Swamp Stomp 2007 Adventure Race
I always look forward to a good adventure race, and having raced and finished this race for each of the last 3 offerings – I knew that this would be a good race. A hard decision for me was how hard I would compete – in the past I worked hard to prepare and race at 100% - though having dealt with high levels of stress at work and family and kids and all the other things that go on in life, I simply wanted to enjoy this race. I also wanted to bring a full team across the finish line, which I had only done once in the past Swamp Stomps (I‘ve always finished – but not the entire team) .
At the pre-race our team won one of the one minute head starts. Even though this would not make any real difference to our race performance, it did let us start the race outside of the madhouse crowd at the deepwater start. Thankfully we also had maps that were “mostly” marked so we were also to be spared the long night of plotting UTM coordinates. It was cold at the pre-race, and unfortunately team-mate John Sherwin got caught in traffic so would not be able to check-in until late, which meant I was going to be working on our race strategy out on the picnic tables in the cold at the pre-race. Finally late into the night we got the entire team to our (warm) hotel room, got our course marked, and were able to get some sleep to prepare for the early start on the water.
Team-mate Neil was suffering from nausea and vomiting Friday, which cast some doubt on our ability to finish. Hopefully the sickness would subside by the next morning – but since he was unable to keep anything down, nutrition might also be an issue with him. We were not planning to go all out, but a 30 hour race is still a challenging proposition under any circumstances.
We arrived at the start at around 7:30 AM, Jessica Koelsh was in front of all the teams giving last minute pre-race instructions. I joined in and got some information about the race and John and Jamie got us organized and into the water for the start. The one minute head start was nice, but shortly into the race Team EMS bumped John and Neil sending them into the shore, Oh well – we were in the lead for a short while at least. The paddle to CP1 was uneventful and mostly we said hi to teams that passed us as Jamie and I watched different wildlife and enjoyed the scenery. As we reached SR 48 and CP1 – we pulled ashore received and quickly plotted a UTM which took us up river a bit more. The CP1 flag was easily spotted by both the boats there. It was muddy so I jumped out of the boat which dismayed Jamie as it got my feet wet (which does not seem to bother me as much as it does my team-mates).
The real fun was still yet to come. We paddled a bit more and turned in to get Bonus Point A to see a bunch of boats on the shore. Most of the paddlers seemed to have decided to walk along the shore for this CP. This threw me off a bit as we paddled up the river to the mapped location of the CP and hopped out of the boat to get the CP. Had the boats not been there we would have found it faster as it was on the river, but a quick search out of the boat did at least let us stretch our legs. We were back into the boats with a quick paddle to CP2 where it would really get exciting.
(Map included) At CP2 we had the ability to pick up 3 bonus checkpoints. An easy trek from CP2 led us to BCP B, from there we decided to trek to BCP D – a 2 km trek due east across the dry swamp. As it turned out – it took us about 45 minutes to cross the swamp and we landed about 300 meters north of the CP. At this time there were boats and teams on foot heading to the Bonus Point. Not knowing which side of Jumper Creek the CP was on – I swam across (it was muddy and weedy) to get a better look. A team on the way back told me it was on the east side so I swam back and we joined team Trail and Error (Melissa) to get the CP. We then spent another 35 minutes crossing back across the swamp to our boats and CP2. All the teams at this point had left CP2 – we trekked down to BCP C and then headed back. We were now in the very back of the pack (but we had all checkpoints).
There were some teams at CP3 when we arrived there. I gave the maps to John and said go for it. We overshot the control a bit – but that was pretty cool as most teams never got to see the really cool grove of Oak trees on the ridge (and we did). We circled back to the cave, found the control – took the bearing and located the punch with no problems and were joking as we headed back to the boats. We got there to find we were still dead last behind the pack, and Kip was there with the airboats. They just missed getting us to pick up the flags.
We then paddled to BPE, with one detour to a big upright cypress just before the big downed cypress (the clue was inside the cypress). John and Neil got hung up on a submerged log so Jamie and I abandoned them to get visit BPE and map the location of the first waypoint necessary to get the bonus point. We crossed the river hopped out of the boats and ran into Kyle who basically said “it sucked”. They had spent a lot of time and did not locate any of the points. Well that was all we needed to hear so we got back into the boats and decided we would pretty much go straight to CP4 with no detours. We were still enjoying the river and even saw a small flock of Roseate Spoonbills – we pointed them out to John who replied “tastes like chicken!” Neal just looked at us with the greenish hue he had been having up to this point.
There was a restaurant and biker bar at CP4 which gave us a little respite. Also there were these nasty organic bars which we used to show how strong our stomachs could be. I tried a few flavors before I decided to stick to my safe diet of Vienna Sausages. Of course I dropped my water bladder and found that when you drop an open bladder on the ground it will splatter all over your team-mates shoes. Sorry John.
The rest of the paddle was straightforward and except for the fact we knew there was a mile long carry portage waiting for us, pretty pleasant. I even think Jamie was enjoying it as she was not whining about how much she hated paddling. We arrived at CP5 at about the same time as the lead teams coming from the bonus points in the other direction. Jamie and I tried out a few methods of carrying the boat as she did not like carrying it over her head. I finally had her take the paddles, got under the center yoke and lifted. I was doing pretty good solo and even passed the other team TCO (well at least Blaine) for a few steps. We were pretty much tired of carrying the boat by the time we hit the TA. We spent some time chatting with the folks at the TA, but finally decided to get on our bikes and ride. All of us were looking forward to some biking. After crossing over the little bridge we found the road that was the southern route to CP6 (you could go 2 ways), another team that left with us wavered back and forth at the turn – but finally decided that they would go our route against the will of their navigator. We had no trouble finding CP6, though I hear some teams wandered around a bit before reaching it and we had a great time climbing and rappelling and also finding the CP6 flag. We spent about an extra 20 minutes here as we chatted with other teams and the folks manning the TA. Everyone was friendly and the atmosphere was pretty conducive to fun. We also knew we had a little ride in front of us to CP7.
We did not ride hard to CP7, it looked to me like Neil was starting to feel worse – but he never complained once, so he was pretty hard to read. It was all pretty much road anyway so at least that made it easy. We actually got in and out of CP7 pretty quickly (15 minutes) considering our times at every other spot we stopped. This was partly because I would not let the team buy any soup – though it did look good. We went to the hunt station first and followed our plan to head east to BPM (the Mother Oak). The roads were pretty chewed so we trekked it with Team NV. At the T intersection near BPM I let the team go hunt this one down. I was interested in looking at the maps a bit and memorizing some of the trails. I also was interested by some of the reflector patterns the hunters had placed on the trees. These would not be visible by day – but I noticed them at night, there were different geometric patterns of reflectors on certain trees. The team returned from the BP before I could figure a pattern and I convinced them to try do BPT on foot before heading to the bikes we had dropped. As it turns out the vegetation was pretty thick and we decided to bail hit BPT (Welch’s Grove) by my original plan – attacking it from the 90 degree bend north of the location.
When we arrived at the road bend, there were a few bikes and lots of headlamps all wandering around in the bearing of the flag. John set up base and led me on a bearing toward the control (more to your right, Ron !). We pretty much nailed it – but I left the passport with John, so I had to call him to the flag. Of course all the other teams converged when I yelled “Got it”. This always irritated my team-mates as we would find the flag and have teams converge on us. We repeated this process for the next five CP’s, (BPS, CP9, BPR, BPQ, BPP) bike to it – stop, find it, I’d yell “Found it” and all the wandering headlamps would head towards me. I was having fun with it. After getting all the CP’s and BP’s on the east and north we headed to BPN (End of fenceline). Our plan was to get BPO and N, and we ran into TCO again as we headed out to N. We decided to skip O as we had overshot the trail on the way back from N and just decided to head south towards CP10. It was here I made my only real navigation error. I missed the right turn that would have kept us on the railroad grade and instead ended up following the property boundary marked in gray (dashed) on the map. For some reason (probably because I wanted it to be true) I refused to believe I was off the grade even though all the navigation signals told me we were off. We eventually ran into Melissa from Trail and Error at Pendarvis road and we just followed her to the CP. I let her figure out the stream crossing to head to CP8. We all crossed (6 of us), rode to CP8 where there were a lot of teams either looking for CP8 or looking for BPL. It was raining at this point, though that was only a minor annoyance. We simply punched and decided to head back to the hunt station for water. Melissa told us she was going to get BPK, and though we had enough time to get it – the team decided stopping at the station for some food sounded more attractive. We met back up with Team TCO and chatted with them as we ate cold hamburgers and gel. The water at the station was a sulphur smelling stuff – but was not so bad when you added Gatorade and we had an entire container of dry Gatorade that Neal had been carrying (for me). The coolest part of this section was the howling Coyotes that were all through this forest – they added an incredible ambience to the race.
We went back to CP7 and they were pretty much out of soup. We saw Melissa again who had arrived with BPK about 5 minutes ahead of us. She took off towards SR44 and the mandatory route to CP11, CP12 and the next TA. We were about 2 minutes behind them and rode together and then apart for most of that section, eventually getting to TA2 around 5 AM. Jamie was excited as she new daylight was near and that is her favorite part of the race. The team did not want to run so we simply headed to CP13 (where once again we ran into TCO) and easily found CP13 and CPY. We headed from Y over towards CP16 when I saw some stationary lights in the general direction of CP16. We headed over to find Kyle and team-mate sleeping/resting and waiting for daylight. They got up and followed us to CP16 which was a bit tricky, though some clues from Melissa (who had just found it) were helpful. We made quick work of CP14 and CP15 with one minor mistake at CP15. Neal’s stomach was at this point producing a thick gaseous substance that made it hazardous to walk behind him. The other teams around us quickly separated themselves from us after our jokes about body parts, fluids, and functions. On the way back we picked up BPAA (pretty easy) and would have picked up BPAB – but since it would have required us either backtracking or getting our feet wet – we decided not to.
It was really turning out to be a beautiful day at this point. When we got back to the TA2 we heard that it took Jessica 3 hours to ride this section (we had 4 ½ hours) without having to navigate. The team was nervous about getting back before the deadline and we still had the unknowns of CP17 and the conditions of the trail. As it turns out CP17 was pretty easy and the mandatory orange trail route was very bike-able. Most logs were even hoppable so we had to get off our bikes only a few times. We went to 17A (a monument in the woods) and 17B – which pretty much told us to go to the main road. When we reached the main road the address given at 17B did not make sense, and the pack of 5-6 teams we were now with wandered around a bit looking for the 8700 address. I had not actually gone to the CP17B and read it – so was getting the info second hand. After questioning someone who had I decided that we would probably be going back the same way we came in so I headed for the house where we came out and sure enough it was 8700. We crossed the cow pastures and now it was just a flat out ride on pavement. Of course since there was a convenience store along the route we did have to stop and purchase “supplies”. The return trip on the Rail trail was long – but easy. The team stopped a few times to stretch, which was a bit irritating to me as all I wanted to do was hammer it in and get some real food. I breathed deep every stop and relaxed and it was not long until we got the last bonus point (easy) and biked through the finish line.
In the end we felt great and I had the best time I had ever had in a race. I can truthfully say that except for the portage (they always suck) I never suffered. Jamie also enjoyed herself immensely and even John and Neil had a great time, though I can’t claim that they did not suffer.
Of course it was once again a classic course. My only regret was that we did not have time to visit all the bonus points. Each one was very cool and enjoyable, but at the pace we were keeping there was no way to do them all.
