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.