The Bubba Goat is an orienteering that is different from a standard orienteering as it is a mass start and it is also very LONG. The 2007 Bubba Goat starting at Kelly Park advertised a race distance of 17.5 km which means that we would be running at least 20-25 km for the entire race. As we lined up at the start my team-mate Jamie, and another adventure racer Nick decided we would work together on the course. This outlines some of the methods (with the map attached) how we handled many of the controls (24 total) in this long race.
S-1, 1-2: These were both quite easy with obvious attack points.
2-3: As this was a relatively large feature we paralleled the E-w road to the south. The sparse features were relatively easy.
3-4: Pretty much due south using the small depression just south of the road to verify direction.
4-5: Decided to head south and use the trail which allowed for some pretty fast running.
5-6: Back to the trail, since the marked vegetation boundary was visible from the trail, an obvious cut across.
6-7: Again hit the trail, used the depression as an attack point to diagonal across. Once hitting the Florida trail we used the open (orange) areas to simply guide us to the control.
7-8: Basically bushwhack to the trail to the south. Use the depression on the trail to attack to the south.
8-9: Trail and attack from the saddle. Since it was so subtle (the saddle) this was a bit challenging.
9-10: South to the trail, then use the depression on the edge of the trail as an attack. The first attack was unsuccessful so we decided to double back. On the way back I headed south to attempt to find the open area south of 10, found it and then used it to attack 10 from the due south. This time successfully.
10-11: This was a long trail run with a long attack point (rough open on trail, with one cross trail), however was on a large feature that made the approach quite easy.
12-15: These were all pretty easy with obvious attack points, we nailed each one. 13 would have been the most challenging because the terrain was thick, but it was due north of the visible hilltop making it easy to find by a reverse bearing.
15-16: The attack off the trail after the shallow depression worked well. The objective was to find the hole in the green thickets and attack from there. We nailed it.
16-17: The original plan was to attack from the west (going around) , the bend in the trail was obvious enough that we diagonaled across to the re-entrant (which was very shallow).
17-18: After hitting the trail (too far north) we used the depression again, however we missed the flag too far to the north. The backstop (N-S trail) gave us a nice attack, the distinct tree west of the trail south of the berms.
18-19: This was pretty subtle terrain after leaving the trail. We got a bit lucky with our attack off the hilltop, but we did hit the flag almost dead-on.
19-20: This was pretty easy from the road intersection attack point.
20-21: Jamie and Nick cutoff and headed back here, Jamie needed to get back (after 3 hours of continuous running) for a tennis match. Because the rules allowed us to skip 2 controls, Nick started for CP23, CP24 and the finish to meet his wife and kids. CP21 was essentially a handrail along the open (orange) area.
21-22: I was getting pretty tired at this point. The thickets from pretty obvious and the trail bend south of CP4 was a pretty good attack.
22-23: After leaving CP22 I hit the trail heading east and ran back into Nick who had overshot CP23 and was coming back around for a second attack. Unfortunately I was paying more attention to this and missed the north trail cutoff and had to double back. After that we used the subtle green “blob” as our attack (and it was very subtle), but we did nail the control.
23-24: This was really easy, but it did require that we run back to the gate and then back to 24 adding a lot of distance to both Nick and my tired legs.
In the end we both finished in about 4 hours (nearly exactly). As it turned out, Nick and I were the only two to finish the entire course and I was the only one to get all the controls. It was a great preparation for adventure racing and the upcoming races the next two weeks (the LEACH and the Turkey Burn) – watch this space for details on both these races to come.
Also for the Bubba Results - they are at http://www.floridaorienteering.org/results/2007-bubba.htm
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