Pangea - Atomic AR, Elite 30hr

Two days, 139km of distance, 2 mile ascent, 2 mile descent, and one capsize later, Canyoneros had the most fulfilling AR race of our lives.  This would be the second time for Nate Whitaker to head up to Blue Ridge, GA, first time for Tim Cowan, and third time for me.  Third time's always the charm!

Here's an overall view of the mountainous terrain we traversed.  No flat land at all.  The best we had was Clermont to train in, city of the highest smoothly-paved 50ft hills in FL!

The race started out with picture-perfect blue skies and green pastures.  Birds chirped loudly, creeks flowed soothingly, everything was lively.  The environment in Georgia is always stunning.  The mountains in the distance and the rich red clay in the ground are in clear contrast to what is seen in Florida.  We immediately rode our bikes into a two hour ride up to the remotest of mountains for our first control at CP11.  It was primarily uphill, but we were treated to a few sections of exhilarating downhills.

The temps were climbing towards 80 degrees.  Nate started experiencing signs of heat exhaustion, and me, leg cramps only three hours in--not a good start.

no pedaling needed

Most of the controls (CP11-23) on the first biking segment were found very well using distance measurements, bearing direction, reading elevation, and clues from nearby teams.

About five hours in, I hear a wreck and a loud gasp coming from Tim.  I quickly turn around and see that he had just flipped over his handlebars and smashed into the root-filled ground of the single-track biking trails.  His left hand instantly swelled up.  His knees and forearms bled from road rash, so we spent a few minutes to recover here.  (After the race, X-rays showed a "non-displaced fracture of the 4th left metacarpal shaft").  As he gave us the ok, I knew the next 25hrs were going to be very painful for him.  It was the first time I had seen him grimace.

We continued forward as the afternoon approached.  The clouds became overcast and rained down upon us.  Somewhere along the way, we passed by a creek and Nate jumped right in, roaring back to life, as the crisp coldness of the water re-energized him.  Nate cheered in relief and my leg cramps temporarily stopped.  It appeared as though the whole team was recovered.  And then I ran out of water for a couple hours.

At Bull TA, we switched shoes to transition onto the trekking portion of our race.  I filled my Camelbak to the 3-liter brim.  I looked at the map and instantly estimated a 6-8hr segment.  For our race, this was the most technical for navigation.  It required us to pinpoint attack points precisely and try to remain on a bearing as best as we could.

CP30 was relatively easy to locate but steep as a wall.  We attacked directly south of the control.  For CP29, I had mentally memorized a large set of branches with brown dead leaves on the side of the trail to mark the location of a previous bike CP22.  We used that to shoot a straight bearing towards CP29 with Team Super Frogs.  Leaving there, we parted ways and found each other again at the next control (CP28), each team with a different route to there.  Many teams were having problems here, but as we took an extended break for dinner on the trail south of the control, I re-confirmed our position on the map, bushwhacked in, and we easily found it.

reference this trek map as I explain the route choices below

From CP28, we bushwhacked northeast, hit a trail and ran along it until we reached a previous CP17.  Once there, we counted paces, followed the map, and helped another team make a second attempt at attacking into CP25 from exactly west of it.  It took a long trek to finally reach the correct re-entrant that CP27 was located.  Once we found that re-entrant, we browsed up the mountain and found it.

There was no other way to CP26 except a surgical bearing.  Our bearing was super precise alright.  A little too precise, but our pace counting and spur identification caught us somewhat late.  Then came a period of hunting that circled us right back to where we started and realized we had initially blew right by it by no more than 5 meters!  Here I ran out of water again.  It would fatigue me for the next two hours or so.

Tim, an Eagle scout, used his mountaineering skills to lead us down to the re-entrant that CP16 was located, to be used as a resetting point for locating CP25.  Here, we met up with Ron Eaglin's massive team of six to find 25 together.  It is quite a feat to herd that many people, esp. the longer the races go.  But it is a huge advantage to have as a search party.  We followed Ron some more as he used his own mountaineering skills to creatively try to find CP24.  I wanted to do a straight bushwhack from the previous control, since that's my bread and butter, but we stuck to Ron's more adventurous path that had us zig-zagging and crossing a creek multiple times.  Out of my comfort zone, I tried really hard to thumb our location on the map, turn by turn, bearing by bearing.

After a while, he cut into a re-entrant in which I think he used to prematurely attack in from.  I was scratching my head as his team bolted up the hills.  My thumbed location had us waaay too early to attack in from.  I relied on my gut and had our team use that re-entrant to recalibrate.  With a combination of Tim's mountaineering skills and my own thumbing and bearings, it took us a bit to find the correct re-entrant before commencing the search.  We search and search and as I began doubting myself in what became the night by now, I miraculously heard a "I FOUND IT!"  Historically, night, plus mountains, have been bad luck for me.  But oh boy, were those words great to hear at times like that.  Tim had located it.  Thank goodness that was our last control for the section.  Now we just had to find our way out, which had its own recoverable mistake.

I had us erroneously bolting out of Bull TA on the wrong trail, the red trail, so we had to backtrack up the correct trail to find CP31.  As we traveled to CP32, we joined the party of about 6 teams trying to find this control.  We eventually called it, as no one found it, but Eaglin's teams, who never gave up.  That missed control ended our incredible six month streak of being able to find all the controls we would go after.

At CP33, I got us to the correct location and reconfirmed it, but we couldn't find this control either.  Same with CP34.  While searching for CP34, I looked down while clearing tree branches out of my face to see a rather large rattlesnake, coiled up about the size of a frying pan, two inches away from my left foot.  I jumped so high, screamed so loudly, and braced for a striking bite that never happened.  When I looked back, his head was simply nodding "uh huh", his rattler silent, and his tongue still inside his mouth.  On that particular night, I was saved by the grace of God that the serpent did not strike me.  I think he was just sleeping.  At 1:30am on a Sunday morning, as far away from civilization as we were, if I had been bit by that rattlesnake, all I could do was say my prayers.  And speaking of snakes, in the midst of trying to find CP33, Nate had deliriously tried to pick up a copperhead before Tim identified and warned him of it, haha.  Of all the races we've done in some 3yrs, this race was the only one we have had actual dangerous encounters with them.  But then again, maybe we've just been lucky with the ones we've never seen at our feet while bushwhacking through FL...

CP35 also gave us a lot of trouble since the trails leading north did not follow the map much.  It was only after team Adventure Capitalists/BDAR tipped us off that we came storming after it.  With as little luck as we had on that biking leg that night, we decided to call the next control off and just head back while picking up CP37.  Even getting out of CP36 gave us fits.  It was the most demoralizing part of my navigation.

CP37 to the next transition area (Frying TA) was very long on the map.  Should be pretty easy with no navigation right?  Nope.  We went uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill, and uphill.

And then we went uphill some more, and uphill some more, and uphill, and uphill some more, and uphill some more, and uphill some more, and uphill some more, and uphill some more, and uphill some more, and uphill some more, and uphill some more, and uphill some more, and uphill some more, and uphill some more, and uphill some more, and uphill some more...until my altimeter read 3200ft!

This was a death march.  It took about an hour and a half to walk our bikes up 7km.  We saw teams just dying going up this mountain.  I could just picture the race director laughing at the thought of us racers wringing our guts out after 20hrs of race.

When we finally made it to Frying TA, we noticed a large amount of teams taking shelter and sleeping in the Uhaul.  Of the people who were still awake, they spoke of the killer walk up the mountain.  It had severely depleted everyone, physically and mentally.  To us, the race must go on!  The Uhaul had our gear bins, so we were able to replenish, eat, and renew our gear.

While heading out, I realized I was missing a map, the map to our next leg!  Kevin, the staff located here, mentioned that I should ask around if anyone was even going to attempt the next leg.  I did and luckily, Ron Eaglin was there to save me by lending me his map.  His team was done, he said, and didn't have the energy to do the next trekking segment.  Thank you Ron!

Nate, Tim and I then walked our way to CP38, with high ambitions of getting two more after that.  There were these wobbly and flimsy-looking trees all the way up the mountain to CP38.  I was thinking you could plow them over like any other shrub that gets in Canyoneros' way, but we were instantly stiff-armed trying to walk through them.  They put up a fight!  It was nonstop too!  If you weren't careful, your eyes could easily get gouged out.  Feeling beat ourselves, we estimated the times for the rest of the race and called off the rest of the trekking controls we were currently on.  We knew this portion of the race did not have good bang for the buck, as it took us almost two hours to get to CP38 and back.

The bike ride back to the Sport controls was my favorite part.  It was probably 90% downhill, where your bike blazed 30+ mph, faster than cars would try.  I would do this technique where I would duck my head low and pick up even more speed than my teammates.  It was so fun, but I knew I was one step away from making a mistake and getting dragged and skinned 100ft down the wet rocky roads!

We easily picked up CP10 on the way out and made quick work of the Sport controls.

Onto the canoeing portion of the race...it was funny how we got jammed up on the first three set of rocks we passed by, including getting spun 360 around.  Each time we got jammed up, we would execute this weight shifting/rocking maneuver to dislodge the boat.  While doing it that way, we capsized after the canoe freed itself into the water (in video above).  I laugh every time I see that.

Canoeing down rapids was quite fun and refreshing to a race that had us on bike or foot the entire time.  Tim, at this point, could not paddle with his broken hand, but it was no issue with the aid of the downstream.  I was amazed he had made it this far with the rattling handlebars that required death grip down the mountains.  He actually jammed it up a couple more times with some falls throughout the race, one busting up his lip.  What a soldier.

Last year we had listened to the locals at the top of the bridge who told us to navigate to the right side of the rapids.  We capsized.  This year, I wanted to see if they were joking with us at the time, so I had us going to the left side.  We also capsized :)

(left) Nate Whitaker, Tim Cowan, Hien Nguyen

In the end, Canyoneros placed 3rd in the Open Division, which sported 20 teams, and got invited to the USARA National Championships.  It was also good for 9th overall out of 34 competing teams.  We can honestly say we gave it all we had on this one, and came out beat up, broken, chafed, and already looking forward to next year!

http://www.pangeaadventureracing.com/event-details/events/2014-atomic-ar

Stats

ascended 2 miles

descended 2 miles

trek distance = 36.07km (22.4 miles)

bike distance = 91.59km (56.9 miles)

canoe distance = 11.5km (7.15 miles)

Pangea - Dixie AR, Elite 10hr

You can count on either rain or floods at the Dixie AR.  This year, we had floods that made it fun and dirty for adventure racers!


Prologue
Jeff Leininger spread the pack out at the start by having us find 4 easter eggs, scattered about at the start.  We were one of the last teams to find all 4, but hey, Canyoneros like to give others a head start ;)


Run 1
We took a counter-clockwise approach to finding the controls.  We had a little trouble following the trails towards CP3, but eventually found it.  At CP1, I tried to take us on a bushwhack to the west to a smoother, more hard-packed ground, but what started as clear woods got denser and filled with thick palmettos the further we got in.

getting dirty early

these poked me in the eyeball a few times

GPS record

Canoe
The canoeing leg had you paddling along the shoreline of one of the widest sections of St. Johns River.  Last year, there were massive wind gusts that made it quite exhilarating.  This year, it was much calmer.

I tried to find the trail that led you south to CP13, but could not find it.  We eventually docked our canoes a couple hundred meters south of it and bushwhacked our way towards the clearing.

GPS record

There was a herd of teams finding CP13, 14, and 15 together.  The stacked lineup of great teams kept the race amazingly tight 2hrs into it.


Bike 1

CP18 and 19 gave us a 58min loss.  On paper, these two CPs were the kind you wanted to approach precisely, making exact measurements, utilizing the pedometer, and keeping track of the trail turn-by-turn.  It had no clear attack point.  The clue was "creek" for both of them.  When Nate and I go surgical on a control, it can become apparent how accurate we can be in our GPS route (seen in red and yellow lines below).  We dropped the bikes off on the trail and bushwhacked south.  Once we counted paces into the forest, there were two sets of creeks running east to west at the plotted CP18 that we scoured a massive area on, but no controls there!  Maybe it was missing?  From there, we took a direct route to CP19 and again, found nothing.  As we called the controls off and headed back some 200m east on the trail, we spotted a creek that ran north to south.  Nate said give me a couple minutes to poke in just in case, and that's where we found CP18.  Knowing that, we took our bikes south and did the same with CP19...the fatal time hit of poorly plotted controls ultimately knocked us down 5 ranks.

the actual control was 165m away from the plotted point :(

Here's another example of a poorly plotted/placed control at CP24, almost a whole football field away.  The kink in the trail confirmed a clear attack point for us, but unfortunately, it was no where near there.  We found it on the way back after team Crew Zen graciously tipped us when we found and gave them their lost punch card.

The rest of the controls were marked by biking in areas we should have been in canoes with.  Nate did an awesome job of sniffing out the more hidden CPs.  Here's a video of the flooded conditions :)

Foot 2
When we arrived at Bayard TA, we were told we were in 14th place.  One of those races, I guess.  As I tried to pinpoint these with efficiency, the mind was dying and the legs cramping.  At times like these, I can make some stupid mistakes, like when I had the map folded in a fashion that covered up CP35.  So we skipped it and I did not realize it until we were a kilometer away.  When it rains, it pours, so back we went.  Surprisingly, our constant pace allowed us to improve a few rankings up on this segment.

race map - make note of North

Bike 2
This section was supposed to be just a simple ride back to the Main TA, some 4 or 5 kilometers.  I looked at Nate and asked him "what do you have left, Nate?"  It was punctuated by a high-revving chase we gave Team Disoriented :)

We caught up to them as they just hopped a yellow gate and I jokingly gave them a friendly scare by claiming "we're the Boogeymen!"  Seeing us this close, they appeared to book it too, and this became the start of a finish you hate to go through!  It's painful 5hrs in, it's dreadful 8hrs, and it's especially excruciating at 9 haha.  Everyone was beat.

I kinda knew what trail we were on, but Dave from Team Disoriented eventually stopped to gather his bearings at an intersection.  This is where we passed them.  I didn't have the right map showing, so I just had us blazing forward on the large known path.  In my mind, I thought we were on another large trail east of us, which would come back to haunt us at the end.

Halfway to the finish, I drafted Nate and accidentally clipped his rear tire, sending Nate and I off our bikes.  My legs instantly locked up in a ball of furious cramps that I could not reverse on my own power.  I had to completely dismantle, take a few moments, and use my body weight to reverse it.  Nate also spiraled into cramps of his own.  Sport teams nearby looked at us in horror, wondering what just happened.  I took one glance back and saw three green jerseys bolting our way.  "Get back on the bike Hien!" I frantically mumbled with crippled legs.  Good thing we had switched to biking shoes for this last segment.  I was able to make full use the upstroke to make up for the cramping down stroke.

At the very end of the large trail near the gated parking lot, I looked for a trail I thought was to the left of us.  There was none, and it finally hit me that we were on a trail to the west of the Main TA the entire time!  Needless to say, we faked Team Disoriented out, as they followed us to the end.  Sorry for the adrenaline rush guys!  :D

wrong parking lot!

We finished 10th overall after traveling 28km on bike, 8km on canoe, and running a half marathon.

Pangea - Boar AR, Elite 6hr

This month, "FAST, FAST, FAST!" we had the privilege of "SPEED" running under Dave Ashley's "WINNING" leadership, captain of the currently number-one ranked national team Rev3/Mountain Khakis and overall "TOP"winner of the Sea to Sea AR a couple "QUICK!" weeks ago.  In the days leading up to the Boar AR, those were the words that he hypnotized us with during Facebook chats before bed, and as I write this, I still blurt them out like I have Tourette's Syndrome.

While most others were tapering down their workouts the week leading up to the Boar, Nate and I adhered to orders and were ramping it right back up after a few days of recovering downtime from the 72hr Sea to Sea expedition.  We were really looking forward to learning what it takes to get to our next level.

Team Canyoneros - Hien Nguyen (left), Dave Ashley, Nate Whitaker

Prologue
Instead of the entire pack of 24 teams starting on bike at one starting location, the race director decided to spread teams a bit by starting with a spontaneous "out-and-back" one kilometer run.  And thus began the journey of my heart rate bouncing off 170 bpm's.  Here's a chart to show it means we were physiologically starting at a 90% effort, a level Nate and I would basically maintain the entire race!


Bike 1
Biking over cow-pounded grounds is no fun, which is what we rode over for most of this section.  We were riding over a cow pasture.  There were holes of uneven ground and grass, as well as massive patties of cow dung plopped down everywhere you went.  I just embraced it and rolled over the first pile of crap I saw--there was no avoiding it.  Dave basically took direct bearings to the controls while I punched them.  I also recall looking back and seeing Nate wrangling and shaking off a cow that was chasing him :D

GPS route - the aerial view is deceiving, this was the toughest bike ride of the race

Along the way, Nate's bike tire got slashed by something.  He would excruciatingly continue riding for another five kilometers over this brutal ground before realizing it.  In doing so, he was quickly exerting all the quad power he had to overcome the large contact patch his flat tires would now lay down.  On the way to the Boat TA, it was apparent we needed to fix it.  His rims were bottoming out.  Our SPEEDY pit stop was clocked at exactly one minute to pump it back up with CO2 cartridges :)  We accomplished FASTEST leg time here.


Boat

I was given the task to navigate this segment of the race, and it would be the only one, so I'll speak what was going through my mind in the tougher areas.  Pressure was on, as this was the most difficult navigation of the race, along one of the twistiest, gnarliest area of St. John's River.  Luckily, I pinpointed CP5 through 10 with relative ease.  For CP7, we took a shorter route, but I'm not 100% sure it was the fastest route.  Even though we were first out on the boat, a couple teams mysteriously hopped ahead of us at this control.  Upon review in Google Earth, my yellow route was 50m shorter than the alternative red route, but included a couple very small portages.

And then came the control we predicted would be the toughest one during pre-race, CP11.  We overshot it, as did many other teams.  After scouring (point A) for five minutes, we cut our losses and shot a reverse bearing from some houses at (point B), as Dave suggested.  It was then that most of the nearby features started matching up to the map again, so we backtracked to find CP11 correctly.

yellow lines = GPS route

Going over to CP12 to the west, I originally planned to take the shortest route (red line) by running into the west wall at (point E).  In real life, the wall never came, and so we continued west.  My mistake was not identifying the distance needed to travel to (point E) from (point A) to know when to turn north.  (Point C) gradually turned southwest, and as I reviewed all route options that turned south like that on the map, I was stumped.  There was no route that continued in that fashion, on map.  You can even see our yellow GPS line running through mapped green vegetation.  The higher water levels threw off the maps.  Anyways, we committed and bailed to the west boundary and then paddled north towards CP12.  Since I did not know exactly where we poked out after bailing west, I was trying to locate features and identify them on map to mark our location.  Eventually, we docked at (point D), set out the hunt, and found it in a dirty fashion.

can't seem to find the gator

For CP13, we docked our boats on shore 175m east of CP13, ran in and out to punch it and then ran down to for CP14 as Dave paddled the boat alongside, maximizing efficiency.

heading to Bear Island!

Transitioning out of the Boat TA, Nate's bike tire had gone completely flat again so we tried duct taping the gash back up before airing it.  It helped, but was not a solution.

Foot 1
A short bike ride got us to the location of the orienteering section, made of six distance/bearing controls.  The route would take you on a loop that circled back to the same Foot TA again.  We went fast and ran through the bushwhacking areas, tearing down palmettos enroute to controls.  Our constant pace and Dave's incredible accuracy gave us the FASTEST time here.

head-high grass

Bike 2
As we finished the orienteering section, we picked up our bikes and bolted out.  Ron Eaglin, volunteer at Foot TA, graciously loaned Nate his bike so that we would have a less interrupted race.  It was a great relief and we thanked him for that.  However, Ron also spoke of how we may be several minutes behind another team.  Once Dave heard that, he turned into the Incredible Hulk, put the entire team on his shoulders, and went on a race-efficiency rampage!

"Rahhhhhhh!"

He showed us ways to shave every second we could and even towed Nate, as this is his weakest discipline.  With him being the slowest one amongst us three, I was hoping he wasn't bouncing off the rev-limiter for too long.  We spoke ahead of time that if one of us were to bonk in this race, we were at least going to do so with guns blazing at MAXIMAL efforts!

awesome day out

"Dash" as he is rightfully called, took navigation, the punch, and the role of the mule as we raced off into the distance.  From there on out, it was like a jet taking off and continually ACCELERATING while we held on with death grip.  We maximized every thing we could.  Dash had the eye of the tiger, and there was nothing stopping him.

some construction at Orlando Wetlands Park

The hard-packed trails here provided us some killer biking speeds.  Mark another check for FASTEST time here.


Foot 2
Between Nate and I, I'm the faster biker, and he's the FASTER runner, usually by a large margin once we're hours in.  It's strange how it never changes, even though we often put forth more training to even out our weaker side.

Me being the slowest of the three on this section, it was now my turn to man up.  If there's one thing I have, it's endurance, but not running speed...their speed, at least.  I was cramping up here, running out of water, huffing, wheezing, and trying to breath through a cold I picked up a couple days before.  Dash carried my gear, had me rounding corners to take the shortest route possible, and probably at one point, dragged me by the neck down the trails.  All I could remember from this section was the ground I stared at, trying to hold my head high :D

Navigation was FLAWLESS as we took a counter-clockwise approach to clear the controls, including an energy-saving bushwhack from CP29 to 30.  After punching the last CP31, we ran as fast as we could home (correction, I ran as fast as I could muster), hitting some peak heart rates I have never hit in the past, before crumbling down to the ground at the finish line!  Yep, FASTEST!!!! time on this leg too!  And yes, we were announced to be the FIRST team to finish!

me living in heart rate Zones 4 and 5 for 5+hrs!  167bpm average

Overall, we learned quite a lot from Dave Ashley.  All props to Dash for taking us to another level, to first place, although it is no easy feat to keep up with him :)  In a masochistic way, we enjoyed maximal physical efforts we were pushed through on this race!  Thanks Dave again!  and thanks Ron Eaglin for the bike!