Myself and Kit headed to St. Augustine to defend our title at the Sea to Sea, bringing Tom along this time. We arrived with plenty of time to spare in the pre-race on Wednesday; got all of our things packed and sorted, nothing good from the pre-race meeting. This race was massive with ~250 racers, the biggest AR that I've been involved in. With loads of pre-race roster fluctuation, we knew that our competition would come from Bones and Good 'Nuff in the coed category and MRC and ARGeorgia in the male category.
Thursday morning involved a covid-questionable bus ride to the west coast. We rode a "red" bus, for people who are actually concerned about the virus. Even so, there were plenty of non-compliant bus riders. I would be a bit scared to have seen the "green" buses.
The start was HOT - 10AM and sweating. Loaded up on sunscreen. We were the first team out from the sand-jar-filling and were quickly met up and passed by Bones, Good 'Nuff, Tower Racing, and a few solos. We did a pretty good job of not overexerting ourselves on this 3 mile road run, letting teams pass us as they pleased. We quickly transitioned to bikes at the end of the run and were off. CP1 proved to be one of the more frustrating ones of the day, as there was a pile of racers at a spot that seemed close to the attackpoint. I had lost track on my computer of the correct distance (I nearly ran over Hunter with my bike) so we searched in vain for 10+ minutes in thick, sharp brush before realizing that we should look further up the trail, where we found the CP hanging off of a dock next to a pond. The clue had read 'Eagles Nest Cave' instead of "cove", which contributed to the issue. CPs 2 and 3 were a large out and back which gave us a glimpse at where we stood in the group. By the time we emerged on roads near the first WP we were 20 minutes back. Soon after starting on the road we were met up and passed by Tower Racing and another M2 team, who offered to have us join their paceline. This was a bad choice. What followed was 30 minutes of pushing 35km/h, leading to cramps and a level of exhaustion that should never be felt that early into a race. At CP4 I made the call to pull ourselves out of that group. We were not going to win by overpowering teams - our pace needed to hover around 25km/h. We ended up arriving at TA1 not far after that group, and 25 minutes behind the leaders.
This TA offered 3 legs - trek, MTB, and paddle. The natural choice would have been MTB, but I had seen a preview of hte paddle and some points looked rather tough in the dark, so we broke from the pack and were the first team to put on the water. Less than 2kms in, Tom began fiddling with his gear. Turns out that he couldn't locate the passport. We were right at a public park, so we pulled over and dissected his gear, but we couldn't find it. the quickest way back was a run along roads, where I found the passport on the grass beneath our paddle bag. The whole ordeal took a little over 30 minutes before we got back onto the water. The CP 5 was simple, but CP 6 involved finding a channel that we struggled to locate. Once we did, we got a little over-enthusiastic about finding the flag (the actual flag location was noted on a map at the mark on the map) and did not return cleanly to the boat. On the paddle back north I gave the team a little pep-talk about remaining calm and steady. We weren't going to win by being cute or by getting too excited. We had to stay calm and accurate. The paddle north was uneventful if not deceptively long, and we took off of the water a little over 4 hours after we started the paddle.
Along the paddle we had discussed the next leg, and we agreed that the trek would be the most helped by whatever daylight was remaining. We had decided to keep these TAs quick, and took off feeling good and able to run down the road to the first attackpoint. This leg was perfectly smooth save for trying to identify an old telephone pole on CP13. We ran when we could and hit the points precisely. We definitely made back some time on the other teams, but not too much as it was a short leg. I believe that we finished in ~1:45.
Another quick TA to bike and we were off towards the Croom MTB trails. We had a few misstarts, trying to find the trail to enter the system and also adjusting to the way that the different types of trails were marked on the ground. We eventually got it sorted out, but had thrown off our order as we had been unable to get into CP15 to start. I also struggled physically and mentally, as the effort from the bike earlier in the day was finally catching up to me. I struggled to put food or fluids into my body for more than 90 minutes. I received relief when Kit offered a ginger chew and I delicately sipped water. I think we spent 3+ hours on this leg, and at least 3 of them were consumed with my personal recovery. Fortunately, I was still in full contact with the map and we were making forward progress, just not too quickly. The last CP (15) was located in a sinkhole near the entrance to the trails. I got a great laugh for the rest of the race as Kit insisted that the way to exit the trail system was by taking our bikes back down into the 30 ft sinkhole (it was not). With our spirits raised and our bodies feeling better we pulled into TA, spending a little longer getting ourselves prepared for a long overnight ride that would see us cover 90+ miles. The promised hot water was not available, but we made do with what we could scrounge up and got on the road right around midnight, presumably 90+minutes behind the leaders.
We began this long leg on roads chasing CP Psychosis, with Tower further in front of us. While we tried to push the pace a bit harder, I struggled to both consult the map and maintain my place in a paceline at any speed above 25km/h. Tom did a good job of keeping a strong pace, and we felt strong as we moved east across the course. It's really important to remember that despite the amount of road riding in this race, the actual crux are the foot sections. It's hard make significant changes on the road sections (as an example, I think that a team who was truly hammering would have struggled to put 30 minutes into us). Case-in-point: after 3 hours of riding, we met up with CPP and Tower at a CP and passed them. Consistency was crucial. This leg included a fun ride around the northern perimeter of Lake Apopka. Soon after that section, Tom and I began getting sleepy. Kit correctly noted that we were crawling, and she gave us some caffeine (this became a helpful theme for the race) to get us moving again. The sun began making itself known as we arrived at the WP near CP28. The WP itself was confusing - it was a locked gate with a large No Trespassing sign... Regardless, we found the CP and were off on a fun portion of the leg that had some singletrack in some pine forest. CP 31 was a little squirrely for us, but we found it after I got my head straightened out. From there we had to find a WP to get us across a river into the trail system that was near TA2. The WP wasn't marked (what is the point of unmarked waypoints...?), but CPP arrived as we were hunting for a crossing. Eric Olsen unfortunately confirmed that his pre-race google-earth-ing put the cross right at the large "Warning: Alligators! No Swimming!" sign. It ended up being quick and shallow enough, and we were across with all limbs intact. I had scoped out the travel from here to TA on strava pre-race, but our route was horrible. It was a swampy, muddy, unrideable passage for a km, which led out onto sugar sand trails that were intermittently rideable. The bikes were screaming at us to stop, clogging drive trains and destroying brakes. The most welcome sight of this part was Randy, whose mere existence let us know that the TA was within walking distance. With a few more turnarounds, we rolled into TA just before 9AM, pretty blasted and demoralized from the struggle.
Spirits were lifted with the arrival as we found a number of teams who had yet to make much progress. Good 'Nuff had been out on the team trek for 3 hours, (ARGeorgia and MRC were also on it) and Bones had a teammate on the o-relay. I had been convinced that Bones was much further ahead, so it was nice to see that they suffered overnight as much as we did. The plan was to attack the team trek first, but the TA was looking to take a long time, so I volunteered to do the first relay. Tom and Kit could get some rest and take their time in the TA. At the time it seemed like the best choice, but in retrospect the team trek first would have put the relays overnight, when sleep would have been easier and when the flags would have been easier to spot.
It took me a bit to get acclimated to my map (o-relay B0, as a major road on the map didn't exist. I was able to get oriented just before I arrived at my first attackpoint, which was a small hill just outside of a bend in the road. I attacked a swamp/marsh from there, and found nothing. I searched and then reattacked, and found myself in the same place again. I even travelled a bit too far, knowing that my pace count was most likely low. Nothing again. I began to search using topography, trying to find the "westside of marsh". I reattacked again and again, getting nowhere except more frustrated. It had been more than an hour since I started, it was getting rather hot, and my brand new Trimtex pants were showing the effects of the thorns. I retreated the same way that I came in and went back through the TA towards my next two points. I tried running when I could, but the heat was oppressive (mid-80s) and the trails were sandy. The second point was incredibly easy, as I spotted it from 50meters away (misplotted, but still). My final point showed itself on the edge of a peninsula by a lake...it was not. I trudged wwwaaaayyy too far into a marsh, but never really found a peninsula. Convinced that I was too far, I turned around to find a drier way back to the trail where I began, and ran right into the flag. The map showed the flag just on the edge of a lake. GPS nothing, this thing was wrong. I shuffled back to TA with the plan to find Kit and/or Tom and have them come with me to get the one that I couldn't find. I was searching for them sleeping, and instead I found Charles and Mari from Bones who were STILL waiting for Roy to come off of o-relay A. I found Kit and had her come out to help me. I had her do it all on her own, and she ended up EXACTLY WHERE I WAS. Again, we trudged around and couldn't find anything. Another reattack had the same result. She suggested that maybe the may was wronger than we thought, and we began hunting in stupider places, way more than the supposedly correct 125m from the attackpoint. In a moment of complete luck, I turned my head to the right and found the flag, nowhere close to the westside of a marsh, and at least 250meters from the hilltop where we attacked from. We headed back to TA convinced that no other team would ever find it.
Kit and Tom geared up to head out while I got them prepped with some map advice. Bones was nowhere to be found, and Good 'Nuff was still not back. I took a short nap, prepped some gear, ate, drank, drank, ate, drank, slept, and talked to anyone who would listen to me - I probably slept a bit more than 45 minutes and consumed more than a gallon of liquid while rubbing ice on my head in an effort to cool down. Also included in that was seeing Mari and Charles filling up waters - they revealed that Roy was still out on his relay and they were now helping him but had run out of water. This happened again 2 hours later. I have never felt so much sadness for another team's luck during a race. By the time that Kit and Tom returned 4 hours later, Good 'Nuff had just returned after 10 hours on the team trek (they also knew it was exactly 32 miles...how did they know that?). It was fair to say that we may have somehow taken the lead from them if we could make good work of the team trek and if they struggled the same way that we did on the relay. Fast forward a bit, and they somehow finished the relay legs in less than 2 hours each - how a professional triathlete was able to walk right up to a point that took some much better navigators 4+ hours to find is a mystery that I don't think I want the answer to.
We grabbed enough food and water for the leg and had a moment of panic as the map for the leg had gone missing. After I negotiated SBB's map from Mark Montague, we found ours in Ron Eaglin's bin - whew. We took off for our relay expecting it to be long but manageable. Last year, we had great success by moving fast on our feet - this was not to be the case this year. Tom was suffering greatly in the feet, and Kit wasn't doing much better. Neither of them had slept at all and the heat during their trek had been tough. We resolved to walk, but my trekking pace was much higher than theirs. This leg only gave us one CP to start, where would find a map containing the location of the next. We had gotten some warning that the CPs would require us to trek back and forth across the map. The first 4 were simple, but then it began to get repetitive, as we traveled on the same set of trails 4 times, going back and forth across the park. I don't mean to be negative, but it was just stupid. Someone made this leg with the intention of frustrating teams. As we worked our way to our 8th point, we were 6+ hours in and it was fully night. Tom and Kit were barely moving, and we were passed by Hunter on an o-relay, running sub 8min/mile. He gave us some encouragement but also a warning that the final 2 points took 2 hours each for his team. We grabbed CP 39 (point 8/11) and then set off towards 40, where the wheels fully came off. I had offered Tom a nap a number of times, but he refused, instead getting super quiet and reserved. Kit had made a small recovery, and she and I spent some time talking about how to deal with Tom's issues. This focus on conversation led to my only real significant error of the race, as I lost contact with the map and took 30 minutes to get us back on track. At that point, Tom was falling more and more into a hole, to the point where he laid under his space blanket on the side of the trail while Kit and I found CP 40 (which was incredibly challenging and much further than we expected from the attackpoint). The subsequent point that I marked on the map was a full 6km from where we were now. It was 2AM, and there was no way that we could get it, finish the leg, sleep, and leave before the TA closed at 6AM. Our decision was made even easier when Tom asked about quitting. It was simple enough for us to realize that he needed attention quickly. We wrapped him up with his space blanket and coat and marched ourselves back to TA, a 3+mile journey that took 70 minutes.
Once there, we resolved to sleep until 5. I spent some time on my feet which had developed some nasty blisters on the trek. I also had broken 4 toenails, one of which now had a large blister under it. I have no memory of the trauma that caused this, but I was in a good bit of pain. I laid down to sleep next to my gear bin at 3:45 and woke immediately at 4:50. The TA was alarmingly empty, with the last few team packing up. I got Kit and Tom moving and we began making the short trek to the canoes at 5:20, arriving there at 5:45 to find that there were no more boats. Time credits were being given to teams waiting, but both Tower and Only Mostly Lost were sleeping their off of the clock, and OML had tied us on points (Tower had dropped one more on the team trek). We eventually put on the water at 6:35.
This paddle was huge, and my shoulders were sore throughout. Fortunately it was easy to eat and drink from the stern, something I never knew about before - I'm now jealous of all of my teammates. We traded places with Tower and OML for much of the paddle, only getting a bit behind them when Tom and Kit struggled to find 47 in a pile of mud. The long out and back to 48 was a slog, but we got to see 5 alligators (can't decide if that should be an exciting thing). I was very sleepy during the paddle. Also, Tom had the maps for all of the water sections, so I don't have much else to report. We ended the paddle after 1PM, ready to never look at a boat again.
From there, we had a 2 hour trek to our bikes. The nav was simple, but my feet were screaming. When we arrived to the bikes, we were again towards the back of the pack. CPP was 20 minutes ahead, Tower was still in TA, and OML was slightly behind us still on the trek. We took some time to transition so that I could deal with blisters, but after 20 minutes I didn't make much headway. We also had been looking forward to the hot food and cold drinks, but they were out of both at the TA.
When we finally left we were towards the very back of the pack, leaving with a hoard of mid- and back-pack teams. Between the TA and CP 56 we were involved in a wild-goose chase of chaos, with teams riding back and forth, yelling and shouting looking for CPs and flagging tape, my feet throbbing in pain every time I took my feet off of the pedals, and Kit's left pedal breaking. When we got to the CP I gave the team a little pep talk; we just needed to calm down and not get caught up in a stressful race with other teams around. Being towards the front of the standings (top 5 at this point) but being at the back of the race was effecting the team's decision making. After we found the CP we learned the true extent of the pedal fiasco, we tried to fix it but it was going to be unfixable without a new pedal. We trudged on with Kit pedaling on the spindle. After a few stops and starts we ended up ahead of most of those teams before realizing a major issue - Tom had forgotten his phone in TA. CP 59 required pictures to be taken. Without that piece of mandatory gear (or his GoPro - also in the bin) we wouldn't be able to receive credit for the CP. We discussed the morality of the many solutions, and decided that purchasing something to take pictures with was the best solution. I spotted a small town on a map, and we located an old Valero. While Kit went in to purchase a disposable camera that expired 20 years ago (no trac phones in the store) Tom and I were treated to a 5-minute display of dancing horses in the parking lot. Disposable camera in hand, we made our way to the Chuck Lennon trails, where we had to ride 3 separate loops to locate specific landmarks. The 30 minute ride here would have been fun, but I was fighting back tears in my eyes from the pain in my feet. Every rock, root, and drop sent incredible amounts of pain through them. As a cherry on the poop sundae, I also broke a spoke in my rear wheel. When we left this trail system, we headed off north, grabbing 60 with a hoard of other teams. The ride to 61 and 62 was highlighted by 2 things. First, Kit was nearly eaten alive by a copperhead. Second, we witnessed one of the most beautiful moons that I have ever seen. Massive, orange, incredibly bright, it followed us on our right for when felt like an hour. I know that we lost some speed in this section due to my ogling. I don't normally get caught up in nature-things, but this was a happy exception. The road ride to 63 involved some pedal switching, as Kit was feeling pain in the knee from the spindle. She gave Tom the spindle and she took his flat pedal, which seemed to help the group be happier overall. The joy was short-lived; I stopped to show a decision on the map, and Kit accidentally put her foot down directly onto my broken toenail/blister toe. As we rode on I had tears coming out of my eyes - it hurt that much. I also was making some involuntary moaning noises; it was an emotional struggle to lift my foot onto the pedal. Some additional caffeine and ibuprofen helped to cut the edge off of the pain, I am confident that I have never been in that much pain during a race. The final CP of the leg (64) was a slight challenge, and the turn that would take us there most efficiently was masked on the map by a road name. We ended up on a slightly longer ride-around (it was a neat brick road that was partial covered with sand), but it took us directly to a gated road that seemed to be private property, albeit governmental and not personal. We found tracks of another racer clearly going through it, and there was nothing in the race rules about this being off-limits, so we took the road. Halfway through I spotted some headlights approaching; to avoid being chastised for being there, we turned off our light and dove into a drainage alongside the road. A white pickup truck approached and passed very slowly... After it was a bit beyond us, we hopped on our bikes and rode with the lights off as fast as possible to the CP, which was just beyond the end of this stretch. It was later revealed that this truck was the one who had been harassing and bumping racers - scary stuff. From 64 we hauled butt into the TA on roads, just before midnight, overtaking a few teams and arriving just behind Tower. On the way in we passed a few teams heading to the finish and also passed MRC running, clearly on the final trek.
We were surprised at the business of the TA, even more so at the number of teams who were electing to sleep this close to the finish. We TA'd somewhat efficiently, got some hot foot, grabbed trekking poles (which turned out to be lifesavers for me), and set off with a plan in mind to get all of the CPs but to start with the biggest pocket of them first. We had to leave TA by 8, so we had plenty of time. The CPs on this section were paired (had to get both A and B to receive credit for one CP), but getting them all would eliminate any of that strategy. Our pace was conservative, but we started clicking off CPs without much issue. 66B was a little tough on a hilltop, but we honed in on it eventually. Around 68A we ran into Bones, who were still trudging along despite having their race blow up on Friday morning. We hit a boatload of diffifculty from here trying to find 68B. We attacked more times than I can count and continually ended up in a deep swamp with no sign of an island. Kit got herself in some of the thickest sawgrass we've ever seen. After more than an hour of searching with no less than 5 other teams, we temporarily pulled the plug on it and head to the western part of the course. We planned to cycle back through this area afterwards with fresher heads. After gathering some post-race intel, it sounds like we may not have traveled far enough south, despite being way over our pace count. MRC had been able to find it from a billboard, which we did come across. The tracker cuts off just as we began searching, so it's hard to tell how close we were and where we were wrong. We had only just arrived onto the road taking us westward when a race van pulled up and told us to get in. MRC was in the back, having been picked up while biking. This was the end of the race.
Tom's Race Report:
Traveling across the country with all the gear it takes to complete a 3 day adventure race can be a hassle – unless of course you have an awesome teammate driving there with a van big enough to transport everything. Special thanks to Kit (and Ashley), it made logistics so much easier!
Check-in was smooth, Q&A session was helpful, dinner was delicious, and final preparations only had a few hiccups (a slightly warped front rotor issue was straightened out by on site bike support. Also Kit’s bike tow wouldn’t mount properly on our bikes so we didn’t use it, and my front tire valve core needed to be replaced and sealant added). Honestly the toughest part of race prep was getting our gear bins under the 40lb weight limit!!
Hopped in bed by 9ish, did a little reading, felt good and relaxed. Woke up at 5, took a quick shower and made a drive to get McDonalds for a breakfast sandwich (McD’s is the breakfast of champions right?) and gas station for sunscreen (clearly I should not be trusted to remember important gear, how foreboding this was). Bus ride was a little tough to feel useful with maps since I was a row back, but I got in a good review of all maps before arrival. Knowing this race would be hot I drank lots of water the previous 24-48 hours and on the bus, so there was no shortage of pee breaks needed before the gun went off.
15 or 20 minutes after the scheduled start, everyone was lined up on the beach path, and the start gun (airhorn? Shout? I don’t really remember) went off! The race started by filling a bottle half full of sand, and we were off on 3 mile road run to TA1. We throttled the pace well and watched as the likes of Bones and Good N’uff sped off ahead. Watching some teams with 30L packs stuffed to the brim, I was happy with the lightweight and snug fit of my 12L Salomon running vest. Since most transitions were only a few hours apart, I felt most legs I could go minimal gear wise without too much concern. At TA1 we made a shoe transition as we hopped on bikes which cost a minute or two – in the grand scheme of things it’s a drop in the bucket, but it’s tough when the adrenaline is flowing to see other teams who had chosen to run in their bike shoes, or who use flat pedals, take off with a super fast TA.
Off on bikes, race energy high, we probably pushed a little harder than needed, and soon enough I felt the beginnings of leg cramps, though consistent salt tablets kept the cramps from worsening. I had managed to fit water 4 bottles on my bike (2 in the frame, 1 between my aerobars (yes aerobars, lots of flat road riding in florida), and one mounted behind my seat) so I was able to take most of the weight off my back, and have plenty of fluids. My goal was to drink about 1 bottle/hour during daylight, which I managed.
First checkpoint was a s#&t-show, we stopped about 100 yards short of where we should have (probably because there were a bunch of other teams who dropped their bikes there), and bushwhacked through sharp/dense palms to no avail. Kit’s legs were totally cut up since she hadn’t been wearing gators. Eventually we went around the corner and found it sitting nicely on a dock by a pond. Moral of the story, ask yourself is the RD going to send folks into such dense nasty that early? Also Lesson reminder #1 try not to be swayed by other team’s decisions.
Next couple points were ok, then we hit paved roads, and Towers Racing flew up behind and wanted us to join their paceline. They are strong bikers and it was hard pushing. We overstretched the watts. Lesson reminder #2 - race our own race and drop off sooner if the pace is unsustainable. Rolled into TA2 a little back of lead teams. We had a trek, a bike, and a paddle to complete which all looped back to TA1, but in what order was up to us. We decided to paddle first because we wanted daylight for any tricky nav pieces. Could have backfired if it was really hot on the water, but turned out ok, and may have been a chilly paddle had we done it at night. Most other teams went out straight onto the bike which saved a TA.
Ok so back to the foreboding comment about forgetting important gear. This was the first race I’ve ever been in charge of the passport, and needless to say I was a little absent minded about it. We were 15 minutes into the paddle before I realized it was back in TA. We docked and ran back on the road, found it, and returned to the boat. This was a masterclass in awesome teammates who were rightfully pissed, but didn’t express it, and basically said “yea it sucks, but nothing we can do about it now and getting frustrated about it will only slow us down, so let’s go get it, and then keep grinding”. Really awesome.
After that we got a bit tripped up on one backwater, I knew we were at the right corner, but didn’t see an obvious way in so I second guessed myself and we paddled a couple hundred yards further downstream before realizing the error. It was just hidden a good bit. The rest of the paddle went well, though my arms were totally dead with about 30 minutes of paddling left. Clearly skipped too many paddle workouts in the leadup! Also should probably work on form/get a lesson. It’s like swimming in triathlon, I tolerate it so I can do the running/biking, but there is a lot that can be gained by actually focusing on technique/training.
The following small trek section was easy enough, Glen was nailing the NAV. Forgot my normal headlamp (see the theme yet?) so only had my tiny one which was useless for flag finding after dark, luckily we got all but 1 before dark. Back to the bike, we headed out on a 20-ish mile bike loop. We tore out of TA excited to fly through the bike-O points, popped into the trail network, looked for our first trail junction…nothing. Was that it? Not sure let’s go a little further. Then we hit a road and realized we had REALLY overshot. New plan, we’ll circle back. This trail network was our first sampling of the deep and loose sand we’d often find ourselves traveling through for the next 3 days. It was much slower going than expected, but after that first hiccup, Glen adjusted to the map and we ticked off the points without much issue, back to TA to prep for our 90 mile bike ride.
Most of the 90-ish mile bike ride is actually a bit fuzzy for me to remember – I was feeling a little sleepy, hadn’t taken any caffeine, temperatures were comfortably cool, we didn’t really make any major mistakes – just put miles and miles on the roads. Memories start just before sunrise when we reached a dead end road in a little neighborhood, there was a locked gate with a big no trespassing sign, but it was marked as a waypoint on the map so we knew we had to go through – we sketchily hoisted our bikes up and climbed over the gate, half expecting a spot light to come on and dogs to start barking. After that gate sandy trails became the norm. The sun started to rise, and around 7:30A we hit a very intimidating obstacle – a marshy river crossing. But it wasn’t the river itself that was intimidating, it was the sign posted right next to where we expected to cross “No swimming, alligators”. Seriously? Not cool. We figured we must be in the wrong spot, so we wasted 15 minutes going back and forth along the river to find the proper crossing until another team came along and said no, in fact that was the right place to cross. F&%k. So across we went. I later heard at least one team biked miles around so they didn’t have to cross through the water, I can’t blame them.
After the river crossing we had a choice, left was a more direct, but harder path to follow, right was longer but apparently more frequently ridden (as noted on the strava heat map we checked out on the bus). We chose the shorter route. It wasn’t much of a path at all, more a light bushwhack through a marshy mess. We thought about turning back a few times, the other way surely must have been faster, but in the end it appears we chose correctly as we spotted the river crossing team rolling into TA 20-30 minutes after we did. Oh wait, I missed a part, did I mention the sand? After the marshy bushwhack we did a few miles in the loosest, deepest sand I have ever ridden in. The sand ended up getting in my chain and bound up my drivetrain. Fun stuff.
Now at TA2 we had a choice, a 15 mile team trek, or one of 2 shorter treks that could be done individually. We had entered TA thinking we’d do the team trek, but Glen was pumped with energy and I was happy to take a break, so we made a quick change of plans and Glen took off. 3-ish hours later he ran back into TA, having been unable to find 1 of the 3 points. Bummer. Kit had her shoes and gaiters on as she had planned to run the next leg, so both her and Glen took back off to find the missing point. An hour or so later they returned, successful, but frustrated since they were pretty sure it wasn’t plotted correctly. Oh well.
It was then decided that Kit and I would tackle the second relay together due to some checkpoints that seemed to be placed is super dense brush. I had been planning on napping, but it was hot and sunny, and darn near impossible, so I hastily threw socks and shoes and set off with Kit. I think it was this moment that began my downward spiral of the next 12 hours. Due to the rush I had failed to use a clean, sand free pair of socks. I also had failed to put on my ankle gaiters.
Given that it was midday, and probably about 90 degrees out, Kit and I decided we’d probably be digging ourselves a hole to push hard in the heat, especially given that Kit’s stomach was starting to turn. So we did a lot of walking, which felt weird because we were in a race after all, but it was definitely the right decision. We got a bit turned around due to trails not quite aligning with the map, but after relocating had decent nav, and even nailed CP(3?) on our first try, which turns out was a bit of miracle as some teams spent HOURS bushwhacking for the point in the super thick brush.
Now comes what turned out to be my least favorite part of the race. It’s my least favorite part for 2 reasons, first my feet totally fell apart. Blisters up the wazoo. The wrinkles on the bottom of my feet had become so deep and tender I thought they were open sores. It was not good. Adding to the *fun*, what was supposed to be a 15 mile trek, we heard rumors was actually a 30+ mile trek laid out in the single most monotonous way I have ever seen. Let me explain. On this section you were only shown where the first point was hung - when you found that point there would be a map hanging with it that would show you where the next one was hanging, etc. Now imagine you have two fields on opposite sides of a map, you start in one field, are directed to the other field, which then directs you retrace your steps back to a different spot of the first field, which, yes, you guessed it, directs you back to the second field again. Over. And. Over. Again. Now I’m being a little dramatic, there were 11 points on this section and probably only 6 of those were like this, but it was so mentally frustrating and draining, made all the better by hobbling on painful feet. Did I mention that Glen decided to kick a cactus? Ok maybe he didn’t decide to, but he did end up with dozens of little cactus needles that needed to pulled out, he wasn’t too happy either. I was really hurting the team here, I wasn’t taking help when they offered to offload gear or lend trekking poles, and I was moving at a snails pace, I just wanted to lay down and sleep because I didn’t know how I’d ever recover and be able to finish. Glen and Kit knew at the pace we were moving there’d be no way to finish the trek and make the cutoff, so the decision was made to go back to TA, sleep for an hour, and then start the paddle with hopefully a bit of refreshed energy.
I made so many mistakes in this race it’s funny to think about now. For example, before laying down to sleep I decided I wanted to make some Raman, but in my infinite wisdom hadn’t brought the cup version, just the normal packaged version which obviously doesn’t hold water. So I crushed it up and dumped into a ziplock baggy, added hot water, and then put it by my head while it hydrated. 2 minutes later my head was laying in a puddle of warm water. Fun fact, zip lock bags leak when you pour boiling hot water in them.
After a quick 1(or 2?) hour nap, we packed up just as TA was closing, and headed down to the boats. But there were no boats. So we had to wait while some were transported back and were told a time credit would be issued due to the delay. 45 minutes later we launched with a few other teams who had also been waiting. Overall a fun paddle on a meandering river. Though there was one notable checkpoint that required a short, super muddy trek, where I sank about waste deep in muck, it was actually a lot of fun. Makes me feel like a kid with an excuse to get dirty!
Off the paddle we had a short but hot couple mile trek to the TA with a few checkpoints along the way.
Thursday morning involved a covid-questionable bus ride to the west coast. We rode a "red" bus, for people who are actually concerned about the virus. Even so, there were plenty of non-compliant bus riders. I would be a bit scared to have seen the "green" buses.
The start was HOT - 10AM and sweating. Loaded up on sunscreen. We were the first team out from the sand-jar-filling and were quickly met up and passed by Bones, Good 'Nuff, Tower Racing, and a few solos. We did a pretty good job of not overexerting ourselves on this 3 mile road run, letting teams pass us as they pleased. We quickly transitioned to bikes at the end of the run and were off. CP1 proved to be one of the more frustrating ones of the day, as there was a pile of racers at a spot that seemed close to the attackpoint. I had lost track on my computer of the correct distance (I nearly ran over Hunter with my bike) so we searched in vain for 10+ minutes in thick, sharp brush before realizing that we should look further up the trail, where we found the CP hanging off of a dock next to a pond. The clue had read 'Eagles Nest Cave' instead of "cove", which contributed to the issue. CPs 2 and 3 were a large out and back which gave us a glimpse at where we stood in the group. By the time we emerged on roads near the first WP we were 20 minutes back. Soon after starting on the road we were met up and passed by Tower Racing and another M2 team, who offered to have us join their paceline. This was a bad choice. What followed was 30 minutes of pushing 35km/h, leading to cramps and a level of exhaustion that should never be felt that early into a race. At CP4 I made the call to pull ourselves out of that group. We were not going to win by overpowering teams - our pace needed to hover around 25km/h. We ended up arriving at TA1 not far after that group, and 25 minutes behind the leaders.
This TA offered 3 legs - trek, MTB, and paddle. The natural choice would have been MTB, but I had seen a preview of hte paddle and some points looked rather tough in the dark, so we broke from the pack and were the first team to put on the water. Less than 2kms in, Tom began fiddling with his gear. Turns out that he couldn't locate the passport. We were right at a public park, so we pulled over and dissected his gear, but we couldn't find it. the quickest way back was a run along roads, where I found the passport on the grass beneath our paddle bag. The whole ordeal took a little over 30 minutes before we got back onto the water. The CP 5 was simple, but CP 6 involved finding a channel that we struggled to locate. Once we did, we got a little over-enthusiastic about finding the flag (the actual flag location was noted on a map at the mark on the map) and did not return cleanly to the boat. On the paddle back north I gave the team a little pep-talk about remaining calm and steady. We weren't going to win by being cute or by getting too excited. We had to stay calm and accurate. The paddle north was uneventful if not deceptively long, and we took off of the water a little over 4 hours after we started the paddle.
Along the paddle we had discussed the next leg, and we agreed that the trek would be the most helped by whatever daylight was remaining. We had decided to keep these TAs quick, and took off feeling good and able to run down the road to the first attackpoint. This leg was perfectly smooth save for trying to identify an old telephone pole on CP13. We ran when we could and hit the points precisely. We definitely made back some time on the other teams, but not too much as it was a short leg. I believe that we finished in ~1:45.
Another quick TA to bike and we were off towards the Croom MTB trails. We had a few misstarts, trying to find the trail to enter the system and also adjusting to the way that the different types of trails were marked on the ground. We eventually got it sorted out, but had thrown off our order as we had been unable to get into CP15 to start. I also struggled physically and mentally, as the effort from the bike earlier in the day was finally catching up to me. I struggled to put food or fluids into my body for more than 90 minutes. I received relief when Kit offered a ginger chew and I delicately sipped water. I think we spent 3+ hours on this leg, and at least 3 of them were consumed with my personal recovery. Fortunately, I was still in full contact with the map and we were making forward progress, just not too quickly. The last CP (15) was located in a sinkhole near the entrance to the trails. I got a great laugh for the rest of the race as Kit insisted that the way to exit the trail system was by taking our bikes back down into the 30 ft sinkhole (it was not). With our spirits raised and our bodies feeling better we pulled into TA, spending a little longer getting ourselves prepared for a long overnight ride that would see us cover 90+ miles. The promised hot water was not available, but we made do with what we could scrounge up and got on the road right around midnight, presumably 90+minutes behind the leaders.
We began this long leg on roads chasing CP Psychosis, with Tower further in front of us. While we tried to push the pace a bit harder, I struggled to both consult the map and maintain my place in a paceline at any speed above 25km/h. Tom did a good job of keeping a strong pace, and we felt strong as we moved east across the course. It's really important to remember that despite the amount of road riding in this race, the actual crux are the foot sections. It's hard make significant changes on the road sections (as an example, I think that a team who was truly hammering would have struggled to put 30 minutes into us). Case-in-point: after 3 hours of riding, we met up with CPP and Tower at a CP and passed them. Consistency was crucial. This leg included a fun ride around the northern perimeter of Lake Apopka. Soon after that section, Tom and I began getting sleepy. Kit correctly noted that we were crawling, and she gave us some caffeine (this became a helpful theme for the race) to get us moving again. The sun began making itself known as we arrived at the WP near CP28. The WP itself was confusing - it was a locked gate with a large No Trespassing sign... Regardless, we found the CP and were off on a fun portion of the leg that had some singletrack in some pine forest. CP 31 was a little squirrely for us, but we found it after I got my head straightened out. From there we had to find a WP to get us across a river into the trail system that was near TA2. The WP wasn't marked (what is the point of unmarked waypoints...?), but CPP arrived as we were hunting for a crossing. Eric Olsen unfortunately confirmed that his pre-race google-earth-ing put the cross right at the large "Warning: Alligators! No Swimming!" sign. It ended up being quick and shallow enough, and we were across with all limbs intact. I had scoped out the travel from here to TA on strava pre-race, but our route was horrible. It was a swampy, muddy, unrideable passage for a km, which led out onto sugar sand trails that were intermittently rideable. The bikes were screaming at us to stop, clogging drive trains and destroying brakes. The most welcome sight of this part was Randy, whose mere existence let us know that the TA was within walking distance. With a few more turnarounds, we rolled into TA just before 9AM, pretty blasted and demoralized from the struggle.
Spirits were lifted with the arrival as we found a number of teams who had yet to make much progress. Good 'Nuff had been out on the team trek for 3 hours, (ARGeorgia and MRC were also on it) and Bones had a teammate on the o-relay. I had been convinced that Bones was much further ahead, so it was nice to see that they suffered overnight as much as we did. The plan was to attack the team trek first, but the TA was looking to take a long time, so I volunteered to do the first relay. Tom and Kit could get some rest and take their time in the TA. At the time it seemed like the best choice, but in retrospect the team trek first would have put the relays overnight, when sleep would have been easier and when the flags would have been easier to spot.
It took me a bit to get acclimated to my map (o-relay B0, as a major road on the map didn't exist. I was able to get oriented just before I arrived at my first attackpoint, which was a small hill just outside of a bend in the road. I attacked a swamp/marsh from there, and found nothing. I searched and then reattacked, and found myself in the same place again. I even travelled a bit too far, knowing that my pace count was most likely low. Nothing again. I began to search using topography, trying to find the "westside of marsh". I reattacked again and again, getting nowhere except more frustrated. It had been more than an hour since I started, it was getting rather hot, and my brand new Trimtex pants were showing the effects of the thorns. I retreated the same way that I came in and went back through the TA towards my next two points. I tried running when I could, but the heat was oppressive (mid-80s) and the trails were sandy. The second point was incredibly easy, as I spotted it from 50meters away (misplotted, but still). My final point showed itself on the edge of a peninsula by a lake...it was not. I trudged wwwaaaayyy too far into a marsh, but never really found a peninsula. Convinced that I was too far, I turned around to find a drier way back to the trail where I began, and ran right into the flag. The map showed the flag just on the edge of a lake. GPS nothing, this thing was wrong. I shuffled back to TA with the plan to find Kit and/or Tom and have them come with me to get the one that I couldn't find. I was searching for them sleeping, and instead I found Charles and Mari from Bones who were STILL waiting for Roy to come off of o-relay A. I found Kit and had her come out to help me. I had her do it all on her own, and she ended up EXACTLY WHERE I WAS. Again, we trudged around and couldn't find anything. Another reattack had the same result. She suggested that maybe the may was wronger than we thought, and we began hunting in stupider places, way more than the supposedly correct 125m from the attackpoint. In a moment of complete luck, I turned my head to the right and found the flag, nowhere close to the westside of a marsh, and at least 250meters from the hilltop where we attacked from. We headed back to TA convinced that no other team would ever find it.
Kit and Tom geared up to head out while I got them prepped with some map advice. Bones was nowhere to be found, and Good 'Nuff was still not back. I took a short nap, prepped some gear, ate, drank, drank, ate, drank, slept, and talked to anyone who would listen to me - I probably slept a bit more than 45 minutes and consumed more than a gallon of liquid while rubbing ice on my head in an effort to cool down. Also included in that was seeing Mari and Charles filling up waters - they revealed that Roy was still out on his relay and they were now helping him but had run out of water. This happened again 2 hours later. I have never felt so much sadness for another team's luck during a race. By the time that Kit and Tom returned 4 hours later, Good 'Nuff had just returned after 10 hours on the team trek (they also knew it was exactly 32 miles...how did they know that?). It was fair to say that we may have somehow taken the lead from them if we could make good work of the team trek and if they struggled the same way that we did on the relay. Fast forward a bit, and they somehow finished the relay legs in less than 2 hours each - how a professional triathlete was able to walk right up to a point that took some much better navigators 4+ hours to find is a mystery that I don't think I want the answer to.
We grabbed enough food and water for the leg and had a moment of panic as the map for the leg had gone missing. After I negotiated SBB's map from Mark Montague, we found ours in Ron Eaglin's bin - whew. We took off for our relay expecting it to be long but manageable. Last year, we had great success by moving fast on our feet - this was not to be the case this year. Tom was suffering greatly in the feet, and Kit wasn't doing much better. Neither of them had slept at all and the heat during their trek had been tough. We resolved to walk, but my trekking pace was much higher than theirs. This leg only gave us one CP to start, where would find a map containing the location of the next. We had gotten some warning that the CPs would require us to trek back and forth across the map. The first 4 were simple, but then it began to get repetitive, as we traveled on the same set of trails 4 times, going back and forth across the park. I don't mean to be negative, but it was just stupid. Someone made this leg with the intention of frustrating teams. As we worked our way to our 8th point, we were 6+ hours in and it was fully night. Tom and Kit were barely moving, and we were passed by Hunter on an o-relay, running sub 8min/mile. He gave us some encouragement but also a warning that the final 2 points took 2 hours each for his team. We grabbed CP 39 (point 8/11) and then set off towards 40, where the wheels fully came off. I had offered Tom a nap a number of times, but he refused, instead getting super quiet and reserved. Kit had made a small recovery, and she and I spent some time talking about how to deal with Tom's issues. This focus on conversation led to my only real significant error of the race, as I lost contact with the map and took 30 minutes to get us back on track. At that point, Tom was falling more and more into a hole, to the point where he laid under his space blanket on the side of the trail while Kit and I found CP 40 (which was incredibly challenging and much further than we expected from the attackpoint). The subsequent point that I marked on the map was a full 6km from where we were now. It was 2AM, and there was no way that we could get it, finish the leg, sleep, and leave before the TA closed at 6AM. Our decision was made even easier when Tom asked about quitting. It was simple enough for us to realize that he needed attention quickly. We wrapped him up with his space blanket and coat and marched ourselves back to TA, a 3+mile journey that took 70 minutes.
Once there, we resolved to sleep until 5. I spent some time on my feet which had developed some nasty blisters on the trek. I also had broken 4 toenails, one of which now had a large blister under it. I have no memory of the trauma that caused this, but I was in a good bit of pain. I laid down to sleep next to my gear bin at 3:45 and woke immediately at 4:50. The TA was alarmingly empty, with the last few team packing up. I got Kit and Tom moving and we began making the short trek to the canoes at 5:20, arriving there at 5:45 to find that there were no more boats. Time credits were being given to teams waiting, but both Tower and Only Mostly Lost were sleeping their off of the clock, and OML had tied us on points (Tower had dropped one more on the team trek). We eventually put on the water at 6:35.
This paddle was huge, and my shoulders were sore throughout. Fortunately it was easy to eat and drink from the stern, something I never knew about before - I'm now jealous of all of my teammates. We traded places with Tower and OML for much of the paddle, only getting a bit behind them when Tom and Kit struggled to find 47 in a pile of mud. The long out and back to 48 was a slog, but we got to see 5 alligators (can't decide if that should be an exciting thing). I was very sleepy during the paddle. Also, Tom had the maps for all of the water sections, so I don't have much else to report. We ended the paddle after 1PM, ready to never look at a boat again.
From there, we had a 2 hour trek to our bikes. The nav was simple, but my feet were screaming. When we arrived to the bikes, we were again towards the back of the pack. CPP was 20 minutes ahead, Tower was still in TA, and OML was slightly behind us still on the trek. We took some time to transition so that I could deal with blisters, but after 20 minutes I didn't make much headway. We also had been looking forward to the hot food and cold drinks, but they were out of both at the TA.
When we finally left we were towards the very back of the pack, leaving with a hoard of mid- and back-pack teams. Between the TA and CP 56 we were involved in a wild-goose chase of chaos, with teams riding back and forth, yelling and shouting looking for CPs and flagging tape, my feet throbbing in pain every time I took my feet off of the pedals, and Kit's left pedal breaking. When we got to the CP I gave the team a little pep talk; we just needed to calm down and not get caught up in a stressful race with other teams around. Being towards the front of the standings (top 5 at this point) but being at the back of the race was effecting the team's decision making. After we found the CP we learned the true extent of the pedal fiasco, we tried to fix it but it was going to be unfixable without a new pedal. We trudged on with Kit pedaling on the spindle. After a few stops and starts we ended up ahead of most of those teams before realizing a major issue - Tom had forgotten his phone in TA. CP 59 required pictures to be taken. Without that piece of mandatory gear (or his GoPro - also in the bin) we wouldn't be able to receive credit for the CP. We discussed the morality of the many solutions, and decided that purchasing something to take pictures with was the best solution. I spotted a small town on a map, and we located an old Valero. While Kit went in to purchase a disposable camera that expired 20 years ago (no trac phones in the store) Tom and I were treated to a 5-minute display of dancing horses in the parking lot. Disposable camera in hand, we made our way to the Chuck Lennon trails, where we had to ride 3 separate loops to locate specific landmarks. The 30 minute ride here would have been fun, but I was fighting back tears in my eyes from the pain in my feet. Every rock, root, and drop sent incredible amounts of pain through them. As a cherry on the poop sundae, I also broke a spoke in my rear wheel. When we left this trail system, we headed off north, grabbing 60 with a hoard of other teams. The ride to 61 and 62 was highlighted by 2 things. First, Kit was nearly eaten alive by a copperhead. Second, we witnessed one of the most beautiful moons that I have ever seen. Massive, orange, incredibly bright, it followed us on our right for when felt like an hour. I know that we lost some speed in this section due to my ogling. I don't normally get caught up in nature-things, but this was a happy exception. The road ride to 63 involved some pedal switching, as Kit was feeling pain in the knee from the spindle. She gave Tom the spindle and she took his flat pedal, which seemed to help the group be happier overall. The joy was short-lived; I stopped to show a decision on the map, and Kit accidentally put her foot down directly onto my broken toenail/blister toe. As we rode on I had tears coming out of my eyes - it hurt that much. I also was making some involuntary moaning noises; it was an emotional struggle to lift my foot onto the pedal. Some additional caffeine and ibuprofen helped to cut the edge off of the pain, I am confident that I have never been in that much pain during a race. The final CP of the leg (64) was a slight challenge, and the turn that would take us there most efficiently was masked on the map by a road name. We ended up on a slightly longer ride-around (it was a neat brick road that was partial covered with sand), but it took us directly to a gated road that seemed to be private property, albeit governmental and not personal. We found tracks of another racer clearly going through it, and there was nothing in the race rules about this being off-limits, so we took the road. Halfway through I spotted some headlights approaching; to avoid being chastised for being there, we turned off our light and dove into a drainage alongside the road. A white pickup truck approached and passed very slowly... After it was a bit beyond us, we hopped on our bikes and rode with the lights off as fast as possible to the CP, which was just beyond the end of this stretch. It was later revealed that this truck was the one who had been harassing and bumping racers - scary stuff. From 64 we hauled butt into the TA on roads, just before midnight, overtaking a few teams and arriving just behind Tower. On the way in we passed a few teams heading to the finish and also passed MRC running, clearly on the final trek.
We were surprised at the business of the TA, even more so at the number of teams who were electing to sleep this close to the finish. We TA'd somewhat efficiently, got some hot foot, grabbed trekking poles (which turned out to be lifesavers for me), and set off with a plan in mind to get all of the CPs but to start with the biggest pocket of them first. We had to leave TA by 8, so we had plenty of time. The CPs on this section were paired (had to get both A and B to receive credit for one CP), but getting them all would eliminate any of that strategy. Our pace was conservative, but we started clicking off CPs without much issue. 66B was a little tough on a hilltop, but we honed in on it eventually. Around 68A we ran into Bones, who were still trudging along despite having their race blow up on Friday morning. We hit a boatload of diffifculty from here trying to find 68B. We attacked more times than I can count and continually ended up in a deep swamp with no sign of an island. Kit got herself in some of the thickest sawgrass we've ever seen. After more than an hour of searching with no less than 5 other teams, we temporarily pulled the plug on it and head to the western part of the course. We planned to cycle back through this area afterwards with fresher heads. After gathering some post-race intel, it sounds like we may not have traveled far enough south, despite being way over our pace count. MRC had been able to find it from a billboard, which we did come across. The tracker cuts off just as we began searching, so it's hard to tell how close we were and where we were wrong. We had only just arrived onto the road taking us westward when a race van pulled up and told us to get in. MRC was in the back, having been picked up while biking. This was the end of the race.
Tom's Race Report:
Traveling across the country with all the gear it takes to complete a 3 day adventure race can be a hassle – unless of course you have an awesome teammate driving there with a van big enough to transport everything. Special thanks to Kit (and Ashley), it made logistics so much easier!
Check-in was smooth, Q&A session was helpful, dinner was delicious, and final preparations only had a few hiccups (a slightly warped front rotor issue was straightened out by on site bike support. Also Kit’s bike tow wouldn’t mount properly on our bikes so we didn’t use it, and my front tire valve core needed to be replaced and sealant added). Honestly the toughest part of race prep was getting our gear bins under the 40lb weight limit!!
Hopped in bed by 9ish, did a little reading, felt good and relaxed. Woke up at 5, took a quick shower and made a drive to get McDonalds for a breakfast sandwich (McD’s is the breakfast of champions right?) and gas station for sunscreen (clearly I should not be trusted to remember important gear, how foreboding this was). Bus ride was a little tough to feel useful with maps since I was a row back, but I got in a good review of all maps before arrival. Knowing this race would be hot I drank lots of water the previous 24-48 hours and on the bus, so there was no shortage of pee breaks needed before the gun went off.
15 or 20 minutes after the scheduled start, everyone was lined up on the beach path, and the start gun (airhorn? Shout? I don’t really remember) went off! The race started by filling a bottle half full of sand, and we were off on 3 mile road run to TA1. We throttled the pace well and watched as the likes of Bones and Good N’uff sped off ahead. Watching some teams with 30L packs stuffed to the brim, I was happy with the lightweight and snug fit of my 12L Salomon running vest. Since most transitions were only a few hours apart, I felt most legs I could go minimal gear wise without too much concern. At TA1 we made a shoe transition as we hopped on bikes which cost a minute or two – in the grand scheme of things it’s a drop in the bucket, but it’s tough when the adrenaline is flowing to see other teams who had chosen to run in their bike shoes, or who use flat pedals, take off with a super fast TA.
Off on bikes, race energy high, we probably pushed a little harder than needed, and soon enough I felt the beginnings of leg cramps, though consistent salt tablets kept the cramps from worsening. I had managed to fit water 4 bottles on my bike (2 in the frame, 1 between my aerobars (yes aerobars, lots of flat road riding in florida), and one mounted behind my seat) so I was able to take most of the weight off my back, and have plenty of fluids. My goal was to drink about 1 bottle/hour during daylight, which I managed.
First checkpoint was a s#&t-show, we stopped about 100 yards short of where we should have (probably because there were a bunch of other teams who dropped their bikes there), and bushwhacked through sharp/dense palms to no avail. Kit’s legs were totally cut up since she hadn’t been wearing gators. Eventually we went around the corner and found it sitting nicely on a dock by a pond. Moral of the story, ask yourself is the RD going to send folks into such dense nasty that early? Also Lesson reminder #1 try not to be swayed by other team’s decisions.
Next couple points were ok, then we hit paved roads, and Towers Racing flew up behind and wanted us to join their paceline. They are strong bikers and it was hard pushing. We overstretched the watts. Lesson reminder #2 - race our own race and drop off sooner if the pace is unsustainable. Rolled into TA2 a little back of lead teams. We had a trek, a bike, and a paddle to complete which all looped back to TA1, but in what order was up to us. We decided to paddle first because we wanted daylight for any tricky nav pieces. Could have backfired if it was really hot on the water, but turned out ok, and may have been a chilly paddle had we done it at night. Most other teams went out straight onto the bike which saved a TA.
Ok so back to the foreboding comment about forgetting important gear. This was the first race I’ve ever been in charge of the passport, and needless to say I was a little absent minded about it. We were 15 minutes into the paddle before I realized it was back in TA. We docked and ran back on the road, found it, and returned to the boat. This was a masterclass in awesome teammates who were rightfully pissed, but didn’t express it, and basically said “yea it sucks, but nothing we can do about it now and getting frustrated about it will only slow us down, so let’s go get it, and then keep grinding”. Really awesome.
After that we got a bit tripped up on one backwater, I knew we were at the right corner, but didn’t see an obvious way in so I second guessed myself and we paddled a couple hundred yards further downstream before realizing the error. It was just hidden a good bit. The rest of the paddle went well, though my arms were totally dead with about 30 minutes of paddling left. Clearly skipped too many paddle workouts in the leadup! Also should probably work on form/get a lesson. It’s like swimming in triathlon, I tolerate it so I can do the running/biking, but there is a lot that can be gained by actually focusing on technique/training.
The following small trek section was easy enough, Glen was nailing the NAV. Forgot my normal headlamp (see the theme yet?) so only had my tiny one which was useless for flag finding after dark, luckily we got all but 1 before dark. Back to the bike, we headed out on a 20-ish mile bike loop. We tore out of TA excited to fly through the bike-O points, popped into the trail network, looked for our first trail junction…nothing. Was that it? Not sure let’s go a little further. Then we hit a road and realized we had REALLY overshot. New plan, we’ll circle back. This trail network was our first sampling of the deep and loose sand we’d often find ourselves traveling through for the next 3 days. It was much slower going than expected, but after that first hiccup, Glen adjusted to the map and we ticked off the points without much issue, back to TA to prep for our 90 mile bike ride.
Most of the 90-ish mile bike ride is actually a bit fuzzy for me to remember – I was feeling a little sleepy, hadn’t taken any caffeine, temperatures were comfortably cool, we didn’t really make any major mistakes – just put miles and miles on the roads. Memories start just before sunrise when we reached a dead end road in a little neighborhood, there was a locked gate with a big no trespassing sign, but it was marked as a waypoint on the map so we knew we had to go through – we sketchily hoisted our bikes up and climbed over the gate, half expecting a spot light to come on and dogs to start barking. After that gate sandy trails became the norm. The sun started to rise, and around 7:30A we hit a very intimidating obstacle – a marshy river crossing. But it wasn’t the river itself that was intimidating, it was the sign posted right next to where we expected to cross “No swimming, alligators”. Seriously? Not cool. We figured we must be in the wrong spot, so we wasted 15 minutes going back and forth along the river to find the proper crossing until another team came along and said no, in fact that was the right place to cross. F&%k. So across we went. I later heard at least one team biked miles around so they didn’t have to cross through the water, I can’t blame them.
After the river crossing we had a choice, left was a more direct, but harder path to follow, right was longer but apparently more frequently ridden (as noted on the strava heat map we checked out on the bus). We chose the shorter route. It wasn’t much of a path at all, more a light bushwhack through a marshy mess. We thought about turning back a few times, the other way surely must have been faster, but in the end it appears we chose correctly as we spotted the river crossing team rolling into TA 20-30 minutes after we did. Oh wait, I missed a part, did I mention the sand? After the marshy bushwhack we did a few miles in the loosest, deepest sand I have ever ridden in. The sand ended up getting in my chain and bound up my drivetrain. Fun stuff.
Now at TA2 we had a choice, a 15 mile team trek, or one of 2 shorter treks that could be done individually. We had entered TA thinking we’d do the team trek, but Glen was pumped with energy and I was happy to take a break, so we made a quick change of plans and Glen took off. 3-ish hours later he ran back into TA, having been unable to find 1 of the 3 points. Bummer. Kit had her shoes and gaiters on as she had planned to run the next leg, so both her and Glen took back off to find the missing point. An hour or so later they returned, successful, but frustrated since they were pretty sure it wasn’t plotted correctly. Oh well.
It was then decided that Kit and I would tackle the second relay together due to some checkpoints that seemed to be placed is super dense brush. I had been planning on napping, but it was hot and sunny, and darn near impossible, so I hastily threw socks and shoes and set off with Kit. I think it was this moment that began my downward spiral of the next 12 hours. Due to the rush I had failed to use a clean, sand free pair of socks. I also had failed to put on my ankle gaiters.
Given that it was midday, and probably about 90 degrees out, Kit and I decided we’d probably be digging ourselves a hole to push hard in the heat, especially given that Kit’s stomach was starting to turn. So we did a lot of walking, which felt weird because we were in a race after all, but it was definitely the right decision. We got a bit turned around due to trails not quite aligning with the map, but after relocating had decent nav, and even nailed CP(3?) on our first try, which turns out was a bit of miracle as some teams spent HOURS bushwhacking for the point in the super thick brush.
Now comes what turned out to be my least favorite part of the race. It’s my least favorite part for 2 reasons, first my feet totally fell apart. Blisters up the wazoo. The wrinkles on the bottom of my feet had become so deep and tender I thought they were open sores. It was not good. Adding to the *fun*, what was supposed to be a 15 mile trek, we heard rumors was actually a 30+ mile trek laid out in the single most monotonous way I have ever seen. Let me explain. On this section you were only shown where the first point was hung - when you found that point there would be a map hanging with it that would show you where the next one was hanging, etc. Now imagine you have two fields on opposite sides of a map, you start in one field, are directed to the other field, which then directs you retrace your steps back to a different spot of the first field, which, yes, you guessed it, directs you back to the second field again. Over. And. Over. Again. Now I’m being a little dramatic, there were 11 points on this section and probably only 6 of those were like this, but it was so mentally frustrating and draining, made all the better by hobbling on painful feet. Did I mention that Glen decided to kick a cactus? Ok maybe he didn’t decide to, but he did end up with dozens of little cactus needles that needed to pulled out, he wasn’t too happy either. I was really hurting the team here, I wasn’t taking help when they offered to offload gear or lend trekking poles, and I was moving at a snails pace, I just wanted to lay down and sleep because I didn’t know how I’d ever recover and be able to finish. Glen and Kit knew at the pace we were moving there’d be no way to finish the trek and make the cutoff, so the decision was made to go back to TA, sleep for an hour, and then start the paddle with hopefully a bit of refreshed energy.
I made so many mistakes in this race it’s funny to think about now. For example, before laying down to sleep I decided I wanted to make some Raman, but in my infinite wisdom hadn’t brought the cup version, just the normal packaged version which obviously doesn’t hold water. So I crushed it up and dumped into a ziplock baggy, added hot water, and then put it by my head while it hydrated. 2 minutes later my head was laying in a puddle of warm water. Fun fact, zip lock bags leak when you pour boiling hot water in them.
After a quick 1(or 2?) hour nap, we packed up just as TA was closing, and headed down to the boats. But there were no boats. So we had to wait while some were transported back and were told a time credit would be issued due to the delay. 45 minutes later we launched with a few other teams who had also been waiting. Overall a fun paddle on a meandering river. Though there was one notable checkpoint that required a short, super muddy trek, where I sank about waste deep in muck, it was actually a lot of fun. Makes me feel like a kid with an excuse to get dirty!
Off the paddle we had a short but hot couple mile trek to the TA with a few checkpoints along the way.
