Team Disoriented wins one!

Wekiwa Springs State Park was the location of the 2016 Florida State Championship AKA Turkey Burn 12Hr Adventure Race. Dave Brault and Jim Feudner teamed up to design another amazing race that pushed all the teams for everything they were worth. This was our first time at the Turkey Burn. Unfortunately, we were missing our #GetRad guy, Stephen, who was off doing stuff like getting married, adopting a dog, and working his ass off over in Europe…

Bier & Bratwurst?

…or not.

Bike 1 (~8 miles)

For the 4AM race start, Dave led the teams to the bottom of a sugar sand covered jeep trail. At go, we put on our best hardcore faces and pedaled for everything we were worth, until we passed the volunteer snapping photos 20 feet ahead. Once safely past, my race face changed to Mr. Huff and Puff and I concentrated on staying upright and not hyperventilating as my back tire churned up sand. In front of us, Good ‘Nuff kicked up a cloud of sugar sand as they powered through, their taillights vanishing in the darkness. I have words for moments like that…special words.

This section had 4 CPs that we had to get in order, and as much as we wanted to pull away from the other teams, they were having none of it. Behind us was a steady stream of lights with mere seconds between teams. This was no time to screw up and we cleared the section quickly, racing back to the Main TA where we had our first special test, making S’mores at a campfire. Pretty sweet!

Foot 1 (~3.5 miles)

The start of Foot 1 presented us with our first strategic decision. We could either do the foot section while carrying our paddle gear, or clear the foot section and then go back to the Main TA to get our paddle gear before heading off to the canoe section. We decided to carry all of our paddle gear and raced out of the TA. Then we realized that they probably had PFDs at the canoes and it would be smarter to not carry ours. We ran back to the Main TA, dropped our PFDs, and raced out of there only to realize we forgot to grab extra water for the 4 hour canoe section. Crappy, crappy transition. Luckily, I helped us recover by totally screwing up the first checkpoint on the foot section. Why stay in second place when 5th is much more fun.

Y’all ready for a pro tip? Here it is. The scale on an O-Course map is probably different than the scale on a 1:24000 map. You see, CP5 was only about 200 meters from the bend in the road if you use the right scale. Use the wrong scale and it looks more like 350 meters. It’s pretty stinking hard to find a little orange and white flag when your 150 meters past it, at night, in the woods. What’s really cool is if you can watch the headlights of other teams pass you as you struggle in vain to find the CP. I have plenty of these pro tips, ya just gotta ask.

Boat (~12 miles)

The canoe along the Wekiva river was beautiful. The canoe along the backwater channels was hell. Of course, all of the CPs were along the backwater channels. According to many race directors, the word “canoe” is Native American for “hunk of fiberglass you push and pull over many downed trees.” Todd was nailing the nav on this section as we struggled to regain the time we lost on the previous foot section.

view-from-otter-camp

After 3.5 hours of paddling and getting soaked to our waist from jumping in and out of the water, we were freezing and just wanted to get off the canoe. Once we landed, we ran back to the Main TA on numb feet and chattering teeth. It took the entire 15 minute run back for us to warm up.

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Bike 2 (~12 miles)

Boom! Lookin’ Pro! Long enough to take the photo anyway.

This section had us going in a clockwise direction to collect the CPs in order. Somewhere close to CP24 we ran into Ron, Courtney and Erik from Lost Cause. It was the first time we had seen another team since the paddle section. We ventured to CP24 and CP25 together, and after punching CP25 away they all flew like the down of a thistle. What the hell does that mean?! Seriously! I’ve heard that line for 44 years and still have no clue what it means…down of a thistle…whatever.

In more tortoise-like fashion we raced back to the Main TA and almost got ran over by Good ‘Nuff as they were flying up to CP25. They are crazy fast!

Foot 2 (~7.5 miles)

Foot 2 is where the strategy started to come in. We were clearing the course up to this point. But, we knew that we wouldn’t be able to clear the entire course and doubted any other team would either. So, we had to make decisions to maximize our points. Todd and I debated two far away CPs. We estimated it would take us 30-40 minutes to grab them both and get back. I wanted to get them. Todd wanted to leave them and save our legs for the last foot section. In the end, I agreed with Todd and it ended up being a wise move. Mentally, it is hard to drop any points when you’re clearing a course, but who can resist Todd’s Cheesy McPleasy smile?

Bike 3 (~11 miles)

Not much to say on this section. I have little chicken legs and knew we wouldn’t be able to get many bike points, so we didn’t try. With the sugar sand trails that suck the life out of you, we knew we’d end up killing ourselves for just a few points when there were more to get on foot. Instead, we raced to get the first easy bike CP and then headed right back to the Main TA and transitioned to foot.

Foot 3 (~4.5 miles)

The final foot was the make or break section. We knew we had to clear it and get back as quickly as we could to have any chance of winning. There wasn’t any room for errors here and we tried to be as solid as we could with the navigation. With Ana pace counting and Todd spotting CPs with his super x-ray vision, we cleared this section efficiently. One final push to the Main TA and we finished after 11:31:00 of solid racing.

There is this feeling you get in your gut when you get to the finish and realize you left 30 minutes and a whole bunch of checkpoints out on the course. It is not a pleasant feeling. It’s more like that feeling you get the day after you eat bad sushi. You have no idea what the other teams got and your mind replays the whole race and every point you left out there. Should we have gotten those two far checkpoints? Could we have picked up one more on the bike? 30 minutes is an eternity to wait.

In the end it turned out great. We tied Lost Cause on points but won on time. Only thing left to do was eat some delicious spaghetti, check Todd over for ticks, pack up, and drive the 6 hours back home.

As always, a big thanks to Dave, Jim, and all of the volunteers that made this event awesome! There is nothing better than racing hard with great friends out in the beautiful woods of Florida. This is why we do it:

5AM boys! Time to get up and butter the biscuits!

You know there is nothing better than crawling out of a warm bed to go slap cold lube on your butt cheeks and stuff them into a pair of spandex cycling shorts. But, when you’re getting ready to race 30 hours at the USARA National Championship, that’s how you get rad. I wonder if this is how Team Adventure Medical Kits and Tecnu roll out of bed…I doubt it.

We staggered into the Savannah Rapids Convention Center where we were given a map the size of a bed sheet, a list of 36 UTM coordinates to plot, and an hour and a half to get our crap figured out before loading buses and heading off to the starting line. Lucky for us we found a little corner of a fish cleaning station to do our map work. We never got our crap figured out, but we were pretty good at faking it.

Prologue

After a short bus ride to Wildwood Park, we were given a final pre-race briefing and then it was game on.

The prologue consisted of grabbing 12 CPs around the International Disc Golf Center. 180+racers converging on the first CP led to some interesting last second route choices by many teams. Stephen was leading the nav on this section and we ended up clearing it quickly and with no issues.

Boat 1

The prologue ended up spreading out…well…no one really. Teams were all over the place, scrambling to launch canoes and get on the water as quickly as possible.

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Todd, always in full race mode, decided this was the perfect time for him to capture some epic videos of the race. Or, as I like to call it, bailing out on paddling…

But, who can blame him for capturing a video of this epic 4.5 hour paddling section. Oh, did I say 1 video…oh no, I meant 2 videos. Todd still not paddling…

Or was that three slacker sessions, Uh I mean totally rad video captures. Anyone want to guess whose limp paddle that is?

Actually, Todd, AKA “Limp Paddle” did awesome navigating the canoe section and we cleared this section quickly. And by quickly I mean 50 minutes slower than the fastest 3 teams. If I could only think of a way to make a three man kayak go faster…hmmm…I’ll have to ponder that one.

Bike 1

On to the bikes, and a quick ride over to Mistletoe State Park. We were racing neck and neck with our Florida compadres, Good ‘Nuff and Off the Grid Racing until I decided we should pick up CP14. Totally awesome move, until Shane Hagerman (bad ass adventure racer on team Happy Mutant Main Nerve) reminded us that CP14 could only be gotten on foot and not on bike. Oh yeah, we got them rules and stuff we should pay attention to.

We raced off along Rock Dam Trail to the transition area, and I was lucky enough to impale myself on the only piece of rebar along Gawd Damn Trail, I mean Rock Dam Trail. Red Badge of Courage earned and, more importantly, photographed. I was feeling manly and ready to rock (after a short break, a few snacks, and maybe a hug or two from Stephen that is).

Trek 1

Now on foot, we could get CP14. We could also get CP13 and CP15 according to the rule sheet that we started reading. Now, if we could only read a map. That’s something that could come in handy. We decided to poke around CP13 for awhile. These CPs can be kinda skittish you know, and you don’t want to just go blasting towards them. Instead, you kinda want to circle around them a few times, picking out just the proper way to approach them. We’ve been to USARA Nationals, we know these things.

Bike back to Wildwood

After we cleared the foot section, we had to bike back to Wildwood Park. You would think that biking back the same way that we came in would be easy. You’d think that. Yep, so would we. For the sake of a short race report, let’s just imagine a quick bike ride back to Wildwood without me deciding to try a new path we hadn’t been on before. And let’s just imagine that the new path led exactly where we thought it would, rather than meandering off into the never ending wilderness…yeah, that’s a nice thought, let’s go with it.

The good news is we found our way to Wildwood and we also found one of the greatest inventions ever made by man…

Trek 2

By now it was dark. We were hopped up on Coke and ready to start our second O-course. We were actually doing pretty well on this section until we ran into CP20. We were doing a straight bearing shot from 21 to 20 and you can see how close we were to the control, but we just didn’t see it. So, we headed northeast to the shoreline, dropped down to find the inlet and shot another bearing past 20. We knew the CP had to be somewhere between those intersecting bearing and finally found it within 10 feet from where we originally were. Bummer!

The cool thing though is that we ran into another set of Florida adventure racers, 3 Shades of Gray out of Pensacola, FL. Awesome set of guys who we enjoyed running with for a little while. I’ll say it again, the best part of adventure racing is meeting all of the really cool people out on the course. We hope to see you guys at the FLX Adventures Earth Day AR in Tallahassee next year.

Bike to Final Paddle

You know what helps to keep your bike moving? Pedals! Yep, all the cool kids have them now…they’re kind of a big deal. You know what’s not cool? Riding Bartram’s Trail for 3 hours on this.

But, in Adventure Racing, things can always be worse. Like having your rear hub explode on you and then having to race with your bike on your back. Kudos to Kevin Tobin of Team ASR – Raging Burritos. First rate dude, first rate!

Trek 3 – Clarks Hill Dam

We finally made it to Clarks Hill Dam for the final O-course. This section would prove to be challenging for many teams. While pros like WEDALI would clear this section in 1:50:20, us mere mortals would take 3:43:55. Of course, I’m sure WEDALI didn’t have the pleasure of meeting the convenience store operator who told us that the land owner next door would shoot us if we ended up on his property. Now that’s useful information.

After checking every reentrant in this area twice, we finally cleared the section and moved on to the final paddle section, tired and a little hungry #DennysGrandSlam.

Paddle 2 – Final Paddle

We hit the final paddle section just before day break and if there is anything that will put you to sleep quicker than reading this race report, it’s paddling on a dark, flat river after 21 hours of racing. While most experts may think that canoes are meant for the water, adventure race directors know that canoes are best lugged around on foot…especially uphill. The final Portage section…uh I mean Paddle section to the Savannah Rapids Visitor Center was beautiful. At least they didn’t make us paddle upstream. Todd nailed the nav on this section and I think he even paddled once or twice, between naps of course.

Final Bike:

Only 3 CPs were left in the race, and we were excited that we had cleared the course up to this point. With Florida Xtreme right behind us, and Off the Grid out in front, the race was still on. The race took us along the Augusta Canal Trail with a short detour along the Savannah Mountain Bike Trail and to a final CP at the end of the path.

Right after punching the final CP, we passed Off the Grid going to the final CP. Somehow we had managed to get in front of them. Now, the race was really on. Those guys are strong bikers and I knew we’d have to pedal our tails off not to be passed just before the finish line. So, we formed a pace line and cranked it out as hard as we could. Stephen still had his broken pedal and how he managed to hang on to our rear wheel for the final sprint finish, I don’t know. But he did and Todd and I couldn’t have been prouder.

A final sprint to the finish to claim 4^th Place Open Division was an awesome way to end the race.

Conclusion

USARA Nationals is always a great race with amazing competitors. The winning team, Adventure Medical Kits, cleared the course in 17:24:38 hours, compared to our time of…well now there’s really no need to compare finish times is there? Actually, we cleared the course in 26:51:44 Putting us 19^th overall. The top racers in the coed and the master’s divisions are absolutely amazing athletes and we’re just thrilled that we get to participate in this race alongside of them.

USARA hosted an awesome after party where we got to kick back with our fellow competitors and the new friends we met while consuming large quantities of beer…I mean exercising Calorie Replacement Therapy. Good times had all around and we can’t wait to be back next year. A heartfelt thank you to those that have supported our meager efforts:

Todd and Stephen, Rock Stars as always. Thanks for not abandoning me out in the woods.

And to those that actually read these verbose postings, thank you! I hope you get some enjoyment out of them…you’re definitely not going to learn anything from them. If you get a chance, please like our Facebook page or comment below. We love to hear from other racers and it helps feed my ego.

Tag: Skratch

2016 – Florida State Championship (Turkey Burn)