This past Memorial Day weekend, Anna, Jason, and I competed in the 30-hour Florida Sunshine Adventure Race, put on by Pangea Adventure Racing.  It is the longest race of it’s kind in the state of Florida this year.

  

     Check-in for the race was early Saturday morning at 6am with a 9am race start time.  We got our 3 double-sided pages of 11x17 maps with all the points pre-plotted at 6am, and proceeded to plan our route.  As usual, we used every last second until the race started.  The race began with a short prologue where one team member from each team had to run with their bike with the front wheel off, and another teammate had to carry the wheel around a half mile loop in the opposite direction, meeting in the middle, and traveling back to the TA together to begin the 30-hour journey.

        After the short prologue, the three of us headed out of the transition in 2nd place, close behind team Odyssey Im-on-Point.  It was a fast ride, mostly on roads to the first checkpoint (CP), that was marked on a gravel road about 200 meters past a forest service road intersection on a cedar tree.  This would be the only point on the whole course that was seemingly mis-placed in relation to the map features around it.  Pretty soon 6-8 teams had caught up and were searching around for it.  I think Dr. Ron of Florida Xtreme 2 was the first to find it (we should have really paid attention to the clue as he did to realize it was actually on that forest service road).  After finding it, we continued on bike to the next TA.  We took an alternate route that helped us pass a few teams by avoiding some deep sand, and got to “Alex TA” in first place.

        There we made a quick transition to the canoe and the three of us headed out on an out-and-back paddle to retrieve 5 CPs along Alexander Springs Creek; a relatively small, spring-fed creek.  Here was a noticeable time where being the lead team has its disadvantages, including going through all the spider webs that were strung across the tall grass and lily pads.  There must have been 30 spiders crawling around on the floor of our boat by the time we finished the paddle!  Along the creek we saw plenty of wildlife, including a 5 or 6-foot gator that we passed not more than a few feet from.  The creek wound around a lot of islands and it was a bit of guesswork to determine which way would be the most clear.  Sometimes we guessed right, and other times we didn’t.  We retrieved all the points on the way upstream, and were paddling with Odyssey and FLX/Utility Mutants when we turned around to head back to the TA.  We managed to get ourselves stuck in a section of the creek with quite a few downed trees on the way back, and got back to the TA in third place.

        After a short bike ride to the next TA, we headed out on a foot orienteering section.  We knew there would be two of these sections in the race in which we wouldn’t be given the maps or CP locations until we got there.  Anna and I are both experienced orienteerers, and felt confident we could make up some time on this section.  We proceeded to get the next 7 CPs in a general clockwise direction.  We caught up to and passed Odyssey somewhere in the middle of this 2-hour run section, but as the day started getting hotter, our pace slowed down at the end of the run and Odyssey got into the TA a couple minutes before us.  We still posted the fastest time of the day on this leg, and left the transition on our bikes ahead of them.

        The next bike section was a lengthy 3-4 hour single-track ride with a lot of CPs.  We kept pushing our pace to put some space between us and Odyssey, but they were right on our heels and we ended up flip flopping back and forth for the lead.  About 3/4 of the way through this ride, the heat started getting to all of us, and Anna the worst, and we had to slow the pace down.  Shortly after Odyssey passed us (the final time), Anna got off her bike and threw-up.  The extreme heat, fast pace, and likely some imbalance of electrolytes had gotten to her and heat exhaustion was starting to kick in.  We all knew we had to slow the pace way down to help Anna recover if we had any hope of continuing for another 20+ hours.  Anna threw-up another couple times before we got back to the TA.  After that, it was only a short bike ride back to the Alex TA where we would have a Long paddle.  We kept the pace slow and got into the boat TA in second place, about 30 minutes behind the leaders.  At this point, Anna was still not holding down any food or water, and we decided to have her lay down on the floor of the center of the canoe while Jason and I paddled.  The sun would be going down soon, and we thought that having Anna sleep a bit might help her recover.  This was a beautiful paddle.  We started on Alexander Springs Creek again, this time heading the opposite way from earlier in the race, and after finding some nicely placed CPs, got in a small connector creek that would lead to the St. Johns River.  We found this creek just as it was getting dark, and wish we would have had more daylight, as it was a really cool, remote paddle.  We knew we were getting close to the St. Johns when we started seeing the red glow of alligator eyes reflecting our headlamps.  The St. Johns River is known to have a large alligator population.  This was especially concerning when the description for CP 26 read, “Island.  Beware of many small gators on south side of island.”  To make it worse, the shore on this island was inaccessible by boat because of downed trees, so I had to get out of the boat near the shore and run through knee deep water for a few feet to get to the point.  I made sure to splash my paddle in the water a bunch before I got out of the boat...   now that I think about it, does that deter or attract alligators!?

        Anna laid on the floor of the boat for most of the 6-7 hour paddle, though I’m sure it was hard for her to sleep very soundly with an inch of water on the bottom of the canoe, spiders crawling everywhere, and Jason and I talking, running into submerged logs that were hard to spot at night, and the occasional fish jumping INTO the canoe.  When we finally finished the paddle, we were greeted by master paddler Rod Price at the boat TA, who directed us back to the main TA on foot via a short road.  When we got back, we were all spent.  We took our time at the TA, resting in our camping chairs under our canopy tent.  We filled our stomachs, and after about an hour in transition, were good to go again.  This was a much longer transition than normal for us, but in retrospect, I think it saved our race in the long run. 

         The next foot section would be a long one, both because of the distance, and because Anna was not completely recovered yet.  We started out slow...  and didn’t finish much faster :)  We navigated well, however, and the long trek through the night and into the morning took us about 5 hours.  Even better, Anna was feeling recovered by mid-way through this trek.  Our worries of having to drop out of the race were no more.

        When we finally got back to “Alex TA,” where we had left our bikes the previous evening to get in the canoe, the sun was up and it was already starting to get hot again.  We got on our bikes and headed back to the area we had previously biked to to do another bike loop on the same trail, but this time with different CP locations.  After which, we arrived back at the same TA as earlier where we had done the first orienteering section.  The second orienteering section wasn’t as long as the first, but still took us roughly 2 hours, as the heat was starting to get bad again by this point.  We did this section in a clockwise direction, and navigated well to each of the points.  We had the fastest split of the day on this orienteering section as well, finishing the last three legs of the race with the fastest time on each.  From there, we just had to pick up one CP on our bikes before heading back to the finish line at the main TA. 

        We finished and cleared the course in 28 hours and 31 minutes, and got second place for our efforts.  Along with Odyssey, we were the only two teams to clear the entire course.  Dr. Ron and Florida Xtreme 2 came very close, missing only 2 points.  It was too bad that Anna got sick, as I’m sure it would have been a close race had she not.  Congratulations to Odyssey on their win, and to all the teams that competed that day!  It was a hard course, made even more difficult by the extreme heat and humidity.  Many teams dropped out of the race or skipped large sections, most of which I would suspect was from heat exhaustion.

        A big thank you to Greg Owens and Pangea Adventure Racing, and all the volunteers out on the course.  It’s always so nice to see friendly, familiar, happy faces when you’re out there racing.  Additionally, Pangea did an Amazing job keeping all the racers hydrated with ice cold water coolers at each of the TAs throughout the race.  Thanks also to Lea-Ann Zub and Mauricio Jara for being out on the course taking pictures and encouraging us throughout the race!  Finally, thanks to my awesome teammates, Anna and Jason.  We have a lot of fun enjoying the outdoors together.

        After doing two 30-hour races in 14 days, we’re giving ourselves a break from racing until the end of the July when we’ll be in Virginia competing in the Odyssey One-Day 24-hour Adventure Race on July 23rd.  See you outdoors!  -Tim