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.