Swamp Stomp 2008 Part I

As always the swamp stomp did not disappoint, there was plenty of stomping and plenty of swamping. I would be racing for the first time with Team SWIM (Sarasota Wellness and Internal Medicine) My team-mates Sheri and Rob were both doctors, so now worries about needing medical help. Greg filled in at the last minute for a hurt Jamie, who was filling in for a hurt Melissa – but we had our four racers.

The race started with a prolog, that was simply a short run along the river to a point and back to get in the boats. We made it to the boats with the lead pack and started up the Myakka River. The control points heading north looked pretty easy, the first one CP1 requiring us to hop out of the boats and go to the top of this really cool double tower with a spring suspension bridge between the towers. We made some serious time there and it was us and EMS in the boats and heading up river. As we got through a winding section of the river I noticed we had missed a small river shortcut and made a mental note to use that on the way back. The lead teams all regrouped as we hit BP1 and BP2 as we group searched for these. The course was made up of mandatory (CP) and bonus (BP) controls – though we had decided early on we were going for them all.

BP3 looked like it would be a pretty challenging control as it was located a good distance off the top of Upper Myakka Lake. As we beached the boat, Rob flushed a 6 foot gator right into me, so I had to do a little dance around to avoid an unpleasant encounter in the shallow water – it did get the heart racing. We lost a little time here as we hit the “described” vague trail near BP3 and went the wrong way. We could see that the lead pack had made about 5-10 minutes on us.



The paddle to the BP4 and BP5 was really neat, though the river was narrow with a incredibly strong current (we were going upriver). We had a little bit of bumper boats jostling with the returning lead teams - . The weather was now warming up and we were paddling hard to catch up with the lead team, we had gotten all the CP’s and BP’s on the way upriver so now it was simply head back and push. CP6 was a take-out and a short orienteering. We nailed each point easily – bushwhacking across the cow pastures. Rob and I each had a set of maps and the double orienteering was working well – we passed a lot of teams in this section. As we hit the boats – the first disaster struck. Sheri looked for the passport only to realize that she must have dropped it. We were not sure what penalty we would get – but we were sure that it would be painful. We had done all the BP’s and would probably not be able to get credit (except for the manned ones). Ouch.


Here is a picture of Sheri just before we lost the passport - yep that is it in her hands. Too bad she did not hold it up to Mark taking the photos. We had gotten all the CPS's and BPS's on the passport.



Here is an even closer look - hmmm looks like it is all punched...

We paddled back in and transitioned for what would be a long trek (25-30 miles) and told Jessica about the passport. We would await the decision on the penalty for the loss of the passport.



The trek started out strong - it was 2:16 PM and we were right where I like to be in the race (EMS was leading having left at 1:48). We caught up with the lead pack (the first teams had about a 20 minute lead at the TA) that was having trouble with the first CP on the trek. This was our section – we had 2 solid navigators and we used that to our advantage. We made a clockwise loop easily nailing every CP. As it started to get dark – Greg started to really hurt. I knew that we were in trouble. We finally made our first mistake at BP12 – over-running the turn into the swamp (it was dark). We doubled back and found it pretty easily after that thanks to thesolid trail left by the teams in front of us. We had had dry shoes up to that point, but BP12 was a slog in knee deep water. It also had a BP12+ that was shown on a map at BP12. The direct route to BP12+ looked too thick so we went around – but gave up after a short search. Greg was now really hurting and was having a hard time keeping up. We decided to get back and skipped BP13 – we knew that would take us out of the hunt, but we also knew that Greg might have to drop, and we had lost the passport. Rob put Greg on a tow rope (we had about 10 miles to go) and we made it back to the TA around midnight. Greg dropped at this point and we sat him in a chair and headed out for Paddle #2. Any normal human we would have put on an IV – but Greg is strong and he would recover with rest.



And then there were 3 – to be continued….