The Coast to Coast 72-Hr AR (2008)

Another year and another excellent and tough C2C race is down in the books.  This was my 5th C2C in a row, and even tough what you are about to read will make most people wonder why anyone in their right mind would put themselves through this, I am pretty sure I will be doing many, many more.

This year I was back racing with my great friends Jason Amadori, Jim Gabbert, and Lori Gabbert.  I don't even know if calling them friends is fair, because in reality, they are like family.  As most of you know, we are Team Nature Calls.  And our awesome support crew was my girl Alli, Jason's wife (and the Gabbert's daughter) Erica, and Jim and Lori's other kid's, Ashley, Matt, and a friend of the family, Maggie.  Once again, they were amazing out there for us.

Pre Race

I won't bore you with all the pre-race details.  We got the maps on Thursday night and spent several hours plotting all the coordinates and figuring out what route we would take.  But I will bore you with one important detail.  Monday morning I woke up with a scratchy throat.  I was hoping it was nothing.  Tuesday it was a little worse, and by Tuesday night it totally hurt.  I called in sick to work on Wednesday because I wanted to stay home and try to take care of whatever it was that I may be coming down with.  it didn't help.  Thursday I felt no better.  And wouldn't you know it, that it was when we woke up Friday morning (race start) that I had a full blown cold on my hands.  I woke up feeling like total garbage, just in time to start a brutal 72-hour race.  Perfect.  But what could I do right?  As Jason has taught me, the race must go on.

The Race Start - Run / Paddle

The race started at 6:00am on Friday morning in Cocoa Beach.  We had a quick 5 mile run, south on the beach, to a boat ramp where we would pick up our kayaks.  The run was easy, but right away we realized how hot the race would be.  Even at 6:00am it was humid as all hell out there.  We were drenched in sweat within minutes.

I just about 1 hour we reached the boat ramp, quickly jumped in our kayaks, and headed north on the Banana River for a ~17 mile paddle.  We paddled north to a checkpoint at the bridge at 520.  Then continued north, under 528, and then headed east on a canal to the Intracoastal and back south to 520, where our second transition area, TA2, was located.  The paddle was fairly easy, but then again, it was the start of the race and we were all fresh and full of energy.

The Cold

So far my cold was mainly just giving me a really bad cough.  My throat hurt pretty bad, and I was coughing a lot.  But other than that I felt alright.  That wouldn't last long.

The Bike (1)

After we got the maps on Thursday night we knew there was going to be a lot of biking on this race.  And as cycling is our strongest point, we liked it.  In the end we ended up with about 190 miles of total mountain biking for the race.

At TA2 we transitioned from paddle to bike.  it was a fairly fast TA for us.  In and out in about 20 minutes.  We were the 4th team to make it to the TA, but the first one to leave.

This bike was going to be a good combination of on and off road riding.  We started by heading Northwest on SR 520 from Cocoa Beach.  We would ride 520 all the way until we reached the Tosohatche Reserve near Christmas, FL.  We got in a nice paceline and Jason and Jim rotated at the front, maintaining a nice comfortable 16-18 mph.  As per Jason's suggestion, I stayed off the front to save my energy because he knew the cold would eventually drain me and I had to save all I could.  On the way down 520 Lori got a flat tire.  We stopped right on the bridge over the St. Johns River to change it.  As we were changing it we were passed by two teams.  After we got going again it took us about 10 minutes to catch and pass both teams.

We made it to Tosohatche where we were now going off road to find several checkpoints out on the trails.  It was now the middle of the day, and the sun was scorching hot!  Riding in the trails there was very little shade, and absolutely no breeze.  So it got hot.  it was like an oven in there.  And that's where my cold and my weakened body first affected me.  I had a hard time breathing and I felt so hot.  Jim took my pack from me which helped cool me down.  And later on Jason towed me.  If not for everyone's help I don't know if I could have made it.  But after several hours of riding around the trails looking for CP's, we finally made it out and found a convenience store on Hwy 50 were we loaded up with cold drinks and lots of ice.  I think we went through two bags of ice at the store!

The Storm

From the store on HWY50 we had to ride east on 50 to Ft. Christmas Rd.  Then head North on Ft. Christmas and make our way to 419 and finally to Snow Hill Rd on our way to TA3 which was actually located at the Snow Hill trail head.

As we were headed up Ft. Christmas Rd, a bad storm started heading our way.  The wind picked up and the temps dropped.  Halfway down the road, the rain started.  It got worse and worse, and the wind was incredible.  One time the wind literally pushed Lori and I right off the road.  We rode through it for a few more minutes, but at one time it got so bad that, and I am not exaggerating about this, I was blinded by the rain coming down so hard.  And to make matters worse, the wind suddenly seemed to be coming at us from all directions at 30+mph.  That's when we immediately got off the road, threw our bikes down, and jumped in the bushes on the side of the road.  We thought for a second that maybe a tornado was nearby.  It was those kind of conditions.  After about 10 minutes of hunkering down in the bushes the wind and the rain slowed down, so we jumped back on our bikes and headed to Snow Hill.

The Trek (1)

At Snow Hill we found ourselves leading the race.  So we again quickly ate and changed into our trekking gear as we had a fairly long foot section ahead of us through the Little Big Econ State Forest.  We had several CP's to find.  But luckily for us it was still daylight so we didn't have any problems getting them.  I was still hurting and couldn't trek as fast as the other guys, so Lori, bad ass that she is, pulled out the tow rope and towed me almost the entire section.  She's a monster.

After exiting LBE, we had some urban trekking through Oviedo and finally a trek down the Cross Seminole trail to TA4 at the Adventure Cycles bike shop.

At the TA we ate and changed.  And this is when we saw Team Adventure World, Dr Ron Eaglin's team come in just behind us.  we learned that unfortunately they had lost two team mates due to heat exhaustion.  That really sucks.  Especially for some as nice as Dr. Ron.  You will never find a nicer guy in any sport, ever.  But this meant that our main competition in the race was now 'unranked'.  So it would take some pressure off us.

Just as we were ready to take off (on bikes), a huge storm blew in.  Lightning was hitting all around us.  Bad, bad lightning!  So we were forced to sit around for about 20 minutes until it blew over.

The Bike (2)

The second bike leg was going to be a very cool and very neat 'urban' ride.  We would ride through Oviedo and Altamonte Springs.  First making our way to the Travel Country Outdoors store where there was a manned checkpoint.  From there we would continue on bike through neighborhoods up to the Wekiva area where we would finally end up on Wekiva Springs Rd just on the southern tip of the Wekiva Springs State Park.  It was still raining a little so it was nice and cool.

We got to TA5 right at midnight.  Friday was now over, but Saturday would prove to be another very hard day.

The Swamp

From TA5 we had to head north through a swamp to find 3 out of our next 8 checkpoints in Wekiva.  There was one point right in the middle of the swamp, about 500 yards from the start.  There was no point of reference or anything we could use to navigate to it.  We had to use true navigating skills and keep a constant bearing in the direction of the point, hoping we would find it.  And wouldn't you know it, we found it!  From here it was going to be a 2 mile bushwhack through the swamp to get out on to some trails on the north side of it.

I know I have told you guys about bushwhacking before.  I have told you how tough it is.  But this bushwhack was unreal.  I am just going to copy and paste exactly what Dr Ron already posted in his blog because he describes it perfectly....

For anyone who has never bushwhacked their way through a thick swamp in the dark, you have no frame of reference and cannot possibly understand what thing is like. Issue #1 – spiders and bugs. Swamps are full of them and they want nothing more than to sting or bite you. Every step entailed knocking down a few webs. Issue #2 – the terrain. This involved endless climbing over fallen trees, bashing through palmettos, crawling over and under trees, and fighting sticker bushes. Issue #3 – Direction. Without constantly checking the compass it is easy to simply do circles. It really does all look alike and it is very easy to get confused.

This was truly a tough bushwhack.  The swamp was wet from the previous rain and so it was muddy and wet.  Every step was climbing over some log or tree, or going under one.  Whenever we hit a section where we could walk three straight steps without and obstacle, it was a luxury.  We did this for about three hours before finally making out to an old logging road which eventually led us to the jeep trail we were looking for, and out of the swamp.

The swamp was just the start.  After getting out of there we still had 7 other points to find through Wekiva and Rock Springs.  We trekked all through the night and into the morning.  Most of the SP's were fairly easy to find, except SP7.  SP7 was very tough.  We searched for a while with no luck.  Finally we decided to go back to and try again, when we ran into Dr Ron who had just found it.  He helped us out and after nearly an hour of searching for it, we finally got it and moved on.  SP8 was a piece of cake.  So all that was left now was a hot trek down Wekiva River Rd, to SR46, and east to Wekiva Park Dr where we would finally get off our feet and jump back into the boats.

So after 11:30 hours of trekking throughout the night and morning, we finally made it to TA6 sometime on Saturday morning.

During the trek and the bushwhack, our feet were pretty much wet the entire time, and I got some pretty bad blisters.  The last half of the trek was pretty painful, but I pushed on as there was nothing I could do about it until I reached the TA.  But man did they hurt!  Luckily we would now be on the boats for a few hours were I would be off my feet and could let them rest.

The Standings

At TA6 we learned that only us, Dr Ron's team, and a solo racer did the brutal trek and we still on the full race course.  All other teams had skipped around the trek and got put on a shorter course.  But we also learned that only us and Dr Ron picked up all the SP's.  The solo racer (Colin, very cool guy) skipped around them and went straight to the TA.  So, since we knew Dr Ron's team was unranked, and Colin had just skipped 8 checkpoints, that this race was now ours to have.  All we had to do now was make it to the finish line before the 6:00am Monday morning cut off, and we would win it.  Even though there was still a lot of race left, it was still a pretty good feeling knowing that we had the race pretty much locked.

The Paddle (2)

This next paddle was a nice and beautiful paddle north on the Wekiva River, hooking up with the St. Johns, then finishing in Blue Springs State Park.  Besides a lot of stupid jet skiers with no regards for kayakers zooming by us, the paddle was very nice and we made it to TA7 at around 3pm on Saturday afternoon.

Blue Springs

At Blue Springs we got our first rest of the race.  We got a new set of maps that needed to be plotted, marked, and laminated.  We spent about 2 hours at BS.  Jason and Lori got the new maps ready.  Alli helped me clean and tape up my blistered feet.  We ate pizza, changed, and rested a bit before finally heading out on our bikes again around 5pm on Saturday afternoon.

The Bike (3)

This next bike section started with a road ride down SR42 heading west.  but we quickly got off the road and headed into some single track trails in an area whose name escapes me.  The trails were not technical, but it was very hilly and sandy.  And this is where we made our first navigational mistake.

The race directions said to take the "Yellow Diamond Trail" and we would come to an intersection were there was a manned station at which we would do a short orienteering course.  And so we followed the Yellow Diamond trail.  All the way until we came out on the other side of it on the powerlines, never finding this manned checkpoint.  Turns out the trail split into two Yellow Diamond trails and we happened to stay on the wrong one.  Not sure how we were supposed to know, but whatever.  We backtracked, losing about two hours worth of time, and finally found the manned point.  At this point we were told that the orienteering course had been canceled and that all teams were supposed to just head straight to the next TA, which was at Moss Bluff.

Heading to Moss Bluff is where we made our second mistake.  At the manned point they had told us to take the Yellow trail north to 445. Then take 445 west to 19.  19 South to 42.  And 42 west all the way to Moss Bluff.  But unfortunately they failed to mention that this was exactly the case.  That route would only put us in the right direction, but we still had to take some other roads to actually reach Moss Bluff.  Our mistake I guess.  We were tired and no thinking right.  So anyway, we kept riding and riding west on 42 forever.  When we finally reached The Villages we knew something was wrong.  We went to a convenience store and pulled out a road map, where we finally saw that we were supposed to have turned off 42 about 10 miles before.  Doh!  So we made our way back and finally reached the next TA at Moss Bluff.  But this whole section, costs us the most time.  What was supposed to take us just a few hours (about 7-8ish), ended up taking us about 14.  Oh well, that's how these races go.  Live and learn.

Anyway, we made it to TA8 at 7:00am.

The Last Paddle

The next leg of the race was going to be our last paddling section north on the Ocklawaha River heading to Silver Springs in Ocala.    The paddle was beautiful again.  And if you have never been to Silver Springs, I suggest you do.  It is a really cool place.  The water down the river from the spring is crystal clear, cold and blue.  Very pretty.  And di you know that back in the 50's they filmed a Tarzan movie there from which a handful of monkey's escaped, and whose relatives are still running loose in the park?  Well, they are there.  Jason saw one.  Funny stuff.

We got to Silver Springs around 1:40pm.  No more paddling for us for the rest of the race!!  Jason and I jumped in the nice clear water at Silver Springs to cool of and get some of the 3-day stink off us.  Not sure if it worked.  :)

The Last Trek

The next leg was going to be our final trek of the race.  We would be leaving Silver Springs and heading on a Southeast, then Southwesterly direction along the Florida Foot Trail looking for several checkpoints along the way.  It was a fairly easy trek and the CP's were easy to find.  We did waste sometime looking for CP18, finally just giving up.  But we found out later that the flag had actually been stolen and wasn't there, so we still got credit for it.  We kept heading down the FFT until we finally reached the Santos MTB trailhead, TA10, at about 7:00pm Sunday evening.

And now, our race was almost over...

The Final Leg - The last Bike

It was just short of 8:00pm when we left on our bikes riding the Santos trails.  We had a couple of checkpoints in Santos.  Some of you might know them.  There are two old and rusted out car shells out in Santos.  Each one of them was a checkpoint.  From there we headed out to Landbridge and further west for more checkpoints.   Now, what we did after Landbridge is hard for me to explain, because frankly, I don't remember.

The Sleepmonsters

For anyone that wants to know what the hardest part of a race like this is, I have your answer... fighting off the sleepmonsters.  In the entire 3 days of racing, I got no more than 1 hour of sleep.  And it sucks.  Sunday night, shortly after leaving the Landbridge area, heading to the rest of the points, I completely lost all sense of what was happening.  I started hallucinating pretty badly.  It's hard for me to write down the kind of things I was seeing.  But for one stretch of riding, I could almost see myself riding my bike, as if I was out of my body.  We were riding down a double wide road, I was riding behind Jason.  And I was moving, going through the motions, pedaling, turning, braking, etc, but I was not doing it consciously.  I finally hit  bump which kinda brought me back.  I told the guys that we had to stop and rest for a bit because I was out of it.

So we got a short break which was just enough to get us moving again and on to our last manned checkpoint at Pruitt Trailhead.

The Finish

From Pruitt all we had was a short 24 mile road ride to the finish.  Take 484 West to 41 South to 488 west to 19 South to the finish line in Crystal River.

Although the ride was a short 24 miles, it was long when you are riding as slow as we were since we were all exhausted.  We reached the finish line at 3:20AM on Monday morning.  We only missed two checkpoints in the entire course.  And one wasn't really our fault.  Dennis (the course director) can attest to that.  :)

We had been racing since Friday at 6:00AM, nearly a full 72 hours.  We got less than 1 hour of actual sleep.  But in the end, we had pulled off the big one, winning the toughest adventure race in Florida.  And we were/are all really happy about that.

Final Thoughts

I can't say enough about our team.  I really believe that we have one of the best and most fun teams in the sport.  As I have already said, we are not just racers that came together to race, we are family.  Jason is one of my best friends, and Jim and Lori (Jason's in-laws) have become like family.  When we are not racing or training together, we are flying out to Colorado to go out skiing together, or we are partying and drinking together, or we are doing something fun somewhere.  My point is, our team dynamics are as good as they can be.  Yeah, we each have our little things, but the rest of us know how to deal with them and race as a strong and competitive team.  And in a race were I was pretty sick, the guys did a great job at helping me anyway they could to keep me moving and keep us racing strong.  Thank you!

And our support crew, Alli, Erica, Ashlee, Matt, Maggie, and LaLa, I couldn't imagine a better crew in the sport.  Not only do they take care of us, but they find a way to make it fun and to make us laugh throughout the entire race.  They simply rock!

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

The Talon 10-Hr AR (2008)

I went down to Alafia River State Park this past weekend to race the Talon 10-hour adventure race.  Alafia is still one of my favorite MTB park in Florida.  The trails are awesome!

Anyway, my team consisted of my friend Charlie, and a new comer to AR, Linda.  we were a 3-person co-ed team.  Jason and Erica were also racing in a 2-person co-ed team.  As were Erica's parents, and our great friends, Jim and Lori Gabbert.

Anyway, race started with a quick little 1 mile trail run to spread out the teams some.  Then we jumped on our bikes and headed off on the single track trails at Alafia.  We did, in this order, North Creek, River Run, Rock Garden, and Bridges.  There were three points along the way we had to pick up before returning back to TA.

So here's the kicker.  Just before finishing North Creek, about to start River Loop, I noticed something felt wrong with my left pedal.  So I went to clip out and clip back in, when my entire left crank arm came off.  The bolt had gotten lose and it was lost somewhere on the trail behind me.  There was nothing I could do.  So I picked up my crank arm (with the pedal attached) tossed it in my backpack, and proceeded to do the rest of the ride with one leg.  Single track riding, on a mountain bike, with one leg.  The hardest part was having to hold my left leg up the entire time as I had nowhere to rest it.  I did pretty good with one leg.  Even catching up and passing some of the slower people out there.  It was funny because they couldn't believe a guy with one pedal was going faster than them.  :)  Going up hill sucked.  And on most steeper hills I had to put my foot down.

Anyway, we made it back to TA.  My leg hurt, but not too bad.  At the TA we completed the two special tests they had.  One was a short paddle in a pond to pick up 4 check points.  It took us about 15 minutes.  The other was a puzzle.  After completing the two tests, we had to jump back on our bikes and head south on the powerlines to our next couple checkpoints.

With me still riding on one pedal, we took off on our bikes again.  The double-track by the powerlines was grassy so it was easy riding.  We found the next two checkpoints (which required some cool orienteering) and then rode down to the Alafia River where we would go on the first of our two paddling sections.

The first paddling section was the longest and toughest of the two.  We headed north on the River looking for just one checkpoint which was somewhere along the way.  The river, for those of you who have never been there, is tough to paddle on because there are so many logs and trees that are across the river.  You constantly have to duck under trees or completely get out of the boat and portage it around obstacles etc.  It's a pain in the ass.  We were constantly in and out of the water, sometimes in chest deep water having to push our pull our canoe one way or another.  But eventually we found the checkpoint and made our way back through the obstacle course back to the boat TA.

At the boat TA, we switched gears and left on foot on our first trekking section to find three CP's.  The section was fairly short, and the CP's were fun to find.  The race director definitely placed the checkpoints in interesting places.  one of them was at the edge of a lake.  Surrounding it was about 10 feet of mud.  I didn't think anything of it, stepped right in the mud, and proceeded to sink down to my chest in nasty cement like mud which was impossible to get out of.  I had to roll myself out of it and basically crawl to the check point and back.  Fun stuff!

After getting the three points and going back, we got back in the boats and headed south on the river for a quick paddle to our next CP.  This paddle was completely different than the first.  The river was wide and clutter free.  It was actually a very nice paddle.  Took us about 40 minutes before we were back at the boat TA, jumped back on our bikes, and made our way back up the powerlines to the main TA, picking up one more CP along the way.

Back at TA we started second trek section.  This one was much longer.  But also more fun.  We had to orienteer by shooting bearings from point to point.  I love that stuff.  It was all fun and games until we got to the area that had the last four checkpoints.  It was a very small area.  The entire area was maybe 1/2 mile x 1/3 mile.  But it was NASTY!!  It was thick, thick woods and pretty swampy.  But the worst part were the humongous steep hills.  Each of the four points was located at the top of these steep hills which were each at about a 65-70 degree angle.  I am not exaggerating.  They were steep and long!  Going up and down them was actually pretty scary.  We had to take our time because one misstep and you were going to stumble all the way down, hitting god knows what on the way down.

After a little while, we found all the points and ran back to the main TA.  We were now 'officially' done with the race.  We had completed the required course and collected all the mandatory checkpoints.  Now we had the option of heading back out to try and collect as many 'bonus' checkpoint as we could before the time cut off.

This being Linda's first race, all she wanted to do was finish.  So she did not want to go back out.  The race had been pretty tough and she was pretty beat.  But After about 25 minutes Charlie convinced her to go back out so that we could get just one or two bonus points.  So we promised her we would go to the easiest ones and just get one or two then head back.  It was the only way we could get her to go back out there.  Even though I really wanted to go for some of the harder ones which were worth more points.  So we went out, got our two easy ones, and went back to officially finish our race.

Jason and Erica came in shortly after we did.  They had gone after the harder bonus points and it paid off for them.  They finished 1st-place overall!

I had a great time!  The course was excellent and very tough for such a short race.  Now I am all pumped up and ready for next month's Coast to Coast 72-hour race!!!

Talon AR (2008) Maps, Passports, Etc.

The Croom Crusher 6-Hr AR (2008)

The Turkey Burn 12-Hr AR (2007)

Man I love adventure racing!!  I can't say that enough.  I FREAKING LOVE this sport!  There's just no question about it.  And yesterday's race reminded why I love it so much.

I have had a great year of racing.  And I have raced with some very cool, fun, and fast people - Ralph, Lori, Jim, Jason, Charlie, Scott, and Erica.  For this race I signed up with Jason, Brent and Nikki.  It was going to be Nikki's first AR, but as we all know, she is strong as a bull!  Anyway, here you go...

The Turkey Burn is a rogaine race.  What that means is that there is a set finish time.  All teams HAVE TO finish by this time or face stiff penalties.  Also, there are a number of mandatory points on the course along with many bonus points.  Each team has to at least get all mandatory points.  But bonus points are up to each team to get as many or few as they would like, depending on time.

The Paddle (1)

The race started at 4:00am on Saturday morning at the Wekiva Falls Report in Wekiva.  We started with a short 1/4 mile run to try and spread out the teams a little.  We finished the run in a couple minutes and were soon off on the first leg of the paddle which was a ~2 mile paddle north on the Wekiva River to our first checkpoint.  Jason and I paddle together, while Nikki and Brent were in the other canoe.  We reached the CP first, in just about 40 minutes.  Then we turned around and headed back to the start/finish/TA.  The paddle back was against the current so it was a little slower, but in just under two hours we were back and off on our bikes.

The Bike (1)

We are all pretty strong cyclists, so the biking sections are usually where we do best.  This section had three mandatory checkpoints and five (I think) bonus checkpoints.  We had decided early that we had to get all points, mandatories and bonus.  So we went after it hard.

We quickly picked up point after point as the roads were actually quite nice and very rideable.  Then we went after BB3 (bonus bike 3) which had about 3/4 mile of nasty soft sand leading to it.  As we reached the soft sand section we tried riding it, but quickly found it to be impossible.  So we just ditched our bikes and ran to the CP.  It took us a few minutes to find it as the race organizers had hidden it pretty well.  But find it we did.  And it was a big find because it was a 15 point bonus (most other bonus points were worth 5 points).  Then we went after BB2 (10 pointer) which we found quick, and had to do a bit of bike whacking after it to get back on the trail we wanted.

We continued doing well on the bike and ended up picking up all points before reaching TA1.  Jason's navigation, as always, was kick ass.  He was right on the money every time.  Now at the TA it was time to put our bikes down and head off on foot for a 3-4 mile trek.

The Trek (1)

The trek looked fairly simple.  Just a loop with two mandatory points and four bonus points along the way.  We started doing well and running, collection several of the easy points.  After we got MT1 (mandatory trek 1) it's where I saw Jason do something that was simply amazing.  I have done a lot of races with Jason over the years, and have seen him do some god navigation, but what he pulled off here was incredible.

The Find

After MT1 we had a choice, we could head west and follow some defined trails to the other points, or we could continue heading south on what looked like a very nasty, non-existent trail and try to find BT2.  The second choice seemed shorter, and so we went for it.  Now, it's going to be kinda hard for me to explain to you what this was like, as this is definitely one of those "you had to be there" kinda situations, but I'll do my best.

As soon as we left MT1, the trail pretty much ended.  Now we were trekking along a swamp, a very muddy and wet swamp.  Jason just kept us heading south, but it was not easy going.  We trekked along for about 20 minutes when Jason finally stopped, looked towards the west across this huge swamp, and pointed to the other side.  "There.  We have to get to those palm trees over there.  Across the swamp."

First of all, there were palm trees all up and down across the swamp, but most importantly, to get to the palm trees he was talking about, we had to cross a large swamp.  And by swamp I mean swamp in every sense of the word.

The first thing we had to do was jump into a chest deep trench of swamp water about 20 feet across.  Once on the other side, the swamp was a little drier, but it was still ankle to knee high muck and very high grass the entire way. Nikki was the first one to say it, "are there snakes in here?"  And before we could even answer, Jason found one.  A very nice water moccasin, sitting right in front of him, in the exact spot where he was about to step.  It was all coiled up, mouth open, and ready to strike.  So we backed up and went around it.  Of course, the rest of the way across the swamp we are all worried and looking down at every step.  There were two other guys who had followed us, and they couldn't believe what we were doing.

Now, I had expected to come out of the swamp on the other side, and have to spend sometime looking up and down the treeline for the CP.  But wouldn't you know it, as soon as we stepped out of the swamp, we looked up, and there it was, right in front of us!!  Even Jason couldn't believe it!  His route choice couldn't have been more accurate even if he had put the point out there himself.  As I said, you really had to be there.  But it was quite the adventure.

Anyway, we found the rest of the trek points pretty quickly, and headed back to the TA to pick up our bikes for the long ride back to the main TA.

The Paddle (2)

After riding back to the main TA, we got back in the boats and this time headed south on the Wekiva River for an 8 mile round trip paddle.  There were several bonus points on the paddle, but we were short on time.  We had just under four hours to paddle, bike, trek, and bike again.  So we decided to skip all bonus points and simply get the mandatories.  It took us about 2 hours to finish the paddle and get back to the TA, and for us, now the race was really on.

The Trek (2)

On the paddling section we had seen Team TCO.  They were about 30 minutes behind us.  We figured they were probably tied with us in the point standings, and I was sure they had gotten all mandatories and bonus points, as we had.  So we had to make sure we finished in time in order to win the race.

After we got off the boats we had to get on our bikes for a very short bike ride to the next TA.  We left on our bikes at exactly 2:45pm.  We reached the TA about 12 minutes later.  There we had to drop our bikes and go on foot to find the last two mandatory checkpoints.  We had to find them and get back to the bikes in less than 45 minutes if we wanted to have enough time to get back to the finish line.  And so we ran.

Once again J's navigation was on par, and he led us right to both points.  We ran as much as we could, but I was hurting badly at this point.  I could barely run.  But I did what I could.  Time kept creeping by and so the guys offered help.  Brent took my pack to lighten my load.  And Jason and Brent both helped towing me (yes, you can tow while running, trust me, it helps!).  So we kept moving.  As we were heading back to the bikes, with almost no time to spare, we ran into TCO heading in.

I kept looking at my watch. I knew we had to make it back to our bikes no later than 3:45 - 3:50.  I think we made it back around 3:44pm.

The Finish

Once on the bikes we took off immediately.  The road back was kinda sandy, but Brent took the lead and found the most perfect line the entire way.  The three of us just stayed right on his wheel, and before we knew it, we were heading to the finish line.

We reached the finish line at 3:56pm.  Four minutes to spare.  Now the question was, how far back would TCO be?  And were there any other teams with more points than us?  We were pretty sure TCO had the same number of points we did.  And I was pretty confident that both of our teams (TCO and Hoof Hearted) had more points than any other team.  But we'd have to wait and see.

TCO made it in at 4:21pm. They did have the same amount of points we did, but because of the time penalties for being late, they would be behind us.  And then we found out the official word from Greg as he told us personally before the awards ceremony started, "You guys won 1st place overall.  Congrats!"

Our 1st place win made us the very first Pangea Adventure Racing Series Champions (since this was the first year Pangea had a championship series).

That was a great feeling!  We had pushed hard all day, and it paid off!!

The Team

I can't say enough about what an awesome team we had.  Jason is of course the man.  I think most people already know that he is an adventure racing machine.  And one of the best navigators around.  And Brent and Nikki were amazing!  Nikki, on her first ever AR, raced like a seasoned pro!  She was amazing!  Never one complaint (except being a little worried about the snakes in the swamp :)).  She paddle, rode, and biked as strong as any of us.  So I want to thank them for making this another awesome experience!!

This has been a dream season for me, and to close out the year with a 1st place win like this, is like a dream.  So thanks to everyone that made this possible, and to all my incredible teammates!  You guys rock!!

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

The Howl at the Moon 18-Hr AR (2007)

Last year we had to pull out of race when Ralph's bike's crank arm split into two.

This year, same location, North Florida (Suwannee River State Park).

42 registered teams (about half from Georgia).

My team: Nature Calls (Jim & Lori Gabbert, Jason, me)

Started with a swim across Suwannee River, carrying our packs.  Completely submerged in river.  Wet, cold, but fun.

Got lost on the way to 1st CP.  Lost about 45 minutes looking.

Found other CP's fast.  At CP3 we were in 22nd place.

Ran fast and hard and between CP3 and CP7, we passed tons of teams.  Arrived at paddle TA in 4th place.

Paddle was nice.  At night in the Suwannee River.  Easy paddle, and easy to find CP's.  Finished paddle in about 4 hours.  Got passed by 4 teams in paddle.  So finished paddle in 7th place.

Then it was biking time.  Bike started out great.  Fast and easy.  Until CP10.  Got really lost looking for CP10 as there were tons of trails and roads that were not on the map.  Lost over an hour before we finally found it.  Rest of CP's were easy.

Then we rode to finish.  Finished in about 14-hours.  Won 2nd-place in the elite 4-person coed division.  Not sure about overall.  I think 8th or so.  We won awards and prizes, but were too tired to wait around for awards ceremony, so we left to come back home.  =)

Great race with great and awesome teammates!!!  As I've said before, Jim, Lori and Jason are amazing to race with.  We are good and very competitive, but we also have a blast.  I bet we probably have more fun and laughs than any other team out there.  Love you guys!

Next up, The Turkey Burn 12-Hour AR with Jason, Brent, and Nikki.  Should be a blast!!!

The Croom Crumbler 3-Hr AR (2007)

This past weekend I raced the Croom Crumbler AR with Alli.

The Crumbler is a 2-3 hour AR race that takes place alongside the the slightly longer 6-8 hour Crusher AR.  Since it was going to be Alli's first ever AR, we signed up for the Crumbler which is geared more towards first timers.

Alli's first time on a MTB was last weekend at Snow Hill.  She had never before ridden a real MTB and never ridden single track.  She did pretty well out there so I knew she'd do great at the race.

On to the race.........

The race started at 9:45am.  There were 47 teams that started the race.  They lined us up in team number order, and since we were team number 44, we were way back at the end of the line.  It was going to be a bike start, riding down Croom Rd (hard packed wide road) for about 2-miles, then we'd get off the road and jump into the blue single track.

I knew that once we all hit the single track, there would be a huge back up as riders of all different skill levels would be on a single track and unable to pass.  So I told Alli that we were going to ride as fast as we possibly could in order to try and hit the single track ahead of most teams.  And given that we were starting at the end of the pack, this was going to be hard.  So I took out my tow rope and told Alli how to use it.  We had not practice towing, so this might be a little dangerous.  But what the heck.

The race started and sure enough, it was a mess.  Riders all over the wide road.  Once Alli and I finally got going, it was on.  We pushed hard, giving it all we had.  I was towing her but she still had to keep moving and pedaling fast.  We passed team after team after team,  And when we finally reached the single track entrance, we had moved up to about 7th position.

In the single track I couldn't tow her, so I let her get in front of me and set our pace.  She did great on the single track given it was her 2nd time.  A little slow, but she kept moving.  The good thing was that almost all the teams were behind us, and they couldn't pass.  =)  After about 30 minutes, we reached the bike drop off.  From here we had a 2-mile trek down the trail to the TA at the Silver Lake Camping area.  Alli did great on the trek.  Kept moving the entire time.

At Silver Lake we had four special tests to complete.  They were fairly simple, just time consuming.  After about 25 minutes we had completed all our tests and moved on to the paddling section of the race.  At this point I wasn't sure how we were doing because there were racers all over the place.  not only were the Crumblers there, but the Crushers (the other race) were there as well.  So we had no idea.

Since this was a short race, the paddle was fairly short.  We had just two CP's to get.  They were easy to get and close to each other.  So it only took us about 30ish minutes to get them, and we were back at the TA.

From here it was a 2-mile trek back to our bikes.  Then get on our bikes and ride to the finish line.  Again, Alli did awesome on the trek back to our bikes.  This time actually running faster than she had on the way out.  As we were headed to our bikes we found out we were the 5th team so far.  Up to this point I was happy just finishing the race.  I mean, I wanted to do good of course.  But just finishing was our goal.  But now that I knew how well we were doing, my competitive edge kicked in.

The bike back was basically the same as the way out.  We had a single track section followed by a hard packed road section.  The hills and soft sand were tough on Alli, but she kept moving like a trooper.  At one point, she got something caught on her rear derrailer and we had to stop to remove it.  As we were doing this two teams passed us.  One was a 2-person coed, one was a 2-person male.  Luckily there was only about 3/4 mile left of single track before we reached the hard packed road.  And once we did, I broke out the tow rope again and booked it.

It didn't take us long to catch and pass the 2-person coed team (our competition).  The 2-person male team was slightly further ahead.  And they sped up when they saw us coming, but for them, it was a losing battle.  Within seconds we had caught them, passed them, and left them way behind.  =)

We reached the finish line at 12:17pm.  Just over 2.5 hours.  We finished in 5th place overall (out of 47teams), but best of all, we were 2nd place in the 2-person coed division (out of about 15 teams).  We got a cool little award for it.

For her first race Alli did awesome!!  Never complained (except for complaining about soft sand, which we all still do) for one second.  She jumped in the water, mud, and swampy areas without hesitating for a second.  And in her first race and she goes home with hardware!!  Took me a while before I brought any awards home.  :)

Next up, The Howl at the Moon 18-Hour race with Jason and the Gabberts.  Then the Turkey Burn AR with Jason, BB2, and his way better half, Nikki.

Croom Crumbler (2007) Maps, Passports, Etc.

Leadville Trail 100 MTB Race (2007)

I won't be going into every detail of the race, but I will cover the most significant parts.

Anyway, on to the race....

With a shotgun blast, the race started promptly at 6:30am.  Racers were asked to seed themselves according to their estimated time.  So all of us, knowing what we did from F'ing Ralph (See above) started in the 10-11 hour section.  The mass start was incredible.  The riders followed a police car out of town going about 20mph.  And it was cold!  My fingers and toes immediately froze.  The first 2 miles or so were on a paved road, and somewhat scary with so many riders.  But then the police car took off just as we turned into the first dirt road.  This became a huge cluster fuck, and within a mile we were on the first climb of the day.

The climbs....

One of the first things F'ing Ralph failed to mention was how steep the climbs were.  From the first one on, they were steep.  As if that wasn't enough, they were dirt roads.  And as if those two things weren't enough, almost everyone was covered with rocks.  Rocks all over the road.  And they were long climbs.  I don't think there was a hill that was under a mile long.  So climbing was a combination of grinding on the lowest gear, while trying to pick a good line (avoiding all the rocks and ruts) and trying to keep from spinning your rear tire on the loose dirt.  Some of the hills were so steep that if for any reason you had to stop and put a foot down, you were done.  There was no getting back on the bike.  You had to push it until you found a flatish section were you could start riding again.  And remember that we are doing all this on a full suspension mountain bike that weights close to 30 pounds.

The downhills....

Another thing F'ing Ralph failed to mention was how technical some of the descents were.  There were some descents that if you were not a good mountain biker, you were walking.  They required total concentration which was mentally exhausting.  And your hand got numb from holding on to the bars and brakes so much.  One in particular was  a beast.

Powerline Road....

This hill turned out to be the bitch of the day.  On the way out of town we descended it, and it was ugly.  The road followed along power lines, hence the name.  It was steep as hell, probably the steepest of the longest hills of the course.  It was much, much steeper than Sugarloaf.  And about 3 miles long.  It basically went straight down for 3 miles, with several blind turns.  It was covered in rocks.  But worst of all, there were huge ruts all over created by rain and snow melt.  These ruts are what made it so tough.  In some places these things were about 1 foot deep.  If you didn't jump or bunny hop them, you'd be going over your bars.  All the way down powerline, there was really only one line you could take.  And it was fast!  Since it was so steep, if you weren't walking it, you were flying!!  You could not go slow.  It was basically just go fast, and hope to God you hit everything correctly.

It was on this section that Landis went down hard.  And it was on this section that F'ing Ralph also went down in what BB2 described as "the worst crash I have ever seen in my life!"  BB2 and Bob were right behind Ralph, and they both said they thought Ralph was dead.  And since it was so steep and fast, when they saw him crash they couldn't stop.  They had to keep riding past him.  But aside from a badly cracked helmet, F'ing Ralph was ok.  Got up, dusted off, and got back on the bike.  He's not human.

There were many other crashes on this section, many.  It was the most ass-phuckering, scariest section of the race.  If you did not have your technicals skills on par, you were going down.

Colombine Mine...

After the descent on Powerline, we rode a few more hills here and there before reaching the 40 mile SAG at the Twin Lakes Reservoir.  This was the point of no return.  This was the place to fuel up before heading into hell.  Twin lakes was the last stop before starting the nearly 8 mile climb up to the top of the mountain, at Colombine Mine.  it was going to be a gain of 3500 in about 8 miles.

Scott and I started this section together.  As we left Twin Lakes we were greeted with the return of the leaders of the race.  Local and popular race Dave, with Floyd right on his wheel.  These guys are truly inhuman, but more on that later.

After leaving Twin lakes we had about 2 miles before the start of the main climb.  These two miles were a warm up.  It started with a 1 mile climb which descended into an open valley, which then lead to the bottom of the climb.

As soon as the climb started, you knew.  The road was about 8 foot wide.  And as all the previous climbs, rocky.  Really, really rocky.  But what surprised me was the steepness.  I expected it to be long but gradual.  It wasn't.  Right from the get-go, it was Sugarloaf steep, and stayed that steep the entire way.

By the time Scott and I reached it, the front riders were coming back down, so it was scary.  On the one hand, you are trying to climb, avoid the rocks and ruts, avoid the walkers, and keep your pace.  But also, you had to avoid the guys coming down, who were flying.  I which I had video of how fast these guys were coming down the mountain, on an 8 foot road with steep drop offs on the side.

On the way up there were about 7 switchbacks.  It reminded me a lot of Hogpen.  Sharp switchbacks which got even steeper.

The climb did suck.  It was not easy by any means, but at least you could keep moving.  That was until we got past the tree line near the top of the mountain about 5 miles into the climb.  Once we got up there, the sand road pretty much ended, and it turned into rocks.   Nothing but huge rocks covering the entire road.  Everyone had to walk this part, pushing their bike.  It was impossible to ride.  Not only that, but even pushing was tough.  it was hard to get a good grip on the ground so you kept slipping.  At the same time you have riders still coming down, trying to find anyway down the rocks.  This was the section that did me in.  It was these two miles of pushing my bike uphill at the top of the mountain that took me out of the race.  Again, I wish I had pictures, because it's hard to describe just how much this truly sucked.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the race organizers did something really mean.  As you cleared the tree line, you could look left and see the turnaround point, way, way in the distance above you.  So as you are walking your bike barely able to move, that turnaround point was mocking you.

And as if those two things weren't bad enough, we were climbing up to 13,000 feet, so with every step we took, we got higher and higher, which meant less and less oxygen.  It was so hard to breath that I couldn't drink out of my camelbak because taking a drink meant missing a breath.  If I wanted to drink.  I had to stop.

So, after 3 hours of leaving Twin Lakes (10 miles back) I reached the top.  One thing I will say, the view from the top of the mountain was amazing.  We were surrounded by the Rockies and it was simply beautiful.  I took several minutes to just sit and enjoy the view.  I figured if I made it up there, I might as well enjoy it.

But I didn't have much time to waste.  From here I had 5 hours to make the 12 hour cut off, which I knew would be impossible.  But, I gave it a go anyway.

Going down...

Going back down to Twin Lakes was kinda fun, in a scary kinda way.  It was 8 miles straight down, on the same rocky, steep 8 foot sandy road.  First you had to deal with the 2 miles of rocks that we had just pushed our bikes up on.  This was slow going.  The rocks would slip out from under you so it was technically challenging.  Then once we hit the tree line, the road became sandy again.  I took some chances on the 6 mile downhill, trusting my bike to handle everything I hit.  On the way down I'd hit huge rocks or ruts that I would see at the very last minute, and going about 30mph, on a mountain bike, on a sandy road, I had to bunny hop them.  I wasn't too worried of the road or the obstacles, I felt comfortable I could handle them.  But I was worried about the switchbacks.  They would sneak up on you, and if you were going too fast as you approached them, well, I would hate to think what would have happened.

The ride down to Twin Lakes only took me about 45 minutes.  Just over three hours on the way up, 45 minutes on the way down.

I reached the Twin Lakes SAG, 60 miles, after 7 hours and 45 minutes into the race.  So I had just over 4 hours to ride the last 40 miles.  Easy right?  Just keep an average of 10mph and I'd be able to do it.  Yeah, right!

DNF...

I rode right through Twin lakes, didn't stop for anything, knowing I needed every minute possible.  But the next 15 miles were pretty tough, it was mostly up hill.  Some of the climbs were short, but too steep for riding.  It was more tough bike pushing.  This is were I started to bonk.  I got to the point were anytime the road went up, I could barely pedal.  Even the flats were tough.  I kept moving, but I had one one thought in my mind the entire way, Powerline Road.

I knew that on the way back to the finish, we would have to go up Powerline Road, which we had descended earlier.  And I was scared.  I knew that a) it was going to be unridable and so b) I would be pushing my bike for nearly three miles in an incredibly steep hill.  And it was this thought, the combination of how bad I felt, how I was bonking, and of pushing my bike up powerline road, that made up my mind to quit the race at the next SAG, at 80 miles.  I simply could not go on.

So I reached the 80 mile SAG at around 3:35pm.  Just over 9 hours into the race.  Scott had left that SAG about 10 minutes ahead of me, and Jason was about 25 minutes ahead of me.  Lucky for me, The Gabberts were there with their car, and so I stopped, and quit.

My race was over.  I wanted to cry.  Actually, I did.  Thankfully I was wearing my sunglasses.  I had worked hard for 80 miles, and I really wanted to see the finish line, but I just couldn't.  I couldn't go one more mile.  So I jumped in the car and we rode to the finish line to watch the guys coming in.

The Gang...

One by one the guys started coming in.  First it was F'ing Ralph (10:57).  He was in great spirits.  Then it was Brent (11:01).  Their stories about Powerline road made me feel better, because it really was as hard, or harder, than I expected.

A little while later, Pat Reilly came in (11:41).  And then it was Bob (11:51).

Jason was next (12:41). He missed the 12 hour cutoff, but he made the 13 hour finisher cut off.  This was new this year.  They wanted to give people an extra hour to finish the course.  The didn't get the buckle, but were considered 'unofficial finishers,' and still received the finisher's medal.  His stories about Powerline Road were also about how incredibly hard it was pushing the bike.

And Scott was next (13:05).  Scott surprised me the most out of everyone out there today.  He might not have made the 13-hour cutoff, but he finished 100 miles of the toughest bike ride in the U.S.  I was happy for him.  He never gave up.

The Stories....

After everyone finished we sat around sharing stories.  Talking about the climbs, the brutal bike pushing, and the hairy and technical descents.  Powerline Road became the topic of conversation as everyone discussed how incredibly brutal it was, both ways.  We talked about the crashes (like Ralph's), the weather, and the altitude.

We all agree that we totally underestimated the race.  We did not give it the respect it required.  Mostly because we really didn't know what to expect, and we all thought it would be easier.  None of us except for Ralph and Bob knew what the course was like, so every turn, every hill, every descent was new and unexpected.

Miscellaneous....

First I want to say, that this is one of the most beautful areas in the United States.  As much as I was hurting, I still enjoyed every single mile of the course.  The views were fantastic.  Mountains, rivers, lakes, it was simply beautiful.

The SAG stops are like none I have ever seen.  Anytime you pulled into a SAG stop, a volunteer would come up to you and hold your bike for you.  Another volunteer would fill up your water bottles or camelbaks while other would rush to get you any food or anything else you needed.  They were awesome!

Floyd lost the race by 10 seconds to the local hero who has won the race 5 years in a row.  Reports are that Floyd sucked this guy's wheel for almost the entire last 40 miles, and still was unable to beat him to the finish line.  The guy that won it set a new course record, finishing in just under 7 hours.  7 hours.  I can't even begin to comprehend how fast and how good those guys are.  At 7 hours, most of us were still at the turnaround point (50 miles).  Amazing.

On one of the steep descents, there was a guy who had crashed and broken his femur.  OUCH!!!  I rode by him just as the helicopter was landing to airlift him out.  As I said, this is not a beginners race.  If you can't handle a mountain bike, it can get pretty nasty out there.

Thank yous...

I can't even begin to tell you how great our support crew was.  The Gabberts, Stacey, Nikki, and Erica were there at every SAG stop, and they helped us a lot.  Even if it was just cheering us on and encouraging us, it was great to see them all through the course.  They rock!!!

So that's it.  I am sure the rest of the boyz will chime in with their own stories soon.  For me, I was humbled by this race.  It got the best of me and then some.  But I will definitely be back.  I will not give up until I conquer this monster.

Peace out!