for the first mile our bikes were disabled by zip ties). We grabbed our bikes and headed off at a trot – currently about 5 minutes behind the main pack.
We took a well trodden road heading north along the western fence line of the park – heading for the power lines where we would turn east and go to where we would receive our bike control card and get the zip ties cut off our bike. As we reached the power lines we could see at least 20 sets of bike lights due north of us, it appeared that a large number of teams had not turned correctly and were now running back. The team hesitated slightly – but I reassured them we were going correctly and soon we saw Nicci at the bike punch location who gave us our card and told us we could start riding.
After heading east and then north we found the vague trail that would take us to MB1 located just after a small bridge crossing. In the dark we passed up the control – but I sent Greg to the bridge, Ken down the trail west, and Jamie east and within a minute we had found it – with an extra minute to get the control cards (with Jamie) to the control to punch it. The trail from MB1 to MB2 was quite ride-able and we were moving well (losing the trail once for about 2 minutes) and also having to slow for teams that somehow were coming from the other direction. The continuation from MB2 to BB1 and all the navigation choices we quite easy and we moved quickly towards the Y intersection preceding BB2 very quickly. At this point we also had a long trail of bike lights behind us with at least 3 teams within ¼ mile. After taking the eastern turn we overshot the southern trail heading towards BB2 and got into a very wet section of road where Greg and I both took a good dunking as we tipped over on our bikes (solidly clipped in) when the water got too deep to maintain forward progress. It too us much too long to realize our mistake and even longer to make the correction – we lost 7-10 minutes going back and finding the correct turn. Meanwhile the huge group of bikes behind us had been sitting at the Y intersection (we could see the lights) and ended up taking the southwest heading road after they saw us returning. Also at this point Jamie’s lone bike light gave out. Luckily I had 2 spares (because of the rush at the start I simply threw everything into my pack including 2 headlamps and 2 extra bike lights). The trail to BB2 and then to MP3 was moderately ride-able, with lots of logs where we had to stop, and jump the logs. As we rode/walked we saw Team Nature Calls buswhacking in to BB2 from the road – I mentioned that it was an unconventional route – but it was working for them. As we left MP3 (it also took us about 2 minutes there to actually turn around and notice the control sitting obviously on a tree) we rode with one team with wonderful HID lights (we had nothing bright on our bikes) 0 but still had a hard time keeping the trail and ended up bushwhacking to the road – which did allow us to go after BB4. Unfortunately it also meant a long (0.6 mile) backtrack along the trail to BB3. Finding the true entrance to the white blazed trail leading to BB3 also cost us a good 5 minutes and now the time was starting to add up. We ended up dropping the bikes part way on this trail and running the remainder to BB3 and along this route we ran into Nature Calls and ran (with them biking) alongside of them the rest of the way out from BB3.
From here is was pretty good riding until crossing under 528. We spent too much time (about 5 minutes) deciding to take the frontage trail to BB5 (and then BB6) and did most of this ride (it was mostly rideable) with team Dirty Fish, who we rode with all the way to the bike drop. At the bike drop we learned that Team Flight had also gotten all the CP’s but had a solid 30 minute lead on us (I was estimating that they would only be 20 minutes up at the time – but also knew that we had made enough mistakes to have cost us well over 30 minutes on the ride (if we had done it without the mistakes and pauses). We now had light and it was still wonderfully cool out – though for some reason we were slow in this transition (almost 10 minutes). Nevertheless we were heading out on a trek with challenging navigation (my favorite). We quickly found BT8 and then used the vegetation boundary to slowly make our way to BT7 (fairly thick terrain). The ground was pretty open from BT7 to the road so we headed southeast and then took an attack point to BT6 that would allow us to identify the marsh (shown on the map) and attack it from the west. Open wood from BT6 to BT5 allowed us to essentially do a direct bearing and we nailed both BT5 and MT1. From there is was basically a run – though we did spend a little extra time on BT1 as the clearing described in the passport (northwest of clearing) did not (to me at least) match the actual location – though the physical location of the flag was exactly as it was on the map. As we jogged back to the bikes I read the passport and realized that we might not make the 11 AM cutoff at the power lines – which I had thought was the cutoff to the boat pick up.
We mounted bikes quickly and rode hard – as we rode Greg got a flat tire, but we decided on the sand and mud roads, with a cutoff looming over our heads – was not worth changing until after the paddle.
The paddle started with a long (over a mile) portage down a grassy road towards the river. This also would be a huge time cost and I was quickly realizing that barring a miracle or a southerly gale force wind – we would not make it to the cutoff by 11 AM. A few shortcuts on the river did help our time, but it was 10:27 AM when we actually put our boats in the water. We reached BP1 at 11:05 AM and the power lines at 11:20 AM and were informed that 4 teams had made the cutoff. This took some of the pressure off our team – we had only missed one CP at this point (BT4 as I forgot to take the map it was on with me on the trek). I also had not even looked at the maps for any part of the race after this point, all I knew is we had more paddling, a trek and then a bike. The diversion to short course did take some pressure off our pace and we were now traveling with multiple teams in the second half of the paddle.
This was the most enjoyable part of the race for me, we got to truly do navigation on the river as we had to find the various lakes and side streams and oxbows that would lead us to each of the bonus points. We were able to hop out of the boats at various points and jog along the edge of the streams to most of the bonus points. There was no place where the water was more then thigh deep so even when we were on the wrong side of the stream from the control (we were on BP7) it was no big deal to wade across. We finished the paddle with a small armada of boats and the finish and the incredible scenery at Jim Creek (I cannot even describe it – you simply have to see it) lifted the team spirits quite a bit. As we portaged our boats to the final boat drop we had a little scare. I saw a snake a few feet ahead of us in the grass, Jamie screamed a hollered “Rattlesnake!” My response was “That’s not a rattlesnake – it’s a water moccasin.” Nevertheless it was still a poisonous snake and it was scared and coiled to strike so we called to the boats behind us to divert around the frightened snake – which slithered off as soon as it had an opening. Amazingly Audrey Nettlow’s team of three women had dragged their boat right over the snake (probably waking it up).
We were now once again on foot – along with a lot of other teams. We took an extra couple of minutes in the transition fueling up and all the other teams were trudging along the power lines headed west as we caught up with them in a trot. Since we were low on time we headed towards BT11 (but decided to bail on BT18). We picked up BT17 purely by accident (I had not plotted it) – but it was directly along the route we were taking to MT11. We were still jogging and sloshing (it was quite wet out there) along this route. We spent about 10 minutes searching for BT13 and as I learned later we were literally on top of it – but somehow did not find it. I did not want to waste a lot of time so I called the search for BT13 short and we headed back. Our plan was to pick up BT12 on the way back – we did find it, though somehow it seemed to me (at the time) to be east of where I plotted it (of course it could have been my plotting – since I was doing it on the run). We jogged a solid pace all the way back into the TA. On the way back we saw Team Flight for the first time in the race – they were biking strong. We still had a flat tire to change, so while Greg and Jamie changed the tire – Ken and I helped change their shoes and get us ready to do the short (6 miles?) bike back to the start. We decided to simply bring it in and not fight with any more CP’s (we had plenty).
In the end missing the cutoff cost us, though Ken and Greg were 2nd place male and Jamie and I preserved a podium finish with 3rd place coed. More important though is we raced what we though was an excellent race. We did not push ourselves to the point of exhaustion as we normally do in a very tight race – but spent some time enjoying the course. My favorite parts were the challenging navigation and the incredible terrain. The entire race was extremely well-organized and flawlessly executed. The level of challenge was exactly what each team made of it. Once again Dave and the Sun-tek crew proved they can provide a race that challenges all of the teams at all levels.
Team Travel Country Outdoors (Ron Eaglin, Greg Corbitt, Jamie Sheriff, Ken Richmond)
Wow! The Turkey has always been one of my favorite races, complex navigation, challenging terrain, strong competition – all these come together to make up an incredible experience. This year’s burn was held on the Tossohatchee State Preserve – one of the most incredible pieces of land bordering the west side of the St. Johns River. One of the factors that makes the TB such a challenging race is the Linear Rogaine format. For those of you not familiar with Rogaine and Linear Rogaine, in a Rogaine style race teams are allows to “get” checkpoints in any order with a minimum of rules. In Linear Rogaine there is a basic course made up of mandatory checkpoints – but the real race lies in getting as many of the optional or “bonus” checkpoints you can. Both of these styles have a time limit, so the challenge is in optimizing your time to gather as many as possible – while still making it to the finish within the time limit.
This year the race featured a 4 AM start – guaranteeing the teams some early darkness in the race. The real race for me though started at 3 AM when we received the maps, the time between 3 and 4 AM is a frantic effort to mark your maps, plot the unplotted checkpoints, make sure you have all the gear you need or want for the race (and have it packed and ready), make it to the starting line and then go all out. After receiving the maps we went to Greg camper (parked across the street from the start in a camping area) and worked non-stop until we heard the actual start. At that time I threw the maps in my map case and we took off running to the start. There were still a few other teams straggling in to the start, but the bulk of the pack had taken off pushing their bikes (for the first mile our bikes were disabled by zip ties). We grabbed our bikes and headed off at a trot – currently about 5 minutes behind the main pack.
We took a well trodden road heading north along the western fence line of the park – heading for the power lines where we would turn east and go to where we would receive our bike control card and get the zip ties cut off our bike. As we reached the power lines we could see at least 20 sets of bike lights due north of us, it appeared that a large number of teams had not turned correctly and were now running back. The team hesitated slightly – but I reassured them we were going correctly and soon we saw Nicci at the bike punch location who gave us our card and told us we could start riding.
After heading east and then north we found the vague trail that would take us to MB1 located just after a small bridge crossing. In the dark we passed up the control – but I sent Greg to the bridge, Ken down the trail west, and Jamie east and within a minute we had found it – with an extra minute to get the control cards (with Jamie) to the control to punch it. The trail from MB1 to MB2 was quite ride-able and we were moving well (losing the trail once for about 2 minutes) and also having to slow for teams that somehow were coming from the other direction. The continuation from MB2 to BB1 and all the navigation choices we quite easy and we moved quickly towards the Y intersection preceding BB2 very quickly. At this point we also had a long trail of bike lights behind us with at least 3 teams within ¼ mile. After taking the eastern turn we overshot the southern trail heading towards BB2 and got into a very wet section of road where Greg and I both took a good dunking as we tipped over on our bikes (solidly clipped in) when the water got too deep to maintain forward progress. It too us much too long to realize our mistake and even longer to make the correction – we lost 7-10 minutes going back and finding the correct turn. Meanwhile the huge group of bikes behind us had been sitting at the Y intersection (we could see the lights) and ended up taking the southwest heading road after they saw us returning. Also at this point Jamie’s lone bike light gave out. Luckily I had 2 spares (because of the rush at the start I simply threw everything into my pack including 2 headlamps and 2 extra bike lights). The trail to BB2 and then to MP3 was moderately ride-able, with lots of logs where we had to stop, and jump the logs. As we rode/walked we saw Team Nature Calls buswhacking in to BB2 from the road – I mentioned that it was an unconventional route – but it was working for them. As we left MP3 (it also took us about 2 minutes there to actually turn around and notice the control sitting obviously on a tree) we rode with one team with wonderful HID lights (we had nothing bright on our bikes) 0 but still had a hard time keeping the trail and ended up bushwhacking to the road – which did allow us to go after BB4. Unfortunately it also meant a long (0.6 mile) backtrack along the trail to BB3. Finding the true entrance to the white blazed trail leading to BB3 also cost us a good 5 minutes and now the time was starting to add up. We ended up dropping the bikes part way on this trail and running the remainder to BB3 and along this route we ran into Nature Calls and ran (with them biking) alongside of them the rest of the way out from BB3.
From here is was pretty good riding until crossing under 528. We spent too much time (about 5 minutes) deciding to take the frontage trail to BB5 (and then BB6) and did most of this ride (it was mostly rideable) with team Dirty Fish, who we rode with all the way to the bike drop. At the bike drop we learned that Team Flight had also gotten all the CP’s but had a solid 30 minute lead on us (I was estimating that they would only be 20 minutes up at the time – but also knew that we had made enough mistakes to have cost us well over 30 minutes on the ride (if we had done it without the mistakes and pauses). We now had light and it was still wonderfully cool out – though for some reason we were slow in this transition (almost 10 minutes). Nevertheless we were heading out on a trek with challenging navigation (my favorite). We quickly found BT8 and then used the vegetation boundary to slowly make our way to BT7 (fairly thick terrain). The ground was pretty open from BT7 to the road so we headed southeast and then took an attack point to BT6 that would allow us to identify the marsh (shown on the map) and attack it from the west. Open wood from BT6 to BT5 allowed us to essentially do a direct bearing and we nailed both BT5 and MT1. From there is was basically a run – though we did spend a little extra time on BT1 as the clearing described in the passport (northwest of clearing) did not (to me at least) match the actual location – though the physical location of the flag was exactly as it was on the map. As we jogged back to the bikes I read the passport and realized that we might not make the 11 AM cutoff at the power lines – which I had thought was the cutoff to the boat pick up.
We mounted bikes quickly and rode hard – as we rode Greg got a flat tire, but we decided on the sand and mud roads, with a cutoff looming over our heads – was not worth changing until after the paddle.
The paddle started with a long (over a mile) portage down a grassy road towards the river. This also would be a huge time cost and I was quickly realizing that barring a miracle or a southerly gale force wind – we would not make it to the cutoff by 11 AM. A few shortcuts on the river did help our time, but it was 10:27 AM when we actually put our boats in the water. We reached BP1 at 11:05 AM and the power lines at 11:20 AM and were informed that 4 teams had made the cutoff. This took some of the pressure off our team – we had only missed one CP at this point (BT4 as I forgot to take the map it was on with me on the trek). I also had not even looked at the maps for any part of the race after this point, all I knew is we had more paddling, a trek and then a bike. The diversion to short course did take some pressure off our pace and we were now traveling with multiple teams in the second half of the paddle.
This was the most enjoyable part of the race for me, we got to truly do navigation on the river as we had to find the various lakes and side streams and oxbows that would lead us to each of the bonus points. We were able to hop out of the boats at various points and jog along the edge of the streams to most of the bonus points. There was no place where the water was more then thigh deep so even when we were on the wrong side of the stream from the control (we were on BP7) it was no big deal to wade across. We finished the paddle with a small armada of boats and the finish and the incredible scenery at Jim Creek (I cannot even describe it – you simply have to see it) lifted the team spirits quite a bit. As we portaged our boats to the final boat drop we had a little scare. I saw a snake a few feet ahead of us in the grass, Jamie screamed a hollered “Rattlesnake!” My response was “That’s not a rattlesnake – it’s a water moccasin.” Nevertheless it was still a poisonous snake and it was scared and coiled to strike so we called to the boats behind us to divert around the frightened snake – which slithered off as soon as it had an opening. Amazingly Audrey Nettlow’s team of three women had dragged their boat right over the snake (probably waking it up).
We were now once again on foot – along with a lot of other teams. We took an extra couple of minutes in the transition fueling up and all the other teams were trudging along the power lines headed west as we caught up with them in a trot. Since we were low on time we headed towards BT11 (but decided to bail on BT18). We picked up BT17 purely by accident (I had not plotted it) – but it was directly along the route we were taking to MT11. We were still jogging and sloshing (it was quite wet out there) along this route. We spent about 10 minutes searching for BT13 and as I learned later we were literally on top of it – but somehow did not find it. I did not want to waste a lot of time so I called the search for BT13 short and we headed back. Our plan was to pick up BT12 on the way back – we did find it, though somehow it seemed to me (at the time) to be east of where I plotted it (of course it could have been my plotting – since I was doing it on the run). We jogged a solid pace all the way back into the TA. On the way back we saw Team Flight for the first time in the race – they were biking strong. We still had a flat tire to change, so while Greg and Jamie changed the tire – Ken and I helped change their shoes and get us ready to do the short (6 miles?) bike back to the start. We decided to simply bring it in and not fight with any more CP’s (we had plenty).
In the end missing the cutoff cost us, though Ken and Greg were 2nd place male and Jamie and I preserved a podium finish with 3rd place coed. More important though is we raced what we though was an excellent race. We did not push ourselves to the point of exhaustion as we normally do in a very tight race – but spent some time enjoying the course. My favorite parts were the challenging navigation and the incredible terrain. The entire race was extremely well-organized and flawlessly executed. The level of challenge was exactly what each team made of it. Once again Dave and the Sun-tek crew proved they can provide a race that challenges all of the teams at all levels.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
LEACH Adventure Race
The Leach 2006
Adventure racing in Florida is full of cool nicknames for the various races; the Stomp, Howl, Crusher, Scar, and so on. When I heard that there was going to be an addition to the list – The Loxahatchee Eco Adventure Challenge (LEACH) I was ready to try out this new race. By the standards of most adventure racers it would be a short (sprint) style race with winning times in the 6 hour range. This only means that the pace of the race would be very fast with little time for transitions, food, and absolutely no resting.
After a long day at work on Friday I threw the AR gear in the car and headed to Hobe Sound, about 2 ½ hours to team-mate Greg’s house only 10 minutes from the race start. After a good nights sleep and a good breakfast it was time to head out to Jonathan Dickinson Park and the 9:00 AM pre-race. We joined Jamie who had beat us to the start and picked up our bags and maps. We had about 30 minutes to plan for the race and we jogged from the trailer to the start just in time for the get started in the short run to CP1. As the teams took off I realized I was missing a piece of gear and ran back to my bike to snag it – separating me a bit from Jamie and Greg (in the front) with me in the back. A quick climb over a wall split up the pack a bit before reaching CP1, and then after that the team was roped together at the wrists. Being tied together after the wall was slowing us down through the narrow trails, but we were still able to arrive at the boats tied with the teams in the lead pack at 9:55 AM.
Times into the Boat Transition
Flight
9:55:00 AM
Team Travel Country/CFAR
9:55:00 AM
Team Get it Finnished
9:55:00 AM
5 Elements
9:55:00 AM
Dead Weight
9:55:00 AM
Blackbird Boys
9:55:00 AM
Purple Hemp Train Of Pain
9:58:00 AM
Guns and Hoses
9:59:00 AM
Are We There Yet?
10:00:00 AM
The next leg of the race was a fairly short, beautiful, and relatively uneventful paddle. The paddling was very nice with passing an Eagle’s nest and the navigation was pretty easy. We settled into a nice pace and did most of the paddle side by side with Flight and Are We There Yet with a few teams just behind us in the paddle. We also learned that Team Hoof-hearted had swam to CP2 saving themselves about 10 minutes on the leg and putting themselves about 10 minutes in front of the lead pack .
Times at Completion of Boat Leg
Flight
11:16:00 AM
Hoof Hearted
11:02:00 AM
Are We There Yet?
11:17:00 AM
Team Travel Country/CFAR
11:18:00 AM
Team Get it Finnished
11:21:00 AM
Guns and Hoses
11:21:00 AM
Purple Hemp Train Of Pain
11:22:00 AM
5 Elements
11:25:00 AM
At the transition we had a quick special event where we had to fill a bucket on a see-saw with water and raise a cinder block off the ground. Then we started the run section. Reading the map we decided to take a pretty “straight-shot” towards the next CP and with a small amount of bushwhack we were back with the front pack (which now consisted on Are We There Yet, Flight, and TCO. About 5-10 minutes in front of us was team Hoof-Hearted and we knew there were at least 5 teams within 5 minutes behind us. We kept a mild pace and were passed by Team Get it Finnished just before arriving at the next checkpoint and heading to the orienteering.
Times in at Checkpoint 6
Flight
11:52:00 AM
Hoof Hearted
11:45:00 AM
Team Get it Finnished
11:52:00 AM
Team Travel Country/CFAR
11:55:00 AM
Are We There Yet?
11:55:00 AM
Purple Hemp Train Of Pain
12:04:00 PM
Guns and Hoses
12:04:00 PM
We blew through the orienteering and then proceeded to waste 5 minutes looking for OP7 (which did not exist) because we didn’t read the passport. Oh well – it happens, as soon as we realized our mistake we jogged back the main transition (a couple of miles) and did a fast transition to bikes for the next leg.
Times into Main Transition
Flight
12:16:00 PM
Hoof Hearted
12:18:00 PM
Team Get it Finnished
12:22:00 PM
Team Travel Country/CFAR
12:28:00 PM
We left out on bikes down the power lines. The race officials had set the wall back up and we went over it one more time and headed towards CP8. As we approached CP8 we met up with Flight and Hoof-hearted. They appeared to be strategizing the best route to CP9, I looked around – but determined we would be bike whacking a good part of the distance to CP9. The bike whack was one of the more difficult I had done, and I was also starting to feel strangely weak. We still suffered through it, though I was now losing time and slowing my team down noticeably. CP9 gave many teams a very difficult time – though I did not find it too difficult and we arrived at it with Team Flight. Looking at the map contours I intuited that heading north out of the swamp at CP9 would be easier than east (which the other teams took) allowing us to pick up a few minutes – which we promptly lost by taking the wrong trail after getting out of the swamp. Either way we passed the turn to CP10 (which was manned) near the other teams and caught up with them at CP10. It was here though I knew I was in trouble.
Times at CP11 as we passed going to CP10
Flight
1:22:00 PM
Hoof Hearted
1:27:00 PM
Team Get it Finnished
1:22:00 PM
Team Travel Country/CFAR
1:24:00 PM
After leaving CP10 I was starting to feel waves of nausea which were puzzling to me, it was not overly hot and our pacing should not have had me feeling this bad. Later I would figure out that I was starting to get sick (and was sick for the entire next week) – but at the time we were racing. This part of the race had us in some very sandy single track. I moved into the “just keep moving” mode. As we came upon the 3rd bike waypoint where we had to retrieve a disk in the single track I noticed my back tire was quite bouncy. This would be the first flat of our team. Normally I can change a flat in about 4 minutes – but this time it was slower, partly because I was feeling bad and partly because the CO2 cartridges (we had 2) malfunctioned. As soon as I completed changing mine – Jamie noticed that her front tire was flat. We used our last tube changing here tire and made it to CP11 – but we had lost a lot of time.
Flight
2:28:00 PM
Hoof Hearted
2:37:00 PM
Team Get it Finnished
2:55:00 PM
Team Travel Country/CFAR
2:57:00 PM
As we changed shoes in the TA – my back tire blew, this time quite loudly. Team Get it Finnished which was in the TA with us gave us one of their tubes. Unfortunately they had lost their passport and were racing unofficially – though we could vouch for them hitting each checkpoint as we had been with them most of the race. They took off a few minutes in front of us and we slowly headed off to CP12. After CP12 Greg got his first wave of nausea and threw up the peaches he had eaten for breakfast. My nausea and vomiting and nausea earlier in the bike leg only had produced Gatorade and Hammer Gel. Greg recovered pretty quickly and though we could not move fast – we could move. CP13 was quite easy and CP14 gave us a small challenge as we lost the “supposed” trail. The bushwhack between CP13 and CP14 slowed our pace, but also allowed me some recover time. We finally made it into CP15 where we had to still change my back tire.
Team Name
CP12
RR Wack
CP15
Flight
2:42:00 PM
0:52
3:34:00 PM
Hoof Hearted
2:51:00 PM
1:17
4:08:00 PM
Team Get it Finnished
3:09:00 PM
1:14
4:23:00 PM
Team Travel Country/CFAR
3:13:00 PM
1:10
4:23:00 PM
Team Flight had finished long before we arrived at CP15 and with only a couple of miles we took the final bike leg a bit easy (also the next team was over an hour back).
Team Name
CP15
Bike
Finish
Flight
3:34:00 PM
0:09
3:43:00 PM
Hoof Hearted
4:08:00 PM
0:11
4:19:00 PM
Team Get it Finnished
4:23:00 PM
0:10
4:33:00 PM
Team Travel Country/CFAR
4:23:00 PM
0:14
4:37:00 PM
After the race I was not able to keep down any food and I also knew I had a 2-3 hour drive in front of me on the way back. I said goodbye, I was tired – but the race had been excellent and even with the nausea, it was still quite enjoyable. The most exciting events of the day were still in front of me though.
On the way back as I got onto SR 528 I was traveling about 70 mph behind a silver car. Just before the 407 overpass a white van pulls over in front of the silver car and gets bumped. The van turned sideways and then backwards flipping once landing on it front facing the wrong way in the bushes at the side of the road. After avoiding the accident – I hopped out of my car and ran to the van. The doors had been ripped off in the accident and a woman was unconscious on the drivers side. I had called 911 as I ran back to the cars and now I was checking the woman’s pulse and breathing as she regained consciousness. She immediately freaked out and started screaming in what I first thought was bad Spanish (though it turns out it was Portugese). By now I was running on 100% adrenaline, after giving my statements to FHP I headed home where I collapsed (for 2 days). The cold finally caught up with me.
As always my team-mates Greg and Jamie pulled me through the race. Our navigation and pacing were good and we raced well. It was great to see and be with the teams out there who really make this sport great.
Adventure racing in Florida is full of cool nicknames for the various races; the Stomp, Howl, Crusher, Scar, and so on. When I heard that there was going to be an addition to the list – The Loxahatchee Eco Adventure Challenge (LEACH) I was ready to try out this new race. By the standards of most adventure racers it would be a short (sprint) style race with winning times in the 6 hour range. This only means that the pace of the race would be very fast with little time for transitions, food, and absolutely no resting.
After a long day at work on Friday I threw the AR gear in the car and headed to Hobe Sound, about 2 ½ hours to team-mate Greg’s house only 10 minutes from the race start. After a good nights sleep and a good breakfast it was time to head out to Jonathan Dickinson Park and the 9:00 AM pre-race. We joined Jamie who had beat us to the start and picked up our bags and maps. We had about 30 minutes to plan for the race and we jogged from the trailer to the start just in time for the get started in the short run to CP1. As the teams took off I realized I was missing a piece of gear and ran back to my bike to snag it – separating me a bit from Jamie and Greg (in the front) with me in the back. A quick climb over a wall split up the pack a bit before reaching CP1, and then after that the team was roped together at the wrists. Being tied together after the wall was slowing us down through the narrow trails, but we were still able to arrive at the boats tied with the teams in the lead pack at 9:55 AM.
Times into the Boat Transition
Flight
9:55:00 AM
Team Travel Country/CFAR
9:55:00 AM
Team Get it Finnished
9:55:00 AM
5 Elements
9:55:00 AM
Dead Weight
9:55:00 AM
Blackbird Boys
9:55:00 AM
Purple Hemp Train Of Pain
9:58:00 AM
Guns and Hoses
9:59:00 AM
Are We There Yet?
10:00:00 AM
The next leg of the race was a fairly short, beautiful, and relatively uneventful paddle. The paddling was very nice with passing an Eagle’s nest and the navigation was pretty easy. We settled into a nice pace and did most of the paddle side by side with Flight and Are We There Yet with a few teams just behind us in the paddle. We also learned that Team Hoof-hearted had swam to CP2 saving themselves about 10 minutes on the leg and putting themselves about 10 minutes in front of the lead pack .
Times at Completion of Boat Leg
Flight
11:16:00 AM
Hoof Hearted
11:02:00 AM
Are We There Yet?
11:17:00 AM
Team Travel Country/CFAR
11:18:00 AM
Team Get it Finnished
11:21:00 AM
Guns and Hoses
11:21:00 AM
Purple Hemp Train Of Pain
11:22:00 AM
5 Elements
11:25:00 AM
At the transition we had a quick special event where we had to fill a bucket on a see-saw with water and raise a cinder block off the ground. Then we started the run section. Reading the map we decided to take a pretty “straight-shot” towards the next CP and with a small amount of bushwhack we were back with the front pack (which now consisted on Are We There Yet, Flight, and TCO. About 5-10 minutes in front of us was team Hoof-Hearted and we knew there were at least 5 teams within 5 minutes behind us. We kept a mild pace and were passed by Team Get it Finnished just before arriving at the next checkpoint and heading to the orienteering.
Times in at Checkpoint 6
Flight
11:52:00 AM
Hoof Hearted
11:45:00 AM
Team Get it Finnished
11:52:00 AM
Team Travel Country/CFAR
11:55:00 AM
Are We There Yet?
11:55:00 AM
Purple Hemp Train Of Pain
12:04:00 PM
Guns and Hoses
12:04:00 PM
We blew through the orienteering and then proceeded to waste 5 minutes looking for OP7 (which did not exist) because we didn’t read the passport. Oh well – it happens, as soon as we realized our mistake we jogged back the main transition (a couple of miles) and did a fast transition to bikes for the next leg.
Times into Main Transition
Flight
12:16:00 PM
Hoof Hearted
12:18:00 PM
Team Get it Finnished
12:22:00 PM
Team Travel Country/CFAR
12:28:00 PM
We left out on bikes down the power lines. The race officials had set the wall back up and we went over it one more time and headed towards CP8. As we approached CP8 we met up with Flight and Hoof-hearted. They appeared to be strategizing the best route to CP9, I looked around – but determined we would be bike whacking a good part of the distance to CP9. The bike whack was one of the more difficult I had done, and I was also starting to feel strangely weak. We still suffered through it, though I was now losing time and slowing my team down noticeably. CP9 gave many teams a very difficult time – though I did not find it too difficult and we arrived at it with Team Flight. Looking at the map contours I intuited that heading north out of the swamp at CP9 would be easier than east (which the other teams took) allowing us to pick up a few minutes – which we promptly lost by taking the wrong trail after getting out of the swamp. Either way we passed the turn to CP10 (which was manned) near the other teams and caught up with them at CP10. It was here though I knew I was in trouble.
Times at CP11 as we passed going to CP10
Flight
1:22:00 PM
Hoof Hearted
1:27:00 PM
Team Get it Finnished
1:22:00 PM
Team Travel Country/CFAR
1:24:00 PM
After leaving CP10 I was starting to feel waves of nausea which were puzzling to me, it was not overly hot and our pacing should not have had me feeling this bad. Later I would figure out that I was starting to get sick (and was sick for the entire next week) – but at the time we were racing. This part of the race had us in some very sandy single track. I moved into the “just keep moving” mode. As we came upon the 3rd bike waypoint where we had to retrieve a disk in the single track I noticed my back tire was quite bouncy. This would be the first flat of our team. Normally I can change a flat in about 4 minutes – but this time it was slower, partly because I was feeling bad and partly because the CO2 cartridges (we had 2) malfunctioned. As soon as I completed changing mine – Jamie noticed that her front tire was flat. We used our last tube changing here tire and made it to CP11 – but we had lost a lot of time.
Flight
2:28:00 PM
Hoof Hearted
2:37:00 PM
Team Get it Finnished
2:55:00 PM
Team Travel Country/CFAR
2:57:00 PM
As we changed shoes in the TA – my back tire blew, this time quite loudly. Team Get it Finnished which was in the TA with us gave us one of their tubes. Unfortunately they had lost their passport and were racing unofficially – though we could vouch for them hitting each checkpoint as we had been with them most of the race. They took off a few minutes in front of us and we slowly headed off to CP12. After CP12 Greg got his first wave of nausea and threw up the peaches he had eaten for breakfast. My nausea and vomiting and nausea earlier in the bike leg only had produced Gatorade and Hammer Gel. Greg recovered pretty quickly and though we could not move fast – we could move. CP13 was quite easy and CP14 gave us a small challenge as we lost the “supposed” trail. The bushwhack between CP13 and CP14 slowed our pace, but also allowed me some recover time. We finally made it into CP15 where we had to still change my back tire.
Team Name
CP12
RR Wack
CP15
Flight
2:42:00 PM
0:52
3:34:00 PM
Hoof Hearted
2:51:00 PM
1:17
4:08:00 PM
Team Get it Finnished
3:09:00 PM
1:14
4:23:00 PM
Team Travel Country/CFAR
3:13:00 PM
1:10
4:23:00 PM
Team Flight had finished long before we arrived at CP15 and with only a couple of miles we took the final bike leg a bit easy (also the next team was over an hour back).
Team Name
CP15
Bike
Finish
Flight
3:34:00 PM
0:09
3:43:00 PM
Hoof Hearted
4:08:00 PM
0:11
4:19:00 PM
Team Get it Finnished
4:23:00 PM
0:10
4:33:00 PM
Team Travel Country/CFAR
4:23:00 PM
0:14
4:37:00 PM
After the race I was not able to keep down any food and I also knew I had a 2-3 hour drive in front of me on the way back. I said goodbye, I was tired – but the race had been excellent and even with the nausea, it was still quite enjoyable. The most exciting events of the day were still in front of me though.
On the way back as I got onto SR 528 I was traveling about 70 mph behind a silver car. Just before the 407 overpass a white van pulls over in front of the silver car and gets bumped. The van turned sideways and then backwards flipping once landing on it front facing the wrong way in the bushes at the side of the road. After avoiding the accident – I hopped out of my car and ran to the van. The doors had been ripped off in the accident and a woman was unconscious on the drivers side. I had called 911 as I ran back to the cars and now I was checking the woman’s pulse and breathing as she regained consciousness. She immediately freaked out and started screaming in what I first thought was bad Spanish (though it turns out it was Portugese). By now I was running on 100% adrenaline, after giving my statements to FHP I headed home where I collapsed (for 2 days). The cold finally caught up with me.
As always my team-mates Greg and Jamie pulled me through the race. Our navigation and pacing were good and we raced well. It was great to see and be with the teams out there who really make this sport great.
Howl at the Moon AR
The Howl at the Moon 2006 – Team Travel Country Outdoors
It is an annual event that has its own cult following. It is a chance to stay up all night long and race through the darkness and cold that makes even the simplest tasks a true challenge. Teams from Maine to Key West lined up on a cold afternoon in White Springs to see what the worst of the Suwannee River area and the Adventurous Concepts could dish out. I had been looking forward to the race and was racing with long-time team-mate Greg and also new racer friend Melissa.
A cold front moved through the area the morning of the race promising to make it a cold night. Melissa and I made very quick work of the usual preparing the maps for the race and we got all the gear ready. We would start with a bit of orienteering – but not until the race directors ran (yes ran) us to the intended start location. We had different ideas – our intention was to do the orienteering in reverse (an action that had been declared OK by the race director). Unfortunately we (and some other enterprising teams) took out a bit earlier than intended and by the time the race officials found us and ran us to the real start we were 20 minutes behind the pack. Oh well.
After about 2 ½ hours of running and bushwhacking we came back to the race start around 6th place and prepared to split up. Because Greg and I were racing 2 person and Melissa was racing as a solo, she had to paddle to the next Transition while we had to bike. We hoped we would be able rejoin – but the split did have us worried. Greg and I headed out on the bike where we immediately overshot the turn for the Transition by about a mile, doubled back, turned onto a dirt road that headed to the transition and promptly dead ended, bushwhacked, and finally found a good road. We were the second team out on the bikes and we became the 11th team to hit the water. Oh Well again.
As Greg and I hit the water we knew 2 things, we would be wet and we would be cold. We were carrying the bikes in the boat with us and had been warned of submerged rocks and very shallow water. We had those and were able to add 40 degree weather, wet clothes, thick fog, and failing lights. We were a lone boat on a dark winding river. Any time we stopped paddling we would start shivering. We were in and out of the boat to pull it off of sand bars and rocks.
After a few hours of paddling we reach a point where we had to get out and visit two checkpoints. As I stepped out of the boat I started shivering uncontrollably – literally quaking with chattering teeth and flailing hands. I wanted to take my shoes off so that I could put on a pair of dry long packs I had in my pack. After much effort I was able to get them on and retie my shoes. I knew that once we started jogging I would warm – but at the time it was the misery of going towards hypothermia. I forced myself to prepare and hollered to Greg and we were off. As expected I quickly warmed and regained my senses. We quickly found both controls and also ran into Melissa as we headed back to the boat. She had a single control to find and would be able to catch up to us quickly on the boats. With my brain once again working I noted that I had beached us on the south tip a peninsula, seeing the other boats on the same sand bar. My original plan had been to pull out at a location 400 meters further on and that would have saved us quite some time in bushwhacking. These small mistakes were beginning to bother me, but in the middle of the race – all you can do is keep going and try to do better.
The white fog had that had been “bad” before we had our CP7/8 stop was now basically a wall of white. It was like being snowblind and the lights were absolutely no use as they simply reflected up from the fog. I turned my headlamp to face sideways instead of forward and found that at least we could navigate by seeing the large limestone walls on both sides of the river. This of course made it nearly impossible to see anything in front of use – but as we figured, if we hit it hard enough it would probably move anyway. It’s a good thing is those aluminum canoes are nearly indestructible!
As expected Melissa quickly finished the orienteering and caught up with us on the paddle. With 2 boats and the ability to use the shallow draft of the kayak to help Melissa spot the shallow water we were able to stay off the sand-bars, mostly. We still had a few scares as we slammed into rocks, and we still had a few sand-bars that we simply could not get over without hopping out of the boat and dragging it. As with all sections of all races – this one finally came to an end. Checkpoint 9 and the conclusion of the paddle was a welcome sight.
Here we would portage our boats and put them on the racks. We were once again cold – but I had dry socks and my bike shoes in my pack and they were a luxury (dry feet). We were about an hour behind the leaders and were determined to make it up in the tricky navigation that would follow on the bike. It was not long before we learned that our maps were not going to be entirely useful as we found the first road that we planned on using to get to the next CP (10) was simply not there. We tried north, we tried south and eventually simply went around and made our way to Suwannee Springs. As we arrived another team relayed their misery of having been there for an hour and not finding the control. We set up a search pattern – and after 10 minutes of searching, the obvious came to mind. We were at Suwannee Springs, we simply needed to find the Spring. I called to Greg and Melissa – and sure enough Melissa had figured it out, we quickly located the Spring and in a cubby along an old Coquina wall – the control point.
After looking at how sandy the direct route looked I decided we would try an indirect route by road. We headed first west and then south to find the “cutover” road that would take us towards CP 11. It dead-ended into a house. We tried a southern road, it dead-ended. We doubled back to the main road and tried the next road south. It seemed to go through, but quickly came to a 90 degree turn – heading south. We wanted north, but I decided to try south and sure enough the road turned east again, and then south, and then east. We finally came to a solid marl road that appeared to go due north with no end. After a quick debate “it goes the way we want to go” we decided to take it and after a mile we came upon a T-intersection and the river. At that point I knew where we were and we quickly found CP11. With two solid navigators we made quick work of CP 12, 13, and 14 with relative ease (also we could see the tracks of the teams in front of us). It was about 8 miles from CP 14 to the finish and mostly paved road – so we formed a bike line and put our heads down. Greg proved his worth, pulling the bike line at a brisk pace.
We came to the finish line at 3:46 to find four teams in front of us (who had finished at 3:30), who as we had guessed from the tracks had traveled much of the course together. We were a kind of second place and we were only 16 minutes back. It was also great to have the other teams cheering our little band of three into the finish in the darkness. After some Olive Garden pasta around a campfire and a short nap – we felt much better.
We had overcome it all and also had a great new team-mate in Melissa. After the misery, the frustration, the mistakes, and the triumphs it was a great race and a great experience.
It is an annual event that has its own cult following. It is a chance to stay up all night long and race through the darkness and cold that makes even the simplest tasks a true challenge. Teams from Maine to Key West lined up on a cold afternoon in White Springs to see what the worst of the Suwannee River area and the Adventurous Concepts could dish out. I had been looking forward to the race and was racing with long-time team-mate Greg and also new racer friend Melissa.
A cold front moved through the area the morning of the race promising to make it a cold night. Melissa and I made very quick work of the usual preparing the maps for the race and we got all the gear ready. We would start with a bit of orienteering – but not until the race directors ran (yes ran) us to the intended start location. We had different ideas – our intention was to do the orienteering in reverse (an action that had been declared OK by the race director). Unfortunately we (and some other enterprising teams) took out a bit earlier than intended and by the time the race officials found us and ran us to the real start we were 20 minutes behind the pack. Oh well.
After about 2 ½ hours of running and bushwhacking we came back to the race start around 6th place and prepared to split up. Because Greg and I were racing 2 person and Melissa was racing as a solo, she had to paddle to the next Transition while we had to bike. We hoped we would be able rejoin – but the split did have us worried. Greg and I headed out on the bike where we immediately overshot the turn for the Transition by about a mile, doubled back, turned onto a dirt road that headed to the transition and promptly dead ended, bushwhacked, and finally found a good road. We were the second team out on the bikes and we became the 11th team to hit the water. Oh Well again.
As Greg and I hit the water we knew 2 things, we would be wet and we would be cold. We were carrying the bikes in the boat with us and had been warned of submerged rocks and very shallow water. We had those and were able to add 40 degree weather, wet clothes, thick fog, and failing lights. We were a lone boat on a dark winding river. Any time we stopped paddling we would start shivering. We were in and out of the boat to pull it off of sand bars and rocks.
After a few hours of paddling we reach a point where we had to get out and visit two checkpoints. As I stepped out of the boat I started shivering uncontrollably – literally quaking with chattering teeth and flailing hands. I wanted to take my shoes off so that I could put on a pair of dry long packs I had in my pack. After much effort I was able to get them on and retie my shoes. I knew that once we started jogging I would warm – but at the time it was the misery of going towards hypothermia. I forced myself to prepare and hollered to Greg and we were off. As expected I quickly warmed and regained my senses. We quickly found both controls and also ran into Melissa as we headed back to the boat. She had a single control to find and would be able to catch up to us quickly on the boats. With my brain once again working I noted that I had beached us on the south tip a peninsula, seeing the other boats on the same sand bar. My original plan had been to pull out at a location 400 meters further on and that would have saved us quite some time in bushwhacking. These small mistakes were beginning to bother me, but in the middle of the race – all you can do is keep going and try to do better.
The white fog had that had been “bad” before we had our CP7/8 stop was now basically a wall of white. It was like being snowblind and the lights were absolutely no use as they simply reflected up from the fog. I turned my headlamp to face sideways instead of forward and found that at least we could navigate by seeing the large limestone walls on both sides of the river. This of course made it nearly impossible to see anything in front of use – but as we figured, if we hit it hard enough it would probably move anyway. It’s a good thing is those aluminum canoes are nearly indestructible!
As expected Melissa quickly finished the orienteering and caught up with us on the paddle. With 2 boats and the ability to use the shallow draft of the kayak to help Melissa spot the shallow water we were able to stay off the sand-bars, mostly. We still had a few scares as we slammed into rocks, and we still had a few sand-bars that we simply could not get over without hopping out of the boat and dragging it. As with all sections of all races – this one finally came to an end. Checkpoint 9 and the conclusion of the paddle was a welcome sight.
Here we would portage our boats and put them on the racks. We were once again cold – but I had dry socks and my bike shoes in my pack and they were a luxury (dry feet). We were about an hour behind the leaders and were determined to make it up in the tricky navigation that would follow on the bike. It was not long before we learned that our maps were not going to be entirely useful as we found the first road that we planned on using to get to the next CP (10) was simply not there. We tried north, we tried south and eventually simply went around and made our way to Suwannee Springs. As we arrived another team relayed their misery of having been there for an hour and not finding the control. We set up a search pattern – and after 10 minutes of searching, the obvious came to mind. We were at Suwannee Springs, we simply needed to find the Spring. I called to Greg and Melissa – and sure enough Melissa had figured it out, we quickly located the Spring and in a cubby along an old Coquina wall – the control point.
After looking at how sandy the direct route looked I decided we would try an indirect route by road. We headed first west and then south to find the “cutover” road that would take us towards CP 11. It dead-ended into a house. We tried a southern road, it dead-ended. We doubled back to the main road and tried the next road south. It seemed to go through, but quickly came to a 90 degree turn – heading south. We wanted north, but I decided to try south and sure enough the road turned east again, and then south, and then east. We finally came to a solid marl road that appeared to go due north with no end. After a quick debate “it goes the way we want to go” we decided to take it and after a mile we came upon a T-intersection and the river. At that point I knew where we were and we quickly found CP11. With two solid navigators we made quick work of CP 12, 13, and 14 with relative ease (also we could see the tracks of the teams in front of us). It was about 8 miles from CP 14 to the finish and mostly paved road – so we formed a bike line and put our heads down. Greg proved his worth, pulling the bike line at a brisk pace.
We came to the finish line at 3:46 to find four teams in front of us (who had finished at 3:30), who as we had guessed from the tracks had traveled much of the course together. We were a kind of second place and we were only 16 minutes back. It was also great to have the other teams cheering our little band of three into the finish in the darkness. After some Olive Garden pasta around a campfire and a short nap – we felt much better.
We had overcome it all and also had a great new team-mate in Melissa. After the misery, the frustration, the mistakes, and the triumphs it was a great race and a great experience.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Orlando Sentinel Article
The original text of this article from Kate Santich Sentinel Staff Writer Posted September 24, 2006 is at
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/lifestyle/orl-eaglin06sep24,0,1136246.story
In case this link is down or removed here is the text only of the article. Many thanks to Kate who put in hard work and is an accomplished athlete and biker.
Perhaps there really are two kinds of people in the world, and the dividing line is this: Some see a fork in the road or a trail into the woods but continue contentedly on their way. And others think, I wonder where that goes. . .And they have to find out.
For about as long as anyone can remember, 43-year-old engineering professor Ron Eaglin has done the latter -- a trait that has led him through murky swamps and thorny thickets and the chigger-laden wilderness that is Central Florida. He has suffered hypothermia and heat exhaustion, a broken jaw, hallucinations and an inestimable number of insect bites."Deer flies, bees, ants, fleas, every type of spider known to man -- they've all had their piece of my flesh," he says. "Fire ants I don't even notice anymore."But Eaglin doesn't just forge ahead blithely. In two decades of zealous exploration, he has become intimately familiar with the region's ever-shrinking wild places.
He has become, as one friend puts it, "the guy you want looking for you if you're ever lost in the woods."
Eddie Meadows discovered that the hard way.Meadows is the 62-year-old jogger who this month spent four days lost in the woods near the University of Central Florida. Though Orange County deputy sheriffs and naval investigators searched for several days, Eaglin knew the area so well he figured there was only one place dense enough to cause a man to lose his bearings like that. Once Eaglin joined the search, it took only a few hours to find Meadows -- who by then was dehydrated, disoriented and in acute kidney failure. He had been only a quarter mile from a road."
People say, 'How can you not find your way out?' " Eaglin says. "Well, that's easy to ask -- until you've been there. You have to understand what it looks like and feels like to be in the middle of deep-canopied forest and swamp where you can't see more than 20 feet in front of you. If I blindfolded you and took you out in the woods, not more than 200 yards from a road, and then took the blindfold off, you would be lost -- and probably for a long time."
Eaglin, who has a few other things to keep him busy -- running UCF's engineering technology department, coaching his younger daughter's soccer team, training for adventure races, working on computer programs that have won him recognition from the Department of Homeland Security -- spent the next few days explaining the complexities of the backwoods to the media, including CNN and the BBC. But the following week he was back tromping around in the woods himself, this time to teach a class on orienteering, a blend of cross-country running and navigating through the woods with a map and compass to find hidden checkpoints.
"Hey, it's the hero!" teased a woman as Eaglin arrived. "I saw you on television."The professor blushed. "Yeah, well . . ." he offered sheepishly.On the one hand, Eaglin had been ecstatic to find Meadows. But he was also relieved."I was stopping about every 20 to 30 feet," he says, "and listening for the signs of a body" -- the buzzing of flies and the circling of vultures.In his element
Eaglin doesn't much fit the stereotype of an adventurer. At 5 feet 8 inches tall, he's not a particularly imposing figure. His wire-rimmed glasses, thinning hair and beard give him a professorial look. His nickname, because of his doctorate degree in environmental engineering, is Dr. Ron.But put him in his element, in the middle of nowhere in particular, and it's obvious he would have done just fine scouting alongside Lewis and Clark.
Hiking through the woods of Rock Springs Run State Preserve near Sorrento, Eaglin notices details most people might not -- elusive sand skinks, small patches of prickly pear, banana spiders waiting in the shadows. He points out the signs of man's intrusions -- the unnatural growth of small pine trees in the middle of a field, an abrupt end to the tree line where a bulldozer must have come through.
"And power lines -- you can't be lost if you can see power lines," he says, squinting into an early-afternoon sun. "If you follow it, it's going to take you to somebody who needs power or something that's giving power, but either way it's going to take you to humans."
Eaglin has been exploring woods since he was a kid, moving with his family from Missouri to Illinois, Nebraska, Georgia and finally South Carolina, where he took up cross-country and swimming, played soccer and became a Boy Scout.
He was, from early on, exceptionally bright.
"He excelled in school, taking college classes when he was only 14," says his father, Ronald Eaglin Sr., the past president of Morehead State University in Kentucky, who now lives south of Myrtle Beach. "He was teaching college professors how to use computers when he was still in high school."
Ron Jr.'s most remarkable quality was not his brilliance, though. It was his drive.
The summer he turned 15, Ron got a job on a textile-plant loading dock."He was the only young person out there," says his mother, Bonnie Eaglin. "And it was such hard work. He'd always come home completely exhausted, but he still wanted to swim with his team in the evenings. That's when we found out how much endurance he had. He didn't ever win, in part because he was so tired from working, but he just had so much drive. Nothing seemed to intimidate him."
Taking it to extremes
Consider his method of training for adventure races -- a team sport in which you are given a last-minute map and instructions to trek, mountain bike, rock-climb, kayak and swim through the wilderness, sometimes for several days on end with little or no sleep and carrying your own food and water.
For practice, Eaglin likes to print out U.S. Geological Survey maps from his computer, close his eyes and randomly point to a spot. Then he grabs a training buddy and goes off to find it.Once the point was a marshy area near the St. John's River. His first approach was blocked by barbed vines and briers. Next he decided to cross the marsh itself."At first it was knee deep, and we're happy," he says. "Then it was thigh deep. Then it was chest deep. And then we were swimming. And every time you took a stroke, you churned up what looked like chunks of peanut butter off the bottom and it came bubbling to the top."He found his spot and his way back -- although not before trekking through wire grass and enduring scores of paper-thin cuts all over his body.It was a most excellent workout, he says.
He has raced in searing heat and heavy winter rain. Once, 2 1/2 days into an event, amid a 65-mile mountain-biking section, he hallucinated that his teammates were some mysterious enemy chasing him, so he sprinted away to try to lose them in the woods. When they finally caught up to him, one of the men tackled him. After all, Eaglin was the only one with the map.
Another time, he crashed his road bike and broke his jaw, which required his mouth to be wired shut for six weeks.
His competitors say he is not just tough. He is patient, generous and methodical."Even if you're in the midst of a race, he's willing to give you instructions and advice," says Jason Amadori, 33, a fellow adventure racer from Windermere. "He may not help you find something, but he has no problem in helping you learn how to find it. He's not one to keep secrets just so he can win. He's an incredibly nice guy."
As president of the Central Florida Adventure Racers club and an orienteering expert, Eaglin also plots some of the courses himself. They are notoriously difficult.
"We have these green areas on the map that mean very, very thick vegetation," says Bob Putnam, founder of the Florida Orienteering Club, "and people speak of their unwillingness to go through these impassable areas. And Ron just looks at them, puzzled, and says, 'Everything is passable. It's just that sometimes the going is slower than other times.' "Life with RonIn the middle of Seminole County's Black Hammock Wilderness, amid the dense tangle of trees and brush, is a lovely, solar-paneled, Cracker-style wood-frame house with a climbing wall in the backyard, a ropes course in the front, three dogs, seven cats, one bunny and a large wayward frog.
This, quite fittingly, is the Eaglin home, shared by Ron, his wife of 12 years -- fellow engineer Linda Eaglin -- and daughters Catherine, 9, and Anna, 8.The girls' play room is dubbed "The Jungle Room," its walls painted with tropical birds and a jaguar and elephant, its shelves full of class projects and Ron's exotic musical instrument collection. The kids each have a computer, but television is limited to a single hour per week.
"It's not just that kids waste time watching TV," says Eaglin, heading out back to check a banana tree for ripe fruit. "They waste their lives."
Most mornings he awakens before daylight to run in the darkness through the woods -- which is where he has discovered the abandoned cats and dogs that are now part of the family. Then he rides his bicycle 11 miles to work, carrying 35 pounds of gear on his back, and swims half a mile at the university pool before teaching class and conducting research.After work, he pedals home, coaches soccer and sometimes does a second run.
If it sounds like a delicately planned existence, it's not.
In July, heading home from a family camping trip in the Ocala National Forest in their 1994 GMC van with its 180,000 miles on the odometer, Ron spotted a dirt road off to the side. "I wonder where that goes," he mused.
Of course he couldn't resist.He plowed onto the detour, flanked by heavy vegetation, until it opened up into a field of bright sunlight. In front of them, the road turned to sugar sand.
"Let's go through it," Ron said. His wife shook her head. Soon, of course, they would be digging at the sand, trying to get the van unstuck.
Linda eventually gave up, called for help on her cell phone, pulled out a lawn chair and read a book while she waited.
Catherine, who, like her sister, has been training with Dad for future adventure races, voiced concern that the lone bag of pretzels wouldn't carry them through the night. She began to build a spit on which she planned to cook wild turkeys. Anna launched construction on a shelter they could sleep in.
About three hours later, though, as the sun was sinking low in the sky, a tow truck finally showed up and hoisted them out.
"We were all filthy dirty, but Ron took us to a nice restaurant on the way home," Linda says. "And that's life with Ron -- always an adventure."
Kate Santich can be reached at 407-420-5503 or ksantich@orlandosentinel.com.First photo ran on page F1.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/lifestyle/orl-eaglin06sep24,0,1136246.story
In case this link is down or removed here is the text only of the article. Many thanks to Kate who put in hard work and is an accomplished athlete and biker.
Perhaps there really are two kinds of people in the world, and the dividing line is this: Some see a fork in the road or a trail into the woods but continue contentedly on their way. And others think, I wonder where that goes. . .And they have to find out.
For about as long as anyone can remember, 43-year-old engineering professor Ron Eaglin has done the latter -- a trait that has led him through murky swamps and thorny thickets and the chigger-laden wilderness that is Central Florida. He has suffered hypothermia and heat exhaustion, a broken jaw, hallucinations and an inestimable number of insect bites."Deer flies, bees, ants, fleas, every type of spider known to man -- they've all had their piece of my flesh," he says. "Fire ants I don't even notice anymore."But Eaglin doesn't just forge ahead blithely. In two decades of zealous exploration, he has become intimately familiar with the region's ever-shrinking wild places.
He has become, as one friend puts it, "the guy you want looking for you if you're ever lost in the woods."
Eddie Meadows discovered that the hard way.Meadows is the 62-year-old jogger who this month spent four days lost in the woods near the University of Central Florida. Though Orange County deputy sheriffs and naval investigators searched for several days, Eaglin knew the area so well he figured there was only one place dense enough to cause a man to lose his bearings like that. Once Eaglin joined the search, it took only a few hours to find Meadows -- who by then was dehydrated, disoriented and in acute kidney failure. He had been only a quarter mile from a road."
People say, 'How can you not find your way out?' " Eaglin says. "Well, that's easy to ask -- until you've been there. You have to understand what it looks like and feels like to be in the middle of deep-canopied forest and swamp where you can't see more than 20 feet in front of you. If I blindfolded you and took you out in the woods, not more than 200 yards from a road, and then took the blindfold off, you would be lost -- and probably for a long time."
Eaglin, who has a few other things to keep him busy -- running UCF's engineering technology department, coaching his younger daughter's soccer team, training for adventure races, working on computer programs that have won him recognition from the Department of Homeland Security -- spent the next few days explaining the complexities of the backwoods to the media, including CNN and the BBC. But the following week he was back tromping around in the woods himself, this time to teach a class on orienteering, a blend of cross-country running and navigating through the woods with a map and compass to find hidden checkpoints.
"Hey, it's the hero!" teased a woman as Eaglin arrived. "I saw you on television."The professor blushed. "Yeah, well . . ." he offered sheepishly.On the one hand, Eaglin had been ecstatic to find Meadows. But he was also relieved."I was stopping about every 20 to 30 feet," he says, "and listening for the signs of a body" -- the buzzing of flies and the circling of vultures.In his element
Eaglin doesn't much fit the stereotype of an adventurer. At 5 feet 8 inches tall, he's not a particularly imposing figure. His wire-rimmed glasses, thinning hair and beard give him a professorial look. His nickname, because of his doctorate degree in environmental engineering, is Dr. Ron.But put him in his element, in the middle of nowhere in particular, and it's obvious he would have done just fine scouting alongside Lewis and Clark.
Hiking through the woods of Rock Springs Run State Preserve near Sorrento, Eaglin notices details most people might not -- elusive sand skinks, small patches of prickly pear, banana spiders waiting in the shadows. He points out the signs of man's intrusions -- the unnatural growth of small pine trees in the middle of a field, an abrupt end to the tree line where a bulldozer must have come through.
"And power lines -- you can't be lost if you can see power lines," he says, squinting into an early-afternoon sun. "If you follow it, it's going to take you to somebody who needs power or something that's giving power, but either way it's going to take you to humans."
Eaglin has been exploring woods since he was a kid, moving with his family from Missouri to Illinois, Nebraska, Georgia and finally South Carolina, where he took up cross-country and swimming, played soccer and became a Boy Scout.
He was, from early on, exceptionally bright.
"He excelled in school, taking college classes when he was only 14," says his father, Ronald Eaglin Sr., the past president of Morehead State University in Kentucky, who now lives south of Myrtle Beach. "He was teaching college professors how to use computers when he was still in high school."
Ron Jr.'s most remarkable quality was not his brilliance, though. It was his drive.
The summer he turned 15, Ron got a job on a textile-plant loading dock."He was the only young person out there," says his mother, Bonnie Eaglin. "And it was such hard work. He'd always come home completely exhausted, but he still wanted to swim with his team in the evenings. That's when we found out how much endurance he had. He didn't ever win, in part because he was so tired from working, but he just had so much drive. Nothing seemed to intimidate him."
Taking it to extremes
Consider his method of training for adventure races -- a team sport in which you are given a last-minute map and instructions to trek, mountain bike, rock-climb, kayak and swim through the wilderness, sometimes for several days on end with little or no sleep and carrying your own food and water.
For practice, Eaglin likes to print out U.S. Geological Survey maps from his computer, close his eyes and randomly point to a spot. Then he grabs a training buddy and goes off to find it.Once the point was a marshy area near the St. John's River. His first approach was blocked by barbed vines and briers. Next he decided to cross the marsh itself."At first it was knee deep, and we're happy," he says. "Then it was thigh deep. Then it was chest deep. And then we were swimming. And every time you took a stroke, you churned up what looked like chunks of peanut butter off the bottom and it came bubbling to the top."He found his spot and his way back -- although not before trekking through wire grass and enduring scores of paper-thin cuts all over his body.It was a most excellent workout, he says.
He has raced in searing heat and heavy winter rain. Once, 2 1/2 days into an event, amid a 65-mile mountain-biking section, he hallucinated that his teammates were some mysterious enemy chasing him, so he sprinted away to try to lose them in the woods. When they finally caught up to him, one of the men tackled him. After all, Eaglin was the only one with the map.
Another time, he crashed his road bike and broke his jaw, which required his mouth to be wired shut for six weeks.
His competitors say he is not just tough. He is patient, generous and methodical."Even if you're in the midst of a race, he's willing to give you instructions and advice," says Jason Amadori, 33, a fellow adventure racer from Windermere. "He may not help you find something, but he has no problem in helping you learn how to find it. He's not one to keep secrets just so he can win. He's an incredibly nice guy."
As president of the Central Florida Adventure Racers club and an orienteering expert, Eaglin also plots some of the courses himself. They are notoriously difficult.
"We have these green areas on the map that mean very, very thick vegetation," says Bob Putnam, founder of the Florida Orienteering Club, "and people speak of their unwillingness to go through these impassable areas. And Ron just looks at them, puzzled, and says, 'Everything is passable. It's just that sometimes the going is slower than other times.' "Life with RonIn the middle of Seminole County's Black Hammock Wilderness, amid the dense tangle of trees and brush, is a lovely, solar-paneled, Cracker-style wood-frame house with a climbing wall in the backyard, a ropes course in the front, three dogs, seven cats, one bunny and a large wayward frog.
This, quite fittingly, is the Eaglin home, shared by Ron, his wife of 12 years -- fellow engineer Linda Eaglin -- and daughters Catherine, 9, and Anna, 8.The girls' play room is dubbed "The Jungle Room," its walls painted with tropical birds and a jaguar and elephant, its shelves full of class projects and Ron's exotic musical instrument collection. The kids each have a computer, but television is limited to a single hour per week.
"It's not just that kids waste time watching TV," says Eaglin, heading out back to check a banana tree for ripe fruit. "They waste their lives."
Most mornings he awakens before daylight to run in the darkness through the woods -- which is where he has discovered the abandoned cats and dogs that are now part of the family. Then he rides his bicycle 11 miles to work, carrying 35 pounds of gear on his back, and swims half a mile at the university pool before teaching class and conducting research.After work, he pedals home, coaches soccer and sometimes does a second run.
If it sounds like a delicately planned existence, it's not.
In July, heading home from a family camping trip in the Ocala National Forest in their 1994 GMC van with its 180,000 miles on the odometer, Ron spotted a dirt road off to the side. "I wonder where that goes," he mused.
Of course he couldn't resist.He plowed onto the detour, flanked by heavy vegetation, until it opened up into a field of bright sunlight. In front of them, the road turned to sugar sand.
"Let's go through it," Ron said. His wife shook her head. Soon, of course, they would be digging at the sand, trying to get the van unstuck.
Linda eventually gave up, called for help on her cell phone, pulled out a lawn chair and read a book while she waited.
Catherine, who, like her sister, has been training with Dad for future adventure races, voiced concern that the lone bag of pretzels wouldn't carry them through the night. She began to build a spit on which she planned to cook wild turkeys. Anna launched construction on a shelter they could sleep in.
About three hours later, though, as the sun was sinking low in the sky, a tow truck finally showed up and hoisted them out.
"We were all filthy dirty, but Ron took us to a nice restaurant on the way home," Linda says. "And that's life with Ron -- always an adventure."
Kate Santich can be reached at 407-420-5503 or ksantich@orlandosentinel.com.First photo ran on page F1.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Search Path
The search route I took is in yellow - Bob, Jerry, and I all crossed the ditch at the marked crossing point and re-split up after making it to the path. We were planning to meet at the fence (marked location) to regroup and continue searching.
Eddie Meadows Rescue
The first time I heard about Eddie being missing was in an email message from Roy, a triathlon friend.
Triknights,
It is Friday about 1:30 and I am asking for help if anyone is available some time today. A friend of mine (Ed) who works in research park went for a run yesterday at noon and never returned. The police are looking for him as are the UCF ROTC. But, I am thinking runners would know where runners would go. He is an older guy but very fit so he could have went 3 to 4 miles away from research park. This may be silly but I am planning on riding my bike where I think a marathon runner would go from research park to see if I can find him. He probably was going to run for 45 min to an hour. I could use help from some of you in searching too. Particularly, I do not know the trails around the campus that he probably did know and may have been on.
So, if anyone can spare some time today, I would appreciate you help in looking for Ed.
I will email the listserv if he is found.
Roy
I had planned on heading out Saturday to help with the search – but instead was feeling very fatigued on Saturday. I had seen that there were large crews that were looking for him and felt pretty secure that with all the hands out there on Saturday (and also on Sunday) that he would soon be found. By Sunday, when I heard there was no success – I felt some guilt that I had not helped. My wife Linda had told me that a friend Bob Putnam was trying to put together a group of experienced orienteers to look for him and I called Bob the next morning (morning) to tell him I would be meeting them at the command post Monday morning.
The scene at the command post was not what I had expected. Most of the people that had turned out to volunteer were in street clothes. I felt that we would need to be searching the deeply wooded areas. Bob, Jerry, and I were the only ones dressed correctly for what I expected the search would require. After getting the facts of where he was last seen and the direction Bob I and I made a decision on where we would search first. My theory and Bob was in a agreement was that he had looped back around to the east side of campus and had taken the back trails along the far east side of the UCF campus.
One other gentleman with 2 dogs (Bruce Truog) joined our group and we first decided the search the area of the ditch along the far east side of campus. I had ridden mountain bike from my house and planned to use it to help me cover more ground. While Bob and Jerry covered some of the rabbit trails on foot – I used the bike to scout ahead and behind along the east side of the ditch. Bruce went up the middle of the ditch with the dogs wearing hip waders), a truly amazing sight with the two hunting dogs in the lead.
Eventually Bob and Jerry and I bushwhacked across the ditch and after a few tries of heading into very thick brush we were able to get all three of us and the bike out to the north-south trail on the west side of the ditch. At that point we planned to split up to cover more terrain. My hunch had me thinking he was either in the thick woods west of the trail where we were, or in the deep swamp west of the water tower and north of Neptune Drive. I biked south (while Bob and Jerry headed north) and decided I would look for areas that were the ATV tracks from the previous days searching weren’t found. This took me along the retention ponds on the North side of Neptune Drive. Along that section I somehow entered into an area of bees, but only picked up one sting from one that had crawled into my shirt. My plan was to follow the treeline and fence west along the edge of the retention ponds and then hop the fence and follow a sparse trail on the north side back to my bike and then I’d meet up with Bob and the other team members.
It was extremely thick where I jumped the fence and it took me a few minutes to bushwhack my way to a more open area northeast of the fence corner. From there I was stopping about every 20-30 feet and listening for the signs of a body – the buzzing of flies and the sounds of carrion birds. My plan was to take the indistinct trail back through the woods to where I had dropped my bike. It was at this point I head the splash coming from within the Bayhead and I called out “hello”. I was immediately greeted by a series of “help!” calls. At this point I though another rescuer might be back in the swamp area and had found the body and was calling for help. I called “are you looking for Eddie?” and heard back “I am Eddie”. I had been walking (quickly) in the direction of the voice – trying not to make so much noise that I would not be able to hear the voice. I yelled back – “Stay there – I’m coming” and immediately broke into a full run directly into the swamp. We called out – “Can you see me?” and basically kept shouting until I came upon him about 100-150 meters back in about thigh deep water, The swamp was extremely thick at this point and was extremely tough to move through. I first checked his condition which was surprisingly good – he was tired and thirsty – covered in scratches and bites – but was lucid and standing. He asked me if I could help him find his way out of the swamp and I said sure. He was heading East which would have taken him much deeper into the swamp – we wanted to head south to get him out. At the same time I had the phone out and was calling 911. I had some frustration with the 911 operator who kept wanting an intersection to send rescue crews to. I eventually convinced her to send the crews to the UCF observatory and told her to please ask them to turn on their sirens so we could use them to keep our south bearing. When Eddie had seen my phone – he immediately asked to call his wife who he said would be worried and probably angry with him. I dialed his number and handed him the phone and he had a tearful conversation with what I think was his son on the other end.
We fought our way out of the swamp (Eddie mostly on his own power) and as we emerged the rescue crews were coming towards us from the road. Eddie was relieved to see an actual trail and despite being very thirsty and hungry he was eager to get out of the woods and actually led the entire crew out – jogging the last little bit to the ambulance. After he was safely in the ambulance I jogged back to get my bike and the rest of my team – who had already heard the news by the time I got to them. We headed back over to the rescue trucks where the press was waiting (they were fast) and showed the folks the details of the rescue.
Eddie had been in the woods from Thursday at noon, till the next Monday at 11 Am when he was found. He survived by staying low in the water of the swamp – keeping cool and preventing further dehydration. He had drunk the swamp water and eaten berries to survive. I was elated to have found him alive and OK – it was one incredible tale of survival.
Triknights,
It is Friday about 1:30 and I am asking for help if anyone is available some time today. A friend of mine (Ed) who works in research park went for a run yesterday at noon and never returned. The police are looking for him as are the UCF ROTC. But, I am thinking runners would know where runners would go. He is an older guy but very fit so he could have went 3 to 4 miles away from research park. This may be silly but I am planning on riding my bike where I think a marathon runner would go from research park to see if I can find him. He probably was going to run for 45 min to an hour. I could use help from some of you in searching too. Particularly, I do not know the trails around the campus that he probably did know and may have been on.
So, if anyone can spare some time today, I would appreciate you help in looking for Ed.
I will email the listserv if he is found.
Roy
I had planned on heading out Saturday to help with the search – but instead was feeling very fatigued on Saturday. I had seen that there were large crews that were looking for him and felt pretty secure that with all the hands out there on Saturday (and also on Sunday) that he would soon be found. By Sunday, when I heard there was no success – I felt some guilt that I had not helped. My wife Linda had told me that a friend Bob Putnam was trying to put together a group of experienced orienteers to look for him and I called Bob the next morning (morning) to tell him I would be meeting them at the command post Monday morning.
The scene at the command post was not what I had expected. Most of the people that had turned out to volunteer were in street clothes. I felt that we would need to be searching the deeply wooded areas. Bob, Jerry, and I were the only ones dressed correctly for what I expected the search would require. After getting the facts of where he was last seen and the direction Bob I and I made a decision on where we would search first. My theory and Bob was in a agreement was that he had looped back around to the east side of campus and had taken the back trails along the far east side of the UCF campus.
One other gentleman with 2 dogs (Bruce Truog) joined our group and we first decided the search the area of the ditch along the far east side of campus. I had ridden mountain bike from my house and planned to use it to help me cover more ground. While Bob and Jerry covered some of the rabbit trails on foot – I used the bike to scout ahead and behind along the east side of the ditch. Bruce went up the middle of the ditch with the dogs wearing hip waders), a truly amazing sight with the two hunting dogs in the lead.
Eventually Bob and Jerry and I bushwhacked across the ditch and after a few tries of heading into very thick brush we were able to get all three of us and the bike out to the north-south trail on the west side of the ditch. At that point we planned to split up to cover more terrain. My hunch had me thinking he was either in the thick woods west of the trail where we were, or in the deep swamp west of the water tower and north of Neptune Drive. I biked south (while Bob and Jerry headed north) and decided I would look for areas that were the ATV tracks from the previous days searching weren’t found. This took me along the retention ponds on the North side of Neptune Drive. Along that section I somehow entered into an area of bees, but only picked up one sting from one that had crawled into my shirt. My plan was to follow the treeline and fence west along the edge of the retention ponds and then hop the fence and follow a sparse trail on the north side back to my bike and then I’d meet up with Bob and the other team members.
It was extremely thick where I jumped the fence and it took me a few minutes to bushwhack my way to a more open area northeast of the fence corner. From there I was stopping about every 20-30 feet and listening for the signs of a body – the buzzing of flies and the sounds of carrion birds. My plan was to take the indistinct trail back through the woods to where I had dropped my bike. It was at this point I head the splash coming from within the Bayhead and I called out “hello”. I was immediately greeted by a series of “help!” calls. At this point I though another rescuer might be back in the swamp area and had found the body and was calling for help. I called “are you looking for Eddie?” and heard back “I am Eddie”. I had been walking (quickly) in the direction of the voice – trying not to make so much noise that I would not be able to hear the voice. I yelled back – “Stay there – I’m coming” and immediately broke into a full run directly into the swamp. We called out – “Can you see me?” and basically kept shouting until I came upon him about 100-150 meters back in about thigh deep water, The swamp was extremely thick at this point and was extremely tough to move through. I first checked his condition which was surprisingly good – he was tired and thirsty – covered in scratches and bites – but was lucid and standing. He asked me if I could help him find his way out of the swamp and I said sure. He was heading East which would have taken him much deeper into the swamp – we wanted to head south to get him out. At the same time I had the phone out and was calling 911. I had some frustration with the 911 operator who kept wanting an intersection to send rescue crews to. I eventually convinced her to send the crews to the UCF observatory and told her to please ask them to turn on their sirens so we could use them to keep our south bearing. When Eddie had seen my phone – he immediately asked to call his wife who he said would be worried and probably angry with him. I dialed his number and handed him the phone and he had a tearful conversation with what I think was his son on the other end.
We fought our way out of the swamp (Eddie mostly on his own power) and as we emerged the rescue crews were coming towards us from the road. Eddie was relieved to see an actual trail and despite being very thirsty and hungry he was eager to get out of the woods and actually led the entire crew out – jogging the last little bit to the ambulance. After he was safely in the ambulance I jogged back to get my bike and the rest of my team – who had already heard the news by the time I got to them. We headed back over to the rescue trucks where the press was waiting (they were fast) and showed the folks the details of the rescue.
Eddie had been in the woods from Thursday at noon, till the next Monday at 11 Am when he was found. He survived by staying low in the water of the swamp – keeping cool and preventing further dehydration. He had drunk the swamp water and eaten berries to survive. I was elated to have found him alive and OK – it was one incredible tale of survival.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Setting the ACC (Awards)
As a race director there are a lot of elements that you have to take care of. One of the most difficult to me is the awards. We always solicit the local sponsors for cool stuff to give-a-way. Our primary sponsor Travel Country Outdoors always comes through with some nice gear so a big thanks to them. It is always nice to have sponsors that will support local groups like CFAR. For the ACC we wanted to have trophies that were special, especially considering that teams will have spent well over 24 hours racing. This is not another 5K race which is over in 20 minutes (15 for faster runners). Luckily my wife Linda was able to take one of my ideas and turn it into a really creative trophy. Pictures here show her working on making these trophies. The racers finishing well in this race will be treated to a one of a kind and truly "cool" trophy at the end.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Florida Coast to Coast Croom Bike
This is the map for the Witlacoochee portion of the bike leg. Instructions simply said to remain on the trails and you would pass by the controls. There was some navigation required, but this was pretty straightforward for most teams.
Florida C2C Trek with CP3
Here are the passport instructions for this section and also the map that the competitors had with the coordinates plotted for CP2, CP3, and the waypoints. I will let competitors answer as to how they attacked CP3. I personally would have triangulated from the hilltop (north) and the re-entrant (southeast) which were visible from the Florida Trail in this area.
Trek to:
From bike drop take old Jeep Trail East to Florida Trail UTM 358828 3185621 and proceed South on foot trail. No Bushwhacking is permitted within the Citrus Tract.
1-CP2 UTM 361824 3178594
1-CP3 UTM 359340 3176622
Cross 480 (do not travel along 480 on foot, penalty for travel along 480 is 4 hours)
1-CP4 UTM 362377 3175211
Proceed South to gate at UTM 362320 3174230, proceed to FR26 at UTM 360656 3173050, and on to TA2 at UTM 361831 3172801). Check in at TA2.
Teams spent quite a bit of time searching for CP3 which was located in a cave. CP2 was removed from the course. At this point the course conditions were quite hot and some teams were without water through a good amount of this section. The cave did have a foot trail leading to it.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Florida Coast to Coast 2006 Leg 3
Florida Coast to Coast
Passport Instructions 2
Maps: Withlacoochee Croom Bike 1:50K, Green Swamp Bike 1:100K, Poyner to Lake Marion Bike 1:100K, Lake Marion Road Map
This is a very long bike leg with no access to water or crews for long stretches. No crew interaction is allowed. Plan on a minimum of 10 hours of water. Some checkpoints will be manned with available water. Follow standard AR rules, you may get water or food from locals or stores.
Exit the TA on FR 28 West and go south on Brittle Road to Ponce DeLeon Blvd and proceed east to 476. Proceed with caution through the intersection of 476 and 581 continuing to the intersection of Daly Road UTM 372776 3169340 (no CP). Go south on Daly Road to Forest Road Intersection at UTM 372753 3165264 (no CP) and head east on Forest Road to Yellow Bike Trail at UTM 372954 3165264 (no CP). Follow yellow trail to CP1.
2-CP1 – UTM 373770 3163364 (Tucker Hill Parking Area).
Cutoff: Teams arriving at CP1 after 1600 on Friday will be diverted directly to CP5.
2-CP2 – UTM 374810 3162827 (travel on bike trails only)
2-CP3 – UTM 376866 3162062 (travel on bike trails only)
2-CP4 – UTM 378795 3162840 (travel on bike trails only)
2-CP5 – UTM 379409 3163976 (travel on bike trails only)
Travel South on Rail Trail to UTM 382940 3149008 (no CP, not on supplied map, simply follow rail trail past SR 50 bridge), intersection at Trilby (convenience store located near intersection of 98 and 575, recommend stocking up here). Head east to Bower Road at UTM 385206 3149368 (no CP). Head South easterly then South to the gate at UTM 385384 3147641 (no CP). Cross gate and follow dirt road to river crossing at UTM 386154 3146818 (water is shallow or we will have boats) and continue to CP6.
2-CP6 – UTM 390024 3137119 (Gate to Green Swamp by Hunt Station)
2-CP7 – UTM 400172 3137351 (teams may split up between CP5 and CP7)
2-CP7A - UTM 402604 3141998, collect coin at this CP
2-CP7B –UTM 404848 3134261 collect coin at this CP
2-CP8 – UTM 406219 3137388 (teams must rejoin after CP7)
2-CP9 – UTM 408743 3145561 If gate is closed, climb over it.
2-CP10 – UTM 409652 3147983 (Bay Lake Road Parking Area for Van Fleet Trail)
2-CP11 – UTM 416092 3131114 (Poyner, water available along trailheads).
Follow Poyner road east to SR 33 and proceed south to Van Fleet Road. Travel on grass along SR 33 only (4 hour penalty for violation). Cross 33 at Van Fleet Road (UTM 418704 3129013, no CP) and follow to Brown Shin and then to Deen Still Road. Follow Deen Still Road east to Loughman.
2-CP12 – UTM 444550 3124000 (Loughman Post Office).
2-CP13 – UTM 445252 3110746 (End of Baker Dairy Road) Treeline. Continue south to next intersection and head east to CP14.
2-CP14 – UTM 445561 3110052 ( Lake Marion Creek Road).
Follow Hatchineha Road head east to TA 3 – Hatchineha Boat Ramp at 455735 3100758
[Note: Plotted points on these maps may not correspond to the passport - these maps were created prior to the final completion of the passport locations]
Information about this leg:
This 135 mile bike leg through Croom, Green Swamp, that ended at Lake Hatchineha proved to be quite punishing with difficult navigation, tough terrain, and a lot of heat (and darkness). I will be doing more blog postings with other maps from these section. These maps are not the final maps teams received - but 1:100K scale maps I created while planning the course. Teams received more detailed maps for these sections. If anyone requests (via comments) the detailed maps I will post them with the final control points plotted.
Passport Instructions 2
Maps: Withlacoochee Croom Bike 1:50K, Green Swamp Bike 1:100K, Poyner to Lake Marion Bike 1:100K, Lake Marion Road Map
This is a very long bike leg with no access to water or crews for long stretches. No crew interaction is allowed. Plan on a minimum of 10 hours of water. Some checkpoints will be manned with available water. Follow standard AR rules, you may get water or food from locals or stores.
Exit the TA on FR 28 West and go south on Brittle Road to Ponce DeLeon Blvd and proceed east to 476. Proceed with caution through the intersection of 476 and 581 continuing to the intersection of Daly Road UTM 372776 3169340 (no CP). Go south on Daly Road to Forest Road Intersection at UTM 372753 3165264 (no CP) and head east on Forest Road to Yellow Bike Trail at UTM 372954 3165264 (no CP). Follow yellow trail to CP1.
2-CP1 – UTM 373770 3163364 (Tucker Hill Parking Area).
Cutoff: Teams arriving at CP1 after 1600 on Friday will be diverted directly to CP5.
2-CP2 – UTM 374810 3162827 (travel on bike trails only)
2-CP3 – UTM 376866 3162062 (travel on bike trails only)
2-CP4 – UTM 378795 3162840 (travel on bike trails only)
2-CP5 – UTM 379409 3163976 (travel on bike trails only)
Travel South on Rail Trail to UTM 382940 3149008 (no CP, not on supplied map, simply follow rail trail past SR 50 bridge), intersection at Trilby (convenience store located near intersection of 98 and 575, recommend stocking up here). Head east to Bower Road at UTM 385206 3149368 (no CP). Head South easterly then South to the gate at UTM 385384 3147641 (no CP). Cross gate and follow dirt road to river crossing at UTM 386154 3146818 (water is shallow or we will have boats) and continue to CP6.
2-CP6 – UTM 390024 3137119 (Gate to Green Swamp by Hunt Station)
2-CP7 – UTM 400172 3137351 (teams may split up between CP5 and CP7)
2-CP7A - UTM 402604 3141998, collect coin at this CP
2-CP7B –UTM 404848 3134261 collect coin at this CP
2-CP8 – UTM 406219 3137388 (teams must rejoin after CP7)
2-CP9 – UTM 408743 3145561 If gate is closed, climb over it.
2-CP10 – UTM 409652 3147983 (Bay Lake Road Parking Area for Van Fleet Trail)
2-CP11 – UTM 416092 3131114 (Poyner, water available along trailheads).
Follow Poyner road east to SR 33 and proceed south to Van Fleet Road. Travel on grass along SR 33 only (4 hour penalty for violation). Cross 33 at Van Fleet Road (UTM 418704 3129013, no CP) and follow to Brown Shin and then to Deen Still Road. Follow Deen Still Road east to Loughman.
2-CP12 – UTM 444550 3124000 (Loughman Post Office).
2-CP13 – UTM 445252 3110746 (End of Baker Dairy Road) Treeline. Continue south to next intersection and head east to CP14.
2-CP14 – UTM 445561 3110052 ( Lake Marion Creek Road).
Follow Hatchineha Road head east to TA 3 – Hatchineha Boat Ramp at 455735 3100758
[Note: Plotted points on these maps may not correspond to the passport - these maps were created prior to the final completion of the passport locations]
Information about this leg:
This 135 mile bike leg through Croom, Green Swamp, that ended at Lake Hatchineha proved to be quite punishing with difficult navigation, tough terrain, and a lot of heat (and darkness). I will be doing more blog postings with other maps from these section. These maps are not the final maps teams received - but 1:100K scale maps I created while planning the course. Teams received more detailed maps for these sections. If anyone requests (via comments) the detailed maps I will post them with the final control points plotted.
Coast to Coast Leg 2
Transition to Bikes at TA 1Maps: Bike Maze Road Map (receive at TA1), TA1 to Bike Drop 1:50K, Withlacoochee Citrus Tract 1:24K
Check out of TA before proceeding on bike leg (1 hour penalty for not checking out). Cross US19 only at Maze entrance UTM 347113 3185650, travel in grass only is permitted along US19, no travel on Grover Cleveland and Lecanto/491 (4 hour Penalty)
Bike Maze and punch Maze Points (MP’s):
MP1 UTM 350258 3186615
MP2 UTM 351950 3186419
MP3 UTM 353516 3185232
MP4 UTM 355657 3185606
After MP4, proceed on the dirt trail North of W. Noble St. to Lecanto Rd and proceed to Bike Drop at UTM 358491 3185862 (no control point at this location)
Drop bikes and transition to Trek. No interaction with crews at this location is permitted.
Trek to:
From bike drop take old Jeep Trail East to Florida Trail UTM 358828 3185621 and proceed South on foot trail. No Bushwhacking is permitted within the Citrus Tract.
1-CP2 UTM 361824 3178594
1-CP3 UTM 359340 3176622
Cross 480 (do not travel along 480 on foot, penalty for travel along 480 is 4 hours)
1-CP4 UTM 362377 3175211
Proceed South to gate at UTM 362320 3174230, proceed to FR26 at UTM 360656 3173050, and on to TA2 at UTM 361831 3172801). Check in at TA2.
The supplied map does not contain the entire bike maze, but you can get the idea from the left hand side. The roads in the maze are a mixture of paved and dirt - though we pretty much made sure teams had to go on the dirt roads. It took most teams about 3-4 hours to complete the bike maze and get to the bike drop. At the bike drop teams left their bikes and headed out on foot through a few CP's to TA2. This section caused a lot of teams heartburn as they had a difficult time finding CP3 which was in a cave.
Coast to Coast 2006 Leg 1
Florida Coast to Coast
Passport Instructions 1
Maps(1): Suncoast Paddle Start to TA1 1:50K
Race Start is at UTM 335050 3199231 Boat Ramp at end of SR 44. This is shown as dashed line on USGS map, but is a fully paved road.
Race will start at 1 AM Friday with a paddle. Teams should be in the water and ready to go at 1 AM.
Paddle to Canoe Trail Marker 2 located at UTM 338992 3197998. There is no checkpoint at this point. Teams must follow the Canoe Trail to CP1
1-CP1 - UTM 339892 3193296
Paddle to Transition Area (TA) 1 Located at Riverside Boat Ramp UTM 342246 3185181. Check in with TA staff and pick up map for the Maze. Portage boats to TA without crew assistance.
Section 1 Results
Teams moved through this section very rapidly with Mighty Dog moving through this paddle in about 2 1/2 hours. Paddling conditions were excellent with the 1 AM start, cool and calm waters with no wind. Teams continued to move through this section with Too Blue finishing in 6 hours - they were moving slowly due to boat problems.
Monday, May 08, 2006
Talon Race 2006
This was the 4th time I would be bringing my team to race in the Talon 12 hour Adventure Race. This race over the past years had provided an incredible challenge mostly due to the clever designs of the race director, Jim Hartnett, and the amazing terrain offered by Alafia River State Park. As our team (Greg, Jamie, Jeff, and I) got together at the hotel room the night before the race we had the shared feeling that you get before a race when you feel that things are going to go well the next day. Because anything can happen in AR and even for the best teams there is no guarantee of even finishing there is always a high level of uncertainty to the outcome of any race. Having finished second in this race three years in a row, I was determined to take away a first place trophy this time around, but in adventure racing determination and preparation just increase your chances – they are a far cry from a guarantee. In each of the previous three years our team had tried so hard to overcome mistakes we made early in the race, only to fall short each time to the competition.
Because the premiere division of the Talon is the three person coed, we decided to race as a 3 person team and have Greg race as a soloist. This would be the second time Jeff would be racing with Team Travel Country Outdoors, he had proved to have solid athletic ability and had “seasoned” as a racer tremendously since the last time we had raced together. We grouped together at the start line and listened to the last minute instructions, which basically said that we would have a 4 PM cutoff to be able to start the final bike leg of the race (which looked to be a solid 3-4 hour leg). Jim told the teams the start of the race was single track biking, but to keep the teams from bunching up we would start with a roughly 1 mile trail run and then hop on the bikes. He then pointed south to an arrow sign and said “go”. We had our bikes and bike shoes and bike gear (including helmets) on, but as a team we simply dropped our bikes and started running.
Jamie led the way through the roughly 1 mile trail run that went up and down old phosphate mine pilings and we were the first team to finish and get onto the bikes. This turned out to be very fortuitous as we immediately went into an advanced single track bike trail called “roller coaster” which was aptly named. Getting behind a slower bike team here would have been a problem as passing in “Roller Coaster” would have been difficult. This single track bike allowed us to build some distance on the main pack and only one team (a 2 person male team of strong bikers) was staying with us. As we entered another bike trail called “Rock Garden” we came to an unmarked intersection and lost some time figuring out what to do. The other team passed us and just as I crested a particularly large hill I got distracted and went flying over the handlebars. A quick body check told me nothing was broken, except I had some nasty welts and blood on my knees and my hand hit a rock hard and immediately started swelling and throbbing. I lost some time repairing my bike as my bike seat was facing 90 degrees with my bike frame, and bashing it back into a correct angle was difficult with one hand out of commission.
The bruised hand continued to throb through the remaining miles of the single track ride. We went into some easier single track, and that helped me get my focus back on the biking – but in a race easier single track simply means a great speed and we simply replaced difficulty with speed. Even a mild single track curve is tricky at 15 mph. We came off the bike ride less than a minute behind the only team in front of us and decided we would complete all the special tasks required in the race while we were in the Transition. We bobbed for apples (quite refreshing with the added bonus of being able to eat the apple), completed a Sudoku Challenge, did a blindfolded maze, and crossed a rope challenge that required you to swing from rope to rope transferring to the other rope with each swing. This allowed some teams who chose to skip the special tests (and do them later) to pass us. But we were feeling good going into the next leg of the race – the paddle.
The paddle leg was most aptly described as the portage leg. We portaged to a small lake, punched a control in the middle of the lake, and then paddled to the shore where we repeated this in the next lake. After the third portage I made our first (and only major) mistake of the race. Misreading a part of the map I did not realize that the flags in one area were in water (it was not blue) and we portaged the boats to a wooded area and started on foot for the controls (we would return to portage the boats to the next location). After 10 minutes of an extremely difficult bushwhack we got to the controls – close together in the middle of a completely slime covered pond. Since we were there we decided to swim out to them, but even that proved challenging as the shoreline was basically waist deep muck. We did get the controls but returning to the correct plan – cost us a serious 20+ minutes (we saw plenty of teams go by) and put us back on the intended plan (to use our boats).
The final portion of the paddle was a 2 mile paddle down the Alafia River (a short ¼ mile portage to the river) and then a lake paddle of about 3 miles. With Florida currently in the midst of a major drought, the Alafia River was best referred to as the Alafia series of shallow flowing ponds. The Alafia paddle had never been easy in any race – but this time we never even bothered getting into the boats. We dragged, pushed, pulled, slogged, and carried the boats to the bridge. We learned there that the remaining section of the paddle (where we could actually paddle) had been cut short as teams were way behind the time projection of the race. We would be heading on foot to a single checkpoint and then back to the transition area.
The trek would take us north about 2 miles through some tough terrain (waist high grass in an old phosphate mine). A couple of teams followed with us but soon dropped off as we proceeded northward – it was all full sun and the 90 degree heat was starting to take its toll on teams. We reached the location of the checkpoint (it was not difficult) to find a ribbon in a tree. We searched the area and I decided to call in to let Jim know the flag was missing (or possibly misplaced). After he described the ribbon and its location (including a detailed description of the tree in which it was hanging) I was more sure that we were in the correct location (I was already at 100%). We marked the ribbon to prove we were there and headed west for a bushwhack back through the river basin to the canoe launch. It was a due west bushwhack and we came out exactly at the launch as expected and then headed by trail back to the main TA.
At the TA we switched to bikes to do a fairly short bike to 2 easy to find control points. This was an easy and uneventful ride and took us back to the main TA and the most challenging leg of the race – the orienteering leg. The passport had the not so cryptic message “good luck” for the teams as they started this leg of the race, and it proved to be an apt message. We would be navigating from an aerial photo that basically had 2 pieces of information – water or canopy (trees). The water was also not a good description – water meant duckweed covered, shallow, muddy terrain.
As we entered the woods looking for CP19 (which was a bit too far west of the mapped location, but all the other flags were perfectly located) – I quickly shifted my time estimate of this leg. The first 200 feet of travel took us a solid 5 minutes in the thick hilly terrain. As it turns out the area was a long abandoned phosphate mine (now overgrown). The hills were old phosphate pilings ranging in height from 30 to 70 feet and steep. The majority of the terrain consisted of crawling, pulling, and dragging up to the top of the hills and then sliding down the other side. Add in the spiders (plenty of spider nests), the thorn covered vines, and the waist deep mud at many locations – the going was quite slow. We did controls up to control 31 in order, after control 31 I decided to use a trail in the area to exit for a while and re-attack control 36 from an actual trail. We had been working with another team up to control 28 – but they decided to bail out when we decided to swim the lake section between control 28 and 29. We met up with them again at control 36 going the opposite direction. We gathered controls 36 through 32 working backwards and decided to swim the last lake near control 37 before heading back. We had debated skipping some of the controls as it was nearing 3:30 PM and we knew we would need to make the 4 PM cutoff for the bike leg. In the end we got them all and even rejoined with the team we had been working with at CP37. We were running at that point because we could – we were happy to not be fighting up and down hills. We ran back to the TA, about a mile and it took less time to run this than it did to go from the CP’s that had been separated by 500 feet.
We arrived back at the TA at 3:45 PM and prepared for what I knew would be a 3+ hour bike ride in full sun on sand roads. Bladders and water bottles were full and the team had re-hydrated and eaten. We headed to the TA checkout and then learned that the bike ride had been shortened to a single checkpoint. It was 3:55 PM and there were only us and one other team in the TA, the one we had traveled with on the orienteering. They were still in the TA and looked like they had no intention of leaving any time soon (one team-mate was obviously hurting and they were working to get recovered). I looked at the new course and quickly figured that we would have at most 30 minutes of riding to be finished. We were disappointed (a little) as we had psyched up for the ride, but at the same time relieved. It took us little over 20 minutes to visit the single final CP and return to the TA and finish the race. It was a nice ride and knowing that there were no teams right on our tail (we would have seen them in the open terrain) allowed us to complete it without pushing ourselves too hard. After finishing we quickly debated visiting some of the other CP’s on the bike leg for fun – but decided that we had had enough (8 ½ hours of racing) and would relax. We cheered in the other teams, and chatted for a while – and we all had time for cold outdoor showers in the bike wash.
In the end the race was excellent – the course was challenging and required strength, skill, and endurance. All of the race sections were excellent. The orienteering – as hard as it was – was one of the highlights of any race I had done. I was glad our team overcame the mistakes we made by continuing solidly through the challenging course. I finally got that 1st place trophy (sitting next to the three second place trophies). All of the other adventure racers that were out there I am sure are feeling the bruises that are an inevitable outcome of race terrain like this. The bruises fade quickly – but the memories and the stories last a lot longer – and get better with time.
Because the premiere division of the Talon is the three person coed, we decided to race as a 3 person team and have Greg race as a soloist. This would be the second time Jeff would be racing with Team Travel Country Outdoors, he had proved to have solid athletic ability and had “seasoned” as a racer tremendously since the last time we had raced together. We grouped together at the start line and listened to the last minute instructions, which basically said that we would have a 4 PM cutoff to be able to start the final bike leg of the race (which looked to be a solid 3-4 hour leg). Jim told the teams the start of the race was single track biking, but to keep the teams from bunching up we would start with a roughly 1 mile trail run and then hop on the bikes. He then pointed south to an arrow sign and said “go”. We had our bikes and bike shoes and bike gear (including helmets) on, but as a team we simply dropped our bikes and started running.
Jamie led the way through the roughly 1 mile trail run that went up and down old phosphate mine pilings and we were the first team to finish and get onto the bikes. This turned out to be very fortuitous as we immediately went into an advanced single track bike trail called “roller coaster” which was aptly named. Getting behind a slower bike team here would have been a problem as passing in “Roller Coaster” would have been difficult. This single track bike allowed us to build some distance on the main pack and only one team (a 2 person male team of strong bikers) was staying with us. As we entered another bike trail called “Rock Garden” we came to an unmarked intersection and lost some time figuring out what to do. The other team passed us and just as I crested a particularly large hill I got distracted and went flying over the handlebars. A quick body check told me nothing was broken, except I had some nasty welts and blood on my knees and my hand hit a rock hard and immediately started swelling and throbbing. I lost some time repairing my bike as my bike seat was facing 90 degrees with my bike frame, and bashing it back into a correct angle was difficult with one hand out of commission.
The bruised hand continued to throb through the remaining miles of the single track ride. We went into some easier single track, and that helped me get my focus back on the biking – but in a race easier single track simply means a great speed and we simply replaced difficulty with speed. Even a mild single track curve is tricky at 15 mph. We came off the bike ride less than a minute behind the only team in front of us and decided we would complete all the special tasks required in the race while we were in the Transition. We bobbed for apples (quite refreshing with the added bonus of being able to eat the apple), completed a Sudoku Challenge, did a blindfolded maze, and crossed a rope challenge that required you to swing from rope to rope transferring to the other rope with each swing. This allowed some teams who chose to skip the special tests (and do them later) to pass us. But we were feeling good going into the next leg of the race – the paddle.
The paddle leg was most aptly described as the portage leg. We portaged to a small lake, punched a control in the middle of the lake, and then paddled to the shore where we repeated this in the next lake. After the third portage I made our first (and only major) mistake of the race. Misreading a part of the map I did not realize that the flags in one area were in water (it was not blue) and we portaged the boats to a wooded area and started on foot for the controls (we would return to portage the boats to the next location). After 10 minutes of an extremely difficult bushwhack we got to the controls – close together in the middle of a completely slime covered pond. Since we were there we decided to swim out to them, but even that proved challenging as the shoreline was basically waist deep muck. We did get the controls but returning to the correct plan – cost us a serious 20+ minutes (we saw plenty of teams go by) and put us back on the intended plan (to use our boats).
The final portion of the paddle was a 2 mile paddle down the Alafia River (a short ¼ mile portage to the river) and then a lake paddle of about 3 miles. With Florida currently in the midst of a major drought, the Alafia River was best referred to as the Alafia series of shallow flowing ponds. The Alafia paddle had never been easy in any race – but this time we never even bothered getting into the boats. We dragged, pushed, pulled, slogged, and carried the boats to the bridge. We learned there that the remaining section of the paddle (where we could actually paddle) had been cut short as teams were way behind the time projection of the race. We would be heading on foot to a single checkpoint and then back to the transition area.
The trek would take us north about 2 miles through some tough terrain (waist high grass in an old phosphate mine). A couple of teams followed with us but soon dropped off as we proceeded northward – it was all full sun and the 90 degree heat was starting to take its toll on teams. We reached the location of the checkpoint (it was not difficult) to find a ribbon in a tree. We searched the area and I decided to call in to let Jim know the flag was missing (or possibly misplaced). After he described the ribbon and its location (including a detailed description of the tree in which it was hanging) I was more sure that we were in the correct location (I was already at 100%). We marked the ribbon to prove we were there and headed west for a bushwhack back through the river basin to the canoe launch. It was a due west bushwhack and we came out exactly at the launch as expected and then headed by trail back to the main TA.
At the TA we switched to bikes to do a fairly short bike to 2 easy to find control points. This was an easy and uneventful ride and took us back to the main TA and the most challenging leg of the race – the orienteering leg. The passport had the not so cryptic message “good luck” for the teams as they started this leg of the race, and it proved to be an apt message. We would be navigating from an aerial photo that basically had 2 pieces of information – water or canopy (trees). The water was also not a good description – water meant duckweed covered, shallow, muddy terrain.
As we entered the woods looking for CP19 (which was a bit too far west of the mapped location, but all the other flags were perfectly located) – I quickly shifted my time estimate of this leg. The first 200 feet of travel took us a solid 5 minutes in the thick hilly terrain. As it turns out the area was a long abandoned phosphate mine (now overgrown). The hills were old phosphate pilings ranging in height from 30 to 70 feet and steep. The majority of the terrain consisted of crawling, pulling, and dragging up to the top of the hills and then sliding down the other side. Add in the spiders (plenty of spider nests), the thorn covered vines, and the waist deep mud at many locations – the going was quite slow. We did controls up to control 31 in order, after control 31 I decided to use a trail in the area to exit for a while and re-attack control 36 from an actual trail. We had been working with another team up to control 28 – but they decided to bail out when we decided to swim the lake section between control 28 and 29. We met up with them again at control 36 going the opposite direction. We gathered controls 36 through 32 working backwards and decided to swim the last lake near control 37 before heading back. We had debated skipping some of the controls as it was nearing 3:30 PM and we knew we would need to make the 4 PM cutoff for the bike leg. In the end we got them all and even rejoined with the team we had been working with at CP37. We were running at that point because we could – we were happy to not be fighting up and down hills. We ran back to the TA, about a mile and it took less time to run this than it did to go from the CP’s that had been separated by 500 feet.
We arrived back at the TA at 3:45 PM and prepared for what I knew would be a 3+ hour bike ride in full sun on sand roads. Bladders and water bottles were full and the team had re-hydrated and eaten. We headed to the TA checkout and then learned that the bike ride had been shortened to a single checkpoint. It was 3:55 PM and there were only us and one other team in the TA, the one we had traveled with on the orienteering. They were still in the TA and looked like they had no intention of leaving any time soon (one team-mate was obviously hurting and they were working to get recovered). I looked at the new course and quickly figured that we would have at most 30 minutes of riding to be finished. We were disappointed (a little) as we had psyched up for the ride, but at the same time relieved. It took us little over 20 minutes to visit the single final CP and return to the TA and finish the race. It was a nice ride and knowing that there were no teams right on our tail (we would have seen them in the open terrain) allowed us to complete it without pushing ourselves too hard. After finishing we quickly debated visiting some of the other CP’s on the bike leg for fun – but decided that we had had enough (8 ½ hours of racing) and would relax. We cheered in the other teams, and chatted for a while – and we all had time for cold outdoor showers in the bike wash.
In the end the race was excellent – the course was challenging and required strength, skill, and endurance. All of the race sections were excellent. The orienteering – as hard as it was – was one of the highlights of any race I had done. I was glad our team overcame the mistakes we made by continuing solidly through the challenging course. I finally got that 1st place trophy (sitting next to the three second place trophies). All of the other adventure racers that were out there I am sure are feeling the bruises that are an inevitable outcome of race terrain like this. The bruises fade quickly – but the memories and the stories last a lot longer – and get better with time.
Talon Race 2005
The Talon 2005 Adventure Race
The Talon is one of the premiere adventure races in Florida – it has a good history, excellent organization (thanks to Jim Hartnett and Tampa Races) and historically has had a challenging course with a competitive field. With this in mind I made the calls and put some members of CFAR/TravelCountry.com together to race. Two of the folks I regularly race with, Blaine Reeves and Don Nettlow were both planning on racing solo – meaning that the solo race would have some great competition. I was planning on racing with Jamie Sheriff and Greg Corbitt, but a last minute cancellation from Greg (with good reason) had me calling up Jeff Hunker to sub in. Jeff had shown solid athletic capability in past races, though he had not had any podium finishes. He had also expressed interest in racing with our team if we needed another racer. These are some of the trials of being a team captain, but we had the team together and were ready to race.
Jim Hartnett, the Race Director pulled all the teams out of the transition area at 7:20 AM for the start of the race. He had explained we would need to carry everything we needed for the first leg of the race with us, as there would be no returning to the transition area once the race started. Since the first leg involved paddling, I roped my kayak paddle to my back with my hip bag and gear – and our team got on a bus that was waiting to transport teams to the actual race start. We had still received no map and the only instructions we had were to prepare for 3-5 hours of running and paddling until we would see the TA again. The morning was cool with a nice breeze, so heat at this point of the race was not a factor. The bus took us a few miles north and dropped us off, as we exited the bus we were handed maps and passports. Jim had put all the “A” teams on the first bus – the idea was to keep the highly competitive teams together. The teams were standing around waiting for instructions while the bus left and we realized the race had actually started. I quickly determined our location on the map (it was not marked and we were not told where we were) and headed for the first CP. The other teams quickly joined and, some with faster runners and the race was on.
The first eight checkpoints had us covering about 3 miles of rolling hills at a good pace. All the competitive teams stayed closely grouped and kept the pace brisk. The navigation was not tremendously challenging and since the teams were all together there was a lot of bird-dogging. At CP8, the front teams headed west into a heavily wooded section, I instead called our team to head north. Four or five teams followed me on this route. My plan was to bushwhack through a short thick section and then to handrail between the woods (west) and the field (east). This worked perfectly and we soon hit our backstop, the powerlines, which handrailed us right to CP9 and the boats. As we headed for the boats we saw Don and Blaine (who had used the western route) carrying their boats to the was the river. We saw no other teams, though we knew a few had gone that route – we also knew that Don and Blaine would be leading the pack. We rigged our canoe for the portage and headed back east (short portage) and put into the river. We now had a small group of 4 teams with us and Don and Blaine leading on the river.
This next paddle section was probably best termed a hike a boat. The Florida hurricanes had left a tremendous number of snags in the river for the next 4 miles. We were also paddling against a strong current. Jamie and I with many races under our belts were adept at hopping in and out of the boat and pushing, pulling it over the numerous snags. Jeff had less experience at this hopping in and out of the boat (believe it or not we actually practice this) but with a little coaching quickly caught on to the rhythm. The current was strong enough that on one hop out I ended up in deep water and could not make headway against it, and instead had to swim to shore and run along the shoreline to catch my boat. We caught up to one more team, Sponsor Name Here, that had done a great job in the navigation from CP8 to CP9 and had held an unknown lead on us. We were however strong paddlers and we started to pull away from the field with only Don and Blaine ahead of us and Team Bill Jacksons (a 3 person male team) paddling close to us. We continued to leapfrog with Team Bill Jacksons to CP10 where we had to turn around, and then at CP11 where we had to climb a hanging ladder from the water and return to our boats. As we reached the take-out, now heading downstream our group of 4 teams with 2 more teams close behind remained intact. We pulled the boats out of the water, portaged to a small lake and once again began paddling to get CP12 which was on a small island in the lake. We paddled to the shore and began the longer portage to CP13 where we would drop our boats and start running for Main Transition Area. It looked like the 3-5 hour estimate would be a little ambitious as the lead teams were now at 4 ½ into the race and still a short distance out of the TA.
Though we did not realize it at the time, our team along with many of the front teams were not getting enough fluids, setting us up for serious dehydration later in the race. This is a danger of an early paddling section as you are not feeling hot (because you are wet) and do not remember to drink. I had only drunk 20 ounces this entire leg (one water bottle), I had lost the other water bottle at the start of the paddle. If anyone finds a Nalgene bottle filled with HEED being swept through the Alafia River into the Gulf of Mexico filled with HEED it is mine.
The next leg would put us on our bikes for what looked like 20-30 miles of riding on sand roads. The temperature was near 80 degrees, though hot – it was not stifling. The first few CP’s on the bike were easy navigation, though a missed turn in my navigation had our team doing a short bushwhack to put us back on track. CP16 was mismarked on the maps (the flag was actually 400 feet from the mapped location, and that ended up having us set up a search pattern to locate the control. At this point Bill Jacksons and Sponsor Name Here caught up with our group, as we had transitioned at the last TA quickly and left them. Knowing that Sponsor Name Here was by far one of the strongest teams on the bikes in Florida, we knew we would have to rely on solid navigation to stay in the race. Sure enough they started to outpace us by CP17, and were completely out of sight at CP18. Meanwhile the solo race (as we would learn later) was heating up. Don Had built a strong lead on the navigation on the bike, but in his haste had not cleaned the water out of his map case. The pool of water had dissolved the bottom of his map and the location of CP24. He did the only thing he could, go back to CP23 and wait for the next team come through so he could bird-dog them to the control. At the same time we worked with Team Bill Jacksons to pick up the controls CP18-23. We briefly saw Team Sponsor Name Here at CP21, as it required you to drop your bikes and bushwhack through heavily overgrown Gypsum pilings (in an old phosphate mine) to a phosphate pit where the flag hung over the pit. They were returning to their bikes as we headed out to the flag. I estimated their lead now at 10-15 minutes and growing. Then between CP22 and CP23 I became separated from our team while I stopped to read the map, which in turn cost us a few more minutes. At that point I made a strategic decision to skip past CP24, and return to it after completing CP25-29. This looked like a solid navigation move as CP24 was a long out and back and the approach from CP29 was shorter. I stumbled in my navigation slightly at CP25 missing the fork, but again quickly caught the error and returned.
As we headed from CP25 to CP26 we saw the lead teams and both Don and Blaine heading back to CP27. The approach from the map made it look like taking a bearing from the southern road intersection was the best approach. The reality was much different, the area between the southern attack point appeared to be impassible vegetation (at least it would slow you down dramatically). The better attack point was along a ridge line, attacking (much further) from the east north of CP 26. It would be an out and back along the line to CP27. Two teams (us and Sponsor Name Here) and two soloists headed in to get this CP. It was apparent Blaine and Don were pushing each other hard in the solo race, they both blazed across the ridgeline at a good run. We were instead much more cautious on the treacherous ground and emerged from the woods with Sponsor Name here and headed out on the bikes. They were amazed that we had made up the ground on them, but I informed them we skipped CP24 and were still a bit back. CP28 was quite easy.
We arrived at CP29 just before Sponsors Name Here completed the two special tasks at the CP. This CP required each member of the teams to walk a 30 yard tightrope with a high guide wire, and then take 5 potatoes and hit three targets with them. Jamie and I made short work of the tightrope (climbing is our element), however Jeff, who visibly shaking, fell one time with a big thud, and then a second time. We would take the penalty on this test. The next test looked difficult. You could use a knife to cut your potato into smaller pieces, but once it was gone, if you had not hit the targets you got another penalty. Jamie pitches softball so had no trouble hitting the targets, though a few misses on the last one had me teasing her. I cut my potatoes into quarters and quickly dispatched all three targets with a little bit of trouble on the last one (5 throws). Inadvertently I had prepared well for this event by walking my kids to the bus stop where we would throw rocks at the speed limit sign from the bus stop while waiting for the bus. Jeff, unfortunately was shaken both from the exertion and from two hard falls on the climb, he just could not connect with the target. Another penalty. Both penalties required a short run to retrieve a “word” from a posted sign. Jeff did the runs while I accompanied him on one and Jamie on the other. We had lost about 30 minutes here – but had seen no other teams. The race now had 3 teams and 3 solo competitors, but Team Sponsor Name Here had built a solid lead on us.
We still had to get CP24, and though the strategy looked solid from the map, the reality was worse. The roads shown on the map were now completely overgrown and our bikes soon became a hindrance. I decided we would drop our bikes and bushwhack to the control. This would only be about 400 yards of bushwhack – but through a heavily forested region, s short swamp, and wiregrass. Luckily my navigation sense was dead-on (probably from the difficult navigation at the Save the World race the previous week) and we bulls-eyed the control. It was too thick to run, but we bushwhacked back to our bikes and were now on our way to the transition area. We had run out of water over an hour previous, and I had given the last of my water to Don at CP27 as he looked to be in worse condition than I was. I was seriously dehydrated and a bit demoralized knowing that Team Sponsor Name Here had to have now built an hour on us. In the end the bike ride was well over 5 hours. We had an orienteering leg remaining, and then one more bile leg. Though our transition was quick, I was severely dehydrated at this point and my legs were not letting me run. We would have to walk at a pace just under what would trigger a cramp from my muscles. My team agreed with this and we fueled off we went. As we left on the final orienteering trek my watch read 9 hours race time. Team Sponsor Name Here, Blaine, and Don were all in the TA having completed the orienteering and heading out on the last bike. We heard the Team Bill Jacksons had just left on the trek, and one other soloist and that the next team behind us was “way” back.
The navigation on this trek was not difficult, we completed in the order CP31, 33, 32, 34, and 35 – though had I been fresh (and thinking well) I would have done 35, 34, 31, 33, 32 and then returned to the TA. We now had plenty of fluids (we would not make the mistake of running out again). The dehydration level and having not eaten enough had the entire team at a low energy level, though I was now the limiting factor, Jamie was still strong, and Jeff was recovering. Running the trek would have taken about an hour – but it was not until the last mile when I mustered enough energy to break into a trot. As we approached CP36 (the main TA) I heard Shawn Deitrich’s (of Team Bill Jacksons) voice from the MTA joking around. Normally hearing the other team in the finish line ahead of you is bad, but it told me that they either had not gone out on the last bike leg yet, or missed the cutoff. It was now 11 hours race time, and I was not looking forward to getting back on the bikes for single track riding in my current state. Our team would, of course, do what needed to be done. Sure enough they had missed the cutoff, and so would we – our race was now over after 11 hours and about 15 minutes (I forgot to stop my watch at the finish so this is a little bit longer than our actual finish).
Blaine Reeves had come of the trek with Don Nettlow, but he outpaced him on the last bike ride. Blaine, Don, and Sponsor Name Here had been the only teams to complete the entire course. We had finished shortly after the second place team (Bill Jacksons) who had missed the cutoff for the last ride, third overall team, and second coed team. I drank about a gallon of Gatorade and water as I sat and cheered the teams in as other teams completed the course. The format of the course had made it very challenging on all the team, with the early trek and paddle leading many teams to underestimate the hydration needs. The navigation was not terribly challenging to the top teams (none of the points gave the top teams too much trouble, and we all employed some strategy), but talking to some of the other teams – they had found it quite challenging.
In the end we took home the 2nd place coed trophy. The Talon continues to improve every year challenging the top Florida teams and providing a high level of competition. And we will be back to in turn challenge the Talon.
The Talon is one of the premiere adventure races in Florida – it has a good history, excellent organization (thanks to Jim Hartnett and Tampa Races) and historically has had a challenging course with a competitive field. With this in mind I made the calls and put some members of CFAR/TravelCountry.com together to race. Two of the folks I regularly race with, Blaine Reeves and Don Nettlow were both planning on racing solo – meaning that the solo race would have some great competition. I was planning on racing with Jamie Sheriff and Greg Corbitt, but a last minute cancellation from Greg (with good reason) had me calling up Jeff Hunker to sub in. Jeff had shown solid athletic capability in past races, though he had not had any podium finishes. He had also expressed interest in racing with our team if we needed another racer. These are some of the trials of being a team captain, but we had the team together and were ready to race.
Jim Hartnett, the Race Director pulled all the teams out of the transition area at 7:20 AM for the start of the race. He had explained we would need to carry everything we needed for the first leg of the race with us, as there would be no returning to the transition area once the race started. Since the first leg involved paddling, I roped my kayak paddle to my back with my hip bag and gear – and our team got on a bus that was waiting to transport teams to the actual race start. We had still received no map and the only instructions we had were to prepare for 3-5 hours of running and paddling until we would see the TA again. The morning was cool with a nice breeze, so heat at this point of the race was not a factor. The bus took us a few miles north and dropped us off, as we exited the bus we were handed maps and passports. Jim had put all the “A” teams on the first bus – the idea was to keep the highly competitive teams together. The teams were standing around waiting for instructions while the bus left and we realized the race had actually started. I quickly determined our location on the map (it was not marked and we were not told where we were) and headed for the first CP. The other teams quickly joined and, some with faster runners and the race was on.
The first eight checkpoints had us covering about 3 miles of rolling hills at a good pace. All the competitive teams stayed closely grouped and kept the pace brisk. The navigation was not tremendously challenging and since the teams were all together there was a lot of bird-dogging. At CP8, the front teams headed west into a heavily wooded section, I instead called our team to head north. Four or five teams followed me on this route. My plan was to bushwhack through a short thick section and then to handrail between the woods (west) and the field (east). This worked perfectly and we soon hit our backstop, the powerlines, which handrailed us right to CP9 and the boats. As we headed for the boats we saw Don and Blaine (who had used the western route) carrying their boats to the was the river. We saw no other teams, though we knew a few had gone that route – we also knew that Don and Blaine would be leading the pack. We rigged our canoe for the portage and headed back east (short portage) and put into the river. We now had a small group of 4 teams with us and Don and Blaine leading on the river.
This next paddle section was probably best termed a hike a boat. The Florida hurricanes had left a tremendous number of snags in the river for the next 4 miles. We were also paddling against a strong current. Jamie and I with many races under our belts were adept at hopping in and out of the boat and pushing, pulling it over the numerous snags. Jeff had less experience at this hopping in and out of the boat (believe it or not we actually practice this) but with a little coaching quickly caught on to the rhythm. The current was strong enough that on one hop out I ended up in deep water and could not make headway against it, and instead had to swim to shore and run along the shoreline to catch my boat. We caught up to one more team, Sponsor Name Here, that had done a great job in the navigation from CP8 to CP9 and had held an unknown lead on us. We were however strong paddlers and we started to pull away from the field with only Don and Blaine ahead of us and Team Bill Jacksons (a 3 person male team) paddling close to us. We continued to leapfrog with Team Bill Jacksons to CP10 where we had to turn around, and then at CP11 where we had to climb a hanging ladder from the water and return to our boats. As we reached the take-out, now heading downstream our group of 4 teams with 2 more teams close behind remained intact. We pulled the boats out of the water, portaged to a small lake and once again began paddling to get CP12 which was on a small island in the lake. We paddled to the shore and began the longer portage to CP13 where we would drop our boats and start running for Main Transition Area. It looked like the 3-5 hour estimate would be a little ambitious as the lead teams were now at 4 ½ into the race and still a short distance out of the TA.
Though we did not realize it at the time, our team along with many of the front teams were not getting enough fluids, setting us up for serious dehydration later in the race. This is a danger of an early paddling section as you are not feeling hot (because you are wet) and do not remember to drink. I had only drunk 20 ounces this entire leg (one water bottle), I had lost the other water bottle at the start of the paddle. If anyone finds a Nalgene bottle filled with HEED being swept through the Alafia River into the Gulf of Mexico filled with HEED it is mine.
The next leg would put us on our bikes for what looked like 20-30 miles of riding on sand roads. The temperature was near 80 degrees, though hot – it was not stifling. The first few CP’s on the bike were easy navigation, though a missed turn in my navigation had our team doing a short bushwhack to put us back on track. CP16 was mismarked on the maps (the flag was actually 400 feet from the mapped location, and that ended up having us set up a search pattern to locate the control. At this point Bill Jacksons and Sponsor Name Here caught up with our group, as we had transitioned at the last TA quickly and left them. Knowing that Sponsor Name Here was by far one of the strongest teams on the bikes in Florida, we knew we would have to rely on solid navigation to stay in the race. Sure enough they started to outpace us by CP17, and were completely out of sight at CP18. Meanwhile the solo race (as we would learn later) was heating up. Don Had built a strong lead on the navigation on the bike, but in his haste had not cleaned the water out of his map case. The pool of water had dissolved the bottom of his map and the location of CP24. He did the only thing he could, go back to CP23 and wait for the next team come through so he could bird-dog them to the control. At the same time we worked with Team Bill Jacksons to pick up the controls CP18-23. We briefly saw Team Sponsor Name Here at CP21, as it required you to drop your bikes and bushwhack through heavily overgrown Gypsum pilings (in an old phosphate mine) to a phosphate pit where the flag hung over the pit. They were returning to their bikes as we headed out to the flag. I estimated their lead now at 10-15 minutes and growing. Then between CP22 and CP23 I became separated from our team while I stopped to read the map, which in turn cost us a few more minutes. At that point I made a strategic decision to skip past CP24, and return to it after completing CP25-29. This looked like a solid navigation move as CP24 was a long out and back and the approach from CP29 was shorter. I stumbled in my navigation slightly at CP25 missing the fork, but again quickly caught the error and returned.
As we headed from CP25 to CP26 we saw the lead teams and both Don and Blaine heading back to CP27. The approach from the map made it look like taking a bearing from the southern road intersection was the best approach. The reality was much different, the area between the southern attack point appeared to be impassible vegetation (at least it would slow you down dramatically). The better attack point was along a ridge line, attacking (much further) from the east north of CP 26. It would be an out and back along the line to CP27. Two teams (us and Sponsor Name Here) and two soloists headed in to get this CP. It was apparent Blaine and Don were pushing each other hard in the solo race, they both blazed across the ridgeline at a good run. We were instead much more cautious on the treacherous ground and emerged from the woods with Sponsor Name here and headed out on the bikes. They were amazed that we had made up the ground on them, but I informed them we skipped CP24 and were still a bit back. CP28 was quite easy.
We arrived at CP29 just before Sponsors Name Here completed the two special tasks at the CP. This CP required each member of the teams to walk a 30 yard tightrope with a high guide wire, and then take 5 potatoes and hit three targets with them. Jamie and I made short work of the tightrope (climbing is our element), however Jeff, who visibly shaking, fell one time with a big thud, and then a second time. We would take the penalty on this test. The next test looked difficult. You could use a knife to cut your potato into smaller pieces, but once it was gone, if you had not hit the targets you got another penalty. Jamie pitches softball so had no trouble hitting the targets, though a few misses on the last one had me teasing her. I cut my potatoes into quarters and quickly dispatched all three targets with a little bit of trouble on the last one (5 throws). Inadvertently I had prepared well for this event by walking my kids to the bus stop where we would throw rocks at the speed limit sign from the bus stop while waiting for the bus. Jeff, unfortunately was shaken both from the exertion and from two hard falls on the climb, he just could not connect with the target. Another penalty. Both penalties required a short run to retrieve a “word” from a posted sign. Jeff did the runs while I accompanied him on one and Jamie on the other. We had lost about 30 minutes here – but had seen no other teams. The race now had 3 teams and 3 solo competitors, but Team Sponsor Name Here had built a solid lead on us.
We still had to get CP24, and though the strategy looked solid from the map, the reality was worse. The roads shown on the map were now completely overgrown and our bikes soon became a hindrance. I decided we would drop our bikes and bushwhack to the control. This would only be about 400 yards of bushwhack – but through a heavily forested region, s short swamp, and wiregrass. Luckily my navigation sense was dead-on (probably from the difficult navigation at the Save the World race the previous week) and we bulls-eyed the control. It was too thick to run, but we bushwhacked back to our bikes and were now on our way to the transition area. We had run out of water over an hour previous, and I had given the last of my water to Don at CP27 as he looked to be in worse condition than I was. I was seriously dehydrated and a bit demoralized knowing that Team Sponsor Name Here had to have now built an hour on us. In the end the bike ride was well over 5 hours. We had an orienteering leg remaining, and then one more bile leg. Though our transition was quick, I was severely dehydrated at this point and my legs were not letting me run. We would have to walk at a pace just under what would trigger a cramp from my muscles. My team agreed with this and we fueled off we went. As we left on the final orienteering trek my watch read 9 hours race time. Team Sponsor Name Here, Blaine, and Don were all in the TA having completed the orienteering and heading out on the last bike. We heard the Team Bill Jacksons had just left on the trek, and one other soloist and that the next team behind us was “way” back.
The navigation on this trek was not difficult, we completed in the order CP31, 33, 32, 34, and 35 – though had I been fresh (and thinking well) I would have done 35, 34, 31, 33, 32 and then returned to the TA. We now had plenty of fluids (we would not make the mistake of running out again). The dehydration level and having not eaten enough had the entire team at a low energy level, though I was now the limiting factor, Jamie was still strong, and Jeff was recovering. Running the trek would have taken about an hour – but it was not until the last mile when I mustered enough energy to break into a trot. As we approached CP36 (the main TA) I heard Shawn Deitrich’s (of Team Bill Jacksons) voice from the MTA joking around. Normally hearing the other team in the finish line ahead of you is bad, but it told me that they either had not gone out on the last bike leg yet, or missed the cutoff. It was now 11 hours race time, and I was not looking forward to getting back on the bikes for single track riding in my current state. Our team would, of course, do what needed to be done. Sure enough they had missed the cutoff, and so would we – our race was now over after 11 hours and about 15 minutes (I forgot to stop my watch at the finish so this is a little bit longer than our actual finish).
Blaine Reeves had come of the trek with Don Nettlow, but he outpaced him on the last bike ride. Blaine, Don, and Sponsor Name Here had been the only teams to complete the entire course. We had finished shortly after the second place team (Bill Jacksons) who had missed the cutoff for the last ride, third overall team, and second coed team. I drank about a gallon of Gatorade and water as I sat and cheered the teams in as other teams completed the course. The format of the course had made it very challenging on all the team, with the early trek and paddle leading many teams to underestimate the hydration needs. The navigation was not terribly challenging to the top teams (none of the points gave the top teams too much trouble, and we all employed some strategy), but talking to some of the other teams – they had found it quite challenging.
In the end we took home the 2nd place coed trophy. The Talon continues to improve every year challenging the top Florida teams and providing a high level of competition. And we will be back to in turn challenge the Talon.
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