tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78859729043531406412024-03-18T22:42:38.801-04:00Canyoneros - EA Sports Adventure RacingThoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.comBlogger77125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-55854280445429348612019-09-28T18:57:00.002-04:002019-09-28T18:57:10.601-04:00Eco Challenge Fiji 2019 - The World's Toughest Race<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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We're currently under NDA, so not much can be said about this race. We had an experience of a lifetime though, through the scenic Fiji islands, jungles, rivers and oceans, to the interactions with the friendliest local people. This race was produced by Mark Burnett, in conjunction with Amazon Prime and MGM, and hosted by Bear Grylls. It should air sometime in the first half of next year, 2020. Stay tuned...<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Team Canyoneros - Steven Geer (left), Lena McKnight, Greg Watson, Nathan Whitaker, Hien Nguyen</span></div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-14825472567873993752019-07-09T01:12:00.001-04:002019-07-12T23:54:15.068-04:00Sheriff - Nocturnal AR - Elite 12hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Nocturnal AR</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">7/6-7/7-2019</span></div>
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Lately our weekend training has been anywhere between 6-15hrs long and on several occasions, overnight. The Nocturnal AR was just another training weekend with the way things have been going :D</div>
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For this race, the goal was to give Nate some more night-time navigation experience, use single-sided canoe paddles during the canoeing portion (where we normally use the faster double-sided kayak paddles), outfit ourselves with larger expedition-sized backpacks with some extra weight in there, test some new shoes, and continually work on good habits and efficiency.</div>
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So during pre-race, Nate took the maps and started pre-planning our routes immediately. The race was broken into three simple segments--run, paddle, bike. The canoe section was a little trickier, esp. at night, so he decided to let me take that one. I was only able to look over his trekking route and it looked good. I didn't bother looking at his biking route, cuz I wanted to have him learn through trial-by-fire if it wasn't optimal, but he often comes up with some really efficient routes that I don't see during the frantic pre-race moments.</div>
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<b>Trek</b></div>
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The race started with a relatively short running section that had us finding eight control points (CPs) on our way to a river. We joined forces with all of the Elite teams to find the first few CPs. Night time navigation can be really tricky because you can't see far. As the pack started separating, we started getting in our zone of calling out every terrain feature and pace count so that the navigator can confirm positioning on map.</div>
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There was a full search party at CP6, but CP7 was the one that gave us the first big trouble. From CP6, we dialed in our compass and tried walking in a straight line for over 250m in the thick woods at night. We didn't nail it the first time, so we decided to go back on the yellow-dotted trail, south of us, find another attack point (in this case the highest point of the trail) and then shoot another bearing back in, but this time be more mindful of staying as straight as we could. The night is all about the technicals of pace counting and staying slow and sharp.</div>
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<b>Paddle</b></div>
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The end of the running section led us to the beginning of the canoeing section. Equipped with canoe paddles, we spent a few minutes dialing in our technique and feeling out the awkwardness. With three people, there would always be one guy paddling on one side by himself, causing the boat to veer more to one side, but we made sure to keep flipping sides on cue. It was definitely slower going but I'm sure that was because we aren't fully proficient yet. On top of that, it was dark and Nate (the steerer in the back), couldn't really see ahead well enough to make the steering corrections himself and completely relied on Greg's full-time communication job in the front of the canoe to keep us as straight as we could, given the circumstances.</div>
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The river was quite 'overgrown' with sea grass and lily pads. At times we just paddled right through the middle of it using V8 power. Craig Sheriff, the race director, noted that you just had to follow his reflector markers on the river, and that was enough to allow locating the CPs fairly straightforward. That and he eliminated five controls to shorten the paddling section so we could have more time for biking section.</div>
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At some point on our return route, we floated over a log that wedged tightly under the center of our canoe, not allowing us to go anywhere. We've been there many times before so we started the protocol of shimmy'ing and rocking the canoe back and forth in unison. After several minutes of being badly stuck, we upped the vigor and it finally start moving off of the log. With more strength comes less control and you know how this ends, haha. This log was spring loaded. As soon as enough of the canoe dislodged itself, we immediately dunked over into the river and capsized the boat!</div>
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In the dark, in a river full of croaking frogs and who knows what else lurked, the only thought that crossed our minds was, "please don't let there be an alligator under us." As we swam our canoe over to an island in the middle of the river, there was this nasty warm, chunky muck that enveloped our entire lower body. It was the quick sand of the swamp, slowly sucking us down under and emitting thick burps of foul smelling sewage. Nate had accidentally gulped some of this gritty stew and started gagging this demon out.</div>
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There was too much water in our canoe to continue on. We had to beach this thing in the tiny little space we had on shore, with little solid footing to support our progress towards it. Closer and closer, we finally grabbed a few overhanging branches and pulled ourselves up and the canoe in. Our pant pockets, shoes and socks were filled with this swamp diarrhea. Defeated, we flipped and poured the water out of the canoe and continued on, laughing at the reality and comedy of the situation.</div>
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That wasn't the only event. My headlamp battery, a high powered Chinese Ebay knock-off that was encased in a mere piece of paper cover, shorted out during that ordeal. Greg promptly gave me the only backup battery we all had, but then that shorted out instantly too! From there on out, Nate was my headlamp from behind for me to read the map.</div>
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<b>Bike</b></div>
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We switched to bike at the Main TA (transition area) after finishing the paddling segment of the race. Luckily I kept a spare headlamp in my gear bin here and was able to swap it out and see clearly again. Two teams left ahead on the biking section some 10-20 minutes ahead of us, but we needed to refuel here. No one ate on the paddling section because of how much more coordinated we had to be as a team while using single-bladed canoe paddles...in the night.<br />
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All of a sudden Nate returned the maps to me and said he wasn't feeling up to navigating this section. I took it and treated this like an FLO orienteering event, where you only get to see the map when you start the race. I didn't even know what the route looked like. I just trusted Nate's highlighted route and took it one control at a time. I turned on the navigational after-burners during this section of the race. The guys did an awesome job as usual calling out all the technical metrics and observations, while finding the controls with some kind of x-ray vision. I just had to make sure what they said lined up with the map, which resulted in a near flawless execution of the plan. When things go flawlessly, there isn't much drama or story to tell. I don't really recall anything outstanding in our story here, which is probably a good thing? Well, there was a bike bushwhack to get bonus CPs 15-16-18. That was pretty fun. And oh yea...Nate's headlamp battery shorted out too lol.</div>
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<b>Conclusion</b></div>
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With everything said and done, we finished the race in about 10hrs and 40min. We made up significant grounds on that biking section and took 1st overall. With our stories of capsizing and headlamps dying on us, Craig decided we earned the "Tough Break" award too lol.</div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-32733704046783935872019-05-19T22:22:00.003-04:002019-05-19T22:31:24.643-04:00ARGeorgia - Blue Ridge AR - Elite 24hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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With every race, we're trying new things, like gear and focusing on practicing good habits. So to hit us hard with sleep deprivation (we didn't really have much of a choice on this one), we did a full shift at work, took an hour or two nap, drove up to Blue Ridge (~9hrs) while taking turns sleeping and driving, raced the 24hrs, took a bath using a sink, then drove home taking turns again. Well, I contributed 30min to that :)<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">team EA Sports - Canyoneros - Hien Nguyen (left), Nate Whitaker, Greg Watson</span></div>
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After being bused to another location, we started the race by crossing a river at a shallow area to collect four CPs (control points).<br />
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Our plan was to collect all of the controls in clockwise order and then trek over a mountain to loop ourselves back to the start. We had numerous teams warn us against going over the mountain due to the thick and thorny vegetation up there, so we decided to listen and re-route our finish. While returning to the start, we found ourselves at a deeper section of the river and had to fully swim across.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwYX6vUhHgaksMqNW5czOtFcIP5fENtxwZNubi8z0YWpfB-bbXJ-gCQweSytTzJsrfEa7tJgrWkNXRdCMvVSUi71MkCTf-EHt-KmKvyVMCiJ9FmkkUt22v3Ten8PUlhfqUGaWA4TjkyPaP/s1600/60909343_2240533846261671_3865636854648799232_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="904" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwYX6vUhHgaksMqNW5czOtFcIP5fENtxwZNubi8z0YWpfB-bbXJ-gCQweSytTzJsrfEa7tJgrWkNXRdCMvVSUi71MkCTf-EHt-KmKvyVMCiJ9FmkkUt22v3Ten8PUlhfqUGaWA4TjkyPaP/s400/60909343_2240533846261671_3865636854648799232_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The next leg was a short paddling section that had us go through some whitewater. Greg did a superb job of communicating a clean line for us to traverse through rapids, where we found ourselves leaping ahead of several teams. However, one area was rockier with a bigger drop-off, so as we fell down the steps of the rapids, our canoe filled almost completely with water and we got stuck and so did our Florida Team Disoriented, but we worked together and got ourselves out safely.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">adventure racers joking and laughing it off after mishaps</span></div>
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This race was billed to have expedition-like navigation and elements by the race organizer, Jeff Leininger, and indeed it did have some tough CPs in the night where route choices were key at times and physicality was brutal with the mountain climbs.<br />
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During the middle of night, we got yelled and cursed at, non-stop, by a local who frantically got out of his truck on the side of a road. We were merely walking on a public road near where he parked. At this particular moment, we were trekking with Team Disoriented and I can see how the dude would have been immediately scared by 6 headlamps trekking his way, shining lights on him as we looked around, but after a few apologies and explanations, I couldn't understand why he would continue to yap and threaten to "blow us" away. What was he hiding or doing before we got there? We'll never know, but it's fun to laugh at guesses.<br />
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We cleared the course up until the last two legs, where we just chose to gather the three best bang-for-the-buck controls on each leg. This turned out to be our best choice after evaluating the state of the team at the moment and then confirming after talking to a few strong teams who cleared or attempted to clear one of the legs. There was some <i>really </i>fun single track biking trails we took on the way back to the finish, while collecting CPs.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">my favorite area was the climb up a steep and slippery mountain side to witness a majestic waterfall</span></div>
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We finished the race around the 23hr and 30min mark, pushing our bikes up Aska Road in some intense heat for Georgia at this time of the year. I don't know where we placed overall out of 32 teams in the end, as speed and competition hasn't been our focus as of late, but long enduring events to beat the body into adaptation. We left early and didn't stay for the post-awards show, but we got 4th in our open division.</div>
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Thanks Jeff for helping us continue to build our team for what awaits and throwing a heck of an event!</div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-2818575710038617152019-05-09T17:57:00.002-04:002019-05-10T00:02:34.745-04:00FLX - Howl at the Moon AR - Elite 12hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Johnathon Dickinson State Park, Hobe Sound, May 4th 2019</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">author - Nate Whitaker</span></div>
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<b>Introduction</b><br />
Canyoneros are currently training for a multi-day expedition race that takes place later this year. As part of our training, we’ve been trying to participate in a race or long training day every weekend. This weekend Greg, Hien and I found ourselves driving to South Florida to compete in the Howl At The Moon Nocturnal race. This race would be a challenge for me as Hien was handing me the navigation reigns so that I could improve as our team's #2 navigator. Needless to say, I didn’t expect us to be as competitive as usual and my teammates all agreed that the focus of the race should be training and good habits.<br />
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<b>Pre-race</b><br />
After a much needed detour to Arby’s we arrived at the event later than the other teams. Teams were already furiously working the maps, plotting and measuring, as we unloaded Greg's truck. All of the tables were taken and we set up a base camp outside of the rest room (luckily the smell wasn’t too bad). Clouds were starting to form overhead and the distant sound of thunder was noted but it was still very bright and hot that afternoon.<br />
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We checked in and Ron handed us maps for the first trek and paddle legs. As I sat down to plot our route, my teammates started getting all our gear race ready. The first thing I noted on the maps was that all measurements were in miles. I prefer to work in km so did a quick conversion for the distances that I felt mattered.<br />
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<b>Trek 1</b><br />
Disclaimer, my route was far from optimal but here is what I plotted. Everything looked straight forward on paper and it even looked like we would have a nice river swim to end the trek leg.<br />
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Once the race started, we all ran out the gates and our team broke left whilst the other lead team (Jason) took a more northerly route. I looked to see if anyone was running the same route as us and only saw one team following us. Everyone else was running the same route as Jason. Still, not to get discouraged, I had a plan and I kept to it. My team mates never questioned my decision and commented that “cool, we like to run alone anyway”.<br />
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We found every CP with ease up until CP3. We attacked at where I thought the CP was but didn’t find anything so figured it was the wrong trail. I questioned whether I had switched to mile measurements subconsciously and had blown my pace count. We decided to run north until we found an intersection and then come back south with a new pace count and attack again. Sure enough, it took us back to the same trail. This time however, I did not turn around after 100m and kept going forwards, sure enough the CP was right by a creek, tucked behind a tree, approximately 5m from where we’d turned around previously. Oh well, shrug it off, that’s 10 minutes we won’t get back.<br />
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We then continued further north until CP4 and started pace counting to where we thought the CP was. We then all scoured the area and came up with nothing! Again, I backtracked to an intersection and remeasured whilst Hien and Greg kept up the search. I then reattacked and…nothing… After some time, team Nature Calls turned up and I explained that the CP was a nightmare to find. Of course, Manny then runs to the same point we were looking and then pointed out the CP tucked behind the one tree, right on the trail, that we never checked. Are you kidding me? Oh well, that’s another ten minutes we won’t get back.<br />
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The rest of the course went well, we hit every CP first time and then at CP8, went for what we thought was a river swim but were now expecting a simple wade through a creek (when we had seen Manny he had mentioned that he had took a shortcut over the creek but it was only a few meters and waist deep). We had been looking forward to swimming with full gear so we were disappointed. Regardless we followed the trail east until it ended and then we stumbled upon the creek. We were delighted that it was an actual river, maybe 25m wide, deep and by that time, it was night. Team Control’d KAOS met up with us at this point and we all swam over together then hiked another couple of hundred meters through a very dense swamp. We all loved it, this is what Adventure Racing is all about!<br />
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Once we broke through the swamp, team Control’d KAOS broke North to CP1, and we heading back to the TA having collected all CP’s. In retrospect, team Control’d KAOS had chosen a route that would have shed several km from our run had we done the same. Lesson learned, spend more time on route choice next time I have the helm…<br />
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<b>Camp Murphy Maze</b><br />
When we got to the TA to start bike, Ron was talking on the phone to a team Good Nuff who were already at Camp Murphy and had started that leg going for the closest CP (Bike CP 5). They were having major problems finding it and right after Ron stopped talking to them, he started advising teams to start at Bike CP 1. The CP’s on this leg were laid out in such a way that one CP contained clues, and or adjustments, for the “actual” location of the following CP. The plan was teams were going to attack them in order but Good Nuff had done the logical thing, that we were also ABOUT to do, and attacked the closest first. We then headed to Camp Murphy with this new intel and followed the route in order. I felt bad for Good Nuff as it must have cost them so much time without that information.<br />
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Once we arrived at Murphy, we started following the CP’s in order and also had a lot of fun riding the technical trails. In some places where there were obvious short cuts, we elected to ride the trails instead, whilst commenting that it would be great to come back to the park again some day.<br />
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<b>Trek 2 – “The Dunes Of Hell”</b><br />
We rode to the remote TA at hells gate, and were immediately tasked with plotting UTM Coordinates onto a tiny map. Hien and I plotted UTM’s whilst Greg, took care of our gear and resupplied us all. We then left the TA and I started to look at the route I was going to take then realized I had a major issue, I couldn’t read the map! I recently had ASA corrective eye surgery which comes with a 6-12 week recovery period in which your vision jumps around and gradually corrects to 20-20. The scale of the map resulted in me seeing a blurry mess and not being able to pickup contours at all. Hien graciously took over this leg and we headed out.<br />
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Nate comment:- the “Dunes Of Hell” certainly lived up to their name and gave many teams fits trying to find the controls (no single team found all controls but all controls were found, if that makes sense). Many teams were visibly frustrated as this was an intense mental and physical slog. At one point, Greg sensed that the Dunes were about to get to us too and started joking about them. We continued the joking for hours after and the Dunes actually became fun! That in a nutshell is why I love our team, we can turn around any lousy situation and make it fun. Embrace the suck!<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">imagine trying to find this control box deep in the woods at night, without clues</span></div>
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<b>Paddle 1</b><br />
After the “Dunes Of Hell”, we rode back to the main TA and transitioned to paddle. Ron had advised us that we should count on doing the family leg if we wished to achieve best “bang per buck” in terms of time vs CP’s (there were 9 of them on this leg). As such, I measured a route that would collect us 3 out of the 6 CP’s and we headed out. This leg went better than I expected, I had dreaded this leg the most as I was having issues with the scale of the topo map on the river, and my corrected eyes. Also, the river map didn’t always seem to match reality. However, I relied on a turn by turn method of navigation and except for us overshooting CP 1, which we then grabbed on the way back, this leg went well.<br />
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<b>Family Course</b><br />
We’d set aside an hour to clear this three-discipline course and we did so with ease, we then headed back to the TA and punched in to finish, or so we thought…Ron had other plans…<br />
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Ron has been extremely supportive in giving us advice for our expedition race later in the year, whether that advice be training, equipment or providing us with useful contacts. Ron then told us to grab some water, have a little rest and then go out and collect the 1st trek controls on bike. We grabbed them all using pretty much the same route we’d took on the trek leg except we avoided the river swim which, we probably should have tried with the bikes.<br />
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Once we paddled back to the TA, Ron was out collecting controls and everyone else had gone home. We left the controls we’d picked up and then packed up and hit the road. About twenty minutes into our journey back to Orlando, Hien got a text from Ron, “Pickup Paddle controls 1 – 6 next”. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the text whilst we were in the park, and still in race clothes, otherwise we would have done that too. Thanks again to Ron, and a huge thanks for not making us pick up the controls in the “Dunes Of Hell”. Ron did that himself and in good old Ron fashioned, seemed to love it!<br />
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<b>Conclusion</b><br />
This was an enjoyable race, in a great park and we thoroughly enjoyed the training. We were pleasantly surprised to see that we actually got <a href="http://flxadventures.com/howl-at-the-moon-ar-2019/">second place</a> too.<br />
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<b>Darn Tough Socks</b><br />
For the last couple of months, on our long training days, I’ve been experimenting with foot care solutions. Whether that be tape, socks, liners etc. None of the solutions I’d tried so far had seemed to eliminate blisters completely. Prior to racing Nationals a couple of years ago, Darn Tough had handed me a pair of socks and I had remembered them as being super comfortable but also good on the feet.<br />
With that in mind, I’d reached out to Darn Tough and asked if they would send a pair to try before our expedition race. The super generous, nice folks at <a href="https://darntough.com/">Darn Tough</a> promptly replied and asked our teams shoe size. They then sent our team a couple of pairs each to try.<br />
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For this race, I covered my toes in Run-Goo then out on a “Hiker Micro Cushion Crew” sock. The verdict:- this sock was awesome, despite us being wet for pretty much the entire race, thanks to that Trek 1 river swim, I peeled off the sock and had zero blisters!<br />
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We are racing (well training) at the 24 Hour Blue Ridge Adventure Race next week and I plan the wear the socks again. Thanks again Darn Tough!<br />
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-88158673517397941222019-04-30T00:09:00.002-04:002019-04-30T00:18:49.585-04:00Sheriff - Earth Day AR - Elite 18hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
We got a big multi-day race later this year in September, so we've started ramping up our training last month again. Earth Day AR was a nice long race where we could iron out a few things and enjoy the some night CP hunting.<br />
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<b>Trek 1</b></div>
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The race started with a choice of running or biking, so we chose running. We took a clock-wise approach to this route, starting with CP22 and ending with the far CP25. Not too much drama to this section, except going from CP22 to 17, which I thought had some trails leading to it with the way the map was illustrated. It did not in real life, so we carved our own trail to 17 (green circle in map below). Nate was always bang-on with his CP sniffing. He's been involving himself much more when it comes to navigation, which always helps offload some of my work and improves our accuracy with double-checking. Both Greg and Nate were always great at helping me spot distinctive features in the field to help us confirm our positioning on map--things such as topology, faint trails, vegetation changes, etc. These are very crucial things to do as a team, as the race goes on and my mind gets a little more dazzled.<br />
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can never avoid bushwhacking through palmettos in a FL race</div>
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<b>Bike 1</b></div>
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I measured out every leg of this small biking section and it seemed to pay off pretty well, as some of them could have been pretty hard to nail sharply if you wing'd it. We didn't have much issues here at all.<br />
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following a faint trail in a field of bushes</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI-GFgLnP6HUYjTaVKIEGuRbYrdAfpq41A7n5Gdrq1zihENlxCtCF7mR-py6uMJCxmsXEKXpaIsHrgojqYpbbjke4ZL1dZVMX3KF4NgiRkKNAU4SVG8NIgwa5VTro0s99SdA7EpGFvEmTn/s1600/earthday06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="714" data-original-width="1282" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI-GFgLnP6HUYjTaVKIEGuRbYrdAfpq41A7n5Gdrq1zihENlxCtCF7mR-py6uMJCxmsXEKXpaIsHrgojqYpbbjke4ZL1dZVMX3KF4NgiRkKNAU4SVG8NIgwa5VTro0s99SdA7EpGFvEmTn/s400/earthday06.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I think we're still on the trail</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcM3F9ZQodzCFBTHhnUDbhttzgQu7Iufa-u5nkqvoYQ9TEfMhPF8TzPTFjmzRSFLW74LGV_aBbQZYvzA9gf2hFdiQyZI_oWSXQaMVcTJEipz8XqTXI7Pb19usfWU515A_1h81ilemX8dRI/s1600/earthday14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="714" data-original-width="1282" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcM3F9ZQodzCFBTHhnUDbhttzgQu7Iufa-u5nkqvoYQ9TEfMhPF8TzPTFjmzRSFLW74LGV_aBbQZYvzA9gf2hFdiQyZI_oWSXQaMVcTJEipz8XqTXI7Pb19usfWU515A_1h81ilemX8dRI/s400/earthday14.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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not sugar sand!</div>
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trying to find a CP off the trail</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM6twzRm7Lpq2kgFsEPJy4h22cPM2QmusQdveq-qm0A7jT274uedHkhy-Oafor0NgIybqxDrPBFZlrU38asTT_uLKLVJhw6SCdot6aQfWWYDErxABqn5RQK6gM9l1jPVhLLcaSi4pMbb3N/s1600/earthday15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="714" data-original-width="1282" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM6twzRm7Lpq2kgFsEPJy4h22cPM2QmusQdveq-qm0A7jT274uedHkhy-Oafor0NgIybqxDrPBFZlrU38asTT_uLKLVJhw6SCdot6aQfWWYDErxABqn5RQK6gM9l1jPVhLLcaSi4pMbb3N/s400/earthday15.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>Trek 2 A/B</b></div>
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This was a very unique challenge of the race. I started as the map commander, while Nate and Greg followed my directions on walkie-talkie to gather some controls in Juniper Springs Recreation Park. Every control they visited had a set of UTM coordinates written on the checkpoint, which they would relay back to me to plot on map for their next control. I just had them straight bushwhack from one to another on a few of them.<br />
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Once they picked up a handful of them, it was now my turn to go fetch some controls under their walkie-talkie instructions. We had watched several Sport AR teams do this earlier in the day amidst some frustration, so we took it very step-by-step-like to keep it all slow and accurate.<br />
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Again, very interesting section that allowed us to rest and fuel up, and it adds more tools to our belt.<br />
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<b>Paddle 1</b></div>
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There were only two controls on this paddle that took us 4.5hrs to complete. I was able to turn my navigating mind off on this leg, and it was nice. Greg did an awesome job communicating turns from the front as usual.<br />
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All I can think of was the middle seat for this section. It took us about 12 minutes to attach the middle seat onto the canoe properly. We met up with Team Disoriented here, where they gave us some tips on how to attach it. The sun was coming down as we struggled to pilot the canoe through the narrow bends of the river with a 3-man setup.<br />
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The first time we side swiped a log in the middle of the river, the seat was literally kicked out from underneath me. My ass instantly dropped to the floor of the canoe in a rude-awakening. The seat, which took us so long to put on, was now so misplaced that Nate had to kick it multiple times to get it back in place. The second time we brushed up on a corner after turning too late around a bend, my seat popped off again and rammed into Nate's shins. This occurred so many times with our crazy maneuvering of the canoe that I don't know who was more traumatized--me and my falling into the floor of the canoe or Nate and his skin-scraped shins. Every brush we passed by was seemingly just low enough to grab a hold of the center seat and pop it off underneath me.<br />
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our recorded GPS route</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6xQspn0SBg7Twy58FUX9Pb_3d_K4tzZrn1aAFNR-EZ7Fubk2alb1Qznwe-I-9OcGwS91ofmA4ve3cNRlnMHOw7hECk2FXefauBqlvXOvOwZPy1KBSVVmsKyCho1Owyy79ig9Xm070dmLY/s1600/earthday16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="873" data-original-width="1600" height="348" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6xQspn0SBg7Twy58FUX9Pb_3d_K4tzZrn1aAFNR-EZ7Fubk2alb1Qznwe-I-9OcGwS91ofmA4ve3cNRlnMHOw7hECk2FXefauBqlvXOvOwZPy1KBSVVmsKyCho1Owyy79ig9Xm070dmLY/s640/earthday16.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Once we got out to the giant Lake George that the St. Johns River flows through, we pushed hard against the current. It was fully nightfall by that time and as I looked out into the vast lake and the distant port lights, I was envisioning what paddling in the ocean could be like--quite surreal.<br />
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As we neared the finish of the paddling portion, there were a bunch of boats just fishing and chilling in the channel that lead to the Boat TA. Looked like they were just having a chill time, living the life of relaxation deep into the night.<br />
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<b>Trek 3</b></div>
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This was a fairly straightforward leg that had us collecting two controls on route to the next transition area. I had one mistake here after picking up CP45 and heading west, but in all fairness, the map had a connecting trail at (A) that we never saw in real life. I should have counted paces here to perhaps bushwhack through across the road, but I didn't and we ran much further than we needed to.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXTzJzF9JFyDRTFe8fkhcJhnoiBrZwSCM7cFz1pBic2hgY5LoI7z3CEMuSWaNkrkMqjlZIQSvWA6Zh6xk4CDAgywYR4qRxT54huABllCQbLoKE_xgqOb3SIN9ld5ubHMYs-JypAm-RfTQP/s1600/earthday03.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="737" data-original-width="874" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXTzJzF9JFyDRTFe8fkhcJhnoiBrZwSCM7cFz1pBic2hgY5LoI7z3CEMuSWaNkrkMqjlZIQSvWA6Zh6xk4CDAgywYR4qRxT54huABllCQbLoKE_xgqOb3SIN9ld5ubHMYs-JypAm-RfTQP/s320/earthday03.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Bike 2</b><br />
This section had several control points that were located on the perimeter of a pond that was deep in the woods. We loved it. There was one pond that had so much life in it, you heard all types of loud frogs, crickets, alligators and who knows what else lurked beneath the surface of the nightly marsh.<br />
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There was another pond we had to find where we overshot it on the trail by about 120m. After trekking into the woods about the distance needed to land on top of the pond and not seeing any hints of a pond (marshy grass, a clearing, etc), we used our hearing senses to hone in on the nocturnal frogs. It was an incredible method that led us precisely to the CP.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_gIU4_ZPCEiibSfIwPSKpOLy95mRAou9DGumi8xNQIgfn2trHWm2fZEe72kR7SI1x5mHhHLJTiq-64EEacEHYLBTqipoEEgEJb-euLhUMb_O__QeRZmgJYWoQZgNEIKBI7UCP2FVbdsyt/s1600/earthday01.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="564" data-original-width="779" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_gIU4_ZPCEiibSfIwPSKpOLy95mRAou9DGumi8xNQIgfn2trHWm2fZEe72kR7SI1x5mHhHLJTiq-64EEacEHYLBTqipoEEgEJb-euLhUMb_O__QeRZmgJYWoQZgNEIKBI7UCP2FVbdsyt/s400/earthday01.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Much of the controls on here were on pretty nice single track trails or hard gravel. It was rather cool and pleasant for most of it.<br />
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I don't know how Craig, the race director, finds some of these controls, but the "illegal house" was very creepy, almost witchcraft-like, deep in the woods, in the night. It was also one of those where it could have been really tough to find in the night too, but we found it almost on first try.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6zZfi6BzRHLGn_QUHkK5dMBhwgZPzJ7315mAg2E0WfGb_bCiqgZGrSRMiWClOR_oqUcbCus6QA1ooZtKl_uVdGzsHFisr9cGiKtsvUTYLfIgB9-44WPPWtVML9KBxVN4TFwXgG4VdRN-0/s1600/58576140_870405219965035_1781358787190325248_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6zZfi6BzRHLGn_QUHkK5dMBhwgZPzJ7315mAg2E0WfGb_bCiqgZGrSRMiWClOR_oqUcbCus6QA1ooZtKl_uVdGzsHFisr9cGiKtsvUTYLfIgB9-44WPPWtVML9KBxVN4TFwXgG4VdRN-0/s400/58576140_870405219965035_1781358787190325248_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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On the way back to the finish, I couldn't find the mapped short route to the Main TA, so we took the FL Scenic Trail back, which added 7min to the route.</div>
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<b>Conclusion</b></div>
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We finished the race in 15hrs 40min after finding all but 1 control point, the 'hunter's stand' that we found the wrong one at (CP46). Much easier to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SheriffPosseAR/videos/1173320069504521/?q=sheriff%20posse%20ar&epa=SEARCH_BOX">find in the daylight,</a> I suppose. We ended up 2nd in the Open Division. We didn't stay for the awards, but that might have been 3rd overall, behind the speedy "Team Disoriented" and friendly "All Toe-Nails Go to Heaven".<br />
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We got a few back to back to races coming up and I feel the team is getting back into business again. Much thanks to everyone who helped put this race on!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIAF7XjFJB9D3bOLDwUpYtTtSruIQP0wHnA5Sm4BKqpcdbj4AMzO7h_iXF9P9G-GL9coHxua0lMQY5QenZOhFQBb6O3M_Awa_ZAlIXwhnPrCTd254UL2FR9pVkXCgzfCSJ7vmPSyr9wMTL/s1600/58583755_871733746498849_1039941436402827264_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIAF7XjFJB9D3bOLDwUpYtTtSruIQP0wHnA5Sm4BKqpcdbj4AMzO7h_iXF9P9G-GL9coHxua0lMQY5QenZOhFQBb6O3M_Awa_ZAlIXwhnPrCTd254UL2FR9pVkXCgzfCSJ7vmPSyr9wMTL/s400/58583755_871733746498849_1039941436402827264_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-13268599509358093652019-04-14T20:59:00.001-04:002019-04-25T23:31:10.314-04:00FLX - Navigator Holder Mine, Elite 8hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Race director Ron Eaglin hosted an 8hr orienteering event, where legendary Gord Hunter designed a marathon of a course at Holder Mine. Gord was of great significance in our <a href="https://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2012/12/flo-bubba-goat-ghost-event.html">humble beginnings</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">course 1</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV4ATO0Y-KkaYZ_YPzBEIjJlu-x1LVIEoKBZ-wcFcedPIlEyazaSXSPzvLaYoW-YWUgIPXvMGGCxrhWaS2YhmitkXstU-qmbITdFIQWefASWQXYUC_KLY5o2M_wrfQvvW8zeisaJpAwYPX/s1600/map01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1076" data-original-width="1600" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV4ATO0Y-KkaYZ_YPzBEIjJlu-x1LVIEoKBZ-wcFcedPIlEyazaSXSPzvLaYoW-YWUgIPXvMGGCxrhWaS2YhmitkXstU-qmbITdFIQWefASWQXYUC_KLY5o2M_wrfQvvW8zeisaJpAwYPX/s320/map01.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">We got there a little later than we thought and had about 5 minutes to plan the route. I chose a clockwise route starting with the lower left quadrant (the start/finish is in the middle of the map). The first course was flowing with most control points deep in the woods. I had full focus and held sharp bearings. After CP116, my knees were getting torn up and you can see I was making route choices based on not having to bushwhack (going to CP204 and 115). I was noticeably slower during the bushwhack because of it. Once I put long pants on for the 2nd course, I was able to bulldoze through the brush, but then I was feeling the effects of the heat. There's always a trade-off with going shorts or long pants. You can see the temps make a jump to 97F during the 2nd half below. I finished the first course in 4hrs 6min.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">course 2</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-t8pzmGjswlZNi9U4bmHkOCLf0OGOMwzWKj0-RAeEW5MUwz1dwb9aUGhb9dzPFw0bInYimZw70uHw6Rm6Ijox6_Q6PW7pah3cNLm192KcjVbW2Xu5DEreGgrsnigOhIxu4q2Yp-MabMAH/s1600/map02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1083" data-original-width="1600" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-t8pzmGjswlZNi9U4bmHkOCLf0OGOMwzWKj0-RAeEW5MUwz1dwb9aUGhb9dzPFw0bInYimZw70uHw6Rm6Ijox6_Q6PW7pah3cNLm192KcjVbW2Xu5DEreGgrsnigOhIxu4q2Yp-MabMAH/s320/map02.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">On a rogaine race, you are penalized one point for every minute you're late, so time management was key during this second half. Up to the half-way mark, I was giving myself 10minutes for every control point, but during this second half, I was falling behind. There was no way I could keep the speed and efficiency of the first half.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">I don't know what happened to me after half-time. I had a series of mini-mistakes until CP240, including running out of the transition area and then back to click the "start", and then doing it again--running out and then back to get more food. Usually my teammates help me do all that other stuff, but today we were all solo to brush up on navigational skills. Once I got to CP240, I had to tell myself 'that's enough, concentrate!'. This course also had the same clockwise route, starting with the lower left quadrant.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Overall, it was great exercise in many areas--physical, mental, contour reading, on-the-fly route planning, and pace setting. I finished the race with 5 minutes to spare, good for second place overall. I also literally ran a marathon in the woods today.</span></div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-24703982287832864972019-04-14T20:33:00.000-04:002019-04-14T20:33:02.047-04:00FLX - Turkey Burn AR, Sport 4hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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(awaiting race recap...)</div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-78202487954381191132017-10-09T15:56:00.004-04:002017-10-09T19:54:05.514-04:00FLX - Lighterknot AR, Elite 8hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It's been about half a year since we did a race, so things started out a bit rusty as I forgot to pack my camelbak bladder. Luckily Craig, the race director, let me borrow his. There was a few other common things I typically do during races but forgot on this one as well.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">course map with our GPS overlaid</span></div>
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Anwyays, the race started with a quick prologue, running around the pavilion to find answers to several questions. It would transition onto canoe, where we kept neck and neck with team Chub Solo (Mac Kelly and Ron Eaglin).</div>
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We paddled to some island, where there was an orienteering section. In Canyonero fashion, not enjoying following other teams, we split ways with team Chub Solo and did the course in reverse. We figured the hardest CP would be 10, and hitting it off of the lake might be easier of an attack point, rather than following some vague set of trails that Craig enjoys putting us on. We were kinda wrong, as it was a little hairy picking up the trail that lead to CP10. Actually, there was no trail, as we blazed a path directly west of the lake corner (mapped red below). We were knee high in rotten-smelling swamp until we picked up a berm that led us to the control. Also, whilst shaking off rust, I completely skipped the easiest CP of the course, 15.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7E_U8Tu3QDQCgoDFfmMFlnYzATKOfAoyjQAzMjKYVl-8OLQ6lqsFPVCIGl7KwIMLEqwHHzxOVmOYSaB_3O-jt49N4qbj9GdPU9RJ5cmjis_Nd3-5cg3DM4HuuXPrzHlOELo54rYVB5N_/s1600/map02.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="877" data-original-width="1128" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7E_U8Tu3QDQCgoDFfmMFlnYzATKOfAoyjQAzMjKYVl-8OLQ6lqsFPVCIGl7KwIMLEqwHHzxOVmOYSaB_3O-jt49N4qbj9GdPU9RJ5cmjis_Nd3-5cg3DM4HuuXPrzHlOELo54rYVB5N_/s400/map02.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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After completing the orienteering section, we got back on the canoe and paddled the inland channel to get to CP18. From there, we portaged our boat over the to the adjacent channel to go north for CP19.</div>
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Once arriving at the TA, we got on bikes, cleared the top half of the park controls easily, and then headed out to do a counter-clockwise sweep of the controls, starting with WP4.</div>
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From WP4, we swamp/bike whacked down to CP33. It seemed the logical thing to do on paper, but once we got down near the control, it was a foresty, marshy swamp jungle--not ideal for bike whacking at all, as our legs were sinking down into muddy quicksand. We had to abort without any punch. Conditions became worse, and thus, there went our fairly clean race up to that point. We burned 50min here, including figuring our way back out, feeling completely demoralized. Just bad luck...bad luck. On an 8hr race, a 50min mistake is not something you can recover from.</div>
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Nate was good sport about the mishap, and probably expected it due to us not racing for so long, so we shook it off and kept marching forward.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">the view of trying to find your way out of the "middle of nowhere" with absolutely no clear features around</span></div>
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We eventually hit a trail, if you call it that, and found our way back to the road to take the long way down to the rest of the bike controls. Along the way, we met some animal friends, including a gator, an eagle, and a copperhead snake.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">young eagle slid down a tree and got entangled in this mess--he got out though</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Nate tells me we have to enjoy the water in the backyard of Jon Sheriff's house</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">other racers joined in on the fun</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">cars were prohibited from traveling on this flooded paved road, but not bikes</span></div>
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Once Nate was done bathing in Sheriff's backyard, we raced back to Tomoka Park and picked up several more controls on the south side of the park. With time ticking down, we decided to drop a few more biking points, in favor of clearing the trek section, which seemed like great bang for the buck. We cramped up while getting the fastest time on that leg to finish the race in <a href="http://flxadventures.com/lighterknot-ar-2017/">2nd place</a>. How did that happen? Because there were only 5 teams competing in the elite division :/ Fun, grueling race overall though!<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Craig Sheriff crafted up some really cool "lighterknot" trophies</span></div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-21067630315250712282017-05-28T20:57:00.001-04:002017-06-09T00:39:37.901-04:00AR Georgia - Blue Ridge AR, Elite 24hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unfinished races have untold tales...</div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-82639731551704457702017-03-12T01:34:00.001-05:002019-03-10T13:56:20.189-04:00FLX - Sea to Sea AR, 72hr Expedition<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>Helicopters, Search and Rescue</b><br />
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I figure I'll just start the writing off with this story since everyone witnessed part of this fiasco and some of the rumors we heard were pretty far-fetched. Every team was mandatorily equipped with a Spot Tracker safety device for a race of this magnitude. "Do not press the SOS button. Call me and we'll get you any help you need, as we know the areas very well..." Ron Eaglin, the race director, explained the night before at the pre-race meeting.<br />
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On the second evening of the race, we were walking along a berm in Sunnyhill, when we saw a helicopter flying and constantly diving overhead. We pointed up and jokingly chuckled, "look, a team pressed the SOS button," thinking it was some random chopper. Moments later, Ron pulled up to us in a red truck and he asked if we had seen any teams in distress. We answered no and assured him we were the only team in that north orienteering area at the time, and if we did see an incident, we'd react accordingly.<br />
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As we continued to trek along the course, Nate goes "Hien! The SOS light is blinking on the Spot Tracker!" I thought he was just trying to be funny, because it's not likely you can accidentally press it. There's a lid that covers the button and you have to press and hold it for four seconds. But then when I looked at it, sure enough, it was lit up. We wondered among ourselves if it was a protocol to send every team nearby an SOS light when another team in the area has a problem. This has never happened before, so it was all new to us. So onward we went towards completing the orienteering course.<br />
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Later into the night, a fire truck spots our headlamps in the forest and pulls us over with their loudspeaker on. "Are you team Habaneros?" "We're team Canyoneros" we replied. "Can you come out, Habaneros?" After a 30min interrogation and troubleshooting of our Spot Tracker, they confirmed our device was malfunctioning and sending false SOS signals. All while the entire Marion County emergency response team had descended upon the area to execute a Search and Rescue for us on land and in air (several fire trucks, EMS vehicles, a helicopter and dozens of cops). You gotta agree, it was an impressive response!<br />
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<b>The Start</b><br />
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This year we fielded two EA Sports teams. Nathan Whitaker, Greg Watson and I formed one team. Johnathan Wolverton, aka Leonides, led the other team with Ben and Stan, who characteristically each raced one smaller 8hr race in the past that enticed them to do the 72hr. These guys were Spartans who were never deterred by any challenges and had a great spirit of adventure.<br />
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We met up in Crystal River the night before the race on the west coast of Florida and were bused to Ponce Inlet the next morning, on the east coast, where we would make our way back to the west in three days on foot, canoe, and bike. At the start, you couldn't have asked for better weather--blue skies and no rain. The start was a short ~13km jog along the beach to warm up, while taking <a href="https://gemspots.com/flx">photos</a> at key points as you went through Ponce Inlet Preserve.<br />
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Afterwards, we transitioned into the canoe to paddle to a technical biking trail for a time trial. The time trial wasn't exactly as straightforward as we understood it, seeing how we went in circles a couple of times. After slowing things down to figure out where we were, we finally got on the right track and cleared all three control points. It was heating up and the team was feeling the effects of heat exhaustion.</div>
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We continued out of the technical section on a long biking leg after this time trial, gathering controls along the way through the city of Deland. Most of these controls were pretty straightforward without requiring much navigation. However, we missed the next time cutoff by 45min, where we could have picked up two points on foot, and so we were re-routed to Blue Springs boat launch to start a paddling section.</div>
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Along the way, we had heard stories of our other Canyoneros team having quite a few mechanical problems with their bikes--flat tires, broken chains, and even a lost GoPro which was recovered later at <a href="https://www.jcsbikeshop.com/">JC's Bike Shop</a> after another team found it.</div>
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The paddling section at night was pretty pleasant. It started raining and got a little chilly by the end, but other than that, we enjoyed the Snake Creek paddle around Hontoon Island. Our skills as a 3-man team on canoe has improved greatly over time.</div>
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Up next can be summed up as the "Sugar Sand Zombie Walk". 19 miles of nonstop walking in sugar sand. This is the section where we developed some excruciating feet blisters.</div>
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At the end of the night trek, what seemed to never end, we finally made it to the Ocala National Forest to transition into a long biking section. We opted to skip the optional two points that added 22 off-road miles. As if the previous trekking section didn't give us enough sugar sand, we were presented with even more on the bike! This time, we were gifted hills too. Imagine that...riding uphill through sugar sand only to coast back down through more sand that acts as a brake--anyone who didn't race, you guys missed out on this unique experience! :D</div>
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<b>Sunnyhill Orienteering and the Med Pack</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOPwI0GSd516E6tl0y7TBvOeD2j105aCjLILvg553dz-PIGK51CNnuWXyQ4O9-IWbd2FdyhEizxIZRVRP09tE_Kz7MOlUUXfKCwaIDsKpfAqTZOO6C-FJRTUaLxnxIge2U8eCVaJfyCxx1/s1600/sea2sea035.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOPwI0GSd516E6tl0y7TBvOeD2j105aCjLILvg553dz-PIGK51CNnuWXyQ4O9-IWbd2FdyhEizxIZRVRP09tE_Kz7MOlUUXfKCwaIDsKpfAqTZOO6C-FJRTUaLxnxIge2U8eCVaJfyCxx1/s640/sea2sea035.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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After covering 30 miles through sugar sand on bike, we transitioned onto foot at Sunnyhill. This is where Greg had a number two itching away at him, after uncharacteristically not having one the first two days.</div>
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"I'll hold it, I forgot to pack some Wet Wipes on this leg," he said. On map, I didn't realize it was about a 15 mile long trek but it initially looked clearable in a few hours. It actually took us well over 8hrs to finish since the team couldn't shuffle jog anymore due to various training injuries and blisters that occurred before and during the race. We had banked on biking and canoeing as our power disciplines for this race, which we did awesome on. The trek was strategically to be used as a recovery and refueling discipline for us. As the hours wore on, Greg just ducked into the forest and told us to hold while we looked for the "bear clearing". This one gave us fits as it was finally found much further north than plotted. We must have attacked this half a dozen different ways before finding it. In fact, this entire trekking section was quite tricky as we found ourselves on the wrong side of a non-crossable channel on two occasions.</div>
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I typically wear long pants on these races so I can plow right through thorn and vines with no slowdown. But on this leg of the race, I wore shorts. I forgot I had shorts and still trucked through shrubbery like I had pants on. I paid for it. Both of my legs looked like this (pic above). I asked Greg for the med pack so I could clean it off and put some antibiotic ointment on. Greg sheepishly replied "we're all out of gauze and sport tape." Nate and I both scratched out heads for a bit and looked at each other, thinking the same thing. "Did he...?" we thought. Then we looked at Greg and his face just gave the answer away...he indeed used it all up!</div>
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This section is also where we had the infamous Search and Rescue team come after us. You can read about it up top (beginning of this blog).</div>
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<b>Oklahawaha Paddle and Hypothermia</b></div>
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Many teams decided to skip this paddle and bike to the next section instead. We were one of few who braced for the adventure ahead. The paddle started off like any other, and on night two, sleep monsters started to appear. The air was very cold, low 40s as an average, but amazingly, the water was warm. This combination gave rise to a thick fog that had me seeing dragons growing out of the water. Trees in the distance turned into clownish creatures.</div>
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For every hour that past, we lost another half an inch in feeling of our fingers and toes. At the dam CP, <a href="https://teamdisoriented.com/">Team Disoriented</a> saw us shaking uncontrollably and graciously gave us a pro tip that saved our ass, literally. They told us to wrap our legs with an emergency blanket to keep the water off.</div>
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Greg did an awesome job commanding our canoe up front, and Nate an excellent job steering it in the back. I didn't have any issues navigating it. We paddled constantly so I was able to accurately rely on time as our distance keeper. We actually paddled harder and faster as it got colder in an effort to burn more calories and create more heat.</div>
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The team latched onto my hopeful words of a bridge that ended the section and the possibility of a nice cozy campfire. We finally got there 5hrs+ later and let out a big sigh of relief. As soon as we stopped paddling and clumsily stood up though, voilent shivering set in. We started panicking as we saw no one around. We forgot the TA was 1.6 miles away. We dropped everything we had and ran to the TA to continue to build heat, heat that would only last a few seconds before the nightly wind chill blew it away and bit our skin. By that time, ambient temps were reportedly in the high 30s. The wet clothes were enhancing the hypothermic conditions we were battling. Once at the TA, I wanted to jump into the little hand fire there. The best thing you can do in this state is strip down, dry off, and get into new clothes. Wet clothing is a silent killer. We all hunkered down and took a 2hr nap here.</div>
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<b>The Third Morning</b></div>
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The two EA Sports teams woke up at the same time and headed out to trek Marshall Swamp together. It was great camaraderie. </div>
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We arrived at Santos trailhead and got ready for a massive biking leg. This section took us completely through Santos' Epic Ride and down the Withlacoochee Trails. This was voted to be the most fun part of the race, as all of us love biking. It had twisty trails, single track, technicals, everything. We blew through this section with some crazy speed and shortcuts we knew of.</div>
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And then it happened again...a helicopter flew overhead. I was becoming paranoid as my teammates assured me it was probably some random military exercise. But after an hour of it buzzing around with sirens echoing in the distance, it become apparent it was no coincidence. I called Ron and we decided to shut the Spot Tracker off. He alerted the new county we were in about the malfunction, and sure enough, 30min later, Santos was quiet again. If anyone ever wondered if these devices work, we can at least testify that the emergency response team will save you alright. In our case, the Spot Tracker just didn't work properly.</div>
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There was one trail we went through that seemed to never end, "Tricycle Trail". Fittingly, we biked by a tree that had a tricycle mounted on it.</div>
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Greg's pedal started seizing up, causing his bike to scream like a banshee. He had to over compensate for it on one leg, blowing it out at the same time. Unfortunately, he didn't have clip-in shoes either.<br />
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When we got to Holder Mine Campground, we had a series of orienteering courses to do, each course worth only one point. Some of the controls here were really difficult to find in the night, but we completed two of them. It took a lot longer than expected, so we decided to get about 30min of sleep before heading out the next morning.<br />
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<b>More Biking Woes</b></div>
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At 4:30am, Ron yelled over the loudspeaker to wake us all up. It was like an Army wake-up routine, where everyone frantically packed, grabbed some food, and got our bikes ready to storm out of the transition area at 5am (when the Dark Zone was lifted). Along the way, my bike started having trouble shifting gears. Within five minutes of first symptoms, the derailleur pulley bearings gave out in rapid fashion. It seized up and I couldn't pedal anymore. I had to quickly rip out the derailleur system and convert it to a single speed. I initially selected a middle gear as a balance for all of the biking we had left, but it eventually fell down to the smallest cog and was most stable at that highest gear. That meant I had to put all my quads into keeping this thing spinning. Every time we started from a stop, it was like a fully loaded 18 wheeler getting off the line, where no amount of turbo spooling could get this thing up to speed fast enough. I ended up not having any issues burning the quads out with one last push of adrenaline, even through the tight technical trail leading up to CP53.<br />
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We again met up with the other Canyoneros team. On our way out of CP53, we lost our other team for a little bit, but when we looked back, Stan came running out onto the main trail with a bike on his back. He also had a derailleur break on him. We quickly performed some repairs and split ways briefly for the last control point. Rumor has it, Stan ran the entire length of the way back to the finish line with the bike on his shoulders, as strong of a runner he was. Our team cleverly rode our bike to where the paddling CP was located and picked it up on bike instead of paddling it (we didn't get credit for it in the end though).<br />
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We coincided near the host hotel again, the finish line, where Stan still had his bike on his back to finish together. The locals came out and cheered us on at the end, which was really cool. It was an incredible journey of two EA teams making best of whatever circumstances gave us. We finished 3rd in the division and 9th overall after 70hrs of racing (46 controls found out of 54). The <a href="http://flxadventures.com/the-sea-to-sea-ar-2017/">Florida Sea to Sea AR</a><span id="goog_797677"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_797678"></span> is always a race that puts life into a new perspective with plenty of memorable experiences that gets us back into the primitive and instinctual ways of living.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Nathan Whitaker (left), Stan Snyder, Ben Kackley, Johnathan Wolverton, Hien Nguyen, Greg Watson</span></div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-35293425421423852282017-01-16T12:01:00.001-05:002017-01-16T19:35:59.227-05:00FLX - Resolution AR, Elite 8hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This race was the first race Nate took the helm and navigated for us. He's been improving his orienteering skills, taking first place at the 2016 Florida Orienteering Championship red course. So at the crack of dawn, Nate chose to do the paddling leg first--a leg that not many other teams would pick. This would provide him maximum learning with no one to follow.<br />
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The race start was foggy and appeared like an abstract dream. The lake exuded one of thickest fog we ever saw. The lake seemed to just merge straight into the sky. It was kinda like navigating in the night, but the night was white and no amount of headlamp would reveal anything in the distance.<br />
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I was happy to take my mind off navigation and just let Nate do his thing. I was able to more fully absorb the serenity and mystical views that we paddled through. We found all of the controls without too many issues and powered back to the Main TA at a super high cadence that Nate prefered.<br />
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We made a quick transition onto foot and found all of the controls. With Nate orienteering us through, me shouting out technical data of bearing and pace count, and Greg eagle-eying the controls, we were a cohesive team here.<br />
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There was a lot of sugar sand, flowing single track, and confusing mapping going on with the biking leg. Nate did an awesome job taking us to every control, until we ran into CP20. What was funny was that in order to get CP20, we had to compute some basic math back at CP19. It literally took us almost 15 minutes to figure the answer out and plot it, in our brain depleted state.<br />
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The trails were starting to become a criss-crossing mess from here, so we couldn't find CP20 and so bailed. We were supposed to have taken the black-dotted trail at point A, but missed it. And then we thought point B was where CP20 was and spent decent time trying to find something that wasn't there.<br />
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Once we got to the next transition, we quickly started the last foot section and found four of the closest controls to finish the race.<br />
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Overall, Nate did an awesome job of upgrading our team for Sea2Sea. I'll be needing his help when I fall asleep on the jog, and vice versa.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">maps and our GPS route overlaid on top</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b> team Canyoneros - EA Sports</b> - Hien (left), Nate, Greg</span></div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-72578470121359329952016-10-17T16:22:00.003-04:002017-02-20T14:41:25.349-05:00USARA - Adventure Race National Championship 30hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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"Guys, it's back again," Greg Watson texted us a couple weeks before the race. "I've got kidney stones, I'm gonna have to pull out." Our resilient racer was shelved as he checked into the hospital twice in the last couple weeks. Nate and I went on understanding we would go as an unofficial two-man team at the National Championships. We emailed the race director about our latest status, and he sent us a couple racers who were looking for teammates. A day later, Dr. Drake White of Illinois quickly emailed us, eagerly wanting to join, knowing full well the uncertainties that come with it. His team had also been on the unfortunate end of mishaps and had to disband entirely. As he modestly described himself and his nine years of adventure racing experience through email, we knew someone like him would be the key to getting us even further. We were glad to get back into contention again.</div>
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The night before the race, we gathered together at the host hotel, checked in, dropped our bikes and paddling gear off at the Start, grabbed food, and drove east towards to the Savannah River to sit in on the pre-race meeting. It was a mad scramble to get everything done on time, in so many different locations. Our packet of race documents included a page describing the order of the race, which gave us some clues on where and how the route would work. This was great because <a href="http://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2015/10/usara-darn-tough-ar-national.html">last year</a>, I had no good grasp of the general race route until the race was done with--I just didn't have enough time to plot and develop the plan during the morning.</div>
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<b>Canyoneros - EA Sports</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Nathan Whitaker (left), Hien Nguyen, Drake White</span></div>
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This year, we had a great plan of attack for map plotting that morning. Nate called out the UTM coordinates, Drake quickly plotted the control points and confirmed map feature with Nate's clue sheet, as I developed the route. It worked very efficiently.</div>
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Yes, every team's color coincidentally was orange (photo below). Just kidding :) It was hunting season and the race staff didn't want us to be accidentally shot, so teams either wore orange or a vest over their shirt.<br />
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The morning was crisp and cool. We had a prologue that carried us to 12 golf course holes. Since we were in Augusta, GA, a city that hosts the Master's Golf tournament each spring, I envisioned clear cut tree lines and a well manicured turf, just like the map illustrated. Nope, what we ran into was a seemingly abandoned and overgrown low budget golf course. The chaos of 60 teams running all over the place confused me a little and had me missing the first point I wanted to nail. That and the fact that the map was not oriented to north (as I found out afterwards). Anyways, once we found our first point, the rest were easy and quick going.<br />
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As we transitioned into canoeing, Drake took navigation in the center, as he claimed that was his strongest discipline (although Nate and I point to his biking ability, hands down). We had determined to collect the controls in a clockwise manner, starting with CP8 on a hilltop.<br />
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It was a beautiful paddle. The splash of the water was quite invigorating. Nate and I were conditioned in 100℉ degree weather down in Orlando, FL, so this 60℉ morning was an energizing treat. The red-tinged islands contrasted with the lush green trees as we passed them. Some of the shores had this dry and cracked ground to them that resembled a desert. Others had a rocky seashell-strewn floor with a hint of ocean smell. The variety of environments we ran across was truly scenic.<br />
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(photo above and below) There was a small area of land we portaged across to cut down on the distance that we had to paddle while going from CP1 to 3.<br />
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Two of the control points had us getting on land and running deeply inland to find the CP.<br />
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Once we finished this water section and paddled back to the boat launch, it was time to bike and collect three control points. I took nav back. The route had us going through technical biking sections, paved road, 4x4 dirt trails, acres of fallen trees, bike whacks through forestry, sideways/rocky single single track--you name it, it had it. We even had a country pitbull dog chase us for a good mile and a half. He was persistent and just as fast as us on on bike...while we were on paved road!</div>
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CP12 was also the location of a transition area to get on foot. We found CP13, 14, and 15 fairly easily (15 took two attempts). CP14 was found pretty creatively since a clear attack point wasn't very apparent to us enroute. Going east along the single track trail, we ran into a larger unmarked trail intersecting it, with a river channel to the east. We simply counted about 200m north and then cut west to find it.</div>
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Back at the transition area (CP12), we got back on bikes and headed back--in a circle in fact. I somehow led us in a loop back to the transition area since I thought I didn't really have to pay attention to navigation. Yea...demoralizing.<br />
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Nightfall came as we transitioned again to foot. The race had a whopping nine transitions. I suspected with Drake's experience and brains of a doctor (he is a doctor and surgeon), I had to hand him the navigation for this part. He traversed the land like a mountaineer as Nate and I backed him up on the technicals. Coming from FL, land of the flat, Nate and I relied more on the brute force of a straight bushwhack as our bread and butter. This worked pretty well until CP17 from 16, which we attempted a straight 650m bushwhack. The forest was thick, viney, and laced with thorns. We couldn't go straight. It was going to be a miracle to hit on first try. Sure enough, we didn't intersect it, so we ended up bailing out on the road and shooting back in from the lowest point of the road.<br />
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As we gathered the eastern controls, Drake was getting confident on our sharpshooting ability, and we were very confident in his topographic reading of the map and land in the night. It was a profound synergy that fueled the rest of the orienteering sections as two navigation techniques fused together to become a greater one.<br />
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Once we cleared the six orienteering controls, we swapped to bikes and progressed east on the Bartram Trail. This trail was voted to be the most fun part of the race. The single track was fast and flowing, and did not force us on any hike-a-bikes. Earlier in the race, Nate was having some difficulty with the really technical sections on bike, but now he roared to life and led the charge into the next transition area in South Carolina. What? You thought nationals was just held in one state? Nope, we raced across two states! That's right. It was just pure enjoyment...until I made the biggest blunder of our race while in control of navigation. I totally overlooked CP22! We had to backtrack and lose 37min.</div>
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Across the border below Clarks Hill Dam, we had another orienteering section, which I gladly handed the maps back to Drake. We knew this would be the toughest section of the race on a navigational basis.</div>
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I recall how hairy the marsh was leading over to CP26 as he chose to start off by following the power lines. Looking down into the entrance of this unknown path from the road, it was like a giant ditch that led into the dark abyss. You couldn't tell if you were going to sink into the murky marsh, overgrown with tall wild plants. But we followed him in, carefully prodding our legs in between any open gaps of invasive thorny bush. The grassy marsh below got more and more wet as I braced for a nasty swamp whack. Within a couple hundred meters, the ground started rising again and we were back on dry grounds, albeit still overgrown with vegetation. As soon as Drake identified the high point along the power lines, we shot in and out for the control. We continued to rely on each other's strengths to navigate this slowly, steadily, and most importantly, accurately. At times we were on our hands and knees, bushwhacking through tough, entangled brush.</div>
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In the morning, right before dawn, our paddling section started. It was still pitch dark. The water was smooth as glass. There was no sound to be heard except our paddles stirring the water. We were paddling down the Savannah River, the natural border between Georgia and South Carolina. Ten kilometers away, our first control point was to be found. I estimated we were going about 8 min per km and set our stopwatch for an hour and twenty to measure distance. It was monotony at its finest. It was that part of the race where no one spoke, as we tried hard to fight off sleep. This paddling leg was going to be perceptibly long.</div>
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As the sun cracked over the horizon and wet the canvas of the sky with her first brush strokes of saturated orange and navy blue, we slowly woke back up. I looked down at my stop watch and it showed only thirty minutes. We passed the time reminiscing on memorable races as we absorbed the serenity of the view. The end of the tree line to our left kept extending further and we could never reach the apex. Did I mention this paddle was long? It didn't help that our canoe had a strong tendency to veer to the left, which caused us to zigzag the entire way.</div>
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I didn't think my estimates were going to be exact across such a long length of distance, but at <i>exactly </i>an hour and twenty later, we found our first control point, which was under an outstanding bridge. The rest of the controls went by more interestingly. One was after a tight narrow channel, stashed deeply away in a bog; another was on a dam, and the last was at the transition area.<br />
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We had plenty of time left to finish the final bike leg of the race. I took nav again as Drake led the team and blasted down the Seaboard Coast Line at warp speed to find three CPs. One was under a bridge, the other was in a technical biking trail, and the third was on a bridge of a dam. The last one was quite tricky, as I had a really tough time figuring out the topo map compared to reality. Luckily Nate spotted another team up at the top of the dam, which we thought we would try. The scent was strong as Nate continued to sniff his way towards the control bag. It was indeed there.</div>
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Drake again, spooled up the turbo and unleashed afterburners as we thundered back to the finish line. My quads were on fire but they kept revving at redline like Formula One pistons. We finished the race clocking over 96km of distance on biking alone.</div>
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We crossed the finish line in 26hrs and 12min, <a href="http://www.usaranationals.com/results.aspx">third in our Open Division</a>, 18th out of 60 teams overall, beating our last year's performance by a significant margin. It was great to see seven other Florida teams representing out there, many of whom we have raced with before. We had a blast racing with Drake and learned a lot from him. He also had a lot of shout-outs coming from people in his neck of the country. From that, I got this vibe that he was highly regarded as Yoda over there.</div>
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After we concluded our race, a team came stumbling in with a missing derailleur and chain. Like a big family, Drake graciously loaned them his own personal bike to finish their race.</div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-7367266772549083782016-09-14T00:10:00.000-04:002016-12-31T01:00:07.917-05:00Off The Grid Racing - The Cauldron 36hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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There's something extraordinary about a race starting at midnight. And one ending 36hrs later. That race would be The Cauldron, starting in Marianna, FL. Nate, Greg, and I spent 5.5hrs driving up the panhandle of Florida, listening and laughing to stand-up comedian Iliza Shlesinger and Kevin Hart, while taking turns banking on sleep. Once we arrived, teams were already deep into the 28 pages of maps. Since there were so many maps and I didn't have enough time to develop a route for it all, Nate carried the clue sheet and planned the bigger picture of the race, which worked really well.</div>
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The night was quiet and bugless, a <a href="http://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2015/07/off-grid-racing-cauldron-36hr.html">far contrast from last year's event</a>. It started with a running section around the park to find 14 controls. Facing his claustrophobia, Nate volunteered to be the first one to crawl on his stomach inside a cave to find a control. We found many of the controls here with Team Pangea. We left CP9 to the end and ultimately couldn't find it.</div>
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Once back at the transition area, we grabbed our bikes and headed out on a 5hr biking section. There were barely any cars on the road in this tiny outskirt town east of Marianna, at this time of the day. The enormous industrial lumberyard we passed was quite a lively area--wood was still being processed well into the early hours of the morning. We found control points in backroads, main roads, in a hidden shack, in downtown Marianna, and even inside a train caboose. Country dogs chased us in a few stretches of road. We even latched onto Team Disoriented's draft, but those guys had the eye of the tiger that day, so we had to let them loose ahead. The last control was only a couple kilometers away from the Main TA, so we swung by to replenish our water supply and pick up our running shoes.</div>
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The biking segment finished at Hinson TA, a conservation area and park, where we started a trekking section. There were 13 controls here where bang for the buck was high. We opted to go slow and steady to hit them all accurately. The light of day shone down to reveal some beautiful blue-green water in the river that we ran alongside. We were treated to some magnificent caves as we traversed through them to punch our control card. And then came the elusive CP13. We attacked that one after grabbing CP12 by going south on the trail there. I swear the illustrated red trails on the map did not correspond well enough to real life, as we made multiple attempts to find CP13. We then bailed north to finish finding the others before successfully coming back at CP13 from the west.</div>
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From there, we biked back to the Main TA and started an incredibly scenic paddle through the crystal clear Merritts Mill Pond river. It couldn't have been a more gorgeous day to paddle, and through any clearer spring-fed river. The water was very refreshing to feel as the day heated up. On this section, we found controls in rocky caves, underwater, in ruins, and we even had a sighting of the mythological Bigfoot! We skipped the three further controls on this leg as we made mental calculations on the next biking section, which we had to finish before a time cutoff of 7:30pm.</div>
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Next--biking. The day was at its hottest now. This section was a mix of paved roads and dirt trails. Some of the control points were placed in creepy abandoned houses, straight out of a horror movie. We came within eye sight of Georgia at one point. As we headed for our first few biking control points, I was continuing to estimate our times for how many controls we could find here, so I cut a couple off our route, on top of the ones that the race directors cut. That meant I had to map out new routes to our destination. At the time, I didn't see enough map to make a connecting route from our final CP19 to Florida Caverns State Park. We decided to take a gamble by going west on Timberlane, in hopes that it T-boned Hwy 71. And if we hit Hwy 71, we can find our way to Caverns Rd to get us to the state park.</div>
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Along the way, Greg ran out of water. We all shared what droplets of water we had left to fuel the team, and eventually, we all ran out. "Let's just knock on their house and ask for some hose water" as we passed several country homes out in the middle of nowhere. We never did and kept suffering. Greg was absurdly fatigued after two hours of running on fumes but he still made sure to eat. Keep in mind, we would finish this race doing 237km (147 miles) on bike alone, a mix of paved and off-road trails. These biking segments were no leisurely feat!</div>
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Timberlane Rd., which had changed into several different street names by now, eventually tee'd into another unfamiliar road. We were off the maps and it was getting dark again. Hopes went down a little. All I knew was that we needed to go west and south. We took a few turns, followed a few more roads in that general direction, looked in the distance to see street lights, and finally ran into civilization--Hwy 71! Alas, we hit a gas station! Boy, did a run down ghetto-looking gas station in the boondocks ever look like the promised land. We crashed the place with the few dollars we had in cash. The cashier told us they would be closing in five minutes. What impeccable timing!</div>
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Greg, with eyes locked on the purchased refreshments, reportedly gulped down a quart of Gatorade and the better part of a gallon of water. 20min later into our continued bike ride, he flagged us down to stop on the sidewalk. His stomach was sloshing the water around so much it made him queasy. He took a 2min 'Canyoneros power nap' while I shuffled around some maps, and then we were off again.</div>
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We finally made it to Florida Caverns State Park an hour after cutoff, which I believe we got penalized in added time for. At that park, we transitioned into trekking. Craig, one of the course designers, gave us reports of how difficult this section was in the night. I took the challenge, went on a roll, and almost got us a straight bushwhack from CP29 to 34, had it not been for the dark murky river in between us. We backtracked, ate plenty of cobwebs, and continued north onto the red trails. There, I was nailing every control with precision, until CP25, a hog trap. The trail leading east towards it unexpected turned north, which we did not want. We carved a trail east anyways, couldn't find it, and then bailed west--too far west as we spotted the circular lakes that were mapped. I performed another safety bailout to the east and got us back on the red trails to attack CP25 from the south on the trails this time. We totally forgot about the bonus controls and did not pay attention to the extra notes at this control, which we would have easily obtained two more CPs.</div>
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In the midst of the woods near CP23, our headlamps reflected off a pair of glowing eyes. The loud chaotic hooting from the screeching owls nearby sounded like the Wicked Witch of the West, which further added to the aura of the eerie night. We froze and observed two more join up with it. They trotted like dogs, or wolves, or coyotes. It was one of those moments you braced for an attack, 3 vs 3, but we somehow knew our headlamps would be so out-of-this-world for them to see. They intelligently ran off into the darkness. We loved every bit of it.</div>
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As we skirted near the paved roads, yet still in the forest, a car stopped ahead. Instantly, a bright spotlight shined our way. A voice called us in the distance over a loudspeaker. We were being pulled over by a cop, in the woods! "Some locals have called in to report strange lights in the woods" he mentioned. Our explanation of adventure racing seemed to pique his curiosity more than anything. "You do what for 36hrs? And you find them where? With no sleep?" Our uniform and gear were a dead giveaway that we were legit, and so he let us go on our way.</div>
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The rest of the controls on this trek portion were found with a slow and methodical walk. It took us some nine hours to do!</div>
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The next morning at the transition picnic area, Craig gave us his sales pitch on doing the next paddle and trek. My calculations could not fit another leg at our current pace. We decided to skip it and go on the last biking segment to find a few more controls south of downtown Marianni before finishing the race. We came in with no expectations in order to fully absorb the remarkable experience that is the Cauldron, but came out with first in our division, third overall! We also won an invitation to next year's USARA Nationals 2017 with this win.</div>
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Erik Wise and Craig Sheriff did a fine job of putting us through some memorable areas. The caves, sheltering some flying bats, were definitely a unique treat, as is night racing.</div>
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Team Canyoneros - Greg Watson (left), Nathan Whitaker, Hien Nguyen</div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-38471228226885621372016-08-21T10:55:00.003-04:002016-08-26T00:19:54.511-04:00FLX - The Ultimate Outdoors AR - Elite 6hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Team Canyoneros - EA Sports decided the <a href="http://flxadventures.com/the-ultimate-outdoors-race-2016/">Ultimate Outdoors AR</a> was the one to get the entire crew out there. Three did the Sport race, three did the Elite race, including newcomer Steve Geer, who represents our entire concept department at EA Tiburon. The Ultimate Outdoors was a unique adventure race that combined the traditional running, biking, and canoeing, with obstacles.</div>
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The race started with a quick bike ride to the boat pickup, where we transitioned into canoes and blazed through the mini-lakes and tight canals like a 500hp V8. Russell decided that a high cadence routine, paired with power strokes, was the way to go for a race this short. At times the front of the canoe lifted up with the torque of our paddling. It was by far our strongest discipline as a team.</div>
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Mid-way through the paddle, we got on land and jogged to find three control points, all on the perimeter of marshes. It was a cool break up from the paddle. On the way out, an angry wasp stung my shoulder. I never swelled up like a balloon that day, so I'm happy to find out I'm not allergic to wasp stings.</div>
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There were a couple areas where we had to portage our boats over land to hop to the next mini-lake.</div>
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Once done with the canoeing section, we ran back to the original boat pick up area to get our bikes again. We had to carefully trespass some barbed wire fences across the pastures to take the shorter, more direct route. From there, we biked back to the Main TA to do some obstacles and to jog to find three CPs in the back of the park.</div>
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At our transition area, we met up with our other EA Sports coworkers, who were just getting ready to start their race.</div>
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We grabbed our bikes and headed off on a very grassy biking segment. There weren't very many trails in this park.</div>
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Along the way, we biked up to a fenced-off cow pasture, where a giant brahma bull was staring right back at us. Steve was the only one who took his chances and hopped the fence over into the pasture. No one was else was brave enough. Luckily it left him alone.</div>
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Russell started spiraling down into deep heat exhaustion on the effects of the beating sun and sweltering heat. Apparently we were not alone either, as a few of the teams around us also appeared to slow down significantly.</div>
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Teams helping each other out.</div>
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Eventually, the biking segment ended and we got back to the Main TA, where we finished the race traversing a series of obstacles. We climbed ropes, jumped platforms, rolled under logs, and flipped tires.</div>
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Here's the grand finale of the race, where each team member had to climb a 40ft structure and slip down the waterslide into a pond that cooled us off. We cleared the course in 4hrs and 20min.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Team Canyoneros EA Sports</b> - Brian Ruth (left), Steve Geer, Hien Nguyen, Greg Watson, Anastasia Nikolaeva, and Russell Barton</span></div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-5380493309018556272016-05-24T14:10:00.002-04:002016-06-08T22:59:36.423-04:00FLX - Blue Ridge AR, Elite 24hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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another view of the same capsize from our teammates:<br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQFpbMd8-bk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQFpbMd8-bk</a></div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-71217393976805335852016-03-08T22:07:00.000-05:002016-05-09T18:57:03.879-04:00FLX - Sea to Sea AR, 72hr Expedition<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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(our GPS route in blue above)</div>
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<b>Flash Forward to the End...</b><br />
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Race organizers decided to lift the 72hr cutoff, perhaps to ease the pressure of dead tired racers hoping to finish on time. We had just started the final paddling section a little into overtime. We regrouped and cheered to give one last breath of air into the final push of this gigantic race...a race longer than any of us had lasted before...a race where half of the field had dropped out of the rankings due to unfortunate circumstances. We knew all we had to do was crawl into the finish line, and we would make our goal of qualifying for the national championship. It seemed simple enough without any time constraints. Play the video below and see how it went for us.<br />
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We were only a few kilometers away from the finish line! "Dammit, we have to finish!" we panicked, as we gulped pints of brackish intercoastal water, treading our way back to the wooden shore. Waves got more violent and chaotic as it reverbed off the shore walls and slammed against our faces in all directions.</div>
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In a sigh of relief, an alert local couple spotted an upside down canoe with people and gear scattered all about in the water came rushing out to pull us on deck. Out in the distance down the road, we saw a pair of men walking our way. The closer they came, the more clues revealed they were Sea2Sea racers too. <a href="http://teamcommiebar.blogspot.com/2016/03/team-commie-bar-finishes-florida-72hour.html">Team Summit Adventure Racing Team Commie Bar</a> had also suffered a similar fate, arms wrapped in a bloody gauze bandage. It was a comical, yet serious, scene for us and the locals to witness.</div>
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"What kind of race is this??" "You have been up for how long??" They questioned as we deliriously entertained them with ridiculous answers. I'm not sure how much they believed us, but we are very grateful of their hospitality, treating our bloody limbs from grabbing razor-sharp barnacle-covered wooden poles along the shore. <span style="color: yellow;">(<i>continued at the end...</i>)</span></div>
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<b>Flash Black to the Beginning...</b></div>
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This would be Greg Watson's first Sea to Sea AR. He is one of the most resilient long-haul racers we have had on the team, with 30-36hr races under his belt, including the Atomic/Blue Ridge AR and Cauldron AR. It's an attribute that's highly desired for multi-day events. And onto Nate...this is his third time doing this. He's always been right by my side on all of our adventure races for over 5 years. He's got the highest tolerance for pain I know of.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">team Canyoneros - EA Sports (Nate left, Greg, Hien)</span></div>
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The race meeting was held at the host hotel, where the race directors went over instructions and handed out a textbook worth of maps. I scrambled back to the hotel to immediately begin mapping the details, while Greg and Nate committed the passport to memory. "We gotta get to Manny's house" Nate urged as he learned of a bonus control point there. I ultimately finished mapping the next morning while we were bused to Clearwater on an island called Honeymoon Island.<br />
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Nate had been battling a wicked cold coming into the race. He had reportedly never had a cold in the past 7yrs so this one hit him pretty hard. In fact, he had all the signs of heat exhaustion in the first jogging leg along the Gulf of Mexico. He nose even spontaneously exploded into a bloody mess twice during the race. The first day of racing was not friendly to him, to say the least.</div>
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The race began with a roughly 12km jog that toured most of Honeymoon Island, including its beach. For the rest of the day, we were basically urban biking to make our way to a trekking leg, and then a fairly short paddle section. The weather was picturesque of Florida. Aside from a 10min drizzle at night, there was almost no rain during the entire race, which is ideal for an expedition race where chaffage always degrades you.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The Gulf of Mexico to our right, one of the "Sea" in the race name, </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sea to Sea AR</span><br />
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<b>Biking on a Railroad Track</b></div>
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The first night came and we found ourselves biking a 75 mile route through Green Swamp. We initially envisioned a tough ride through it all, but we couldn't complain. We found all CPs here with no issues, except for bonus CP21. This one became '<i>the one</i>'--the one you burn so much time trying to find it. Coming off a quick find of bonus CP20, we decided to continue on the off-roads towards CP21 from the south. The trails there were predictable until it just abruptly ended by going underneath a set of railroad tracks--yes, I said 'underneath'. We poked into the adjacent forest a handful of times trying to find the parallel mapped trail. One existed, but not too cleanly, and at times had us trucking through marsh more than anything. Frustrated, we just bolted out of there riding on the railroad itself, which says a lot about choices when you decide that biking over blocks of wood is your best option. It was amusing at the same time. And just like the cartoons...a train did come our way. In the end, we attacked the elusive CP from the north and easily found it.</div>
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<b>Paddling Across a Choppy Lake Minnehaha</b></div>
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When we arrived at Pahahahaha River Park, we refueled after an incredibly long bike ride through the night. Some of us had completely run out of water that night. We barely missed the cutoff that unlocked an orienteering section in Lake Louisa, but we had determined to drop that section in our race plan anyways. We weren't thinking about clearing the course due to evaluating performance at past Sea2Sea's, so dropping bad-bang-for-the-buck controls was part of our strategy, esp. for this year which included more distance that we had ever seen. One, we are not the fastest paddling team as a 3-man, and two Nate had developed feet blisters that crippled any future opportunities to shuffle the trekking sections.</div>
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After we launched our canoes into the water, we grabbed one nearby control and headed north towards the winding mouth of a 3km wide Lake Minnehaha. "Left, Nate" we communicated, but canoe would always have this 5 second delay in steering. "Right, Nate" it continued, as we zig-zagged like a amateur team who was paddling with a reversed canoe. "Nate are you falling asleep??" Sure enough, he was.</div>
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The twisty channel opened up with team Summit Adventure Racing Team Commie Bar sizing up the chop ahead. We noticed these guys bike with flip-flops, by the way. Winds had picked up for the morning which brought the waves to life. Being in the front at the helm, Greg ordered for us to go straight into it. The safer alternative would have been to hug the shore but that would have lengthen the distance tremendously. Luckily the chop was going against us, which provided a little more safety. You just don't want the winds to blow perpendicular to your vessel--that's just a recipe for capsizing. Once we took the initiative, team Summit Adventure Racing followed suit. Nate, who just had the luxury of a 15 min nap, shockingly woke up and paddled like our life depended on it. The adrenaline rush sped up our blood flow. By the time we got into the middle of the lake, waves started coming at us in a couple directions, pivoting the canoe from the center. However, the alertness forced upon us gave us the focus that boosted our confidence and speed for later paddling sections.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">"Hien, is that Manny's house in the distance?"</span><br />
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<b>Biking with Dash</b></div>
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After finishing the paddling section, we were happy to see solo-racer, Dave Ashley, or "Dash" as he is fittingly known as. He had been chilling at the transition area (TA) here for an hour or two, because he had been going too fast for race directors to keep up. We didn't know it at the time, but I guess we had shot back up to the front of the pack here. Dash had teamed up with us before at the <a href="http://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2014/03/pangea-boar-ar-elite-6hr.html">Boar AR</a> and single-handedly took us to our very first first place.</div>
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We headed out of Lake Minneola on a fast biking leg that took us on the West Orange Trail and had us looping the perimeter of the giant Lake Apopka. I noticed Greg did not have clip-in shoes here, as he opted to brute force the uphills in regular shoes and egg beater pedals. Only Greg can do such a thing and not complain about it. With Dash in our group, we had a renewed sense of excitement that powered our biking. We knew he was fast as heck, being a multi-time USARA champion, so we told him at any time, he could bolt ahead, but he appeared to enjoy the company more.</div>
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<b>Manny's House</b></div>
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"Manny's house at last!" Any other day, Nate would blissfully throw down with Manny when it comes to drinking. Today, we were treated to sweet cookies and drinks. We racers go through such extreme highs and lows that any mundane item on a regular day would be the elixir of life during a race like this. There was something about Manny's house that totally reversed Nate's ailing fever and wretched cold, as if this was the promised land. From there on forward in the race, he seemed to recover at an astounding pace, voluntarily taking lead on pace lines and such. On a side note, Manny's house would have been really difficult to find with the supplied maps had I not Googled it during race prep and had local knowledge of the West Orange Trails. We saw and heard of many teams having difficulty finding it.</div>
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<b>Hallucinations on Night Two</b></div>
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The second night came and we found ourselves in Wekiva State Park, literally our backyard. We know all the nooks and crannies and even every tree that lives here. The night brings a mystique to it that makes adventure racing so adventurous. We started on the southern end of Wekiva state park, trekked up to Buck Camp, crossed a river into Rock Springs Run, and walked like zombies finding a few CPs--terrible bang for the buck, but we had no choice in the race route.</div>
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We walked, and we walked, and we walked...for hours and hours and into the early morning hours. The 1ft deep sugar sand in Rock Springs did not help matters any. It appeared that the deeper we went into Rock Springs, the deeper the sugar sand got, and the more uneven the ground became. We even overshot our turn at one point by a mile. When we backtracked, the turn was clear as day. The mind started blurring the lines of what was real and was not there.</div>
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Somehow, uphills looked like downhills and downhills looked like uphills. I started becoming mesmerized by the stylistic clip art illustrations scrolling down my pathway like musical notes in Guitar Hero--all in full color. Greg had never experienced this level of self-induced adventure racing psychosis before. I recall snapping out of my walking slumber and witnessing Greg stumble into the side of the trail, into a ditch, wobbling in front of a tall lonely plant with glimmering leaves. A few more steps to the right allowed him to fully balance himself. He mumbled something about city buildings in the upper trees. Nate and I were too zombie-like to try to make sense of it. Onward we went. We continued to make comments about how it looked like we were walking up the longest hill ever. (in reality, Rock Springs does not have any hills).</div>
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Two kilometers away from the Horse Barn TA, Nate's paranoia roared to life. We saw a pair of racers in the distance, about 500m ahead. They kept looking back at us with their shining headlamps and then running away, as if they were playing a childhood game of tag. "Why would they do that??" Nate desperately desired to understand. It would repeat itself for over 20 minutes. Greg and I were too tired to answer him. "Guys, turn your lights off! Those people do not exist up there!" Nate persistently persuaded us. Rather than spend energy debating with him, we complied. "They are not real! Just like the disco ball near <a href="http://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2015/03/flx-sea-to-sea-ar-72hr-expedition-day-3.html">Catfish Hotel</a> last year was not real!!" Sure enough, the game of tag ceased to exist after we turned our headlamps off, but we finally made the connection later in the race, one year later, what the phenomena was. Turns out at night, when your headlamps glance off of someone wearing reflective clothing in the distance, it reflects so brightly, you think they're headlamps from people running back and forth or in circles. When you're hallucinating and holding onto a thread of awakeness, stuff like this twists your brain like no other. I know this story probably makes no sense to you, but I am hoping I captured our state of being at the time.</div>
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Once we arrived at the TA, we knocked ourselves out within seconds of laying down and caught 2½hrs of sleep.</div>
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The next morning, we continued our trek into Upper Wekiva, west of Katie's Landing. It was incredible how that 2½hrs of sleep felt more refreshing than a workday's worth of sleep any other time. There was one CP that gave teams fits, CP54. Once we resorted to our second map and took a bearing from the intersection near there, we found it with no further issues.</div>
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<b>Paddling the Slaloms at Blackwater Creek</b><br />
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Nate and I had paddled <a href="http://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2013/08/pangea-nocturnal-ar-elite-18hr.html">Blackwater Creek</a> before. We remembered it as a very twisty river with a nice current. As a 3-man team, we had never satisfactorily clicked in terms of paddling like an elite team, even in training. The technicality that Blackwater Creek presented gave us challenges at first. Negotiate the line badly, and you ended up eating the opposite bank and having stiff twigs poke your eye out.</div>
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We acknowledged our paddling shortcomings and decided to just try new things. There was no navigation needed here until we hit the St. Johns an hour or two later, so calling upon my 7 years of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EucjVQa99yQ">autocross racing</a>, the lines you use in paddling is very similar to automotive racing. Greg got the hang of my racing fundamentals, with all of his Mario Karting dominance back then, and we did an awesome job looking ahead, communicating the directions, and positioning our canoe through turns very well. It was poetry in motion as we went in wide, clipped our apex, and exited with authority. We were fully steering in the front, the middle, and the back with well-executed coordination. The skill at which we displayed and the speed was intoxicating. It further motivated us to go even faster and had locals freeze in their tracks and just witness :D</div>
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But then all of a sudden, we were faced with a new problem. Never before had we had "too much speed". If anything, we never had enough speed. For the first time ever, we had to add braking as a paddling skill. And just like an F1 car approaching a narrow turn, downshifting with glorious engine music, the two back guys would apply equal braking right before the hairpin turns, only to resume proper cornering protocols. What great timing for us to finally click on the paddling!</div>
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<b>Hatbill Trek at Night</b></div>
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We had another urban biking leg where we had to strategize time due to a 10pm cutoff. It was about 6pm before we started and race directors said any bonus controls we gathered would be nullified if we missed the time cutoff. And off into the distance we went, teaming up with Team Disoriented on the second half of the ride. <a href="http://teamdisoriented.com/2016/03/15/2016-sea-to-sea-race-report-day-1/">Their race blogs</a> are very entertaining to read, and as much as they downplay themselves, they are a highly athletic and quick couple. They pulled us for a good stretch while we powered through the night to try to make the cut-off. In the end, we found all of the mandatory CPs <i>and</i> one bonus, with five minutes to spare at a TA that was grilling burgers and hotdogs, and giving away caffeinated sodas!</div>
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Now that to me was the elixir of life, as I had multiple burgers to start the trek with. Race organizers did an awesome job with the food they provided, and the longer the race goes, the more instinctive and survivalistic it becomes, the more this real warm food is like gold to us. Thank you guys!</div>
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Looking at the maps for the final sections ahead, one was a massive trek that was advertised to be 12 miles on the short course. As we walked 15km to our very first control on this leg, I detailed all the calculations and distance measurements for the rest of the race, including contingency options in case we fell behind. It was no 12 miles. It was actually closer to 16. I never even considered anything more than the short course for us here. Walking at a snail's pace, that put us at the next TA right at around the next cutoff time of 6am.</div>
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Whilst the maps kept my mind away from the monotonous task at hand, Nate and Greg were dying with boredom. "Are we there yet", "did you overshoot us by a mile again," they jokingly whined like kids. Hatbill is an area we've raced before and the topo maps do a poor job of matching the trails very well in some areas. At night, the illusion is even more prominent. The only highlights of this leg was a frigid neck-deep river crossing with team Wet Feet AR, trekking through waist deep flooded trails while hearing gators bark nearby, and the joining with Dash again, who seemed dazzled with sleep deprivation.</div>
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The morning rose on the final day of racing. It was a beautiful clear blue sky, sunny day. Here we are biking into Cape Canaveral, hitting key areas in the island, including taking a photo with a space shuttle. We biked with Dash, who used to work at NASA with the Air Force, and Rev3 here for a stretch, but could not keep up with their blistering 35kph pace line. Those guys are on another level. From there, we transitioned into the final paddling leg of the race.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Nate swore he would start selling his new sunscreen lotion this year...for free</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: yellow; text-align: left;">(</span><i style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: yellow;">continued from the top...)</span></i></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: yellow;"> </span>Walking away from the dire scene and to the finish line and dropping the last two control points, we reflected back on the 3 days prior and somewhere deep in our mind, did not want the race to end. It was an epic journey accompanied with such impressive feats. We biked a whopping 443km and God knows how much trekking and paddling we did--probably a total distance of 600+</span><span style="text-align: left;">km across a length of almost 76hrs! Watching the race live on </span><a href="http://trackleaders.com/s2s16" style="text-align: left;">Trackleaders.com/s2s16</a><span style="text-align: left;">, race directors Ron and Manny described our performance as one of the best slow and steady teams, never the fastest nor the slowest. Nate, who put up a fight of his racing career with the cold/flu, was finally safe to say "<i>the Sea2Sea is a cure for what ailed me</i>." We finished </span><a href="http://flxadventures.com/the-florida-sea-to-sea-2016/" style="text-align: left;">7th overall</a><span style="text-align: left;"> (out of 29 teams), an improvement over <a href="http://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2015/03/flx-sea-to-sea-ar-72hr-expedition-day-1.html">last year</a>. It was enough to hit our goal of qualifying for this year's </span><a href="http://www.usaranationals.com/race.aspx" style="text-align: left;">USARA national championships</a><span style="text-align: left;">.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">I wanna reiterate that race organizers did an awesome job putting together such an adaptive race that accommodated young and veteran teams. The food and hospitality at the TAs were always the warm light at the end of our tunnel during those harrowing and cold nights.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The Atlantic Ocean in the background, the other "Sea" in the race name, Sea to Sea AR</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">the finish line</span><br />
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-46564032786055547462016-01-16T22:24:00.001-05:002016-01-20T20:30:10.400-05:00FLX - Resolution AR, Elite 8hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Brian flew down from Boston to join us for a fun get-together. We had all taken a break from training during the holidays and did a quick one week cram session to ramp back up.<br />
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Greg reminded Brian to do the first prologue jog at a fairly slower pace. Regardless, his excitement took him towards the front of the pack. We blazed through the first three legs, a quick run, a short bike ride, and a small orienteering section. Nate and Brian were full of energy and pushed the pace fast.<br />
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Everything was going quick and well until the infamous CP7 on canoe. What seemed like it should have been another easy pick-up turned into a stubborn 55min hunt for a control that was later determined to be lost. Every team converged here and we had the most elite eyes on this hunt.<br />
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our sweeping search pattern for CP7</div>
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After this control, we knew the race had been botched. We continued forward to collect the rest of the controls on paddle, only to be met with racers making their return trip, telling us there was no CP9 either. At this point, we said screw it, let's just go there, cover our basis, and if anything, we have it on GoPro that we at least visited the area and to make a case for credit. We spent about 10min searching for it at the location to no avail either. Turns out all teams got credited CP7 and 9 (and later on 11), regardless if they went after it or not. Ah well. With the main pack well ahead of us, the race mentality switched to just having a good time after this point.<br />
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Nate convincingly saw CP7 with his x-ray vision in another stretch of the river, and adamantly had us pull over to hunt briefly. I knew it wasn't there, so I took my time taking a dump in the woods.<br />
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race maps</div>
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We approached the Iron TA on canoe and transitioned into a six-control orienteering course. One of the controls, CP11, was situated in the same spot at the missing CP7. We decided to give it a 5min try, this time attacking it from the east, to see if we see anything new. Nope, my navigation led us to the exact same spot. From there on, we made good time with finding the rest of the controls.<br />
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Getting back on the boat, we paddled back to the Main TA. I erroneously thought we had a mindless jog from the Main TA to the Withlacoochee TA, where we dropped our bikes off early in the race. I did not realize we had three controls to pick up en-route. What a mistake haha.<br />
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With a quick transition back onto bikes, we nailed every control with relative ease, except CP25. To me, navigating on twisty technical mtn biking trails are the toughest to understand where you are on the map. You can never measure distances correctly on the map because the resolution does not account for all the curves, peaks, and valleys that add up. We attacked this control in two locations before finding it.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">We can always count on Brian locking up legs early on in the race ;)</span></div>
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Once outside the mtn biking trails, we knew time was of the essence, so we turned on the afterburners. The crew did an awesome job spotting controls whenever I mentioned we were nearby. We had only enough time to gather two controls on the last orienteering leg. We grabbed CP29 and 30, where my legs were on fire with cramps. I had no choice but to shake it off and fly back to the Main TA, and topping at 37kph on flat paved road. However, we still came in a minute and a couple seconds late.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Team Canyoneros - EA Sports (Greg Watson (left), Nathan Whitaker, Hien Nguyen, Brian Ruth)</span></div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-35729874762783883072015-10-06T22:01:00.000-04:002015-10-21T22:39:55.087-04:00USARA - Darn Tough AR, National Championships 30hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Team Canyoneros - EA Sports - Greg Watson (left), Nathan Whitaker, Hien Nguyen</div>
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The tires of our front wheel drive Ford Explorer were spinning along a windy wet and paved road that took us uphill into the lodge in Pine Mountain State for about 4 miles. We joked and asked, "what if we end up having to bike up this quad-ripping route?" We were one of a handful Florida teams who <a href="http://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2015/03/flx-sea-to-sea-ar-72hr-expedition-day-1.html">qualified</a> for the championships, but nothing prepared us for the terrain ahead, except Kelly's awesome spin classes at the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RDVAthleticClub?fref=ts">RDV</a>. Sure enough, this seemingly unending ascension into higher altitude was just a tiny fraction of the race, thrown in at near the beginning of the race.</div>
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pre-race meeting</div>
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The night before the race, there was a serious meeting in the conference room of the lodge we stayed at. We looked around and understood that these were many of the best adventure racers in the US. It was great to see some of the teams we had tracked and rooted for at other big races throughout the years.</div>
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We woke up early the next morning, had breakfast and spent 1½hrs plotting CPs on the two maps we received. We had two Canyoneros - EA Sports teams confirming points off of each other to ensure accuracy. This was the first race we had plotted a substantial amount of controls for, and we needed the entire time to do so. There was no time to mark a route or strategize a plan. We did all of that on the fly during the race. This scenario was a first for us, but we enjoy figuring out new challenges.</div>
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We then loaded up on buses and were dropped off at a bridge looking towards our first set of mountains. The race director gave us a map and we quickly developed a plan to gather two controls to equal the required ten points, CP 4b and 6. Starting in the back of the pack in no hurry, we naively followed the mass towards CP6 into an erroneous trail that lead us uphill. I thought surely that many national-level racers cannot make that badly of a mistake in a prologue, so I had turned my navigation thinking off. That bit us as, we burned about 25 minutes looking for CP6 in the wrong spot. We spotted a river and a house that I did some reverse bearings against to realize we were nowhere near the right spot. The only way to correct that was to backtrack out to the trail head, and once we did that, I knew exactly where we were.</div>
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As we made our way back to the location of the bridge where we had previously dropped off a bag of paddles I counted 9 bags left from other teams. There were 58 teams competing this day, so we started off in 49th place. That was frustrating to me, but it was great to have teammates who are always encouraging ourselves out of the lows.</div>
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Once we jogged to the boat take-out with our paddling bag, you had to carry your canoe about 50 meters to the river. Being near the end of the pack now, we had last choice in canoes, and the ones left had broken handles, which made things more difficult. The route was rocky, slippery and even had a section where you trekked uphill on a slippery slope. Team We Will Survive, with two ladies and an older gentleman, appeared to have trouble carrying their canoe over the obstacles and up the hill. Greg graciously helped them up, carrying canoes in each hand.</div>
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The paddle was pretty short and easy, but for some reason, we could never get our steering as straight as we liked. We felt better as other teams reported the same.</div>
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After the paddle, we jogged over to pick up our bikes in another location, an outdoors amphitheater that had seats made out of boulders. Here, we set off on our first brutal uphill climb that we had joked about. This section was deemed "king of the mountain" and was a timed section to see which team was the fastest. We obviously had no intentions of winning this :)</div>
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The next section was a trekking section that took us deep into the bowl of a mountain region. I relied a lot on Nate's experimental pace counting strategy. He had figured out some method of pace counting that takes into consideration the angle of elevation and wanted to use this event to fully calibrate his algorithms. It was quite genius and highly accurate, in fact.</div>
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To get some of the non-racers up to speed, one foot step while jogging is roughly 1 meter. So when I measure 100 meters of distance on the map, it's a "as the crow flies" distance. We can jog 100 steps on flat ground and it will roughly be 100m in real life. However, it does not take into account elevational changes. When you traverse up and down hills and mountains, it may take 150-180 steps to reach a measured 100m from the map. It's highly variable. Nate had this all figured out in his head; it was genius! This especially helped on CP7, where you could have easily and painfully gone up the wrong re-entrant since there were two side by side ones.</div>
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As we wrapped up this orienteering leg, we ran into team We Will Survive many times, who seemed to effortlessly traverse up and down the mountains. They were always able to more intelligently spot the easier way around an obstacle; we just thick-headedly endured through the steep areas. It was amazing to see and we hope by the time we reach their age, we could still be at their fitness level.</div>
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The next leg was the forewarned long biking section. I think we spent over 11hrs on this route, starting with CP9. Coming down the mountain of the previous trekking leg, we had run out of water and needed to refill somewhere. One option was going back to the lodge, but that kinda threw the line choice off. I busted out the map with the rain pouring down hard and tried to see through the debris that had smeared across the map. I frantically found a route that cut back to the amphitheatre we came from earlier, which would give us access to a bathroom with water. It was a primarily downhill path, the opposite of what we suffered through earlier. Also, worthy to note is that much of my on-the-fly navigational route choices came from the first route that I could connect. I had to quickly locate and commit. Luckily, upon review, they were the best routes we could have chosen.</div>
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The biking was a pure slog. This section basically summed up the entire race. It was rainy. It was cold. There were lots of pushing the bike uphill. There was mud, mud, and piles of mud! Even the stretches of downhill weren't a pleasant coast. It was a death-gripped, drifting wild ride. Somehow Nate's performance increases exponentially in the cold and wet. At one point, Nate fell into a ditch full of muddy water up to his neck :D Night racing always has this eerie awesomeness to it when you're out in the middle of nowhere.</div>
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Surprisingly, we didn't run out of water during this 11hrs. If the temperature was warmer, that would have been much different, and there's no way we would have sourced any water from the ground around this area. The race director warned us that there were mine fields all around, which probably had chemicals leaking everywhere.</div>
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Night fall passed and we finally made it to the canoe section. Here, there was real food sold in the building of a water treatment plant. They even had the heater turned on in the warehouse! It felt nice and warm in there. The canoe section was very short in a small lake, not that I'm complaining. It contained the best bang for the buck CPs.</div>
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Around 2am, we finished the canoe section and got back on bikes to find two more controls. The combination of the night, rain, and windy biking made this time the coldest part of the race. Looking at the map, we knew we were in for a mountainous trek, not a bike ride. We spent around 2½hrs pushing our bikes uphill to gather these two controls. It was excruciating. I promised the team that there was a glorious downhill coast after gathering CP21. Cold, shivering, and miserable, the team held onto these hopes as we punched CP21--it was like the golden light at the end of the tunnel. But as we parted the grassy trail leading downhill, what we saw was a steep, rocky, and incredibly slippery slope the entire way down. "Can't ride this shit down in the rainy night" Greg confirmed. Damn, he was right. Clip one rock wrong and you'll roll down like a rag doll. Needless to say, we spent the next hour or so, carefully tip toe'ing down the entire path. What a letdown. I developed "lazy quads" by the end of the 95km biking section. It taxed my quads so much, that by the end of it, my quads didn't want to have the energy to stabilize itself walking anymore.</div>
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The last orienteering section was apparently a 15 mile trek. We started off gathering CP30 to the north of the lodge, and went west into a counter-clockwise direction, leaving CP28 and 29 as outliers, just in case we had time. We were told CP23 had been super tough to lots of teams but by the time we reached it, the morning had lit up the day for us to better see in the woods--woods that didn't have any bugs or spiders! We always eat hundreds of bugs and spiders in FL as part of our nutrition ;). We nailed CP23 on first try and then proceeded to bushwhack directly to CP24.<br />
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final trek route we took as I recalled it</div>
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None of us had functioning altimeters, and I knew a sharp bearing across a near 1km distance was going to be impossible for us to nail accurately in the mountains. I had us following the re-entrant all the way down until we hit the road. It was the most epic 55min bushwhack to date (some of it was captured on video earlier in the blog). At that point, we ran back to a known intersection to take a straight bearing to CP24. CP25 was also attacked from the same intersection of road and trail. We climbed very steeply but accurately. After gathering CP26 and 27, we calculated getting the far eastern controls would potentially put us in a risky time situation and called it off. In a rogaine-formatted race, you would lose one control for every minute you were late. That's harsh. We didn't want to be near that red zone.<br />
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In the end, we finished 4th in the Open-Division and surprisingly won the Honorary Spirit Award after being nominated by team We Will Survive (Thanks guys!). This award was for displaying traits of an admirable adventure racer, helping and encouraging teams out there. Often times, it is a win just to be able to last 30hrs, let alone race it competitively. And in this year's championship course, we agreed it was the most brutal terrain combined with weather condition we have experienced. It broke a bike spoke and flattened a tire along the way. Kentucky's a beautiful area and I'm sure it would have been even more of a spectacular view on a sunny day.<br />
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Like our fellow Florida team, <a href="http://teamdisoriented.com/2015/10/08/2015-usara-national-championship/">Team Disoriented</a>, we are amazed by the fitness levels of the national caliber teams. We're proud of the top US winners, like team <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G8B6rWj2FnQuKOnWfLeWD8Li8qFFkCtVR_vGtUHrRMA/edit">Tecnu Adventure Racing</a> who cleared the entire course in 16hrs 22min, and look forward to seeing them compete at the world ARs and championships.<br />
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-24782807619285387832015-07-14T18:16:00.000-04:002015-07-26T01:18:21.689-04:00Off The Grid Racing - The Cauldron 36hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.offthegridracing.com/#!the-cauldron-2015/c1ma1" target="_blank">This was a race</a> that was billed to be the most brutal Florida-heated adventure race ever. It was in the summer of July and was 36hrs long. Of all people, Nate was the one who convinced Greg Watson and I to race this one! This was his race of redemption, he said, for severely overheating in a 6hr race two years ago, at <a href="http://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2013/03/pangea-treasure-coast-ar-elite-6hr.html" target="_blank">Pangea's Treasure Coast AR</a> in Hobe Sound, FL. He wanted to face his demons and take us on a ride with him, and do this in a grand 36hr fashion (yes, that is 6 times the length of the one he got broiled alive on).<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">giant maps, accompanied with dozens of supplemental ones</span></div>
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Erik Wise and Mark Schweder, the race director and course designers, gave us a unique experience. There would be only three legs of race. Once you're done and checked in with one leg, you move onto the next, but you could not revisit a previous leg to find more controls. This meant you'll be on bike, foot, and boat, for a very long period of time. We underestimated how much water we needed to carry at times but the water jugs that were brilliantly scattered about were saviors. There were probably enough control points to fill a 72hr race, so we picked and chose whichever controls we thought we could easily find.</div>
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<b>Biking</b></div>
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Most teams started on trek, except three, including us. We let Nate choose bike first, since he's most prone to overheating on bike. The race started a little after midnight, a night buzzing with insects and drizzling with rain for an hour or so while we scrambled to plot controls and strategize maps.</div>
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In the middle of the night, we were going up a narrow path between two fences. The path was littered with trash and overgrown with vegetation. The clue was "rubbish pit" so we had a hunch we were in the right location. Far in the distance, I spotted a dozen glowing eyes that seemed to be headed our way. "Dogs! Turn around and run!" I silently screamed. You don't know what kind of dogs people out there own. The trash and entangled plants didn't help us move very fast. Next thing we saw were giant horses to the our right. It spooked us a bit, but once we realized they were harmless horses who were curious to see us, we were relieved!</div>
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Further along after sunrise, we had just found CP44, about an hour away from civilization. Nate and I completely ran out of water. I noticed that on the map, there was a water cache deeper in the wilderness about 30 minutes away. At that point, we made the decision to go forward and find the water cache, instead of the backtracking an hour to the known city. The off-road trails varied from bumpy hard-packed to muddy sand and grassy terrain. It wasn't smooth. It continued to eat away at our dehydration.<br />
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Nate was spiraling into heat exhaustion (red cheeks, profuse sweating, and rapid heart beat). His temps read 102F at the wrist. We took little rests here and there under the shade while I worked the map. Eventually we got to the location of the water cache, but I missed it on first try. There were no water jugs! Did someone steal them?! What if a previously visiting team drank it all?? The worst-scenario thoughts kept our blood flowing. I backtracked, recalculated distances with my pedometer and found another trail to go down. Bingo, found it! It was amazing. We refueled and re-energized here.<br />
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There were a handful of controls where there were missing trail illustrations on the map. I never used the 50 or so supplemental bike maps provided due to the inconvenience of map fumbling, but we made some great guesses at which trails we should go down to find the controls. Greg had some incredible vision to spot many of these from far away, and some great trail memory to get us out.</div>
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The heat continued to beat down on us. It was like breathing fire from an open oven. The pace slowed considerably during the day to keep the heart rate manageable. We were sweating more than we drank water. We had to ration what water we had.<br />
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It took us 15hrs to finish the biking section, across a distance of 147km (91 miles). And we didn't even find all of the controls. This would be the longest any of us have biked continuously, on a time-basis.</div>
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<b>Trekking</b><br />
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This far into the race, it was tough to jog. We walked about 90% of this leg. Doing so allowed me to be pretty accurate with navigating. I actually used a few of the supplemental maps provided. We nailed most of the controls predictably and steadily. The weather blessed us with a drizzling overcast rainy condition for when we started this leg in the afternoon. Along our trek, we caked our shoes with mud which made things a bit uncomfortable. Greg made some great calls on washing the mud out of our socks and shoes at a well pump that we found.<br />
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There was one control that got the best of me, which was the mandatory CP11. We found CP10 easily, and my plan for getting 11 was to follow the river channel back northeast, cut across to the other side near the bridge, and then follow it right back down.<br />
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We found the "pole bridge" but there was no punch to be found. Confused, I took the team to three other attack points in the trail system to re-confirm our position and every single time, we found the same pole bridge again. We even bushwhacked straight between trails, through dense and thorny forestry, from known intersections to try to find this. Now it was totally dark and we had burnt 2hrs on this control alone. Finally, Nate commanded I re-read the clue for CP11, which was "write down the numbers located on the pole bridge"! This was a control where you had to write an answer down, not punch the card...ughhh! I felt for the Ecuadorian team who spent 4hrs trying to find it while we were there too.<br />
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Deep in the night, while trekking through the northern end of Newnan's Lake, there were strange animals in the woods that appeared to quack at you in a bizarre human voice. We saw hidden deer cameras behind tree foliage and iridescent plants. There were plenty of armadillos running along our path. The night had a awe-inspiring mystique to it. One of the controls was even in a cemetery for a ghostly setting.</div>
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Worthy to note too is that this is the most I have ever prepared to combat bug bites. I sprayed my clothing down with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001ANQVYU/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B001ANQVYU&linkCode=as2&tag=canyoneros-20&linkId=JFIPGLTPWW7HKTS2" target="_blank">Permethrin</a>, used <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002A2NLNE/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B002A2NLNE&linkCode=as2&tag=canyoneros-20&linkId=XRB4H75JKMOCBYBJ" target="_blank">bug patches</a>, and wore long pants the entire race, a highly effective measure in the past. I still came out of the race with 40-50 bug bites! Newnan's Lake has some of the most terrifying and persistent bugs around. We even had a giant three inch momma spider come into our canopy tent and release 200 baby spiders before the race started.</div>
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After finding several controls north of Newnan's Lake, we started our journey back to the main TA. Heading into the main transition area after about 14hrs of trekking, the team was wretched with feet blisters and ass chafing issues. We had been trekking for some 45km (basically a 27 mile marathon) nonstop through the night. It was mainly off-road with mud and sand to grind away the flesh. We spent an hour at transition to refuel and to clean up.</div>
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<b>Canoeing</b></div>
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We had six hours left once we launched the canoe into the lake. Nate did an awesome job plotting UTM coordinates for this section. The number one goal for us was find the mandatory CP9. Rules were, you had to find one mandatory control per discipline in order to be officially ranked. With that in mind, we started our canoeing route by going south into the lower channel on Newnan's lake. Along the way, we picked up 4 controls. It got too gnarly with fallen trees and debris enroute to CP8-9, so we ditched the canoe and walked along the bank for both of them. I had wanted us to get CP10-11 further down the channel, but with how hairy things got after CP8, we bailed out of the channel and went north to get two more controls. In hindsight we should have banked more time on the canoe, as they provided the best bang for our buck. Each CP was worth 3 points.<br />
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In the end, we got 1st in our division, 2nd overall. Nate survived the incredible heat and lived to redeem himself. We weren't banking on high expectations, but as we've seen, historically, as long as we're steady in the race, we seem to do pretty well.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Greg Watson (left), Nate Whitaker, Hien Nguyen</span></div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-58633576035739207212015-06-02T23:37:00.003-04:002015-06-14T15:45:01.514-04:00FLX - Blue Ridge AR, Elite 24hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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There were about 60 teams racing this year, between the Sport and Elite division. This was my fourth year racing in Blue Ridge and it's the first year there was absolutely no rain--this was extraordinary! EA Sports had an army of three teams representing.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Matt Rolfe (left), Jonathan Wolverton, Tim Cowan, Russell 'the Muscle' Barton, Brian Ruth, Greg Watson, and Hien Nguyen (me)</span></div>
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We had booked a cabin not too far from downtown, but still on the top of a mountain, where the driveway seemed like a steep 45 degree slope. The night before a race is always a mad dash to sort gear, but we ended the evening with some good old fashion home-made grilled food.</div>
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The race started on bike in downtown, both Sport and Elite teams launched at the same time. Russell felt the wrath of the uphills on the bike, but after a good warmup, he was back in cruise mode. We continued biking into the wilderness from that point, picking up a couple controls off the single track biking trails before transitioning to foot. The foot portion had a relatively quick orienteering section. From there it was back on bike to pick up several more controls. The landscape was scenic as usual.</div>
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<b>CP17 and the 600ft Mountain Climb</b></div>
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In our second trekking leg, it was taking too long to find each control point (about an hour each for CP 11 and 12). The trails weren't really tracking on point to what was mapped. Brian's legs were screaming and locking up so this, coupled with mapping issues, I determined we needed skip a handful of controls on on this portion. We got to a junction which was a great attack point to CP13. We could not locate this one. Many teams were searching for this and after spending too much time on it, we called it off and moved onto CP16, along a creek.</div>
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I was getting suspicious of the illustrated trails on this map, so what better than to find CP17 by taking a direct bearing to it from a known location? That's exactly what we did. We had a known point after finding CP16, so we took the brutal 600ft climb to CP17. After missing CP13, I was motivated to keep an even straighter line this time. The journey up there was measured out to be 700m long, as the crow flies. It was probably 1200m as our legs saw it on the ground, with all of its ascents and descents. 700m is not a length that I like to take a straight bearing to in normal circumstances. The degree of error staying straight on that path to the end is ridiculously high. But the alternate route of staying on a trail was not even debatable--it was too long. So straight we went. Our feet turned into mush going up this terrain. I did more damage traversing up on to this control than the entire <a href="http://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2015/03/flx-sea-to-sea-ar-72hr-expedition-day-1.html" target="_blank">72hr Sea2Sea AR</a> altogether. As we got nearer, the angle of elevation got even steeper, forcing us on all fours and pulling each other up. Amazingly, my direct bearing got us within a mere 5-10m of the control! Greg's eyes lit up and I never saw him run up a steep wall of mountain faster than this one as he headed over to punch it.</div>
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<b>Hien Wrecks Down a Rocky Mtn Road</b></div>
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We had been walking our bikes up to collect CPs 22-24 and opted to skip 25. The trails leading to it was a continuous climb. At CP24, I had preached about keeping things safe on the way down and that we didn't wanna sabotage what was a pretty good race up to this point. Not two minutes backtracking downhill, I took a nasty wreck.</div>
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We were riding our brakes downhill, but I still tested how much speed I could carry and it was much more than controllable. At some point, I had a decent amount of speed, saw two big rocks in my path and couldn't avoid them. I narrowly dodged one but nailed the other which launched my bike in the air. On the way down, I landed on two wheels, but at a slight angle, and the speed proved too fast to catch. My body flew completely over a now turning handlebar (picture E-Honda's flying headbutt from Street Fighter). I think my right forearm landed first and took the brunt of the impact. Then my head crashed into the rocky trail as I saw sharp stones an inch away from my face. My right side continued the momentum down. I turned into a rag doll, flipping once, unable to do anything as I waited for physics to stop my 145lb body from sliding down any more. There's a reason bike helmets are mandatory gear. My face came out unscathed and my head didn't even hurt from the crash. If I had no helmet, we'd probably have pressed the SOS button on my Spot Tracker :)</div>
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When all had stopped, I sat up, understanding something epic had just happened. "Did I get this on GoPro??" was the first thought. I took my helmet off, which had done its job alright. No, I had not! I quickly turned it back on to witness the aftermath. I suffered some nasty skin tears along my forearm and hip, as well as some big deep bruises on my ribs and legs.</div>
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My crew spent 15 minutes bandaging me up, and after getting cleared by a racing team of 3 doctors that were coincidentally traveling by, I got up, made sure I still had range of motion in my body, and commanded we keep racing!</div>
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<b>3.5hrs Lost in the Mountains</b></div>
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As if my wreck wasn't bad enough, we entered into an off-road trail that was supposed to lead to CP26. Here, we met up with our other team EA Sports. We bike-whacked over falling trees almost every 50-100ft. It was extraordinarily slow-going. The trail was an unkept single-track trail, if you could call it that. Somewhere along the way, we got diverged south of the mapped trail. None of us recalled any intersections or forks in the road before being lead astray. Unfortunately, my mind was on my arm for the beginning portion, where we were still going the correct east direction. Sometime an hour in, I checked my bearing and we were going northwest...and then southwest, and then east, and then repeat.</div>
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We debated bailing back out, but after an hour in, we had hopes that pushing forward would eventually lead us out somewhere, where we could re-calibrate our location. It was great to meet up with one of the USMES military teams with the same thinking. This team was hardcore to the bones, as they had been feeding off the creek water and eating snails. After running out of water ourselves, the creek water was sounding pretty tasty. One hour turned into two. Two turned into three. We stopped a couple times to try to find our location with the use of altimeters and creek identifications. No one was confident, however. These 3hrs lost proved fatal to our competitive contention.</div>
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<b>Mountain Woman Detains Us With Revolver</b></div>
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The clue to CP26 was "Trail and Creek Intersection". We finally ran into an area that resembled these clues. No controls showed up here with a massive hunt, so we crossed the creek and continued down a red-marked trail, which suggested would be more used by the public. In the pitch dark night, we spotted a dim light far away. Civilization!</div>
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The morale lit up! We kept following the trail towards the light. As we got nearer, dogs started barking. We're finally near a paved road, at last! Then we heard the shrills of a lunatic-like, jilted woman. "GET DOWN HERE NOW! ALL OF YOU! YOU ARE ON PRIVATE PROPERTY!" she screamed.</div>
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"We're lost ma'am," one of us replied, level-headedly. "Perhaps you can show us to a road, and we'll be happy to leave."</div>
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"HOW MANY OF YOU ARE THERE? ARE THERE ANY MORE? GET DOWN HERE NOW!" she continued.</div>
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As we got off the single-track trail and onto her driveway (no where else to go), she ran into the house and grabbed a revolver. Sure enough, she could shoot us all on the spot. We were on her private land. She continued berating us for being so lost, which didn't take much to figure out, pistol in-hand and waving it. We kept our cool and stayed calm and collected with our responses. That tinder could spark at any time and if it did, who knows what could happen. Once she said something along the lines of "ahhh...you guys are the racers from Pangea," we silently shook our heads, "that m**f*ing moutain b*tch knew all along."</div>
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This marks the second time we've been shown the gun in Blue Ridge, both times when Brian decided to race with us :) <a href="http://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2012/05/pangea-atomic-ar-elite-30hr.html" target="_blank">The first time</a> was from this guy:</div>
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A couple nervous laughs there and we bolted off faster than ever. We didn't know where we were, but her directions got us to Aska Road. At that intersection, we finally found our way and immediately headed to Dial TA, cutting off the rest of the bike control points. We were well past our estimated time of arrival to the canoeing portion.</div>
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Luckily Tim had his watch recording the route the entire time, so as I reviewed this GPS record afterwards, this is what I pieced together:</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(click on this for a bigger view)</span></div>
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<b>Night Paddle</b></div>
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The Dial TA was located at a small family-owned restaurant. We refueled here with all of our EA Sports teams and discussed strategy with the remaining 8hrs we had. I also bought some more medical supplies from their store and took care of myself some more. One of our EA teams wanted nothing to do with the paddling at night, with potential rapids, so they decided on skipping it and biking straight to Sandy Bottom TA to start a trekking leg. I knew we weren't anywhere near competitive anymore, so I convinced my team to do the first canoeing portion just for the experience of night paddling in rapids. They agreed and it turned out to be better bang for the buck than any other leg we've been on up to that point. The water was completely calm and the water depth pretty shallow in some areas.</div>
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<b>Night Trek and the Mad Rush to the End</b></div>
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This was the part of the race where time was ticking and you knew it. Everything you did had to be calculated. I worked backwards and calculated 3hrs to leave for biking back to downtown and perhaps picking up a few biking controls along the way. 3hrs was safe to assume. So then we were left with 2hrs to do this trekking leg.</div>
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Every control was precisely measured on the clock and future ones estimated. We averaged finding one control every 30min on this leg, ultimately finding four, and headed back to the TA at precisely 6am (3hrs left). Brian and his eagle eye during the day proved incredible night vision performance as well. He was spotting controls so far away it was like he had night-x-ray vision.</div>
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On our journey back to downtown, we had a little time to fit in CP50, which was not too far off of the main Aska Road. What seemed easy took us almost an hour to find after 4 or 5 attempts. Optimistic Brian wanted to find more, but my calculations couldn't afford it. That guy, full of energy, will have to wait for an expedition race in the future to satisfy his adventure race cravings. On the flip side, I counted 40+ times he day-dreamed of beer during the race. He would finally get rewarded soon.</div>
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After finding CP50, we dashed back on Aska Road. This road will tear your legs uphill and reward you with the fruits of 45mph rides downhill. Along our ride back, we noticed Greg was missing behind us. When you're flying at that speed, cutting through the wind, you cannot hear anything, not even cars coming up. We stopped and braced for the worst. A minute later, Greg came riding down the road to us, noticeably shaken. He described an incident of a car almost clipping into him, where he had to automatically veer off the road and save a death wobble in the grass.</div>
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The race ended as we coasted back to the train station in downtown where the adventure began 24hrs ago. We had 17 minutes to spare. I will say I miss the 30hr length of previous years!</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Cruising at this speed down a road with a taco'd bike wheel is a little nerve-wracking! But the other guys were passing me!</span></div>
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<b>Conclusion</b></div>
The race was an awesome experience for all of us, with memorable stories to be had. Russell Barton was the newcomer to a race of this length, having only done 8hr races at most, but did great with my two month rigorous training camp I prescribed for him. We made excellent use of our strengths and weaknesses as a team. When one guy was hurting, we rotated strenuous jobs around to the stronger one. Everyone had a positive adventure-minded attitude that kept the spirit high at all times. Blue Ridge always gives me challenges as a navigator in the mountains, but I'm learning more and more every year, and I took a lot away from this one to get us ready for the USARA Nationals later this year in Kentucky.<br />
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-87411114611562420732015-03-10T22:30:00.003-04:002016-03-22T00:35:57.198-04:00FLX - Sea to Sea AR, 72hr Expedition (Day 3)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2015/03/flx-sea-to-sea-ar-72hr-expedition-day-2.html" target="_blank"><b>(continued from Day 2...)</b></a><br />
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One of Wolverton's knees was flaring up on the super long bike ride to Fanning Springs. We did as much as we could to help out, including a tow. Heck, this is the most biking any of us have ever done in one event. We would finish the race traveling 360km (223 miles) on bike alone!<br />
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<b>Canoeing and Hallucinating on the Suwannee River</b><br />
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The evening started setting in again and nightfall made its way through. At Fanning TA, we were treated to hot chocolate and hot dogs. After days of eating gels and sport beans, this was top notch gourmet food. Canyoneros II was hurting pretty badly now and pondered efficient ways to get back to Cedar Key. We spent a good amount of time measuring distances of different options, and discussed whether to brave the the next 18 mile paddle with them. It was either a 4hr paddle to potentially grab four controls or a ~2hr bike ride for no controls. We ultimately decided on paddling.<br />
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Somehow temperatures were once again forecasted to be in the low 40s for the night. I had mistakenly miscalculated when we would receive gear bins again earlier in the day. I had no jacket and had to borrow a headlamp from Tim. We had no issues finding the first control upstream. Downstream was fast, but the current fizzled out after a few miles.<br />
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During this entire race we had only had 2hrs of sleep, so Nate and I passed the monotonous paddling time by describing what we were hallucinating at the time. We saw lots of people in these lake houses, hosting party after party. We knew all of them couldn't have been partying, but at one point, one of the distant houses had people talking to us and we were holding a conversation with them.<br />
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Around river bends, the tree silhouettes turned into abominable snowmen holding freaked out cats. Every now and then Nate would halt the entire canoe bracing for an impact that was not there.<br />
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After counting river bends and identifying a lit up disco ball that rhythmically spun circles in the forest, I found a good attack point to CP78, "Catfish Hotel". "What are you talking about?" Nate wondered as he dug deep to try to figure out if I had lost it in the head. There was a metal dock that I had Nate park our canoe for me to run up. I ran all the way to the parking lot at the end of it, where there were more canoes. I browsed the area and couldn't find any hint of a hotel building and returned with nothing. Upon returning, I couldn't stop shivering. Wolverton noticed and handed me an extra tshirt and a do-rag to put on--all the extra clothes he had left. (After reviewing Google maps post race, apparently "catfish hotel" is the name of a pond).<br />
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With the failed attempt at finding a "catfish hotel", we continued down the river and tried to find the next two boat ramps that hosted two more control points. I don't think we went down the flooded trail far enough at "Usher's boat ramp" to locate the CP. Now everyone was starting to experience pre-hypothermic symptoms. Unmotivated, we didn't spend too much time trying to find the two boat ramp controls here. Time was against us and all we wanted to do was get to the next TA in hopes they had a campfire. We spent the next 15km paddling non-stop in an attempt to keep moving and generating heat. It was as though the team mood quickly shifted to throwing in the towel--no one spoke for the rest of the paddle.<br />
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Ultimately, we made it to Fowler's Bluff TA and there was indeed a campfire! We nearly jumped into the fire itself. The thawing legs and arms felt so nice! And gear bins! We were able to get fresh new clothes and jackets! Giving up was out of the question again :) As much as we fought the the urge to go against our goals, it was very difficult when true survival mode kicks in.<br />
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<b>Disorienting Night Biking</b><br />
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Our two EA teams parted ways for the final time at this transition area. One needed more rest and recovery and the other was ready to get it over with.<br />
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We had a huge bike orienteering section up next. It was described as fast biking and it sure started that way. The first control was quick and easy, but then we made failed attempts at the next three. However, I believe we were right on top of the control, but just couldn't see it in the night very well. Nate and I were getting extraordinarily sleepy. After this many failed attempts in a row, in the dark, we bailed straight to the next transition area, Scrub TA, where we decided to gather the best-bang-for-buck, final CPs to end the race. Two legs of race left, one on bike that had us traveling through the entire city of Cedar Key, and another canoe leg that had us paddling out to a historic island right off the key. With the end in near, Nate and I turned on beast mode and left speed trails behind us. It was surprising to see that we had averaged our fastest biking speeds on the 3rd day. Also worthy to note was that our ass chafing had gotten so bad on days 1 and 2, but somehow the body adapted and it did not feel so bad on day 3. Don't ask me how?<br />
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<b>The View at Cedar Key was Breath-Taking!</b><br />
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By coincidence, we had hit Cedar Key right when the sun rose. What we saw blew our minds away! We were brought back in time when explorers tapped into the primitive lands that Florida offered and saw the natural beauty that surrounded it.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">the race ends on the Gulf of Mexico</span></div>
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Tim and Wolverton made their way back to Cedar Key not too long after we did, collecting a couple bike controls and the city CPs along the way, and we met up again. It was great to see us all cross the finish line on our own power. We had experienced so much, in so little and so great of time. You couldn't have asked for a better adventure with the undeniable highs and bittersweet lows that accompanied the race. And thus the mighty and <a href="http://flxadventures.com/races/2015-2/adventure-races-2015/the-florida-sea-to-sea-2015/" target="_blank">epic 72hr journey</a> ended.</div>
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As it turns out, both teams scored high enough to qualify for competing at the national championships in Kentucky (<a href="http://flxadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/S2S-2015.png">2nd and 3rd in the all-male division</a>)! This exceeded our expectations and we indeed will be competing at the national level in October!</div>
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Through this Sea to Sea AR, we have also raised awareness and $3400 for the Wounded Warriors Project to help injured soldiers who have served the US military.</div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-81402640796939026602015-03-10T20:38:00.001-04:002015-05-10T20:57:34.198-04:00FLX - Sea to Sea AR, 72hr Expedition (Day 2)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><a href="http://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2015/03/flx-sea-to-sea-ar-72hr-expedition-day-1.html" target="_blank">(continued from Day 1...)</a></b><br />
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<b>Rice Creek TA Trekking</b><br />
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The sky was lighting up again as we made our way to Rice Creek TA. We were told they cancelled the following paddling leg, as the race directors determined they needed to move the teams west quicker. That and people started hating the paddling legs haha. It was a great relief, since we were planning to can that leg anyways. One...it was paddling and we started hating it too, and two...I had predicted many of the controls there might be pretty tough to navigate to.<br />
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Up next was a trekking leg. The sky was overcast and the environment was like a tropical jungle with <i>lots </i>of swamp. It was one of the coolest sights! We began by latching onto an incorrect set of trails. This burned a an hour or so before we found the right one. Once we lined up the trail map to ours, we immediately set foot to find the CPs here fairly easily.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Wolverton climbs over fences</span></div>
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At Backwoods TA, there was a bonus trek course. We had to plot <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Transverse_Mercator_coordinate_system" target="_blank">UTM coordinates</a> for five control points. This was the first time I had to plot them, and there was another team nearby who noticed my difficulty, so they graciously gave me tips. We cleared this section pretty fast, utilizing a 60 second shuffle, 60 second walk methodology.<br />
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There was a long bike ride to the next stop at Newnan's TA. We easily picked up a handful of controls along the way.<br />
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Somehow, Tim had managed to get a hold of a 5-hour energy shot, I think from Nate's bin. It supercharged him so much he took navigation and bolted forward on bike at a pace that maxed us all out! I'm not sure he realized it at the time until we told him about it afterwards. But hey, he was hitting all of his points, so we left him at it. Once we got to Newnan's TA by nightfall, Tim proclaimed, "I feel like the race just started!". Those 5-hour energy shots had some serious kick to it for him.<br />
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<b>Tim Goes into Hypothermia</b><br />
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Newnan's TA was the start of a giant swamp, and CP47 and 48 were situated deep in it. This place had massive cypress trees everywhere, fallen over, uprooted, you name it. There were also plenty of cypress elbows, aka death stumps. We saw plenty of giant snails, most of them the size of a fist. So in the night, we made an attempt to shoot a 400m direct bearing to CP47 but could not find it. We found only a two CPs in this entire trekking section before Tim started spiraling into hypothermia. Nightfall brought in low 40s temperatures. When Wolverton and I saw him convulsing like someone with Parkinson's disease, we immediately cut off any progress, he busted out the emergency blankets to wear under the jacket, and we all went back to the TA where there was a campfire. As we stumbled back, Tim's competitive mindset forced him to utter, "Hien, give me six 5-hour energy shots and I will finish the race!" Adventure racers are a crazy bunch alright :D<br />
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<b>Wolverton Catches on Fire!</b></div>
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It was apparent everyone was dead tired, cold, and miserable on this second night. We made the call to warm up at the campfire and then catch some sleep in our sleeping bags. Tim and Wolverton slept by the fire since they didn't have a sleeping bag. In the middle of the night, Wolverton deliriously wakes up to the horror of people beating him with clothes. "WTF is going on," he thought. He was on fire! A campfire log had fallen on him and burnt his clothes and racers nearby were trying to put it out! Seeing this, the race staff decided to lend them both a sleeping bag and a spot in the staff tent.<br />
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Nate and I woke up after two hours of sleep. It was a significant recharge to a heavily degrading team. We had only gotten two controls in the last 6hrs. But now we were ready to get back to work. We touched basis with Tim and Wolverton, and parted ways with them. It was sad to finally separate the two EA teams after sticking together for a solid two days.<br />
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The morning brought optimism. Ron Eaglin was out and about, and offered to lead us and a few other teams to CP47, which we missed that previous night.<br />
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<b>The Windy Paddle</b><br />
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We then transitioned to canoeing, where the boat launch was in the same giant swamp we had just trekked over. How was there a channel that existed there? What we saw the previous night was a giant swamp with several streams of water here and there. I'm not sure I recalled a channel that led from the transition area to the lake, but in the morning after some much needed rest, it was clear.<br />
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Canoeing on the lake was very pleasant at first--the water was as smooth as glass. That is until the sun rose and brought in billowing winds to the lake. We DID NOT wanna capsize on this lake in really cold conditions. There were two control points along the way to the next stop at Kate's Fish Camp.<br />
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Once there, we transitioned onto foot, where Nate and I picked up one trek control before calling the rest of the other controls off. Teams reported how tough that section was, both in terms of navigation and bushwhacking conditions. Nate's knees were an infected mess, swollen, bloodied and battered by thorns in previous days so he was in little shape to beat them up some more. So we walked back to the TA again. There, I wanted to go light, so I opted not to pack jackets and head lamps. On the flipside, Tim and Wolverton had banked some more sleep and skipped the paddle section, and decided to ride their bikes quicker to the other side of the lake instead, but for no control points.<br />
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Amazingly, both of our teams re-united at this transition area. We felt great synergy again. Tim and I were swapping navigation roles, where one guy would have one set of maps viewable on the bike map board, and the other would have the next set of maps, seamlessly planning and transitioning without a hiccup. Nate and Wolverton also did a fine job of hunting/punching the controls.<br />
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<b><a href="http://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2015/03/flx-sea-to-sea-ar-72hr-expedition-day-3.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">(continue onto Day 3...)</span></a></b><br />
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-43759797805014477372015-03-10T19:12:00.002-04:002015-07-26T01:19:24.175-04:00FLX - Sea to Sea AR, 72hr Expedition (Day 1)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The Florida Sea to Sea AR was the most challenging journey in our adventure racing history. It spanned an astounding 72hrs across the entire width of central/northern Florida, touching both ends of the coast. Two Canyoneros EA Sports teams braved the challenges that stood ahead with hopes that at least one team would qualify for the <a href="http://www.usaranationals.com/race.aspx" target="_blank">National USARA Championship in Kentucky</a>. The usual suspects of Nate and I would race with another veteran racer and excellent navigator, Tim Cowan, and newcomer Johnathan Wolverton. Wolverton, an ex-Air Force and ground troop, had two other races under his belt, a 6hr and an 8hr. What better than to keep increasing those numbers and jump to a 72hr next? He had no idea what he was getting into, but we needed someone with a proven tough-as-hell mindset, someone who had stared Afghanistan in the face before.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Johnathan Wolverton (left), Nate Whitaker, Hien Nguyen, Tim Cowan</span></div>
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<a href="http://flxadventures.com/" target="_blank">Florida Xtreme Adventures</a>' race directing team put on an incredible race that had a wide variety of racing elements, from lengthy distances, tough night navigation, bonus courses, food/campfire TAs, trivia control points, and a sweet Cedar Key ending that had us exploring the entire Cedar Key city and historical island there. Major props to them and the volunteers.<br />
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The day before the race, we browsed Cedar Key looking for as much food as we could eat to fuel up for the next 3 days in which we would be in a constant calorie deficit. Cedar Key is a quiet small town with buildings that appeared survived the last century or more. A race meeting was held in the creaky town library. We received our passports and maps for the first half of the race and then proceeded to load the Uhaul trucks with our bikes and paddling gear. We spent the next couple hours eating microwavable ravioli and planning the maps in our hotel. We also decided for a fairly early cutoff time to go to bed, banking on the more crucial aspect of sleep. There were just too many maps (21 maps for the first half of the course alone) to strategize everything so we were determined to rely on spontaneous decision making and measurements.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Start (Day 1)</span></b><br />
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The next morning, we were bused to Flagler area along Highbridge Road, where we started off on a relatively quick jog to collect four control points (CPs). The sun was beating down on the day and temperatures were rising quick, as it was forecasted to be the hottest day of the race. This was Nate's day to survive, as the Englishman's got a history of easily overheating. We did what we could, including slowing pace down to manage this. If he could survive this day, it was assumed the rest would be smooth sailing for him.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">race starts on the Atlantic Ocean</span></div>
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<b>Bonus Technical Biking</b><br />
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From there, we jumped into canoes and paddled our way up Bulow Creek, biked down Bulow Ruins, and back up John Anderson Hwy to start a bonus technical biking section. It was a sweet 6.2 mile set of trails that I had no idea existed there. We picked up five(?) controls here on the 'easy' route. Any other day I would have loved this area, but this section took a solid 2.5hrs to complete and took its toll on the team. Nate's heat was noticeably building up and Tim was getting pounded on the technicality. We constantly fed Nate <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ICTW9E6/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00ICTW9E6&linkCode=as2&tag=canyoneros-20&linkId=3HPFSKCB2Q7JR4XZ" target="_blank">NASA water</a> to manage this. Even with steam coming off his head and cheeks as red as fire, he would mutter "Hien, I <i>always </i>shake this off."<br />
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<b>Nate the CP Sniffing Dog</b><br />
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For CP14, we had a long pre-measured distance to travel before attacking into the control. I couldn't find any other nearby attack points to minimize the measuring error that would occur with longer distances. Our best bet was to send Nate, the hound dog, to lead us into the forest to hunt this one out. He didn't fail us. It was amazing, as this was one of many others we relied on him for. The objective was get Nate within 200m and he'll sniff it out, always :)</div>
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Evening was setting in. We found several more control points in the city of Bunnell, as we made our way to the next section, another canoe segment.<br />
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<b>Canoeing over Fallen Trees</b></div>
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There was a tight channel that poured into the main river at Black Branch TA. Along the way, there must have been ten areas where a tree or two fell over the channel and forced us to plow our muddy canoes over them. The first few were really cool, as it gave us a great sense of adventure. It was nightfall, bugs flying everywhere, and no one else out there but lunatic racers. We would paddle up to the fallen tree(s) and then decide whether to portage our boats on the sides of the channel, or just flat out haul our canoes over the fallen trees. We saw snakes, frogs, and many spiders here. At one log, where we knew we would need to exit the canoe into the water, our flashlights revealed the glowing red eyes of a big gator sitting, watching us.</div>
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For about an hour on this paddle leg, I kept hearing a hissing noise coming from inside the canoe behind me. I kept freaking out and was concerned that a snake had fallen into the canoe and was hiding somewhere under our paddling bag. Eventually Nate couldn't hold it any longer and his laughing gave it away. It turns out every time he moved, his canoe seat pad would let out a little air making a loud hissing noise. That guy...</div>
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In the middle of the paddling section, there was a bonus trek section embedded in. There, you had until 11pm to collect as many controls as you could in the dark. We got there pretty late, but still found three of the closest, best bang-for-the-buck controls, and headed right out with only minutes to spare.<br />
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Most teams re-converged at this point, as they tried to maximize their points on that 11pm cutoff. From there, it was a long paddle to the next transition area (TA).<br />
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<b>City Biking in the Night</b><br />
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The long paddling legs set the stage for some nasty ass chafe since you were constantly wet while sitting in the boat. At Bull Creek TA, a couple of us were treated to a warm shower in the public bathroom facilities there. We spent time eating some substantial food and putting on fresh new clothes before heading out.<br />
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Next up was a biking segment that had us picking up several controls off Hwy 20, enroute to San Mateo. A couple of the controls here had you answering questions like "what is the church's name at the CP location?" CP23 gave many teams that converged there fits. The clue was "east side of pine along road". No one could find it, as the trails there did not really match what was on the map. Apparently, word was that it was only 5m from the road, but most teams were poking about 70m deep into the fields, ultimately giving that one up. The lack of visibility in the night made control hunting really difficult.<br />
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Tim started hallucinating this night, seeing images crawling out of the blinking red bike lights that mesmerized him. Sleepiness was dropping the curtain down fast on him.<br />
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At CP27, I had gotten so depleted of energy I couldn't even push my bike on a grassy trail leading up to the control. All of a sudden, I felt so dead. The team took a quick few minutes here to eat and eat, and it was just enough to recharge me.<br />
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<b><a href="http://canyoneros-ar.blogspot.com/2015/03/flx-sea-to-sea-ar-72hr-expedition-day-2.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">(continue onto Day 2...)</span></a></b><br />
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-9967111340422895592015-02-09T00:47:00.002-05:002015-02-09T22:46:17.033-05:00FLX - FL Rogaine, Elite 8hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Rogaine is a type of race where there are lots of control points out there and you develop your own route. But we have never officially done one. Today was an opportunity to combine our specialty of orienteering and grinding endurance to train for the Sea to Sea AR next month. Who woulda thought we would run a full marathon out here today--all offroad?<br />
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By the way, we signed up under the team name of "Canyoneros - EA Sports". Over the years of adventure racing, we have become fortunate enough to maintain the health and skills needed to do satisfactorily well in this sport. Our work place, <a href="http://www.easports.com/" target="_blank">Electronic Arts</a> (also known as EA, the maker of video games such as Madden NFL, Fifa, Battlefield, the Sims, and more) has been very gracious enough to sponsor us! We will be also running the <a href="http://flxadventures.com/races/2015-2/adventure-races-2015/the-florida-sea-to-sea-2015/" target="_blank">Sea to Sea AR</a> to raise funds for the <a href="http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/" target="_blank">Wounded Warrior Project</a>, while carrying a GPS spot tracker to bring the action to those at home (link to be posted when the time comes).<br />
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Onto the race...the race was broken up into two halves. You would find 15 controls in the first half and 14 controls in the second half. Nate and I each planned a unique route to compare afterwards. He's been in full navigation training mode to better help me out when I fall asleep at the Sea to Sea AR next month. Mine went counter-clockwise and his went clockwise. They were basically mirror images of each other so we just stuck with mine.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">route - 1st half</span></div>
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I would say for the most part, everything went fairly smoothly, so I wanna use this blog as a post-analysis on some of the more technical points of the first half of the race.</div>
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At control point 32, I admit, we did latch onto some faster teams out there (one of our rules to not do) and got lost. There were fainter trails out there (point A) that I thought were mapped and did not pace count to confirm it. Luckily, we backtracked our thinking, realized the lower elevation (point B below) to re-calibrate our bearings, and found the control with the help of other teams nearby.</div>
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At CP53, we found the small depression (point A) and then shot another bearing to the control. However, we blew right by it within 15m, bailed out and found it at point C. As we exited, it was time to flip the map over. I couldn't really line up where it connected, so I had us bushwhacking straight down at point D, instead of the more efficient point B.</div>
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With forests so open and us having great luck at finding CPs so far, we decided to do a little test. Jim Gorton was right on our tail after punching CP62 and while heading towards CP74, he caught up to us but stayed on trail. We decided to bushwhack about 1km to CP74. That's a massive length for mere mortals to stay straight on, so we went shot from depression to depression. Lately, Nate has been using old maps at Wekiva to find every single depression there is in that park, and rightfully deemed himself the master of the depressions. This further gave us more confidence to reign our line back in if things went crooked. It proved a success and we even beat Jim to the control using the shorter path.<br />
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We had remembered from last year's Sea to Sea AR that the trails here were often very faint or non-existent. Here you can see we ran right pass this trail (A) and didn't figure it out until we started going north. Constantly looking at the compass allowed us to fail quick and cheap.<br />
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After grabbing CP73, we could have gone for the furthest CP81, but totally forgot to write the complete route order on the 2nd map. Nate did some rough calculating and determined CP81 would cost about another 15-20 minutes, so we chucked it on the belief that the course was not clearable and that CP81 was the worst bang for the buck.</div>
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At CP71, we counted 6-700m to get to the intersection at point A to shoot a bearing to the control. We badly missed the control. Then we started scavenging to the north to find a mapped depression/marsh at point B. It was there we found a better attack point to hone in on the control. What happened? Upon reviewing the map overlaid with Google Earth, trail A did not exist, but trail C was the larger more prominent one we got confused as trail A.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">motocrossers enjoying the beautiful day</span></div>
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At the end of the first half, we tried to find this trail to lead us directly to the Main TA (point A) but it didn't exist in real life so we were forced to take the next trail, which also didn't exist, so the next. Again after reviewing the 'tapes' we see that the entry to the trail is blocked by a tree and the other side is just overgrown--not identifiable at all. That's alright, you gotta be on your toes for backup plans when it comes to adventure racing.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">point A, zoomed in on Google Earth</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">route - 2nd half</span></div>
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The second half seemed to be tougher to figure up a route, due to the two controls in the middle of the course that threw off the circular path (in our case, clockwise). At the Main TA, I duct taped my feet due to ease some hot spots (something I will have to keep in mind for the Sea to Sea AR). We planned the route on the fly during bushwhack walks to minimize down time.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Nate dons the GoPro now!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr4sOxtAp2mw9qY-rOCurxlwHoh7VjVnGyCzlS3J5W_PfRMmULxHAWtwM7xFOtFBupynZFHvu3sFl2dFL6gkfgRSq2Yvw4lAMHiwzb3xE2SRm9yIBxC7j2hy0RXo2RpEzYZPEGGk0o6Rb6/s1600/rogaine14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr4sOxtAp2mw9qY-rOCurxlwHoh7VjVnGyCzlS3J5W_PfRMmULxHAWtwM7xFOtFBupynZFHvu3sFl2dFL6gkfgRSq2Yvw4lAMHiwzb3xE2SRm9yIBxC7j2hy0RXo2RpEzYZPEGGk0o6Rb6/s1600/rogaine14.jpg" height="226" width="400" /></a></div>
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I originallly planned a route that had us going from CP 33 to 34 to 54. After punching CP33, the plan was forgotten and we skipped 34. Realizing it too late, we had to re-configure our entire route on the back end. The original plan had us going to gather CP 44 and 45 easier, but now had us going far out of our way to swing the route out west. We decided to write down the order finally.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwfTl6KRjppfk1fx-TcE0OrEIi7Rx49a9ul8z4LhS_IfHqbgZtDgIBooATtNnnHyHqVChcVf3e8ISdZ5s4r-RycxJsLcKTXkiOhM_kxIng0LQh-xYPWXR1bybhaGwdt34dWxLiU6NRr_u0/s1600/rogaine31.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwfTl6KRjppfk1fx-TcE0OrEIi7Rx49a9ul8z4LhS_IfHqbgZtDgIBooATtNnnHyHqVChcVf3e8ISdZ5s4r-RycxJsLcKTXkiOhM_kxIng0LQh-xYPWXR1bybhaGwdt34dWxLiU6NRr_u0/s1600/rogaine31.PNG" height="259" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">this is what a "pit" looks like</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">There was an area in the park that seemed like it was hit by a tornado</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuultlJQpMiKgBdI4JILiCevT4vSfCxJTD0YJE-C6GgGulsiOLI7ntmBNBwEfqNfPiR2W1YWfovlMP5-CT6pPU9q-7OREXc6tvvUVwo3LGwx2_vGu08VkdORNKdvojDiEGHPZTDZQXAAzY/s1600/rogaine17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuultlJQpMiKgBdI4JILiCevT4vSfCxJTD0YJE-C6GgGulsiOLI7ntmBNBwEfqNfPiR2W1YWfovlMP5-CT6pPU9q-7OREXc6tvvUVwo3LGwx2_vGu08VkdORNKdvojDiEGHPZTDZQXAAzY/s1600/rogaine17.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw7S32SYDVc9obMgIhUMIijajQxpSMOuVFvA0o026xV4Rz_mqg6bxuAytB3rbZn5O3a0jWJcQJ4Q1iEJkL7SU97Sm6skkkU3zWr03uMAA2-bDC65U57dhqiMfExIG2K4SWNo6CVO2_b3o-/s1600/rogaine18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw7S32SYDVc9obMgIhUMIijajQxpSMOuVFvA0o026xV4Rz_mqg6bxuAytB3rbZn5O3a0jWJcQJ4Q1iEJkL7SU97Sm6skkkU3zWr03uMAA2-bDC65U57dhqiMfExIG2K4SWNo6CVO2_b3o-/s1600/rogaine18.jpg" height="226" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIV8GAY-pUdzh1JxKzB6ApuOvljpnkHpIXTWDWlqQAJmBuAHC84kCapltMppplgI8sJgbWIxm5B8SEWfQiW31jH7bis2CnRVUKqa9d3h__nGueAqK5V-9Acn77SCyNbsWbuB36jzIJBqxT/s1600/rogaine19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIV8GAY-pUdzh1JxKzB6ApuOvljpnkHpIXTWDWlqQAJmBuAHC84kCapltMppplgI8sJgbWIxm5B8SEWfQiW31jH7bis2CnRVUKqa9d3h__nGueAqK5V-9Acn77SCyNbsWbuB36jzIJBqxT/s1600/rogaine19.jpg" height="226" width="400" /></a></div>
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We spent a good amount of time (~15min) trying to find CP83. Turns out if we stuck to the original trajectory we had, coming from the cemetary, we would have found it on first try.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYiZ8iIEgIfJm3RDNHEjJfVMHizKbkDNH4vF_mV-L_u7ETr1RHWs1MqNp5smnY9TS6KVKMVb8Z-A-GgSrQB3YGa-BVC1hXT-W18biv2T7Fq4ea5DhboWgHPXjRuYWVtPxeD6-Fkm8JMEXu/s1600/rogaine30.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYiZ8iIEgIfJm3RDNHEjJfVMHizKbkDNH4vF_mV-L_u7ETr1RHWs1MqNp5smnY9TS6KVKMVb8Z-A-GgSrQB3YGa-BVC1hXT-W18biv2T7Fq4ea5DhboWgHPXjRuYWVtPxeD6-Fkm8JMEXu/s1600/rogaine30.PNG" height="193" width="400" /></a></div>
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Heading to CP64, we made an astounding discovery. CP64 was in between the front side of our map and the back side. I needed to shoot a bearing, but couldn't, so I took Nate's map and connected it to mine. Things didn't line up correctly from left to right. The scale on the front and back were not the same! It affected me because I was using a new <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00L5TIF66/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1" target="_blank">AR UTM ruler</a> that had the 1:15,000 scale on it. No wonder our measurements were out of whack on the southern end of the park. Having no good way to shoot a bearing, I started counting paces up, right, up, right, pretending I had hit trail A. I never found the trail, although it appears we were so close, but stuck to the theoretical plan. Nate is like an NFL kicker. Get a kicker closer than 50yrds of the goal post, and your chances of nailing a field goal are higher. However, with Nate, I knew if I could get him within a whopping 200m, he would have a chance of sniffing it outright. He spotted this one within 125m away!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhV8qJdC5AeOxL1fytTFX2PMH7FsmB_EkcpZk5EjkzlvQieRdhnO5WRAuPEX3qf_q7YGvaj9dfQgVzG6oGoWdsl9n6rt0mAFwX30XfffOkM7KZCqaUau7M2XMXNn6R7iFrgcCqHXW0d3uT/s1600/rogaine33.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhV8qJdC5AeOxL1fytTFX2PMH7FsmB_EkcpZk5EjkzlvQieRdhnO5WRAuPEX3qf_q7YGvaj9dfQgVzG6oGoWdsl9n6rt0mAFwX30XfffOkM7KZCqaUau7M2XMXNn6R7iFrgcCqHXW0d3uT/s1600/rogaine33.PNG" height="320" width="315" /></a></div>
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I'm not kidding about Nate. Here's another example--150m away is where he found it.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0FTUTDmTIJdSuwU6BdvSNcjVHascqNgLcbbOk95YHOSfJmpl1DDYgrlNUfEEp8lDFxJHA1Hz0EEahX_Xi0kESYYaLyFbxskePpqhvmrwuW7ky7z7oQcaWdXThJLzKx9w0PWxR7NfUgJDw/s1600/rogaine34.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0FTUTDmTIJdSuwU6BdvSNcjVHascqNgLcbbOk95YHOSfJmpl1DDYgrlNUfEEp8lDFxJHA1Hz0EEahX_Xi0kESYYaLyFbxskePpqhvmrwuW7ky7z7oQcaWdXThJLzKx9w0PWxR7NfUgJDw/s1600/rogaine34.PNG" height="320" width="288" /></a></div>
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We had a good amount of time left after getting CP34, but rough hand measurements revealed too much distance to gather the last two controls to the west, CP44 and 45. It might have been doable at the beginning of the day, and if the trails were paved, but not at the end of the day in the off-road trails. We ditched it to not risk time penalties. In fact, it appears penalties with rogaine rules are extraordinarily harsh--one point penalty every minute you're late! Check out the <a href="http://flxadventures.com/races/2015-2/rogaine-ocala-february-7/" target="_blank">sport teams who came in late</a>, some of them have terribly negative scores!<br />
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Enroute to the finish, we wanted to take the red route (below), but as the trail we were on started going multiple directions except northwest, we said "screw it, let's just take a bearing from the last CP and shoot straight to the Main TA." If in doubt, use brute force :)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIIQl1MQvU6poF4nBIi41Cr1TEm7omLPBZQi0HpiPh7f_cRuI8wzJGAeaTfNL8O22wiRkfP0x5n2u58lSeptKVQH1bTJRES6zcba3_zly4uiY0MmH2NeEFZl15wjd0f2WjAlTh4tKLtZZQ/s1600/rogaine32.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIIQl1MQvU6poF4nBIi41Cr1TEm7omLPBZQi0HpiPh7f_cRuI8wzJGAeaTfNL8O22wiRkfP0x5n2u58lSeptKVQH1bTJRES6zcba3_zly4uiY0MmH2NeEFZl15wjd0f2WjAlTh4tKLtZZQ/s1600/rogaine32.PNG" height="303" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM1V-PRe8whorpT90w_K9pfI7k4JHXoRKbhUSIq_n3vWziA0NX-KJAt8MLMP9wx2sjnbqqKKYOyjAOMxl0jhlDiUvD55paVJWGzV0pveeOULzYYx1lwPLG7CdAYNkFRO2QeF76i4weZ5GU/s1600/rogaine06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM1V-PRe8whorpT90w_K9pfI7k4JHXoRKbhUSIq_n3vWziA0NX-KJAt8MLMP9wx2sjnbqqKKYOyjAOMxl0jhlDiUvD55paVJWGzV0pveeOULzYYx1lwPLG7CdAYNkFRO2QeF76i4weZ5GU/s1600/rogaine06.jpg" height="226" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">We finished 1st in the team division, 2nd in overall.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJtjl3nc7gMYKjSB-v0GJX9JD7HxvESBtsknPvHeXDAiF3t6WKYsiBho-HE1ooOwOT-eD8hSE-W7Y67OSdThjefk7ZMhZuztpAJhMVzmutktSQq3tu8ElgphJbh5pG5k8nqVYtE_LmYENZ/s1600/10897896_883575188360994_6144995023862491464_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJtjl3nc7gMYKjSB-v0GJX9JD7HxvESBtsknPvHeXDAiF3t6WKYsiBho-HE1ooOwOT-eD8hSE-W7Y67OSdThjefk7ZMhZuztpAJhMVzmutktSQq3tu8ElgphJbh5pG5k8nqVYtE_LmYENZ/s1600/10897896_883575188360994_6144995023862491464_n.jpg" height="360" width="640" /></a></div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7885972904353140641.post-15157111680221829602015-01-17T22:08:00.005-05:002015-01-25T01:27:54.960-05:00FLX - Resolution AR, Elite 8hr<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXQSj_zm6BXlScRgoOP_i1nXy9XCF-5Bd-UEzlSKIyq-AU62ZgG5Z5MN4G1kooolJH0NfA2PByVF73IO7VKmI0DB7Dy5_yyYoIgITysh_WXfi_GIoMMBI0TuD1VRXoE6q9DCJI-ssJhWu8/s1600/title01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXQSj_zm6BXlScRgoOP_i1nXy9XCF-5Bd-UEzlSKIyq-AU62ZgG5Z5MN4G1kooolJH0NfA2PByVF73IO7VKmI0DB7Dy5_yyYoIgITysh_WXfi_GIoMMBI0TuD1VRXoE6q9DCJI-ssJhWu8/s1600/title01.jpg" height="362" width="640" /></a></div>
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The original members of the Canyoneros decided to go back out to the same venue that hosted our very first adventure race ever, with race organizer WeCeFar at the 8hr Croom Crusher (of 2010?). To this day, we still spread legendary stories of amoeba and mosquito attacks, old fairies escorting us through the race, the throwing up of gallons, and Paul Bunyan pumping up a crowd of patriotic folks at their locally famous Margarita Grill (now burned down). We would not adventure race again for an entire year.<br />
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Fast forward to 2015, we revisited the Croom again and saw many familiar areas. It was great to see how far we had progressed.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvTZEwY3FGeLoLhyphenhyphenyy7MXG05TxrykgJshlnYRJUPrLW8dbr8yiMeYaax1PpF_LBV8XG_uGurNvOXEdkgU4-95Um-vrp-0Zst-r7De56lUdRq9I6YFB12-x0ejZJaNh7BKybBtMth8o53Ni/s1600/resolution02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvTZEwY3FGeLoLhyphenhyphenyy7MXG05TxrykgJshlnYRJUPrLW8dbr8yiMeYaax1PpF_LBV8XG_uGurNvOXEdkgU4-95Um-vrp-0Zst-r7De56lUdRq9I6YFB12-x0ejZJaNh7BKybBtMth8o53Ni/s1600/resolution02.jpg" height="226" width="400" /></a></div>
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Here was highlight of the first running portion, a control in a deep quarry.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTRXg7pNqX7NgLfAnf0p3_1zX9T6G9t7bOPgaovzmgM9Z7jn0sCDZPxj5h6kABHvGTiW03DSzrHGnbsuiktafw4q8y3svdYN9NAAvKbiDbEdHMkADi_N2hajr743eKC_5c25bPYtQt6W90/s1600/resolution03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTRXg7pNqX7NgLfAnf0p3_1zX9T6G9t7bOPgaovzmgM9Z7jn0sCDZPxj5h6kABHvGTiW03DSzrHGnbsuiktafw4q8y3svdYN9NAAvKbiDbEdHMkADi_N2hajr743eKC_5c25bPYtQt6W90/s1600/resolution03.jpg" height="226" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgirYuQ1oyYVnRCN5SH6duuzGr3r8CUrRu-hLUO4e97l_nBokMcWRD4jlHZDtCXhH6XhCp5dahsmYXNaDz07XPW4pF-J_4iMtOO1ZfrhFRbNKwr5L2nHdZ1bIwAuUkfb6vmBWyvFEXyAxee/s1600/resolution04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgirYuQ1oyYVnRCN5SH6duuzGr3r8CUrRu-hLUO4e97l_nBokMcWRD4jlHZDtCXhH6XhCp5dahsmYXNaDz07XPW4pF-J_4iMtOO1ZfrhFRbNKwr5L2nHdZ1bIwAuUkfb6vmBWyvFEXyAxee/s1600/resolution04.jpg" height="226" width="400" /></a></div>
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Orienteering was our 2nd leg and what I like to call my bread and butter. CP27 gave me some trouble since the paths were very subtle at times near there, but we finished in 2hrs and a couple minutes. While trucking through the forest, Russell ran into a 25ft tree and knocked it down. Greg had eagle eye with the CP spotting.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUCf4y2PVdDJr6vokCKh79i5bs1HOCf6lHWGkenoVPuzQ9WWYl1x-dS_fjtHIuCJTb-vvl8Hl5GmY7vwpWUUGKQO5WeRn0lmBaDKW8R4YtDVc4LbUxa__ZMTfrnHq7XYllLYF25YIZwWrx/s1600/resolution45.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUCf4y2PVdDJr6vokCKh79i5bs1HOCf6lHWGkenoVPuzQ9WWYl1x-dS_fjtHIuCJTb-vvl8Hl5GmY7vwpWUUGKQO5WeRn0lmBaDKW8R4YtDVc4LbUxa__ZMTfrnHq7XYllLYF25YIZwWrx/s1600/resolution45.JPG" height="256" width="400" /></a></div>
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I enjoyed the little games we had in this race. This particular control did not have a punch, but a sign that told you to shoot another bearing to find the real punch.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQhe0YTdO6G-gGWkJdY_4WPYFeFudql7NR6Q2giYtwwBTadbC5Dk98yYQlZlAniwCzZVDjVa31kQkm-jfNxYIWne8wvQVGKOEjFbEpn2JKnYONBapJurpibA2rzWqJS-1x15bFqGyrCax1/s1600/resolution07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQhe0YTdO6G-gGWkJdY_4WPYFeFudql7NR6Q2giYtwwBTadbC5Dk98yYQlZlAniwCzZVDjVa31kQkm-jfNxYIWne8wvQVGKOEjFbEpn2JKnYONBapJurpibA2rzWqJS-1x15bFqGyrCax1/s1600/resolution07.jpg" height="226" width="400" /></a></div>
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The canoeing was perhaps the most exciting part of our race. It took a bit for us to get the 3-man technique going. We got it going really smoothly on the return route. It was much better than the very first time at the Croom Crusher, where I swear we had the canoe backwards, as we zigzagged to no end. Along one of the bends, we got our canoe stuck and pivoting on top of an underwater cypress stump, aka "death stump". Anytime Russell is in your canoe, rest assured, you will capsize, and along with it a backpack will float back down the river.</div>
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the capsize</div>
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The water got stronger and stronger as we got near CP32. We had a couple attempts at trying to paddle up this channel, but it proved too strong for the three of us in a clumsy canoe.</div>
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canoeing upstream</div>
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I decided to jump off onto the bank and find the control, which was about 75m away. While jogging over, I had a suspicion I chose the wrong bank to go on. Sure enough, I did and had to jump into the cold river to punch the control.</div>
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swimming for CP32</div>
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This control was in one of the coolest environments I saw.<br />
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CP14 gave me fits as we kept trying to find a tree in the middle of a many clusters of palmettos near there. Turns it out it was in an open area of the forest with no palmettos nearby. For having not ridden a bike in a year, Russell hit the wall during our final bike leg, so Greg roped him up and towed him back. We finished 8th out of 22 this time around, coming in 19 minutes late. It was quite fitting, as Greg Watson put it. In comparison, we had finished 40 minutes late at the Croom Crusher and got DQ'd and last place. Manny Otero put on a great event that had us revisiting the past.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Canyoneros - Greg Watson (left), Hien Nguyen (me), Russell the Muscle</span></div>
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Thoe99http://www.blogger.com/profile/14859214219081410110noreply@blogger.com1