Eaglin Adventure Racing

Pangea Treasure Coast Adventure Race

2012-01-29T15:00:00.000-08:00

This is really a tale of three teams; Good'Nuff, Primal Instinct, and Florida Xtreme 2. I like to recap the times for each of the legs when I analyze the course. This time I had my Forerunner in my pack tracking the route - which is really cool and then I produced this animation of the route our team took. If you want to relive some of the course through our eyes - or see how we approached the course, this shows our exact course.

Initial Trek
14:00 Good'Nuff
16:00 Florida Xtreme 2
16:00 Primal Instinct

Paddle
1:20 Good'Nuff
1:23 Florida Xtreme 2
1:23 Primal Instinct
the next fastest time here was 1:31

On the next 2 legs, we biked first and then trekked. Primal and Good'Nuff trekked first and then biked.

Bike
(fastest was 1:58 Club Scrub)
2:05 Primal Instinct
2:07 Florida Xtreme 2
2:16 Good'Nuff

Run
(these were the 3 fastest times)
0:58 Good'Nuff
1:04 Primal Instinct
1:04 Florida Xtreme 2 (I was really hurting at this point, Wanda even towed me for a while and Erik carried my pack the last half of the run)

As you can see the times for each of the legs were very close. Since the top three places were decided by a spread of less than 2 minutes - any mistake or slowing down was enough to bump you way back.

Here is a little bonus - for those who have not paddle on the Loxahatchee River, here is us leaving CP12 and heading back to the main channel.

I really like races like this that are close. The friendly competition among the teams makes these races a lot of fun. The weather, especially at the finish with all the teams eating and sitting around made for a fantastic atmosphere.

Misty and Sara (Good'Nuff) will be moving into triathlon season again so we probably won't see them at the next few races, and we'll miss them. It was great to See Kyle Tallent joining forces with Primal Instinct, he is a great veteran of the early races. I also see a lot of teams are moving up from Sport to Elite in the upcoming races - that is also a great thing.

Another wonderful race for Pangea - I'll see everyone out at BOAR even though I will likely not be recovered enough from Patagonia http://www.patagonianexpeditionrace.com/ to actually race (it usually take 3-4 weeks to recover from an expedition race).

Resolution 2012 - Lake Louisa State Park

2012-01-15T13:22:00.000-08:00

http://pangeaadventureracing.com/event-details/events/2012-resolution

This was a cold race - especially for Florida. The temp at the start was around 40 degrees - but Florida 40 degrees is the coldest 40 degrees anywhere. We were racing as Florida Xtreme 2, an inside joke is the team name of Rainbows and Unicorns - that has to do with the fact that no matter how good or bad we race its all "rainbows and unicorns" out there. Jennifer Moos (our 4th) was sick so it would just be me, Erik, and Marghi racing. Jen picked a great time to be sick as if you weren't sick the cold and wet of this race would get you there.

We started with a short (3 mile) run. Of course after starting out just fine, after punching CP3 and crossing the road we headed off down the wring trail - realized our mistake and had to completely backtrack. It was just me getting cocky and not looking at the compass to realize we were headed the wrong direction. Of course a few teams followed us - though they also followed us backwards after we headed back. The run took us 39 minutes - pretty slow considering Good 'Nuff completed it in 25 minutes. Next we headed out on bikes to the boats with 2 CP's along the route. We decided to skip an obvious bushwack and bike around it, we thing that saved us time as we completed the bike in 27 minutes (compared to 33 and 36 for Good'Nuff and Florida Xtreme 1).

The Paddle

This paddle deserves it own section on the blog. We were a solid 15 minutes behind Good'Nuff and were the 3rd team into the water. Platypussinboots and Good'Nuff were ahead of us. They seemed to be taking a route along the shore of the lake. This made sense as we had 2-3 foot waves with whitecaps and icy cold water - with a 20 mph crosswind. The safe route was along the shore - but it was too shallow to paddle - so they were towing boats and running. Since Marghi and I are both experienced paddlers in open water (read as high surf) we decided to go ahead and paddle it. Paddling across surf is tricky - for one it is counter-intuitive to lean away from waves - which you must do to keep from swamping the boat. Also you have to time the direction you steer the boat (from the back) to allow it to move through the water without being pushed backwards. We did this and paddled straight across the heavy surf making up some serious time on the 2 teams. We had one control we did walk - since it was simply too shallow to paddle - but we fought the waves and wind on the other ones.

Gear alert: During the paddle I was using some Pogies - they were awesome. While most folks hands were freezing mine were actually sweating. http://www.amazon.com/Stohlquist-Glove-Pogie-Black-Silver/dp/B004H3DIE6/ref=sr_1_6?s=sporting-goods&ie=UTF8&qid=1326659864&sr=1-6

By the time we reached the CP on the far north side of the lake we had caught up to platypussinboots and were about 4 minutes behind Good'Nuff. The paddle back was simply surfing the boat and making sure we kept in going the correct direction. We hit the shore minutes behind Good'Nuff. Our feet were pretty frozen and we took a little extra time in the transition to get some food and both Marghi and Erik changed shoes and socks. I stuffed some socks in my pack to change later after my shoes dried out (I never used them).

The Trek

It looked like we would have pretty straightforward navigation on the trek and it was. We did cut across a lot of the angles at trail intersections since the terrain was mostly open. The most interesting point was CP16 - which led into a bearing course from CP16 to CP22. These were all pretty easy, until we decided to bushwhack over to CP23 straight from CP22. This was interesting - and we went across three wetlands, only 2 of which were mapped. This was a bit slower than the trail route - but was a lot of fun. I was feeling pretty sluggish on all the runs - but we kept a solid if slow running pace throughout the run back to the bikes.

Trek times
Platypussinboots 1:17
Good'Nuff at 1:25
Florida Xtreme 2 1:52
Rub Some Dirt on it 1:59

The Bike

When we got to the bikes there were still a few left there, and it was just before 1 PM - so we knew we had plenty of time to complete the course. We only had one bad route choice, taking the first road at the north side of Hammond Lake - this put us on a pretty nasty north-south road through a pretty area - but the softest sand we had seen the entire course and some pretty big hills. From CP32 we bushwhacked straight to the intersection to the southwest of the control - this was fast - but I ended up getting a flat and we had to stop to repair it. Usually this takes 5 minutes - but for some reason we were slow and spent nearly 10 minutes on this. The entire south area of the park had very interesting terrain, hilly and open. Also most of the riding was a lot more solid than the northern trails. We passed a few teams taking a breather at the trail intersection just northwest of CP33.

We were starting to fatigue a bit as we crossed the finish line. We had about an hour to spare, and had not seen too many elite teams on course.We were the third team across the finish line - Team Platypussinboots however had gotten a gear penalty which pushed them back to 4th place.

Bike Times
Good 'Nuff 1:41
Rub Some Dirt on it 2:02
Florida Xtreme 2 2:04
Playtpussinboots 2:07

I had my forerunner in my pack recording our route (and beeping strangely) - here is the route recorded.

To see the race from the viewpoint of the Canyoneeros see http://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2012/01/pangea-resolution-ar-elite-8hr.html

Orienteering at Wekiva 1-7-2012

2012-01-08T10:22:00.000-08:00

The orienteering at Wekiva turned out to be a beautiful day. The blue course got cut a bit short as the park service had a controlled burn going on the day before the event. Still the blue course was challenging - we just ended up with a mile long run on a sandy road up to one area (for 2 controls) and then a run back. Here is a map of my route (from my Garmin Forerunner);

Even a little bit of video of the course - not much but a few clips.

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

2011-12-18T09:29:00.000-08:00

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!

Florida Orienteering 12-10-2011 Wekiva

2011-12-10T18:40:00.001-08:00

It was a great day for orienteering today at Kelly Park. I had the GPS tracker in my backpack - so below is my track in Google maps, I added the control locations. Some of the controls were really challenging. Pretty much all the adventure racers got into the palmettos that were east of CP3 and CP4 wasting a lot of time bashing through tough stuff. I ended up bailing to the trail on CP3 and CP4 and re-attacking each of those (as did many others).CP5 was a bit challenging - but CP6 really gave everyone a hard time. I attacked CP7 from the road intersection and hit it dead-on. CP8 which looked easy was placed about east of the mapped location, and gave me a real hard time - it also was not located on the thicket. We found it with a small group of racers. From CP8 - it was pretty straighforward the rest of the way in.

View Florida Orienteering - 12-10-2011 in a larger map

Here is a little video collage of the event

Turkey Burn 2011

2011-11-27T07:47:00.001-08:00

You really cannot beat the excitement of having the entire season come down to a single race. It really is not about the prizes - it is about being the Pangea champion for that year - and for all the teams that qualified it would all be decided in this race.The Turkey Burn elite traditionally starts at 4 AM, this is usually either cold or wet - but today it was neither. The weather was mild and cool, perfect for racing. I'm including maps and a summary of each leg here.

Leg 1 - Orienteering

It would all start out with a relatively short orienteering leg. In the dark - this can be pretty challenging. After picking up the first CP all the teams headed west of the Persimmon Trail. This trail is very rooted, Wanda took at least 2 nosedives and an ankle twist along this route. I had one minor twist - and this was just on the trail itself. Because the race had just started most of the teams were packed together - and also running hard trying to establish an early lead. The only one that gave teams a bit of trouble was CP3 (which was the last one we got). It was placed on the opposite side of the trail, but still along the fenceline. Once one team got it - all the other teams converged. The run back along the Persimmon trail was still tough - and we were moving fast. As we got back to transition area - Nell of Team Eco-Choice hit the knee high cable separating the road from the grass and went down real hard. She however bounced right back up. I'm including the splits from all the teams clearing the course in their order for each leg.

Orienteering 1

35:00 - Florida Xtreme 2
35:00 - Primal Instinct
35:00 - Eco-Choice
35:00 - Get to the Chopper
41:00 - Florida Xtreme
43:00 - Green Paw
48:00 - Nature Calls
1:03:00 - Good Enough 4 Dad's Sake
1:27:00 - FLX/Utility Mutants

Bike to Lake Highland

The next leg was a simple road bike about 6-7 miles to the boats at Lake Highland. I decided to NOT wear clips for this leg as I did not want to take the time to change. We were the third team to get into the water just behind Primal Instinct. Green Paw hit the water just behind us.

Bike 2 Deleon Springs to Lake Highland Fish Camp

29:00 - Green Paw
30:00 - Primal Instinct
30:00 - Florida Xtreme
30:00 - Get to the Chopper
31:00 - FLX/Utility Mutants
32:00 - Florida Xtreme 2
33:00 - Nature Calls
37:00 - Eco-Choice
37:00 - Good Enough 4 Dad's Sake

Paddle Leg

This next leg was a good long paddle leg. We were in the water just around 5 AM meaning we would have at least one hour of paddling in darkness. We were bunched pretty tightly as we hit CP7. I had decided that we would do this paddle with 4 in the boat. That is not necessarily the fastest way to paddle - but it does let us rest a racer. It also would allow me to focus more on the navigation. We were moving about the same speed as the other boats around us, and we had now established a pack of about 6 teams moving together. When we reached CP8 it was completely clogged with vegetation and we were essentially pushing the boat through weeds and sea lettuce to get to the CP. It looked like the water was shallow so I decided to jump out and walk to the CP. This did not work out as planned as I immediately went over my head in the surprising deep water (I never did touch the bottom). I swam and pulled the boat along toward the control - but this was not terribly effective as I could not get purchase on anything and the water was too deep. As 4 teams passed us here I pulled myself back on the boat, now soaking wet - but not really cold. After that we concentrated on just paddling hard to the next few checkpoints all of which were pretty easy to locate with the pack of boats.

The paddle from CP11 to CP13 meant avoiding clogs and jams of all the weeds floating on the surface of the lake. The sun had now come up and it was turning into a pretty sunrise. Of course the beauty was punctuated with the sounds of rifles and shotguns going off as it was hunting season. I can see why the game disappears quickly when the season starts - the sound of the guns carries a long way, and at times it sounded like someone was shooting off cannons somewhere on shore. The next to last control was placed so that you could only really get one boat in at a time. This spread all the boats into a small armada with about 2 minutes between the boats. All the lead pack teams were paddling all out and you can really tell by looking at the split times that are so close together. Florida Xtreme did pull away from the other teams after we hit Spring Garden Run - all solid paddlers, paddling all out.

Paddle Splits

3:27 - Florida Xtreme
3:27 - Eco-Choice
3:34 - Green Paw
3:35 - Primal Instinct
3:36 - Get to the Chopper
3:39 - Florida Xtreme 2
3:46 - FLX/Utility Mutants
3:47 - Good Enough 4 Dad's Sake
3:57 - Nature Calls

Transition to Bikes

After we hit land - the next thing to do was to pack up and get out the door for the bike-trek-bike coming up. None of us had had a chance to eat or drink at this time. Our opportunity would be after the time trial and on the next trek leg (still a ways out). Here are transition times and time to Chuck Lennon (less than 1/2 mile away).

Bike to Chuck Lennon

8:00 - FLX/Utility Mutants
8:00 - Get to the Chopper
9:00 - Eco-Choice
11:00 - Primal Instinct
11:00 - Florida Xtreme 2
11:00 - Florida Xtreme
12:00 - Nature Calls
14:00 - Good Enough 4 Dad's Sake

Chuck Lennon Time Trial

For those of you not familiar with Chuck Lennon - it is some wonderful single track set on a few acres near Deleon Springs. There is not much land - but the courses are designed to make the most of what land is there. If you have never ridden single track - think roller coaster on a bike. Here is a little video (not mine) that shows some of the highlights of the trail network. The elite course biked hoot owl to the hub, then red, yellow, and finally out the blue.

This section was also a time trial (think race within a race). Since we were all still (biking) fresh nearly all the team rode this hard. We also saw Nell (Eco-Choice) go down hard again on the blue trail - but just like the first time she popped back up. Also "Good Enough 4 Dad's Sake" showed that they have what it takes to do the single track with the second best split time behind Primal Instinct (which had ridden Lennon before and are a strong technical bike team).

Time Trial Chuck Lennon

37:00 - Primal Instinct
39:00 - Good Enough 4 Dad's Sake
40:00 - Florida Xtreme
43:00 - Nature Calls
43:00 - Get to the Chopper
44:00 - Florida Xtreme 2
45:00 - FLX/Utility Mutants
50:00 - Green Paw
53:00 - Eco-Choice

Bike to Heart Island

Nothing spectacular after the wonderful single track - just all out ride to Heart Island. Jim put Wanda on the tow rope - just as we were entering Heart Island he stopped to take her off the tow, Bruce and I rode in and nearly got a separation penalty - however Jim and Wanda were just around the corner entrance (maybe 30 yards from the actual TA).

Bike to Heart Island

17:00 - Florida Xtreme
18:00 - Primal Instinct
19:00 - Get to the Chopper
20:00 - Nature Calls
21:00 - Green Paw
21:00 - Florida Xtreme 2
22:00 - Eco-Choice
22:00 - Good Enough 4 Dad's Sake
23:00 - FLX/Utility Mutants

Heart Island Biking

We were warned that the bike trails were pretty sandy (actually they were horse trails). Bruce was having some quad cramps and the sandy riding was tough. I was on my new Motobecane 29 - and they ride incredibly well in sand. Our course is shown - we tried to stay to the best riding trails. Green Paw had arrived just before us at Heart Island, and Florida Xtreme (1) and Primal Instinct were just minutes in front of us as we entered here. I am still picking sand spurs off my tires from this section.

Red shows our route - Heart Island Bike

Heart Island Bike Loop

0:45 - Green Paw
0:50 - Florida Xtreme
0:52 - Good Enough 4 Dad's Sake
0:56 - Eco-Choice
0:56 - Nature Calls
0:58 - Get to the Chopper
0:59 - FLX/Utility Mutants
1:00 - Primal Instinct
1:01 - Florida Xtreme 2

Foot Section Heart Island

Red shows our route - Heart Island Trek

At this point in the race fatigue was taking its toll on the team. I was stiff and not running particularly well. We did a lot of bushwack in this section (though it was not what was slowing us down). We also joined forces with Eco-choice to nail the CP's. So far we had lost about 5 minutes on the previous bike leg to navigation and we immediately lost about another 5 on CP31 on this leg as we shot right past it and had to double back. We made up for that on CP30 heading straight to the control and avoiding having to do the bearing. We did the same on 29 - but missed it and still had to use a bearing for that one. We bushwhacked straight across to CP28 (coming to the white trail a bit north of it) and then headed in.

Heart Island Orienteering Loop

37:00 - Green Paw
39:00 - Get to the Chopper
40:00 - Florida Xtreme
42:00 - Primal Instinct
45:00 - Good Enough 4 Dad's Sake
48:00 - Eco-Choice
49:00 - Florida Xtreme 2
50:00 - Nature Calls
50:00 - FLX/Utility Mutants

Bike To Main TA

At this point we were racing with Alan and Nell from Eco-choice. Jim was towing Wanda, Bruce was the passport man. We also knew we had about a one hour bike ride and then the orienteering course. The O course would be a make or break, essentially any team at this point could win. Green Paw and Florida Xtreme had built up a pretty good buffer, but not enough to make the race foolproof. Primal Instinct was close enough we knew we could possibly catch them. We did this bike leg with everything we had left in our biking legs - which was not much. I was still happy with my new bike, it had done well on single track, sand, and road. The roads were all nice country roads and quite scenic. I tried to keep a solid line, and pulled all the way back to the TA.

Bike to Main TA

50:00 - Green Paw
50:00 - Good Enough 4 Dad's Sake
52:00 - Primal Instinct
54:00 - Florida Xtreme
56:00 - Florida Xtreme 2
56:00 - Eco-Choice
59:00 - Nature Calls
1:00:00 - FLX/Utility Mutants
1:01:00 - Get to the Chopper

The Final Orienteering

When we got to the TA - there were 3 teams on the O course in front of us (Florida Xtreme, Green Paw, and Primal Instinct). Our team was also feeling pretty lead-legged. I knew if I was accurate with the orienteering and the other teams made a mistake or two we could catch them - of course that meant being perfect in this section.I decided to go in reverse order so that after the last control I could shut off the brain and simply take the trail in to the TA. The first and second controls (CP43 and CP42) were both quick and easy. From 42 we headed north on the trail towards 41 and cut into the woods when we saw the dirt mounds, quickly finding the dry stream and what was left of the fenceline (actually the fenceline found us as Jim tripped over the barbed wire). CP 40 seemed a bit too far south - but close enough. We bushwhacked pretty much straight to the trail NE of CP39 and picked it up quickly too. CP39 to CP38 was a trail run, and we found the old ditch quickly. Here we saw Primal Instinct coming towards CP38 (doing the course in the other direction). They also looked very fatigued. From CP38 we went north to the trail along the road and just ran to CP37 trail the entire way. From CP37 we headed south found the "bend" in the power lines and took that trail south To CP36. CP36 looked easy on the map - it was not. I finally shot it from the trail to the east of it, and the trail heading southeast from the intersection was complete grown over and gone.

Even though it took us to tries to hit CP36 we had lost no more than 5 minutes and ran due west on the road punching through to the blue trail where we headed south and quickly located CP38. We passed some sport teams as we ran to CP41.

This control - even though the hill was obvious cost us 10 minutes (at least). The control was east of the mapped location, and we had found yellow biodegradable ribbon at the mapped location. This led us to believe the flag could have been missing. We gave it one last effort on a wide sweep of the hill and sure enough found it on that last try. from there it was "leaving it all on the field" - running with everything we had left to the finish line. We had not had enough to catch Green Paw and Primal Instinct. (Eco-choice did this entire section with us).

Orienteering Deleon

1:26:11 - Florida Xtreme 2
1:26:14 - Eco-Choice
1:35:42 - Green Paw
1:49:03 - Primal Instinct
1:52:38 - Good Enough 4 Dad's Sake
1:52:44 - Nature Calls
2:07:13 - FLX/Utility Mutants
2:32:26 - Florida Xtreme
2:57:47 - Get to the Chopper

Final Thoughts

This incredible race had pushed the season championships into the final hour of the final race of the season - for those who love competition, you really cannot get more exciting than that. Overall times were very close

9:44:42 - Green Paw
10:09:03 - Primal Instinct
10:14:11 - Florida Xtreme 2
10:14:14 - Eco-Choice
10:42:26 - Florida Xtreme
11:01:38 - Good'Nuff 4 Dad's Sake
11:10:44 - Nature Calls

To see all the teams and splits (I just did the course clearers) - go to http://www.pangeaadventureracing.com/event-details/events/2011-turkey-burn-ar

Congrats to all who came out raced. Good job Green Paw on pulling it together for a well earned victory.

Also as a side note - using exercise calculators I estimated I burnt 6500 calories during the race. I drank 70 ounces of Gatorade and ate 2 apples and 2 Cliff Shot blocks (little ones).

Checkpoint Tracker Championship 2011

2011-10-24T18:47:00.000-07:00

OK! So let me start this blog with the fact that Jeff has been bugging me to get a new bike ever since Expedition Idaho. I have needed a new bike for a while, mine does suffer from old age - but I have been changing out the components and keeping it rolling for years. It is heavy - but I have not had trouble keeping up with team-mates or training partners, so I've been putting it off. Plus I really like my bike!

Well as we met and headed up to Checkpoint Tracker I knew I'd hear about getting a new bike a few more times and I laughed it off. I figured I could at least finish off this season on it and switch bikes in December.

Now to the race. Checkpoint Tracker had advertised a national level challenge and I was pretty sure that they would deliver. We got half the maps at the pre-race and the usual routine of heading back to the hotel room and plotting CP's started around 9 PM. We were staying in Barkley Lodge on Lake Barkley at Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky. The area was quite pretty - the lake is a great backdrop for the beautiful woods. I was racing with Erik from Utility Mutants. We were up there with Florida Xtreme; Courtney, Jeff, Mark, and Jim. They had raced in Kentucky 2 weeks earlier at the USARA National Championship.

The Race

The race started with really 3 prologs; a little foot loop to create a photo opportunity, a second foot loop with a 200 yard paddle to create a second photo op, and then an orienteering loop. Erik and I stayed near the back of the pack and I used the GoPro to video all the teams - most of which were in front of us.

After we got out of the water we headed towards CP3, and immediately followed a large group of teams up the wrong re-entrant (too far north). We spent a good 20 minutes re-shooting the bearing and coming off the hilltop with the other teams who made the same mistake we did. Doh! Though it is always good to make a small mistake early than a big mistake later. We headed to CP 2 and nailed the small pond quickly. The other teams that were with us disappeared off into the woods to our west even with us calling to them. Oh well - we punched the control and headed to CP1 which was a pretty easy find. The red line is what we ran, (yellow was our plan). When we got back to the boats to head to TA1 it appeared that half of them were gone.

We are pretty good paddlers and teams that were already in the lake and near out of our sight I was pretty sure we would catch. It was nice, cool and sunny. The paddle took us just over an hour - I shot a video of us coming into TA1. As we approached we could see Florida Xtreme already on the long rogaine foot leg. Here is a video of me taunting them as they crossed in front of us. I calculated that they had exactly a 15 minute lead at that point. They had done the early orienteering in the CP1 to CP3 order and that proved to be a better method.

The Rogaine

The next leg of the race was a LONG Rogaine embedded in the race. We had 10 hours to try to get as many CP's as possible. We were going to try and get them all, but it was going to mean going fast AND being dead on with the navigation. The maps are below (in 2 parts).

The strategy took us across the bridge where we quickly found CP7 and CP8 by going up and over the ridges following the lake shoreline. (The red line is our course). CP8 to CP10 was simply punch through the flat area to the road and run to the road bend and head back into the woods. The pond was tricky - but we also had about 6 teams with us at this point. We then punched straight out to the road again and used the power line road intersection to attack CP9. Again a quick find and we had a few teams with us. We decided to head straight across the ridgelines to CP14 where a lot of the teams dropped out to the road. We ended up being faster and that put us in front of a lot of teams. We had CP20 to get before we headed to CP15 (CP36) at the road intersection. CP20 had a large cleared area that had overgrown with briars along the steep slope. This was punishing Erik who was not wearing long pants or leggings and was getting pretty chewed up on his legs. We went over the reidge and dropped down the ridge to CP15. CP15 was a manned CP and seeing Bill there checking in teams gave us a bit of a boost as we headed to CP11. All the teams with us had disappeared by this time, either taking another route or falling back on the navigation. We were alone as we attacked CP11 (up to hilltop after 3rd re-entrant along road). From CP11 we punched straight through the very thick low area to CP16. We passed Tecnu at a stream crossing here and were able to refill our water bottles at the stream. Here is a little video of this crossing.

CP16 to CP21 was our first nav mistake. I somehow got caught up behind another team which drew me off my bearing and left me totally lost. We decided to punch back north to the flat area and re-attack the control. The second time we went very slow and cautious, finally using the double hilltop to the north to drop south to the control. We came upon Yoga Slackers here and got some tips and gave some tips for the upcoming controls (they were coming from the other direction). From CP21 to CP22 we simply followed the ridgeline and went straight to the control. CP22 to CP24, punch to the road and then attack from correct spot on road. We made one bad attack attempt before realizing we were too early, but nailed it on the second try. CP28 was simply trying to hit the correct re-entrant, which we did not - but we did figure out the re-entrant we were on and corrected by following around the ridge line. At this point we were running out of time and decided to skip CP29 and go straight to CP25 - this was pretty easy at this point as was pushing to the road and nabbing CP26. It was starting to get dark so we decided to head back and try to grab a couple more along the route - our route is shown in the red line. We arrived at the TA with a good half hour to spare. There were a few teams taking advantage of the nice warm indoors of the TA - quite a luxury with a real sink (read fresh clean water). We saw Florida Xtreme coming into this TA just as we were leaving for the boats.

It was nice and dark as we hit the paddle to head north to the next TA. I heard teams complaining about the paddle. For me, paddling at night is awesome - it is cool and it allows you to relax a little bit between hard legs. Most Florida teams are good flat water paddlers - we have lots of flat water here and have plenty of chances to work on that skill. The paddle was quite enjoyable and we passed about 6 teams on the water, we also caught up with a few before the next TA. The only challenge was a muddy portage at CP33. At CP33 we had a trek to CP34 where the bikes were staged which we ran (the entire 2 1/2 miles) because we were cold and also to stretch our legs out after the paddle.

The Bike Leg

The bike leg was a lot of dirt roads (some in poor condition) and single track. There is a LOT of single track at land between the lakes. In the day and with fresh legs I would have been in single track heaven. This was an incredible section of single track riding and it was straight forward enough that it was rideable at night. At CP41 we had to build a noodle raft and cross 600 meters of water in 34 degree weather or take a 2 hour penalty - we took the penalty. After CP41 we hit another section of single track that was really fun and the sun was coming up.

Here are some video's of this section - after I could get video with the sun up.

Busting past one checkpoint - LOOK REAL CLOSE at the tree.

At this point of the race we were doing great. We were a bit tired, but were in an excellent position to finish and it was looking like a podium finish. However just when all is great disaster starts. Going up a rise I snapped my chain. We stopped and did some repairs - but as i got back on the bike I knew we were going to have some issues. The chain was going up and down the gears (high and low) with a mind of its own. I thought it might be a stiff link, but was not sure. Luckily the single track was pretty flat here and we were able to progress very slowly to CP47 (next to last one). The ride back to the boats was going to be tough and I was not able to put any real pressure on the pedals as I could feel the crank set slipping. I broke my chain the second time without any real stressing of the chain - a quick inspection revealed that my derailleur was at an angle and was torquing the chain. We were riding along the grass on a road where the pavement was off-limits. We also noticed that this was being largely ignored by teams - however I was not willing to violate this rule and told Erik I wanted to go back to the last TA to regroup. Once back at TA47 we figured that the only way to make the cutoff with the bike issues was to use the illegal road (which was a DQ) - we decided to drop at this point and take a ride to the start. I did take this video of using the bike as a "kick-bike" heading back to the TA (for fun).

Fixing the chain

The Kick Bike

In the end - we calculated that without the bike issues we would have ended up with 43 CP's and a possible 3rd place division finish - BUT even with all the problems we enjoyed ourselves. We raced as a great team - and I'm looking forward to more races with Utility Mutants.

Pangea Lighterknot Adventure Race

2011-10-16T17:16:00.000-07:00

Team Florida Xtreme was out and about for another week of adventure racing. For Jeff this was the middle week of 3 weeks of races, 27 hours at USARA in Kentucky, this race, and then next week we are back in Kentucky for a 24 hour race - the Checkpoint Zero finals ( http://www.checkpointtracker.com/ .

For this week, Bruce, Jim, Jeff and I were ready to have some fun. The start was the usual prolog and then a trek to the boat TA. We flew through the prolog and were first to the boats. We headed north to CP7 and CP8 so that we would beat some of the offshore wind - but that was a mistake. After getting the 2 CP's to the north we headed south into the maze of channels. CP9, 10, and 11 were all pretty easy. CP12 looked challenging - we decided to attack it along the west channel which quickly became clogged and too shallow to paddle. We ended up collecting about a half dozen teams in this area - none of which could make it across to the east and CP12. The red line on the map below shows our path into and out of this area - though we did not paddle far, the rough terrain and the uncertainty of our location made it a 45 minute complete backtrack.

View Lighterknot in a larger map

After the using a route that had a little more water - we found CP12 (with a few teams in tow) and then also CP13 and CP14. As we approached the boat TA we saw that there were 5 dirty canoes out of the water. We knew that Team Primal accounted for 2 of them, but weren't sure who the other boats belonged to. I like having teams to try and chase down (kind of a bird dog thing) - so I was motivated to race hard the remainder of the race. We decided to transition to the trek next. This proved to be a good choice - we were relatively fresh and were able to keep a decent running pace for the the entire trek - nailing each control. The one that was a big surprise was CP16. The year before we had a CP on a hilltop in deep pine woods very close to where CP16 was located. As we approached the area it was completely barren. The area around the CP was completely stripped of trees and even the ground was nearly barren. It did make for fast running. To see the area before the clearcut look at http://eaglinar.blogspot.com/2010/10/lighterknot-2010.html and look at the video at time stamp 1:30 (those are the same woods!).We made a quick transition to bikes after the run and headed out - though I knew that Primal had a very good lead. I was not sure who else was in front of us at this point. On the bike I did make 2 mistakes - the first one was following the road to the right into the open field just before CP3 (and then backtracking back to the main road). Then one minute later doing the same thing to the left - doh! I quickly got my brain back into the game. At CP21 all of us ran right by the CP - which was just beyond the gate and spent a few extra minutes searching (we saw it as we headed back out). CP22 was in a really nice wooded area and trail network - great location and one I will visit later. We pushed really hard on the sand roads at CP24 and then into the finish for a 3rd place. Primal Instinct had a well deserved first place finish, followed by Get to the Chopper (who were a few minutes in front of us). It was a great workout and an excellent race. Here is a bit of video of the race to enjoy (with some music).

Moss Park Orienteering

2011-10-10T05:52:00.000-07:00

I hit Moss park in the heavy rain this weekend for orienteering. Could not resist as they had a long blue course. Here are some images from that course

Superhero Adventure Race

2011-09-18T07:30:00.000-07:00

I was a bit worried coming into this race. The week before I had bonked bad about an hour into an orienteering and was not sure how my body would hold up a week later going into a 6 hour adventure race. We knew we would have high temps - so that was one concern. I was pretty sure I was recovered enough to perform well, but you never know. Wanda, Jim, and I met up - I have some video that covers some of the different parts of this adventure race and some parts that are common to all adventure races in the video - I have annotated it, too.

The elite race started with a bike prolog that had 2 checkpoints. My strategy on these is simply to keep the navigation clean and position ourselves well going into the next leg (which would be the boats). Since I navigate I usually call out directions to the rest of the team as we ride so that if they are in front we don't get delayed or have to stop. Our plan was to go left inside the fenceline and hit CP2 first and then CP1. This turned out to be a good strategy as most teams headed to CP1 first - this left us pretty open riding on the trails. We made it back to the TA within a minute of the leaders as planned and made a really fast transition to boats (our entire transition is in the video). This is pretty typical of all our transitions - we like to move in and out of the TA as fast as possible.

Once in the water we had 3 CP's downstream in open water, 1 CP up a clogged narrow, channel, and 3 CP's that were in an open fast flowing channel. We headed upstream on the narrow channel first. We were pretty sure that we would be pushing the boats through this section and we knew that pushing them upstream or downstream would be pretty close in speed. Only a few teams chose this route so we had the river almost to ourselves. There is some fun footage of this section in the video. Once we hit the main channel again we had some tough upstream paddling, but after the most upstream CP it was high current paddling downstream. Since we were paddling fast I jumped out of the boat (literally) as we got to CP4 and my team leaned with me, swamping the boat. CP4 was in very shallow water so we dumped the boat and cruised downstream flying over shallow logs. Unfortunately CP3 was just behind a log across the river and while we ducked under it we totally missed the control and flew past it. We realized this when we got to the river split and the main channel - but I decided we would return for CP3 after got the downstream CP's. These were easy and when we got back it took us 7 minutes to get to CP3 and back, we also passed Florida Xtreme I just before CP3 so we knew we were about 2 minutes behind them. Of course had we not missed CP3 we would have been a few minutes in front of them.

After hitting the main TA we hopped on the bikes. We had trekking shoes on for the paddle and kept these on for the short bike to the bike drop. We would start the trek there. I had previously decided to do this counterclockwise (CP19 first) which turned out to be a good strategy. None of the CP's gave us any trouble until CP28. Because there were not many features and the 2 controls were only about 500-600 meters apart we took a direct bearing from CP27 to CP28. At the distance we did not see the control, so we bailed north to the trail and then west to the trail intersection. I got a little confused here and took us a bit too far, but realized my mistake. We attacked CP28 the second time from the trail intersection NW of the control - again we were not having much success and were joined by Nature Calls as we were searching. Their was a mapped depression North northeast of the CP and we were using that to keep us on the attack. I finally decided to simply follow the subtle ridgeline that was east of the mapped location. This worked and even though I was not positive I think the mapped location of the shallow depression was too far west, but I'll bring that up with the mappers. The extra time at the control was pretty much a moot point because we were about to have bigger problems.

Two controls back Jim had handed the passport to Wanda. He will sometimes take a little break from being the passport mule, but I noticed he was moving a bit slower and was hunched as we were moving. Shortly after CP28 he was totally hunched over and we were stopped. Most experienced elite AR teams have had plenty of experience with heat issues in summer races. Wanda and I had both slowed our team in many races due to heat related problems, but this was the first time Jim had been hurting. It soon became obvious he was really hurting, but after about 15 minutes of dry heaving and emptying the contents of his stomach - we were moving again. At this point sometimes there is partial recovery, sometimes full recovery, and sometimes no recovery. We were in partial recovery - Jim could move, but not fast and we were at the furthest point in the trek. I eventually put Jim on a tow - and I knew he was hurting as I was putting on a solid pull (which Jim would never let me do unless he was in bad shape). We made it to the bikes, and I wondered if we would be able to move faster on bikes (Jim is an extremely strong biker and the strongest on the team). He was having a hard time keeping even a mild pace and at this point I was really worried. Once we got back to the TA - which even for the short bike was pretty arduous (you do feel the pain of your team-mates when they hurt) Jim was pale and not sweating. This is really not a good sign.

We decided that we would check-in as finished at this point. That would at least give us an official finish, and then Wanda and I would head out and do the bike leg. I gave Jim some ice rags and Wanda, we got the bike passport - I threw on my faithful Cannondale bike shoes and we were off. I'm not sure if we caught up with them or vice versa - but at the first bike CP we were biking along with Nature Calls. Oddly - they chose entirely different routes to nearly every CP, but we usually arrived within minutes of each other at each CP. We did this leg counter clockwise too. I had chosen to bike second for 3 reasons (1) to avoid switching shoes twice, (2) avoid running when it got hotter, and (3) be able to see how ride-able the trails were while running to help optimze the bike route. Wanda was awesome on the bike on this leg - I pushed the pace hard (looking to break 1 hour on this leg) and she never fell back. I was feeling pretty good, I've been trying to be better hydrated at the start and it seemed to be paying off (though I did have to pee twice on the course).

Nature Calls dropped back at CP16 (2 CP's to go) and Wanda and I finished at 2:24 (5 hrs 24 minutes). Nature Calls was very close behind us, I did not stay at the start after that - I headed to the water to cool off and wash off chiggers and ticks. Jim was feeling a lot better having cooled off too.

The race was great- I'll post the video as a link here once it gets done uploading. I am now using a GoPro HD t ofilm races. It is a great camera, but HD video takes a while to upload to Youtube (10 hours)

By request here are the maps from the race

Rock Springs Run Orienteering

2011-09-10T17:15:00.000-07:00

Well - if there was question of whether I was recovered from Idaho, I answered that today. I met Johan Mukhalis to do the blue course orienteering at Rock Springs. I'm doing training runs at most orienteering events (except for State Championships) - and Johan came out to take me up on the offer. The plan is simple - I coach the other runners through the first parts of the course and then let them navigate the final controls.

It was actually pretty pleasant temperatures for the start of this course which was good - since we were in the open fields for the first few miles (which can be brutallly hot). Of course the fields were very overgrown - so the travel was pretty rough. Johan is a good runner and we kept a solid pace through controls 1-4, and then the truck hit me (as we headed for CP5). Ironically the only thing that did not hurt in my body were my legs. As we moved through the next few controls I let Johan do more of the navigation (which was a nice break as I was combating heat, nausea, and fatigue. We slowed a bit and I starting feeling batter. After we cleared the thick Palmetto bushes north of CP9 I let Johan navigate. He brought us nicely into CP10. I told him to try and rely on features and less on the compass (exact words - "Try not to use your compass" ) heading to CP11. This was key to the lesson as it is a demonstration of how much you can lose a bearing. Even though the control was north of our location we ended up heading for a pond that was south of us.

Here is where some of the most important techniques of adventure racing (and orienteering) come into play. When you are not in the correct location you need to figure it out quickly and correct. This is extremely important because even the best navigators are going to make mistakes. So, after looking for the control for a few minutes I pointed out that there was a visible pond north of the pond we were searching. Johan took the clue and realized that there were no ponds on the map north of the correct pond and we ran to the next pond. Of course this still does not mean we were in the correct location (this was still the wrong pond). Hoever, from this pond you could see the bathrooms (and the finish) to the northeast of our location. Since CP11 was pretty much due west of the finish we knew we needed to head further north to yet another pond. From this point Johan read the features and brought us right into the control. This also provided me a little opportunity to rest a little bit (I was really hurting). From there we headed towards CP12 and the finish.

I am going to try and do training runs for any adventure racers that want to do this at the orienteering events - I'll post to Facebook on the Pangea site when I plan to do these runs. A lot of thanks to Johan - I really enjoyed the run and after heading home and getting a nice nap I feel much better. Now here's hoping I recover a bit more before next week and the Superhero Adventure Race.

Start - CP1 - Flag visible from start was not correct CP, used as an example of the more subtle points of reading the map and also using the bearing.
CP1 - CP2 - Easy road run, then moving to the mapped opening in the trees leading to CP2
CP2 - CP3 - Used the trail along the fenceline and then headed into the high grass. Bearing was easy to keep as the mounds south of the control were visible. Alternate route would have been to punch due east to trail and use trail to attack the control

CP3 - CP4 - This was a long slog through tall grass. We used the tip of the vegetation boundary to keep our bearing. Towards the end as we approached the CP - it was easier to go into the trees which were very open.
CP4-CP5 - Route choice was really to either take the sandy trail south or follow longer road route. I was interested in finding a shortcut through woods southwest, but never saw a good cut.

CP5 - CP6 - Trail run except for last 100 meters. We waled right past control in the stream bed even though location was obvious - turned around and there it was.
CP6- CP7 - Only trick here is making sure you don't overshoot the attack point off the trail - location was easy once you found the wetland near the trail.

CP7 - CP8 - We overshot the control as we were chatting. Johan asked me if we were close and I said we had passed it. We doubled back and found it quickly. I was skeptical about the placement on this one.
CP8 - CP9 - Trail run to attack point. Once we hit the pond going was easy, though the control was in a thicket between the 2 ponds. (GPS did not pick this up).
CP9 - CP10 - Even though backing out to trail would have been easier I led us through thick palmettos north to large wetland. This was partly to get Johan used to thick bushwacks - he did great (I suffered, but did not let on). After emerging into wetland I let Johan take over and he led us straight to the control.

CP10 - CP11 - This was a great example of how easy it is to get disoriented. This was all Johan navigating, after taking the bearing north, I told him no more compass and we quickly veered east and then south. When we came out on the large field to the east I took a look at my compass to see what we had done - without the compass the entrance into the big field to the east looked a lot like the one to the north. Knowing we were looking for a shallow pond - we headed straight for the first one we saw. Here is the technique that helped the most - relocating, Johan did great at it and we headed correctly for the correct control. (Warning - anyone who comes out on a training run with me, I am going to make sure we need to do a relocate for practice).

Final Notes from Idaho

2011-09-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

Here are some final notes from Idaho (useful notes for racers);

1. Because you (supposedly) cannot ship Lithium Ion batteries by air I had the company I buy them from (http://www.cr123batteries.com/) ship directly to Idaho. Unfortunately the hotel misplaced them and did not find them until after the race. The other team-mates had no trouble shipping their batteries by air. I did buy batteries and an extra light at Walmart and mark had enough extra CR123 batteries that I was covered. ( http://www.cr123batteries.com/ )

2. On the shipping gear to Idaho I made the mistake of trying to fly my gear bin on Delta - was charged both oversize and overweight ($440!!). In the future I will ship in multiple suitcases ($25 first and $50 for second) and buy a bin on location (a lot cheaper - Mark did this). On the return I simply shipped UPS (which was also a hassle, but a lot less). Anyone who finds ways of decreasing shipping costs - let me know!

3. I had a flat tire on day 1 of the race. On the steep downhills I had my brakes clamped pretty hard - this caused the tire to rotate on the wheel frame and shear off the nipple of the tube (really!). I'm not sure how to prevent this, but I did see how it happened. Luckily it was no big deal to change tubes even though you would have thought the 15 minutes to change the tire was forever! (note: I was riding a 26" hard tail)

4. As mentioned in the blog I changed from solid foods to Perpetuum after the first day. This worked amazingly well, and I still ate solid foods in the transitions (about 24 hours between though). I filled a water bottle with dry Perpetuum powder and poured the entire bottle into my 100 oz bladder and filled the bladder with water. It turned out to be about the perfect strength. I used Strawberry-Vanilla flavor. ( http://www.hammernutrition.com/products/perpetuem.pp.html?utm_source=lgsiteads-perpstraw&utm_medium=ad&utm_campaign=lgsiteads-perpstraw )

5. Sleep - I always get asked now much sleep. I ended getting a bit less than the rest of the team (hazard of being a navigator) but was very well rested the entire race. Night 1 - 0 hrs, Night 2 - 40 minutes (not quality near CP 16 on ground), Night 3 - 4 hours (decent sleep in truck at TA 1/2), Night 4 - 4 hours (decent sleep under stars at TA4), Night 5 - 3 hours (3 hours decent sleep at TA5, up early to prepare maps for next leg), Night 6 - (5 hours, first one up in camp morning of restart - great nights sleep under stars).

6. Injuries and Pain management - In day 1 I hurt my knee in an endo on the bike. It did not bother me much during race, but it is still hurting 3 weeks later (especially on stairs). Loss of toenail (both big toes) made for some real pain, but only trekking and only downhill. After I lost the toenail completely swimming during Survival Quest there was no more pain. I took a total of 4 Tylenol the entire race for pain management the entire race.

7. Cold - I don't get cold easily so am not one to ask about cold gear. I wore a tight base layer with a fleece on top when it was cold and was fine. I was only cold when not active, but was easily warmed. The other team members did suffer some from cold.

Feel free to ask me about any Gear. The best Gear was the Out There Pack I bought from Mike Kloser - it was awesome http://besthike.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/out-there-as-1-backpack/

Gear Junkies have some great gear recommendations at http://gearjunkie.com/gear-test-expedition-idaho - I know how AR folks LOVE GEAR, and they have some great gear recommendations.

Part IV - To the Finish Line

2011-08-29T18:06:00.000-07:00

Continued from Part III - Water at Last

As we left TA 5 we knew there was not much racing left. Of course that is a pretty relative term, it was Friday morning and we knew that we would be racing until at least Saturday afternoon - but in our minds we were approaching the end of the expedition with less than 48 hours to go. Our plan was to ride up and over the mountains to TA6 at Lake Couer d'Alene. We knew that there were 2 legs that could be completed there, a paddle and a long trek - our plans were to get a few paddle points and then bike the 4-5 hours to the Dark Zone for a good night of sleep before the restart Saturday morning.

There was a little bit of downhill before we started the climb up and over the mountains. This climb - though one of the easiest we had done, seemed very long and it was taking a bit of a mental toll on us. we crested the top and started the long downhill. This felt great - it was a long straight and beautiful leg. we spent a good bit of it riding along the shores of a nice stream. There was a second climb in the leg - which was tough on the team, eventually we had a fast downhill and arrived at the Lake. I worked on the paddling map while the team prepared the kayaks.

Heading out on the water felt great. Though most folks consider long paddle legs the greatest challenge of a long race - if you are from Florida, you are used to long flat water paddles. This one was not going to be long as we had been told we could only keep the boats out until 5 PM (about 2 hours). We had enough time for 3 more checkpoints. This should have been easy - however the person who set out the paddle points was not an orienteer and the points were well over 200-300 meters off. Luckily they were quite visible from the boat, so except for the first one we tried (Paddle Point 14) we were expecting them to be off. We saw Team Bones trekking in while we were out on the paddle. When we arrived back at the TA - Bones was there. Our gear bins were not, so we were pretty low on food - luckily Team Bones had plenty of food and tossed us a few bags which was a real treat. In fact, it might be a good idea to have teams trade food bags along the way - as we got a new complete variety of food. I really thought the squeeze applesauce was awesome - (THANKS Team Bones). The TA was also out of fresh water - but this was not a real issue as we would be heading up the mountain and could purify water along the way.

It was here at this TA that we had the only real team breakdown. I was tired of being pressured to hurry out of the transitions - and I explained to the team that instead of rushing me, it would be better to see what I needed to move faster. Watching Team Bones and how they supported their navigator I knew we needed to provide better support too. (They got food and boats ready while their navigator was marking the maps and preparing the course). I try never to complain during a race - but I also wanted to make sure the team knew that the time they had to do all that other TA stuff - I needed to prepare maps. Anyway, having spoke my peace - we were back in action and heading back on bikes uphill. It would be a 4-5 hour ride to the Dark Zone which would have us there shortly after nightfall.

When we were coming down to the Lake, we had passed Team Seagate going up to the Dark Zone. They were taking a longer route, but with more conservative navigation. I decided to take the direct route - which appeared to have some challenging navigation. As we approached the top of the pass to the dark zone we ran into a couple of ATV riders. At first they were astonished we were riding without guns as there had been a lot of fresh wolf kills. There have been no documented cases of wolves attacking humans - so that was not really a worry of mine. More of a concern was navigating the maze of trails leading down the mountain to Honeysuckle Campground. They gave us some navigation advice (left at the Y intersection and then stay right along the edge of the mountain) and told us it was a pretty long way to the campground. It was all downhill and fast, and we even came upon another team as we headed down. Upon arriving at the Dark Zone, we found a spot to camp, cooked some food on the fire, and bedded down for what we hoped would be a good nights sleep.

I was the first one up (in the entire camp) the next morning. The fire had burned down so I went and got some firewood and tossed it on. As the fire started to blaze folks from various teams roused and we got it going quite well. I also heated some water and made coffee which was very effective at getting my team out of bed. Around 6:30 AM - Dave gave out instructions and let the navigators see the maps for the final leg to the finish. We would be starting in reverse order - with the slowest teams starting first and the faster teams following in 15 minute increments. As usual the ride was going to be a climb, followed by a downhill and then a flat ride to the Silver Mountain Resort where we would transition to foot and climb to the top of the Gondola.

My goal was to not be passed by any of the pro or elite teams until we had completed the climb. We were in the second group which means we would have a 15 minute lead on Bones, Light & Motion, Yoga Slackers, and SOG. The next wave 30 minutes behind us would be Seagate and Thule. We pushed hard on the climb, leaving the other teams in our group behind and passing three of the teams of the previous group before cresting the pass. Just as we got to the pass Team Seagate passed us and we also got to observe their downhill technique. Where we brake or coast down the steep downhills - they actually pedal to go faster ! At the top of the hill a sign stating "Road Closed Ahead" had me apprehensive about our chosen route. Was it a washout or other major issue. As we looked at the sign - that was when Seagate went by (not even pausing to read the sign) - and I figured if the top navigator in the world could ignore the sign - so could I. As it turned out a forest gate at the bottom of the hill was closed and we did not even need to stop, we simply rode around the gate.

Once we hit flat ground we formed a bike line - after some team griping about how we would run the bike line. A quick 10 miles we were in Silver Mountain Resort and then trekking up the incredibly steep trail up the Gondola Line. The finish was amazing, about 3000 people were watching the finish line as Dave Adlard announced our arrival. There were high fives, hugs, beers, and congrats as we walked through the crowd. I was pretty fatigued and really in need of some quiet, so after a beer and a little food I headed back to our room at the resort, did some laundry and rested until the awards ceremony.

After all the excitement and adventure - I was happy to be done, and very tired. This was a great team - we worked well as a team and even though we had our moments, we always bounced back together and did great.

Expedition Idaho Part III - Water at Last

2011-08-28T18:23:00.000-07:00

Continued from Part II - Heart of Darkness

After the long trek and 30 minutes of sleep in 2 1/2 days we needed a little bit of rest. We dragged into the Transition just after dark - we saw Team NYARA heading out on the big bike. Our plan was to eat, prepare bikes, and then get 2 hours of sleep before heading out. It felt good to sit and eat, but it also grew cold very quickly and we were not prepared for the sleeping conditions. Luckily we were able to sleep in one of the back of the trucks that were used to haul bins - and an enclosed, flat and warm area was very good for sleeping. Just shortly after midnight we got word that no more teams were to be allowed on the "Big" bike leg. The story was simple - Mike Kloser (2 times world mountain bike champion had completed this course in roughly 10 hours in the day with a GPS and riding on fresh legs. The top teams were over 20 hours out and had not arrived at the next TA. It was estimated (and a good estimate) that slower teams would easily take 40-50 hours to complete the bike, thus putting them at jeopardy of not making mandatory cutoffs later in the race. We wanted to head out - but were convinced that it was a better idea to accept a ride to the next TA over 135 miles away. We weren't able to arrange for this until the next morning when Rick drove us to race central in Kelllogg (an apartment in Kellogg) and then went back for Team Topo Adventures. We made ourselves at home, Jeff prompty hit a couch and proceeded to snore loudly. I laid all the maps out on the nice warm asphalt and raided the fridge (with permission). I noticed Marghi curled up in the grass outside the apartment, but did not wake her as she was sleeping so nicely. A couple hours later Rick came back and said that Topo Adventures had found another ride - he would drive us to the next TA on the Northeast side of Lake Pend Oreille. This turned out to be a 3 hour drive - and was a lot of fun chatting with Rick about the race and what was going on with all the teams.

When we arrived at the next TA - the lead teams had finished the big bike ride and had already headed out on the lake. We geared up, picked out a boat and headed out on the water. The lake was pretty awesome and as we headed west - we had great water conditions. I had been warned that the wind would get bad in the afternoon and that we would be hitting whitecaps as we passed Windy Point and headed south on the lake. Sure enough - it got very windy and very rough. Since Mark and I both had experience in canoes in open ocean water - this was not really a big deal. We wanted to be very careful not to capsize the canoe though since the water was quite cold and would make for a very unpleasant swim to shore. We reached TA5 near 5 PM where we would face an orienteering course and then the rappel and drop into the water. Before we could do the O course - we had a free climb scramble from the boats to the top of the cliff - I took the rope on the right up the cliff that had one spot that was quite challenging.

View Expedition Idaho in a larger map

We posted the second fastest time (just at 2 hours) on the orienteering course and beat the cutoff to do the rappel. The rappel was amazing - we went over a rocky cliff and then dropped about 10 feet into the water where we swam to our boats. It was just getting dusk as we did the rappel - unfortunately this is where I lost my GoPro in the water where it promptly sank into the depths of Pende Oreille. Bummer - we spent some time looking for it, but no luck so we moved on.

This first hour of the paddle was essentially battling wind and waves, which was even more exciting after dark. As it got darker - the wind eventually died down and the moon came up. The last part of the paddle heading into TA4 was quite pleasant, though I did make the team divert a little bit towards a light that turned out to be a houseboat. Around 11 PM we paddled into TA4 where at least 6-7 other teams had set up camp and were roasting hot dogs and heading out on the orienteering leg that left and returned from this TA. We also nicknamed this the Stoner TA - pretty much from the humorous philosophizing of Corey the volunteer manning the TA. The entire TA atmosphere was quite laid back and had a feel like it was planned out by "The Dude" (watch The Big Lebowski if you don't understand).

View Expedition Idaho in a larger map

Having had nearly a full night sleep the previous night I was well rested and also highly motivated. I estimated this O course would take about 5 hours and was determined to do it faster. Mostly because if I returned to the TA while it was still dark there was a chance of getting more sleep, and partly by seeing the times posted by the lead teams which I knew I could beat. We nailed every control and finished easily in under 5 hours. Jeff even used pace counting to nail one particularly challenging control ensuring that the entire team knew that he was "dead-on". We returned to the TA while it was still dark, I pulled out my space blanket/sleeping back combo and plopped on the ground for a couple hours of sleep. The ground here was nice and soft (unlike the rocky hard ground we had slept on up to this point). I slept soundly until the sun crested the horizon (less than 2 hours) and then got up and mapped out the next leg of the course that would take us to Farragut State Park and the Survival Quest leg of the race.

The rest of the team was up shortly after me and it was not long until Jeff was bugging us to get out of the TA and onto our bikes. I still had to prepare my bike and gear. I had switched to 100% Perpetuum after the previous trek so food was pretty easy for me. The team was waiting for me as we left TA4 and headed uphill starting the long bike to TA5. This started with an uphill and pretty much kept going uphill. We were on logging roads (with active logging) slowly making our way to the top of Baldwin Peak. A couple of CP's along the way gave us some remarkable views of the lake. We reached the highest point on this leg at Baldwin Peak and then had a little issue (my navigation and some literal map reading with an incorrectly mapped trail) finding the trail down. Once we did find it we had an amazing treat.Trail 37 downhill from the top of Baldwin Peak was the most incredible downhill I have ever done - and I've done some great downhills.

This trail hugged the side of the mountain at a nice (but not overwhelming) slope. After about a mile we had a switchback and got to do the entire thing in the other direction. I lost count of the switchbacks after about 12. It was fast, with a nice drop on one side and a steep slop on the other. Skill level was mostly "blue" with a couple of tricky spots. By the time we reached the bottom after almost a full hour of downhill my legs were literally vibrating and shaking. Mark and I slid down the final sandy section towards the CP at the bottom and then we pedaled to Farragut State Park and TA6. Along the way we passed a few teams out on the Survival Quest who gave us the advice to bring extra food and water.

View Expedition Idaho in a larger map

When we reached Farragut we knew we needed to head out on Survival Quest as quickly as possible to make the most of the light. After a couple of easy Survival Quest tasks we headed out on another orienteering course - this one on a real O course map. As soon as the orienteering map was in my hand I wanted to run, this was not really feasible as a team - but I did have a great time doing a real Orienteering course. When we returned we were given the next task (go to a location, make a Travois, and carry a wounded team-mate through a short course). The next task was really nice - go to a local restaurant and eat an ice cream cone (I had Huckeberry). We arrived at the next task (called Michael Phelps) right at dusk and since I am the most cold tolerant person on the team I got to swim out and around a buoy - it was starting to get cold and dark. I really did not want to go into the water... After retrieving the clue we trekked to the next task where we had to make a raft and use it. It was quite dark as we arrived at the next challenging and Team Idaho has just dragged out of the water. As it turns out the raft really only had enough lift to float one person and the other 3 had to swim. This did not look too appealing to the team - and Team Idaho had lost their map so we instead decided to head back to the TA. It was still over a one hour walk back to the TA and it was a lot of fun chatting with Team Idaho. We passed a few campers on the way and they gave us some soda's (a little treat). Jeff navigated the tail end of the trek and we dragged in a little after midnight. After some food and warming up I created a little cubby and wind shield to help me sleep using the bike boxes.I felt great after a few hours of sleep and joined the navigator from Team Topo Adventures to map out the rest of the course to the dark zone around 4 AM. A few hours later the rest of the team was up and we headed out on the next to last leg of the race.

Here are some great pictures - Marks wife (Meg) joined us at TA5 and got some awesome shots. http://www.megrobertsgalleries.com/Adventure-Racing/Expedition-Idaho

Here are some images from TA5

Marghi's little sleep cubby

Navigators marking maps around fire

Plotting the next section as the team sleeps

No the map is not on fire

The team is up - time for breakfast

Marghi is all smiles on the bike

Next - Part IV - To the Finish Line

Expedition Idaho Part II - Heart of Darkness Trek

2011-08-25T17:26:00.000-07:00

Continued from Day 1 Expedition Idaho

Our transition from biking (for about 24 hours) to trekking was pretty quick, we took about an hour to rest and refuel and get our gear and we were off on the "Heart of Darkness" trek leg. This trek had been modified when the race director could not get a permit for us to trek through the 2 mile long tunnel that was originally planned. For those visiting Idaho in the Kellogg area - this is a very popular bike ride through the tunnel and yes it is dark and unlit. We instead had a few checkpoints that left us after a few hours on the west end of the tunnel. From there we would go through the other shorter tunnels and over the bridges. This was an old railroad track, and we had lots of bikes go by as we trekked the entire length of the bike trail.

We arrived at CP15 about 9 PM and decided to take a quick nap/rest. It was very cold so 3 of us tried sleeping in the restroom at the parking area at CP15 - this did not work out so well and we really did not get any sleep. We decided to continue on. As we trekked I started working out the time and the distance left to cover. I had determined that it would be very challenging to meet the cutoffs necessary for us to complete the next leg (130 mile mountain bike ride) and get to TA4 before the time cutoff. We considered skipping the next CP (CP16) which was going to add about 8 hours to the trek. In the end we decided to go for it since the rules said we had to get the first 35 CP's to be officially ranked. As we reached the trailhead for the trail leading to CP16 we had a wide water crossing - the water was ice cold and we wanted to stay dry so we all crossed barefoot - challenging as the rocks were quite slick.

We had been carrying our heavy climbing gear the entire trek. Since this was an out and back to CP16 - we decided to "stash" this gear to lighten our load and pick it up on the return trip. We headed up the trail around 1 PM. The trek to CP16 was essentially an UP for about 4 hours. On the way up we passed Team NYARA on the way down - this was a very welcome sight since they were the only team we had seen for about 14 hours.

When we got to the top around 2 AM Tuesday morning, having not slept since the start of the race (Sunday) - we were starting to get tired. About an hour into the return trek Marghi started babbling incoherently and walking aimlessly - we decided to stop and sleep. Sleep was instantaneous - and 30 minutes later we were back on our way again. We also saw Team Topo Adventures heading up at this point. By now we had pre-dawn light and this made the downhill trip a lot easier. It was down back to the water - a very cold crossing, refill water bladders, shiver for a while and then head to CP17 and CP 18 which were just preludes to the real climb to the top of Stephens Peak (6600 feet). This was where the real action of the trek would occur - a rappel into a double bowl where teams would split up and get different CP's. Marghi and Mark rappelled about 600 feet into one bowl while Jeff and I climbed a knife ridge (and yes Jeff was very nervous) and dropped into the other bowl. The climb into the bowl was challenging as we kept getting cliffed out - but we finally made it down to the lake. As it turns out the entire east side of the lake (where we were) was a cliff into the lake. We found a way to cross to the west side where we easily traversed to the north tip of the lake and the CP. From there is was a 3 km path down to CP22 where Mark and Marghi had been waiting for us for about 15 minutes. They had their own sets of challenges getting their CP.

From CP22 it was a simple 9K flat trek back to the CP where we would prepare for the next leg of the race, the longest I have ever seen in any expedition race ever. It would be a 135 mile mountain bike ride with nearly 50,000 feet of climbing - the "Big" ride. As we came into the TA we passed NYARA heading out on the bike. It would be the last time we saw them until the dark zone on Friday night. As we reached the TA we knew we would need some real sleep and be fully fueled before we tackled the ride - so we got out the tents and bags and took a rest.

Enjoy this video of the trek. Here is a map (CP's in red of the trek.

View Expedition Idaho in a larger map

Next Part III - Water at Last

Before the race Expedition Idaho

2011-08-21T17:30:00.001-07:00

Here we are before the Expedition Idaho Race at a pre-race interview.

Preparing for an expedition race is not like getting ready for a sprint or even a one day race. There is all this GEAR that must be shipped or taken with you to the location and usually coordination among 4 different team-mates usually from different locations. I was happy to have a strong team with 2 Expedition Newbies (Jeff and Mark) and one PQ veteran (Marghi).

As you can see we were having a great time as we planned, packed, prepped, went through interview, and simply got everything ready to go.

The Start of the Race

We started the race at 10 AM with a very short prolog which was a scavenger hunt. The purpose was to spread the teams out a little bit before we hit the Silver Mountain Gondola with our mountain bikes and rode the Gondola up the mountain. That was the easiest elevation gain we had in the entire race - it would only get harder from here.

Once we got to the top we had 3 CP's in the ski area. CP3 was located at the base of Lift 3, CP4 was located at the top Kellogg Peak (6300 feet) and CP5 was at the top of Wardner Peak (6200 feet). This involved basically pushing our bikes up a 25% slope (up the ski slope) and riding down incredibly steep and rocky downhill ski runs. Here is a nice ski map of the area

http://www.silvermt.com/pdf/silvertrailmapweb.pdf

Now here is where it starts to get hard. The next few CP's were located back of the ski areas in the backwoods areas. CP 6 was the most challenging as there were no mapped road sections leading to it. My idea was to try to contour to a saddle heading to the southeast - with no marked or mapped roads. Most of the teams in front of us had taken a route the went to the base of the hill at 3700 feet and then climb back to 5700 ft. We ended up taking the latter route - with only two teams going to the saddle route. The downhill from 6200 feet to 3700 feet was one of the most challenging technical rides I have ever done. Every racer has crash stories for this section. It was rutted, rocky, and steep. It was also grades ranging from 6-15% with no chances to stop easily. Jeff hit a bush, flew about 10 feet through the air and landed on a small mannequin doll that was the mad hatter. I went down sideways and bloodied my knee quite well (it is still very swollen).

We were going so hard and fast my right clip pedal sheared off and went flying into the woods - so I ended up riding most of this leg with a stub of a pedal. Oh well - we chugged away. This was an all night bike ride with the most incredible spot being CP10 - which did involve pushing/carrying/coaxing our bikes about 1/2 mile up a 30+% slope. We also had to bomb them down the other side - which was walking them downhill.

After hitting CP11, we rode into the small town of Mullan and stopped at a convenience store and got some supplies before riding to CP12, and then finally TA1.

View Expedition Idaho in a larger map

Here is a little chatter of us as at TA1

Here are some video's of Day 1 and 2 in chronological order.

Saturday Evening - Pre-race briefing - http://youtu.be/5nCE1GCzTCY
Sunday Morning - Preparing gear - http://youtu.be/tp9ziSrfT2Q
Sunday Morning - Prolog to Race - http://youtu.be/R_lDDVn_U4A
Sunday Morning - Up the Gondola - http://youtu.be/eFKIR3z0-mQ
Sunday Evening - At TA1 in the evening - http://youtu.be/-di0iH-5BTw

Up Next - Day 2 Trek - Heart of Darkness

Expedition Idaho Update

2011-08-04T04:49:00.000-07:00

This is copied direct from the email from Dave Adler about Expedition Idaho - 10 days and counting, the email really gives an idea of the excitement of the course

Only 10 days to go, and things are in high gear here getting ready for the team's arrival.Only two checkpoints remain to be placed, and several truck loads of details, but we will be ready to help these amazing athletes in what could be the most amazing race ever.

Please enjoy the update! We are still in need af a few volunteers, so if you want to be a part of something pretty special, please contact us! We'd love to have you!

We are also trying to help folks without teams find some one to race with, and are still accepting new teams who want one more great challenge!

I have attached a couple of pictures from the course for you to enjoy!

Expedition Idaho Update

August 4 – 10 Days till the shotgun goes off!

We can tell teams are getting excited – we’re getting lots of calls and emails about shipping gear, final equipment details etc…

Best bet for shipping at this time is to ship it to:

Expedition Idaho

Attn: Dave Adlard

Silver Mountain Resort

610 Bunker Ave

Kellogg, Idaho, 83837

Bios – Please send us your bios and do the CPT form, so we can get the race site ready!! Thanks!

Okay, here’s what you’ve been waiting for…

“Tales from the Trails,” V 2.0

Over the last two days, we have now completed over 94% of the course, with just a couple of semi-out-of-the-way CP’s to put in on “SQ,”and Mike is going to be “forced” to ride one of the most world class, beautiful stretches of single track on the planet. Poor guy. By this Sunday, the course will have been 100% scouted/marked/manicured for the racer’s arrival, which is no mean feat on a 420 mile “one loop” (more or less) course.

Yesterday, Mike and I, and Rick McCharles – editor of http://besthike.com completed the entire “Heart of Darkness” trek from start to finish, and today we spent several hours on the lake paddling and in the hills finalizing our magnificent ropes elements with our expert riggers. These are some of the coolest ropes stuff you will ever see.

Here’re Mike’s thoughts and impressions from the last two days of adventure…

Mike here again...

Trekking: This is the real deal. From the terrain, views, trails (or lack thereof!) cliffs and sheer vertical gain and loss, the ExpId treks have it all. There are many route options, and the accompanying risk/reward, which, in all honesty, can go both ways pretty easily. Some of these risk options require substantial ‘whacking, which is not to be taken lightly here. Don’t leave home without your long pants (and possibly shin guards!). There are nettles, poison oak and other assorted joys, such as the seemingly endless alder that you will be walking on in spots, if you choose to take the “road less travelled!”

Your shoes will take a real beating – my new Solomans are trashed – holes punched through, busted Kevlar laces etc. Bring shoes that are built for battle, not solely light and fast.

Other things to remember – Shoe gaiters are highly recommended. Thin gloves for ‘whacking. LOTS of insect repellant with TNT or Cyanide or something in it. Also, your sunblock and sunblock lip balm.

Fluids and electrolyte replacement could determine survival for teams, as the weather is hot, and at the high altitudes, water is scare at best. Don’t shirk from taking extra water when you leave the TAs, and fill up when you have a chance at streams, springs, etc, as it may be hours between refills. Make sure to bring your (mandatory!) purifying method. I use Klearwater, and have had nothing but success.

I HIGHLY recommend trekking poles. I found mine extremely useful, especially on the big climbs and descents. Even Rick McCharles, a non-pole user was a convert by mid-day, and is ordering his new BD ultralight “Z”pole – I know Dave had a link posted.

As in most expedition races, sleep strategy is going to play a crucial part in a team’s success – maybe the most crucial. There are for sure places you don’t want to be in the dark, and if that means a few more hours rest and tackling them at daylight, so be it – you may very well end up further ahead – and safe – by being rested and being in daylight. Don’t just always push ahead – sometimes racing smarter ultimately is faster.

The ropes – I am truly a fan. I think Dave has set out some exciting and fun ropes elements. There will be some heart flutter more than once. I had a blast rapping off the rope today. The elements range from fast and fun to majestically huge – upwards of 400 feet.

Plan on (count on) getting wet. The water was very refreshing, and with the expected warm temps, it will be a welcome respite. The water is very warm compared to when I have been here before, so no wetsuits needed.

Paddling – The paddling is all flat water, but it’s pretty darn spectacular flat water. Some of the most scenic I have ever seen. The paddles, while long, are nicely broken up with other surprises, so you won’t just be in the boat for 10 hours at a stretch.

While the paddling can be downright pleasant, speaking from experience here two years ago, if Mother Nature get’s uppity, this can be some of the roughest lake water anywhere, and the storms come up quick – we went from calm and 82 to a lightning storm, 3 foot waves, whipping winds and 68 in less than 30 minutes. Be prepared for the best and worst of both.

I started as a technical consultant, but I am fully caught up in the excitement now. I have really fallen in love with this course and the race concept. This will be a true test of your expedition racing skills, and is among the toughest and most exciting I have ever seen or raced on. No one is going to leave here feeling slighted by the course or the total race experience– this will be one of the most memorable races ever, in my humble opinion. Addenda: I went out and rode a trail we had raced on here a couple of years ago at Adventure Sports Week, and back then, I had commented on how I thought it was perhaps the best single track ride in all of AR – well, I wasn’t wrong! It was almost perfect – right up until I almost ended up in the hospital after hitting a root and “endoing” 15 feet down the trail… that said, the trail was still awesome, me, not so much.

Someone asked how would I compare it to PQ or Eco, and I have to say it could be as demanding as any. Kind of scary, in a way, but the “sport course” options and the finish format will make it a wonderful experience for every team. For a total race experience, this could be the best I have seen. Honestly, you can all complete the requirements to be official finishers – you have more than enough time, if you take care of each other and just keep moving forward. If I was able to race, I would be super-excited about this course, though, to be honest, it’s tough enough for Mike… after 6+ days of racing on this course, no matter your pace, I think everyone will be pushed to your limits, physically and mentally, and will come through the better for it.

Four more checkpoints tomorrow, and we will be ready for you to come and challenge our baby. I will be out on the course with you throughout the week, so we’ll have plenty of time to chat and compare notes, and I can’t wait to hear your impressions of Expedition Idaho.

FYI, I’ll be making the drawing for the winners of my new “OutThere USA” AS1 packs at the pre-race briefing for all the teams who were paid up in full in advance! See you next week!

Dave’s notes…

Like he said.

“Be prepared to suffer. Be prepared to succeed. Be prepared to LIVE!”

~A soon-to-be famous quote from DA

I feel like I’ve just done a 400 mile adventure race… oh, wait… I did! Let me tell you that vetting a course with Mike is really RACING a course with Mike. We did about 22 hours of trekking with TWO 5 minute breaks and a stream dunking. Halfway up one of the wee little climbs we have for you, we were pushing so hard and were so focused I actually looked back down the trail to see if another team was catching us! (There’s no way they could have caught us!)

Anywho, we are almost done. We have just a handful of CPs to put out for “Survival Quest” (You’re going to LOVE this!) and we’ll be ready for you. Here’s some of the news you’ll need to know:

No snow gear (crampons etc) are needed! You’ll be on snow a bit, but nothing you can’t handle in your trekking shoes, IF you have at least one, and better yet, two trekking poles. We couldn’t have completed some of the trek without them anywhere near as fast or as safely yesterday.

I am so excited about our “extra” activities, besides just the usual three disciplines. Our ropes are awesome fun, “SQ” is going to be a blast, the “O” portions are challenging… hopefully you will leave this race as wiped out and as excited as you have ever been about AR.

I think the trek will be, um, fulfilling… sometimes the downs aren’t easier than the ups – no one ever falls UP the mountain!

Thirst is going to be a factor. We started “light”yesterday, but by ½ way through the trek were low on water, soaking hats and shirts and dunking heads in one of the very rare water sources out there. We actually flagged a natural spring along the trail so you can fill up there. Take every chance to drink and fill your bottles, as you could literally be hours without. Mike and Rick were laughing when I took an extra liter of Gatorade and a 2 liter bladder, but they were both drinking it a few hours later!

As with any project like this, we are fully expecting – and are preparing like mad – for the surprises, challenges, disasters etc that can happen, and I think our race crew will do a magnificent job in helping everyone through– similar to when you’re racing, when you’re running an AR expedition of this magnitude, it’s not “if” you’re going to get lost, it’s just when and how bad, and most importantly, how quickly can you get back on track. Our main goal, besides the course itself, is to make sure some of the things that matter most to racers – getting your gear on time, communication, support etc – are done as well as we can physically manage. You are all our top priority.

My team is racing without me next week, and though I am immensely jealous, and a bit sad, I am excited for them, as I am for all of you. Reading Mike’s comments, and having now completed the entire course at near race pace, I look at scope of the challenge and I’m daunted by the sheer scale, but when I started to break it down into the smaller segments, and from there the even smaller challenges right in front of us, I was able to focus on what I needed to do next, and, as long as I kept moving forward, was able to get through.

Please trust me when I tell you that we fully expect to see ALL of you cross the finish line on Saturday. We WANT you to finish! You have more than enough time to get there, as long as you are safe, smart and above all, take care of each other! Rest when you need to (of course “need” and “want”are different!), eat when you need to (need/want very similar – just eat while walking!), but just keep moving steadily forward. Don’t be daunted by the course– even “Big” and H.O.D (Heart of Darkness) are manageable by all if you take them one step at a time. Don’t get wrapped up in how far there is left to go –it will be over when it’s over, and you will get there when you get there. Focus instead on the next climb, the next CP, and the secret treats you have stashed at the TA! Left, right, left…

Not everyone will travel quite as far over the 6+ days, but the effort and commitment will be the same from every one of you, and to us, you are all winners just for taking on such an immense challenge. We know that, and we want to make sure you are rewarded for the huge sacrifices you are making, financially, time-wise, emotionally, physically, spiritually… we race too, and we understand. We want you to feel fulfilled. We want you to leave here saying this was the most beautiful, friendliest, toughest suffering you have ever loved!

Get some sleep… you’re going to need it!

Dum du dum dum…

Luminescent Adventure Race - 8 hour

2011-07-31T17:27:00.000-07:00

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

Night Biking

2011-07-24T17:03:00.000-07:00

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.

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 intersction, 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 rideable (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.

Twelve Points - Lake Norris

2011-07-18T17:36:00.000-07:00

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

Night Navigation - Trekking

2011-07-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-02T08:38:00.001-07:00

Maps Library

2011-07-01T08:05:00.001-07:00

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.

Seminole County AR

2011-06-19T18:16:00.000-07:00

This was going to be a nice race for me, for one it was only a 6 hour race and also the fact that it was pretty close drive - meaning I did not have to be up at 3 AM to drive to the race. I know most of the racers can sympathize with that long morning drive to the race. It was going to be hot. Team Florida Xtreme was racing as a 4 person team with Jeff, Bruce, Marghi, and me. And it was going to be hot.

Usually I give a recap of the race, but instead I'll go over some tips and some things that will hopefully help out other teams.

Paddling - The boat Marghi and I were paddling had a real tendency to go right, of course that made turning left sometimes difficult. That does happens some times - you get a boat with "issues". Since Marghi and I had lots of paddling experience we were still able to make the boat move pretty well. I was paddling in the back and normally that person handles all the steering. You always want to use positive strokes - typically the draw stroke to steer the boat. Only as a last resort should you use the paddle as a rudder as that slows the boat and you will need to make up all the speed that you lost. It is worthwhile to get out there and practice steering if you are going to be sitting in the back of the boat. In the case of the boat Marghi and I were paddling I needed her to help me steer on almost every left turn - meaning we both spent a lot of time paddling on the right side of the boat.

Teamwork - For the most part we work great as a team. In this race we had one lapse - CP4. We bypassed it on the downstream paddle and hit it on the return trip. As we arrived there were quite a few teams both there and following us. CP4 had 2 choices, one was to do it as an out and back, the other was to punch through back to the main channel. My plan was to do it as an out and back as I was pretty sure the channel was clogged past the CP. As we approached I could also see the terrain to the south of the river was open flood plain - so I called for the other boat to pull ashore about 100 yards from the CP so we could run to the CP. Jeff and Bruce did not hear me and continued to paddle into the channel - while Marghi and I pulled to the shore and I ran to the edge of the river where I needed to cross a small muddy channel to get to the island and the CP. Bruce was behind me with the punch card and as I looked out into the water there was Jeff in the boat right next to the water.

View Seminole County AR 2011 in a larger map

We got the CP quickly - Marghi was in the weeds just past the small entrance to the channel. Jeff wanted to call her in and go straight through the channel, while I wanted him to get Bruce who had by now punched the CP and head back out. I knew the main river was open and I was worried about possible lost time trying to push straight through. A quick debate and we were headed back out and around.

Even though getting CP4 took under 10 minutes, we did have a breakdown of team communication - and we did recover quickly. In this case it neither of us really knew which choice was better. For a short while we looked very "un-coordinated". Having raced for many years I often see team that debate route choices, food, what ot do with a hurting team-mate, etc... The point in AR - because you are on the clock is to make a choice as a team quickly and move on. Some times those choices are tough - like when the navigator is not sure of where they are and you may have to go back to the last point where you knew your location. Some times you have to decide to stop and rest a suffering team-mate. In all of these situations - you need to be able to function as a team to make the decision and do what you decide and this gets harder as you have more team-mates. Also every member of the team needs to feel comfortable asking questions. I do sometimes feel irritated when a team-mate questions my navigation - but I also have had them catch mistakes enough times to trust them and listen. The more you race together the better you get to know your team-mates strengths and weaknesses.

I also noticed on the bike and trek legs a lot of teams biking and running with the team all spread out - one person pushing and the other lagging yards behind. Remember the team is no faster in any leg than their slowest team-mate. When biking this is especially important, it is good to learn how to work in a bike line and also how to tow a team-mate. While on foot you can tow also, and a real help is to carry the pack of a struggling team-mate. When a team-mate starts falling behind it is always a good idea to drop back and check on them and offer to help. You should also check hydration (especially when hot) and general physical condition.

Biking today was pretty sandy. In these conditions it is sometimes smart to have the strongest biker in the lead to determine the best line. All the other bikers should follow that line.

Today - because it was hot I brought along dishtowels for the team. I keep them on ice until the trek and then we wrap them around our necks above the pack to help keep cool. In this race because there was a ice cooler on the trail - we were able to fill them up with ice and they kept us cool for almost the entire second half of the trek leg. That worked out pretty well.

Navigation - The navigation today was relatively easy for an elite course. The challenging CP's all had obvious attack points. If you have a question on how to attack any CP please ask - I'll post a response.

For a great mapped break-down of the course from Nature Calls - see http://windermereroadies.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9526

Florida Sunshine AR

2011-06-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

Tim from Green Paw did a great write-up of the Florida Sunshine, it is at

http://www.teamgreenpaw.com/AR/News/Entries/2011/6/5_Florida_Sunshine_Race_Review.html

When we finished the long trek back to the bikes at morning 2 we were within 20 minutes of them, however we had mis-punched one control on the trek leading there, so even though we did not know it we were down one control.

The heat by that time had started to become a factor with all of us. The last orienteering leg was a slog-fest for us. Nobody could move faster than a medium walk and I decided to bail on the last orienteering control (we had 3rd place pretty much wrapped up at that point) so we did not risk going over time at the finish.

We all appreciate all the folks who appreciate these write-ups. I'd love to see more folks come out for the 30 hour race format - yes it is tough, but it is also doable. I hope the write-ups help everyone get prepared.

Also - the next race is the SCAR on Sunday. One team will be running a live feed of the race at http://www.runsinthewoods.com/?page_id=20 you'll be able to track them real time and view a twitter feed.

Pangea Sunshine Adventure Race

2011-05-30T19:08:00.000-07:00

Here is a run-down of the Sunshine Adventure Race with Team Florida Xtreme 2; Bruce, Jim, Wanda were my team-mates. The description of the race from Pangea is at http://www.pangeaadventureracing.com/news-details/items/id-30-hour-sunshine-coverage

View Sunshine AR in a larger map
Leg 1 Bike (about 1 hours)

After a short prolog we started with a bike ride to the Alexander Springs TA. There was one checkpoint along the way - which was pretty straightforward (if not well hidden) since the clue told us where to look (Forest Road 77-4.0. The route took us north along Forest Road 77. About 2 miles of the road were very sandy, but the rest of the route was pretty easy riding.

Leg 2 - Paddle

The second leg was CP2-CP6, a nice paddle up and back on Alexander Springs. This had a few navigation challenges, mostly posed by CP3 which required following a vegetation boundary on foot. The other CP's were visible from the water and it was a simple matter of following our location on the river. We helped a few other teams as we worked on this section.

View Sunshine AR in a larger map

Leg 3 - Orienteering

After biking to the Mud Pond TA we were given an orienteering map for the next section (CP7-CP13). This was the equivalent of a orienteering blue course, and this type of orienteering is my specialty. It still took nearly 3 hours and in the heat of the day (in a heat wave of 95 degrees) left us nearly spent. We were pretty motivated as we hit the bikes to start the next leg as we had passed a few teams in the orienteering and were now running in 3rd place (behind Odyssey and Green Paw).

View Sunshine AR in a larger map

Leg 5 - Mountain Bike

This leg was essentially the Ocala Paisley Mountain bike loop. I had already measured the distances between the CP's and with the odometer it was pretty easy to go from CP to CP. As we approached the cross over trail the team was hurting from the heat. I decided to cross and get CP19 which would allow us to use the main forest road for most of the return trip. We headed south to CP16, CP17, and CP18. At CP18 we headed out to SR42 and then took Paisley Road up to the power lines. It was getting dark now, we dropped the bikes at Paisley Road and trekked to CP20 and back. This may not have been the fastest, but riding on the easy road gave us a chance to recover some. We finished this leg, headed to Mud Pond TA where we refilled our water and headed back to the Alexander Springs TA.

Look closely - the bike route is on the map

View Sunshine AR in a larger map

Leg 5 - Paddle

We were expecting a long challenging paddle and we got it. It was dark (we entered the water around 10 PM) and there were lots of gator eyes staring back at us. Since we had 2 team-mates that were hurting we decided to put all 4 of us in a single canoe rather than push it with 2 boats. It was a pretty eventful paddle, we had alligators the entire way, fish kept jumping into our boat (including one catfish which was pretty strange). Most of the fish never cleared edge of the boat and ended up flopping back into the water, but the few that made it gave us a lot of fun. The entrance to Get Out Creek was pretty tricky - but the creek was pretty awesome paddling. Once we reached the St. Johns River it was pretty straightforward up until CP28, we missed the turn into the small channel and had to attack it from the south where we entered Highland Park Run. We did find the channel from the Highland Park Run side, and it was completely covered in thick weeds (which we bashed through) and had more alligators than I have ever seen - nearly all of them small. We finished the paddle around 4:30 and were back out on the long trek back ot the Alexander Springs TA by 5 AM.

View Sunshine AR in a larger map

Leg 6 - Trek

This was a long trek (easily 10 miles), but it was cool and we were pretty much recovered from the heat of the previous day, in fact Wanda was actually cold. We were tired and as it turned out we punched the wrong CP on the trek (punching a Sport Course CP that was located very close to the Elite CP). It was already hot when we got back to the Alexander TA and got back on our bikes. This time we had to do the same bike loop as before - but only half of it (we turned back at the half-way cutoff). We were hurting pretty bad from heat as we got to the Mud Pond TA.

Leg 7 - Orienteering

As we received the O-Map we were told it was about a 2 1/2 hour course. I figured we could do it in 1 hour if we did not have heat and fatigue issues, but we also had to be concerned with a long ride back to the start/finish from the TA. We decided to do 3 of the 4 CP's which turned out OK and have us plenty of time to return to the S/F. We new we had a pretty strong lock on 3rd place as long as we did not "blow up" the team in the heat. The 3 CP's were pretty easy, but we were having heat issues and we got on the bikes to head back.

Leg 8 - Bike

Jim put Wanda on tow and we knew we had plenty of time to complete this. I was hurting, but knew I was going to be fine for the final ride. We picked up CP40 on the return trip and arrived with nearly 40 minutes to spare in 3rd.

Overview

Despite the heat this was an incredible race, it had just the right amount of navigation challenge. It also had one of the most spectacular paddles I have done, Alexander to Get Out Creek to the St. Johns - it was simply one of those paddles you would never get to do, unless you were in an adventure race. If you have questions as to how we approached any leg of the race - post a comment I will answer.

Pangea AR - Myakka Mud Slide

2011-05-16T13:56:00.001-07:00

Here is a full voice narration for the Team Florida Xtreme (actually Florida Xtreme 2 racing as Florida Xtreme). This is an animation of our course - you can see the entire course from a birds eye view. The race started at the picnic area at Myakka State Park (for those who know the park) - this is the elite (not the sport) course. We finished 1st place in 4 hrs 45 minutes.

Missing River AR

2011-05-01T18:30:00.001-07:00

I did not do the Missing River this weekend - but Manny and Nature Calls did and as always he did a great write-up, see the entire thing with maps at

http://windermereroadies.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9323

Nocatee Challenge 2011

2011-04-10T06:45:00.000-07:00

I was racing with Team Florida XTreme 2 - it had been a really hectic and busy week an I was eager to spend some time in the woods. We started off on bike towards the Boat TA (with 4 controls along the way). When we hit CP1 - the map showed the trail extending south about 50 meters and turning west towards another N-S trail. All the elite teams (I think) headed this way disregarding the ribbons heading west from the control. This put us on a south and west bushwack and did a great job of breaking up the pack as we were all pushing carrying our bikes through some thick terrain. It also used up a lot of energy. The other 3 controls were straightforward and we quickly got them - one strategy is we hit CP4 on bike, while other teams paddled to it - this turned out to be about the same amount of time.

Our team used to be weak in paddling - but Jim and Wands had been working on it - and we moved fast on the water, overtaking a few teams. We skipped by CP15 and CP16 as the tide was low and we could hit those on the way back at a higher tide. One massive yacht decided that we weren't worth slowing down for - and the subsequent waves were enough to make us go to shore and empty the water from our boat. After CP15 we paddled south around to the entrance of the creek leading to the Guana TA - some teams did decide to portage straight across (see video).

Once on foot we headed straight for CP6, then ran into FL Xtreme 1 as they headed to CP10. We split here - and I made one nav error as we came out on the trail north of CP10 and I had the team turn left (we should have turned right). After a few minutes I realized the mistake - bummer. CP 10 and CP11 were pretty easy and from CP11 we headed straight across to the berm north of CP12. This was also pretty easy going, but my now I was realizing my body was extremely fatigued (more than usual for this point in the race). I chalked it up to a hard week and the heat. We plugged on slowly and easily picking up CP13 and CP14. The trek took us 1:33, mostly slowed by my slow progress - FL Xtreme 1 raced through the same section in 1:06.

Green Paw hit the water just in front of us, we headed back out to the Intercoastal, this time short-cutting a bit with the help of the higher tide. We went north to the big island north of CP15 and saw the sport control that was just north of our CP15. We saw either FL Xtreme 1 or Primal Instinct heading towards CP16 on this section. We had to pull the boat and head to CP15 on foot, during one creek crossing Wanda lost her footing, she grabbed me for stability, but I was shin deep in mud and we both went down in the mud (me face first). She may be little, but she can tackle.

CP16 was an easy find, and we headed to the boat TA. On the way back to the main TA we had a lot of sport teams heading towards us. Knowing Jeff (course setter) would not have put all the sport teams through the bikewhack we did - I knew their had to be a trail across that we had missed when we headed for the boats. Sure enough we found the cross trail that we had missed earlier marked with ribbons - it was even rideable.

Back at the TA is was straight out on foot. It was now hot - this was an easy navigation section and we flew through it at a fast run-walk. Even though I had all good intentions of running, my body had other ideas, but I knew if we kept moving strong we still had a chance.

We changed our strategy on the bike. We knew we did not have enough time to get all the CP's se we decided to go the opposite direction getting CP30 first. Fl Xtreme 1 went the clockwise direction, Primal Instinct in front of us, and Green Paw (behind us at this point) also went counter clockwise. The idea was to get CP30 and the location of CP31 (which was at CP30) and go 2 for 1 on controls. This would have worked - we got CP30, and CP29 moving slowly but well. Then it all fell apart. All three teams going this direction took the direct route to CP28 - this turned out to be a horrible bikewhack - and by the time we realized how bad it was we were committed. Chest high fallen trees had to be crossed about every 5-10 yards. It was hot - and there is no cheating on picking up a bike, putting it across the tree, and then crossing. This was chewing up energy and time very fast.

I could tell Primal had gone this way seeing their tracks and the broken branches they had left. About halfway though this 1 KM bikewhack Green Paw passed us. By this time I was nauseous and fighting heat exhaustion. Wanda was in bad shape too. About 10 more minutes of this I puked out the contents of my stomach - and was amzed by the quantity of fluids I threw up (so was my team), I had drunk a lot, but my stomach was not absorbing it quickly enough. Even though I felt a little stronger with the nausea gone and some clouds cooled the temperature off helping also. Jim was a rock though this entire section, towing Wanda and also keeping an eye on me.

We decided to bail at this point, Wanda was having to stop and I was running on fumes and was at real risk with no fluids in my stomach and no ability to keep anything down. We headed west and then north on the long haul out. Once we hit pavement we felt better and went ahead and snagged CP31, which was CP19 from the foot section. Since we had a good 40 minutes and it was all pavement we also snagged CP21.

This was enough to put us in 4th place (which should keep us at the top of the point series - though we will be close with Green Paw). FL Xtreme 1 took first having an awesome race with everything falling into place nicely. Green Paw overcame a few setbacks and used an amazingly physical race to take second. Primal Instinct raced both smart and fast - never letting us get close enough to strike, and were rewarded with 3rd place.

Here is a map of the course, if anyone wants to see strategies for a particular leg simply comment or mail me - I'll be happy to explain.

View Nocatee Challenge Adventure Race in a larger map

Wekiva Orienteering

2011-03-22T06:54:00.000-07:00

I had to try this - here is an animated GPS track of the Red Course Orienteering from Wekiva this last weekend. Pretty cool to see this. The little slowdown you see at each flag is me untying the flag and then also tying it up correctly to be able to carry with my pack. Little note - I decided to try and find the little "alley" between CP 7 and CP 8 rather than the easy and obvious trail route, it is cool how it picks up those turns on the animation.

Solar Power Forum

2011-03-08T08:20:00.001-08:00

We just recently hosted a Solar Power Forum here at Daytona State (I worked on hosting). The question I get A LOT is why is Solar power not taking off as fast in Florida as it is in other states - well here is one answer as to why Florida is lagging behind "non-sunshine" states;

1. A Solar PPA (or Power Purchasing Agreement) is an agreement where a company places a solar system on your property and then you pay (at a reduced rate) for the power it produces. The company maintains, insures, and monitors the system - and pays for the installation up-front. This model has become very popular in many states.

Bottom line for consumer - pay nothing, enter long term lease for purchasing reduced rate power from PPA provider. This reduces your overall power bill - so you end up paying less for power (here is a good easy to read paper on it) http://www.solarpowerpartners.com/PDFs/Is%20a%20Solar%20PPA%20Right%20for%20you.pdf

2. Florida faces some challenges with PPA - Florida does not allow third party ownership PPA model and it is the only state where this is not even in debate. A court ruling from 1981 ruled that if a provider sold power to a single (defined as one) buyer - they would be considered a public utility (and all that this means). In 2007 the Florida Energy Commission recommended changing the statute to the governor, the recommendation was never taken up in the legislature. (http://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/10161/843/MP_kwk5_a_.20090;jsessionid=32EDE11200E39248219052EC724AE9CA?sequence=1 )

3. The point that the group was making - was that until PPA becomes a viable option in Florida, we will not see widespread adoption of solar power within the state of Florida. They encouraged everyone to contact their elected officials to "move" on this issue.

BOAR Adventure Race

2011-03-06T08:05:00.000-08:00

After running the 8 K through the marshes of the St. John's - I guess running is a strong word since much of it was slogging through mud that sucked you in to the tops of your ankles - we were the second team to reach the boats. We had taken some good shortcuts that allowed us to get ahead of faster teams. The first team, Oscar and company was heading the wrong way on the river, we really needed to portage 1/4 mile back the way we came to Lake Cone and get in their.

Manny was just behind us with about 5-6 more teams close on their heels. I saw a small cut-through portage that would gain us a little bit of ground and get us out of the water too shallow to paddle. The first 3 steps into the water were solid and then the ground just dropped off completely. I was in a muck hole up to my neck. Luckily Jim was able to hop in the boat before he too got sucked in. I held on to the boat to stay above water and told them to paddle and toss me the rope we had been using to portage. The muck was bubbling up in front of me as I tried to move forward. A little to our left Manny was in the same predicament. I told Jim and Wanda to paddle hard and I would tow behind the boat trying to get my legs onto a plane with the water instead of straight down. A couple of minutes of that and I was now horizontal in the water (instead of vertical) and crawling across the black gook and water. Another 2 minutes and the ground was solid enough for me to pull myself into the boat and we were paddling. By this time the 5-6 teams that were behind us were now 5-6 teams in front of us.

And so goes adventure racing. We made some really good navigation choices on teh next 3 controls and another strategic portage (leaving CP9) that put us back in the lead for a few minutes.

This is how the day would go for this race. I think that at least 8 teams led this race at some point during the race. We had a tight group of strong teams with no one team able to pull ahead for much longer. In the end - it was Utility Mutants who would use their strong biking to get ahead of the pack. Nature Calls was on their heels for second place, and we pulled in third (FL Xtreme II) - with three more teams right on our wheels. We battled the marsh - had an incredible paddle, biked through some incredible headwinds. The navigation was relatively easy making for a tight race field and a tight finish. A beautiful day, an incredible area, - all made for an outstanding experience. Thanks to Manny for a course map (shown) and Pangea for a well set race - results are here http://www.pangeaadventureracing.com/event-details/events/2011-boar-ar

Adventure Race conquered in just two hours - Central Florida Future

2011-02-21T06:22:00.000-08:00

Adventure Race conquered in just two hours - Central Florida Future

Team Pangea Racing with Greg Owens and Nikki Carlson.

Here is the article on the UCF Adventure Race. There were 20 CP's placed around the UCF campus and 3 challenges. The challenges were the ropes course, Paddle and Puzzle, and an Orienteering/Compass course. The compass course was the only one to give us trouble, you had 2 use compass bearings and pacing to get through a maze of small flags - picking up letters at each flag you landed on and then unscrambling them to make a word (K E T C J A were our letters). The flags were really close together meaning a small bearing error would take you to the wrong flag. It took us 3 tries to finally land the successful word.

We blasted through all the other challenges (morse code decipher, balance puzzle, riddles, math problems, blindfold maze, complete the lyrics) quickly and had a nice fast time. For an example here is the paddle puzzle - O T T F F S S E _ - fill in the missing letter.

UCF provides a great venue and it was pretty cool to see a lot of younger racers get enthused about adventure racing.

Treasure Coast AR 2011

2011-02-13T17:25:00.000-08:00

Well the first (for me) of the season was a blast! This year I am racing with Florida XTreme 2 as part of the Pangea series (and preparing for some big races including the Idaho 7 day). Jim and Wanda are great team-mates - fast and fun. The TCAR started at South River Outfitters (http://www.southriveroutfitters.com/) in Stuart FL.

It was a cold morning - but it was projected to warm up nicely (mid 60's). A short run was followed by a paddle. We were first into the water (even though we were 4th coming into the boats). We had a decent paddle - though a lack of a middle seat really meant Wanda was not able to contribute to much to the effort. A big strategic move was hopping out of the boat at CP8 and running to CP12 and back to the boats. That move probable saved us 10 minutes in the race, though did slow down our paddle a little. We were still 7th coming out of the water in a really tight race. Eco-choice had come out of the water 20 minutes earlier (they are a really fast paddling team).

The next leg was the trek and we moved into a quick run making quick work of the next few CP's working with FL Xtreme 1. Also here Jim and Wanda's local knowledge of the park helped. We got to the paddle board section with a few other teams and sent Wands (the only one who had used one before) out on the short paddle board loop. Jim got to the do the short swim (it was cold) to pick up one CP on an island. As we hit the TA - we saw Super Frogs heading south on bikes - they had already picked up the one CP north of the TA. FL Xtreme 1 and 2 headed north to CP16 (an out and back loop).

We simply flew through this bike leg. The navigation was relatively straightforward and Jim and Wanda's local knowledge allowed us to choose some pretty optimal routes avoiding bad trails. We caught up wit Super Frogs 3 controls from the finish line and we knew it would be a head to head sprint to the finish line. At the next to last CP we were able to get about a 20 secod jump on them by spotting an open gap joining the trail we were riding on and the trail that the control was on. We dropped the bikes as i shouted out commands - drop the bikes! straight in and left! Back out! I appreciate my team putting up with me. I could tell Wanda was hurting (at least until she looked behind and saw Super Frogs right on our tail), but it was not a long sprint. Tem feet from the finish Wanda clips another bike in the TA and goes over her handle bars. I hop off my bike and grab her as we run to the finish. 3 hrs, 48 minutes, 18 seconds.

Sine we had plenty of time - we grabbed the map and passport and headed out to do the Sport course that had started about an hour earlier. That was fun too, I got to try out the paddle boarding (so did Jim) as we did that course. We also got to have a little extra paddle challenge. On the sport paddle we passed a 2PF team (Real Deal Double D) - both cute girls struggling a bit on the paddle. We tossed a tow rope on their boat and towed them most of the way through the paddle - which is really more challenging than it looks and it looked challenging.

The new Pangea site is really cool and has all the splits! http://pangea.ph3.us/event-details/events/2011-treasure-coast-ar

I think Meg took some pictures ( I did not bring my camera - doh!) they'd be at http://www.megrobertsgalleries.com/Adventure-Racing There are some pictures up on the facebook site. http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1434195394828&id=1831247678#!/pangeaadventureracing

Big thanks to Mark Roberts - great course design.

Resolution Adventure Race

2011-01-17T07:31:00.000-08:00

A video would be worth more than a thousand words. Here is a recap of the race. The elite race started at 8 AM with a quick run and 5 checkpoints taking teams to the water and a beautiful morning paddle. The 5th checkpoint was the most challenging and some teams had to take multiple attacks to successfully find it in the open woods. The paddle also proved to have some navigation challenges (keeping a few teams out there for hours) - but the top teams moved through it in under 2 hours also completing the paddle challenge (a marked paddle course).

The elite teams then ran back to the main TA picking up 6 more checkpoints along the route.

After completing the run-paddle-run the elite teams were out on the challenging bike course. Even though this was a short bike by elite course standards, it also had a spiderweb network of trails and very challenging navigation.

Meanwhile the sport teams were gathering for a long pre-race in preparation for the sport course. The teams would split into two groups, one doing a bike-paddle-bike, the other doing a bike-run-bike. Teams would complete one section and then return to the main TA for the passport to do the other leg.

In the end it was a beautiful day for racing and plenty of teams cleared both courses. Results are at the Pangea Web Site - http://www.pangeaadventureracing.com/ The next race is the Treasure Coast Adventure Race - I should the race from the perspective of a racer as I'll be out there with Jim and Wanda, team Florida XTreme.

Beginners Guide to Your First Sprint Race

2011-01-06T18:15:00.000-08:00

This is a companion to my guide to 24-36 hour races available at http://eaglinar.blogspot.com/2009/12/beginners-guide-to-24-36-hour-racing.html

Getting Started

So you are ready for your first Sprint Race. Great - here are some things that will help you get started. We will work through some items like the team, gear, training, and the race day. The most important thing to remember about adventure racing for the new racer is that it is a team sport. Every team will be made up of individuals with their own strengths and weaknesses. It really does not matter how you perform, what matters is how the team performs, so here are some hints and help.

Picking your team-mates - As a rule of thumb you should have team mates that are both physically and mentally compatible. Physically compatible means you are have about the same physical capabilities. If you are a strong runner and a weak biker - then you will want team-mates that are similar. The results of picking team-mates that don't match your abilities is frustration, when you want to run and your team-mate must walk. There are ways to overcome this, towing is common and there are chances to rest your team-mates, like when you are paddling. Mental compatibility is also important, if a person drives you crazy when you are not racing, they are only going to be worse when you are racing - it is never a good idea to push this issue and have them find out how you feel when you are in the stress of a race. That said - there are usually lots of chances to find races that work well with you.

Training - There is a huge misconception that you have to be a top level highly fit athlete to adventure race. This is simply not true. The folks you see on the podium race after race do train to be fit, but they also train for technique and teamwork. My rule of thumb for a Sprint race (about 3 hours) is you should be able to comfortably be able to run about 5 miles at your own pace, be able to bike between 10 and 20 miles, and have some experience paddling a canoe. If you can do this - you will be fine physically to complete a 3 hour race. As you move to longer distances, you will do longer workouts - but save that for when you start moving towards elite class.

The most important part of training is improving your skills. If you have a chance to paddle canoes or learn to improve your paddling form - take it. Paddling a boat is very much about technique and form and less about muscling a boat through water. As for biking, practice off-road mountain biking (single or double track) every chance you get. Road cycling will build muscle and endurance - but I've seen plenty of roadies slow to a crawl when they hit single track. The most important skill is navigation - AR is all about the map and compass. Go orienteering with your local club (Florida Orienteering in Florida) and practice map reading every chance you get (Get rid of your GPS and use a map).

Gear - There are 2 types of gear, mandatory and luxury. You must have the mandatory gear - usually a backpack, hydration system, compass, and first aid. Of course the mountain bike is another piece of gear. In the race I recommend only carrying what you need, which is typically the mandatory gear. You can carry some food (maybe 1-2 gels for a 3 hour race) - but you really will not need a lot of food. On hot summer days you WILL need plenty of hydration. I use Gatorade for my hydration - but as a rule drink what you like to drink, nearly all sport drinks work great and as long as they don't upset your stomach are fine.

Day of Race - Don't get nervous about race day. Keep a list of what you plan to bring, and simply have it in a bin ready to go. If you are missing something don't sweat it - you can usually find someone with a spare at the race or in most cases you really don't need it anyway. When you get to the race site you will register your team, setup your transition area, go to the pre-race, and then start the race. As long as you have all your "stuff" together in a bin this is all pretty easy to handle. You'll also likely have a cooler with fluid and some food (food mostly for after the race). During the race (for my team) - all food and fluids are TEAM property - if someone needs something the team supplies it.

If it is your first AR - go out and have a good time. Adventure Racers are a very friendly bunch. We compete - but in the end we are all friends and you will immediately feel the sense of camaraderie at an adventure race. If you need or are missing some critical piece of gear - chances are another team will spot you the spare equipment. That is just the way we are - so go out and have a great time.

Orienteeri ng December Kelly Park

2010-12-20T15:55:00.000-08:00

I was not able to make it out to the regular orienteering at Kelly park because of work, but I was able to make it to pick up flags. It was pretty exciting due to the fact that I need to run in under 2 hours (back to the Kelly Park entrance to finish before it got dark. The course was great - and i did take a little video to show how the woods in Wekiva looked

The course required some really technical orienteering with challenging controls that precluded the use of trails (and a lot of landmarks). Also the challenge of tying the flags while running made it a lot of fun. And since I am putting up orienteering video - I have to post a link to my favorite Orienteering Video - this one really captures the spirit and the reckless abandon of orienteering - and defines it as a sport that can be pretty extreme.

Turkey Burn with Nature Calls

2010-11-28T15:06:00.000-08:00

note: maps to come after i get a chance to scan them.

I had the pleasure of racing with Nature Calls (Lori, Manny, and Greg) this year in the Turkey Burn. I have raced along side of them dozens of times and we had always planned as racing as a team - and now we did it. The Turkey Burn is the season finale for Pangea Adventure Racing, and with course setter Dave Brault always has a solid combination of paddling, trekking, biking and challenging navigation.

It was quite warm at the 4 AM start and we took off with the lead teams on the first bike leg. There were 4 points and teams could do them in any order. We chose to go 1,2,3, and 4. As we approached CP1 we gathered a cluster of teams. I had not paid good enough attention to my odometer and we pulled up in a spot that looked like the correct spot, but was actually short (by nearly a kilometer). Manny pointed out where he thought we were and I did a measurement on the map, comparing it to my odometer and figured it out, but not before losing some precious time (best guess - about 15 minutes). Well, better to make the mistakes early and then have time to recover. The remaining 4 CP's were straightforward, though the trails were challenging in the dark. After CP4 we had a pretty healthy bushwhack to the main gate, and we arrived in time to see Punch Junkies, Florida Extreme 1 and 2 heading out on the next leg a 6-7 mile run to the boats.

CP4 -> CP3 -> CP2 -> TA -> CP5->CP6->CP7 - Paddle to CP18

This was going to be the longest leg of the race. We headed out at a good speed. We had over 2 1/2 miles of road running before we would get into the off-road portion of the run. As we ran along, we got a light rain which turned pretty heavy for about 30 minutes - basically enough to drench us - but being fairly warm it was pretty refreshing. We nailed CP 5 and CP6 which were very easy finds along the Florida Trail. As we approached CP7 we could see at least 2 teams in the distance not moving - which is usually a sign the control is hard to find. We got to the spot as they left. I immediately attacked the area where I though we would find it, but no luck. We tried a different attack measuring from a trail intersection to the east, we headed in looking for the "marsh" it was on, still no luck. It was now starting to get a little light out. I took another attack point from the trail intersection NE of the mapped location. After about 10 more minutes Greg catches a glint of white and finds it - essentially in the first place I had looked. At least 3 teams (Hoof-hearted and Utility Mutants found it and passed us during the search) It was hung very low and I was too hasty in my first search.

As soon as we punched we headed to the north trail and west to the boats. We got there just as the sun came up over the horizon. The paddle down Blackwater Creek was amazing. We had a good current, great scenery, and perfect weather. As we turned a corner to approach CP8, we saw 2 teams coming back the other way - they had missed it and had to turn around at CP9. We continued on to CP10 where we had to go by foot to CP11. This was an easy find and there was a faint trail leading us essentially all the way there. Once we made the turn into the Wekiva we learned that the current direction is important - what was an easy paddle was now pushing against the strong current of the Wekiva. The next 3 controls were essentially the same as the controls from the SCAR earlier this year and we found them easily. From there is was a sprint to the take-out. The strong paddling team of Eco-Choice passed us along the way and they were moving very fast on the water. At the take-out we read the map that gave us the location of CP18, it was not far and after a little out and back for this last control we were in the TA getting ready to bike. Everyone was still feeling strong - so that was good news. Punch Junkies had nearly a 30 minute lead at this point, Florida Xtreme 1 and 2 had a bout a 20 minute lead, and Eco-Choice and Hoof-hearted were about 5 minutes ahead. Utility mutants were also very close behind us - this was about the half-way of the race, so it was really looking like a good tight race.

The bike leg was next and I decided to do this counter-clockwise, 2 reasons - one section had a better backstop in the reverse direction (CP30 to CP29 to CP28) and also I wanted to know where the other teams (who I believed had gone the other direction) were. The CP30 to CP29 worked perfectly, the faint trail was there and even ride-able through most of the trail. We bushwhacked to CP28 - found the E-W trail, I should have aimed off here, but instead was going for a direct hit, so I did not know whether to head east or west. I played conservative and we headed east for 200 meters, and then came back and found it easily. (this is an orienteering trick, it works to find the control, but does cost some time). The riding to CP27 and CP26 was very fast. It did slow down a bit from CP26 to CP25 with quite a few downed trees and my personal favorite - cypress knees in the trail. About 1/2 km from CP25 heading for CP24 the road turned into sugar and we were forced to ride in the low palmettos to the side of the road. This was sandy and rough and also dangerous as there were plenty of cactus spines and other tired puncturing threats. We had passed the other teams going the other way between CP26 and CP25 - they were all within 5 minutes of each other.

CP24, 23, and 22 just required us to stay on the bike trail. No easy feat since it was very overgrown. This only required bashing through overhanging palmettos and tree limbs (the outside of my hands are all cut up since I did not put on my bike gloves). At one point I tried to bike across a wooden footbridge only to discover it was as slick as ice and I went down hard. A quick bone check and I was back up and fine. Greg was a bit nauseous as we had been pushing a tough pace through all the soft sand. After CP19 we hit pavement and we literally flew to the barn on the road and hard packed McDonald road.

At the TA we changed shoes and headed immediately back out on bike for the orienteering. I like orienteering sections in adventure races, they are my strength and I feel very comfortable with an orienteering map. At the barn we dropped bikes and settled into a light jog. CP31 and 32 fell quickly. The field leading to CP 34 had just been mowed and we plunged into the woods from the field at a good trot. We spotted the first ditch and saw the second ditch near where we found the first one. I saw a ribbon on a tree and checked it out - it was the biodegradable ribbon that Pangea uses to mark control points - however there was no flag. As we were searching I decided to call in. On the phone Greg informed me that he had left an extra piece of ribbon there and that the flag was out there - but not in that location. We were only about 100 meters away and found the flag quickly after that (amazing how much a piece of ribbon can throw you off) - and headed back out. I attacked CP33 from the trail intersection east of it - and Hoof-hearted was coming from the west (they had passed us at CP34, sneaking in and out of the woods without us seeing them).

They passed us again heading for CP35 - but we took a very good attack point from the North that landed us dead on CP35 very close to when they got to it. We were now neck and neck. They ran faster to CP36, but attacked it from the north (I attacked from the east) and we punched at the same time. They moved very fast on the trail heading for CP37, tried to use the ditch to attack it, I used the western trail intersection and again we were at it basically exactly at the same time. As we approached CP38 they ran right past the dirt mound (the description was Dirt Mound North Side) - and that gave us the chance to punch it and move quickly on. Both CP39 and CP40 went very quickly (easy finds) and though Manny was suffering, we kept a solid pace to the bikes. Ten more minutes of hard riding and we were at the finish line, nearly an hour behind Punch Junkies - but only minutes behind Florida Xtreme and Hoof-hearted in what I knew would be a tight race.

PS. Both Hoof-hearted and Florida Xtreme had suffered a bit with control CP30 which had been stolen by some mischievous folks who were out there. This gave them a time credit that put them within minutes of our finish time (11 hrs, 25 minutes, 9 seconds). This is the 3rd race in a row where the final time was less than one minute difference between teams on the podium.

Big thanks to both team-mates and competitors, and especially to Dave Brault for an incredible courses - this was one of the best course I have raced having incredible elements that truly challenged all teams to their max. Also congrats to all the Sport teams - they had a real rough time with some of the stolen controls - but made it through the hardship like real troopers.

Here is a Google Plot of the first 3 legs of the race. Manny has a tracker - it lost batteries for the last bike leg and trek leg. It does show our strategy for CP7 - after not finding it from the first attack point to the east, we went to the intersection NE of the control and re-attacked it, finding it on that try.

Ragnar Relay

2010-11-21T07:22:00.000-08:00

Cindy passing off the snap bracelet to Dee Dee

This ended up being a pretty action packed weekend as I was competing in the Central Florida Ragnar Relay. Competition is too strong a word as this was really a chance to go out and have some fun running. For those who have never heard of the Ragnar ( http://www.ragnarrelay.com/ ) it is a 12 person relay race that cover roughly 200 miles in 36 legs. Each runner runs 3 legs with about 8 hours to rest and do other things between legs. It is a blast ! I was running for Team Helping Hannah raising money for Hannah ( http://helpinghannah.wordpress.com/ ). A lot of the teams out there on the course were working with different charities.

The Ragnar Team is split into 2 vans - with 6 people in each van. Van 1 (aka the wimpy van) does legs 1-6, 13-18, and 25 - 30. We called them the wimpy van as they had a lot shorter legs in most of their runs than van 2. Also we had one injury before the race, so van 2 was going to cover it 18 legs with 5 runners. I was the lead runner for Van 2 so I got to start with leg 7. Cindy LaVigne was the wrap-up runner so she got to transition to the other team.

My first leg was a double, I was going to run legs 7 and 8 and 7 was a fun and easy jog up the Suncoast Parkway Trail. Followed by a shorter leg that took me along SR 50. (You can see the entire course at http://www.ragnarrelay.com/race/florida/course_maps ). Here is are my first 2 legs run back to back for a total of 11.9 miles - not too bad ending up in Brooksville.

After that it was supporting the other 4 van runners on their legs which meant driving to the next TA and being ready when they came in to switch runners. At TA 12 we would switch running duties to the other van and get a pretty long break. That last leg had Cindy running down the Withlacoochee Trail to the small town of Lacoochee (folks from the Swamp Stomp might remember that leg). A train decided to park on the track blocking the route and Cindy got to take a detour and do some off-road as she had to run around the train to get to the TA.

We got a little opportunity to rest, but we headed for the next major TA (TA 18 in Mascotte). We had time to stuff ourselves with catfish and ribs at the Rainbow Diner and Mascotte and then try to get some sleep before we started the next 6 legs.

I love running at night and it was roughly 11 PM when I started out on the 7.8 mile leg 19. It was essentially straight down SR 50 to Clermont. Jim "Topless" was supposed to take over for me at leg 20, but I was feeling so good with the cool air I waved him off at the TA and continued on to complete leg 20 which was only a 6.3 mile leg.

That had made for a 14.1 mile run, and I was a bit tired. Jim had a 9.1 mile leg that was coming up - so it was good to give him a bit of a break on this leg. I also got to bike the last leg of this section (3.6 miles) ending up at the West Orange trailhead in Apopka. We saw some old friend there and chatted for a while before finally heading to the lat major transition at the Municipal stadium in Sanford. Here I was able to get some good rest (if not sleep) to prepare for my final leg - and 8.8 mile jaunt from Sanford to the Dollar General store in Osteen. I was able to get a hot shower (stadiums have locker rooms !) and even a decent breakfast before this last run. The last leg I had would take me 8.8 miles from downtown Sanford to SR 46 and then up SR 415 to Sanford. It was hot, there was lots of traffic, and a headwind - and I was tired. I settled into a nice easy pace and about 90 minutes later I was handing off the slap bracelet to Topless who would run the next 8.0 mile leg (and later a 6.8 mile leg).

Linda was there with the kids at the transition. had familial obligations for the rest of the day - so had to cut out at that point. The team finally made it into Daytona Beach around 6 PM that evening, and from what I understand the almost 1000 runners that were in the Ragnar had a pretty rocking party. Now if i can find a team for the next one from Miami to Key West ....

For anyone considering this - it has a lot of elements of adventure, is a lot of fun - and I suggest doing it if you get the chance.

Lighterknot 2010

2010-10-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

This was a day made for racing, and the Pangea Lighterknot was just the race to make it all fun. It was early morning meeting team-mate Dave Brault at 4 AM to drive up to Princess Place for the race. We got the maps about 6:15 and settled into my truck to plan our route. We expected the race would begin with a prolog and it did; 3 bike orienteering points and 3 foot orienteering points. Each of these took roughly 20 minutes and we were the 3rd team off the prolog and headed for the paddle.

Once we hit the water we headed south towards the saltwater marsh and maze of canals that had CP2, 3 and 4. We stayed on the east bank to get CP2, which was a good strategy. Continuing south to look for a cut across channel to get across the marsh turned out to be a bit more paddling than if we had simply doubled back and used the channel to the north of CP2 (see aerial map). We also overshot the best channel and had to double back a bit just to get to a channel that would take us west towards CP3. We arrived at CP3 just behind Primal Instinct (Jim and Carolyn). We snagged CP4 and were quickly back out to the main channel for the open water paddling. Once we hit the open water it was simply a sprint (really not much navigation required) to get CP6 (out and around the northern peninsula), CP5 - across the mouth of Pellicer Creek in a small creek, and the farthest control CP7 (in a small shallow ox-bow). We hammered the paddle back and were the second team out of the water just behind Primal Instinct.

At the TA we simply dropped our paddle gear. I had pulled off my extra clothes (it was chilly at the start) while running from the paddle to the TA, and all we had to do was drop our extra gear and get the next passport for the trek. We chose to trek second to use the cooler morning weather to help our run, and also to prevent having to change from run to bike shoes. I believe we left just after 11 AM. We had pre-planned our trek to do CP11, 13, 12, 10, 9, 14, 15, and 16 in that order. This appeared to be the best route and though it was a little less conservative than the reverse route - I felt confident we would be able to navigate the terrain without issue. We settled into a low jog, we were a couple of minutes behind Primal Instinct out of the TA. We had about 3-4 teams (including Florida Xtreme) that were also just minutes behind us. The Google Map attached to this blog has the route we took and some thoughts on the navigation.

All of the controls were relatively easy, the only challenging terrain was the creek crossing approaching CP14 from the east, and a short bushwack east of the power lines as we headed to the N-S trail we would use to get to CP16. CP16 was the most challenging of the CP's - requiring the use of the 2 spurs to center yourself in the re-entrant before plunging into the palmettos. We made the jog back to the TA and were the first team to arrive. We wasted no time switching into bike shoes and yelled bye to Greg who was giving the pre-race to the Sport teams.

I figured we probably had a 2-3 minute lead on Primal Instinct at this point as they had not arrived at the TA - though I knew that Jim would easily navigate the foot section and our difference in times would simply be the difference in pace and a few course routes being optimized. We started off the bike heading for CP19. This was a logistics error - since CP18 was a simple out and back on hard packed surface we should have hit it first and then headed for CP19 - though it was a close choice and if the trail from CP17 to CP18 was a good surface, that would have been a better route (it was NOT a good surface). The first part of the bike CP19 - CP20 - CP21 went very fast as the controls were close and the riding good. It was a long route from CP21 ro CP22, but the riding was also good along the loop road. From CP22 we headed to the pavement of Old Kings Road and the entrance to the Florida Agricultural Museum - still good riding, and picked up CP23 easily. After crossing the land bridge our trails turned into sand. We dropped into a low gear and chunked through the sand - using the edges of the horse trails to try to get solid traction under our tires. This held a risk as there were lots of cacti and sand-spurs on the sides - so you always have the risk of a flat tire. CP24 to CP17 was pure punishment for our earlier pace. We did ride most of it - but not much faster than we could have run it. I was hoping that as we left CP17 and took the trail towards CP18 we would get some solid ground. This was the Hominy Branch trail and it had been thoroughly chopped up by all the horse traffic. We could still ride, but not very fast. I did stop to help a lost team just before we hit CP18, they were thoroughly lost and it was the right thing to do.

From CP18 we pushed at 100% towards the finish line just seconds after Primal Instinct came in from the other direction. They had gotten CP18 first and even though the route from CP17 to the finish was also sandy - it was much shorter. They had reached CP17 seconds behind us and had made up the time finish from that last control finish line.

The thrill of the competition made the entire race worthwhile, not to mention the awesome course and terrain. This was the second (sprint) race in a row with a finish that was less than a minute gap. I was quite happy and that was made better by the good food that we had at the finish also (salad and pasta tastes pretty good after a race). I also felt that I was fully recovered from the Coast to Coast that was just 2 weeks earlier (58+ hours of continuous racing). Next up is the Ragnar Relay and the Turkey Burn - both exciting races. See you out there! Here are some video scenes from the race, and a map of the course (I'll also scan my race map and post it).

View Pangea Lighterknot 2010 in a larger map

Google Map - map of the course with our route choices and notes.

Moss Park Orienteering and Corn Mazes

2010-10-11T19:03:00.000-07:00

Saturday was about orienteering and a great challenging blue course at Moss Park. I flipped positions with Chris Johnson a few times on this - which also makes it a fun run with a little friendly competition.

CP2 - There was no obvious attack so I pace counted from the intersection and cut in. The forest had a lot of downed trees. I over shot and had to double back using the trail to the west as a secondary attack - finally finding it. note: Chris Johnson used the subtle trail bend in the N-S trail, an excellent attack and maximizing trail running. A really good approach.

CP3 - due east to trails, up to mound ridge and along west side of ridge - easy find.

CP4 - South of mound and across rough open to E-W trail. Trick was finding subtle trail entrance to use as attack point. Trail did not go far - but due east bearing led to control.

CP5 - Easy run, though placement was a bit south of where I thought it should be, too close to lake. Ran into Chris here approaching as I was leaving control.

CP6 - Real long run from CP5 to CP6. Chris passed me on trail. Attacked by taking subtle northern trail off main trail and heading due north with wetland as backstop. Area was quite thick near control and placement seemed too far east. Took extra 5-10 minutes to find. (note the well hidden location too)

CP7 - Chris passed me again on way to CP7. Rootstock gave easy attack into open mixed palmetto scrub. Easy find.

CP8 - Stayed on trail until Distinct Tree (Split Oak) was visible and atacked from due west - easy find, open (Orange) areas were distinct.

CP9 - Tried direct route - woods were a lot thicker than mapped so bailed to trail, found bend and took easy route from south.

CP10 - Long run across berm to other side, CP10 was not there so headed in with Chris and one ROTC runner.

All in all an extremely challenging course, good distance with a lot of tough control locations.

SUNDAY

After a great bike I took the family to Scott's Corn maze. http://www.longandscottfarms.com/fall_maze.html It was a bit hot - but it turned out to be a blast working our way through the complex maze looking for all the checkpoints.

Coast to Coast 2010 Part I

2010-10-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

It had been nearly 2 1/2 years since the last Florida Coast to Coast. When Julie Ardoin (partner in last C2C and Primal Quest 2008) called I knew it was time to get moving. We were joined by Mitch and Joe (also alias Jim, John, and a whole host of other names I called him by during the race) who were both newcomers to long course racing, and crew Johnny, Jamie, and Ellie Sheriff.

We arrived Wednesday with enough time for dinner and then the 8 PM pre-race and notification that the race would start the next morning at 4 AM. Since I was fully expecting to spend a long night plotting and then up early - this was no surprise. Good news is that the first leg (a 7 mile run) would be in darkness and more important cool weather. After map-marking the team was able to get to sleep around midnight, I packed and had everything ready to go so that I could simply get up and head outside for the race in the morning. Good thing, too since I woke up at 3:35 and the team were all still completely asleep. We still made it outside in time for the pre-race and after the pre-race we were off and running.

Leg 1 -

This was the most uneventful leg. I am still amazed at how many teams really rush the first leg. We decided we would run this leg (as did most of the other teams). The cool weather, easy terrain (road), and easy pace made this a very enjoyable morning run. In just about one hour we covered the 7 miles and arrived at the TA where our crew had the boats ready by the water. This was going to be a long paddle. We had done this one in a past C2C - needless to say Lake Rousseau was not my favorite paddle - mostly because the last time I paddled it I ended up swimming twice due to the abundance of submerged trees and logs. We took the prescribed route down the canal, south on the Withlacoochee, and into Lake Rousseau. The paddle actually went quite well (still a couple of bumps). The weather was good and we saw and chatted with a few teams along the route. After passing Dunnelon - we headed north up the Rainbow River, one I had not paddled before. Beautiful clear water - nice breeze, simply great paddling. At the Rainbow Spring springhead - Mitch got to go for a little swim, and retrieved a punch that was underwater in the spring. We would paddle downstream about 1 mile and then start the next section - the tubing section.

The tubing section was going to be fun. We had about 4 teams that all had about a 15 minute lead on us at the boat to tube TA. We figured out a way to link the tubes together to make it a "kinda boat" - and sure enough before we got the bike TA, we had caught up. This section was a ton of fun - and we were really happy with the way the race had been going.

View Florida Coast to Coast 2010 in a larger map

Once the next leg started - it was going to get interesting; coming up next, the first bike leg, we estimated the time to complete 6-7 hours, the actual time would be much closer to 12. It started out quite well, we got into a good bike line and headed for Pruitt Trailhead. An easy right turn and and a left we were on the trail. Pruitt Trail is a nicely packed limestone road that goes nearly all the way to Santos. The first control was at the same location as the 2008 C2C. It only took a short while in that race, and we were in and out of the control in minutes. We were back onto the trail and heading for the next CP (OP USARA). I had measured the distance my attack point at 2.2 km so when my odometer hit the distance we stopped and took a quick look around. Based om the map the control should have been on the north side of the trail and visible. Nothing. We moved on about 100 meters, searched, no control. We kept this up for about 30 minutes and soon other teams started to show up. We saw Green Paw (who we had passed at the last control go by - they had found it). We kept at it for another 30 minutes, still no CP. At this point I knew we would need a different approach, looking at the (vague) contours on the map. Using this we searched south of the trail and soon found the control and were on the way to the next one.

The next CP (OP Adventurous Concepts) also looked challenging and it was. We met up with Super Frogs who had been looking for it, and led them back to the location. It was also challenging and we were soon joined in the search by Scurvy Knaves and Pangea. We did find it, and I also convinced Greg (Pangea) and Jim (Scurvy Knaves) to go back to the previous control that they had not found. We moved on and headed to the Quarry (picking up another CP on the way) where Elias told us we could move on to the next CP. We headed that way - it was in the tangle of trails that is Santos - the clue was the sinkhole near the corner of Dr. Ruth and Cow Bone. Since the provided map was useless we simply headed that direction (generally) and asked riders we passed if they knew those trails (most of which did).

Now here is something about Santos and Ocala. Even though it is a small community (compared to Orlando). This is probably because it has an awesome mountain bike area. Moral of that story - we need more mountain bike parks in Orlando. OK now on to our story...

OP Howl at the Moon was supposedly near the intersection, and the description (in Sinkhole) seemed obvious since there was an awesome and obvious sinkhole near the intersection. We searched. More teams arrived, and we searched. After 90 minutes it started to get dark and I realized that searching the sinkhole would be impossible in the dark. We moved on going north on Dr. Ruth - we were bailing. As we moved north we crossed a second intersection of Dr. Ruth and Cow Bone, and Sinkhole trail was also near this intersection - so we spent another 30 minutes searching Sinkhole trail and that intersection. Eventually we bailed on that control too. We headed for the ropes - where we ran into all the other teams we had been searching with. They had taken Cowbone north and told us the CP was literally on the trail.

We did the climb (which I always enjoy). Since I had rigged a Froggy Style ascent I moved quickly up the rope. Since I was frustrated by the control searches - I was determined to "corner the ledge" without help. This is making it up the last 4-5 yards of the ascent without assistance - which are always challenging. I made it and was back in pretty good spirits after the rappel back down. The ropes were on a massive (40-50 ft) bridge abutment that was going to be part of the barge canal that never happened. It was a really cool place for a ropes course.

About the ropes course

Just south of Santos are several bridge stanchions, built in 1936 for a never completed bridge over the never completed cross Florida barge canal.

Teams ascended up 45' on one of six ropes we had setup in the middle of the ledge, then moved to one of two rappelling ropes on each end of the ledge to get back down. The first team came through about 5pm on Thursday and the last about 7am on Friday. Between 9pm and 11:30PM Thursday we were very busy, having at times, six racers ascending concurrently.

For more pictures on the ropes check out http://www.jimbodoh.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=55273

We went back to get the missed CP - and sure enough it was right on Cow Bone trail. As we headed back out there was a trail stopped on the tracks. We ended up going around, and getting back on the course. At this point I'll make a long story short. The next 2 controls were sheeer disasters. We never found either one - even though one should have been incredibly easy. Some other teams came by - but they decided to not even try to get these. After 2+ hours searching for OP Mighty Dog with Manny and Lori from Nature Calls, we finally decided to head straight to the TA and even skip the 2 bikewhack controls. This was a low point for the team, but I figured some food and rest in the TA would help us out - and it did. From here we portaged to the Silver River, flew through the paddle, exiting and portaging the 3+ miles back to the TA. We were in such good spirits that we asked if we could go back on the bike and pick up the 4 controls we had skipped. Elias said we could, but they would not count - so instead we prepared for the the next leg - a really LONG trek.

Things would get more interesting - We would be the 4th team out the TA, shortly after Pangea, Green Paw, and the Dominican team all of which which had so far cleared the course.

Here is a map of the Silver River area, TA, Bikewhack, and paddle.

It was about 9:15 when we headed out on the trek. Since the approximate distance was 25 miles we were calculating about 7-8 hours to complete the trek which would put us in around 5-6 PM within the daylight hours. It started off well, the first part of the trek was all road and there was no significant navigation. we easily found the turn leading to Lake George. Here I could tell our pace slowed significantly slowed on the trails. It also turns out that the trails it was on were not on the map, though the trail leading towards it were not.

View Florida Coast to Coast 2010 in a larger map

We ran into Pangea (who had been searching for a while here) - while we were searching a few more teams arrived including Scurvy Knaves. This one just required deduction from the clue (Intersection of Forest Roads) - we narrowed in on it by staying right on the trail network - which worked fine. Leaving the control and heading north we had a major water crossing - so our feet were going to be wet. About the point the socks and feet dried out, we had another water crossing. This is also where Pangea (who we had passed) caught up to us. They were having some team issues at the time (it happens) - but they obviously resolved them as they took off at a fast pace heading out towards forest road 86 (Hopkins Prairie Road). As we approached the road from the trail we had to cross a large dirt mound to get to the road. My team asked me why the large mound. They had just seen a TV special on the pythons in Florida so I said "It keeps the pythons off the Florida Trail - maybe we'll see some on the road". I had them believing this for a while, but eventually they figured out I was joking,

This road (just follow it on the map) went on forever. About half-way through the trek we did have a water drop. This was good for 2 reasons (1) we were out of water, and (2) it gave us a mental break from the long endless trek. By the time we reached the water, both my feet and Mitch's feet were in bad shape - his worse than mine. We had been reduced to hobbling along at about 2 mph. I had already abandoned the idea of going for the next control and we were simply focused on getting to the TA. About 1/2 mile east of the water - a truck pulled up to us. It was the medical crew for the race (THANKS ROY !!). They had ice for our water - really - ice ! and they also patched up our feet. I now knew that we would make it to the TA and even going for the second CP was again an option.

As we approached the turn for the second CP I polled the team. We had been out on the course more than 9 hours (approaching 10). Pangea and 2 other teams had passed us and had disappeared into the distance. We were still moving incredibly slow, the feet were really hurting and I know I was feeling serious leg fatigue. We decided to head straight to the TA. We walked and walked and walked and it seemed like the road went on forever. We finally arrived around 8:30 PM - almost 12 hours of trekking. The team was beat and there was no way we would be able to keep everyone solid without some sleep.

We ate, got rehydrated, and took about 90 minutes of sleep in the TA. When I woke up I felt like I had gotten a solid 8 hours - really! I was eager to get on the bikes, and we were soon off. Mitch was still sleepy so we put him on the front of the bike line - and he took off. We hit SR19 and were doing 21-23 mph. We flew to SR 40, took the left and headed east - still flying along. The turn into Lake George WMA was easy to find, and we soon caught up with team Nature Calls. We both had agreement as to the location of the next CP (OP Hammer Nutrition). We both agreed that the control was somewhere Northwest of the intersection of 2 easily identified forest roads - as it plotted obviously on that corner. So we searched. I found trails - so I searched them. We searched the field. We searched the forest behind the field. We searched the culvert and ditch. I finally had enough and called Dennis on the phone. He reminded me that he had said it would be on the northeast (northEAST) corner near the intersection. After that it took a few minutes (and a reminder from Manny what northeast means) to find the control. This was a major "Argh!" - but we had found the control and headed out. Manny was feeling bad - so we headed on and out to US 17.

Now Mitch was falling asleep on the bike. If I could find him some coffee he knew he would be OK until daylight. I had just finished my last caffeine from my pack, so our only option was to find this on US 17. We checked out every store, but did not find one open until the corner of 17 and 92, which I knew would have something open at 4:30 AM on a Saturday.

The next control was a breeze, on a kiosk and easy to find. We nailed it and moved northeast on US 92 to the entrance to Rima Ridge. As a team we were starting to fatigue, Mitch was fighting sleepmonsters, and I was frustrated with the team for no particular reason other than just feeling grumpy. At one point heading for OP CFAR - Julie and I sat staring off the road.

Ron: "That is our trail".

Julie: "Ron, that is not a trail".

Ron: "Julie, really that is our trail, we need to go that way".

Julie: "Ron, there is nothing there."

We looked at the non-trail for about 10 minutes, when I decided to bike on it - and yes it was a trail. It just did not look like one.

We easily nailed OP CFAR and moved on with a group of teams towards the TA. The sun was coming up and being a very regular guy (if you know what I mean) - I needed to use a bathroom. About the same time I thought this we came upon a port-o-let. How lucky is that?

Another couple of miles we were in the TA where we heard that Green Paw was out and Pangea was in the lead. No explanation, just that a team member had bonked about 3 miles from the TA and they were out. I knew them and knew it had to be serious for them to be dropped at this point in the race. We could not worry about this - it was time to bike the final 5 miles to the Tomoka River and the next to last leg of the race, the Tomoka Paddle from SR 40 to High Bridge.

This was a beautiful morning paddle and I wanted to do it in less than 3 hours. The river was very calm and beautiful and I had done this paddle a few times before. To keep the boats together Mitch and I hitched a rope onto Julie and Joe and they were able to get a little bit of tow - which also allowed Julie some sleep. As we approached the intracoastal we had to disconnect the boats. Here you often get large boats flying up and down the river - the Pamlico has about 5-6 inches of water clearance. This is great for comfort and speed = but it means that if you have waves (and no spray skirt) you need to be able to maneuver the boat quickly to prevent a capsize. A xouple of boats gave us a challenge, but none of them pushed enough of a wake to prevent us from simply rolling with the waves. - We paddled hard and finished in 2:57.

It was a simple trek - 7.2 miles right down the beach. Running was really out of the question with Mitch's feet. We settled into a nice little walk. Along the route people asked what was going on and i would stop and explain the race. I would then run/jog to catch up. As it turns out running (for me) was much less painful than walking. I got into the habit of running up to the team, chatting with folks on the beach - running and catching back up, repeat. The 7 miles took us right around 2 1/2 hours to complete. Pizza and beer and sleep awaited us. We congratulated Pangea who had a well deserved win, never giving up and making the extra effort to clear the course.

There are great pictures at http://megrobertsgalleries.com/Adventure-Racing/2010-Florida-Coast-to-Coast-AR

http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=2426&id=100001711656994

and

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2501&id=100001711656994

It was a great race and a great time., My team was wonderful - Mitch was an awesome paddle buddy. Julie and I work great together, she keeps me from going loopy on the nav (even though it may look like I'm irritated, I still appreciate her making sure I am not doing something stupid). She and Joe made a great race pair. And our crew (Johnnie, Jamie, and Ellie) were the picture of awesomeness. When we hit the TA they were ready and anticipated everything we could need or want. I know that have 4 racers simultaneously wanting things - where are my batteries? do you have an apple? how about a pepsi? etc.... and we always had what we wanted.

See you next race !

P.S. Great post-race quote from Mitch. "Normally I don't like finisher medals for races - but holy shit I'm keeping this one!"

Pangea Superhero Adventure Racing - 9-18-2010

2010-09-19T15:20:00.000-07:00

When I saw a posted to Facebook for team-mates I got a quick reply from Dave Shuman of FIGJAM. We had raced together many times, but never on the same team - so this was a good pairing. After a message from long time friend and racer Greg Corbitt - and we had a 3PM team.

See us here in the boat -

http://megrobertsgalleries.com/Adventure-Racing/Superhero-2010/Superhero-2010/13831447_eWyPx#1013576424_rdoob

http://megrobertsgalleries.com/Adventure-Racing/Superhero-2010/Superhero-2010/13831447_eWyPx#1013808972_m62uP

and Green Paw - hot on our tail

http://megrobertsgalleries.com/Adventure-Racing/Superhero-2010/Superhero-2010/13831447_eWyPx#1013811429_MN7RU

The race started at King's landing, my worry was that we would have super-hot weather, but it looked like the temps would barely crack 90 (which for Florida summer weather is quite cool). The race started with a little navigation course with some dead reckoning bearings all taken from a common start location. After the first one I could see that we would be able to hit 2 of them without having to return the the bearing point, since the clue on one was "along river" - another one was going to put us real close to the river - and that worked quite well, simply hitting the one close to the river and then following the river to the other CP. These did require somne getting wet (it was on the far side of the river - no problem). Since we only had to do 4 (of 5) we headed back to the bearing point and used the road and some pace counting to get us the the 4th control.

We were the first onto the next leg of the race - though I knew we would have teams very close on our tail. CP8 was easy (on the river), but CP9 had us taking a bearing and heading inland. The bearing quickly took us back to the river - where we could see the control dangling over the river on a tree. Instead of punching we headed back to the boats. One team (Florida Xtreme 1) avoided the dead reckoning on land and simply stayed on the river - which gave them a solid 5-10 minute lead. That was fine - I do not like to lead early in the race - it uses a lot of energy for potential mistakes that other teams behind you can learn from.

We headed for the long control of the out and back paddle - which gave us a chance to see where the teams were. It looked like it was Florida XTreme out front - then about 6-7 minutes back was us, followed by Green Paw, and then a large group of solid teams just minutes behind Green Paw.

We passed the take-out to get CP 10 and CP 11. We blew by CP10 (we'd get it on the way back) - and headed for CP11. Just before this CP was a real tight log crossing, where Green Paw passed us. We got to CP11 within seconds of each other, and actually passed Green Paw again, but they were able to get over the log on the way back quickly. There was a huge cluster of teams here making the crossing on the slick log challenging. We did fine, and were soon in the TA.

For all racers who want to move to elite and be competitive - here is where you can learn a lot to make up time. As we approached the dock, we had already planned out how we would stow the boat and handle the gear. As we got close paddles were thrown to shore, one person was out - packs were tossed to shore, 2 of us pulled the boat up - while the third gathered the paddles and handed the packs to each of us. Time from being on the water - to running to bikes was right around 1 minute.

At the bikes we simply donned helmets and hopped on - we planned to do the trek second. 2 reasons, (1) run while it was still cool, (2) no need to change to bike shoes. We flew to the trek (with a little fun biking on the way) and headed out on the orienteering.

Here you can refer to the scanned map. I planned to attack CP20 from the north and except for a Sport course control that was along the route - this worked well. Team Green Paw was real close and they saw us going in for the control (they were attacking from the east) - and it helped them a bit with this one. My plan was next CP21 - I wanted to go via CP13 - so I would have a mental picture of this when I came by on the bike (it was a bike CP). CP21 was pretty easy, simply attack as the berm north of the trail ended, spot the thicket and follow around to the control. We were keeping a light run and this area was shaded with very open woods. CP25 was essentially run to the N-S trail, follow to the attack point (fence on west side of map) and go due east. As we saw both small depressions that were mapped - this worked well and we nailed it. CP24 was going NE around the thick area and then due east to the small hilltop. The hilltop was very obvious, and we corrected to the depression and the control as we approached.

CP23 should have been the easiest of the controls - simply go NE to the backstop trail and follow to the earth berm. The backstop trail was however almost gone and we went right over it. I realized the mistake within about 150 yards and doubled back - spotting the berm within seconds - but still having to bushwhack through some nasty palmettos to get to it. From CP23 it was a trail run in, with one easy control (CP22) along the route. The attack was the obvious trail bend NW of the control and we found it quickly.

As we came out of the woods - we found out that we were the first team out. I knew we needed to build a little time on Green Paw here - since they are very strong on bike, and orienteering is my strength. I was not sure how Florida Xtreme was going to be doing - but I knew Mark Roberts would pull them through the orienteering quickly also. We got back to the TA, switched passports, put on bike shoes and headed back out - it felt good to make it out before any other teams showed up in the TA, that always provides a mental boost. As we got to Kelly Park we crossed paths with FL Xtreme, and got a kind of "rats" comment from Mark as he calculated our lead time. Green Paw and FL Xtreme were pretty much neck and neck and we had maybe a 8 minute lead. We would need it - as the navigation on the bike would not split teams, and Green Paw is a very fast bike team.

We headed for CP12 and overshot it by about 150 meters, we doubled back and as I stopped in the spot that I calculated it should be spotted it about 10 meters off the trail and a little bit hidden. Mental note - flags will be off trail a little bit. We also overshot CP14 a bit, as the mapped triangle was not really as mapped - though we did not lose much time. CP14 to CP19 was a bit sandy and slow, but ride-able. The same went for CP19 to CP18 - sandy but still firm enough to ride. We gained some time at CP18 as I sent Dave over the berm and ran parallel pushing his bike while he got the control.

The next move was a strategic choice. The road with CP17 and CP18 seemed to be alternating sandy and solid. I had scoped the trail near CP16 while doing the orienteering and new it was fully ride-able - so we cut over and took that trail north picking up CP16 and CP13. My thoughts were simply the single track hiking trails would be more solid than the road. As it turned out that trail, had more elevation change, but was very ride-able the entire route.

We blasted past the gate, got our punch, and started the sprint back to the TA. I felt my energy go low as we pushed through the thick sand just past the gate - but it elevated once again as we headed down the hill after turning right. Once we hit the road we moved into a bike line and pushed with everything we had left. We did not know how far back - the other teams were, we were pretty sure we had the lead. I knew from experience that they would be close. As it turned out - as Green Paw exited Kelly Park - they could see us on the road about 300 meters in front of them.

In the end the times were FIGJAM 4:33:02, Green Paw 4:33:37, Florida Xtreme 4:49:59, Hoof-hearted 5:10:10, and Florida Xtreme II 5:18:36 - with 9 teams clearing the course. This race turned out to be a great warm-up for the Coast to Coast coming up in 2 weeks. To track that race go to http://floridac2c.com/ - it starts Sept. 30 and should at least have some tracking info for folks wanting to follow their teams.

Rock Springs Run Orienteering - Blue Course

2010-09-12T19:02:00.000-07:00

It was an incredibly hot day for orienteering (92 degrees and near 90% humidity) and from the looks of the course - a lot of it was going to be in the full sun. From the start it was a quick jump out to the south bound road (to avoid the high grass) and then back in for the control - pretty easy to find on the thick area.

From there it was around the marshy (but dry) lake to the trail, and then south to the east west trail. I followed that trail west (and a little north) as it was pretty easy running and there was some shade. I headed southwest at the intersections and followed the road all the way to the control just past a trailer.

From there it was north to Hill Road, and then the lighter jogging trail which was pretty overgrown on the direct beeline to CP3. It was across the road on the same bearing, aiming off a little to the left so that I could use the trail near CP3 as a backstop. As I reached the trail the trail curves were pretty obvious, I ran into Greg and Mark (Team Pangea) here and we all quickly found the depression.

From there I headed west northwest along the trail to the open trail heading north. Mark and Greg went the other direction. After hitting the main road I pushed east a little finding a small opening that led out to the trail heading north to CP4. I passed another team approaching CP4. Here is where the going got tough.

I decidied to go north around the green patch to CP5. It was incredibly tall grass and fennel, with scattered blackberry thorns. And it was in full sun. I found the little road cut-through (marked in black) and punched through the tall grass to the man made feature (telephone pole and CP5) I ran into Anna from Team Green Paw here and said hi.

From CP5 it was south in the open, hot and sunny tall grass. The grass required you to step real high, so just walking was pretty draining, especially with the incredible heat. As I pushed south of the green patch southeast of CP5 I twisted my ankle and went down hard. I had a small moment of panic as the pain dropped me to the ground and I felt my heart rate skyrocket with the pain and heat. I decided to crawl/limp to the mapped green patch and push into the shade. Here I used controlled breathing to slow my heart rate and the shade brought my temperature back down. I felt as if something had plugged into my body and drained every last bit of energy I had. Fortunately, however, after I punched into the green - the undergrowth in the shaded area was not bad and the footing was much better (not chewed up like the open fields). I walked through the green patch across the one open area, and back into the last green patch to the long open stretch to CP6. I could see Anna's head bobbing as she walked towards CP6, not more than 200 yards in front of where I was. She had walked along the outside of the green patch in the thick grass, and even with the crawling and resting had not gotten that far ahead.

As I exited the green I could see why she had not made much headway. The footing was bad, the grass was thick and chest-high, and the blistering sun made for extremely slow going. As I apprached CP6, Greg and Mark caught up with me. CP6 was pretty easy to find, but I was hurting. I headed to the N-S dirt road and headed south. My intention was to take it to the main road and hit CP7 from the south. A second glance at the map wiped that from my mind, it was a long way around a out of bounds zone, and that zone was marked off with an electric fence.

CP6 to CP7 was simple suffering in heat and tall grass. I ran into Jason Willems girlfriend (sorry not remembering names) who was also heading to the same control. We had a bit of punching through more fennel grass, but the control was in a pretty easy spot. From there it was south and out of the field. My plan was to go due south and a little west to the trail south of the dirt road and a little west of CP8 and follow it around to CP8, this worked out well and the control was clearly visible from a couple hundred yards.

I only had one leg to go and had cooled down quite a bit from the heat. I considered running, but a couple of steps on the bad ankles destroyed any idea of doing that. I did want to break 2 hours (which would have probably been easy without the injury) but if I did it would be simple luck. Anyway CP9 was a near due east jaunt with plenty of distinct features. I punched through the last bit of white woods pretty much on top of it and headed to the start finish table, which seemed like a long way off. I started into a jog, made it 2 steps, and then decided to preserve my ankles for another race.

As it turned out I was able to finish in 2 hrs 1 minute, so really only a minute off the pace I had started out to beat. Rock Springs has a shower - so I was able to clean up, get some water, talk with Tim, Anna, Jason, Greg, Mark, Bob, and the outdoor athlete crowd before heading home. All in all, a good day, and I was able to push to the limits - which always makes it a great weekend.

Glossary of Adventure Racing

2010-08-17T17:27:00.000-07:00

If you have any suggestions of words to add to this glossary leave me a comment;

General Terms

Checkpoint (CP) - In adventure racing you race from CP to CP, a location you must visit along the course.
Transition Area - An area where you switch from one discipline (run, bike trek, other) to another.
Rogaine - A style of adventure racing where you visit as many CP's as possible in a time limit.
Expedition Course - An adventure racing course that starts in one location and ends in another, typically a longer (2+ days) race.
Sprint Race - A shorter (usually less than 24 hours) race that starts and ends in the same location.
Crewed (vs. Uncrewed) Race - A race where a support crew on non-racers provides food and assistance in designated parts of the course.

The Team Members

Mule - A typically strong racer who has the job of carrying the passport and usually extra gear from other racers.
Navigator - Carries the maps and is in charge of navigating through the course. In some teams navigation is shared among more than one team member.
Mandy - A usually affectionate nickname for the female team member, it is short for (mandatory) female team member.
Machine - A nickname given to a team-mate that never seems to tire.
Anchor - An injured, fatigued, or otherwise slow team-mate who is slowing the team pace.

Navigation Terms

Bearing - A straight-line direction, usually given as a number of degrees.
Handrail - A linear feature that you can follow towards a CP location.
Backstop - A linear feature like a road or river that backs up the CP location and prevents you from grossly overshooting the CP.
Overshoot - To go too far past the checkpoint and have to double back.

Racing Terms

Going Dark - To turn off all lights during night racing to keep from being seen by other racers.
Dark Zone - A section of a course that cannot be completed at night.
Bonked - A term for exhaustion of one racer.

Orienteering at Florida Ag Museum

2010-08-15T10:05:00.000-07:00

Well - we had a pretty hot (actually record breaking heat) On Aug 14. I took the family up to the Florida Ag Museum for the orienteering. Since the only courses were White, Yellow, and Orange - I did a score-O to visit all the controls from all the courses. Here is a little footage of the area.

After the run, we checked out the museum and then headed south on US1 and found a really cool diner - the State Street Diner just south of the intersection of US1 and SR100. Linda was able to get a full rack of Baby Back Ribs, and cole slaw, and fries, and a drink for only $8! Definitely a place worth checking out. We saved so much money - that on the way home I bought a car (actually I had planned on buying a new car for my commute to Daytona that I do daily - it just turns out that I found one I really liked at the CarMax in Sanford).

Preparing for 12 Hour Races

2010-08-14T18:36:00.000-07:00

Preparing for a 12 hour race is very similar to preparing for shorter races, however you will want to make a few changes.

Paddling - Most racers who have done shorter races have been used to paddles that last up to one hour. In a 12 hour races, there will likely be a 3+ hour paddle. Even though this is not actually that challenging, there are a few things that you will need to modify. Form - In a short paddle you can get away with poor paddling form and still be fine. As you move into longer races, you will want to learn how to use your core muscles and improve your form. Here is a simple rule - if your arms are tired after paddling, you are doing it wrong; if your abdominal muscles are tired, you are (probably) doing it correctly. Seat - As you progress to longer and longer paddles, your ability to handle the seated position will get better, in the mean time using a seat pad is a good idea. Teamwork - with 2 people in a boat paddling is truly a team sport, coordinated strokes, and communication are important.

Trek - The most important thing to remember for trekking is that you are a team. Some racers will be comfortable with the concept of running 2-3 hours, while others will be destroyed here by a too fast pace. Towing does supply a nice boost for a weaker trekkers (we do call it trekking for a reason). To train you do need to do longer runs (or walks), but this is not like marathon training. To prepare, get together as a team and do a long off-road (12-15 miles) trek together. Trekking is also the best time to get food, so as you practice trekking - also practice eating.

Bike - For long races, it is a good idea to learn how to tow and to keep a bike line. Your entire team should be capable of keeping a tight line and have an agreed upon method for switching the lead rider. Here is where you can really help team-mates (especially in training). There are some things you can do to refine the team here (like common types of tubes, and coordinated pump, etc..)

Food - Most teams over-estimate the amount of food needed for a 12 hour race. My typical diet in 12 hours would be one gu flask, a fruit pie, and a bag of M&M's (seriously - that is what I ate in my last 12 hour race). More important is to stay hydrated. The longer the race, the more important food becomes, but hydration is critical at longer distances. I personally will go through at least 2 100 ounce bladders of Gatorade in a 12 hour race - more if it is hot.

Training - You are very likely going to find that the distance of a 12 hour race is a lot easier than you anticipated. As a general rule though, the longer the race the more challenging the navigation. It is also pretty challenging to practice navigation as opportunities are not quite as easy as the other disciplines. One thing you can do (I do this) is to geocache without a GPS. I print out a map of geocache locations and then attempt to hut them down from a map.

Luminescent Course Strategy

2010-08-09T13:09:00.000-07:00

Here is the approach I would have taken to this course;

- The south approach to CP10 was probably the easiest way to attack this entire leg. The approach was by bike. All teams found CP10 pretty easily. The next leg up the north road was very sandy and at least 1 1/2 km of this was completely unride-able. Nevertheless use of the odometer was important here to know the attack on CP11.
- CP 11 (the clue was backwards, surprised no elite teams caught this on pre-race). The lone palm tree was however quite obvious and teams found this pretty easily. The next step was to find the E/W trail (actually trails and power lines). To find CP12 (some did this well, others struggled) measure from the trail intersection .9 km west. Since the canal was wide, it was pretty easy to know if you came up short or long (canal or no canal). The control was placed right at the bend - with a view up the N/S canal that was pretty impressive.
- Back to the N/S trail mostly rideable, but tough at the very end, probably most teams walked the last 500 meters to the pavement. East on the paved road to US1, then south to the gate entrance - gate 2. I was surprised a lot of teams missed this turn, especially since there was a traffic cone at the gate.
- Once on the dirt road heading west of gate 2, pay very close attention to distance, it was only about 200 meters to the single track leading to CP13, and very easy to miss. For those who found it keeping track of distance to CP13 was crucial, but if you overshot - you had a good trail for a backstop, simply turn back and try again, it was only about 300 meters in and the clue was important (treeline) - it was the only treeline along that single track, the rest was open treeless palmetto.
- After CP13 go south to dirt road, turn right, about 100 meters, then left and to the TA.
TREK
- Now the trek, most teams found CP14 easily enough, north back past where you came out of CP 13 until you came nearly to US1.
- Now back to the main N/S trail, south to the single track, CP15 was right on the single track.
- CP16 was stay north on the single track, there were a couple of turns, but the idea was to stay north. If you came out to the fire road, you could use it as a backstop. The challenge was that the control was on the bridge on the single track and it was running parallel to the fire road at this point (about 30 feet south of it). This was hard to see on the elite map (but not on the blowup black and white we gave).
- I though CP17 was the hardest trek point, but the teams that tried for it had very little problem. The clue (faint E/W single track did help). The single track did run east west to the main N/S fire road - but you did have to cross a barb wire fence if you used that route.
- CP18 was real easy - head south to power lines E/W road, head west to fire road and then south to the control which was right on the road. If you missed it and took the single track - they both led to the same point. If you took the wrong single track though (there were 3 trails going south) - you would be hosed as it cut back east.
- CP19 was meant to challenge the navigators coming from CP18, my route was north to single track heading east, across to the N/S fire road and south on the fire road to the attack point from the west. Trick here was that the trail petered out if you went east, so you had to make a turn to the north about 50 feet in, and then it headed east again. This was not obvious on the map - and the clue was no help. For these types of controls you need to use the team and spread out from the control on the possible paths making sure you don't go too far (the control is mapped as only 100 meters off the fire road - no need to go more)
- CP20, 21 and 22 were simply following the roads. If you were quick you would notice the fire line trail that went due north from CP21 to CP22 (it was not mapped in red, but was on the topo map.

BIKE OUT

- For those who chose to bike out via 23, 24 , and 25 - CP23 was a challenge, the other 2 were pretty straighforward, so skipping 23 and just doing 24, and 25 would take you to a gate and right out to US1 and back to the TA. If you chose to do CP23, catching the single track cross trail was key - and took you south of the control. As for the control itself it was easily visible from the fire road. You would then have to head south from 23 and go east on the fire road. The entire western fire road was poor riding, but from CP24 to the exit was fast - rideable, and easy navigation.

SPORT COURSE TREK

This is best done in order. Head north from the TA and look for the north leading trail towards CP6. This was challenging for some teams as they completely missed the gate just north of the TA - but eventually all teams found it. Once locating the trail, simply stay north and keep your eye out for the single track heading west (left). Follow this single track to CP6. Total Distance 600 meters. (4-6 minutes)

CP6 - CP7 - stay on the single track and head north. There were two intersections, but in both cases you need the trail that headed north. Biking this on Sunday to pick up controls - it looked like most teams did fine and took the correct trails. It also looked like a lot of teams bailed out and headed for the fire road. Unfortunately the bridge was on the single track trail just south of the fire road (about 30 feet). This had a lot of teams searching for a while. One thing that should have helped teams is that there was a very short trail leading from the fire road at the marshy point that connected the fire road with the single track road. Total distance 700 meters. (5-8 minutes)

CP7 - CP8 Now was time to use the fire road. Follow it and head south. The first intersection heading east was the trail to the marsh (and crossing the marsh like some teams did would take you right to the TA). Just past this was another trail heading right. If you made this turn and headed west, stay on it and you ended up at CP8 which was just east of the trail and readily visible. Here you needed to be careful to NOT take the first southbound single track. The second one was OK as it also headed straight to the control. Total distance 1.2 km (8-12 minutes)

CP8 - CP9 You need to go east now. Head south and take first single track, and stay east, even if you missed the first one, the second one was also good. If you stay east you will exit on a fire road just north of an intersection of 2 fire roads. Turn right (south) and then left (east) on the fire road at the intersection. You will know you are in the correct location if you see a third fire road heading south, the control is about 100 meters down this road on a palm tree. After getting this control double back to the last intersection. and continue east. 600 meters. (6-9 minutes).

CP9 to CP10. Follow road east to Y intersection. If you have not biked yet, good idea to look and see where CP11 is and make mental note for bike leg. Continue on main road to T intersection, head left (north). At the next T intersection head right and look for gate. Control was on post at gate. (Head due north around pond on marl road and into the TA. 700 meters (5-8 minutes)

SPORT BIKE

TA to CP11 - If you trekked first finding your way back to the gate should be easy. If not, you need to make special note, the gate and CP10 were 100 meters from the TA and are the correct way to head towards CP11. After finding CP10 and the gate (use this a reference) go west and turn left down trail. You will then turn right at first intersection Keep an eye out for the Y intersection as it will merge and be hard to see. If you nav this well it will take about 3 minutes (really).

CP11 - CP12 - The challenge on this is finding the single track that takes you towards CP 12. You are going to stay on the fire road (very nice one) 0.7 km or just over 1/2 mile. This single track is pretty easy to find - if you start looking at 1/2 mile - if not you'll miss it and end up at another intersection (1/2 mile later). You can also get to it by going north at that intersection.

CP12 - CP13 - This one is easy nav, terrible biking. This road is all chewed up, but all you need to do is follow it to the sharp turn to the east in 1 km (0.6 miles) you did check your odometer at CP12 right?

CP13 - CP14 - OK you are going to stay on the same sucky trail here. Luckily it starts getting a little better. Make note of the gate (as mapped) you pass by, the road starts going a little more north and ends up at an open field/marsh. You are looking for the wooden bridge, which is a simple little bridge sitting in this field.

CP14 - CP15 - Do not go back the way you came, the trail you want starts out due west and after 1km hits a Y intersection. Turn back hard right (you probably came in this way) and check your odometer. You single track is less than 250 meters from this intersection. When you find the entrance, this gets tricky as everything looks like a trail once you enter the single track. Using the map you know the control is less than 100 meters. In this case you may need to check these trails, as the correct trail heads north about 50 feet in.

CP15 - TA - You already rode this on this road. It is pretty easy riding, follow it back towards CP10, the gate, and the TA.

You don't even want to know how long it took me to do this loop... For those who want better practice - we do plan to offer 1 day and 2 day adventure camps this Fall. We will cover bike, boat, and foot nav both in daylight and in darkness.

Nocturnal AR

2010-07-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

If I remembered anything from the 2009 Nocturnal it is that it was hot at the beginning of the race. I was racing with Melissa, Jimmy, and Chris - some veteran racers from a couple of years back. Melissa is not (supposed to be) running - more on that later, but she is nursing a knee that needs replacement. We all decided to stay the Friday before the race at a little place in St. Cloud called the Lakeside Inn (http://www.lakesideinnfl.com/ ). Amazingly for $35 per room per night you get a great place with a fantastic home style cafe - with an awesome breakfast and all you can eat fried catfish the night before.

Sure enough as we took out on bikes - it was HOT. I was feeling amazingly sluggish in the heat. Melissa decided to do the bike nav, which was cool. The first control cost us some time - we overshot the attack point and had to crop back. We made up the time on CP2 and on the bike ride to the paddle TA at Billy's Lake. This was the shortest paddle I think I had ever done in a 18 hour race. It was still a pretty cool and had a really nice swampwack (see video) in it. After the main paddle we had the "Paddle Challenge" - a slalom course that was timed. Our entire team is made up of solid paddlers - and we won the challenge - which ended up giving Chris a $50 gift certificate for Travel Country Outdoors ( http://www.travelcountry.com/ ) where he will definitely be able to use it on some nice AR gear.

After the paddle - we started the first trek leg. It was about 4:30 PM and incredibly hot. The leg had no real navigation to speak of and also had no real shade. We left out of the TA just behind Militia AR and they did something that amazed the hell out of me, they started running. Well just for awhile - but it was impressive to see a team actually run in what had to be a 110 degree heat index. By the time we finished the slog (did I mention it was mostly soft sand?) I was wasted. We got the the TA - and I jumped back into Billy Lake. After a few minutes in the lake and a little ice water I felt tremendously better. Militia AR was a few minutes ahead of us - and we had a lot of teams (Florida Xtreme 1 and 2, Nature Calls, Super Frogs, and a few others) all within a few minutes of each other.

The next bike leg had one challenging control (CP12) - which was a challenge simply because the trail leading to it was a bit different from the map at the road. We figured it out just as we saw another team go by. We plugged along and rode hard (I took a tow for part of the way) back to the TA to make the most of daylight and also keep from having to unpack the lights. We made it - at this point the top 7-8 teams were all within 15 minutes of each other. It was too early to do the zip line, so we headed out on the sport trek. For a sport class trek it was amazingly challenging. The approach to Sport CP8 from the south was a challenge as the trail shown on the map were nowhere to be found. CP9 and CP10 were also a little bit of a challenge as keeping a solid bearing for 250 meters is not easy. It took us a little under 2 hours.

It was next to the zip line and all I can say was - awesome. The elite zip line was incredible, one of the most fun I have ever done and doing it at night made it that much more fun. ( http://www.floridaecosafaris.com/ZiplineSafaris/ ). The way the timing on the zip line worked is regardless of how long it took - you could not leave the TA on the next leg before 90 minutes after you started.

We hit the paddle leg next - I though the first paddle was the shortest, but this one was even shorter. It was fun, but also funny as the portage was nearly as long as the paddle...

After that it was the Sport bike leg. We took the Laura's way route from CP13 to CP 14 that turned out to be a mistake (lots of gates and electric fences to cross) - and then lost some time at CP14 as we did not find the trail and ended up doing a blind trek. While we were south of the control - Florida Xtreme 1 and 2 - and SUper Frogs came in, got it and left. We were facing another issue at this point - Jimmy had been eating 2 year old stale Hammer Gel - and the results had caught up to him.

Picture this - you are in the middle of nowhere, and your stomach just drops out and you need a bathroom. Just as you realize this you ride up to a real live bathroom on your bike. This was CP 12 (near the cracker house). After 10 minutes of waiting for you in the bathroom your team finally cajoles you back onto the bike. You head off deeper onto the ranch. Your stomach is still turning flips and you really need to stop at another bathroom. As we approach sport control CP14 - literally way out in a field, there is another bathroom. Yes folks there was another bathroom at Sport CP14 ! Jimmy was really feeling bad, and he got to spend some time there (about 30 minutes). This time when he came out he looked better and was a bit more chipper. We knew we had lost some time so we pushed it hard back to the TA.

Two items left - the sport zip line and the last elite trek. The sport zip was also a fun one (nowhere near as fun as the longer line we used in the elite). Also Jimmy had left the punch card back at the gear-in so we made him run back and get it. We still finished easily in the hour allotted for the zip and still had to wait 15 minutes before we got to do the last trek.

We watched as AR Militia, then Florida Xtreme, and Super Frogs all left on the trek. We were first planning on letting them go and just taking the trek easy, but I got the competitive bug and we decided to run. We aced the navigation, including a straight Bushwhack from CP15 to CP16 - but it was not enough to catch the leaders. AR Militia took a well-deserved first, running a very tight race. The 2nd and 3rd place ended up being pretty exciting sprint finish. between FLXtreme 2 and Super Frogs.

I was happy - we had done 18 hours of amazing racing, this is a really good distance for racing and this race had lots of elements of pain, exhilaration, teamwork, competion, and excitement. I should have the maps up soon - till the next race, see ya !

Here are some scenes from the race.

SCAR Adventure Race

2010-06-20T17:06:00.000-07:00

Pangea SCAR June 20, 2010

The SCAR has been a Father’s Day tradition for about 10 years – because who can resist the opportunity to race in extreme heat on this holiday. (Actually – the second SCAR started at the Black Hammock Fish Camp and it was a downpour the entire race – but every other one has been hot). I put together a team with FL Xtreme leader Jeff Leninger. We had a new addition Elizabeth Morse in her 3rd race (her 2nd was one week earlier) and Erik Wise – veteran of the Utility Mutants. This was going to be a fast race (6 hour race – very short time format) and also had a record turnout for both the elite and sport class – it looked like about 250 racers total between the 2 races.

We got the maps at 7:30 AM when we checked in, the race looked to have pretty easy navigation – another sign it would be fast. We started with a 2 ½ K run, pretty much to spread the teams about before we hit the boats for the second leg of the race. We kept a low pace that put us in the front of the middle pack. When we hit the water we headed north (the long leg). The strategy was that most of the teams headed south – so we chose to avoid a potential logjam at those controls. Primal Instinct (Jim Carr and Carolyn Schultz) also headed north and hammered the paddle as we could see them on the out and backs. There was a little bit of navigation, but also plenty of landmarks. CP5 was at the first river split, it did become an out and back as the river was pretty clogged that way and we had to return the main channel. CP6 was also at a river split, only 600 meters from CP5, so you needed to keep your eyes open. CP7 was about 200 meters from the mapped flag. The direct route was clogged, so we did need to go along the main channel west, north, and back east). The curves of the river were with the map helping us find the little entrance to CP7. CP8 was a straightforward out and back and the flag was easily visible from the river.

The upstream paddle was tough and Elizabeth and I did our best to hammer it. The swift current really did not allow us any rest. On the way south we passed the team (heading north) that had gone the other way. The two southern controls were pretty straightforward, one on a island, the other in a cove along the west edge of the river. We came in 12 minutes behind the lead team at about 1120. We had decided to trek second and only spent about a minute moving through the TA. The decision to trek second was because we would not have to changes shoes twice and we wanted to get it done before it got even hotter. We made a clean loop CP18 to CP15. I was suffering on this leg, it was hot and there was no shade. We were running along with Punch Junkies who we caught at CP15. At CP15 we moved to single track with shade and I felt much better. Everyone else appeared to be running OK. At CP17 we doubled back on the trail and followed the northern trail along the road before bushwhacking over to the road (it was pretty open). From there it was a straight run back past CP18 and to the TA. As we started into the transition I heard Greg getting ready to start the Sport Course in 3 minutes. We needed to be out before then or we would be caught behind them all. We flew through the TA and sprinted out of there on bikes.

It was now really hot. As we left CP9 we were on sandy (but ride-able) double track. I was starting to overheat. When we got to CP10 I was able to pour water on my head and wrists and bring my core temp down. It is a good idea for everyone who does AR in extreme conditions to recognize the signs of heat exhaustion – preferably before they are on the trail-side puking their guts out. After the intersection south of CP12, the trail became grassy and easier. We got a few clouds and a little bit of shade, and my core temp dropped a little (unless you really know what you are doing with judging your ability in heat – don’t risk it, rest and cool off). We missed the “Triple Trunk” at CP13 on the way north, but did not worry as we would get it on the return trip. The trail after that turned into mud and water so we pushed bikes pretty much most of the way. CP14 was right on the trail and the trail bend was as shown on the map. We did find the triple trunk and CP13 by simply measuring the distance from the trail bend north of CP13. After CP13 we were back on the bikes and riding south. The trail to CP11 (the last flag) was pretty obvious and it was now just chunking our way through the heat back to the TA. Jeff was struggling with heat here so we were not moving fast – but we were moving. We ended up finishing 3rd with Primal Instinct taking the 1st place and Hoof-Hearted in second.

It looked like most of the teams in both sport and elite class survived a very hot day, and proved they had what it takes to conquer the SCAR.

View SCAR Adventure Race in a larger map

Twelve Points Adventure Race

2010-06-14T06:21:00.000-07:00

I did the twelve points AR - a production of Inverted Armadillo Rogue Racing. Pretty cool race - 12 hour rogaine format with 3 4 hour long legs that could be done in any order. The race was at Sunnyhill restoration area near Umatilla on the Oklawaha River - great area I raced with Erik Wise and Elizabeth Morse (we raced great together). The trek was true to word - we finished right at 4 hours - just as the heat index was topping 100 degrees. Highlight was spotting a black bear along the course and some tough bushwacking. We did the paddle second - also a full 4 hour paddle, with one CP that required a pretty tough bushwack through slime (on the video). The bike leg was brutal and we only got 2 of the 4 points before heading in. Still a great race and some awesome training for our team. Highlights are in the video;

Here is the course;

View 12 Points Challenge - Sunnyhill in a larger map

LOST - My Ending

2010-05-24T16:45:00.000-07:00

OK - this has nothing to do with the adventure theme of the blog. I have been an avid Lost fan for years and was disappointed at the ending. Luckily it is fiction and I can actually write my own ending - so here it is.We'll pick up after Desmond has gotten to the bottom of the waterfall and is unplugging the whatever the hell it was.

The Island

Desmond wraps his arms around the rock pulling upwards. At first nothing happens, but then a slight movement. As he senses the rock will move, he gives one huge pull and falls away with the rock his arms still wrapped around the rock. At first there is no change, but then a sputter. The light starts to flicker the way a candle would in a high wind. It flickers and then it is gone. The darkness seems to move out of the hole left by the rock - but it also comes in from all sides. This is not just a darkness of light, but an all-encompassing darkness of light and sound, of everything. The darkness spreads over the rest of the island swallowing everything - even the sound of the sea. For an instance there is only silence. And then the light comes - brilliant white light that encompasses everything, it grows into a crescendo and then everything is gone. There is only silence and light - the reality of the island has ceased to exist.

The Non-Island Reality

Directly in timed unison with the destruction (or closing of the reality) of the island - everyone is suddenly hit with an onslaught of memories. Everyone - not just the island residents, but the entire planet. For nearly everyone this comes on as a dream and fades just like one. People get the onslaught only to appear dazed as if waking from a vivid dream - only to have this dream fade away. For the people who have been to or been touched by the island the sensation is different. All the memories and emotions, loves and losses of their time in the alternate reality suddenly become full and stark memories mixed with their current life. For some - the meories of their lifes, loves, and death becomes clear. For all this is a shared vision, a glimpse into a life that no longer exists, that closed and disappeared with the reality that encompassed it.

For all the people touched by the island - a shared truth, of how they are all connected and part of each others lives becomes apparent to them. They realize that through the experience they have become found, that they have played a part in a bigger purpose.

Epilogue

Somewhere in the South Atlantic a small hole opens in the water. The hole is a dark black stain in the Crystal blue waters. The a light shines through the hole. An incredibly bright light pours from the hole like the sun trying to fit through a single point. The light blinds the screen until it fades and the light recovers to reveal a beautiful serene island where there was only water before. And the island was waiting for those who were lost.

Atomic Adventure Race Part II

2010-05-18T15:27:00.000-07:00

Atomic Adventure Race Part II

We finally made the Stage TA at 10:30 PM. It was raining and we he had to plot all the points for the second half of the race. I told the others to do everything they needed to get ready and started on the maps. I was able to finish plotting by about 11:15 and got a route strategy for at least the next trekking leg. I grabbed a cup of noodles, a piece of pizza, threw some food in my pack, grabbed my trekking poles. Unfortunately I did not grab a new pair of socks (though I did grab my trekking shoes) so would have to trek in my biking socks (not good padding). Following the second rule of adventure racing, “If you don’t have it, you don’t need it” we all got together – listened to the pre-race and got ready to go. All in all it felt like a regular transition with point plotting to me. Hey – if we had gotten there sooner we would have had too much time !

The next trek started with a pretty long leg to CP17. The original route had us crossing the Etowah – but the rain had made that too dangerous. We would instead cross at a bridge, but would have to cross another creek that was likely to be swollen. As we approached Shoal Creek we could see it was 20-30 yards across and we saw another team trekking along it on the other side. They shouted that they had been swept downstream, and warned us the crossing was dangerous. We had 6 teams – so we linked arms and headed across. Even with at least 20 racers linked arm in arm – we almost got swept up in the current – luckily we had some pretty tall guys that kept us on the track.

The navigation was not terribly difficult approaching CP17 – though the location was pretty challenging. Luckily a lot of the faster teams were leaving as we approached and we were able to easily follow the lights down the gulley to the waterfall and the CP. From there we headed west and north towards CP18. This one looked easy (it was near the TA) and sure enough, except for wandering off the blue blazed trail –it was. My feet were getting hotspots from the long wet trek in bad socks, but we were heading off onto the bikes. The team had done a great job on the trek – but we were now heading back onto the bikes and the first ride had left most of us tired and a bit sore (in many places). It was going to be a long, but mostly road (not trail) bike ride.

I warned the team that we would have a relatively easy ride (some low hills) until the last few miles which would be a massive climb. We all got a burst of energy as the sub came up and we had been traveling with some really fun teams. Jim was towing Wanda and Kim was riding well even though she was really sore. The final hill started to spread us out – and Jeff decided that Florida Xtreme 1 would hit the next CP and last mandatory control and head to the finish line. That left Florida Xtreme 2 (Jim and I) to finish and clear the course). We were heading out on the Foot Rogaine as FL Xtreme 1 made it up the hill and checked in and headed back down the mountain to the finish. The ropes (ascent and rappel) were open as we passed by so I quickly geared up and did that before we headed out.

My strategy was simple – hit CP25 (on the south peak) first, then go due north to the CP26. I had plotted it a little too far south off the stream. We saw another team leaving it and they told us it was on the stream (it would have been a good clue for the passport). We gave them instructions to the indistinct trail that was on the map along the stream. From CP 26 we contoured up back to the trail southeast of where we went in and headed to the confluence and CP24. We also were able to help a couple of teams that were wandering around that area. The next leg would require us to climb up to the other peak – so we just buckled down and climbed the trail all the way back up. It was easy navigation (only 26 was challenging) – and 8 minutes after finding it, we crossed south across the double peaks to the TA.

It was just Jim and I for the descent back to the main road and to Amicalola Falls. We simply opened it up and coasted the entire way down. My legs were starting to toast as we approached the entrance to the falls. We knew we had one thing left to do – and sure enough we guessed correctly that the final finish line was at the top of the falls. Only a couple miles and 1000 vertical feet were between us and the finish. I was definitely tired, the foot rogaine had toasted me and left some pretty blisters. We achieved the goal – clearing the course and finishing strong. I was very happy with our performance and look forward to racing with FL Xtreme. Just for note – this was Wanda’s and Kim’s 3rd 30 hour race, their first was Swamp Stomp (4 months earlier!) pretty good for 4 months of racing long races.

Scenes from Atomic AR

2010-05-17T18:59:00.001-07:00

Here is some video I took with my Go Pro camera..

Atomic Adventure Race Part I

2010-05-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

In just one year the Atomic Adventure race has turned into one of the premiere races in the Southeast so of course when I got a call to join a team, I said yes. I would be joining Florida Xtreme and racing with 5 people (1 three person team and 1 two person team). Since we were going to get maps at check-in we made a point to get there early. I did all the marking while the team prepared gear – we would be marking the first stage, and get another map and points for the second stage. There weren't too may points to plot – though some of the maps had a really weird scale (1:70K and 1:whatever).

The race started with a very short prelude, one team-mate running about a mile and then we started to the top of Amicolola Falls to our staged bikes (CP2) with one CP on the way up. From there it was onto the mountain roads for the frst nice long bike leg. CP3was relatively easy to find, and after chunking uphill to the forest tower, Jim and I were rewarded by being able to scream down the washed out road (we bot enjoyed that downhill immensely – thanks!) . As we left I noticed some teams taking a route north up over Black Mountain. They were obviously planning on attacking CP4 (on Bearden Creek) from the north. Here are a few reasons why that was a bad idea (1) The southern route is on the way to the next CP, (2) The only way get to the attack point was the AT, (3) it would involve a bike bushwhack through very steep terrain, and (4) the southern attack point had a very obvious attack location. From CP3 we dropped down to road 28E. At the end of the road all the bikes from the teams in front of us were on the ground, but we could also see lead teams running down the hill from the CP. One of the lead teams said it was bikeable almost to the control and sure enough after crossing a stream with our bikes it was. We rode up to about200 yards from the CP and climbed the steep and now slippery slope up to the CP on a pretty waterfall. We were with a lot of other teams here - and our team was talking and joking. Mim's the Word had dropped their passport at CP3 and was looking for it – luckily someone (Melissa Scott) had found it and they were back in action.

The ride to CP5 was uneventful and easy navigation – we were starting to get our flatlander Florida legs used to hills. From CP5 we had a bike Rogaine with 5 control of which we could visit 4. We went by paved road and turned left on the first bike trail (223F). The girls (Kim and Wanda) were a little uncomfortable at first with the narrow single track and hills – but adjusted to it very fast. CP6 was right on the trail – so we got one of the 4 controls within 15 minutes of CP5. Wo hoo! Our next control would be CP7. It was on trail 223C – we could take trail 223 straight to it, ut it involved a very steep climb, instead I chose to take trail/road 223F. That allowed us to tow (our team was still adjusting to the hills) a milder but longer slope. We would still have a one steep but much shorter climb as we would approach the control from the north on 223C. That trail was bikeable up, but we pushed up it, found the control. It was a LOT of fun on the way down (I love biking down washouts). Our original strategy had us going to CP9 and then CP10 – I decided to change it and instead hit CP8 (we had heard from a team it was pretty easy travel). We got to the creek, dropped our bikes and started to bushwhack up the hill. That did not work out, Jeff smartly asked a local group camping (where our bikes were dropped) – and was informed that “That there trail will take you right to the waterfall”. That turned out to be a bit easier than a bushwhack along the creek bed. All along this route we would pick up teams and then split off from teams, so this section had a lot of collaboration. As we headed back towards CP10, we ran across some horses. They asked how to get to the dam – as the rain had destroyed their map. That was straight where we were headed. I gave them verbal instructions (take this trail to 223D, to 223F to the 5 way intersection). They were able to follow us on horses most of the first part since it was uphill, we did run into them again as we left the dam and CP10. This next section was everyone's favorite – the long bike up Bull Mountain was tough, the screaming downhill back down was awesome. With a little pumping I was able to get over 60 km/hr. I also took some video of this section holding my camera while flying downhill that turned out pretty good. CP10 was easy. On the rollers on the downhill to CP10 Kim was riding in front of me and got some good air (and then nearly bit it !). We rode back out to CP5/CP11 just in time to see some guys out the church across the street washing out paintbrushes with a hose. After filling our bottles and bladders we headed to CP12. From CP12 to CP13 was one of those navigators nightmares. I was never quite sure where we were – but there was always at least one road going the correct direction. We did enjoy the riding in this section, and we did end up at the bottom of the hill at a small gas station. Jeff treated us all to anything we wanted – after a quick lunch consisting of Hershey's bars, Mountain Dew, Apple Pies, Pork rinds, etc.. we headed to Quick Shoals a solid hour before the cutoff (remember our goal was to clear the course – not win).

Since I had the most (read this as only) experience paddling whitewater – I put Kim and Wanda in my boat. Jeff and Jim were in the other boat. Kim and Wanda loved the little Class I and II rapids – as did I. We took a couple of hard bumps (lots of rocks) and Wanda and I both discovered the boat had a cross board in front of us designed to stop us by our shins. My shins still have indentations in them as I write this. I made sure Kim (from of the boat) knew that the only rocks I could NOT see were those directly in front of us. She developed a technique of calling out ROCK! about ½ second before impact. Which was at least enough for us to brace for impact. The were both worried about tipping over. I made sure they understood that if the boat tipped it was because I wanted to to. We did have some close calls where we wedged and almost put our upstream draft in the water – but a few hard leans downstream side corrected us in time. (If you paddle whitewater you know exactly what I am talking about – if not get out there and do it!). Etowah Falls was a lot of fun – we portaged the main falls but still got to do a few fun drops downstream of the falls.. We got to the tunnel where we were supposed to go about ¼ mile down an old mining shaft (pitch black whitewater). Unfortunately the race had to close this section as 3 of the 7 team that went through had capsized or gotten stuck. One team wedged their boat in the narrow tunnel and ended up wit a crushed bow. By now Jeff and Jim had cracked the hull of my fiberglass Mohawk and had to stop and dump water about every 15 minutes. We paddled about another hour and not having a map of the area or any idea of the length of the paddle was pretty sure we were done. We paddled another hour and it starting raining. Lightning was striking all around us and it got pretty cold. Since it was warm when we went into the water the girls had on tank top shirts. I could see they were shivering, we kept paddling to stay warm. About 8 PM it was dark, pouring rain, and cold. Every road we passed got our hopes up and then dashed them as it was not the take-out. We finally got their about 8:30 PM. The girls were shivering, and there was a covered pavilion. Jim and I were both pretty warm – so we prepped the boats and gear and put the girls under the cover and told them to get warm (as best as possible). A few other teams were under the cover too – trying to stay warm. As soon as we got te boats set for pick-up (all the gear and paddles had to be secured in the boats) we rousted everyone out of the pavilion into the rain. We needed to get to the next TA to get the coordinates and maps for stage 2. We also knew there was a fire station along route that would allow us to warm up. The fire station was less than ½ mile from the take-out and the firemen their knew just what to do to help the girls warm up. Jim did not get a break, I had left my camera on the boat and wanted it so we ran back to the take-out. As it turned out I had dropped it near the boats – luckily it is bright yellow. We ran back to to fire station where Kim and Wanda were now warm. We were informed there was no cover at the next TA (it was still drizzling) – I was not worried about cold, but I would have to plot the next points in the rain. Ugh... We finally dragged into the TA at 10:30 PM. Nearly all the teams were there, the race leaders having arrived around 4:30 PM. I had plotting to do and the second stage was going to start at midnight. The race was about to get even more interesting as the night sections always are.

Billie's Bay Orienteering

2010-05-09T06:37:00.000-07:00

Had a great (and hot) run yesterday at Billie's Bay in Ocala. Orienteering was challenging - but finished blue course in about 113 minutes (was going for under 2 hours). Here are some scenes from that run. The old helmet cam was a bit bouncy - but you can at least get a sense for what it looked like out there. Here are the top 4 in Blue course fromhttp://www.floridaorienteering.org/ - Greg made me run (I had not intended to run since I've been having issues with joints) by catching up to me at CP 9 - all in all a pretty straightforward blue course. Great run by Chris especially in the heat (92 degrees and humid).

Name Time
Johnson, Chris 101:32
Sirmans, Jerry 105:13
Eaglin, Ron 113:30
Pangea Adventure Racing 114:05

For those new to orienteering - watch this film - it really gives a true flavor of what it is like to be out there running the course. This is NOT Florida terrain.

Nocatee Challenge

2010-04-19T15:44:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to race with FL Xtreme this weekend in the Nocatee Challenge, a great little 30 hour race with team-mates Darrell, Kim, and Wanda. Here is a quick rundown of our course with some maps to help out. I'm going to keep this brief, but if anyone wants to know how I attacked or found any control simply email me and I'll give details.

- The first leg was a bike - paddle - bike. I estimated it would take about 10 hours, so we decided to bike the Guana leg first, paddle, and then do the road bike back around A1A. We hit CP 21 first coming from the parking area to the southwest. 3 teams decided to do the loop this direction. After 21 we went to CP 16 (not on map) and did the bearings course. Kim had a magic compass and literally nailed every single one. We usually have each team member independently shoot the bearing, increasing our chance of finding them quickly, rather than having only the navigator shoot the bearings. The rest of the navigation was working backwards and hitting CP 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, and 9 in succession and making it to the boat TA in 4 hours after a relatively easy ride.

- The paddle leg was also easy, we nailed each control quickly, however I should have decided to do CP 6 (the one south of the boat ramp first). The tide was going out and the north section was dam controlled, while the south section was tidal. After getting all the north control, the tide was very low in the Tolomato and this necessitated a 200 yard portage through knee deep black muck to get to and from the boat ramp. We had muck to deal with on almost every control, though the funniest was when Darrell jumped out of the boat into waist deep muck to get a control. We were more careful about checking the solidity of the ground after that. A quick road ride with 3 control put us back at the TA and we quickly prepared for the next section of the race, a trek-paddle-trek-paddle-trek.

Back at the TA we took a quick photo and headed out to use the remaining daylight. We had some sandwiches waiting and I drank a Pepsi. it is amazing how something I don't normally drink (soda) can taste so good in the middle of a race. I quickly realized that the scale on the next map was off as we arrived at CP 23 at an amazing speed. I was hoping to make the trek between CP23 to CP24 in daylight to help with a direct route, but we lost light and had to use the road to the east of CP24 as a backstop and go around adding about 25 minutes to the trek. We hooked up with Nature Calls here and decided to finish the trek together. The only control to give us trouble on the trek was CP29 - it was described as being on a firebreak - as it turned out there were at least 6 firebreaks in 300 a meter range near the control location. We knew there were at least 6 as that is how many we searched.

We got to the boats around 12:30 PM and headed for CP31. I was not paying attention to the maps real well there and using only the aerial map completely overshot it. After some frustration I pulled out the USGS map noticed it was about 600 meters south of the light (which was flashing at me) - and we headed to it with now 3 teams (Eco-Choice, Nature Calls, and FL Xtreme. We started in towards CP 33, unfortunately the route from the south was completely clogged with grass. This time I pulled out the aerial (I had switched to USGS at CP31) and noted that the route from CP32 looked to be the best clear route - which it was. We spotted Team Punch Junkies coming out as we headed for CP33 and an orienteering loop (CP34-CP38). We made quick work out of the orienteering, no real problems with 3 teams together.

The picked off CP32 quickly (the nearby light made it pretty easy). CP 39 was a real challenge - by now the tide was incredibly low and the small creek lacked water. We trekked the bed of the creek - we were pretty good at slogging through mud by now, and the control was in what could have been described as a junk yard. It was pretty funny slogging in a deep salt water marsh in the darkness - but we had a great group of racers.

We made it to the TA shortly after that and the sun just started to come out. It was a quick few miles back to the TA and the last bike section. The sun was now up, which was good as the first couple of bike controls would have been challenging in the dark. As it was only one control, CP48 gave us trouble. We had run back into Nature Calls and Eco-Choice at this location again - so we all worked together to find it. The challenge was looking into a large group of trees in thick palmettos for a "Tree Cluster". After that we had one more control (CP39) which was easy and a 6 mile ride back to the TA. Easy stuff. We got to see a lot of teams that were out on the sport course.

We got back to the TA - Punch Junkies and Appalachian were both in the TA and gave us a few words of encouragement as we headed out onto the last trek - the trek course from the sport course. Another hour of easy jogging/walking and we were done - woo hoo. 3rd place and a happy team.

I have a little bit of footage from the course (I'm just getting used to my sport camera so bear with me) here is at least what it looks like in the day on an elite 30 hours race.

Nadia Bloom Search

2010-04-13T18:55:00.000-07:00

I spent a good bit of time this weekend and took off work Monday to help search for Nadia Bloom. It is almost impossible to describe how happy I was to hear she had been found safe Tuesday Morning. There is a lot on this story at http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-nadia-bloom-missing-20100412,0,72482.story . James King, went out solo, and was able to essentially go straight towards her - an absolutely wonderful thing. Being involved in the search I had a great insight to what was going on, and believe that there are plenty of things that can be learned. I truly feel that this is important as we always need to learn and make notes of what was learned for the next search.

Here are some items that I noted - in my line of work all ideas are good ideas (I'm a professor so I analyze), some just better than others - so these should be taken as they are given as possible constructive ideas.

1. Local counties should keep a list of pre-approved search volunteers. This would allow them to be able to bring manpower to the scene of a search quickly. I say this as I saw the crews working incredibly hard - but I also saw that if they had more manpower they could have covered more ground. Because everyone was working so hard doing the job at hand - there was little time left over to bring in and coordinate a volunteer activity.

2. Explore all possibilities of what could have happened, however improbable. When I talked to some of the folks in charge I was convinced she was in area 13 (the heavy swamp) - I was told many times she would not have wandered into the swamp, but my gut told me that this is what happened. My theory was she took the trail leading west from the pond, got distracted, disoriented and ended up wandering into the swamp.

Here is a map of what I thought had happened and what happened in the search. The rescue team leaders did listen to my logic and were prepared to search this area.

View Nadia Bloom Search in a larger map (click to see notes on icons)

3. Never give up hope. I guess this somehow goes without saying. But it also goes hand in hand with have faith.

4. You've got to go into the thick stuff. This is from my experience with quite a few searches. Every time the person was lost in the "thick stuff" - in the case of this one the thick stuff was REALLY think. This was some truly challenging swamp.

5. Also huge thanks to Jim King - sometimes the extraordinary efforts of a single individual make all the difference in the world. Never be afraid to be that individual.

6. One thing done very well was the "safety zone" - where the local PTA put out signs with a bottled water that said "Nadia We Love You Drink this and Stay Here" I requested one additional item - that they put whistles on the signs and add "Blow Whistle". For searching large areas of woods - this a really good idea to have these located in safe areas of the search zone.Here is one;

7. Also if you notice from these pictures the vast majority of the searchers were wearing camouflage. Come on people this is a search and rescue - the objective is to be seen, we should be wearing orange vests. I did note that many of the S&R teams DID have reflective blazers.

This is not meant as a criticism of the teams out there. What I saw was an incredibly dedicated group of people doing everything that they could do with what they had. The swamp in the area 13 is some of the toughest thickest anywhere - searching - I came across one big Water Moccasin nest, and quite a few gators (one big).

All love and good wishes to the wonderful Bloom family. I am so glad this had a happy ending and I want to make sure the next time this occurs it also has a happy ending.

Additionally Here is My Call to Action to people I know and Myself

- United States Orienteering Federation (USOF) - To Create a national list, easily accessible. of top orienteers (and adventure racers) that are willing to perform search and rescue as volunteers. These are the people I personally want looking.

- Currently the web site SearchAndRescue.com is parked as an advertising site. Take this domain (or another similar domain) and put up real information that can help the public in knowing what they can do in these types of situations. Best practices for searchers and helpers, setting up of safe zones, etc...

Central Florida Zoo - Ropes Course

2010-04-09T16:31:00.000-07:00

The Central Florida Zoo is now much more than a zoo - they have a great set of ropes courses and zip lines. I took the morning off of work Wednesday during my kids Spring Break to check it out. We did not have time to qualify to do the big course (Rainforest) which we should be able to do next time - but we did do 2 courses; Upland 1 and Upland 2. Each kids also brought a friend so these courses are kid tested and parent approved. I've done the zip lines at Florida Forever - and even though they are longer and more exciting, they aren't the full course that you get at the zoo with lots of challenges and games. The site is http://www.centralfloridazoo.org/zoomairadventurepark

Bumblebee Baseball

2010-04-03T14:45:00.001-07:00

The kids are on spring break and there is no soccer game this week, so we spent a good part of the day playing one of the games from my childhood - bumblebee baseball. The game is simple - you try to whack the bumblebees that are constantly diving and trying to attack you with whatever implement of desctruction you choose. Here we are using canoe paddles - though this does work much better with tennis rackets. Ahhh! a nice relaxing day at home. (for those of you worried about the bees - I was planning to wipe them out with Orthene as they ruin the cedar on my house - but this is somehow more sporting...)

Next Race - Nocatee Challenge

2010-03-24T11:47:00.000-07:00

The ACC is now called the Nocatee Challenge and I am racing with team FLXtreme. I enjoyed this race a lot last year and am looking forward to it again this year - all the details are at http://www.pangeaadventureracing.com/race.php?r=40 - it looks like there are a lot of teams in the Sport class race and just a small group (10 teams) going for the 30 hour race.

Guana at Sunset - Courtesy of www.teamracephotos.com

I've got some pics from last years race - but you'll need to friend me on Facebook so you can see my albums... I Use FB since it is pretty easy and convenient to use.

Race to the Yukon

2010-03-21T17:49:00.000-07:00

I just finished my friend Rod Price's book "Race to the Yukon" - a great read, you can find it at http://www.rodpriceadventure.com/

To me it is amazing how small the community of true adventurers and ultra-endurance athletes is in the US and the world. I am truly blessed to know a lot of them and recognize a lot of them from the book. We are a small and crazy group, but we love it.

Stories From the Amazon - Lodge at Pavacachi

2010-03-16T18:41:00.000-07:00

Not everyone wants to rough it in the jungle. For those folks Mickey built an incredible lodge near the airstrip in Pavacachi. I've never had the pleasure of actually staying in the lodge - but am looking forward to it, so we want people to join the level 1 adventures so I will get the chance.

www.ecoplanetadventure.com

Stories From the Amazon - Foraging Mushrooms

2010-03-14T08:38:00.001-07:00

Eating forest mushrooms is always a pretty iffy thing. Some are delicious as long as they don't kill you. Others have adverse but temporary side effects, some of which can be quite fun. Here is our expedition learning about which one to eat and which ones to avoid.

The Equator and the Coriolis Effect

2010-03-11T17:20:00.000-08:00

I was curious about the coriolis effect. I knew that it had a large scale impact on the weather and wind patterns. I also knew that it was the reason we see counter-clockwise rotation when water moves through a drain. The question is - what happens on the equator, and how far do you need to be from the equator to observe the effect - well here is a video showing the effect in action. In case you are wondering - we tried this over and over again and always got the exact same results - happy viewing.

Stories From the Amazon - Amazon Architecture

2010-03-09T19:00:00.000-08:00

As we headed downstream we came upon the community of Victoria. We needed to stop and arrange passage and ability to explore the region of this community. We were told by a local lady that was out in a dugout where the community "president" or "leader" lived. We headed to meet with him. Pictured is his location from the river;

We docked and headed up the cliff to meet with him. His young son greeted us with a bow and arrow, though a couple days later he was our buddy. The compound consisted of 2 open air building. One was basically the kitchen (it had a fire) - but was a complete marvel of architecture. There were no nails - just joints and joists that were put together by fitting them together.

You can see the incredible symmetry of the architecture from this interior shot of the hut. It is pretty amazing. It is also incredibly sturdy. The construction of these huts is a community project and takes about 6 months. The roof - though it looks flimsy - is quite watertight and will last up to 20 years (yes 20 years!) - so these are really architectural wonders that would be incredibly difficult to duplicate in the "civilized" world.

Speaking from experience, having a nice dry, covered space to meet, eat, or just to hang out is a pretty nice thing in the rain forest.

www.ecoplanetadventure.com

Stories from the Amazon - Balsa Rafts

2010-03-09T08:20:00.001-08:00

OK - so I had a little fun with this one. Bucket List Item #74, the video tells it all. This is on the Curaray River in the Amazon Rainforest. The Balsa rafts were quite fun.

www.ecoplanetadventure.com

Stories from the Amazon - Getting to Pavacachi

2010-03-08T12:57:00.000-08:00

Sometimes getting there is half the fun. Well getting to the Amazon has a lot of fun associated with it. First we flew from Miami to Quito. From Quito it is a 5 hour drive down the Pan-American Highway to the road to Banos and then to Banos. Of course we had to stop and climb to the glacier at Cotapaxi and a mountain bike ride down the side of the volcano (I had a pretty bad elevation headache - but still enjoyed it). After a night in Banos it is about a one hour drive through the cloud forest, through tunnels, past waterfalls, to Shell. From Shell it is a hop on a small plane to a tiny airstrip in Pavacachi. From there it is a dugout canoe - and the expedition really begins - but just getting to Pavacachi is an amazing adventure in itself.

www.ecoplanetadventure.com

Stories From the Amazon - Traveling on the River

2010-03-07T08:56:00.000-08:00

Travel on the Curaray river is quite enjoyable. We were traveling in a large dugout canoe made from a single trunk of a very large tree. The native guides had built this boat and Mickey had supplied the motor. When we went into some of the lagoons we would use a much smaller dugout. Travel on the river is pleasant - though we would get the occasional rainstorm. This, however, was what it was like - realizing that we would come across birds, monkeys, river dolphins, and other wildlife that kept it always interesting. Reading on the tribes and history of the Curaray River is recommended as it has a fascinating history. For information about the area - Uncontacted.com is a very interesting resource.

www.ecoplanetadventure.com

Stories from the Amazon - FOX 35 Coverage

2010-03-06T12:59:00.000-08:00

FOX 35 did some really good coverage of the Amazon expeditions. Even though most of the footage is from other expeditions - the content is really cool and is much of the same things we saw and did.

www.ecoplanetadventure.com

Stories from the Amazon - Fishing

2010-03-06T06:27:00.000-08:00

Our staple diet while we were in the Amazon were fish (and the fruits and vegetables). Fishing was pretty easy in the lagoons and we used a variety of techniques to fish included fixed gill nets. Pirhana were the easiest catch and we caught and ate quite a few. Because of their teeth they easily bit through the line so we had to use a steel lead between the lines and the hook. Some of the more exotic and edible catches we had were the Electric Eels, Peacock Bass, and Armored Catfish.

Hereis Mickey holding a good sized Pirhana catch;

Amanda holding a Peacock Bass we caught in the side lagoons;

www.ecoplanetadventure.com

Stories from the Amazon - Parrots on the Clay Lick

2010-03-04T16:04:00.000-08:00

I know everyone is waiting for the Taegari story - but you are just going to have to wait. While going downriver towards Loracachi we came across a clay lick. This is a spot where the parakeets congregate (especially in the morning) to lick minerals from the clay. These minerals help neutralize the toxins in the nuts and berries that the birds eat as their primary diet. This clay lick was in a very good location for observation as it was along the river. We found other clay licks deeper in the jungle - but they were usually a pretty good hike. In this video the 2 most predominant birds are the Amazon Parrot and the blue headed parrot.

for more adventure footage and pictures see www.ecoplanetadventure.com

Stories From the Amazon - Giant Kapok Tree

2010-03-03T18:32:00.000-08:00

One of the amazing aspects of our jungle adventure is the ability to winch up into one of giant Kapok trees. These trees are amazing - but what is more amazing is watching the Amazon Natives climb these trees. One of our guides, Bartolo, scales 170 feet into this tree without ropes in under 4 minutes;

Of course the view from the top is pretty amazing (I took a much easier route after Bartolo set the ropes).

From this spot I could see a Caiman in the little lagoon. We all took turns up in the tree, it was pretty amazing. For more cool footage see www.ecoplanetadventure.com

Expedition Map - Ecuador

2010-03-01T03:48:00.003-08:00

Everyone who reads this probably knows I love maps. Well here is a map of some of the expedition - Iam adding details, but internet here is slow and this may have to wait until I am back in US.

View Eco-Expedition 2010 in a larger map

Stories from the Amazon - Jaguar Encounter

2010-02-27T18:40:00.000-08:00

During Night 2 of the Amazon expedition we had a jaguar stroll through our camp. This of course was probably because we camped right in the middle of an area that was frequented by plenty of Tapir. I had just gotten into my tent 10 minutes before this and the big cat strolled right by making an roaring growl that literally reverberated through my chest. The entire camp was up in an instant and we did capture some of the now pissed off cat as it made its way back into the jungle. The green color of the video is because we were using night vision scope on the camera.

This is probably my favorite video of the entire trip - check it out. You have to turn up the sound and listen carefully to hear the jaguar as it was circling back around on us in the jungle when we got the video going.

www.ecoplanetadventure.com

Back from Jungle

2010-02-26T15:49:00.000-08:00

We left from Lorocachi at about 2 PM this afternoon (2-26) and all team members are safely back in Baños. We will get some food - the story is almost unbelievable, but we have video and the 2 live broadcasts that we did that are on ustreamtv.com. You'll get to see the story soon. 8 days in the jungle living with and like the natives.

Update - we are still having trouble uploading video from Baños - will keep trying. We did capture some video of the Jaguar encounter. Also the wild Peccary hunt was pretty amazing and a lot of that was caught on video. Chris has uploaded some of his on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/reqs.php#!/christopher.ashford2?ref=nf