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.
