Good 'Nuff for First Place - Christmas in Christmas Adventure Race

Greg at Pangea surprised all the teams by announcing he would be setting a no-frills, half price adventure race in Christmas Florida - or Tosohatchee State Preserve to be exact. Instead of having 2 categories (elite and sport) like a usual race - this was going to be a combined sport and elite race lasting 3 1/2 hours total. Since I did not have anything planned for that weekend I called Erik and formed a team, we then added Michael Moule who was in town and finally a 4th racer Jeanette Ciesla who was moving up from sport to elite class for the first time.

We all met and like most sport races you have to draw to see what your first discipline or race segment would be - I drew blue and that meant paddling. We had been looking at the competition - and I knew that Team Good'Nuff for Dad's Sake was likely to be the toughest competition out there - and they also drew a blue marble meaning they would be starting on the same leg we would.

The Boat TA was about a 3 mile bike ride. We were going to be using our own paddles so we also had to rig up the paddles to carry. Since Mike had been marking the maps he would navigate this section. I had been able to look at the maps long enough to memorize most of this section - so I would be able to help. We put Jeanette on the tow behind Erik for the ride out to the Boat TA. Even though we are all pretty fast bikers, Good'Nuff had a couple minute lead heading into the water. We easily found CP11, but all the teams converged as we got to CP12. This was a bit tricky as it was indicated on a cypress tree and there were lots of these around. It was also pretty well hidden around the back side. Also to get to the tree one racer had to get into the waist high water to wade around to the back side. I found the control - and indicated to Michael where it was - all the other teams converged at that time, but Michael was quick in and out of the water and we were quickly paddling back to Jim Creek. We also passed an airboat full of tourists in Jim Creek which was pretty cool.

This was such a cool area I did create a little bit of video of the section.

We were still just behind Good'Nuff as we took off on the bikes back to the transition area. The next leg would be a bike leg so there really was not a transition - we simply switched passports and headed off on the bike. We quickly passed Good'Nuff looking for CP16 just short of the control location. This was pure single track biking and pretty awesome stuff at that. Here are the north trails on the map and a little video of what the biking looked like.

As we came out of the trails and headed back to the main TA, Good'Nuff went straight past the main TA and we headed left to head by the Bike TA and make a little cutoff to CP15. This set us up nicely for CP17 and a single track ride to WP2 and CP18. We arrived back in the TA and as we were switching shoes we saw Good'Nuff heading into the TA, we had maybe a 2 minute lead at this point. I recorded the next section on video. Here is the map of the trek.

The only place we really had issues was CP5 and we had a lot of issues there. Pretty much all the teams had issues with this control and we did use a bit of teamwork to figure it out. In the end we used a benchmark that was south of the control to eventually locate it. (This is the BM mark on the map.

After we found the CP we knew we were at least 5 minutes behind Good'Nuff - so we decided to run all out for the remainder of the trek. After we left CP5 we were running along the form line (unmapped) towards CP6 but we knew we needed to be on the trail, so we had a very short bushwhack over to the trail and located it quickly on the trail. CP4 was pretty easy except that it was slightly off the trail and not easy to see - but with 4 sets of eyes we located it quickly. CP1 was very straightforward - simply run the trail to the distinct trail bend and attack from there, we then headed southwest back to the trail. As we approached the open area near CP2 Michael and Erik veered off north, found it quickly while Jeanette and I stayed on the trail. They actually got in front of us as they came back to the trail as the woods were very open running. We got back to the main road with about 1 km to go and could see Good'Nuff just in front of us (about 200 meters) on the trail.

In the end - Good'Nuff was good enough to take the first place, all controls in 3:18. We were just behind them in 3:19. Bitter Carnies (14 CP's in 3:22), Florida Xtreme 3 (14 CP's in 3:27).

It was great racing with Michael, Erik, and Jeanette - we teamed well together. Also it is awesome to have a second navigator as it let me do a little bit of mule work and get some brain rest. We were able to use each  others thoughts to nail pretty much every control - only having trouble with one.

Next AR - Resolution!