Reunion wtih Rice Creek AR (2015)

The Reunion at Rice Creek AR was the first of the "Recap of Sea 2 Sea" race series in which we race through parts of the Sea 2 Sea course.

My buddy Greg Trainor and I, Team Nature Calls, headed up to Palatka to have a fun race.

The Bike (01)

We started the race with a bike section. We had to pick up two out of four possible controls along the way to the boat TA. These were all very easy to find and so we arrived at the boat TA in 2nd place.

~7.06km / 27:17

The Paddle

We quickly got on the boat and headed off towards the first paddle CP. The river was actually very nice to paddle and Greg and I moved quickly. We stay closed to the 1st place team most of the way down. ON the way back, we got a bit turned around at one turn and lost about 10 minutes trying to find our way back along the river. But all in all our paddle went very well and we got off the boats a few minutes behind the 1st place team, which had decided to portage a couple miles, to their advantage.

~9.19km / 1:50:19

The Bike (02)

After getting back on our bikes we quickly headed back towards the Main TA. En route we picked up the other two bike points that we had skipped earlier. Very simple and easy ride.

~5.25km / 24:14

The Bike (03)

After checking in at the Main TA, we headed back out on our bikes on the way to the o-course TA. Along the way we picked up one CP. Again, it wasn't a hard to find CP. But the roads were less than fun, which is reflected on how long it took us to ride the 3.49km.

~3.49km / 35:29

The O-Course

The orienteering section was the most fun part of the race. The trails were very cool and the maps were awesome. We ran into several teams coming and going all over the place. Greg and I navigated very well and found every control fairly quickly.

~7.01km / 1:33:47

The Fire

After finishing the orienteering course we had to a special test to start a fire using the tool provided. At this point we were in 2nd place overall, just a few minutes behind 1st. But for some reason, we could not get that fire started. Not only did we lose more time to 1st place, but we also lost 2nd place to a team that was able to get the fire going quicker than we did. I hate special tests.

The Bike (04)

After finally getting that damn fire going, we jumped back on our bikes once again to head down to the next trekking section. Along the way we picked up a few more controls. Again, the trails were nto in the best condition so our times were a little longer.

~5.27km / 33:14

The Trek (02)

We dropped off our bikes and headed off on the FFT looking for a couple controls down a very cool trail. The trail crossed over several swamps on some very cool bridges. Getting the CPs was easy.

~2.48km / 34:22

The Bike (05)

For one last time we jumped back on our bikes for the ride back to the finish line. We had one control to get along the way, which was right along the road. This ride was very fast for us as we were trying to stay ahead of a couple teams.

~4.42km / 17:58

We finished in 3rd place. We loved the course and hope to get back there in the future.

I made a very cool video of our race...