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.
