Lighterknot 2010

This was a day made for racing, and the Pangea Lighterknot was just the race to make it all fun. It was early morning meeting team-mate Dave Brault at 4 AM to drive up to Princess Place for the race. We got the maps about 6:15 and settled into my truck to plan our route. We expected the race would begin with a prolog and it did; 3 bike orienteering points and 3 foot orienteering points. Each of these took roughly 20 minutes and we were the 3rd team off the prolog and headed for the paddle.

Once we hit the water we headed south towards the saltwater marsh and maze of canals that had CP2, 3 and 4. We stayed on the east bank to get CP2, which was a good strategy. Continuing south to look for a cut across channel to get across the marsh turned out to be a bit more paddling than if we had simply doubled back and used the channel to the north of CP2 (see aerial map). We also overshot the best channel and had to double back a bit just to get to a channel that would take us west towards CP3. We arrived at CP3 just behind Primal Instinct (Jim and Carolyn). We snagged CP4 and were quickly back out to the main channel for the open water paddling. Once we hit the open water it was simply a sprint (really not much navigation required) to get CP6 (out and around the northern peninsula), CP5 - across the mouth of Pellicer Creek in a small creek, and the farthest control CP7 (in a small shallow ox-bow). We hammered the paddle back and were the second team out of the water just behind Primal Instinct.

At the TA we simply dropped our paddle gear. I had pulled off my extra clothes (it was chilly at the start) while running from the paddle to the TA, and all we had to do was drop our extra gear and get the next passport for the trek. We chose to trek second to use the cooler morning weather to help our run, and also to prevent having to change from run to bike shoes. I believe we left just after 11 AM. We had pre-planned our trek to do CP11, 13, 12, 10, 9, 14, 15, and 16 in that order. This appeared to be the best route and though it was a little less conservative than the reverse route - I felt confident we would be able to navigate the terrain without issue. We settled into a low jog, we were a couple of minutes behind Primal Instinct out of the TA. We had about 3-4 teams (including Florida Xtreme) that were also just minutes behind us. The Google Map attached to this blog has the route we took and some thoughts on the navigation.

All of the controls were relatively easy, the only challenging terrain was the creek crossing approaching CP14 from the east, and a short bushwack east of the power lines as we headed to the N-S trail we would use to get to CP16. CP16  was the most challenging of the CP's - requiring the use of the 2 spurs to center yourself in the re-entrant before plunging into the palmettos. We made the jog back to the TA and were the first team to arrive. We wasted no time switching into bike shoes and yelled bye to Greg who was giving the pre-race to the Sport teams.

I figured we probably had a 2-3 minute lead on Primal Instinct at this point as they had not arrived at the TA - though I knew that Jim would easily navigate the foot section and our difference in times would simply be the difference in pace and a few course routes being optimized. We started off the bike heading for CP19. This was a logistics error - since CP18 was a simple out and back on hard packed surface we should have hit it first and then headed for CP19 - though it was a close choice and if the trail from CP17 to CP18 was a good surface, that would have been a better route (it was NOT a good surface). The first part of the bike CP19 - CP20 - CP21 went very fast as the controls were close and the riding good. It was a long route from CP21 ro CP22, but the riding was also good along the loop road. From CP22 we headed to the pavement of Old Kings Road and the entrance to the Florida Agricultural Museum - still good riding, and picked up CP23 easily. After crossing the land bridge our trails turned into sand. We dropped into a low gear and chunked through the sand - using the edges of the horse trails to try to get solid traction under our tires. This held a risk as there were lots of cacti and sand-spurs on the sides - so you always have the risk of a flat tire. CP24 to CP17 was pure punishment for our earlier pace. We did ride most of it - but not much faster than we could have run it. I was hoping that as we left CP17 and took the trail towards CP18 we would get some solid ground. This was the Hominy Branch trail and it had been thoroughly chopped up by all the horse traffic. We could still ride, but not very fast. I did stop to help a lost team just before we hit CP18, they were thoroughly lost and it was the right thing to do.

From CP18 we pushed at 100% towards the finish line just seconds after Primal Instinct came in from the other direction. They had gotten CP18 first and even though the route from CP17 to the finish was also sandy - it was much shorter. They had reached CP17 seconds behind us and had made up the time finish from that last control finish line.

The thrill of the competition made the entire race worthwhile, not to mention the awesome course and terrain. This was the second (sprint) race in a row with a finish that was less than a minute gap. I was quite happy and that was made better by the good food that we had at the finish also (salad and pasta tastes pretty good after a race). I also felt that I was fully recovered from the Coast to Coast that was just 2 weeks earlier (58+ hours of continuous racing).  Next up is the Ragnar Relay and the Turkey Burn - both exciting races. See you out there! Here are some video scenes from the race, and a map of the course (I'll also scan my race map and post it).


View Pangea Lighterknot 2010 in a larger map

Google Map - map of the course with our route choices and notes.