The Nocatee 30-Hr AR (2010)

Phew.  What a race.  What an amazingly fun and tough race.  Where to start?

Well, this race took place up in North Florida in the St. Augustine area, in and near the town of Nocatee, FL.  I've raced through this area twice before, and it was always hard.

For this race I teamed up with Trung and Jaime Lynch.  I had never raced with them before, but I know them both and I knew they are both very cool guys and very strong adventure racers.  So at 9:00AM on Saturday morning, off we went....

The Prologue

The race started with a very short prologue.  A simple 1/4 mile run to find some hidden clues.  All took about 7 minutes and we were done and bac to the TA to really start the race....

The Bike 1

After the easy prologue we took off on our bikes for a nice road bike ride with three CPs (checkpoints) along the way. The ride was about 11 miles or so.  The CP's were fairly easy to find.  In this section we hooked up with Jim Carr and Rod Price of Team Eco-Choice.  Since it was a road bike section it helped having five of us trading pulls against a pretty nasty headwind as we headed down A1A.

We quickly found the CPs and made it to the boat ramp were we would take off on our first paddling leg of the race.

The Paddle 1

The first paddle leg of the race would be on a dammed (as in contained a dam) lake which had recently been slightly drained.  Actually, the TA was at the dam itself.  In fact, changes to the course had to be made last minute because of the water level after the lake was drained.  Anyway, we had five CPs to find in this section. The total paddle distance was about 12 miles.  The CPs were again fairly easy to find.  The paddling itself was kinda tough because of the water level.  There were three of us in one canoe, which weighs us down a lot and makes it really hard to paddle in low water.  And it was starting to get really hot out there!

So we slowly made our way up the lake, found four CPs, and paddled back to the dam.  We had to cross over the dam (carry our boats) and find one last CP just south of the dam. Finally, after a few hours (3-4 hours I think), we were happy to get out of the water. I think all three of us share a big dislike for paddling, and we were ready to get out of the boats!

The Bike 2

Now the real fun was about to begin! A long bike section with lots of CPs to find, and all in kinda hard places. It was early in the afternoon, and off we went!

This section would be all off road.  Part fire roads, part jeep trails, part single track. We had nine checkpoints to find, along with an orienteering section in the middle of it.  Thanks to our pre-race planning, this section went really well for us.  Sort of (more on this later).  We did great finding all the points on the course fast and without issue.  CP14 gave us a hard time, but only wasted about 10 minutes on it.  The rest we got right away.

When we reached CP16 we had to go on foot to find five orienteering checkpoints (shoot bearings and go). Again we did wel on this section. Found all points with no issue and we were quickly back on our bikes heading back to the TA.

Just as we got the very last point we noticed something, we were missing one CP, CP9.  That's when I realized I had COMPLETELY forgotten about it! All of the CPs in this section were located north of where we got back on the bikes.  Except for CP9.  That single CP was south.  When we got on the bikes, I just totally forgot about it.  I led us north towards what I though were all the points.  This one mistake would bother me the rest of the race.  But there was nothing we could do about it now.  We were about 12 minles north of the Cp, and there was no way we were going to add 24 miles to our bike leg.  So we had to skip it.  I felt like a complete idiot for letting down my teammates counting on my navigation.

We finished the biking section in the early evening. Now to get ready for some good old fun in the dark.

The Trek 1

We quickly changed, fueled up, geared up, and headed out on foot.  Ahead of us we had a very long trekking section.  Daylight was about to be gone so we moved quickly to try and get at least one CP before darkness consumed us.

We reached CP23 around 7:00PM.  At this point we also ran into Dr. Ron's team, Team Florida Xtreme.  Instead of taking the much longer, but easier route to CP24, we all decided to try the much shorter, but slightly harder route, which meant bushwhacking through some nasty stuff.  Dr. Ron and his team went a different way than we did.  We were both trying to do the same exact thing, try to make it to CP24.  Unfortunately we overshot it and ended up on a road past the CP, and wouldn't you know it, we ran into Dr. Ron who had also missed it.  So since this was going to be a long section, at night, we decided to combine our navigation efforts and team up for this trekking section.

Together, Dr. Ron and I easily led us through the very long section.  We found all the points with only minor slow downs, told some funny racing stories (Dr. Ron has a lot of good ones) and had a really fun time.  Now came time for what would become the toughest part of the race.

The Paddle 2

We finished the trekking section in the middle of the night, on the Guana River where the boats were waiting for us.  Now we had what we thought would be a fairly easy and short paddling leg.  There were four CPs we had to find, and in the middle of the paddle we had another trekking section.  Pretty straightforward right?

Well it turns out that navigating a river like this one, in the middle of the night, is kinda hard.  Usually, when you navigate a river, you have river bends and islands and other features which allow you, as a navigator, to know where you are and find what you are looking for.  But this river had none of that.  It was basically straight as an arrow, and had no discernible features. Almost no way to know where you were.  My point being, finding the CPs became quite the endeavor.  Thankfully, we were still racing with Florida XTreme and Dr. Ron whose many years of navigating experience eventually helped us find all the CPs.  It was hard, no doubt about that.  Also Team Eco-Choice had also joined us.

We ended up backtracking on the river several times.  Getting in and out of the boats in several places only to find we were not in the correct place.  It was frustrating, but we did find all the points.

The Trek 2

We had another trekking section in the middle of the paddle.  It was much shorter than our previous one, and a nice break from the frustration of the river. Working together we found these points very quickly. We were all really enjoying the race so far.  Other than the frustration of the river navigation, we were having fun.  And the night ski, man, that was an incredible sight.  So clear and so many stars!

We found the CPs in this section and got back on the boats to finish the paddling section.  So just shortly after daybreak, early on Sunday morning, we finally, finally got out of the boats.  Phew! Another section down, two more to go.

The Bike 3

After walking about 2.5 miles back to the TA, we geared up for the bike again.  This time we had a long bike section in some of the same area we had trekked the previous night.  we had nine Cps to find in this section.  So again, off we went.

Most of the points on this section were off the trails, but most were again pretty straight forward to get to.  Just a lot of riding.  After a little while it started getting really hot again. And now we had to start worrying about the time. We had to finish the race by 3:00PM, no later.  After the bike we still had another short trekking section to get to, so we needed to plan accordingly. So we kept moving, slow but steady.  we had met up with Team Eco-Choice again, and we worked together to get through the section as quickly as possible.

Sometime just after 1:00PM we made it back to the TA.

The Trek 3

At 1:20PM we started the very last section of the race.  It was a 3.5 miles trek.  We had five very easy CPs to get.  And just about 1 hour later, at 2:27PM, we came across the finish line.

We had finished with all but one of the 55 checkpoints, and ended in 5th place overall.

We had raced for 29 hours and 27 minutes non-stop.  We were tired and hungry.  But were also very happy to have finished such a great and demanding race.

First first off, thank you to my great teammates, Trung and Jamie.  They both did an amazing job! They were great teammates and never complained about anything.  They were always working hard and doing anything they could to help us find the points.  Had a great time racing with them!  Thank you guys!!

I also want to thank Dr Ron, Jim and the rest fo the members of Teams Eco-Choice and Florida Xtreme.  Great time hanging out with all of you.  We now have some great stories to tell our grandchildren about the Guana River.

And finally thank you to Pangea Adventure Racing for another excellent race!

And as a great surprise after a very long 30 hours, Alli showed up to the race finish! Just as we had crossed the finish line there she was. A very welcomed surprised. She drove my tired ass home while I slept the whole way home. And then took great care of my tired, immobile self at home.

Now it's time to relax for a week and then get ready for the next race, the 10-hour Talon AR on May 1st.

---- Race Photos (click here) ----

The Squiggy 6-Hr AR (2010)

Yesterday Team Nature Calls headed back out into the woods for another excellent adventure race, The Squiggy 6-Hour AR, at Morris Bridge Park in the Hillsborough River area.

Jason, Lori and I had not raced together since the Turkey Burn, so we were ready to rock!

The Prologue

In order to split up the teams and put a little distance between them, the race started with a short prologue.  Basically we ran through a mini and short obstacle course right around the start/finish area.  We tried to stay near the front of the pack as we knew there would be back ups at some of the obstacles.  And in a few shorts minutes we were done and on our way to the next part of the race.

Ride -N- Tie

The next part of a race was a section called Ride N Tie.  One teammate rides a bike while the others run.  You can switch off at anytime you want.  The section was only a couple miles long, so we decided Lori would ride and Jason and I would run.  The ride actually turned out to be harder than we thought as sections the trail were not bike friendly.  But Lori did a great job while Jason and I tried to keep a good running pace.  When all was said and done, we finished the section in about 3rd place overall.

The Bike

After a very quick "special test" back at the TA, we tok off for the bike portion of the race.  This section was awesome!  Most of the bike was on great single rack trails which were perfectly maintained.  Very fast trail and very fun to ride.  We were the first ones of the trail, followed closely by our friend Greg (from Pangea Adventure Racing) and his son.

In this section we had five checkpoints to find, three of them would be right along the trail, while two we had to go find off the trail.  We moved quick on the trail and easily found all the points.  Lori who hadn't ben riding much (since she just finished a massive 7-day kayaking trip) did amazing on the bike!

Greg and his son stayed with us most of the way, but unfortunately halfway through the bike one of their derailleurs broke, and Greg had to tow his son all the way back to the TA.  Great job on that Greg!

So we were the first ones back to the TA, and quickly jumped on the boats to star the paddling section.

The Paddle

Now it was time to canoe down the Hillsborough River.  This was a very nice paddle.  Very pretty river. And thanks to all the rain we had the last few weeks, the water level was high which made paddling easy.  Well, except for the fact that heading south on the river the current was against us and very though.

The CP's on the river were again fairly easy to find.  Saw a nice big gator sunbathing or waiting for one of us to tip their canoes, one or the other.  Anyway, once we reached the last CP and turned around to head back to the TA, we were smoking it, thanks to the very strong current.

Made it back to the TA in first place, with a few teams about 10 minutes or so behind us.

The Trek

With a few teams on our tails, we wasted no time in leaving the TA on our last section of the race, the trek/run.  We had seven checkpoints to find in what was basically a very big swamp area.

Kip and Jessica had warned us about the mosquitos in this area, and man were they right.  Only once before have I experienced anything quite like it, and that was while racing through the Everglades.  It was insane.  As soon as you stopped for even a second, you were swarmed by hundred of big nasty mosquitos.  Luckily were had prepared with bug spray, but it was still annoying.

The first two checkpoints on this section were fairly easy to get to as they were off trails.  But the rest were out in the middle of the swampish area next to the river.  It was very wet and very muddy.  We hard a little problem finding FP3.  Looked around for a bit until we finally got our bearings (after making it to the river) and got it.  After that, it was smooth sailing.  Jason's navigation was, as always, spot on.

On our way back to the finish we decided to take the shortest route, which meant taking a dip in the river.  We tried to pick a good section to cross, but still ended up having to swim in what turned out to be pretty cold water.  That's adventure racing!

Made it to the finish line where we had to do a small mental test before finally crossing the finish line.  So a few minutes later, we came across the finish line, 1st Place Overall!  Second place came in about 5 minutes after us.

As always, I want to thank my awesome teammates, Jason and Lori.  We had a great time and good laughs!  Jason was again the man on his navigation and got us to all CP's very quickly!  Awesome job guys!  Can't wait to do it again!

And thank you to Kip, Jessica, and the rest of the WeCeFAR volunteers.  Excellent course!!

Now to get ready for next week's 30-Hour adventure race up in Nocatee, Florida with Trung and Jamie.  Should be fun!

---- Race Photos (click here) ----

The BOAR 6-Hr AR (2010)

Yesterday I did the 6-hour adventure race, The BOAR, with JD and Nikki Bell. It was a beautiful, somewhat cold morning, in East Orlando (Ft. Christmas area).

The Paddle

The race started out great.  We had a short bike ride from the start to the Paddle TA just a few miles away.  The roads were all very nice and hard packed.  It was easy going.  Made it to the boats together with the first two teams.  But here's where very quickly our race would get turned upside dow.

The paddle portion of the race was in the St. John's River flood plain.  Usually, when the water level is low, the flood plain has a very distinct channel that you can paddle on.  And the maps we had for the race, which were taken directly off Google Maps, showed only this clear channel.  However, thanks to all the rain we've had lately, the flood plain was flooded.  There was water everywhere! It was very hard to figure out what the main channel was because everything looked the same.

So we easily and quickly made it to CP1. But then we got completely lost heading to CP2.  As you can see on the map from my GPS watch (below), we ended up paddling way north.  Notice how it looks like we are going over dry land, but believe me, it was anything but dry. 1.5 hours later I was completely lost.  I have never been so lost in a race before.  There was so much water everywhere that it was nearly impossible to figure out where you were.  But finally after about 1.5 hours, we saw another boat and finally figured out where we were.  From there we decided to get a few close CP's then just head in.  Turns out almost every team had a hard time with the paddle, so that made me feel better. But it still sucked and cost us a lot of time.  So we picked up only 4 out of 8 possible checkpoints and headed back to our bikes.

The Bike (1)

Both bike sections of the race were really easy.  After getting off the boats we got on our bikes and biked up to CP9.  From there we backtracked back past the main TA and continued on to CP10 and CP11, before heading into the TA.  Very easy.

The Bike (2)

At the TA we had an option, we could go on to the next bike leg, or to the next trek leg.  We chose to do the bike leg first, get it out of the way, then have the remaining race time to do the trek.

Again, this leg was easy.  All roads were really nice and the CP's were exactly in place.  We saw a lot of big gators in this area just sitting right on the side of the trail, a mere 10 feet from where we were riding.  Very cool.  We finished this section pretty quick and picked up all the CP's (CP20-CP26).  Then we headed back to the TA.

The Trek

Now it was time to trek.  I knew this was going to be a long trek, and we had just about 2-hours to complete it. Since this is a rogaine race the finishing time is very important.  You have to be back to the finish line before the cutoff (3:00PM).  So we kept a a good eye on our watch.

We headed off running and quickly found CP18.  From there we moved up to CP12 and then CP13.  CP14-CP16 were really cool because you had to shoot navigational bearings to each one from the previous one.  Then you had to follow your bearing and find the CP.  I owned this section.  I came up on all 3 CP's right on!  At one point Nikki and JD were wondering what the hell we were doing, but then, there would be the CP, right where I said it would be.  I felt good getting those points so easily.

We finally reached CP17 and had just over 30 minutes to spare.  Now, looking at the map, the trail from CP17 to CP19, and then from CP19 to the finish, looked like a nice hard packed jeep trail.  It was about 2.4 miles from there to the finish.  So I thought we should have plenty of time to finish, no problem.

Unfortunately just south of CP17, the trail turned into a nasty, muddy, mucky shit pile that was impossible to run through.  Parts were under water, other parts you would just sink ankle deep into the cow dung mud.  Running was out of the question.  But, we had already committed so we had to keep pushing.

We found CP19 with exactly 15 minutes left to go.  Again, I thought the trail would get better and 15 minutes might be enough.  But the trail did not get better.  It almost got worse. so for about 1 mile were were walking through this nasty ass crap.  It was so frustrating because I knew this woud cost us big time and we would not finish before 3:00PM.  Finally the last 0.5 mile we got to a nice packed shell road, but by then it was too late.  We were already past 3:00PM.

The Finish/Penalties

We finally finished at 3:11PM.  We had a total of 22 points which was good for a solid 3rd place overall finish.  But the penalties for being late were 1 point per 10 minutes late.  So we got a 2 point penalty and ended up with a net of 20 points, which put us in 5th place.

But we still had a fun race.  JD did really good!  And Nikki was a freaking machine!  She was on fire running ahead of us to every single CP and getting it right away.  Plus the girl has eagle eyes.  She was spotting CP's from all over the place!  Good stuff!  So I want to thank both of you for an awesome race!  I was sorry I miscalculated our time, but, that's racing!

And a huge congrats to Jason, Erica and May-Li who ended up 3rd place overall with a total of 21 points!  Erica fresh of having a baby.  That's good shit!

Here are the two maps.  One is the entire race map.  The other is just the paddle map to show you how lost we were going from CP1 to CP2.

---- Race Photos (click here) ----

The Swamp Stomp 24-Hr AR (2010)

I've always said that the Swamp Stomp is the toughest adventure race in the state.  There are other tough races, like the Coast to Coast, but the Swamp Stomp has always stood out with it course selection, tough terrain, hard navigation and (almost always) cold conditions.  Needless to say, it is one of the "must-do" races in my calendar.  As so it was that Greg and I (Team Hoof Hearted) signed up for this year's race, having had very little training over the long holiday season.  But we had our experience so we figured we could get through it. And here's how it went....

This race was a 'rogaine' style adventure race.  For those of you who don't know, that means that there would be a lot of mandatory checkpoints to find (CP), but there would also be a lot of bonus checkpoints (BP) available.  It would be up to each individual team to decide what, if any, BP's to get.  The main rule on this type of race is that you HAVE TO be at the finish line before the time cut off.  For this race the time cut off was at 1:00PM on Sunday afternoon.  So no matter what you do, you have to make sure you will be done by that time.

The Prologue (Paddle 1)

In a very unusual start, all teams had to options for starting the race.  [u]Option 1[/u] was a 15-16 mile, tough navigation paddle from the Homossassa River resort down to the Chassahowitzka River TA (the main start/finish transition area).  There would be no CP's in this paddle, but all teams would automatically receive 9 points for doing the paddle.  [u]Option 2[/u] was to start at the Chassahowitzka River TA and do a short 1.5 hour paddle while collecting five different CP's located near the TA. The first three teams would ear bonus points in order. First Place = 3 points, 2nd Place = 2 points and 3rd Place = 1 point. The other unusual aspect of this start would be that the teams choosing option 2 would have three hours (from 7am-10am) to finish.  If they finished early, the could sit around until 10:00AM when the rest of the race would officially start.

Greg and I, both pretty out of shape combined with the fact that we hate paddling, decided to do option 2.  We figured we could do well and try to make up the points elsewhere in the race.  And it did pay off.  We ended up doing great on the paddle, taking just 1:35 to complete it, and finished tied for first place, which earned us 3 points. But best of all, we got to sit in our car and warm up for about an hour before heading out for 27 straight hours of pure, but fun, hell.

(more detailed full size image here: http://i46.tinypic.com/2rwuonp.png)

The Bike (1)

At 10:00AM we headed off on our bikes to continue the rest of the race.  This would be a fairly quick, easy bike section of just about 15 miles, and mostly on paved roads.  There were two very easy BP's along the way before reaching the Hebron Church TA.  Not much to tell here as it was a simple section which took us just short of an hour.

(more detailed full size image here: http://i49.tinypic.com/307qiba.png)

The Trek (1)

Here's where the race would really start getting tough. After arriving at Hebron Church TA on our bikes, we headed off on foot for the longest trekking section of the race.  There were lots of mandatory and bonus points to get, and we wanted to get them all. So off we went.

CP2 was a very cool point.  It was located at the bottom of a very cool pit.  Only one of us had to go down, and that was Greg's job.  There were ropes to help you get down cause otherwise it would be impossible (as you can see by the pictures and video below.

Greg coming back up from the pit....

The rest of the trek was just long.  Greg and I ran a good portion of it to try and make good time.  And we nailed every CP right on.  only had two small navigational mishaps which only cost us a few minutes, but nothing major.  The trek was actually fun.  Very cool places and some really cool CP's and BP's.  BP10 was in a cool rock quarry.  And BP9, which you can see below, was in some really neat caves out in the middle of nowhere.  Very cool indeed!

The total trek took us about 6 hours.  But we did what we wanted to do.  We skipped two BP's that were kinda far to get considering we had a cutoff time of 6:30PM to make it back to the TA.

(more detailed full size image here: http://i48.tinypic.com/2ngtpjm.png)

The Bike (2)

After the long trek were got back on our bikes to head of on what would become the toughest part of the race, and the reason a lot of people quit or didn't finish the race.

It was about 6:30PM when we start, and the temperature was already starting to drop fast. We bundled up.  I had five layers on me.  Two polypro longsleeve shirts, a thermal fleece, and two rain jackets. I had on my leg warmers under my long trekking pants.  And as I would find out, this was still not going to be enough.

For us the bike would be pretty straight forward.  We had spent a lot of time studying the maps the night before so we were confident of our route and that we would easily find all the points. What we had not counted on was how bad the trails would be.  Because of all the rain the trails were wet, and because all the short-race (there was another, shorter, version of the race taking place) competitors had already ridden the trails, they were all torn up and muddy.

We hooked up with a couple teams for part of this section.  Our good friends of Team It's Go Time (Trung, Sway, Jaime and Mike) were one of them.  And our friends Tom and Chris were the other.  Tom usually races as Team Punch Junkies.

Everything started out as planned.  We found CP5 quickly.  Moved on to CP6, BP14 and CP7 easily and quickly.  That's where we separated from our friends and went after BP12 on our own.  We found it and headed back.  Even though we were getting the points with no issues, it was still time consuming and slow going because of the condition of the trails.  So after BP12 we decided to go straight to CP8 and head to the TA in order to give us plenty of time to complete the last three legs of the race.  Easy enough right?  It certainly seemed easy enough to us.

It was around 10:00PM or so when we arrived at CP8.  The temperature as still dropping fast.  Last we were told, it got down to 28 that night, and it definitely felt like it.  After CP8 we continued on to what we thought would be a simple and straightforward route to the TA.  But around halfway through we ran into a huge hurdle.  The trail ended.  It just ended into a swamp.  The trail itself was still there, but completely underwater all around.  There was no walking or riding around it either.  There was only one way to do it, jump in the swamp and push our bikes through it.

So in we went into the incredibly, I say again, incredibly cold water.  In sections we would sink down to about waist deep.  But mostly it was about knee deep.  Either way, my feet were completely submerged for about 40 miserable minutes. And once I went into the water when I tripped.  Because of the loose mud, roots, cypress knees under the water, and because it was dark and we were pushing our bikes, it was very slow going.  But eventually, out we came out onto a solid trail where we could ride again.

By the time we reached the TA, around midnight, my hands and feet were completely numb.  My feet hurt like they have never hurt before. I've always known I have bad circulation on my extremities.  Even at 70 degrees my fingers get cold. So thankfully there was a couple very hot fire pits going at the TA.  We sat around for a long time trying to warm up. This is were we made a tough decision regarding the rest of our race...

(more detailed full size image here: http://i45.tinypic.com/2wqcw34.png)

The Trek (2)

Sitting around the fire trying to warm up Greg and I had some decisions to make.  We had about 11 hours left to finish the race.  We had what we knew would be a couple hours trek, a couple hours bike ride, and around a 6 hour paddle before finishing the race.  Basically we knew we would be hard pressed to finish the race by 1:00PM, even if we picked up only the rest of the mandatory CP's.  So after overhearing another team in the same situation, we decided to skip a few of the mandatory CP's.  we would still finish the race, but of course we'd be out of contention for prizes or anything of the sort.  But we didn't care.  We really just wanted to finish the race. So we decided to go get one of the trek CP's, skip two, and then continue the race with the last bike and paddle.

Obviously the trek was simple.  We trekked down the trail a short way, picked up CP10, and headed back.  Even in that short time we got so cold.  So we went back and warmed up by the fire one last time before biking all the way back to the main finish line to do the last paddle.

(more detailed full size image here: http://i46.tinypic.com/154wn6p.png)

THE COLD

As we prepared to leave the TA on our bikes we got a good idea of just how cold it was.  All the gear we had left at the TA while on our trek was completely frozen.  With actual frost on it.  And here's a new one for me, our bikes were frozen.  The chain and cables did not work. Seriously, we could not pedal the bike or change gears because it was all frozen!  We ended up pouring water on everything to try and melt it.  To make it more fun, our CameBak hoses were also frozen.  We could work the ice out of them, drink, and by the time we tried to drink again they would be frozen.  It was unreal.

The Bike (3)

This section was fairly straightforward.  Most of it was on hard packed shell roads.  We were tired and cold so we rode slow, but we found a few BP's and both of the mandatory CP's along the way.  We ran across a handful of teams on this section and arrived at the TA a little after the sun finally came out on a cold Sunday morning.

(more detailed full size image here: http://i50.tinypic.com/micord.png)

The Paddle (2) - The Finish!

To finish the race we had one last paddling section to do.  This section had just four mandatory CP's, and a handful of BP's.  The furthest point (CP5) was about 5 miles out.  We knew going out to get that one and trying tp pick up the other three CP's would put us past the 1:00PM deadline.  SO we decided to skip that CP, another mandatory one, and focus on getting the three other CP's.

These three were not hard to find.  They were actually very cool.  All three of them were located on natural springs.  CP14 and CP17 were very neat to get to.  The natural spring water was the usual 72 degrees, which made it seem so warm compared to everything we had encountered so far.  So getting in the water and getting our feet wet in these areas was actually pleasant.

CP16 was the last CP of the race for us, and also most unusual CP I've ever been too.  It was underwater.  CP16 was at another natural spring down in a cave-like hole underwater.  There was no punch, but a bucket with tokens.  One of us had to dive underwater and retrieve one of the tokens.  It was my turn to do the crazy...

After that we paddled back to the TA and the FINISH LINE!!  We were done.

(more detailed full size image here: http://i46.tinypic.com/k4ys5c.png)

The Finish

We had managed to get a lot of bonus points, but unfortunately had missed three of the mandatory points. So we did well and finished a very tough race, but it would have been nice to have gotten all the mandatory points.

In the end it was another excellent race.  Right on par for the previous Swamp Stomps.  Cold weather, tough navigation and a hard course.  Sure, we were pretty miserable at times, but in the true spirit of adventure racing, we never considered quitting.  Even though, I must admit, the thought crossed my more than a few times.  But if there's one thing I've learned from my adventure racing mentor (Jason) is that quitting is not an option anymore. In my first few AR's I quit a few times and later regretted it.  But Jason taught me to do what I have to (like skipping CP's), but always try to make it to the finish line one way or the other.  So Greg and I were definitely happy with our accomplishment of another successful race.

Jessica, Kip and Michael Moule did a great job setting up the course and putting together an awesome race.  Thank you guys!  And thanks to all the great volunteers who were out there in the cold in the middle of the night ready to help us out in any way possible.

And thanks to Greg who did a great job helping me with the navigation and pushing me in the times when I was hurting the most.  Awesome job Playa!

Now on to the rest of the 2010 AR races which are sure to be just as fun!!

---- Race Photos (click here) ----

The Turkey Burn 12-Hr AR (2009)

Going into this year's race we as a team had a different goal in mind than most other races.  Although we wanted to do great on the race as usual, we also wanted to win the Pangea Adventure Race Series.  Out of all the teams that were registered for the race, only four qualified for the Elite Point Series.  Going into the race we (Team Nature Calls [NC]) were ranked in second place in the series, behind Team Shake-a-Leg (SaL).  Close behind us was Team Punch Junkies (PJ), and following them was Team Badfish.

We did several races this year and most came right down to the wire between us, SaL and PJ.  A couple we won.  But in all it always came down to the three of us teams finishing in the first three spots.  And the races were close. One of the races we finished 21 seconds behind the winners (PJ) and just 1 minutes ahead of SaL. So we knew the Turkey Burn would be a tough one.

Somehow, the Turkey Burn Adventure Race always manages to fall on very cold nights, and last weekend did not disappoint.  When we arrived at the start/finish area in Wekiva State Park at 2:00am, it was around 40 degrees.

The Start

The race started at exactly 4:00am with a short 1.5 mile time trial kind of event where one person from each team had to ride the loop and get back to his teammates as soon as possible.  Jason Willems did the ride form SaL, I did it for our team.  JW smoked the ride, and I finished about 1 minute behind him, quickly hooking up with Jason and Lori and heading off on the short bike ride ahead of us.

We had a couple points to find on the bike ride and as usual, Jason led us right to them.  We quickly moved on and arrived at TA1 in about 4th or 5th place.  Here we dropped off our bikes and headed off on foot to pick up a couple points then head to the boats.

The Trek 1

On the short trek Jason again did his thing and got us to the points quickly.  We kept a pretty good pace and tried to stay ahead of the teams behind us.  Sometime later we arrived at the boat TA.

The Paddle

It was still dark out when we got on our boats, and because the air temperature was much colder than the water temperature, there was a pretty nasty and thick fog coming off the water, which made it a little hard to navigate the river at first.  As a three-person team, we all had to get in one boat.  Usually this means that the person in the middle has to sit on the floor of the canoe.  but for this race they had canoes with a middle seat.  This was great because it meant the middle person could help paddle, but it also screwed us up a little.  Having the middle person sitting up high like that threw off the center of gravity on the boat, so balancing it was a lot of work for all of us.  And sure enough, about 1 mile into the paddle, we were coming around a turn and hit a tree trunk that was submerged under the water.  The impact quickly threw us over.  All three of us went into the river, bags and all.  Luckily it was not deep so we just got up and back on the boat quickly, but now we were soaked, and cold.  The more we paddled, the colder we got.  Lori and I were so cold we literally could not unbuckle our lifevests.  Our fingers were so numb that we just could not do it.  :)  But we kept moving on and one by one kept picking up points.  We knew that Team SaL was way ahead of us.  But we weren't sure where PJ and Badfish were.  Finally, after some good paddling and navigation, we arrived at the next TA where we would drop of the canoes and go off on a nice long treking section.  At this point we were still in about 4th or 5th place.  But all would change in the next leg...

The Trek II

This second trek would be good for us, but also it was here where I screwed up and cost us some points.  More on that later.  So off we went on what would be a fairly long trek section with a handful of CPs to pick up along the way.  Again we were feeling good so we kept a pretty descent pace.  Jason was right on the money on his navigation and one by one we hit all the CP's without any problems.  We ran into a couple teams along the way, but quickly got away from them as Jason's navigation was spot on and allowed us to make up time.  After picking up the 6 or so CP's (I don't remember how many), we made it back to the TA where we had originally left our bikes earlier that morning.  As we walked up to the volunteers we asked them how many teams were ahead of us.  "One," they guy said.  Just one.  We didn't even have to ask the team name.  Instead we quickly replied, "So how far ahead of us is team Shake-A-Leg?"  "About one hour."

The Bike II (The ride to the finish)

So were were very happy cause we had passed a lot of teams in that trek and had moved up to second place in the race.  And we had a pretty solid lead on the third place team, which made it even sweeter.  And to make things even better, we were about to jump on our bikes for the last leg of the race.  The bike, which as most of you know is our strongest discipline.

So off we went on our bikes, riding strong and feeling great cause all was going as planned.  Team SaL was smoking, and catching them would be nearly impossible, but a strong second finish would be sweet.  So Jason once again led us directly to every point along the way.  we were knocking them out fast and without issue.  And we never saw another team behind us.  But then we got to CP27.

We now had only three CP's to get before getting to the finish line.  After getting CP27 we continued on the trail on our way to CP28.  The trail we were on crossed a very defined fire road trail which was not on the map.  And this one thing threw us for a loop.  We ended up taking that road and ended up getting a bit lost.  A long 40 minutes later (and after some nasty, nasty bush whacking) we popped out on another trail nowhere near where we expected to be.  But at least we knew where we were, and from there easily made it to CP28 and then on to the last two CP's before getting to the finish line (where I screwed up again).

The Finish

When we got to the finish line we were about 5 or 6 teams back.  That one single mistake from CP27 to CP28 costs us that many spots.  But as I've always said and I still stand by it, that is what makes adventure racing so much fun.  There are no certainties.  One tiny mistake, one small wrong turn, can be the difference between winning it all and losing.  And even Jason, who is without question one of the best navigators in the state, can sometimes make a small mistake.  This is what makes the sport so exciting! Unlike almost every other sport, it's not all about physical strength.

So we made it to the finish literally seconds ahead of Team Punch Junkies.  So we were still happy, we had lost our place in the race itself, but in the point series championship, we would end up in second place for the year.  Not too shabby.

The Screw Up

I've mentioned it twice.  And I feel like an idiot because it was my fault.  As we were sitting and relaxing by our car after finishing, Greg, the race director for Pangea Adventure Racing and a good friend, came up to us and informed us that we had missed something.  He was right.  The instructions clearly specified that going to/from the start/finish TA, all teams had to go by the main gate of the park.  I did not inform Jason this.  And both times, as we left and came back to the main TA, Jason, doing what he does best and finding the shortest way, had us go around the main gate.  It was only about a one mile shortcut. But because we did not go through it it cost us some penalty points (and rightly so).  So we ended up losing points to Team Punch Junkies in the series standings and it moved us back to third place.  A lesson I will surely never forget.

Even though we were a little disappointed with ourselves, we still had a great race!  All three of us raced strong and hard and had fun doing so.  Even through the numb fingers and toes early in the morning, we love adventure racing and wouldn't give it up for anything!

Congrats to Team Shake-A-Leg for an amazing race!  You guys truly smoked that course!  And congrats to Team Punch Junkies for another strong finish!  Love racing against you guys.  Makes the race so much more fun and exciting.  Looking forward to next year!

And of course, I want to thank Lori and Jason for another fun race!  You guys rock!  And as I always say, I couldn't imagine racing with anyone else.

Now it's time to get ready for the always tough and brutal Swamp Stomp AR in February.  The SS has always been, in my book, the toughest race in the state. It's 36hours, usually cold (February) and always tough navigation.  But we wouldn't want it any other way!

Leadville Trail 100 MTB Race (2009)

The 2009 Leadville MTB race truly was epic.

As we drove to Leadville early in the morning it was raining and cold.  39 degrees out.  We were all bundled up.  Once we got to Leadville the rain had stopped, but the temps were still in the high 40's.  The town was insane.  The start line packed with over 1000 riders.  Truly an incredible sight. As we lined up the weather was already changing.  Behind us to the East, it was clear blue skies.  But ahead of us to the west-southwest, the way we were going, it was cloudy and looking gloomy.

As is tradition, at exactly 6:30am, the shutgun blast got the race started. The mass start was chaos.  It was very important to pay attention and not crash right away.  The race starts with a 4 mile, paved road, downhill section.  It's fast.  And because of the speed, the wind was cold! By the time I was 2 miles down I could not feel my fingers or toes already. Within minutes we had reached the start of the off-road section, the race was on.

The first trail we hit is a gravel jeep trail that leads us to the first climb.  It's about 3 miles or so.  At this point it is still pretty packed with people so you have to be careful.  This is were things started to go bad.  Halfway down the trail, some moron was running, yes running, backwards on the trail.  I have no idea why. As he approached the group of cyclists Jason was with, he suddenly cut across the road and took Jason out! What an idiot!  Jason was fine, but his bike had a couple mechanical issues.  Specifically, his headset was not on tight enough and his wheel ended up pointing the wrong way.  So he had to stop and take care of that.

I continued on.  Shortly after we hit the base of St. Kevins pass  the first climb of the race. This is a very small jeep road, no wider than a small single lane.  It is very, very rocky.  And because of the amount of people on the trail, you don't have much choice of picking a line (MTB'ers will understand what I mean).  You are stuck riding on whatever is ahead of you, whether it is rocks, holes, etc.  Lucky for me, I hit everything right on.  My bike was awesome and I was feeling good. Up to this point the weather had cleared up.  It was still cold, but no rain.  In fact, there was a beautiful rainbow next to us.  But by the time we reached the top of the climb, nearly 10 miles into the race, it got dark, cloudy, and the rain started again.  Cold nasty rain.

At the top of St Kevins you transition into a 6 mile paved downhill called Touquoise Lake Rd.; it's steep and curvy.  Kinda like one of the Six Gap descents.  Usually I bomb down this road, but with the wet roads and rain, I was being careful.  Plus I have some slick race MTB tires on my bike so I didn't know how they would handle it.  A the bottom of Tourquoise Lake you then turn onto a gravel road and begin the long second climb of the race, the climb they call Sugarloaf.  No lie.  It's Sugarloaf.  Funny shit.

Sugarloaf climb starts as a gravel road but after a mile or two it turns into a very rocky small road. At this point the weather had cleared again.  It was so damn weird.  It would change in a mater of seconds, from one extreme to the other.  Anyway, the climb was fairly good.  But it was wet and muddy.  It made it slow going.  Again I felt pretty strong and just keep pedaling and keeping a comfortable pace.  The view as you are climbing Sugarloaf is amazing.  So beautiful with the lake below you.  I wish I had a camera.

At the top of Sugarloaf the real fun begins. That's where the Powerline descent starts. Powerline, as I've explained before, is not really a road.  It's just the clearing below the powerline coming down the mountains.  The path is very messed up with huge ruts, holes, and all sorts of other obstacles.  It is a descent which only has one line you can take.  You are constantly crossing from one side of the path to the other, jumping ruts, and holes.  And to make it even better, it was muddy as hell. The clouds had rolled in again so it was also kinda dark.  But man was it still fun.  I consider myself a pretty good descender, and I fly down the descents.  Fun shit!  My bike was handling everything flawlessly!

Shortly after Powerline we get to the frist aid station at Pipeline.  Its the 25 mile point of the race.  I got there exactly at the time I wanted to, 2:30 into the race.  I was right on schedule. I felt great.  Grabbed a couple bottles, some food, and went on my way.

From Pipeline to the next aid station at Twin Lakes its a short ride, only about 1 hour.  It's got a couple of small climbs, but nothing crazy.  It's a great area to eat and drink, which is what I did.  And exactly one hour later, I got to Twin Lakes again exactly on schedule, at 3:30.  I had my split goal written on my bike, and so far I was right on!! I was well ahead of were I was last year and if I kept it up, I would have no problems finishing the race.

But this is where things went downhill for me.  I got to Twin Lakes too fast.  Alli had not had a chance to make it there from Pipeline.  She had all my gear and food.  I had carefully planned out my nutrition, and I was planning to take specific things at specific times.  But she wasn't there yet.  Erica was, so I grabbed a couple bottles from her and went on my way.  I knew this would cost me.  I really wanted my camelbak (which Alli had) and specific food I had bought and made just for this section.  But I couldn't wait. I felt great and was on schedule, so I took off on the hardest part of the race, the climb up Columbine.

At first everything was perfect.  I saw Lance heading back from Columbine.  He looked incredibly strong.  Rode right by me.  Pretty cool.  Anyway, on the climb I was feeling good.  Until about halfway up.  That's where I started to feel the bonk.  All I had with me were gels and water (again cause I was unable to load up with what I had planned).  I kept eating gel and drinking, but it was not helping.  And once we started the pushing section, two miles from the turnaround, I was beat.

The weather was not helping.  I swear it changed every 10 minutes.  From hot sunlight, to wet cold rain.  It was ridiculous.  At the top, it was cold as hell and windy! I pushed and pushed but my stomach started going to hell.  I got to the point I couldn't drink anymore.  It flat out hurt.  But I kept slowly moving.  And finally after just over three hours from starting, I made it to the top.  And get this, IT WAS HAILING UP THERE!!!  Yes, f'ing hail coming down on us!  My fingers were completely numb.  I literally couldn't shift using myngingers, I had to use the palm of my hand. At the aid station at the top, under hail, I ate everything they had.  Soup, cookies, coke, etc.  I spent about 7 minutes there, tried to warm up my fingers, and decide to start the best part of the race, the descent from Columbine!!

As amazingly hard as this race is, and as much as it makes me want to cry, and as much as it hurts, that descent from Columbine brings a smile to my face.  Again, I consider myself a pretty good descender. And I bombed it!!  I was flying down the first two miles of rocks.  Picking the perfect line and hitting every thing right on.  Then you get to the tree line were the trail turns fairly clean and steep.  And again, I was flying!!  Not even touching my brakes until I would see the switchbacks coming up. Man, it is just a blast.

And so after about 40ish minutes, I made it back to Twin Lakes.  There I was feeling good again.  I stopped and got some food from the crew and got going again.  I was behind my scheduled goal split, but I was still doing ok.  I could still make it. So I went at it hard.

The ride to Pipeline was a little longer, about 1:10 or so.  I made it to Pipeline with 3:25 minutes left to finish.  It would be tight, but it was most definitely doable.  But my stomach was still hurting.  I rarely ate on my ride from Twin Lakes to Pipeline.  I was getting nauseous. So at Pipeline I force some food down and some drink, and went on my way.

I got to the Powerline climb and started the brutal pushing. Push, push, push.  I kept trying to drink and stay hydrated, but by the time I got to the top of the first major Powerline climb, I puked.  Everything I had eaten at Pipeline came out almost perfectly.  So now I realized I had nothing in my stomach and no energy. So I forced myself to eat some gel.  And then, I puked that out as well.  My stomach just couldn't keep anything down. I was completely out of energy and I couldn't eat.  So I was barely moving. This is where my race was over. Anytime I tried to pedal I got dizzy. I almost started crying.  I knew it was all over.  And what sucked is that up to that point, I still had time to make it.

So slowly I kept pushing my bike until I got to the top of Powerline, which starts the Sugarloaf descent.  My plan now was to ride the descent until I saw a support person so I could use his phone and call Alli to come get me.

As I was descending down Sugarloaf, I saw a guy on the side of the road changing a flat.  I thought to myself "I am done anyway, so I might as well help him." And much to my dismay, when I rode up on him it was Jason!  My heart hit the ground.  Sure, I felt bad for me, but J was going for the Leadman crown!  He needed to finish this.  And he was actually doing it.  He had been a good 30 minutes ahead of me, so he was sure going to make it under 12, no problem.  But he had three flats!  When I stopped I immediately looked at my watched and knew it was all over for him.  I seriously felt so bad.  I honestly started to cry.  Thank God I was wearing my sunglasses so he couldn't see.

But J was in good spirits.  He knew shit happens.  He had done all he could.  But the three flats was something he couldn't control. So the two of us continued down Sugarloaf to the bottom.  I was still planning to stop and get picked up.  Jason told me when I rode up on him my face was green.  He knew something was seriously wrong with me.  Jason planned to keep going to the finish.

So when we got to the bottom, I stopped and was just going to call, when Jason came rolling back in.  He had started the Tourqouise Lake Rd climb, but felt like shit.  He figured the stops for the flats took a toll on him.  And I could see it on his face.  He was pale.  He laid down on the road and was not looking good.  So the two of us called it a race at that point.  Actually, about 6 other guys rolled up and quit the race right there.

So there you go.  I almost had it.  I was there.  But it wasn't meant to be.  After 86 miles, I had to stop.  Turns out, out of the 6 of us doing the race, only one finished, Ralph.  Lori and Jim had missed the cut off at Pipeline, And even BB2 had to quit earlier in the race because of his knee.

The race this year was harder than all the others.  The weather was a huge factor.  The muddy trails, the cold, everything, made what is already a tough race even harder.  But we gave it everything we had.  We tried.  That's all we could do.

I want to congratulate all of us.  Jim, Lori, Jason, BB2, me, Ralph and G$.  As I am sure you will hear from G$ later, this race is tough, and just starting it is a huge thing.

Finally, I want to give huge props to our support crew.  They were awesome!!!  Alli, Erica, Nikki, Matt, Ryan, Scott, Stacey, Karen, Kevin.  These guys took such great care of us.  They spent their entire day dealing with the tough weather just to be there for us.  Love you all guys!!

So thank you (Roadies) all for all your awesome comments and support.  You guys are great!!  But on the plus side, we know have a full week of partying it up in Colorado, so expect many drunk pics to come!!

Peace out peeps!

Manny

The ACC 30-Hr AR (2009)

As expected, the 2009 Atlantic Coast Conquest was a tough, fun, and VERY competitive race.  Loaded with tough racing, and fast teams, this race was an all out war to the end.  Well, a war for second place that is.  First place was well out of our reach, and almost all other teams, from the word go.

The race took place up in the Jax/St. Augustine area.  Mainly in the Guana River State Park, and surrounding areas.

The Trek (I)

For us the ACC started with an approximately 10k trekking section where we had to find five different CP's.  All were fairly easy to get.  A couple took some searching for, but we still got them pretty quickly.  We tried to run as much as we could, so we maintained a slow jog most of the way.  We thought it would be enough to get us near the front of the pack.  But when we finished the leg, we were told 5 other teams had come in ahead of us. Guess I need to improve my running speed.  :)

The Bike I

The first bike leg was a short section were again, we had to find five points along a part rural and part off-road area.  We felt good and started moving quick.  The second CP gave us a hard time as we turned on a wrong trail, and had to back track to find the correct one.  After that one the rest of the points were pretty easy to find.  We passed a couple teams along the way.  And as we were heading back to the TA, we could see another one in front of us, on the bike path we were riding.  We caught them just a few short miles from the TA.  It was Team Relentless.  A great team and one of our main competitors.

Now just over three hours in the race, we were about to start what would become one of the hardest paddling legs I have ever done.

The Paddle I

At first glance the paddle section seemed innocent.  We knew it would be very long.  But we didn't expect it to be so hard.  As soon as we started heading south on the Intracoastal Waterway however, we quickly found out.

The combination of a very tough North-East wind, with the rising tide, made for the boats to be very hard to track.  Then entire way south on the river, our boat very badly wanted to go left.  For probably 80% of our paddle on the way down the river, I paddle only on our left side, trying to keep the boat heading straight.  It was brutal.

But slowly we inched down picking up the handful of points that were placed along the way. We made it to the south end of the paddle where we had to get out of our boats for what we expected to be a short trekking section.

The Trek II

The trek proved to be a little harder than expected.  The maps we had were pretty bad.  Trails marked that were not there.  Trails not marked that were there.  And a scale so small that it was hard to get any details in the few part the map did match the trails.  But everyone had the same maps, so everyone had to deal with the same thing.  And Jason did a great job.  Until CP21.

As we got into the woods, we came across a huge group, several teams together, looking for CP21.  We knew that was not a good sign.  We didn't stick with them as we were still not ready for 21.  But when did try to find it, it took us forever.  A point we should have found in 5 minutes, took us about 45.  Later we found out that almost every team had a tough time with it because of the maps and the plot.

Anyway, after the CP21 fiasco, we went back to the boats and started the long paddle back to the main TA.

The Paddle II

Lucky for us, the paddle home was rather nice.  The wind started dying down and the current wasn't so bad.  And in fact, we even got to see an air show!

There was a squadron of planes flying in formation and training right above us.  It was very cool.  The flew by us several times, in different formations, and with their smoke trails going.  I took several pictures I will post later.

The paddle back was un-eventful.  Just long.  So we made it back to the TA at 8:00pm.  Just about 12-hours into the race.

The Bike II

Around 8:30pm we started what we expected would be a fun bike leg.  It was night time, nice weather, and according to the map, the points we had to find should be easy enough. But this leg turned out to be the hardest part of the race.

We started off on a great note.  Found the first few points and were moving fairly good.  Again what the map showed, and what was actually there, did not match so well.  But Jason did the best he could, and it was working great, until CP30.

CP30

CP30 is how this race will be remembered by most of us.  It was the one checkpoint that either made, or broke, the race for a number of teams.

As we approached CP30, around midnight, we passed Teams Eco-Choice and Punch Junkies.  Jason picked his attack point, we put our bikes down, and trekked into the woods as we expected to come up right to it.  A few minutes later, we ran into Eco-Choice and Punch Junkies also looking for it in the same area.  And about 20 minutes after that, there were approximately 8 teams out there all looking for the point in the same area.  Nobody could find it.  Jason even worked with Dr. Ron trying to pinpoint where we were and where the point was.  We walked up and down the area for a long time, with no luck.

One by one the teams gave up and just skipped it.  We decided to do the same.  It was tough because we knew we were in the right place.  And we knew that missing just one point on a race like this means a lot.

We then continued on the bike, trying to make heads or tails of the maps we had, and eventually found the rest of the points and made it to TA2.

The Trek III

After we got off the bike on the south end of the park, we started a trekking section to find the last six points of the race.  It was just about 7:00am and daylight was starting to break.  Just about 23 hours into the race.  These points were all actually very easy to get.  Not actual check point flags, but rather we had to find answers to a handful of questions.  It was a beautiful area we were trekking through.  But I was so tired I didn't enjoy it much.  I was ready for some real food!  :)

After the trek we quickly got back on our bikes and rode the 10 miles straight back to the finish line.

Results

In the end Team Shake-A-Leg owned the course.  They flat out smoked it!  Finished almost 4 hours ahead of any other teams, and got every point!  Pretty impressive really.  They are definitely the team to beat now in Florida AR.

As expected, that missed CP cost us a lot.  Besides Shake-A-Leg, a couple other Elite teams ended up finding CP30.  And so even though they finished behind us, they placed ahead of us.  But, that's adventure racing! You never know how things will turn out, and the outcome of a race is not decided until the last team crosses the finish line.  And that's why I love it so much!

As always, as a team we had a great time!  Lori, Jason and JG are awesome teammates!  They make it that much more fun!

Not it's time to concentrate on one thing and one thing only, training for the toughest bike race in the U.S., Leadville.  For the third year in a row we are all heading back to tackle the brutal climbs, scary descents, and soul sucking altitude of the hardest race I have ever competed in.  But on the plus side, for the second year in a row I'll be racing against Lance Armstrong.  :)

---- Race Photos (click here) ----