Bubba Goat 2007 - Florida Orienteering

The Bubba Goat is an orienteering that is different from a standard orienteering as it is a mass start and it is also very LONG. The 2007 Bubba Goat starting at Kelly Park advertised a race distance of 17.5 km which means that we would be running at least 20-25 km for the entire race. As we lined up at the start my team-mate Jamie, and another adventure racer Nick decided we would work together on the course. This outlines some of the methods (with the map attached) how we handled many of the controls (24 total) in this long race.

S-1, 1-2: These were both quite easy with obvious attack points.
2-3: As this was a relatively large feature we paralleled the E-w road to the south. The sparse features were relatively easy.
3-4: Pretty much due south using the small depression just south of the road to verify direction.
4-5: Decided to head south and use the trail which allowed for some pretty fast running.
5-6: Back to the trail, since the marked vegetation boundary was visible from the trail, an obvious cut across.
6-7: Again hit the trail, used the depression as an attack point to diagonal across. Once hitting the Florida trail we used the open (orange) areas to simply guide us to the control.
7-8: Basically bushwhack to the trail to the south. Use the depression on the trail to attack to the south.
8-9: Trail and attack from the saddle. Since it was so subtle (the saddle) this was a bit challenging.
9-10: South to the trail, then use the depression on the edge of the trail as an attack. The first attack was unsuccessful so we decided to double back. On the way back I headed south to attempt to find the open area south of 10, found it and then used it to attack 10 from the due south. This time successfully.
10-11: This was a long trail run with a long attack point (rough open on trail, with one cross trail), however was on a large feature that made the approach quite easy.
12-15: These were all pretty easy with obvious attack points, we nailed each one. 13 would have been the most challenging because the terrain was thick, but it was due north of the visible hilltop making it easy to find by a reverse bearing.
15-16: The attack off the trail after the shallow depression worked well. The objective was to find the hole in the green thickets and attack from there. We nailed it.
16-17: The original plan was to attack from the west (going around) , the bend in the trail was obvious enough that we diagonaled across to the re-entrant (which was very shallow).
17-18: After hitting the trail (too far north) we used the depression again, however we missed the flag too far to the north. The backstop (N-S trail) gave us a nice attack, the distinct tree west of the trail south of the berms.
18-19: This was pretty subtle terrain after leaving the trail. We got a bit lucky with our attack off the hilltop, but we did hit the flag almost dead-on.
19-20: This was pretty easy from the road intersection attack point.
20-21: Jamie and Nick cutoff and headed back here, Jamie needed to get back (after 3 hours of continuous running) for a tennis match. Because the rules allowed us to skip 2 controls, Nick started for CP23, CP24 and the finish to meet his wife and kids. CP21 was essentially a handrail along the open (orange) area.
21-22: I was getting pretty tired at this point. The thickets from pretty obvious and the trail bend south of CP4 was a pretty good attack.
22-23: After leaving CP22 I hit the trail heading east and ran back into Nick who had overshot CP23 and was coming back around for a second attack. Unfortunately I was paying more attention to this and missed the north trail cutoff and had to double back. After that we used the subtle green “blob” as our attack (and it was very subtle), but we did nail the control.
23-24: This was really easy, but it did require that we run back to the gate and then back to 24 adding a lot of distance to both Nick and my tired legs.

In the end we both finished in about 4 hours (nearly exactly). As it turned out, Nick and I were the only two to finish the entire course and I was the only one to get all the controls. It was a great preparation for adventure racing and the upcoming races the next two weeks (the LEACH and the Turkey Burn) – watch this space for details on both these races to come.

Also for the Bubba Results - they are at http://www.floridaorienteering.org/results/2007-bubba.htm

USARA Nationals Checkpoint 4-5

No major adventure race is complete without the fake CP. In this race CP4 was it - we got there and got to plot another location further up the trail. Instead of staying on the trail we took the road and then bushwhacked back to the trail from above. As the drawn Berryman trail is an approximation of the actual trail - this was pretty challenging. From CP4 we chose to bikewhack to the road and then again to the trail leading to CP5. This was a great section of the race for us. We had not been pushing the pace so had plenty of energy, the weather was nice and it was afternoon and relatively warm.

USARA Nationals Checkpoints 10-12

CP10 was easy but CP11 was tricky with no obvious attack point. For those teams hitting it with daylight it was a simple matter of counting re-entrants to the south of the trail. For teams hitting it at night - the trail was located in a small valley and the re-entrants were not visible from the trail. We did end up hitting the re-entrant east of the correct one. We realized our mistake and headed over the ridge to the correct re-entrant eventually dropping down teh re-entrant to the control. The other challenge here was after paddling was portaging down the spillway to the water in the dark. It is amazing how things that are so simple in the sunlight can be so challenging at night.

USARA Nationals Checkpoints 15-21

This was one of the more challenging sections of the race for many teams. For one, nearly all teams worked through this section in the dark (as did we). CP15, 16, and 17 were deceptively easy. Even though CP18 was in an obvious location - the trek from 17 to 18 on an unmarked trail was tricky. CP18 to CP19 and then CP20 required some tight attention to detail and a good choice of attack points. CP19 had us start into it one spur early until I gave Melissa the map, rested my brain. She chose an attack from the 3rd stream trail crossing, took a bearing and led us straight to it. I took over at CP20. I attacked from the trail where it started west and aimed off a little to the east to hit the re-entrant above the control. This worked quite well and we nailed the control easily. CP21 was a TA and also quite easy with obvious backstops.

USARA Nationals Initial O Course

This is the first initial map for the USARA Nationals (actually it is just a scan of part of the map). The O-Course was not that terribly difficult. We did have issues with CPE. The drawn road north of the CP ended on the hilltop NE of the control and another unmarked road followed the ridgeline towards G. Both F and G were on unmarked roads that followed the ridges. Still we had a good time even though we wasted about 40 minutes using wrong roads.

USARA National Championships, Potosi Missouri

USARA National Championships, Potosi, Missouri

Of the experiences that everyone should have in their life, competing in a national championship should be one of them. Whether it is in football chess, scrabble, or, in our case, adventure racing, being there is simply on of those great experiences. So there we were; Melissa, Jim, and I listening to Robyn Benincasa (one of the all star professionals of our sport) telling us about how hard it is to relate to these things until you have experienced the same. Just a day and a half earlier we hard started on a race/journey that would be one of the great experiences of any life.

I had only raced with Jim twice, having hooked up for the Croom Crusher and then after that the “Howl at the Moon” where we qualified (with Melissa Watson) for the Nationals. I had not planned on going, but a little arm twisting from Melissa – you wanna race ? – had me changing my plans and heading to Potosi, Missouri. So there we were; Melissa, Jim, and I; sitting in the pre-race briefing Thursday night at the Trout Lodge of the Ozarks.

It was great to see all the teams in the pre-race. Some teams looking for top 10 finishes were intent on gleaning every bit of info to have a solid race. My goals were a bit more pragmatic – a solid race and finishing. As with most adventure races we would not really know what the course would be until the next morning when we got our map and passport. Maps would be handed out at 5 AM, then a 6 AM second pre-race, and then a 7 AM start. After the map handout we did the usual course plotting (2 hours, 13 orienteering CP’s, and 25 course CP’s all to be plotted). We finished with a few minutes to spare and headed to the start just as the race began. Then the real fun began.

Jim had to run to the top of a hill (with all the other teams) and then meet Melissa and I at the south end of the lake near the start where we would be paddling. Jim took off and Melissa and I worked through the bottleneck of boats heading to the meeting point with Jim. The temperature was cold enough that water splashing on to us and the boats froze within a minute creating a nice sheen of ice on the gunnels. Fog rose from the lake in huge columns that swirled through the air as the armada of boats paddled south. As we picked up Jim and headed towards the first paddle checkpoints – the sun crested the eastern mountain top illuminating the hilltops to the west in a brilliant blaze of fire and golden fall hues. The first 2 checkpoints were along the paddle, and we stayed in the back of the pack – pacing ourselves and enjoying the scenery.

After exiting the boats after maybe 3 miles of paddling, we started the orienteering course. We were allowed to do the points in any order and we selected a route that took essentially clockwise around the lake. The only one that gave us any trouble was the second one (E - Boulder) as I was relying on the mapped roads on the map to actually be as shown. This was of course after a strong warning the day before in the pre-race not to rely too heavily on the locations of those roads. After switching to reading contours we picked it up quickly and finished a beautiful (and fun) orienteering course without too much trouble. The course had offered some incredible views and scenery. Another cool thing was Melissa found a pretty cool piece of trash, we thought it might be part of a still. The trash won us the ARFE best trash award!

When we arrived at the transition area, there were only a handful of bikes left, as most teams had long ago come and gone from the O course and headed out on bikes. We were in great spirits, we had not pushed very hard on the orienteering and were relatively fresh. The sun had warmed things up nicely so we pulled off a few layers of clothing and headed out on the first bike leg. The first couple of checkpoints (CP 1 and CP2) basically had us climbing the mountain and gaining some elevation. Of course with all of us being flatlanders – this was a bit brutal on our Florida legs, but we found ourselves passing teams on some of the climbs. The real fun of the bike leg started when we entered the single track of the Berryman trail. The bike terrain was pretty awesome, I’m a decent mountain biker and found myself easing cautiously through many of the switchbacks and rocky areas of the course. Our first surprise came at CP4, which had us plot another point a few miles up the trail for the “real” CP4. We decided to take a riskier route than the straight trail ride that would lead us to CP4, which had us navigate to above the CP by road and trail ride back down. We found the control, but it became obvious that the mapped trail was simply an “approximation” of the actual trail. Still the risk paid off as the teams we were with when we found the first CP4 location had not arrived at the new CP4. We had an easy time biking to CP5 and then following the mandatory route along the Berryman trail to CP6 (which was an awesome, mostly downhill, trail ride). We saw team BAMF (also a Florida team) heading out from CP5, which as it turned out was their second time, having taken an illegal route and having to redo a portion of the ride. We passed BAMF just before CP6 changing a flat about 100 meters from CP6. Also CP6 was a great location as an artesian spring with good water allowed us to refresh all our water.
The rest of the bike ride was uneventful buy nice trail to road ride. We chose another risky route, but again it paid off as we passed a few more teams arrived at CP8 and the start of the next trek section in good spirits.

The trek would have 2 checkpoints that would give us a bit of trouble. The first one (CP9) plotted about 100 meters from the drawn trail we were using, however it was actually located on the trail. We spent about 20 minutes looking around the woods for the flag, before returning to the trail and running right into it, just meters from where we had gone in (so much for relying on the mapped trail). CP10 was in an easy spot and a quick find. CP11 gave us (and a lot of other teams) trouble. In the dark and it had us finding a re-entrant at night looking south across a large stream bed. In the daylight the re-entrants would have been quite obvious, but at night it was much trickier. We found what we though was the correct re-entrant, but realized that we had to be “one over” so we crested the ridge and dropped into the second re-entrant and quickly found the checkpoint. We had trekked/walked the entire section and were feeling really good when we arrived at CP12 and the paddle.

By now it was about 9:30 PM and temperatures had dropped quite a bit. We had heard the water conditions were pretty low, so we had donned rain jackets, waterproof pants, seal skins socks and layered up for what would be a cold wet paddle. We first paddled across a small lake and down a steep spillway heading for the creek we would be paddling. The paddle looked to be a little over 10 miles, so we estimated worst case scenario at 4 hours.

We quickly realized that the worst case scenario was a lot worse than we had reckoned. Though the creek was pretty with swift moving water, it was also shallow. We would paddle hard where we had water, scanning the river with our lights for the deep water. We would hit the rock bars and shallows with scrunching noise that we quickly learned to dread. Bottoming out meant either poling our boat (with the paddles) off the shallow, or jumping out of the boat (I should mention into the cold water) and pulling it off the shallows. When we arrived at the CP13 location we pulled out on the wrong side of the river, so I walked across (remember shallow) and climbed the telephone pole where it was hung. This had given a few team (again, only in the dark) at night some trouble not looking up to see it in the air. I also had some trouble punching it – hanging from the pole with one hand I got the electronic dipper stuck and it beeped 4 times instead of one. This was supposedly bad – but I still did not worry too much.

We did have one amazing encounter on the river. At one point we saw what looked like a tree branch swimming across the stream. Our first thought (all Florida team) was gator, and then Jim said Tarpon!, but it was a beaver dragging a tree branch. He swam alongside of us for a while as we stared, dazed at him dragging the tree branch as he swam along completely ignoring us. After 5 hours of paddling and portaging, and scooching, and dragging – we made it to the takeout. At this point we were cold, wet, tired, and the fire at CP14 was quite a luxury. We spent some time drying out our gear before heading out on the last trek, a relatively long 16 mile trek.

We had heard that some teams had trouble with the checkpoints along this trek. By the time we got to the challenging ones (CP19 and CP20) we had daylight. That was a kind of sweet revenge – the fast teams had hit many of the early challenges in daylight which we hit later at night. These later controls they had darkness, while we hit them in the daylight. I did have a brain freeze on CP19, but simply handed the map to Melissa whose “fresh eyes” took us right to it with no problems at all. Our bikes were at CP21/CP8 – at this point we could “smell” the finish (last leg syndrome). It was probably obvious that we were having a good time as we strolled into the TA and started getting our bikes ready for the last big ride. We were joking and were feeling pretty good coming off the trek.

After a long transition we took the road up to CP22. As we arrived at the CP22 location a team came from the other direction and hinted for me to look at the passport. As it turned out the road was an illegal route to CP22, so we had a choice (1) go back and take the mandatory trail route, a 2 hour ride, or (2) take a 4 hour penalty. As it was getting late the team made a decision to take the penalty which would hopefully get us in around noon. I was glad as my Florida bike legs were now approaching a state of rubber and a 2 hour single track mountain bike ride was not something I was looking forward to at the time.

We headed on to CP23 and 24. The ride from CP23 to CP24 had the steepest climb of the race and I am quite proud to say I did not drop on it, though I did pay for it later. We saw other teams as we headed for CP25 (an out and back). At this point (around 29 hours of racing) we were pretty tired and were looking forward to the finish line. In the end we would finish after 29 and ½ hours of racing and take a four hour penalty and a solid 48th place finish. Jim had completed his first 24+ hour race, Melissa and I proved that we were a solid navigation team, and we had done what we came to do – had a great time.

(I’ll have maps up as soon as Melissa sends them to me)

More Howl Maps

I had a request to upload the mapped locations of CP10, CP11, and CP12 - these are the locations. I did not draw in our course as we basically went straight to them.

Howl Maps

Howl at the Moon 2007

Team Travel Country Outdoors – Ron Eaglin, Melissa Watson, Jim Levine, Greg Corbitt
(maps to come in next post)

An annual favorite race of mine is the Howl at the Moon, a night race that brings about a new challenge dealing with darkness and sometimes cold in a sprint (12-18 hours) format. This year was no different as 41 teams lined up to receive the maps on a Saturday afternoon. It did not take long for Melissa and me to plot the 7 Orienteering points and 4 waypoints of the first half of the course and get a chance to plan and relax before the 3 PM start.

We would start with a quick run of about a mile before swimming across the Withlacoochee River near the mouth of the Suwannee and get started on the first 15-20 mile trek leg of the course. The swim was a wonderful start (clear cool water)– ensuring all teams would have wet shoes as we got started on the long run of this first leg. The lead teams immediately got off to a bad start after the swim taking a double track road that was only partially mapped, and completely bypassing OP1. About ½ mile into this run I realized we were heading the wrong way as we should have been on a west head trail along the river and the double track made no signs of going any direction other than north. We bushwhacked west to the river, found the correct trail and took an attack towards the control. The limestone caves in the area of the control seemed like too good of a location to pass up and Melissa quickly found it and we were on our way to OP2 with one other team (2 PM) running along with us.

We came back to the double track road and headed northeast bushwhacking to the Orange blazed trail meeting it exactly where we expected. OP2 was right on the trail and we did not even need to slow down as we punched OP2. From there it was a trail run to the attack point for OP3. We were clipping nicely along and a distinct stream bend was going to supply a good attack point for OP3. Team “Semper Go” (which is Coast Guard – not Marines) arrived at OP3 area at the same time. Our team still had too much energy, instead of aligning the attack point and spreading the team as we had done hundred of times before – we all dissolved into 4 individuals looking independently for the control. After wasting 20 minutes we met back at the river, regrouped, located our attack point, took our bearing, set up a search pattern and found the control 5 minutes later. The 20 minutes of wasted time did allow a few teams to catch up, though they were still locating the control as we were heading out. Semper Go had been with us on the original attack and as we left I saw them and told them to use our original attack – which had been correct before we bailed on it. It was the same attack that had been successful the second time.

From here we knew we had a solid 8 mile run to OP4 – with a lot of navigation choices. We were going to try one that looked to be risky – but would cut miles from our run. After crossing the river peninsula north of OP6 (a paddle control) we located a good crossing spot and swam the river. The trail networks north of the river appeared to require either going 2-3 miles out of the way to the north or making long bushwhacks (though there were likely plenty of trails). The roads south of the river were straight, would be runnable, and also went in the direction we wanted. A path on the south side of the river took us out at the intersection of 10th Ter and 14th Ter – so we paralleled the river on the road, then took 8th Pl. to the dead-end and bushwhacked to the Highway 249 bridge. As we crossed the bridge a local informed us that there were other folks dressed like us (we were pretty distinct running along in our packs carrying paddles) running towards the bridge from the South.

After crossing the bridge it was pretty easy to simply follow the roads to the Holton Creek area where we used the road numbers and the Holton Creek map to ensure our approach to OP4. We wanted to hit OP4 in daylight and it looked like we would do this and be on the river with a little bit of light to spare. The trail (blue trail) intersection and road bend gave us a pretty good attack point going towards OP4. The large number of sinkholes made keeping our bearing a challenge – but we pretty much hit it dead on. Since we had located all trek OP’s with light we rewarded ourselves with about 10 minutes of walking (out to the road heading southeast) before dropping back into a run. Jim had been having some knee problems and was running with a strong limp – though he still was keeping a good pace. We arrived at the boats (overshooting it a little as we were joking and not paying real close attention), filled our bladders, portaged our boats to the river down steps that were obviously not made for people portaging boats and hit the water. Semper Go arrived as we were in the transition and would hit the water just a few minutes behind us.

We took it pretty easy on the paddle at first. I was using a canoe paddle, while everyone else had kayak paddles (just a logistics oversight). The downstream current was swift and we had a huge backstop just before OP5 – the highway 249 bridge. Semper Go caught up with us along this stretch, and we found the entrance to the Alapaha River together and located the CP quickly. The Alapaha River water was quite shallow and the there appeared to be no flow in the river – but it was a nice diversion. It took us just over one hour to paddle from the put-in to OP5.

The next leg to OP6 was relatively straight (literally). The minimal bends in the river made travel along this section quite fast – just hunker down and paddle. Semper Go used this section and some hard paddling to put some distance on us, but I kept our team to our race plan which was a strong, medium speed paddle. OP7 was a very easy find on the 180 degree bend and we kept the pace as we passed the take-out and headed for OP8. We chatted a little bit with Elias as we went by, telling him one plan we had considered was taking out here, trekking to OP7, and then simply heading back to the TA – though I knew his intention was to have teams paddle to OP7. We did this and as we made the turn into the Withlacoochee River we noted that Semper Go had ditched the boat at this entrance opting to run to OP7. Unfortunately for them they had plotted the control on the east side of the river (it was correctly plotted on the west side) and the steep cliffs in the area near the control made getting to the control challenging. We reached OP7 where they were searching for the control – and they were able to use our lights to hone in on it, though the cliffs and the required swim across the river for them would still make it challenging.

We boogied back downriver, now passing other teams near the end of the Withlacoochee. Semper Go’s boat was still on the shore – though I knew they would not be more than 5 minutes behind us. All the other teams were a solid 3 km of paddling back of us.

We were slow getting our boats out at the take-out (stiff legs and all). Semper Go arrived, racked the boat and we headed out the trek to the TA together. They opted to risk a fire road for a more direct route to the old railroad bridge, while we took the park road to US90, a long but easier route. We were slowed a bit as Jim’s knee was really hurting – so our running pace had slowed quite a bit. Melissa had a brace at the TA – which would help Jim.

At the TA we would need to mark maps, and then head out. I was feeling very sluggish at this point and took a little too long after marking maps to get myself moving onto the bike. Semper Go left 13 minutes ahead of us on the bike leg, but I wanted to use the time to ensure a clean navigation when we were out there. Our original race plan had been for Melissa to navigate this leg, but our early success in team navigation made us change the plan – I would do primary navigation, while Melissa would keep track of distances. This worked quite well as we had no trouble finding CP9 and then CP8. From CP8 the road network leading out to 16th Ave seemed to me to be a little off – but staying to the roads leading west I knew would eventually get us to road. We hit it – took an odometer reading and then moved fast to the entrance to OP10 which had a strong backdrop (power lines) at the entrance. We planned to take the best road possible to OP10 – and made some good choices in here, catching Semper Go and putting us back in the lead as we backtracked out to 16th Ave.

I calculated the distance from the OP10 entrance to the OP11/12 entrance at 4 km by simply looking at the UTM grid and subtracting 59 – 55. (look at the N/S grids on the map). We laid into this leg and sure enough the entrance was clearly marked and at 4.1 km. Semper Go had opted to get OP11 first, so we headed for OP12. I had noticed 2 trails heading north off the main road and wanted to be completely sure we took the correct one. For some reason the map had me confused at this choice – so Melissa and I talked it out and decided to take the eastern most choice (which was correct). Looking at the maps today it seems obvious – but at 1 AM, shivering, in the dark, in the woods – nothing seems obvious. This road turned out to be pretty much the worst of all the roads in this leg; rooted, angled, sandy, with logs and water. We chunked along and Semper Go passed us going the other way heading out. By now we were pretty used to seeing each other. The control was right on the money – so it was now simply a matter of heading back out and sprinting home (I did briefly consider using the other trail out – though bailed on that idea).

Once we hit 16th Ave it was a pure sprint north to US 90 and into the TA. Jim was feeling pretty good as he kept dropping us on the bike line – though the line was not terribly effective on the sandy road. Melissa took the line as we turned onto 90 accepting the challenge to bring the pace up to 21 mph (which she did) and we finished a scant 5 minutes behind Semper Go after 11 and ½ hours of racing. We all congratulated each other – we had pushed each other the entire race and had still made it fun. It was fun watching teams heading out onto the bike leg (and later coming back in) especially from a lawn chair by the fire.

Congratulations to everyone who came out and finished this spectacular course. The terrain and scenery were some of the best. The level of challenge of the course was just right Based on the fact that nearly all teams finished in the 18 hour time limit. Good job to Elias and Gomez who once again set a winner of a course with an excellent design and great challenges.

Orienteering Moss Park Red Course 10-13-2007

It was a beautiful day for orienteering, unfortunately for me I could not make it to the event since I had a soccer game and also was a volunteer most of the morning unloading pumpkins from a truck at church. I was able to make it by 3 PM so I got the enjoyment of picking up flags on the red course. The after story of this would be incredibly sore legs and back on Sunday - but this was still Saturday. I've written up this summary of the course (my course in red dash) to help other orienteers look at possible approaches. I am pretty familiar with the area - so I had a little fun with this. Dave Shuman and I got to start together, so we at least had a little bit of a fun run.

Start to 1 - OK this was pretty easy, down the trail across the lake berm running with Dave at an easy pace, south onto open trail. I did enter the woods early instead of taking the conservative route of the trail and cutting west at the open area. This worked pretty well as the woods were quite open.

1 to 2 - This was an Orange level leg, southwest to the trail and a distinct bend west of the flag. Pretty easy.

2 to 3 - Original plan was south to west trail and run to due south of flag and bushwack up. I ended up cutting across to the berm on its far southeast corner as a recent burn had left the terrain pretty wide open. I noticed a few other runners had taken this approach (plenty of footprints going up the berm at this point)..

3 to 4 - I had a bit of trouble tying the flag while jogging, and about midway a lot of downed trees slowed the pace. But I did feel pretty good running and this route pretty much headed north and hand-railed the visible trail to the east. The idea here was to pay attention to the clue (thicket west side) and try to ensure you came across it from the west - which meant staying off the eastern trail.

4 to 5 - Essentially a trail run. A glance at the map showed that the area near CP5 was tricky with no obvious attack point. I over-ran it slightly and had to double back as the flag appeared to be deeper in the palmettos than I though was shown on the map. The idea was simply to follow the edge of the palmettos to the flag and that worked pretty well.

5 to 6 - Essentially due west loking for the best terrain. The distance was short and the clue of a distinct tree I guessed would be visible from a distance and it was.

6 to 7 - The plan here was to find the easiest terrain. I ended up going along the edge of the marsh, however the fenceline was probably easier (it looked like it). The large thicket would be hard to miss - so I was not worried on the approach and took it pretty fast (for the terrain).

7 to 8 - The first part was essentially a fast walk. The footing was treacherous - though the due east bearing was pretty easy. I had a bit of confusion as I came out on the trail as the area to the east was wide open (yellow terrain) and the nearest yellow terrain was 200 meters south of where I figured I was. I took a left on the trail and essentially chalked the discrepancy up to another burn or clearing. The CP was a very easy find from an easy attack point (intersection).

8 to 9 - At this point I stuffed the map in the bag with the flags I was carrying. I figured I would see if I could find the controls using memory (I try to practice this technique whenever possible). I memorized southeast of berm edge for CP9 and due north on man-made object (which I knew to be a sign) for CP10. I picked up the pace as I was feeling pretty good and glanced at my watch as I passed the split oak along the trail (47 minutes). I figured I could finish up in an easy 60 minutes (pretty respectable time). I used the trail as long as I could and then cut across the open terrain to the visible berm. I blew right by the control and got into the open burn area - though I quickly realized I had passed it up. I turned around and looked, no flag - so I broke down and snagged the map back out of the bag. Visibility was very good and I should have seen the flag, looking back I saw a guy in cammo pants carrying a tripod right where the flag should be. I looked at the control description - rootstock. The rootstock was right there in my line of vision and as I ran upon I saw that my angle had simply obscured the flag. Oh well.

9 to 10 - I avoided the temptation to look at the map again (I should have) which I had stuffed back in the bag. I headed due east to the trail and then turned south to head to the trail intersection and towards CP10. It took about 30 seconds to realize something was wrong. The terrain looked wrong and I should have reached the intersection. I broke down again and fished out the map - DOH!, I was already south of the intersection and just ran further south, I don't know how I figured I would end up north of the intersection. It was one of those orienteering moments where you aren't sure how you thought something, and you realize you messed up. Oh well - I turned around and poured on some speed as I knew exactly where to go. Sure enough I could see the flag about 10 strides past the sign. I guess the moral was in doing Memory-O pay attention to the relative positions of the flags.

10 to finish - I was pretty tired and my back was hurting, I still poured on some speed trying now to beat 65 minutes. In the end I ran 65:20 (not bad) which was a dissapointment, but I learned some pretty good lessons about how to use memory in orienteering and hopefully will do well in the next memory-O.

Croom Crusher 2007

Croom Crusher 2007

Every now and then you just need to do a race to go out there and have a good time. I had originally not planned on doing the Croom Crusher – but I found out that my soccer team had a bye week and the fact that it coincided with the Crusher gave me a chance to race. I needed a team-mate so Melissa Watson hooked me up with one of her race buddies; Jim Lavine.

So it was that I woke up at 4 AM Saturday morning, threw everything in the truck and headed out to Croom. I got there – but nobody had seen Jim (and I did not know what he looked like). I had some breakfast and was able to at least get the maps and sure enough Jim showed up. We had discussed on phone and email our race plan – which for me involves pacing smoothly – going out easy and maintaining an even intensity. We ended up lining up on bikes for the start by team number and we were 62 of 75. There was going to be between 2 and 3 miles of dirt road and then we would enter single track. I knew that if we did not get ahead of a lot of teams we would be trapped in the single track, so when the whistle blew I took off out of a shotgun. Jim as surprised as our “pacing” turned out to be an all out sprint for the single track – which we hit with the top 4 teams. We moved fast through the single track and had great position entering the Silver Lake transition area.

At the TA Jim grabbed a card (a 9) which determined that we would be doing the orienteering first – a good draw as we would hit the running in the cooler morning weather. We took off running – noticing about ¼ mile in that we were still wearing our bike helmets. Oh well – they don’t weigh much. We dropped into a nice easy running pace and moved nicely to each control. Two teams (Team Bill Jacksons – Michael and Aaron, and Team RUOK) caught up with us as we moved through the orienteering. Mike and Aaron (Team Bill Jacksons AR) ran by us carrying a blistering pace – we opted to stick to our game plan and our pacing. We nailed each control – pretty much joking and having a good time. CP1 was just on the back side of a hilltop, pretty easy, though it did involve some cactus dodging. From there we cut east to the Orange trail and followed the trail until I decided to cut into the woods about 200 meters south of where the trail and the river paralleled and then follow the low contour. This worked, but brought us west of the control at the pond which was much thicker terrain than just following the Orange trail. From OCP2 we followed an unmarked trail due west to the edge of the (dry) lakebed and then just dead reckoned due south using the contours to ensure our route to OCP3. OCP3 to 4 was easy as we simply headed southeast and followed the barbed wire fence mentioned in the pre-race meeting. We continued to follow the barbed wire after OCP4 and then cut across the field to the low area and the Oak trees. We looked at pretty much every tree (the map made it look like the tree was on the west side of the depression, it was on the east). OCP6 was an easy find with the river as a handrail, we came in a bit south, but the river bend and nearby depression made for an easy control. From there it was a simple run back on Orange and then a cut across – to the TA.

After arriving at the TA we completed the creative special tests (quite fun – including a slip and slide) and started out on the paddle in what turned out to be a canoe with a broken rib. That did not slow us down – we slammed through the water hitting each CP passing a lot of teams – but still being passed by Charlie in their kayak. Jim and I were joking and having a good time pretty much the entire paddle. It was just before noon when we arrived back at the TA to begin the last section.

The last section would have us biking on Croom single track. The objective was to visit the 6 checkpoints along the single track and draw the location of the CP’s on the supplied map. A good way to keep us on the designated trail. Charlie’s team put about a 10 minute lead on us leading out of the TA – but we were feeling strong going into the bike. We moved fast into the single track and then we slowed a bit – while I watched my odometer, which was good as our first control was 1 km into the course. Since it was just before we hit a mapped power line – it was pretty easy. We caught up with RUOK shortly after that – just before hitting a trail split, and both directions were blue. I took the one marked hard trail which gave me nasty hill climb, but I was rewarded by a great downhill drop before joining back up with the easy route (about 100 meters later). We kept together – easily finding and mapping CP2 near a pond. There was serious sand chunking getting to CP3 (with mild slopes up and fun downhills). Around CP4 – RUOK dropped back a bit and we kept on with a pretty fast pace. I was not paying attention as we approached CP5, luckily it was near a marked trail intersection – making it pretty easy to map. Another team (Rob and Sheri, not sure of the team name) caught up with us just before CP6 and I was starting to run out of juice – though Jim was ready to hammer. I did my best to keep pace – especially up the final hill to the finish and we finished just behind Rob and Sheri, but with no penalties that put us in 3rd place overall.

Most important we had a great time, and racing with new racer Jim turned out to be a lot of fun, we are now looking at the “Howl at the Moon”.

The BEAR 2007

BEAR 2007 Adventure Race – Team TCO

When I found out that the BEAR would be held this year in Guana Reserve (north of St. Augustine) instead of Hanna Park (where it had been for the previous 8 years) I decided that this was too good an opportunity to miss; a classic race in a new location. I had a little bit of experience with Guana – we had passed though it in the 2007 Coast to Coast and I remembered it as an incredible area.

Greg and I are both veterans of lots of adventure races so we simply decided to throw our gear together and give this one a go. The pre-race was at 7:45 Am and contained the usual safety and course items and then we were off. To split up the pack before the initial bike ride, we had a special test requiring us to assemble mandatory gear at posts about 1/8 mile down a trail – carrying the team-mates back and forth. At the completion Greg and I hit the bikes mid-pack and started to the first bike leg. It was mostly wonderful and fast double track – with no real navigation (which did not stop me from making one wrong turn) to the coasteering (with bikes) section.

Coasteering (or coastaleering) is simply hand-railing a coastal section to a checkpoint. This first part of the coast was rideable, but soon mud and oyster made it into a bike push. As we continued downed trees made for a nice maze of over and under carrying the bikes. Greg and I saved times saved time by hoisting the bikes onto our backs and simply walking though the waist deep water off the coast. The section was really neat – especially with the light wind and shade through most of it. After coming to the end of the coasteering we were back on the bikes and we hammered the short ride back to the TA.

Finish
Viking: 0915
BAMF 0916
2 stooges 0917
Jax #1 0919
Jax #2 0919
TCO: 0920

We got the instruction for the next portion of the race (in the BEAR – you never know what the next leg will be). It was about a mile portage and what looked like a 4 mile paddle. I had forgotten my portage wheels at home (which would have saved us some time and effort) – but we took that in stride and headed out. A wrong turn on the portage gave us an extra five minutes, and we hit the water about 10-15 teams back. We could see the lead teams in the distance and Greg was worried about being so far back in the race at this point. That did not stop us from hammering the paddle – though. We had a pretty fast boat (Kevlar Pamlico 160) – which was perfect for the water conditions. As we round the point of the Tolomato River and headed into the Guana River there were only 4 teams in front of us – and they were in range. The Guana River was beautiful, calm, and glassy and we exited the water 3 minutes behind the lead team and made the TA in a close second (around 11 AM).

Stage Finish
Jax #1 1106
TCO 1110
BAMF 1114
Viking 1114


It was now getting quite hot out, and the next section was a trek. We quickly ran the roughly 1 ½ mile to the first CP and then I misread the map and headed us due west to the next CP along a vague trail (where following the main trail would have been a direct route). We did come back out to the main trail, but then being in the front I took one trail too early to the west again towards the Capo Creek Tower. As we got to Capo Creek (and no tower) – I spent a few minutes getting my bearings and reading the turns in the Creek, realizing we were about 300 meters south of the tower. Our choices were to double back and use the north bearing trail – or simply punch north through the marsh along Capo Creek. Anyone who knows our team – knows the bushwhack was our route, and the race directors who had been watching teams come in along the (drivable) trail to the tower from the east – were surprised to see us jogging along game trails in ankle deep water in the marsh. We had lost a few places and about 15 minutes in our unique route choice. It was very hot, and sandy, and no shade on the 2+ mile run back to the TA and we simply used speedwalking and dead-mans trot back to the TA.

Stage Finish
BAMF 1210
Jax #1 1214
Viking 1216
Bonham 1219
Jax#2 1228
TCO 1231


I really had no idea of our place at this point, I though there were 3-4 teams in front of us, but not far and we were entering a long bike leg. Greg and I are both strong bikers – and this looked to be a very long ride on hard sandy trails. We headed out onto the single track section of the ride and were close with 2 other teams – who seemed to have some local knowledge of the area. It was cooling off and it was obvious we were going to get some heavy rain (for which we were all thankful). The roads were ride-able sand simply requiring some hard peddling to hold a 6-10 mph pace.

Looking at the map I noticed 2 parallel roads and there were forest roads going back and forth between them every ½ mile or so. We cut over to the parallel road which turned out to be worse – so we headed back over to Hammock Road, and were now along – but we could see tracks from about 6-10 bikes in front of us. The instruction had us turning at the intersection of McNeil’s Road and North Road – and there was some uncertainty as to the exact location with the large number of forest roads – but this intersection turned out to be marked with a race sign. As we made the turn we saw 2 teams directly in front of us and we rode with them for the loop back for the next 2 miles.

I had been feeling bad during the start of the ride, but I knew that with cooling off in the rain and a few miles of riding I would feel better. Since most of my rides in races are longer than 6 hours (12 hours not being uncommon) I am used to pacing and also started feeling stronger as we continued. We had passed 4 teams in the loop and as we exited and headed back south on Hammock Road we only had one CP to find and I had only one team unaccounted for in front of us. We saw them coming from the final CP, though they looked to be hurting some. We hammered the ride back to the TA – Greg was having some problems with his back and could not get comfortable on the bike. I was feeling the best I had felt the entire race and was really starting to get into my “groove” – which is typical after 6-8 hours of racing.

As we came into the TA there was one team in the TA working on the puzzle of the bike leg (we had to spell a word with the letters along the way – G R D I A N) – Greg and transitioned quickly and headed out for the next leg – a paddle. I gave the team a little hint as we went out, and I think they had it solved as we portaged our boat for the paddle on Lake Ponte Vedra (about 1/3 mile portage). We hit the water, it was cool and cloudy, and the paddle was short. At this point I thought we might be in the lead – we were both feeling well and there was no way anyone would catch us on the water.

Stage Finish
BAMF 1500
TCO 1520
Viking 1520
Wiseguys 1529

We paddled to a CP at the water’s edge were we had a logic puzzle to solve and then a short orienteering loop. After solving the logic puzzle – Greg noticed there were 2 boats already at the location. As we headed out on the orienteering – Team BAMF (made up of Jacksonville Beach life guards) came up the road, having completed the orienteering and starting pulling the boats out to the water. I was not sure of how long the orienteering was – but they had at least that as a lead on us. As it turned out, we moved through the O course in about 12 minutes. As we headed back onto the water towards the TA – we passed a lot of teams heading out. We were second across the line, about 10 minutes behind BAMF – with another group of teams 10-15 minutes behind us. Having the close competition really made the race that much more enjoyable. We finished in just over 8 hours – though I don’t remember the exact time.


Finish
BAMF 1630
TCO 1640
Wiseguys 1651
Vikings 1655

A special thanks to all the teams we had fun racing with and against. It was good seeing “Wise Guys” again. Also Team BAMF was fun racing against, even though we never saw them until the end of the race. Thanks to the folks at Performance Multi-sports for putting on another high quality and well designed and challenging race.

A work day, play day

This weekend I had a speaking engagement at Sanibel Harbor Resort and Conference center. This became an opportunity for the family to visit Sanibel, Captiva, and beaches in that area. I am not a big fan of resorts - I like to park my own car and would rather be able to walk to my car just out of the door of the hotel (pictured - looking out at our view at the resort). I also like the ability to eat breakfast for less than $20. However - Everyone at some time should visit the beaches at Sanibel and Captiva. Incredible shells and beautiful blue water (pictured swimming and shelling in the warm gulf waters).

After that it was to Fort Myers Beach staying at a little motel "Carousel Inn By the Sea" which was more to my liking. We could walk to the beach, cook our own food (full kitchenette and a grill outside of our room) and at the beach there were more sand dollars than I could imagine. At dinner that night I saw the "Lobster Claw", for $2 you could use a claw to try and catch your dinner (pictured). On Saturday we went to Lover's Key State Park (Florida State parks are awesome), and got there at park opening - the girls went crazy with shell collecting and there were lots of great shells.

SCAR 2007 Maps and Passports

SCAR Long Course Passport Instructions (start at 8 AM)

Obey all traffic rules on bike. Helmet must be worn at all times while on the bike, PFD’s must be worn at all times while on the paddle. Do not cross Lockwood near the S-F, you must go under the river bridge and go up the hill on the east side.

Stage 1: To receive map #2 you will need to retrieve two chips from controls at C1 and C2 as shown on Map 1. No travel along the golf course is allowed. After retrieving both chips return to the transition area 1 (TA1) to receive map #2.

Stage 2: After receiving your passport bike to transition area 2 (TA2). At TA2 you will receive a second passport. This passport will be zip tied to the canoes and must remain tied to the canoes until you return to TA2 and is removed by the TA2 volunteer. You must take the canoes to P1 through P4 (any order). You may visit any other controls you wish to visit along the paddle (these are punched on this passport). After completing the paddle return to TA2.

Stage 3: Bike and Trek to B1 through B8 (in any order). Use any route and method of travel (biking or trekking) to visit these checkpoints. After completing these checkpoints return to the start-finish for further instruction.

C1 – about 75 meters due south of fallen platform
C2 – South of River confluence

P1 – Downed tree across river just east of Lockwood bridge (may be underwater)
P2 – Sand bar at river bend up off river
P3 – East side of small lake near broken birdhouse

B1 – Trailhead kiosk (50 meters at 90 degrees from kiosk)
B2 – Pine Trees southeast corner of intersection
B3 – Streambed north of trail intersection
B4 – Wetland area – tough bushwhack (orange ribbons will take you to CP)
B5 – Bushwhack to Red Andy Jackubin Stables sign in woods (Git er done!)
B6 – Holly tree near dead small tree at double track trail end
B7 – Look under boardwalk near north end of boardwalk.
B8 – IN Ditch near culvert behind transformers

SCAR Short Course Passport Instructions

Obey all traffic rules on bike. Helmet must be worn at all times while on the bike, PFD’s must be worn at all times while on the paddle. Do not cross Lockwood near the S-F, you must go under the river bridge and go up the hill on the east side.

Stage 1: Trek to control C1 as shown. Retrieve 1 chip per team from control. To find control look for trail opening at south end of open retention area due west of the trampoline in yard.

Stage 2: Bike and Trek to visit controls B1, B2, B7, and B8. Use any route and method of travel (biking or trekking) to visit these checkpoints. After completing these checkpoints go to TA2 for the paddle section of the course.

Stage 3: After receiving your passport bike to transition area 2 (TA2). At TA2 you will receive a second passport. This passport will be zip tied to the canoes and must remain tied to the canoes until you return to TA2 and is removed by the TA2 volunteer. You paddle the canoes to P3 and return. You may visit any other controls you wish to visit along the paddle (these are punched on the passport given to you at TA1). After completing the paddle return to TA2.



C1 – about 75 meters due south of fallen platform

P3 – East side of small lake near broken birdhouse

B1 – Trailhead kiosk (50 meters at 90 degrees from kiosk)
B2 – Pine Trees southeast corner of intersection
B7 – 187 boards south of north end of boardwalk, under boardwalk
B8 – IN Ditch near culvert behind equipment

Seminole County Adventure Race Bruiser Passport Instructions

Bike travel along Lockwood Blvd allowed on bike lanes or shoulder only. Helmet must be worn at all times while on the bike, PFD’s must be worn at all times while on the paddle.

Start: Follow the trail along the river leading to C1. To get to the trailhead cross the open field and then go to the northernmost picnic area. The trailhead leads into the woods near this picnic area. Go in and follow the river trail south which will be against the current. You will have a few wet crossings of side streams. When you get to the open retention area there will be 2 ponds. Continue along the forest boundary to the far south end of the open area and enter the woods crossing over a downed pine tree. There should be a trampoline visible in a backyard due east of you. About 75 meters in you will see a fallen treehouse platform in an area where the kids play paintball. From the platform go due south 100 paces and you will see the control on the back side of a tree. Take one poker chip per team from the bag and return back to the Start Finish area.

After retrieving the chip return to the Start-Finish location.


Bikes: Get on bikes and bike north to the lower (west) side of the bridge over Lockwood Blvd. just north of the start finish area. Cross under the bridge (walk your bikes and it is slick) and then up the hill on the other side to Lockwood. Ride along the sidewalk at Lockwood (you can shortcut across the parking lots) County Road 419 and follow the sidewalk east. At 419 cross over the bridge and go right on the south side to the underside of the bridge to TA 2. You will need to cross over the bridge on your bike as the river is currently high and a difficult swim. This is TA2.

Paddle: From TA2 Paddle south on the river to P2, staying east (left) at the river confluence. You will be paddling to P2 which is on a sand bar on the east (left as you go upstream) of the river. It is visible from the river – but you will need to be looking for it. The other races used this control so look for where teams might have pulled their canoes out of the water. You will need to get out and punch P1 on your passport below. After punching P1 paddle back downstream to the Transition area.

Bike back to the start finish area to finish the race.

Coast to Coast Swamp Points

This was the swamp points (one and two) that were incredibly difficult. The terrain was challenging and lack of any close attack points added to the challenge. We used multiple attacks on the first one.

C2C CP 4 to CP5

These 2 legs of the first long bike ride were 2 of my favorites. Detailed navigation, but good locations.

Florida Coast to Coast 2007

This was the 9th installment of the classic Florida Coast to Coast Adventure Race. I’ve raced 7 of them, finished 6, and helped directed one. This was also my first time as a relay racer – since I really wanted to try this format where 6 team-mates race with always 4 of the 6 on the course. My team-mates were Rod Price, Dave Brault, Bob Denney, John Hollingsworth, Jim Fuedner – and we would be racing as team Dirty Fish.

Many of the teams had a hard time finding the start, so the 6 AM start time ended up being pushed back to 6:30 (hmm….). We started with a 3 mile run down A1A where we entered The Guana Forest. John and I ran the first road section and then waited for first Dave and Bob to catch up, enjoying the facilities at the entrance of Guana. Once entering Guana we were greeted with wonderful shaded trails and relatively simple navigation. Towards the end of the trek we decided to shortcut across the saltwater marsh as the tide was low and the water was very shallow. This turned out to be a good move as it saved about 20 minutes, however as we reached TA1 at 11 AM our “walking only” pace had put us already 2 hours behind the lead teams, which had arrived and left at 9 AM. I vowed to not look at the TA splits after that.

A quick road ride of about 20 miles left us at the edge of the St. Johns River and the first paddle section. It became obvious that the team would not transition quickly as we spent nearly 45 minutes preparing to enter the water and start the paddle. I sat out this section, which was advantageous as I needed to do some bike repairs. I also was able to go by Publix and get some Fried Chicken – a real treat for an adventure race. We drove to the TA (fighting nasty Jacksonvillle traffic) and soon after the team arrived. We heard stories of teams capsizing their boat on the heavy chop on the St. Johns – as it turns out our team was one of those, but it must not of hurt them tremendously. We had another slow transition preparing for the next leg which would be a long (we estimated 12 hours) bike ride. This would also require tricky night navigation (my strength) and I was determined to bring our team back up into the front pack.

TA4 was relatively easy, though the correct road from CP4 was tricky as it looked like a driveway in the dusk and our small group (2 teams) was reluctant to take it. We entered some nice single track as it was getting dark and got to the final dirt (and sand) road leading to CP5 just as Bill Jackson’s was coming out. A quick consult with them confirmed my strategy – to use trails to get as close to the river (either one) as possible and then handrail the river to the control. We ran into Jason (Team Hoof-hearted) who had been searching for 3 hours and was thinking about bailing – I told him to come along and I was confident we would find it relatively quickly. He dropped his bike (I promised to bring him back to it) and we found the flag in about 15 minutes.

On the way out from CP5 we decided to use the western trail (hoping to avoid the sandy trail coming in) and were rewarded by a rideable trail back out from TA5. We also got to be yelled at by some redneck lady who claimed we were trespassing. We basically ignored her and got out of there. In my experience paranoid folks who live deep in the woods are paranoid for a reason, and though there was no threat of her calling authorities (they also don’t want cops around these activities), they do sometimes decide to protect their turf.

The ride to CP6 was easy, with rideable roads. We took 15 minutes extra at CP6 as there were 2 yellow gates about 50 yards apart and we thoroughly searched around the first one until one of our group found the second gate. CP7 and CP8 were also uneventful. The ride from CP8 to CP9 was rough as we ended up on Sapp Road which had 8.5 km of ride/walk/ride/walk sugar sand. CP9 to CP10 required very close attention to the map which is always fun past midnight. We totally missed the north trail leading in to CP10 so the team slept for 20 minutes while I rode back and found the trail entrance. I found the entrance just as another team was leaving, we quickly regrouped and also found the CP quickly – though it was in a tricky spot for the night navigation. When we got to CP11 we found that it had been cancelled and that no teams had successfully found it. This was a relief as the only attack point I could find required a 1 km dead-reckoning bushwhack. The terrain looked tough, so finding this control would have been tricky (though I was ready to try). We biked into TA4 just as the sun was cracking the horizon to start the second part of the course.

At TA4 we received a set of new maps. We would start out with a trek that had three very challenging checkpoints. Most of the lead teams were in the TA and I knew if I could get the team moving we would be with the race leaders. I was not able to get the team moving and we spent over an hour in the TA – which was OK as it gave me time to plot the locations of the next few sets of CP’s. We were now ready to start the trek toward the three “Swamp Points” and then a long trek to TA5.

At the first SP we ran into Nature Calls who had been working on the CP for a little over an hour. Our first attack was unsuccessful so our team decided to attempt it from the pond edge about 500 meters north of the control. Travel in the swamp was slow and erratic. We leapfrogged to keep our bearing, but had no luck on the second attempt. We eventually ended up with a large group of frustrated teams and after much discussion decided to bail-out. We trekked over to the entrance of SP2 and I found 2 trails that got us within (by my calculation) 250 meters of the control. I paced the attack point out and entered the swamp and ran directly into Nature Calls who were exiting. They had found SP1 and also told me SP2 was due north of my location (which is why I chose that attack point). We decided to spend only 30 minutes searching and with 2 other teams gave it a shot. The thick vegetation made finding controls like finding a needle in a haystack and we soon expended our 30 minutes and headed out. At this point the team decided to also bail on SP3 as it looked to be the most difficult of the three SP’s. (As it turns out we were correct and teams spent hours on this control with no luck).

The rest of this leg was a hot dry death-march, and we had expended most of our water supply. I was able to shorten the trek some by taking an unmapped trail across a section that looked like it required a dog-leg on paved roads. This provided shade and more interesting terrain. The next TA required a transition to bikes for a relatively easy bike leg (at least navigation wise) as most of the checkpoints were cancelled for this leg. This was too bad for me as I was familiar with the area and knew the location of one of them. We settled in for a long road ride and pace-lined the section with no problems.

At Suwannee Springs we were able to get the teams into the water quickly. I was going to sit this leg out. It turned out to be a wonderful night paddle on the Suwannee River and the team had stories of passing many river partiers. For me I was able to drive to the Suwannee River Campground and was looking forward to my first sleep in the race. We were the third crew into the Suwannee River State Park, we set up camp I marked and checked the maps, and even set up the laminator and laminated them. After that I took a nice hour long nap on a real cot and then after waking up I went to the river edge to wait for our team and help them get ready for the next trek leg. The team had paddled for 6 hours (about 30+ miles) and had obviously enjoyed this paddle. We decided to wait until morning to trek out of the TA so the team got a little sleep and also a nice breakfast before heading out a couple of hours later.

I was really looking forward to this next trek. It looked to have great terrain and also the 2 traverses across and back the river. The navigation to the next CP and the traverse were easy and we were way ahead of the cutoff (arriving at 7:30 AM to beat the 8 AM cutoff). I knew teams behind us would be struggling to make these cutoffs. I demonstrated how NOT to traverse, immediately leaping off the edge and thudding into the ground. I stood back up and tried again hitting the cool morning water for a refreshing dip. The team did the traverse quickly and we trekked to the second traverse which was a bit more challenging, but provided us an opportunity to climb the cliffs. The next checkpoint was a little tricky – but as it was located on the intersection of 2 horse trails, I made it a lot harder than it had to be meticulously pacing where I could have just stayed on trail.

The next CP, on the side of the river should have been easy. If we had stayed on the Orange Blaze trail (as suggested in the passport) it would have been. Instead I decided we needed to bushwhack east to it. This would have also worked except… Some of the other teams might have noticed this – but at some points along the river the compass north arrow points at the river. Great – but also impossible, and the second time I’ve seen a magnetic anomaly in a race. Of course this one, with one hour of sleep in 2 days had me confused and also caused me to send the team north on the river when we should have headed south (figure it out, if east is north, etc…). I sat down and recalculated where we were and started the other direction, finding the flag within 150 meters south of where we had hit the river. The next CP (on an abandoned vehicle) simply required hand-railing the river and was pretty easy.

You would think finding the TA from the last CP would also be easy. However all the roads I was relying on from the map petered out forcing us to bushwhack. I am sure if I went back and did this fresh I would laugh at how easy it was. Luckily John (Fish) who is also a good navigator was with us and working it out together – we not determined our location, we hit the road and with 2 minutes Greg from Sleepmonsters drove to us (which really confirmed our location). About 15 minutes later we were in the TA. The next section was a portage (about 2 miles) followed by a relatively short paddle (18 miles?). I had not paddled and wanted to do this one – so there was a little debate as to who would paddle. In the end I was teamed up with Dave in the boat and we hit the water.

This was a lot of fun. The river was scenic (with wildlife, people, springs) and it was still daylight. We paddled alongside Team Relentless most of the paddle at a modest pace. I knew the next bike leg would be challenging as I marked it. John was also waiting and had rechecked my marking (I had done the night before). This just confirmed it would be challenging. We also picked up soloist Greg who would ride with us this section. We reached the area of CP25 (or was it CP23, the passport said both) and I found a good attack point 300 meters north and 250 meters west of the distinct waypoint (gate across road marking the hunting club area). The attack turned out to be very good as we hit the control nearly dead-on pushing our bikes. After that we had a long bike-whack and as we finally exited the woods when we found a trail – I realized we were pretty much lost. We tried to relocate – both John and I stopping to check every intersection. We even called Dennis who suggested we bail to the main road. I was pretty sure at one point we were at the intersection I wanted to CP24 – but the team had ridden ahead, so I continued on. After hitting the paved road, we found the road/Steinhatchee river intersection which gave us a known location and 8 km later we were back on the road having found CP24. The team at this point decided that CP25 was a bad idea and we headed towards the TA, doubling back to CR51 and heading south. As we neared the TA – it was only 2 AM and I knew we had enough time to get CP26 and make the cutoffs, so the team decided to go for it.

Our first attempt was completely off, sleep deprivation was getting to me and I simply was just going on random. I led the team in a few circles and was delirious when Dave decided I needed to get back to the last known location and try again. This proved a good strategy as I immediately snapped back to reality, saw the mistake, and took us to the railroad trestle leading to CP26. Our approach was probably different than the RD was anticipating – taking the railroad berm – but we found it and headed back. On the way back we ran into a delirious Team Relentless who appeared to be completely lost. I told them to follow us into the TA. At the gas station at 19 and 51 I stopped my bike without unclipping and went over. Basically it looked like I fell asleep on my bike (I might have). Eventually we arrived at the TA around 4 AM.

It was now cold, though I was warm from the exertion. I dismounted my bike lay down on a cot and was asleep in under one minute. I woke up about 45 minutes later from my shivering – I was delirious, but I also recognized that I was borderline hypothermic. Dave threw some clothes to me – but I was shaking so hard I had a hard time putting them on. I got up, walked to a car, got inside, and fell asleep in seconds. The next day I found out that the car was occupied and Linda (our crew) even talked to me – but I was snoring before they could complete a sentence. Dave woke me at 6:45 AM and a cup of hot chocolate later I was good to portage the boats to the river. All the teams hit the Steinhatchee River pretty close together, and I was going to sit out this short 12 mile paddle.

After packing up the TA we drove to the waterfalls (3-4 feet) on the river, but the teams had passed. We then drove to the end and Dave and I entered our spare boat to paddle back up the course and join our team. They arrived shortly and we all paddled in together finishing in 3 days, 4 hours, and 40 minutes.

For those considering relay – do it! It is an awesome way to race, you get to experience the course with minimal pain. My team-mates were great and we did just about everything correctly. This was close to the most challenging C2C I had done (though not quite). It was definitely the most fun.

Maps for Talon

This is map showing the main transition. Doing the south loop (shown next) was worth 8 points, where as doing CP 40 - 43 would have been worth 9 points. Our strategy was to get both and since CP 41 and 43 were near the main TA we would have been able to return quickly as we approached 5:30 PM. Unfortunately we ran out of time while heading to CP41 after making a small nav error in estimating the location.

Our strategy was after the orienteering sections to do this loop. We did 36 (just north of map), 38, 37, and then 39 in that order. Our plan was to return and get 43, 41, and 42 with the remaining time.

This was the first orienteering leg of the Rogaine section. We parked our bikes near 24 and did 24 - 25 (up in tree) - 26 - 23, went back to bikes and rode to 32 where we crossed the ditch and then came back.

This was the 2nd orienteering section we did on the Rogaine leg. We parked the bikes south of CP 17 and did 27 - 28 - 29 - 30 - and 31. We moved through this section very fast.

The first orienteering section - note that 15 is off the map to the east, and 18 is not shown (off map to the west). That is simply the scan. We ended up doing 15 - 16 - 20 - 19 - 18 and then looping back around for 17.

The passport - note that CP 30, 31, and 32 were hard to read as it was raining when we wrote them down. CP 31 (3 points) was not credited to our team as I mistranscribed the letter onto the final sheet.

The Talon 2007

The Talon 2007

This was one of those races that could only be described with a wow. Jim Hartnett was trying out a new format for the races that really allowed all teams to get the most out of the entire race. Their would be a mandatory course that all teams would complete and then after completion we would start on a Rogaine format course that would allow teams to accumulate points. The top teams were expected to be able to complete the course within 5-6 hours and then get another few hours of intense racing collecting the bonus checkpoint.

I was racing with long time race partner Greg Corbitt, we’ve raced together many times so are pretty used to each other on the course. Shortly after 7:30 AM we did a quick half mile run to spread the pack and started on the single track bike section. Greg and I placed ourselves well on the run and entered the single track as the third team – ensuring that we would not be stuck behind other teams. I was pacing well and Greg was in front of me as we went through River Loop, Rock Garden, and then the Sand Pine trails. These are nice single track sections and with the exception of Rock Garden relatively easy single track. We crossed over the power lines where Greg spaced me a bit and entered Roller Coaster. Roller Coaster has some solid drop and rollouts with steep slopes and rocks and turns making it a relatively tough course. Here I would have a spectacular crash, though I am not even sure what happened, breaking my map board and putting a slight bend in my back tire. Greg was ahead of me and did not hear the crash. As I sat up stunned, I did the usual broken bone check (OK), bleeding check (just some skin off my knee), and then checked my bike. My back tire was slightly bent and not rolling so I was either going to have a lot of fun with a chain tool, or I’d get lucky. Sure enough I got lucky and a hard smack on the tire popped it back into skew. I was now off again – though a lot more cautious and shaky this time. I walked a few rollers that would have been a lot of fun to ride, still being shaky from the fall.

Luckily all this occurred real close to the transition area and as I came in Jim informed me that Greg was just in front of me on the “second loop”. I’m not quite sure what this loop entailed as when I got out on the course it looked like teams (which were somehow behind me) were pedaling both direction on all the trails. I took the trail that looked like the intended course and heard Greg’s voice ahead of me – who was coming towards me. Since we had all bike checkpoints we headed for the TA.

We had 2 small orienteering legs at the TA. We blasted through the first one and quickly caught up with the lead pack. On the second one we got to the final bearing (125 yards at 310 degrees) which took us up onto a large Gypsum piling that was being thoroughly searched by the lead pack. After 15-20 minutes of searching we headed back to the control that had the bearing to learn that the distance was off. (In reality it was more like 75 yards at 320 degrees). This served to flip the pack – the earlier lead teams (who spent a lot of time searching) were now behind as we biked to the canoes.

The paddle started south where we had some open water paddling eventually ending up in a narrow channel (think bumper boats) and CP10. We turned around (more bumper boats) and headed back to the canoe launch. There we would climb up a cargo net to the bridge and down the other side on wood posts and start the second half of the paddle. Because the punch was attached to the boat and there was not much water in the “river” this leg turned out to be a boat drag for about 1 ½ miles (up and back). I was feeling really bad (still shaky from the crash and nauseous in this leg), and Greg came through by doing most of the dragging. I was hoping I would recover, as I was extremely weak and also nauseous at this point – which at the level of exertion we had been at (not high), did not make sense to me. We finally made it back to the canoe launch and biked back to the TA for the last mandatory leg of the race, the orienteering.

Alafia River State Park is lucky enough to have extremely high dirt piles left by the mining industry from years past. These pilings have now become completely canopied and grown in with ferns and other plant life. Going through these areas – you would think you were hiking the Appalachian Trail. It also makes for great orienteering as teams now had to scramble up steep slopes, travel ridge lines, and cross mucky streams at the base. Greg and I flew through this section and I also started recovering my energy at this time. As we returned to the TA to complete the mandatory course I was in great spirits.

The Rogaine started with pretty much all the lead teams within 30 minutes (we started right around 2 PM) of each other (every team had a pretty good chance of taking the race at this point). Our strategy was to go for the greatest point densities – which first meant completing the special tests. These went very quickly, and I got to even scale the pole which was the “ropes course”. We dropped our bikes near CP 24 and then easily found 24, 25, 26, and 23, with a little challenge on 25 as Greg had to scale a large tree to get to the punch. We returned to the bikes and then biked to near CP 32, swam across the muck pond and then back, and finally biked around to near CP 27 and did (in this order) 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31.

With about 2 hours of racing left I decided we would make a loop (for 8 points) and hit CP 36, 38, 37, and 39 (also in that order). We spent too much time on 36, originally overshooting it and then searching for the flag. CP 37 was a lot of fun as we crossed the fence and found the concrete bridge which required (me this time) a balancing act to get to the conduit chase about 20 feet away from the bridge where the flag was hung. The strategy was to do this south loop, head back to the TA, and if we had enough time hit CP 41 and 43. We arrive back at the TA with 15 minutes to spare – but I selected a bad attack point for CP 41 (too much hurrying) and we eventually had to head in. By my calculation we had 44 points that should put us well into the standings. My original plan would have given us 7 additional points (51 total) – but time did not allow that.

I transcribed the letters at the end, where I made an error transcribing CP31 (which for some reason sitting in front of me now is very clear), writing E instead of U. This dropped us from 44 points to 41 points and from 2nd to 6th in our division (bummer) and even though it was clear we had visited the CP, the race officials would not credit us the points (double bummer). However, I come to the races for the adventure and my wife won’t let me keep the trophies anyway (I’ve already had multiple trophy purges), so having my fill of adventure for the day I still left happy.

As always, It was great seeing all the teams – special thanks to Village Bike, Bill Jackson’s, Gecko, and Jim’s Bicycles who we spent a lot of the race with. It is always great to race alongside fun teams who also enjoy the adventure and the competition. And also a special kudo’s to Jim Hartnett who really found a winning formula in the race format. I was happy to get a full 10 hours of racing (in past years we finished in well under that and spent a lot of time sitting around for awards). And the best thanks to my team-mate Greg who pulled me through the rough time I had in this race.