Sunday, July 31, 2011

Luminescent Adventure Race - 8 hour

This was going to be a night race with Team Florida Xtreme 2 (Bruce, Jim, and Wanda). Team FLX 1 (Mark, Jeff, Marghi, and Erik) are 3 of the 4 I will be racing with in Idaho. I was a bit tired starting the race, I had been packing all day (we are moving to Deland) and also had my wife in the hospital because she had been bitten by one of our cats breaking up a fight (Cat bites require IV administered antibiotics to prevent infection). I was even running late and the team called me to make sure I was still on my way (and had not gotten lost).

The race started with a 6 mile out and back bike ride to a CP with one water crossing. We blew through it in 37 minutes (5 minutes behind the leader) and headed out into the water for the paddle. Even though we never had any issues on the water - we still never got into our paddle rhythm and the choppy water was tough on Bruce and Jim steering the boats. The choppy water meant no luminescence (no big deal to me I paddle in these waters at night a lot) - but I did see the biggest mullet run I've ever seen - thousands of fish jumping out of the water at the same time. The paddle took us 2 hrs 22 minutes a bit slower than what I had wanted.

Once we got off the water it was back to the TA for and then to the Parrish TA where we chose to trek first. This was uneventful except for one strategic error. At CP12 - located on a fenceline along I-95 I decided to bushwhack short of the control point as we approached. I had figured there would be at least a trail along the fence - there wasn't. This was a pretty nasty bushwhack and forced us back out to the main trail. The second attack we used the faint trail and went right to it. We new we had lost 20+ minutes on the bad attempt (oh well). We ran the rest of the course at an easy pace and had no navigation issues with the other controls - though we did take an "odd" route to CP16.

On the bike we decided to go reverse order which was working well for us. We had no issues with CP25 and CP24. We had a little trouble finding the trail to CP23 and worked with Zombie Cranks to find it. We got to the attack point north of the CP where the trails intersected and spent a large amount of time searching. I decided to ride the north trail from there to ensure we were in the correct location. We were and rode back passing Zombie Cranks who had found it and told us our attack point was good. We went back to the open field attack point where 5-6 teams were searching. This time Bruce found the parallel trail (he had found it the first time we attacked too - but I had not told him the importance of the trail for the navigation). This second time after seeing the trail we took 5 minutes and narrowed in on the control quickly. I also shouted for the other teams searching as they had been out there long enough.

For the third time of the evening we rode the north trail from CP23 to CP22 (the most challenging of the trails we rode all night). CP21, CP20, CP19 all proved quite easy - but we ended up blowing by CP18 as we were rushing because we were running out of time. We checked in at Parrish TA and flew back to the Main TA where we got our bearings for CP26 and CP27. These were two bearing controls, which were south of the road in the woods.

Working with Nature Calls we quickly found CP26. This would have been a lot easier if I had not left the control descriptions with my bike (they were on the passport sheet). We did not have enough time to find CP27. We had gotten a bit separated in our search and it took us a few minutes to regroup and get out of the woods - unfortunately we did not have a few minutes and went 1 minute over time costing us the one point we had gained in doing the bearing course in the first place.

The bike and trek course we took is below.





View Luminescent Bike/Run in a larger map

Jim even made a spreadsheet to compare split times of the top teams


               FLX2        FLX1      Primal      JAX    Zombie     Nature               
BIKE1    0:37:00    0:32:00    0:34:00    0:37:00    0:41:00    0:33:00
BOAT    2:22:00    2:05:00    2:04:00    2:22:00    1:39:00    2:19:00
BIKE2    0:10:00    0:11:00    0:10:00    0:15:00    0:18:00    0:13:00
FOOT    1:50:00    1:41:00    1:38:00    1:44:00    2:16:00    1:38:00
BIKE3    2:38:00    1:38:00    2:08:00    2:24:00    2:06:00    2:47:00
BIKE4    0:07:00    0:08:00    0:10:00    0:09:00    0:08:00    0:08:00
BRNG    0:17:20    0:16:58    0:28:22    0:11:19    0:27:27    0:20:58
               8:01:20    6:31:58    7:12:22    7:42:19    7:35:27    7:58:58

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Night Biking

Here are some tips about biking at night.

Unlike the paddle section where you want to keep the lights off - biking at night is all about lights. I use a mounting system I devised that uses my hand lights (this is in a previous blog - search bike lights). The reason is simply staying safe on bumpy and tricky terrain as you ride in the dark. I use 2 handlebar mounted lights and one helmet mounted. This works pretty well. I also have a small 4th light I use for map reading.

Some help on lights - my favorite is the Inova Bolt. Lightweight, uses CR123 (I buy bulk), and mounts easily http://www.inovalight.com/bolt/

To attach them to helmet and bike I use a Rwofish light holder http://www.amazon.com/TWOFISH-Cycloblocks-Bicycle-Flashlight-Channel/dp/B0035H9CJU/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1330983909&sr=8-9

I usually mount 3 lights on the handle bars and one on my helmet.

Navigation

Night navigation at night is all about keeping a very close idea of where you are. Trails that would look obvious in the daylight are sometimes nearly invisible at night. You need to keep a very good idea of your bearing and also make sure you know the distance you have traversed on EVERY trail you ride. My navigation is all about - take this trail for 1.2 km to an intersection, take trail at 140 degrees - staying on trail for 2.3 km to intersection, etc... I take measurements and write them on the map for the entire course before the start of the race. If I need to make changes on the fly - I use km since the map grid on a USGS map is in km, and it is easier to judge distances. Odds are most trails you will use will be ride-able (or at least obvious).

  Teamwork

 I make sure at least one of my team-mates is double checking my distance. I also want a second bearing from team-mates. This keeps them occupied. The most dangerous thing is to have a strong biker on your team pushing you to go faster and then you end up way off track. Slower is most often better at night, since a mistake can cost you miles and lots of time. Make sure of where you are - and be careful of following other teams make the mistake (going to lights) that I mentioned in my trek nav blog.

Safety

I've taken some pretty good falls biking in races at night. Many more than during daylight racing. For some reason following narrow single track or riding vehicle ruts is much more difficult in the dark. I find that trying to stay relaxed (which is natural in the day) is much more challenging at night. The same techniques that are good practice in daylight are the same at night. Of course good lights are still important. If one team-mate has good lights let them lead and work as a team. Lastly - keep  much closer track of your team-mates. I've had them disappear during day races (especially long ones where it is challenging to keep track of them as you get tired). At night - it is very easy to get ahead or behind, especially if they have to drop off. If you have a team-mate that is hurting or weak - keep them in the middle of your line.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Twelve Points - Lake Norris

Here is a little recap of the race with some pics (movies). Mark Roberts and met up for a "practice" race. We were really looking for a bit of training in getting ready for Expedition Idaho. The video at the end gives a recap of the races. Bottom line is the Mark found some awesome locations and continues every year to find great locations and incredible spot for the Twelve Points race.


The paddle on Lake Norris is incredible - I highly recommend this as one of the best lake paddles in Florida.

Some of the trek locations were magnificent. The big grassy fields were really nice.


Full overview of the course.




Fresh Bear tracks

Mark in big pasture


Looking out on Lake Norris - Osprey Nest on Cypress just past entrance

Saturday, July 02, 2011

Night Navigation - Trekking

There are 2 Pangea night races coming up; Luminescent and Nocturnal - so to help new folks out in preparing here are tips for night navigation. This is part of a 3 part series on trekking, biking, and paddling at night.

Trekking

First - you need some really good lights, everyone on the team should have a decent headlamp and also one good hand light. Invest in decent lights - if you buy cheap lights you will end up spending more money as you replace them. The Inova Bolt is my favorite. It does take CR123 batteries which are expensive if you buy them in a store. I order these bulk online from http://www.cr123batteries.com/ for less than $1 per battery. You also need a decent headlamp, I use primarily the Princeton Tec Apex - it is a marvel in brightness and runs on CR123 batteries also. I can run all night on low power and the beam mode lights up the night.

OK - so now you have all the lights are are ready to head out on your trek. First - everything looks different at night. What is an obvious trail during the daylight hours will likely be nearly invisible at night. Also you will have natural tendency to "circle" at night. Without a compass or a trail to follow nearly everyone ends up making circles. This means you need to be more conservative in your navigation. The best thing to do is find and follow handrails if at all possible - even if it takes you a little out of your way. (Handrails are linear features like roads, trails, streams, etc...). The navigator also needs to communicate more with the team at night - I find that a team member who might be nervous about the nav in the daytime is more so at night. Talking through the navigation plan does 2 thing - makes the team more comfortable and it may even help you avoid mistakes.

Some of the things that are important in the daylight are even more-so at night. I always preach "time and pace". If you are following a linear feature (or not) you should always have a good idea of how far you have gone. I use kilometers and will give an example here. A team walking quickly through the woods can travel about 1 km in 10 minutes. The maps are almost always gridded off in UTM coordinates - which are 1 km square blocks. I have talked to lots of teams that tell me how they walked for 45 minutes before realizing they went too far (and have made mistakes like this too). If you are looking for something 1 km away it will not take you 45 minutes (unless the terrain is horrible) to get there. So at each feature where you know where you are announce to the team something like - "It is 1:37 AM, we are looking for a small trail in this direction less than 1 km away, we should see it before 1:47 AM". This involves the team, reinforces your navigation plan, and gives you a goal. 

Here are some common mistakes in night trekking;

1. Diverging off the trail - because trails become very indistinct at night, it is very easy to lose the trail. Our team travels with a little distance (about 20 feet) on the these trails. If it is a marked or blazed trail - if you feel nervous about losing the trail, call out "last mark". Everyone looks for the last mark.

2. Heading for the light - I've seen many teams do this, they see lights from another team and immediately start walking towards them. Most of the time the team they are going towards is on another control or simply lost - and now you are lost too. Stick with your plan and race your race. (It is very hard to avoid the temptation on this one).

3. Single set of eyes - At night the team needs to help the navigator look for features (and the navigator need to let them know what they are looking for). The reason is very simple. The navigator will be looking up and down at the map. Every time they shine the bright light on the map, they destroy their night vision and ability to see terrain features. Odds are they will miss it simply because of this fact. Involve all sets of eyes in looking for features.

4. Fading in and out - In long races most teams make huge errors at night while racing because they simply "fade out" and go into zombie mode. When a team-mate starts mumbling "brains, brains..." they may have become a zombie and you may need help get the team awake.

Next up ... Biking at Night

Adventure Racing in twitter

Here is the current Twitter Chatter about Adventure Racing

Friday, July 01, 2011

Maps Library

I've had a lot of requests for maps from different races - many of which I have scanned. Well, here are the scanned maps I currently have. I'll try to scan as many more of the maps I have from races and post them here - I have nearly 1 GB of maps now, but will add more.

Maps

Also - some of these maps are from races where I don't have the documentation, if you know what race or year goes with a map feel free to leave it as a comment with the the scanned image.