Bubba Goat Round 2

What could be better for a Saturday afternoon than a surprise Bubba Run. Yes - it was a return t Lake Louisa State Park for Bubba Round 2. Junos Reed and I headed out there to compete and have a great time. The plan was for us to run as a team and do some serious training for the Sea to Sea.

The Bubba (this time) was a 3 loop race. Each time through the transition area we got a brand new map, and would do another loop. Each loop was about 2 1/2 miles. After we headed out on the first loop Junos and I realized we had different map and after about 10 minutes of confusion we were back on track and heading different directions. From my track - we first started looking at our mistake at 6 1/2 minutes in, and were finally on the correct track at about 15 minutes (ouch!).

Back on track - I ran quickly through the 3 loops with minimal error and ended up placing 2nd behind Dash (Dave Ashley) who ran a great race with no real mistakes. Here is my track


Here are some pictures of the first Bubba

http://www.floridaorienteering.org/photos/gallery3/index.php/Bubba-Goat---Lake-Louisa---9-Dec-2012

Chrismas in Christmas

I had the fun of doing the Christmas in Christmas Adventure Race in Tossohatchee Wildlife Management Area this Sunday. It is always a lot of fun to race with Erik and Jeanette as Team Mojitas on Monday. I wore my tracker during the race so you can see an bit of an embedded play of what we did. Here is a little narrative


http://www.flickr.com//photos/pangeaadventureracing/sets/72157632281724820/show/

(link to slideshow)

Bike 

 We drew the marble for the bike leg first. I originally did not want this - the last few races I have been the first through the trek and bike legs and have had my share of eating spiders. Sure enough this was the same for the first part of this race, first one through - plenty of spiders. We did however move very fast (45 minutes for leg - fastest of all teams) and later in the day the route got "chewed up" by bikes slowing it down. Nothing really to report - navigation was easy and we were dead on every control.



Trek

This was the leg where teams could really get lost. We went first to CP1 and then just went bearing and distance to all the other controls. From CP6 to CP4 brambles forced us a bit too far east - but I used the open area to the west to correct. We nearly completely blew CP5, Looking at the track below, we were heading nearly due south (way off our bearing). We came out at the open area that I was planning on using as a back-stop. I used the "shape" of the tree line to determine we were south of the control, and I corrected us north and back to the marsh where it was located. That was an 11 minute mistake - doh! On the way back north we completely missed the east-west road to CP3 and ended up running the yellow trail instead - no real time loss (maybe 1 minute). Straight trail jog back in and then to boats.

Paddle

The paddle was really a bike leg with a short paddle thrown in. As we headed out we realized Jeanette had forgotten her bike helmet - she was wearing a cap and it is a pretty easy mistake to make. We went back, got the helmet and restarted. The paddle was easy and uneventful and Jeanette navigated this section nicely.-The bike helmet cost us 5 more minutes .



In the end Jeanette felt bad about the time lost to the bike helmet - but my mistake on the bearing on CP5 cost us twice as much time as that did. We raced our race and we raced it well and finished well under 3 hours (2:55) for a podium finish.

What is a Bubba Goat?

Florida Orienteering hosted a Bubba Goat race Dec. 9. Of course the FLO championships were Dec. 8 and due to family obligations I had to choose one or the other, of course I chose the Bubba.

Now - what is the Bubba Goat? Well it is an orienteering run, kind of like regular orienteering except ....

1. It has a mass start.
2. It has (slightly) different rules that ca be different for each event
3. It is really long (in this case 17K as the crow flies and we are not crows)

Now for most endurance road athletes - 17K is not really that far, but it is pretty far for a few reasons. You really don't go in a straight line making it more like 20-25K, you have to actually find the controls as in orienteering, and the terrain is brutal - in this case soft sand, high grass, Caesar Weed, and palmetto.

This Bubba Goat started with a 7 control prolog. All maps are placed on the ground, someone says go, everyone picks up their maps, and the you go. Racers were assigned a handicap based on age and sex - I had a one control handicap allowing me to only have to do 6 of 7 - though I did not use my handicap. Here is the map of the prolog (I did my route in pink);

After we got to the "Finish" it was actually the start of the long courses, an it was long. We ended up using a lot more trail as the rough open was really rough open. For example leaving CP3 and heading for CP4 we headed North to the trail to avoid the roughest terrain, though it did open up nicely in spots.

The off trail section from CP4 to CP5 was extremely difficult, Jim Gorton and I were running together through this section and Gareth Hearn who was with us near CP4 took the trail to the west and saved some time.

 Leaving CP5 was also pretty tough and this area is very open - we could see a few racers in front of us, an a few behind us. The uphill climb to the trail from CP5 was tough. The toughest part of this leg was actually the approach to CP7. M plan was to run the ridgeline off of the trail. As we left the trail - we entered the world of Caesar Weed. This stuff is aweful and particularly awful this time of year. The little sticky seeds coated pretty much every racer that wen through here - it was everywhere. When going through this stuff it is tempting to stop and pull it off. In a race this is not an option - plus we were covered!

We decided to skip CP8 (we were allowed to skip one CP) and head to CP9. This was most all trail, though it was very sandy trail. The length of this leg was about 2-2.5K, that is a long orienteering leg. Jim and I were running together at this point and running strong. Since we adventure race together for team Florida Xtreme 2 (and we had just won the Pangea premiere series in adventure racing) we were all about racing as a team.

This next set of CP's was quite a bit of fun. I especially liked CP11 to CP12 which allowed us to follow a thin strip of white woods (though some racers went around via trail) along the marsh. That was pretty cool. 

We kept the pace up to CP13, but after CP13 I started developing cramp in my toes, calf, and hamstrings - nothing like getting cramps everywhere! This reduced my pace to a fast walk (I do have a pretty fast - fast walk), even though Jim could have easily run the last few controls - he stuck with me. Our navigation was clean, if slow, all the way to the finish line - just below 3 hours (2 hours, 59 minutes, and some odd seconds).

 I was really hurting at the end, legs were cramping bad, stomach was upset. I took an ice cold shower (they had showers at the end - if you don't mind cold water) chatted a bit and headed home. (Jim had a 2-3 hour drive, I had just over 1 hour). My drive ended up being a bit longer as I had to stop and empty a barf bag I had the foresight to put on the seat next to me. That is 2 times puking at the end of 2 races! I must be pushing too hard. Of course afterwards you feel so much better.

Now after a nice hot bath (solves the cramping) and a Steak and Shake meal - I am planning the next race - Oh yea - next week! the Pangea Christmas in Christmas race with team Mojitas on Monday next week.

For pics and upcoming events - see http://www.floridaorienteering.org/

Turkey Burn Adventure Race

The Turkey Burn is pretty much the annual state championship for adventure racing. This is the race that team Florida Xtreme 2 had been psyching for during the last few races of the season. We knew there would be some serious competition. Good 'Nuff, a team with excellent athletics, Primal Instinct with solid navigation and relentless forward movement. This race also has a 4 AM start meaning we would have about 3 hours of the race in the dark and 9 hours of the race in the light. This means navigating under both conditions. The other factor is cold. The start of the race is usually quite cold and quite warm towards the end of the race. Here is a blow by blow of the race as experienced by team FLX2 (Jim Gorton, Wanda Timmons, Erik Wise, Ron Eaglin).

 Bike 1

 The race would start with a bike leg through the trails of Seminole Ranch. There was only on CP in the first part of this section. Most of the bike team took off very quickly, we stayed near the back of the pack - allowing us to warm up as we continued to ride. The section had some treacherous holes and Jim took a couple of endo's while leading the bike line through this section. The first CP was pretty easy - though it was on the side of the trail I was not expecting (right, not left). The second CP was a simple out and back on the tower in Buck Lake, and the other four checkpoints were easy even in the darkness just be having good accurate measurements on the map ahead of time.

Bike 1
Good'Nuff: 1:53
FLX: 1:54
FLX2: 1:57





 Paddle/Trek

This took us to the start of the boat leg at the boat ramp as Six Mile Creek on SR46 and we arrived with Good'Nuff, Primal, FLX, all within a few minutes of each other. We headed north up the creek to CP7, where we took out of the boats for a short foot section.CP8 looked like an easy find - go west to trail and follow to CP - this was not the case - there were LOTS of trails and no clear distinction between them. All teams bailed back to the boats and we shot a bearing to find CP8. The rest of the course was easy navigation, though we did get to do an early morning swamp whack through a VERY wet section, there was another way around, but we did not take it.

Paddle/Trek 1
FLX2: 0:58
Primal 1:02
Good'Nuff 1:02
FLX: 1:01

 Paddle 2

We arrived back at the boats with FLX and Good'Nuff and headed south for the paddle leg. The first 2 points of this leg were easy, there was a little challenge finding the entrance to Shad Creek, and there was a lot of large grass islands - but we basically moved on the correct bearing and we got to the correct locations. After crossing the tower bridge on the south end of Loughman Lake - we had to CP's to find in a maze. I used a bearing to go for CP17 first. The clue was in grass on edge of channel (everything was grass and creeks). By using the bearing from the tower (which was visible from pretty much everywhere) I was able to make sure we were at least on a correct bearing and we quickly found CP17. I took a bearing from CP17 to the location of CP16 and we essentially boat-whacked our way through heavy weeds to CP16 (I also used the bearing to the tower to triangulate). We had gone into this section Good'Nuff and FLX - but as we came out we saw nobody behind us. When we reached the boat ramp at the TA - it was confirmed that we had a pretty solid lead on the teams behind us - and we started out on the second paddle.

Paddle 2
Primal: 1:50
FLX2: 2:05
FLX: 2:19
Good'Nuff: 2:37

Here is the start of the long paddle leg.

CP16 and CP17 shown here were the most challenging on this leg.

Paddle 3

This was through a maze of channels - but we had a good map, and we quickly completed this (I suspect this was probably the paddle leg of the sport race). A highly motivated Team Good'Nuff was working hard to erase our lead here.

 Paddle 3

Good'Nuff 0:53
FLX2: 0:57

This was a great map for the paddle 2 - we moved through it pretty quickly.

 Trek 2

 We took a long time transitioning to foot for the next leg, and as we headed out we saw FLX and Good'Nuff heading in from the second paddle - hot on our heels. We wen first for the cattle pen, and the 2 CP's to the east of Hatbill Road. We then headed back into Seminole Rance where we picked up 3 more an then headed out to the road (Unnnamed Street). There was no discernible trail south of CP20 (that we saw at least), we simply bushwhacked through open woods to the intersection of the trail heading south to WP21. The only CP to give us any trouble here was CP23 the one on the cut Cedar Tree - but only a few minutes. We saw a few other teams on this leg, inclduing Team Mojito's on Monday just starting into the trek. After getting all the CP's a short run back to the TA, and we were ready to head out on the bike/run/bike leg.

Trek 2
Good 'Nuff: 1:09
FLX2: 1:24

Order: CP24-CP25-CP26-CP18-CP19-CP20-CP21-CP22-CP23

Bike 2

We did not know at this time, but the race was shaping up to be a 2 team race. The next leg was a bike/run/bike leg. We were leaving with Good'Nuff right on our heels - and they are probably the strongest biking team in the Southeast. We hooked Wanda up on the tow and headed out. Good'Nuff passed us right at the water crossing, we got there first and were able to use the canoes to transport the bikes (but we swam) across the channel. Of course there was no way to get the boats back across as the ropes that were supposed to be used were not tied to anything on the shore - the boats were simply tied to each other.

We stayed pretty close with Good'Nuff until CP36, but we simply did not have the bike legs to stay with them. There were also a couple of bike death marches in the south section and also a third one approaching CP38 down newly "disked" Bear Bluff road which was completely un-rideable. I noted that Good'Nuff took a different route and had been able to avoid that final death march.After what seemed like forever we finally got to the Dairy TA and the final trek leg.

Good'Nuff 2:50
FLX2: 3:35

Even though one section of this bike was meant to be tough - Bear Bluff Road (.9K) and the route north to Dairy TA were really tough and sandy (essentially un-rideable while tired)

Trek 3

Once we started the trek leg we knew we were going to run out of time. The course had three bearing points - and I went ahead and plotted them on the map they gave us at the TA. This allowed us to bypass the long bushwhack on these and head straight for the actual CP - which for the first one happened to be on a trail (I actually mis-plotted it the first time, but replotted and we quickly found it). We also went for one quick on to the south of the TA and then hopped onto the bikes for the long ride back.

Bike 3 

On the final bike leg CP46 took us way too long, which meant we ended up having to bail on CP48 on the way back. We caught up with Good'Nuff who was also out of water at CP47 (I had an extra water bottle for them). On the way back we swam both crossings (which as it was getting cold - felt cold), and finished with 6 minutes to spare (in 1 hour 20 minutes).

Part of trek 3 - Since this was a bearing course, you can see my plotted actual locations of the CP's

In the end Good'Nuff cleared the course - which was no small feat. We came in second after putting it all on the course. Many thanks to Dave Brault for the incredibly punishing course, and Pangea for giving us a great challenge.

At least the first 9 hours of our course was caught by my tracker - it is at http://connect.garmin.com/activity/246861354

Final results are at http://www.pangeaadventureracing.com/event-details/events/2012-turkey-burn-ar

Some great pics at http://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2012/11/pangea-turkey-burn-ar-elite-12hr.html

Lighterknot Adventure Race

It took me a while to get this race report up, but here is a short write-up of a fantastic course. I was racing with my traditional Florida Xtreme 2 team, Erik, Jim, and Wanda. The event was held at a wonderful location - Princess Place Preserve in Flagler County.

Team had a 2 minute staggered start time, we started near the rear of the race at 8:06 on a 4 mile orienteering run to the boats. We quickly caught up with all the teams and ended up coming into the boats about 30 secons behind Primal Instinct. We moved very quickly through this orienteering in 40 minutes - the fastest time while picking up 5 CP's. For those who were with us at those CP's they were able to observe how we run tight to within a few hundred yards of the CP, and then move into a quick search spread - narrowing very rapidly on the CP without losing any real speed.

Once on the boats - we were with Primal up to CP9. I decided to pull the boats out of the water approximately 100 meters short of the control location. The CP was on a bluff - which was visible across the flood plain from the small creek we were in. This worked well as we only had about 50 meters across the flood plain before we found the CP. The CP led us on a bearing course through some incredibly thick trees. The controls were pretty easy to find, though the progress was slow because of the dense trees. Once we got to the last CP in the orienteering I decided to grab CP8 while we were on foot, since we had trail pretty much the entire distance to the CP - this was fast. We had no trouble dropping off the bluff to the river, snagging the CP and heading back to one of the orienteering CP's that would give us a good spot to head into the woods towards where we stashed the boats.

We paddled back and picked up CP7 along the route to CP6. A lot of teams had obviously headed to CP6 first as they were heading towards CP9. Instead of paddling to CP6 I decided to stash the boats along the long switchback near the US1 bridge and push out on foot to US1. We ran up US1 to County Road 205, found the control at the bridge and headed back at a pretty good run. I'm not sure if it saved us much time, since that would be based on how challenging the river paddle was. Once we got back to the boats it was a long paddle to the TA with one CP along the route. We tied our boats into a tow configuration and paddled hard.

When we reached the boat TA we were told there was a 2 person coed team in front of us. We ran back to the main TA and were told they had completely missed the orienteering at CP9. At this point we knew we were in the lead. We had completed the paddle and orienteering in 3:16. Air Force was 3:34 and Primal was 3:44 - we had a lead, but enough that one mistake wouldn't put us back with the pack.

On bike we did the out and back to CP11, and then to CP12 where we had another orieneering run. As we finished the orienteering we had a difficult time with the last CP - and found it the same time as Air Force and Florida Xtreme 1. Having Air Force on our backs gave us a little motivation to pick up the pace on the bike. This was challenging as we had a long distance with some long sandy trails. We were on the bikes for 2 hrs 57 minutes, which was slightly slower that Air Force (2:53) and slightly (very slightly) faster than Primal (3:00).

When we got back to the main TA - we were given a CP and a map and told we had a short (3-4 mile) orienteering to finish up the course. We had a solid hour left to complete this - so I had no worries with time required to clear the course. We took off at a pretty good run - especially considering we were pretty tired from 7 hours of moving at full speed. The orienteering proved to be pretty uneventful - and straighforward, and we finished, clearing the course with 15 minutes to spare.

I have to congratulate team Sheriff for an incredible course. The attention to detail at each CP was excellent. Each one required a different strategy, and the course really "mixed it up" and was a lot of fun.

Here is a track of the entire course - if you click on the details you can watch an animation of our route (including our 2 mistakes)



  

Squiggy's Revenge Adventure Race

Who can resist a midnight start for a summer race? Kip Koelsch had lined up a great challenge for us for the return of the Squiggy.

 Here is the Start Map (not all checkpoints plotted)

The race started with a short run (spread out those teams) followed by a bike leg. The provided maps only had 2 bike CP's - but we would be able to copy additional CP's from those 2. We headed first up to Bike CP11, where I promptly in a hurry marked one of them incorrectly. Even though we had an easy time of the ones I marked correctly, about 20 minutes of looking for CP4 in the dark and we decided to move on and hit it later. We went to BCP1 picked up a couple more checkpoints and headed to the bike drop. At the bike drop we headed out on foot,

The format was the same for the foot section, we had 2 plotted checkpoints. I was running just fine, but was having a hard time staying mentally focused on the map. Sure enough, after easily getting the first 2 CP's I headed us totally in the wrong direction for Foot CP4 (something about the number 4) and wasted another 20-30 minutes looking in a totally wrong place (with one other team) for the control. After realizing my mistake I kicked my ass in gear, drank a 5 hour energy and decided no more mistakes. We had no other issues after that, but also knew that we had probably put ourselves in a catch-up position.

We headed back to the bike drop and then started the bike section to the east, after finding CP8, we had 2 more CP's added to the map (CP9 and CP13). Even though the terrain was at times tough we pushed through and the final ride was nearly all pavement (with one detour down a new path).

We were on the water just before 7 AM. The paddle section was a lot of fun, and also since it was an out and back it confirmed that we were running in 2nd place. This got us charged up to push to catch up with the 4 person male team in front of us. We pushed the paddle pretty hard and hit the transition area around 9 AM to head out on the final run.

We moved very well on this run, with only one slow down as I decided to go straight across the woods northwest from FP 9 to the large berm road. This turned into a couple of swims and a lot of thick palmettoes - but we still kept a good pace. Once we hit the road, it was all running. As we approached FP7 we saw Aaron and May-Li and then shortly after saw the team we were trying to catch. We had narrowed the gap, but were still about 10 minutes back (by my calculation).

As we came across the line we learned we had crossed in 2nd place, and were followed shortly by May-Li in 3rd.

Kudos to Kip for a truly challenging courses - here is the map with all the checkpoints. I will post my track once I pull it off my GPS tracker I had in my pack.

Superhero Adventure Race

Team Florida Xtreme 2 (Ron Eaglin, Jim Gorton, Wanda Timmons)

The superhero is always a fun race, usually little less brutal than most elite races (except for the rock springs run slog). The weather was looking pretty good this year and we would not be challenged with heat (it stayed below 90 for most of the race). The big challenge of this race is that it is short (6 hours) meaning it is FAST! This year was no exception. We started with a short prelude on bike and foot. We also quickly learned that Wanda's bike, which had just been repaired, had not. It started skipping badly on the gears literally 10 minutes into the race. Here is where adventure racing is awesome. Dave Brault (Team Sun-tek) who was biking besides us, noticed the problem and offered to switch bikes. We did and Wanda ended up racing on Dave's bike the remainder of the race. Poor Dave ended up on the bad bike, but good gearing strategy made it "not too bad".

Prelude Times

Team	Trek	Foot	Bike
Primal Instinct	9	15	24
Florda Xtreme 2	11	15	26
Florida Xtreme 3	10	15	25
Nature Calls	10	14	24

The prelude times were all pretty close (as you can see)

We were 4th off the prelude and hit the water right with Florida Xtreme 3. As we headed out on the paddle - they went right up the thin channel for CP14, while we went left heading for CP12. Our strategy was to paddle to CP13 and then trek down the small channel to CP14 and back. This worked pretty well, but we still came back to the intersection of channels at the main TA quite a bit behind them - so it was probably slower. At this point we started hammering the paddle, catching up to Florida Xtreme 3 at CP7 and getting within a couple minutes of Nature Calls at the pull-out.

Paddle Times

Primal Instinct - 1:33
Nature Calls - 1:36
Florida Xtreme 2 - 1:40
Florida Xtreme 3 - 1:42

We came out of the water right with Florida Xtreme 3, though they were a little faster out of the TA. As we approached the Wekiva TA we saw Nature Calls a few minutes ahead of us on foot, and also saw FLX3 heading out on bikes. We decided to go foot first. I figured we could pick up the time on Nature Calls on the foot section. We did at the second CP and we pretty much worked together at that point. I did cut a lot of corners where they chose to stay more on the trails, but time-wise it was pretty much the same.

We did get through the foot section very quickly, and I was a bit slow switching to bike shoes for the next bike section. On this section we stayed pretty tight with Nature Calls, pulling away literally at the last CP as they took a little extra time there. We flew through the TA and sprinted to the finish. I saw Dave Shuman out on the course taking pictures so I knew the Primal had finished and Dave had enough time to double back to take pictures.

Bike/Trek Times

Primal Intinct - 1:45:02
Florida Xtreme 2 - 1:51:54
Nature Calls - 1:57:57
Florida Xtreme 3 - 1:57:48

Here is a track of the course using my tracker - no surprises, we were spot on with pretty much every CP.



Great race and big thanks to Pangea for a lot of fun on a Saturday afternoon!

Nocturnal Adventure Race - Aug. 22

This is one race I really cannot resist. For one the sheer challenge of racing at night is a big draw, especially since this race is usually pretty challenging. Having it in Tossohatchee adds that much more fun - since this area can be challenging even under optimal conditions.

Florida Xtreme 2 consisted of myself, Jim Gorton, and Dave Brault - Erik Wise is currently out of commission - having just had his foot operated on, and Wanda had other obligations.

The race format was pure rogaine - we were given paddle, trek, and bike puches for the elite course and told we could visit each control using whatever method we wanted (however it did make sense to use the disciplines suggested). We had 9 hours to complete the elite course (6 PM - 3 AM) with time penalties for being late. Upon completing the elite course - we then had the option of doing the sport course trek and bike for extra points with a final cutoff at 6 AM - 12 full hours of racing.

The Tossohatchee area had received about 10 inches of rain in the week leading up to the race and we were warned that the area would be flooded making for slow progress. (This was definitely the case).

In this race I would also be reviewing 2 new products - one that I can definitely endorse, the other which will get a mention, but that is all.

The first is the Bikeray 1000 lumen bike light. http://www.bikeray.com/ They have multiple versions of this light and I will be trying the other version, but I am reviewing the 1000 lumen version. The price point ($120) and features of this light made it look pretty good. I charged it, popped it on my helmet and attached the battery - and I was lighting up the road. Even with the challenging single track and deep water at the Nocturnal I never had to take it to high setting except when we were looking for a control.  They have brighter versions but I think the 1000 lumen will be enough for almost all riders in adventure races. You get 4 hours on high, and I still have not tested low, so look for future posts for that. I purchased locally at Adventure Cycle in Oviedo http://adventurecyclingusa.com/  which is still where I take my bike even though I no longer live in Oviedo - Joe knows bikes and their service is excellent.

Great to consider for a birthday or Christmas for that adventure racer.

The second product I reviewed is a night compass. For a while this worked good - but obvious design flaws made it essentially unusable. (1) You had to press a button and hold it to turn it on, (2) You had to open a clasp to open the compass to access the button, and (3) when you tried to do this with one hand in the dar, the battery case would open and the batteries would pop out. Needless to say I will keep trying and let everyone know when I find something that works.

Now back to the race, since the race was a pure rogaine, the most important aspect would be strategy. There are so many elements that come into play - that strategy is pretty challenging. Here is ours and some analysis.

1. It looked to me the 2 most difficult sections would be the north orienteering (near the paddle - CP1-5) and the paddle itself. We wanted to do these in daylight to make them a bit easier. This paid off some as we were able to nail CP1-5 early and without too much trouble, with only one minor navigation flaw. The terrain was very tough - but that was the case the entire race and anybody that was there can let you know that thick vegetation and high water are simply hard to get through. We finished the trek in about 90 minutes and headed out on the water and were able to get CP18 and CP19 while it was still light. For the rest of the paddle I was really wishing I had printed out aerial shots of the river and brought them with me - once it got dark, and in high water - the navigation got very tricky and we eventually had to bail on a few checkpoints. starting with CP26 - that we attempted but never found. We looked for about an hour and then headed back north picking up 1 control on the return trip and 2 controls north of the TA (CP16 and CP 17). For the southern part - I was not wearing a tracker - but my best guess of what we did is also here on Google Earth;



View Nocturnal 2012 in a larger map

2. We then headed back to the main TA where we switched to bike and headed out on the bike course. I started with an error, heading to one of the sport controls (that were for later) - but we corrected quickly and started on the long ride to the section south of 528. After the first 3 controls and much pushing the bike through flooded trails - we decided to bail out to the dirt road to make better time. Our objective was to get to Waypoint 1 and the start of the second navigation leg - which would be a bearing course. When we got to the bearing course we had 45 minutes, but that proved to be only enough time to get one CP before we had to get back to make the first cutoff at 3 AM. I calculated we had enough time on the return trip to pick up 2 controls - which we did and we still made it back with 10 minutes to spare.

3. We elected to do the sport trek, the navigation looked really challenging for a sport trek - but that is our strength. In addition, Dave had been cramping so Jim was towing him. After towing for a while Jim started cramping, so resting our bike legs looked smart. We did the controls in a clockwise direction and only had an issue with CP6 which looked to have no real feature or method to approach it. We attacked CP7 from the Benchmark (X BM on the map), We attacked CP5 using CP19 - and just took a 45 degree bearing - marching right to it. We did the same to get from CP5 to CP3. We had planned to get CP4 which was a 3 point control, but I had calculated that we could not get it and make it back to the TA before cutoff - and Dave was doing a good job making sure I was keeping track of the clock.

In the end we collected 30 points. Primal Instinct had a excellent strategy and navigation allowing them to collect 36 points and a first place finish. Results are at http://pangeaadventureracing.com/event-details/events/2012-nocturnal-challenge-ar

Also here is an AR tip: After racing refill your bladder with whatever beverage you like and pop it in the freezer - it makes it pretty easy to keep it clean.

Luminescent Adventure Race

I designed the course for the Luminescent Adventure Race. I also got to hear a lot of the stories of the teams as they completed the course. Here are some notes and some of their stories

The Course Design

 This course was long and complex. I wanted to design a course that would challenge the top teams in each race to have to race at 100% to clear the course. I was looking for 1-3 teams to  clear - but with no time to spare in each race. One team (Gecko/Bike Works) did clear the sport. No team cleared the Elite course - but a few came close. The elite race had 35 checkpoints (including the prolog) an the sport race had 17. The paddle area of Mosquito Lagoon naturally lent itself to challenging navigation in the paddle - and at night it was even more challenging.

The Elite Race Recap

Prolog - AR Militia breezed through the prolog (spelling out PLANKTON) in 5 minutes and was first to the boats. Two of the teams that cleared the paddle (Florida Xtreme and Primal Instinct) were near the back of the pack after the prolog (at 13 minutes) an would have a lot of ground to make up on the water. There was a constant flow of teams heading out behind AR Militia, and 15 minutes after the race started - all the elite teams were on the water.

The Paddle - As teams send me their stories about this section of the race I will include them here. I had suggested that team mark and measure distance and bearing between each control. This would help them keep track of each leg of the paddle separately and for those teams that used this approach I think they had a pretty successful paddle. It took me just about 3 hours to pick up the controls and I retrieved them in this order: 1-10-9-8-6-5-4-3-7-2-TA. The most challenging sections were from CP10 to the narrow inlet east of CP9 because of the thick sea grass. The section from CP5 to CP3 also had a lot of thick sea grass that really slowed the boat down. I also had to spend a little bit of time dodging flying mullet (some pretty big). In the Elite race the top clearing times were;

Primal Instinct - 2:57
Insane Moose - 3:02
Florida Extreme - 3:26

In the sport race a few teams cleared the paddle with these times (1-2-7-10 and 1-2-3-4 were the popular choices for strategy).

Pinnacle Mobfit - 1:37
Bike Works/Gecko - 1:39
Heavy Breathers -  1:41
Breakers Division 19 - 1:55

The Bike - The bike leg had 2 sections - the north section which were all the controls north of the Trek TA and the south section, which were those controls south of the TA. Some of the controls required challenging night riding (CP13, CP14, and CP15) on the forest roads. Here are a few stories about this section.

CP16 required you to take a bearing from a bridge (which was part of the control description). When one group of elite racers headed towards this on bike - they stopped at the first bridge, hopped off the bikes and headed into the woods. Unfortunately there were 3 bridges, and the first bridge was the wrong bridge. Insane Moose was the first team to arrive at this wrong bridge location wan was also the first to realize the mistake and head for the correct bridge. What clued them in was the control location was on a distinct bend in the road (and the first bridge had no nearby bend). 

While I was a the trek TA - one team came in an started telling me how they had spent 45 minutes looking for the control at the No Man's Land sign. They were mostly disappointed that after spending so much time looking for the control that all they had to do was circle that response on their punch card and that their was no control at this location - it was an answer the question control. Of course they did get up getting credit for it - and they were happy about that, but they also had wasted 45 minutes looking for a control (instead of reading the passport).

A few teams coming from the south were really confused about CP20 - which was north of the culvert on Maytown road. Unfortunately for them there were actually 4 culverts on Maytown road and they had spent their time searching north of the wrong culvert. Here is a hint for that one - measure the distance from the control attack point (the culvert due south of the control) and a known location (I would use the intersection of Beacon Light and Maytown Road). Write that on the map and use your bike odometer (yes this is something you want to have) to go the correct distance. In this case 0.85 miles. As it turns out - this is the first culvert you come to as if you go west from Beacon Light Road on Maytown.

Another interesting twist on the bike leg were teams that came to it from North Brooks Circle - via CP25 and a really sandy dirt road. One team (Cow Tipping Dwarfs) did successfully make it around the plant this way to the TA. A few other teams tried this - but without success. One confusing item to them was a township boundary (border of range 6 and 31) on the map that looked like a road - but was not. There was however a dirt road that did coincide for part of this distance, that made it even more confusing. In this case - knowledge of the nuances of USGS Topo maps was important, and the township and range boundaries have tripped me up before.

To compare bike time I recommend you use the Pangea Page - the bike was split into 2 sections on the passport an they don't really correspond exactly with what the teams did in those sections.

The Trek -    When the teams arrived at the Trek TA - they were given a map that had a USGS detailed map on on side an aerial map on the other side. To do the trek well you really needed to use bot sides. For the sport teams - who had to choose 6 of the 10 controls to visit their were many strategies. I found a spot in the grove and watched a lot of teams and the strategy that seemed most common was the "Converge" strategy. In this one - you run or jog towards where you think you will find a CP until you see another team. If that team seems to be wandering aimlessly, you continue on your direction. If, however, that team looks like it knows what it is doing - you converge on the location where they are headed. This strategy did appear to work pretty well.

In the elite race AR Militia dominated the trek (1:27). Insane Moose (who had cleared the paddle) came back from the trek looking pretty dejected. They had failed to find 3 checkpoints. As they showed me the CP's they had missed I asked them to remove their map from its map case. I then asked them to turn it over - revealing the important aerial map. Armed with more information they headed back out and did find 2 of the 3 they had missed. I also noticed that Primal Instinct had also only used the USGS map and not the aerial - which also hurt a lot of their route choices (I watched them for a while).

For elite teams clearing the trek

AR Militia - 1:27
Get to the Chopper - 1:30
Florida Xtreme - 1:54
Primal Instinct - 2:17

Most of the sport teams that cleared he trek did so in about 40-50 minutes. The exception was Team Tiger Creek - who seemed determined they were going to clear this section which they did in 1:31.

The Race - For me the race was very exciting to watch. When it became clear that no elite teams would clear the course (or at least it would be close) - then the field really opened up. Teams that had missed paddle points were now back in the game (AR Militia, Get to the Chopper). The suspense held up all the way to the awards - with some surprises to the winners, who had not expected to be on the podium.

Lessons - Here are some lessons that I learned during the race (and from racing).

- Teams that had all team members participating, especially in pre-race did well.

- Never put off to the course that you can do before the race. The teams that did the best had a lot of information written on their maps, including distances, notes, and CP descriptions. A good fine tipped sharpie is a pretty nice tool.

- A lot of racers pack way too much stuff in their pack. I decided this after I watched a team pull out 3 days worth of food (that they would never eat), 4 lights, batteries for 2-3 days, 2 extra sets of clothes - all looking for a whistle (which they did not have).

- For a 4 hour race (sport) pack mandatory gear, 2 gels (equivalent), and hydration. For an 8 hour race I pack mandatory gear, 2 apples, 2 granola bars. If I get chance I may eat something at the TA (like a banana).

- Even if every other team stops at a spot (like the bridge) still check your map to make sure it is the correct location. Many times groups of teams are following each other, with no team actually leading.

- Learn how to steer a canoe. Well this did give me some humor as I watched teams careen out of control.

For those who are adventure minded - this sport is addictive. I believe it is because it is so challenging. You are always going to make mistakes - these are actually what keeps the sport interesting. Teams that do well learn from the mistakes (meaning experience counts!) and recover well from their mistakes. I have done hundreds of races and have never had the "perfect" race - nor do I expect to, but I still always keep trying.

When you come out - also talk to the other teams - we are all generally pretty friendly, probably because we have to defend a hobby which is a little bit crazy. You can always learn a lot from other racers - who are usually more than willing to tell you about their exploits!

I hope to see all of you out there, the next race for me is the 12 points (August 4) which will be incredibly challenging (Mark Schweder makes no apologies about the abuse he will put racers through), and then the Nocturnal - which like all night races brings in a new dimension to racing. 

Wet Chicken Food

So this post has nothing to do with adventure racing, but those who know me also know that I build lots of stuff. Big stuff and little stuff. So I was having a problem with the chicken feed that we keep in the free range yard getting wet and turning into oatmeal - so I decided to build a stay-dry chicken feeder I had a lot of PVC left over from other projects, so I was also going to use this all up. I also have a spare hanging feeder - so that was also going to get used. The pictures are self-explanatory - so I'll let them do the talking.

I created the frame using 3 inch Schedule 40 PVC.I also needed 2 T intersections, 2 90 degree elbows and 4 end caps.  This makes the basic frame.

Drill 2 small eye hooks into the top of the top crossbar. Add a light chain and 4 S-Hooks and you can easily hang the feeder.

I then drilled 2 3/4 inch holes through the 3 inch PVC pipes and pushed a 4 foot 1/2 inch PVC through the pipe. I used 4 x 90 degree elbows to make this square frame. The frame will be used to put the rain canopy on the frame.

I then put a simple tarp over the frame an used string to tie it to the PVC. This is the nice rain cover - this has done well to keep the food dry

Add feed and chickens and voila - a stay-dry chicken feeder!

Atomic (Rain) Adventure Race

The Atomic is one of the staple adventure races of the Blue Ridge GA area. This is a great place to race and I have loved it ever since the USARA nationals were held there a few years back. The Atomic has also been there for a few years and has drawn a lot of great racers.

Team Florida Xtreme 2 (Erik, Jeanette and I) added Gareth to our numbers and headed up towards Blue Ridge. This would be Jeanette's first race over 12 hours - and she was "bit" nervous. Erik and I assured her she would be just fine - we had 3 experienced male racers ready to come to her rescue.

The race started with a little foot prolog before the first real bike leg. We had a little issue finding one of the bike trails in the start - as it appeared someone had plopped houses down right in the way of the trail. Luckily we were able to go around the houses and find the actual trail.  This entire section of riding was really fun - great single track. The trail network was the Aska trails - and even though for every downhill there is also some uphill - they were wonderful downhills.

At one point we had the option to bushwhack to a bike swim to get from CP12 to CP13. We were with another team (RMR) at this point and they planned to swim, we decided to ride around. We arrived at the CP just as they were leaving - so we pretty much figured the route choices were about equal. A lot of teams did swim it - and even though the time to do either route was the same - we were dry and our bikes had not gotten submersed.

At CP14 we made a strategic move to skip CP15 and head straight to the trek leg. I wanted to make sure we cleared the paddle rapids before darkness and I also calculated that at our current pace we would not clear the course (this was a good call). We reached the trek leg and did all the CP's in order with no real navigation issues. It is so much easier to navigate where there are actual contours to read. The next leg was the paddle.

The paddle turned out to be a lot of fun. There were only a couple of difficult rapids. The most challenging one was just after CP22 (the house). By this point in the race we were getting spoiled. I was able to get a Chili Dog and a Mountain Dew at the Dial TA. They had Chili and bread at CP22. Even though the race was tough - the race organization was at least making it a lot of fun. When you are in a long race - these little things are wonderful.

Shortly after the CP we hit the biggest rapid. I decided that we would portage the first and run the second. This turned out to be a good choice. Gareth and Erik decided to run the rapid and ended up swimming. We fetched a lot of gear from the water - except for the paddle. If anyone finds a black kayak paddle let me know and I'll get it back to Gareth, I expect the folks living just downstream from the rapids end up with a lot of "stuff" from dumped boats.

For fun - we ran the second rapid (which was also challenging). The next big challenge was CP24 - the cemetery. It was completely dark when we arrived, and we followed an entire batch of teams the wrong direction. At the split in the 2 trails leading from the cove we took the left trail. We should have taken the trail to the right which curved straight to the cemetery. This cost us 3 hours, a lot of energy, and many scrapes and cuts from the major bushwhacks we added.

From there it was uneventful back to the main TA. It was now about 2 AM and we headed out in the cold rain for the last bike leg. The ride to Brawley was pretty cool - most of it was road, and we only had trouble with one control, mostly because I was too stubborn to stop and actually read the map. We did get a nice tour of some neighborhoods on the lake (as did some other teams judging by the bike tracks). The correct trail was probably a great ride when it was dry. I discovered that red clay becomes very slippery when it gets wet!

As we started the final climb up to Brawley the sun was coming up. I was hoping that it would start getting warmer, but instead the rain just came down harder and it got windy. It was really windy when we reached the top of the hill and the Brawley TA. Jeanette was starting to get hypothermic and was not able to ride the uphill. At the top there was another big pot of Chili (I was loving this!) - and a lot of cold racers. I took one look at the orienteering map, and decided that it was not going to happen. It looked like it would have been a lot of fun if we were fresh and it was not cold and rainy. In our current condition it was just punishment - but I applaud the teams that did do the trek.

We headed back down towards the main TA, stopping at the Iron Bridge Cafe for coffee and hot chocolate. From there it was an easy road ride to the TA. After that a few hot showers and on the road back to Florida

My impressions of the race was that Jeff did a great job with the course. The local teams did have a big advantage knowing what trails and routes are better than others - but that is normal. I really enjoyed the paddle - but also realize that other teams really struggled with it - especially at night. The weather turned on us - but there is no control over that and I have raced much worse conditions as have most of the teams there.

In the end - the fear Jeanette had turned into determination (you could see both in her eyes). I think she is now hooked - and is looking forward to her next 30 hour. For me, another fun race - and yes even when we are in cold miserable wet conditions - I somehow am still enjoying myself. I think only other adventure racers can understand this.

Great thanks to all the great racers we met along the way and talked to. The people you meet in adventure races are the best! I'm looking forward to the next Atomic - and now on to the next race which is Father's Day - with my kids!

Here is some video of the race to enjoy and the full map as a PDF (with my markings)

Here is a link to the Atomic Map on Scribd with all my markings.
Atomic Map

Missing River Adventure Race

3 years ago I went on a camping trip an ended up at O'Leno State Park. I went for a run in the trails around the park and had the first idea of the Missing River Adventure Race. What really intrigued me about the place was the river sections that simply disappeared into the group, just to appear later at the "rise". A river that alternated between above and below ground seemed like a great idea for an adventure race. After talking to the park rangers who enthusiastically embraced the idea of an adventure race - the Missing River AR was born. The first 2 times the race was offered I had other commitments, but this time I was able to make it.

Team Florida Xtreme 2 was Ron Eaglin, Erik Wise, Jeanette Ciesla, and Junos Reed. This was going to be an interesting race as we would also have Florida Xtreme 1 and 3 racing along with a lot of other great teams. A cool part of the race was that we would start with the sport course trek and the sport course bike legs.

We started with the run and blew through the run leg in 32 minutes coming in just behind FLX3 and Paw Pawz. We lost the lead at CP5 where we overshot by about 200 meters, but quickly came back around. The mapped "wetland" was actually a series of connected sinks - and it took us a while to figure this out. Once we did we quickly moved to the most southeast of the sinks and found the flag.

We transitioned very quickly to bikes an the bike course was essentially uneventful, though we did have a lot of chunking through sand. We biked well, but still were 6 minutes behind Florida Xtreme 1 when we got to the boats. We proved to be a strong paddling team - and finished the paddle in 1:43 and made it back to the TA feeling strong.

This is the map as I marked it before the race. Note that I measured and marked the locations of CP24 and CP23 given the bearing and distance information from CP22.  The route choice was tricky, had it not been for CP21, we would have gone from CP25 along the faint trail and done them 23 - 22 - 24. Instead we went north from CP25 to CP24 - CP22 - CP23.



We elected to do the elite trek first,  except for the one long course bearing bushwack section the trek was pretty straightforward. This sections was not. I had preplotted the 2 points on my map - and we used all available clues to find these. The spur was very subtle and the bushwhack forced us off our bearing. In this section we saw one rattlesnake, and entire family of turkey, a sleeping baby deer - it was wildlife central. To fin CP25 we followed the trail north and just followed the ridge (contours) to the control. We knew we had overshot the CP22 - but had to get to the wetland boundary on the south side of the spur to retrace our steps back to it. That worked and we found it. We did a reverse bearing to CP23 - just missing it and also missing the faint trail. We bailed out to the road, and went to the waypoint WP1 where we were able to follow the faint (nonexistent except for ribbons) to the control. We lost a little time, but not as much as most teams.

The last bike ride was punishing with lots of sand. Erik alternated towing Jeanette and Junos. Junos was suffering from some severe heat issues, but when we got to CP28 we were able to immerse him in the river which helped a lot. We had a small issue with a flat tire about 3 miles from the finish - we were able to change it in about 5 minutes (usually takes us 3)   In the end we came in 2nd in a great race

Results are at http://pangeaadventureracing.com/event-details/events/2012-missing-river-ar

Nocatee Conquest Adventure Race

I won't do a full race recap here - but I will mention some of the highlights with a little bit of map help for some of the teams. This will be most useful for teams who raced the elite race as they can compare their strategies.

The race started with a long bike leg with multiple CP's that led to the paddle section. It was still dark, and the toughest navigation to do at night is biking - so we elected to head straight for the boats and do the bike CP's after the paddle. We were first to the water and the paddle was wonderful. we also were there before a lot of the wind picked up. 

Towing on Paddle

Erik and I did tow Wanda and Jim on a good portion of the paddle. Paddle towing is a bit tricky - you do need to use a pretty long tow rope and it does need to be stretchy. The back boat will have a tendency to want to steer the front boat. Attach the rope to the very front of the boat being towed. You can attach the rope to the front boat further up in the boat - the further back you attach the harder it will be to steer. I usually attach it to the rear seat. All paddlers should paddle normally, the rear person in the front boat will have to compensate for steering.


View Nocatee in a larger map

We were first off the paddle, but Get to the Chopper (3PM) made incredible paddle time and was out of the water one minute behind us. The bike leg to the first trek was pretty much uneventful, the points were challenging, but not overly. Having the distance marked on the map between key intersections made it simply a matter of "follow this road for .8 km, go north on the net road/trail for .5 km, etc...) I keep my bike set to km since the map scales are usually done that way.

We arrived 2nd at the trek 1 - Primal Instinct had left 51 minutes before us. I though this was an error, but we new we had to make up some time if we wanted to catch them (an I fully intended at that point to catch them). Because we were behind we planned to take some riskier route choices. The most fun on this leg as a 1 km trek section straight across the open marsh. I have some good shots of this in the video. We did the trek in reverse order as I had determined that this would be a bit faster with more open running at the end of the trek. I tend to like to do the bushwhacks early and the trail running later in the trek sections.
 
We blasted through the trek in just over one hour (about 5 miles) -  and made up nearly 20 minutes on Primal Instinct.

After biking back to the start/finish we had 30 minutes to make up on primal, I had some real high payoff risks that I had planned. We headed first for the bearing course picking up 2 controls en-route (CP 18, CP24). We passed Primal Instinct near the bearing course and also realized that the team had gotten separated.

Getting Separated

If you do a lot of adventure racing you will eventually come across the scenario when you get separated from your team-mates. This can happen for lots of reason; you could be split up looking for a CP, a team-mate misses a turn and gets separated, etc... You should never intentionally separate too far apart, but I also realize it happens. The worst situation (which usually occurs racing at night) is when you realize you don't see the lights of a team-mate, or you don't know where your team is. So here is some help. Teams should have a plan. Our plan is simple - always return to the last known intersection or attack point where the team was together. Stop there and wait and call for your team. This is very hard to do (mentally). The team should all know the plan. If you are racing at night discuss the plan - it is very easy to get separated at night.

Anyway - as soon as we realized (Jim and I) that we were missing Wanda and Erik - we headed back to the last intersection where they were waiting. They had simply not seen us turn, and they did the right thing. Not knowing which direction to go - they stopped and waited.

Back together again we headed to the bearings course where Florida Xtreme caught up and joined us through the course. Our team is VERY good at these - if you are not sure how to to do these, catch me before or after a race and I will give you some tips.

Our next big move was a plan to bushwhack to CP25 (250 meters in and 250 meters out). We found the feature - but it was a very risky move because we were taking a long bearing through thick brush. In the end we lost 30 minutes, and had to go around for the control on bike from the other side.

We were running low on time at this point and were also very fatigued. We picked up the controls on the way to the second trek. We paid attention to how long it took us to bike from the main TA to trek 2, knowing that we would have to account for that time in the return trip.

Trekking on the Clock

On the second trek - I kept very close tabs of time. Our pace was slow as we were all tired, and we did bushwhack most of  the controls. We started a bushwhack to one last control and I called for us to bail when I realized we would not have enough time to get it and bike back. It was a good call as our bike leg was a bit slower since we were all having cramping issues.

In the end we placed 3rd (Florida Xtreme did get more controls 38 to our 35). The risky move at CP25 was our big last effort to catch Primal - but the time lost there and also in the regrouping of the team proved to be too much to overcome.

Primal Strategy

So how had Primal gained a 51 minute lead, only 5 hours into the race. Well they took an incredibly risky move early and decided to bike to the paddle points. If it worked - it would give them a huge lead. The real risk was not being able to get to some of the points due to private property or thick vegetation. In this case it really paid off. They were able to navigate and race conservatively the remainder of the race. I truly appreciate big risk moves - and this one paid off for them, good job.

 

Enjoy a little music with scenes from the race.


 

Myakka Mud Slide

This would be my second Myakka Mud Slide race. I was racing with Erik Wise, Caryn Ciesla, and Jeanette Ciesla as Team Mojitas on Monday.

The race offered a new format, where elite teams had to collect 8 of 13 CP's on boat, 8 of 13 on foot, and 10 of 13 on bike. This meant that strategy and course selection would be very important. After a short prolog we hit the boats and headed north, some teams chose to head for the southern points. Even though the water was too shallow to paddle in most places north of the bridge it was pretty fast running and portaging (see video below). We got all CP's and finished the paddle in 1:37, in second just behind Nature Calls at 1:32. Primal Instinct and Florida Xtreme III were just behind us.

We headed out on the trek first straight for CP27 which we located quickly, we then bushwhacked through some palmettos straight to CP28. We hit an unmarked blazed trail to CP29 but went past it on the first 2 attacks. We bailed out to trail east of the CP (on map) and attacked a 3rd time nailing it on the 3rd try. This still cost us a solid 15-20 minutes. We picked up the pace and hit CP39 easily and then headed north  picking up CP31 en route. The vegetation was thick between CP31 and CP 32 so we went around on the trails to CP32 and the followed  that trail to CP33. CP33 was the one that killed both us and Nature Calls. After 30 minutes of searching we verified it was not there, and bailed out to pick up CP34 instead. After CP34 we hit CP30 and jogged it in. The 30 minutes spent searching for the non-existent CP33 hurt us - but we were in good spirits as we headed into the TA and I was happy to get on bikes. I was kicking myself for simply not bailing sooner when we found ribbons in the correct location - these things happen in AR.

The bike ride was hot and sandy - we overshot CP14 by about 200 meters as we were looking on the north side of the road and it was plainly visible on the south side. After that we were a bit more cautious to check all sides of the road and really did not have any issues with any other controls. We bailed out to the paved road at CP26 and took the road all the way back to the CP18 (which we had skipped earlier) and then back to the TA. We had a good 10 minutes to make it from the TA to the Start/Finish - so I knew we could clear within time (my biggest worry).

A great day and a finish with about 3 minutes to spare - it doesn't get much better. Some chocolate milk and pizza and then a long drive home !

BOAR Adventure Race - Eaglin Family Team

What a great day at the BOAR Adventure Race. Beautiful but windy. The race for us was the trek and then the paddle, which was really bike, trek, paddle, bike. A kind of mini race within the race since it took us fully 2 hours. I made a nice little video summary of the race - it shows a lot of the fun we had, enjoy.