Pangea Sunshine Adventure Race

Here is a run-down of the Sunshine Adventure Race with Team Florida Xtreme 2; Bruce, Jim, Wanda were my team-mates. The description of the race from Pangea is at http://www.pangeaadventureracing.com/news-details/items/id-30-hour-sunshine-coverage



View Sunshine AR in a larger map
Leg 1 Bike (about 1 hours)

After a short prolog we started with a bike ride to the Alexander Springs TA. There was one checkpoint along the way - which was pretty straightforward (if not well hidden) since the clue told us where to look (Forest Road 77-4.0. The route took us north along Forest Road 77. About 2 miles of the road were very sandy, but the rest of the route was pretty easy riding.

Leg 2 - Paddle

The second leg was CP2-CP6, a nice paddle up and back on Alexander Springs. This had a few navigation challenges, mostly posed by CP3 which required following a vegetation boundary on foot. The other CP's were visible from the water and it was a simple matter of following our location on the river. We helped a few other teams as we worked on this section.


View Sunshine AR in a larger map

Leg 3 - Orienteering

After biking to the Mud Pond TA we were given an orienteering map for the next section (CP7-CP13). This was the equivalent of a orienteering blue course, and this type of orienteering is my specialty. It still took nearly 3 hours and in the heat of the day (in a heat wave of 95 degrees) left us nearly spent. We were pretty motivated as we hit the bikes to start the next leg as we had passed a few teams in the orienteering and were now running in 3rd place (behind Odyssey and Green Paw).


View Sunshine AR in a larger map

Leg 5 - Mountain Bike

This leg was essentially the Ocala Paisley Mountain bike loop. I had already measured the distances between the CP's and with the odometer it was pretty easy to go from CP to CP. As we approached the cross over trail the team was hurting from the heat. I decided to cross and get CP19 which would allow us to use the main forest road for most of the return trip. We headed south to CP16, CP17, and CP18. At CP18 we headed out to SR42 and then took Paisley Road up to the power lines. It was getting dark now, we dropped the bikes at Paisley Road and trekked to CP20 and back. This may not have been the fastest, but riding on the easy road gave us a chance to recover some. We finished this leg, headed to Mud Pond TA where we refilled our water and headed back to the Alexander Springs TA.

Look closely - the bike route is on the map

View Sunshine AR in a larger map

Leg 5 - Paddle

We were expecting a long challenging paddle and we got it. It was dark (we entered the water around 10 PM) and there were lots of gator eyes staring back at us. Since we had 2 team-mates that were hurting we decided to put all 4 of us in a single canoe rather than push it with 2 boats. It was a pretty eventful paddle, we had alligators the entire way, fish kept jumping into our boat (including one catfish which was pretty strange). Most of the fish never cleared edge of the boat and ended up flopping back into the water, but the few that made it gave us a lot of fun. The entrance to Get Out Creek was pretty tricky - but the creek was pretty awesome paddling. Once we reached the St. Johns River it was pretty straightforward up until CP28, we missed the turn into the small channel and had to attack it from the south where we entered Highland Park Run. We did find the channel from the Highland Park Run side, and it was completely covered in thick weeds (which we bashed through) and had more alligators than I have ever seen - nearly all of them small. We finished the paddle around 4:30 and were back out on the long trek back ot the Alexander Springs TA by 5 AM.


View Sunshine AR in a larger map

Leg 6 - Trek

This was a long trek (easily 10 miles), but it was cool and we were pretty much recovered from the heat of the previous day, in fact Wanda was actually cold. We were tired and as it turned out we punched the wrong CP on the trek (punching a Sport Course CP that was located very close to the Elite CP). It was already hot when we got back to the Alexander TA and got back on our bikes. This time we had to do the same bike loop as before - but only half of it (we turned back at the half-way cutoff). We were hurting pretty bad from heat as we got to the Mud Pond TA.

Leg 7 - Orienteering

As we received the O-Map we were told it was about a 2 1/2 hour course. I figured we could do it in 1 hour if we did not have heat and fatigue issues, but we also had to be concerned with a long ride back to the start/finish from the TA. We decided to do 3 of the 4 CP's which turned out OK and have us plenty of time to return to the S/F. We new we had a pretty strong lock on 3rd place as long as we did not "blow up" the team in the heat. The 3 CP's were pretty easy, but we were having heat issues and we got on the bikes to head back.

Leg 8 - Bike

Jim put Wanda on tow and we knew we had plenty of time to complete this. I was hurting, but knew I was going to be fine for the final ride. We picked up CP40 on the return trip and arrived with nearly 40 minutes to spare in 3rd.

Overview

Despite the heat this was an incredible race, it had just the right amount of navigation challenge. It also had one of the most spectacular paddles I have done, Alexander to Get Out Creek to the St. Johns - it was simply one of those paddles you would never get to do, unless you were in an adventure race. If you have questions as to how we approached any leg of the race - post a comment I will answer.