Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Atlantic Coast Conquest 2008

Atlantic Coast Conquest 2008 – 30 hour race
Team SWIM Photos Courtesy of Team Race Photos

Well –Team SWIM is really made up of Rob and Sheri, however when they ended up with a conflict for the St. Anthony’s triathlon – I decided to take over and put together a team. The weekend before (yes one week) I called up race partners Chris Xiste (partner for LEACH 2007) and Jim Levine (USARA Nationals 2007) and Jamie Sheriff (toughest woman alive) and we had a team.


Preparing the maps, notice the help of my team-mates!

We got our maps and passports at 7:30 AM and were told to be ready for the 9 AM start. We would be starting with the Short race (4 hour race) but splitting up after a short run. The 1 ½ hours proved to be ample time to prepare maps as most of the CP’s were marked. After a 20 odd mile (2 ½ hours) off-road bike loop most of the teams hit the water together for the epic paddle. Though the paddle distance was less than 20 miles, the challenging navigation and one really tricky checkpoint made my list of epic paddles, of course we would get a chance to do it twice. The wildlife was spectacular with multiple Bald Eagles and even a flock of Roseate Spoonbill’s that flew right over the tops of our boats. And of course alligators! We took a little extra time to get lost, we made strategic portages, we worked with the other team near us (Eco-Choice) and finally arrived at the Destination at Jim Creek around 6 PM. We arrived at TA just behind Eco-Choice and left out on bikes just before the arrival of Florida Xtreme. We knew we had waning light that we wanted to most of since the bike ride was all single track which becomes exponentially more difficult in the dark.



Chris and Jamie Paddling Hard



We did lots of portaging



View Larger Map
These are the lakes that we crossed at the start and finish, try zooming in on the channel connecting the top lake to the others, tht was one tough part.



The bike ride went essentially smooth and we were making excellent time. This is also a team strength and we expected to make some progress on the field in this section. However tough terrain and aggressive night biking sometimes do not mix. Jamie sheared her derailleur of her bike. It was then I realized I had removed my chain tool for repairs a few races ago and had not returned it to my bike pouch. Of course nobody else on the team had one either – so we ended up duct taping the derailleur so the chain would still thread and moving to a bike push. We had one section where we passed within 3 miles of the TA – so we headed in to do some bike repairs. We headed back out and decided to pick up the CP’s we missed in reverse order. Under the 528 underpass we ran into FL XTreme, they looked strong – we continued on and completed the loop. My best guess was we lost an hour to the broken bike parts. Chris must have fallen 10 times, I broke a spoke (and had to release my back brake for the rest of the ride), but the most spectacular wreck was Jimmy who endoed and shattered his helmet.

Link to cracked helmet

At the next TA we fueled up and headed out on a 6 mile trek just behind Eco-Choice. FL Xtreme had not arrived yet, but did come in right as we were leaving on the short 6 mile trek. The first CP appeared to be misplaced near the edge of a pond with a ton of beady red eyes. We located the CP and I could see the lights of Eco-Choice across the pond so I shouted to them the correct location. The trek had some great bushwhacking and we were overtaken by a fast-running Team FL Xtreme with about 2 miles to go. After they were safely ahead we moved into a jog. I wanted to start the next section without the other teams too close. FL Xtreme was heading out just as we arrived at the TA. Even though the race director said the route was easy – for some reason I felt it might be challenging.

It was now around midnight and the bike ride was pretty cool. We were in an open area along the river following cow tracks (much like single track). I zoned out and forgot to measure the distance from one CP to the next (24 to 25) and ended up overshooting and having to head back after locating CP 26. Chris fell a few more times in the sand – we lost count of the falls in this section. As we arrived in the next TA for the final trek (12 miles) we learned that none of the other teams had arrived. We started out with a solid jog but went to a walk as we entered the woods. We attempted one bonus point here – that proved to be extremely difficult in the dark, so we bailed. We bushwhacked essentially all the way to CP27 where we ran into Team FL XTreme again. We decided to work together for CP 28, 29, and 30 – which turned out to be a good choice. The 2 mile jog to CP28 was refreshing, but then the real bushwhack started. We first crossed a cypress swamp in the dark which was relatively easy to the terrain we crossed as we merged into wiregrass and tall fennel. The weeds were so thick that Chris simply dived into them to push them down so we could cross. It seemed like forever until we reached CP29, and the sun did come up while we pushed across the swamp. It would be CP30 that would bring all the teams together. The map showed this being roughly ¼ mile south of CP29 ( a later look at an aerial shot showed we were way off).

Eco-choice showed up while we were looking, and so did Team Big Daddy’s on bike. It turns out they had some issues with the paddle and had been “short-coursed”. We never did find CP30 even though I tried for about another 20 minutes after FL XTreme bailed out and headed to the boats. I had calculated that we would need to leave in boats by 9 AM to make the cutoff (3:15 PM) for the finish. We left at 9:15 AM behind FL Xtreme and just before Eco-Choice.


View Larger Map
Just south of the lettering for Tossahatchee where the small creek meets the power lines (distinct Northeast to Southwest cut (try scrolling the map to see) is where the paddle take-out was. If you want a real challenge try scrolling the map and following our course north back to Loughman Lake. Good Luck !

The first part of the paddle was beautiful, both Jimmy and Jamie were having a hard time staying awake. We caught up with FL Xtreme just before SR50 and saw them take the west river route, we chose to take the east route. After a few more miles Team Eco-Choice overtook us and we paddled together. Our team, though good paddlers was not able to keep pace with John and Rod who are an extremely strong paddling team. I was focusing very hard on tracking our route through this tricky section of river – but I let my attention go for about 5 minutes and the next thing I knew, I had no idea where we were. Luckily I was able to use a treeline in the distance to re-orient and achieve what I though was the main channel, but we had lost time and we were in a false channel. After 15 more minutes of going in circles I finally called on the team and convinced them we simply needed to pick a straight line and portage. This time it worked and we emerged east of the treeline and in the correct lake.

The next mistake here was believing the map that showed a northern passage to Lake Loughman. This passage did not exist (I confirmed later by looking at online aerials) and we debated more portaging or doubling back. We selected to double back and confirmed the correct channel by seeing an airboat passing through it. Now completely back on track we were moving fast. We could see the next CP (the tower at the south end of Loughman Lake) and we pushed towards it. Two challenges remained one was traversing the channel between the two lakes with a strong current and shallow water. This was so bad we simply jumped out and pulled the boats along. The next one was crossing Loughman Lake into a strong wind with only 20 minutes remaining. As we emerged into Loughman Lake I could see FL Xtreme about halfway through the lake. Our goal at this point was beating the time cutoff. We hammered this paddle, into the wind, leaped out of the boats on the other side and ran into the finish line with 1 minute to spare.



Jimmy and Ron hammering to make the cutoff

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Food for Racing

One of the most common question I get about racing (besides sleep strategy) is what do I eat. This is pretty easily answered - but first you must understand that you will

- Burn 500-800 calories per hour
- Eat 200-300 calories per hour

in at typical 24-40 hour race. So to gage your eating you simply need to figure out how many calories you'll need for a leg; say 10 hours * 300 calories = 3000 calories.

Next you need to pack these calories. The easiest way is to simply put 1000 calories of food in a plastic bag and grab one bag for every 3-4 hours.

OK - so now what do you put in the bags. First, I like a flask of hammer gel with me on every leg, so that goes separate from the bags and is refilled every TA. In the bags, I first want something crunchy - granola bars are my favorite. I like some fruit, mostly apples and bananas. I like some meat - usually beef jerky, hot dogs, and vienna sausages. Then your typical candy bars, energy bars, and other assorted bars. Finally sandwiches; PBJ, Ham, Turkey - anything on bread - though I prefer mine on bagels. These are all mixed in the bags.

Next mix it up - the idea is simple - nothing looks good to eat when you are exhausted - but hopefully you'll find something palatable if you give yourself a good selection.

As for fluids - I always carry some mixed drink in my hydration bladder (usually Gatorade), and on the bike at least one of my bottles will be pure water. The idea is to get as many calories as I can from fluids.

For those who want to lose weight (which is not usually adventure racers), I have lost more than 10 pounds in a single race and this was not hydration loss. Even with eating as much as you can bear - you will still run a calorie deficit of possibly 400 calories per hour. In 10 hours this is 4000 calories, which is nearly 2 pounds ! Now extend this over a multi-day race (like the 3 day Florida Coast to Coast and it is an easy calculation to see how you can lose 10 pounds.