BEAR 2007 Adventure Race – Team TCO
When I found out that the BEAR would be held this year in Guana Reserve (north of St. Augustine) instead of Hanna Park (where it had been for the previous 8 years) I decided that this was too good an opportunity to miss; a classic race in a new location. I had a little bit of experience with Guana – we had passed though it in the 2007 Coast to Coast and I remembered it as an incredible area.
Greg and I are both veterans of lots of adventure races so we simply decided to throw our gear together and give this one a go. The pre-race was at 7:45 Am and contained the usual safety and course items and then we were off. To split up the pack before the initial bike ride, we had a special test requiring us to assemble mandatory gear at posts about 1/8 mile down a trail – carrying the team-mates back and forth. At the completion Greg and I hit the bikes mid-pack and started to the first bike leg. It was mostly wonderful and fast double track – with no real navigation (which did not stop me from making one wrong turn) to the coasteering (with bikes) section.
Coasteering (or coastaleering) is simply hand-railing a coastal section to a checkpoint. This first part of the coast was rideable, but soon mud and oyster made it into a bike push. As we continued downed trees made for a nice maze of over and under carrying the bikes. Greg and I saved times saved time by hoisting the bikes onto our backs and simply walking though the waist deep water off the coast. The section was really neat – especially with the light wind and shade through most of it. After coming to the end of the coasteering we were back on the bikes and we hammered the short ride back to the TA.
Finish
Viking: 0915
BAMF 0916
2 stooges 0917
Jax #1 0919
Jax #2 0919
TCO: 0920
We got the instruction for the next portion of the race (in the BEAR – you never know what the next leg will be). It was about a mile portage and what looked like a 4 mile paddle. I had forgotten my portage wheels at home (which would have saved us some time and effort) – but we took that in stride and headed out. A wrong turn on the portage gave us an extra five minutes, and we hit the water about 10-15 teams back. We could see the lead teams in the distance and Greg was worried about being so far back in the race at this point. That did not stop us from hammering the paddle – though. We had a pretty fast boat (Kevlar Pamlico 160) – which was perfect for the water conditions. As we round the point of the Tolomato River and headed into the Guana River there were only 4 teams in front of us – and they were in range. The Guana River was beautiful, calm, and glassy and we exited the water 3 minutes behind the lead team and made the TA in a close second (around 11 AM).
Stage Finish
Jax #1 1106
TCO 1110
BAMF 1114
Viking 1114
It was now getting quite hot out, and the next section was a trek. We quickly ran the roughly 1 ½ mile to the first CP and then I misread the map and headed us due west to the next CP along a vague trail (where following the main trail would have been a direct route). We did come back out to the main trail, but then being in the front I took one trail too early to the west again towards the Capo Creek Tower. As we got to Capo Creek (and no tower) – I spent a few minutes getting my bearings and reading the turns in the Creek, realizing we were about 300 meters south of the tower. Our choices were to double back and use the north bearing trail – or simply punch north through the marsh along Capo Creek. Anyone who knows our team – knows the bushwhack was our route, and the race directors who had been watching teams come in along the (drivable) trail to the tower from the east – were surprised to see us jogging along game trails in ankle deep water in the marsh. We had lost a few places and about 15 minutes in our unique route choice. It was very hot, and sandy, and no shade on the 2+ mile run back to the TA and we simply used speedwalking and dead-mans trot back to the TA.
Stage Finish
BAMF 1210
Jax #1 1214
Viking 1216
Bonham 1219
Jax#2 1228
TCO 1231
I really had no idea of our place at this point, I though there were 3-4 teams in front of us, but not far and we were entering a long bike leg. Greg and I are both strong bikers – and this looked to be a very long ride on hard sandy trails. We headed out onto the single track section of the ride and were close with 2 other teams – who seemed to have some local knowledge of the area. It was cooling off and it was obvious we were going to get some heavy rain (for which we were all thankful). The roads were ride-able sand simply requiring some hard peddling to hold a 6-10 mph pace.
Looking at the map I noticed 2 parallel roads and there were forest roads going back and forth between them every ½ mile or so. We cut over to the parallel road which turned out to be worse – so we headed back over to Hammock Road, and were now along – but we could see tracks from about 6-10 bikes in front of us. The instruction had us turning at the intersection of McNeil’s Road and North Road – and there was some uncertainty as to the exact location with the large number of forest roads – but this intersection turned out to be marked with a race sign. As we made the turn we saw 2 teams directly in front of us and we rode with them for the loop back for the next 2 miles.
I had been feeling bad during the start of the ride, but I knew that with cooling off in the rain and a few miles of riding I would feel better. Since most of my rides in races are longer than 6 hours (12 hours not being uncommon) I am used to pacing and also started feeling stronger as we continued. We had passed 4 teams in the loop and as we exited and headed back south on Hammock Road we only had one CP to find and I had only one team unaccounted for in front of us. We saw them coming from the final CP, though they looked to be hurting some. We hammered the ride back to the TA – Greg was having some problems with his back and could not get comfortable on the bike. I was feeling the best I had felt the entire race and was really starting to get into my “groove” – which is typical after 6-8 hours of racing.
As we came into the TA there was one team in the TA working on the puzzle of the bike leg (we had to spell a word with the letters along the way – G R D I A N) – Greg and transitioned quickly and headed out for the next leg – a paddle. I gave the team a little hint as we went out, and I think they had it solved as we portaged our boat for the paddle on Lake Ponte Vedra (about 1/3 mile portage). We hit the water, it was cool and cloudy, and the paddle was short. At this point I thought we might be in the lead – we were both feeling well and there was no way anyone would catch us on the water.
Stage Finish
BAMF 1500
TCO 1520
Viking 1520
Wiseguys 1529
We paddled to a CP at the water’s edge were we had a logic puzzle to solve and then a short orienteering loop. After solving the logic puzzle – Greg noticed there were 2 boats already at the location. As we headed out on the orienteering – Team BAMF (made up of Jacksonville Beach life guards) came up the road, having completed the orienteering and starting pulling the boats out to the water. I was not sure of how long the orienteering was – but they had at least that as a lead on us. As it turned out, we moved through the O course in about 12 minutes. As we headed back onto the water towards the TA – we passed a lot of teams heading out. We were second across the line, about 10 minutes behind BAMF – with another group of teams 10-15 minutes behind us. Having the close competition really made the race that much more enjoyable. We finished in just over 8 hours – though I don’t remember the exact time.
Finish
BAMF 1630
TCO 1640
Wiseguys 1651
Vikings 1655
A special thanks to all the teams we had fun racing with and against. It was good seeing “Wise Guys” again. Also Team BAMF was fun racing against, even though we never saw them until the end of the race. Thanks to the folks at Performance Multi-sports for putting on another high quality and well designed and challenging race.
