Seminole County AR

This was going to be a nice race for me, for one it was only a 6 hour race and also the fact that it was pretty close drive - meaning I did not have to be up at 3 AM to drive to the race. I know most of the racers can sympathize with that long morning drive to the race. It was going to be hot. Team Florida Xtreme was racing as a 4 person team with Jeff, Bruce, Marghi, and me. And it was going to be hot.

Usually I give a recap of the race, but instead I'll go over some tips and some things that will hopefully help out other teams.

Paddling - The boat Marghi and I were paddling had a real tendency to go right, of course that made turning left sometimes difficult. That does happens some times - you get a boat with "issues". Since Marghi and I had lots of paddling experience we were still able to make the boat move pretty well. I was paddling in the back and normally that person handles all the steering. You always want to use positive strokes - typically the draw stroke to steer the boat. Only as a last resort should you use the paddle as a rudder as that slows the boat and you will need to make up all the speed that you lost. It is worthwhile to get out there and practice steering if you are going to be sitting in the back of the boat. In the case of the boat Marghi and I were paddling I needed her to help me steer on almost every left turn - meaning we both spent a lot of time paddling on the right side of the boat.



Teamwork - For the most part we work great as a team. In this race we had one lapse - CP4. We bypassed it on the downstream paddle and hit it on the return trip. As we arrived there were quite a few teams both there and following us. CP4 had 2 choices, one was to do it as an out and back, the other was to punch through back to the main channel. My plan was to do it as an out and back as I was pretty sure the channel was clogged past the CP. As we approached I could also see the terrain to the south of the river was open flood plain - so I called for the other boat to pull ashore about 100 yards from the CP so we could run to the CP. Jeff and Bruce did not hear me and continued to paddle into the channel - while Marghi and I pulled to the shore and I ran to the edge of the river where I needed to cross a small muddy channel to get to the island and the CP. Bruce was behind me with the punch card and as I looked out into the water there was Jeff in the boat right next to the water.


View Seminole County AR 2011 in a larger map

We got the CP quickly -  Marghi was in the weeds just past the small entrance to the channel. Jeff wanted to call her in and go straight through the channel, while I wanted him to get Bruce who had by now punched the CP and head back out. I knew the main river was open and I was worried about possible lost time trying to push straight through. A quick debate and we were headed back out and around.

Even though getting  CP4 took under 10 minutes, we did have a breakdown of team communication - and we did recover quickly. In this case it neither of us really knew which choice was better. For a short while we looked very "un-coordinated". Having raced for many years I often see team that debate route choices, food, what ot do with a hurting team-mate, etc... The point in AR - because you are on the clock is to make a choice as a team quickly and move on. Some times those choices are tough - like when the navigator is not sure of where they are and you may have to go back to the last point where you knew your location. Some times you have to decide to stop and rest a suffering team-mate. In all of these situations - you need to be able to function as a team to make the decision and do what you decide and this gets harder as you have more team-mates. Also every member of the team needs to feel comfortable asking questions. I do sometimes feel irritated when a team-mate questions my navigation - but I also have had them catch mistakes enough times to trust them and listen. The more you race together the better you get to know your team-mates strengths and weaknesses.

I also noticed on the bike and trek legs a lot of teams biking and running with the team all spread out - one person pushing and the other lagging yards behind. Remember the team is no faster in any leg than their slowest team-mate. When biking this is especially important, it is good to learn how to work in a bike line and also how to tow a team-mate. While on foot you can tow also, and a real help is to carry the pack of a struggling team-mate. When a team-mate starts falling behind it is always a good idea to drop back and check on them and offer to help. You should also check hydration (especially when hot) and general physical condition.

Biking today was pretty sandy. In these conditions it is sometimes smart to have the strongest biker in the lead to determine the best line. All the other bikers should follow that line.

Today - because it was hot I brought along dishtowels for the team. I keep them on ice until the trek and then we wrap them around our necks above the pack to help keep cool. In this race because there was a ice cooler on the trail - we were able to fill them up with ice and they kept us cool for almost the entire second half of the trek leg. That worked out pretty well.

Navigation - The navigation today was relatively easy for an elite course. The challenging CP's all had obvious attack points. If you have a question on how to attack any CP please ask - I'll post a response.

For a great mapped break-down of the course from Nature Calls - see http://windermereroadies.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9526 

Florida Sunshine AR

Tim from Green Paw did a great write-up of the Florida Sunshine, it is at

http://www.teamgreenpaw.com/AR/News/Entries/2011/6/5_Florida_Sunshine_Race_Review.html


When we finished the long trek back to the bikes at morning 2 we were within 20 minutes of them, however we had mis-punched one control on the trek leading there, so even though we did not know it we were down one control.

The heat by that time had started to become a factor with all of us. The last orienteering leg was a slog-fest for us. Nobody could move faster than a medium walk and I decided to bail on the last orienteering control (we had 3rd place pretty much wrapped up at that point) so we did not risk going over time at the finish.

We all appreciate all the folks who appreciate these write-ups. I'd love to see more folks come out for the 30 hour race format - yes it is tough, but it is also doable. I hope the write-ups help everyone get prepared.

Also - the next race is the SCAR on Sunday. One team will be running a live feed of the race at http://www.runsinthewoods.com/?page_id=20 you'll be able to track them real time and view a twitter feed.