Superhero AR

Our 4th sport race of 2013 was the Superhero AR at Blue Springs State Park in DeLand, Florida.  Given the location of the race in our hometown, Jeff and I were very excited about the opportunity to compete in an area we would have the opportunity to train in prior to the race.

We visited the park several times in the month leading up to the race using the bike trails, canoeing on the St. Johns, and exploring the Pine Island foot trail.  As we thought about the race, we assumed the Main TA would be in the main parking lot close to the canoe launch, that they would have us ride from there over to the single-track bike trails and back for the bike section, and use the Pine Island Trail for the trek section. 

On race day, we set up and waited with anticipation for the map.   Would our predictions about the course be accurate, or would they throw some horrible surprise at us? We collected the maps at 10:00am and quickly realized we were correct.  The canoe section would be in the area of the St. Johns just south of the canoe launch (which we knew very well),  the trek would use the Pine Island Trail area, and the bike would require us to ride out of the park to the single track trails, collect the CPs and return to the Main TA.  But what the hell was a "foot/tube section?"  We didn't expect them to have us get on inner-tubes and float down the spring run. We decided that because it would our last section it would be quite a nice and relaxing way to end the race...riiighht.

We began at 12:01 on the foot section in a pouring down rain.   As soon as we hit the Pine Island Trail we took what looked like the first trail and realized that wasn't the one we were looking for. One minute into a race we had committed to not making any mistake in, we had made a mistake.  We quickly righted ourselves, however, and found the always pleasing first CP.  The next one (CP 8) required us to run about a half a mile to two picnic tables, and we knew this exact location.  We set a comfortable, but decent pace and arrived at the tables to find three Elite teams on bikes looking for the same CP.  At this point, the rain was coming down very hard. The CP was located 100m from the tables at 252 degrees, Magnetic North.  Instead of plotting the bearing, we went in where another team came out. This is always a mistake. We separated as we looked for the familiar orange and white square.  It was raining so hard I could hear nothing but the rain. I yelled out for Jeff, but I could barely hear myself, so I'm not sure how he could have heard me.  I found Jeff another 50m deeper in the woods and convinced him we needed to return to the tables to find the proper bearing and try again. On the way back to the trail, Jeff spotted the CP about 25m to our West, and we happily returned to the trail.  We headed to CP 9, and after some minor difficulty punched the card and moved on to quickly find CP 10. We were ahead of schedule, and on our way to clearing the trek section.  We quickly found the location of 11, only to find two other trek teams and a bike team trying to figure out what was going on.  This was clearly the  location of the CP based on the map, but the number was wrong. After about 5 minutes and much frustration, we decided to the punch the card and returned to the Main TA.  We had cleared the trek section in 50 minutes, although we were unsure if we had actually punched CP 11.  The volunteers were understandably not able to tell us whether or not that was actually CP 11.   I convinced myself we actually missed the CP and spent the next several minutes cursing out loud.

We set out on the canoe section (with me complaining about missing that CP) and quickly proceeded to collect all three CPS in 27 minutes.   We were a bit disappointed in the small number of canoe CPs, because we had been working hard on our paddling.  We were, however, happy with our time, as we assumed most of our competitors wouldn't come in much faster than that.

We set off on the bikes and quickly collected CP 15, which was also the troublesome CP 11 from the Trek section.  We made our way out of the  park and down the dirt road to the single track trails.  On the way there we encountered two teams making the slog back up the hill from the trails; we knew that would be us in less than hour.  We moved onto the single track trails which were familiar to us because of training there.  I realized very quickly that my legs were weak.  Jeff asked if I had taken a GU, and I said that I would get one at the first CP.  A few minutes later, I was sinking pretty fast. When we arrived at the CP, Jeff forced to me consume a GU. I have no idea why I didn't want to take one, but it seemed, in my state, that it would take too long.  Thank god, at least one of us had good sense, because after that we made our way through single tracks, easily collected all the points and headed back to the park. When we hit the hill back to the park, I bottomed out again. I said "f%&k it, I'm walking," but after about 30 seconds,  I climbed back on the bike and powered up the hill. We made it to the downhill back into the Main TA and actually had a little race between ourselves and powered back in.  We felt great with only the "easy and relaxing" foot/tube section left.

I was quite tired and suggested we start the section by walking a few hundred yards so I could catch my breath.  We knew we had less than an hour to complete the section, so we decided to get the two "foot CPs" (1 and 2) first and finish in the cool spring water. We settled into a comfortable jog and headed out  to collect 1 and 2.  I was pretty tired at this point, but Jeff powered us on, and we collected the two foot points and headed for the inner-tubes. As we jogged with our bright pink tubes to the spring, I told Jeff I was done, and he said "200 meters more, and you will be floating in nice cool water." I have no idea why we thought this was going to be easy. As soon as Jeff hit the water, I realized this was going to be hard. We had to head upstream to get two CPs.  There would be no easy float downstream. The only way to do this was to lie across the top of the tube and power forward with your arms.  Jeff made an epic effort to move up into the boil to get farthest CP.  I took advantage of the 100m separation rule and lagged back. When Jeff got back, he was spent.  He had powered up stream and used everything he had.  I tried to actually pull him with him hanging onto my foot, but that proved to be too much.  After much effort and quite a bit of loud groaning on my part, we collected the other CPs and crawled out of the water cursing the "relaxing" tube section.

We turned in the tubes with 8 minutes left.  As we ran at a pretty quick pace, Jeff said "this is our 43 seconds."  I asked him what he was talking about and he said "we finished the SCAR 43 seconds out of 3rd place and we need to dig in hard now to make sure that doesn't happen again." So we ran hard to the Main TA. We turned in our card 7 seconds ahead of "Beer Run Brothers." Lesson? Listed to your teammate.

Although our 2:55 time was well behind the top four teams, as it turns out, we had punched CP 11 and therefore cleared a course for the first time and finished a very respectable 5th place in a fairly competitive race.  We left exhausted, but satisfied.   Thanks to Greg and Pangea Adventure Racing for another great race.

 Next up?

The Turkey Burn...

Our First Race

January 19, 2013 was the day of the Resolution AR in Clermont, Florida, our first race.  We had done what little training we could and resolved the most serious issue—finding bikes.  As a triathlete, Jeff had a very nice road bike, which would be completely inappropriate for trail riding, and my only bike was a Walmart beach cruiser, also inappropriate.  Because we had no idea what we were getting into and had more sense than money, we concluded that going out and buying high-end mountain bikes was not the prudent course of action. Jeff settled on using his wife’s Huffy front-suspension bike, and I was lucky enough to have a friend lend me his Trek 4500, which was well worn but quite functional.  With the bike problem resolved, we were ready to race.

Jeff and I decided that there was no reason to arrive at the Lake Louisa State Park prior to the 11:00am check-in so we set out at about 9:30.  Due to the wonder of iphone maps we got a bit lost on the way, which is not a good sign heading into a race in which navigation with a map is a central part of the competition.  We arrived the main transition area (TA) to find it full of teams with pop-up tents, tables, coolers, high end bikes, and equipment of all sorts.  Every where we looked we saw very fit people combing over maps with compasses. We concluded that these were, of course, the elite teams in the middle of their 8 hour race. Surely, the sport division teams would not take a three hour jaunt through the woods so seriously.

We checked in, received our map, found a spot to place our bikes and gear and started looking at the course.  There was a beginners’ orientation meeting at 11:30 and a pre-race meeting at 12:00.  We had just enough time to think about the first three control points (CPs) and the orientation began.  The main message of the meeting was to have fun, and not try to get all of the control points, because most teams wouldn’t be able to. According to the meeting leader only 5 of the 32 teams in the sport division would successfully find the 18 points in the three hour time period (in the end only 4 did).

As the pre-race meeting for all teams began it was clear that the hyper-fit teams we saw working so hard to prepare for the race were not, in fact, elite teams, but our competition. As he explained the course, the organizer noted that there were several control points that inexperienced teams should think about skipping.  Those CPs were 1, 6, 7, and 18.  We decided right away that we would take his advice by skipping those four and we would only go for 17 if we had time.

The race started in two waves and we were in the second.  As the start time grew near, we realized, based on the direction people were facing, that we were the only teaming skipping CP 1 in our wave.  When the race started we ran in opposite direction of every other team and directly at CP 2 which was about about a half a mile down a dirt road. Jeff set a brisk pace and we actually caught the Wave 1 group which started 5 minutes before us. We found the control point quite easily, punched the card and headed back down the dirt road to find CP 3.  I made the first of many mistakes that day by misreading the map, causing us to run beyond the exit point by about 200 yards. We turned back and were joined by a group of people heading for CP3. We found it easily—how could we not we 10 people heading right for it—punched the card and headed quickly back to the transition area to complete the first trek section and to climb on our bikes for what would prove to be the very challenging—for us—first biking section of the course.

The first thing we realized as we started the bike leg was that we ran a bit too fast in the first section. Our heart rates were up and we were now on the bike heading down the paved road with several teams all riding at a doable but quick pace.  A couple of other teams peeled off before the path we had chosen. When we reached the CP (8) they were there waiting on us. They had clearly chosen a better route. Heading back from the CP to the paved road, the reality of the day hit us: we would be riding in deep, loose, leg burning, soul sucking, sugar sand.

This hit us in the face (or legs) again as we turned off the paved road to seek out CP 5.  The sand on this trail was particularly loose and deep and the riding was slow and difficult.  You could ride on the side of the trail where leaves and sticks covered the sand, but that wasn’t always possible.  We were looking for a side trail, and rode by the turn literally as I looked at the sign for the trail and said to myself “good we are on the right path.” I have no idea what I was thinking at that moment other than “oh my god, my legs hurt.” That mistake meant going about five minutes out of our way to the next trail, which we thought would take us to a point of attack on the CP.  As we approached the area we believed to contain the CP, we realized we were blocked by impenetrable palmettos.  As Jeff walked along the row of palmettos searching for the access he just knew existed,  I stood on the side of the trail trying to make sense of the map, with my head reeling, my legs aching, and my heart pounding in my chest. We were about 45 minutes into the race, and we realized that this was not going to be easy. We discovered later that the map legend actually told us that the dark green where we were indicated...wait for it....impenetrable palmettos.

We eventually concluded that we would need to backtrack and go to the next trail to find an accessible attack point to the CP.  I once again misread the map, and we went beyond our turn by about 100 yards when we realized the team we just encountered had found it.  We turned around, quickly found the CP, and headed for the next CP (4).  There were three teams moving in the same direction. We took a different trail to the location of the CP, and as before we encountered almost impassable sand.  At this point, we decided we could push the bikes faster than we could pedal through the sand, and to our relief we saw others doing the same thing.  As usual we located the CP at the same time other teams did, and we set out to the Dixie TA to turn in our punch card and begin the second foot section of the course, but once again rode by our turn and had to backtrack a couple of hundred yards.  Just prior to the parking lot where the TA was located we encountered a hill, at the bottom of which were, of course, sugar sand and a photographer.  There was no way we were pushing the bikes in front of the photographer, so we powered through, although we gave up halfway up the sand/grass covered hill and pushed until we hit pavement. We did thankfully ride into the transition area.  One hour and nine minutes after we began the bike section of the race, and a mere two miles down the road from the start/finish line as the crow flies, we turned in our punch card and started the second foot portion of the race.

As we started the next foot section we, of course, missed a turn and had to backtrack.  We ran down the trail with two other teams, found CP 15 easily and then found the next trail leading to CP 16.  We made it there is relatively quick time, located the approximate location of the CP, which was supposed to be above a stream in a “high palmetto.”  We found a stream and a palmetto on a mound.  To us this meant “high palmetto,” and that meant we would find the CP there. Clearly other people believed this to be the case also, as there were many foot prints in the muck, and another team with us looking for the damn orange and white square cloth.  The four of us searched the immediate area, and just as I said…”You’ve got to be kidding me.  It has to be here,” Jeff said “it’s over here.”  As we headed over to the palm tree (I guess that’s a high palmetto) about 100 yards away, we noticed a competitor quietly leaving the area.  He clearly did not want us to know he had located the CP, and I grumbled about him the remainder of the day and the rest of the weekend. We had helped other teams and we were helped by other teams, so in my tired state his covert effort annoyed the crap out of me. Oh well..

At this point we had 1 hour left and still needed to complete the canoe section and the 2 mile bike sprint back to the start/finish.  The question was whether to go for CP 17, which was several hundred yards away.  Given that we weren’t sure how the canoe would work out, and my left shin, which had been bothering me for 10 days was starting to ache, we decided to skip 17 and get all 6 of the available points in the canoe.  In the canoe we followed several teams in moving along the shoreline to find the easily located CPs. After the 5th CP, three teams headed back west— with the 15 mph wind at their backs—to the side of the lake where we launched in order to gather their 6th point.  We decided to continue following the shoreline to the next CP and we found it quickly. Unfortunately, we now had to paddle about 1 mile back across the lake with a 15 mph easterly crosswind. As Jeff said, “the paddle back was brutal.”

We came out of the lake with a total of the 13 points for the day, and we had 30 minutes to make the two mile bike back to the start/finish on a relatively flat paved road. We took it easy on the way back, and arrived at the start/finish with 17 minutes to spare.  We consumed some Mt. Dews and Publix subs, relaxed, and celebrated a job well done.  Well, Jeff did. I lay on the ground asking for an IV.

When all was said and done we finished 25th out of 32 teams. We were disappointed, but in retrospect it was a pretty good showing for a team with no experience.  Of the 24 teams finishing above us, 18 of them had at least one member with experience, and some had extensive experience.  So, overall, we are happy with the performance.  What did we learn?  Be one of those teams planning your route before the race.  You cannot figure it out on the course.  There isn’t enough time.  You have to pace yourself. You don’t want to go too fast, but there really isn’t enough time for walking. Trust yourself. Jeff and I knew how to use a compass, but we stuck to the advice of the organizers and skipped CP1, which in retrospect we could have easily acquired.  The race organizer’s advice was good advice for beginners, which we were, but we could have used the compass to find that CP easily. That alone cost us 4 places.  Observe other teams, particularly the ones you know are experienced. They are experienced and learned from earlier mistakes. What did I learn? Eat well before the race, and keep nourished during the race.  I was gassed at the end, and needed 30 minutes of recovery time.
So that was our race.  We can’t wait for the next one. Top ten here we come, or at least 24th. :).

The Team

Over the summer (2012) I was searching the internet for one of those “mudder races” to compete in.  Along the way, I found the website for Pangea Adventure Racing and quickly decided that running, biking, and paddling while navigating through the woods sounded far more interesting than crawling through mud, climbing walls, and being shocked with hundreds of other people.  I sent an email to several friends who might be interested and three agreed it was something they would like to do.

After struggling to find a race in which we we could all compete we settled on Resolution AR in Clermont, Florida held on January 19, 2013.  Due to scheduling problems and an injury, the team was narrowed to me, David Hill, and Jeff Bates, and we took on the name Running on Empty.
Jeff is an experienced endurance athlete with triathlons, marathons, and ultramarathons under his belt. I had little recent endurance experience, but after 18 months of daily Crossfit training and about 15-20 miles a week of running I was in pretty good shape for a 51 year old.

Given that neither one of us had any experience navigating with a map and compass we spent three weekends practicing on a Florida Orienteering course at Kelly Park near Apopka, Florida. Jeff was obviously a very strong runner, and I was improving rapidly, so we decided we would do nothing to prepare for the running section of the race other than our normal weekly running.  We would, however,  need to practice trail riding and canoeing.  Given the holidays and our busy lives we were able to get in one trail ride at a local mountain biking trail and two brief canoe trips.  In all our preparation for our first race was three visits to the orienteering course, one 7 mile trail ride, and two canoe sessions.  Ready or not we would compete in the Resolution AR.