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I first heard of the Florida Coast to Coast adventure race last
year at the Atlanta Hi-Tec race. There were a couple of teams there who
had just completed the race the prior weekend. My interest was piqued, and
over the next several month completing the 2001 race became a goal. Ben
and I raced Howl at the Moon, an 8 hour night adventure race in October, and
Myakka to the Gulf, a 24-36 hour race in February, to prepare ourselves.
However, a few weeks after Myakka, we found out that Ben was going to be in a
wedding over Memorial Day weekend -- the weekend of the race! I
posted to the Adventurous Concepts message board that I was looking for a
teammate for the Coast to Coast, including links to my race reports on Howl and
Myakka. I got several responses, and after exchanging emails with a few
people, Will Murphy and I decided to race together.
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The Adventurous Concepts web page promised that they "would
raise the bar even higher" in this year's race, making it "longer and
tougher than ever." According to the web page, the race would
be around 220 miles, including mountain biking (95 miles), kayaking (55 miles),
trekking (45 miles), beach running (10 miles), and would include ascending and
rappelling for rope/climbing skills. As the race neared, those distances
changed slightly, and the kayaking portion increased significantly!
Will and I met before the race for a few training
sessions. The first was in Ocala National Forest near Alexander Springs,
where we met Jon and Dennis as well. The plan was to train for approximately 24
hours. We started out with a 2 hour run/trek at around 11 p.m., followed by 5
or 6 hours of kayaking (mostly bushwhacking because the river was so
overgrown!). We then jumped on the bikes for several hours, and around 11
a.m. arrived at an orienteering course that the Florida club was putting
on. We chose the most advanced course and headed out. We were doing
quite well, until we got separated trying to find CP6. We lost Will, and
eventually headed back to the start hoping he was there. Thankfully he
was, so we got on the bikes and headed back to the cars. At this
point it was around 4 p.m. and I decided I was going to drive home.
Kelly's Dad was flying into town, and I figured I could make it home in time to
have dinner with both of them. The original training plan at this point was to go get a camp
site, then kayak some more and then do one final trek, before crashing for the
night. It turns out I made the right decision, as there were no more
campsites, so Dennis, Jon, and Will did a little more kayaking before driving home.
Will and I also decided to do the inaugural "Stomp
Romp" in Homasassa, which included a 9.5 mile trail run and a 13 mile
kayak. We didn't race as a team, though we were near each other much
of the race. I was near the lead on much of the run, but the course was
poorly marked and I missed a turn or two before backtracking, so I ended up coming in just behind the lead group. We
jumped on the kayaks and headed out. I was on Ben's sit-on-top kayak,
which is not very fast. The race really ended up coming down to
the fastest boat. That belonged to a 60 year old man who had a fast wooden
boat and passed us all like we were sitting still. Will and I both thought
he would burn himself out because his form was so poor, but we never did catch
him. Will passed me a few miles into the kayak and ended up finishing
third overall. I came in around 5th or 6th. (There were 16 racers in
the male division.)
We also met at Markham park in the end of April. Kelly and
I were down for Sam's (Kerin's newborn baby) bris. We were supposed to
meet between 10 and 11 p.m., but Will had some car trouble so we didn't start
until about 1 a.m. We trekked out along the levy, two hours out and two
hours back, alternating running and fast walking. After the 4 hour
trek, we rode our mountain bikes along the levy for 2 hours. We then
kayaked for 4 to 5 hours, testing Will's new boat. He had decided to
get a faster lighter boat, and it turned out to be well worth it! The
kayak was in the canals along Alligator Alley, and we saw hundreds of gators in
just those few hours! After that, we went out on the bikes to hit the
technical trails in Markham. These were pretty difficult -- harder than
Oleta, but I rode everything except "Fredricks Folley." Maybe
the sleep deprivation made me try things I normally wouldn't have!
Will chose to play it safe and ride the less crazy stuff -- he didn't want to
get hurt before the big race! We finished up around 2 or 3 p.m.
Pre-Race Day
On Thursday, May 23rd, I drove over to St. Augustine on
Florida's East Coast. I checked in to the hotel and started going through
all my gear again. I wouldn't do the final organization until we had the
passport and maps sorted out. Will and Janet arrived around 6:30 p.m., and
we headed out for the pre-race dinner and meeting. We ate some pasta,
watched the raffle (we didn't win anything despite Will buying $20's worth of
tickets! - the money was all for charity so it was worth it anyway), and got the maps and passports and last minute instructions from the
race directors.
We went back to the hotel around 9 p.m., and started studying
the maps and passport. We marked the maps as best we could, indicating the
routes we would follow and what disciplines we would be doing at each point,
along with check point locations and any prominent land marks. This took
several hours because there were almost 20 different maps covering all 220
miles! We finally finished around midnight and then did our last minute
gear and food packing. Rick, a member of our support crew, had arrived with his van around 10 or 11 p.m.,
so we did a bit of packing, and then tried to go to bed. I wasn't able to
get to sleep until after 1:30 a.m., and I found out the next day that Will
didn't fare any better. We had to get up around 4:30 a.m. to get to the
start by 5:30 a.m, so we started the race out with little sleep. However,
most teams were in the same boat since they had to do the same things.
We awoke very tired at 4:30 a.m., did our last minute
preparations, and finished loading the support vehicles -- Janet's SUV and
Rick's van. I was leaving the 4Runner at the Hotel, as Kelly was hitching
a ride over with her boss Friday night. She was going to pick up the
4Runner and try to meet up with the rest of the support crew sometime Friday
night/Saturday morning. We got the the starting line, which was just a few
miles south of the hotel, around 5:30 a.m. and hung out until the race started
at 6 a.m. There was a cop there giving everyone a hard time for where they
were parking, even though everyone would be gone in 20 minutes!
CP1
The race started on St. Augustine Beach with an approximate 10
mile beach run. Will and I ran approximately 65-70% and fast walked the
rest. The teams began to spread out, and we at first found ourselves near
the back of the front pack. Eventually, all teams spread out even more
and there were no longer any packs. We went along the beach until the beach
ended at Mantanzas Inlet, where we curved around towards the inter-coastal
waterway. We finished this section at about 7:45 a.m. and jumped into the
kayak's for the 2nd leg.
From there, we paddled across the inlet and portaged our boat
across Rattlesnake Island. We followed the waterway south until we reached
Pellicer Creek, where we turned west and headed inland. We followed this
winding creek around for approximately 5 more milesl, crossing under I-95
and eventually US 1, just past highway 204. There, we got out of the boats
at a boat ramp and portaged the boat a hundred yards up the road. We were
to leave the boat there and run up another 1/4 mile along the highway to
CP1. We had passed a lot of other kayaks on this section, and had
only been passed once or twice, so we had made up a lot of ground. We had
arrived at 10:38 a.m. after 2 hours and 50 minutes of paddling.
At the CP Janet and Rick had our bikes and helmets out and ready
and iced water ready for us to re-hydrate. Will and I filled our drinking bladders
and bottles with water and various drink mixes and quickly headed out at 11:05.
CP2
The next section was a mountain bike leg. From the CP we went
just a bit north and then biked west along highway 204 for about 12 miles.
As this was pavement, we were able to draft off each other and make pretty good
time. We got passed by one two man team along this road. We then
turned south on "Cracker Swamp Road," which turned west for a little
over 7 miles. We then went south on Turner for 1 mile, west on McCormick
for 1.2 miles, and then south on Cannon Rd. for about a 1/2 mile. Will
started feeling a bit queasy somewhere in this area, so we slowed down.
Along this stretch, we got passed by a few more teams.
At the end of Cannon, we followed Old San Mateo road south to SR100, where we
went east a little ways, and then turned south on San Mateo road. It was
odd, but San Mateo road was a dirt road while Old San Mateo was paved! San
Mateo Road ended after 3.6 miles at highway 17, which we took west over a large
bridge. CP2 was located under the bridge on the west side. We
arrived around 1:31 p.m., checked in, and had to show our fleece, medical kit,
and phone. We took time to rest just a little so Will could recover and
then headed out on the water.
CP3
From CP2, we headed just a little north along Dunns Creek, and
then turned west and followed the St. Johns river. This went mostly west
before curving south west. After about 4 or 5 miles, we left the river and
headed into the Barge Canal for a couple of miles. We eventually reached
the canal lock, where we had to get out and portage the kayak. We also had
a gear check here, where we had to show our phone, fleece, and snorkel
gear. (I think two different race officials had told the volunteers
at CP2 and CP3 what to check, and accidentally had given some of the same
items!)
We reached this CP at 3:27 p.m. after 2 hours and 20 minutes on the water.
We portaged the kayak about 100-150 yards across the lock, where we quickly
re-filled our drinking bladders with water and drink mix.
Janet was very excited because we had made up a lot of ground
again. We had counted seven boats that we passed, and we could see further
down the canal that a large group of boats had recently left. We made it a
goal to pass at least 7 more boats in the next section. We were in and out
here pretty quickly. After refilling on water, we carried the kayak
carefully down the loose stones to the water, and again headed west south west
along the canal.
CP4
We knew this would be a very long kayak, so we had each filled
an extra bladder. We followed the canal 4 to 5 miles, eventually
into Ocklawaha Lake. The river flowed through the middle of the lake, so
we just followed the channel markers as much as possible. By this
time, we had already passed 7 or 8 more boats! The river/lake eventually
headed south for 5 or 6 miles, and then started south south-east for about three
miles. We had again passed many boats, including the few boats that had
passed us the 1st kayak leg! We were really cruising.
Unfortunately, it was here that we made our first mistake.
We had gotten far enough in front of everybody that we had to make some
navigational decisions without seeing where other teams had gone. I thought for
sure that we were on the east bank of the river, and that we had to get to the
west bank. Toward the end of this section, the passport told us to take the
right bend in the river away from Eureka Dam. The right side would have
been the west side. We somehow made it into a very swampy area where the
going was very tough. Eventually, an air boat came up and told us we had
gone the wrong way. He told us to head back to the tree line and turn
there. Unfortunately, we were in a very narrow passage, so we could
not turn the boat around. I didn't have any shoes on, so Will got out in a
really disgusting muck, and managed after some effort to get us turned around.
We got to the tree line, and there were several other boats
there trying to figure out what to do. There was a channel heading west,
and I though we should take that. There was another channel heading a bit
east, which I thought for sure was wrong. We headed west, but that quickly
turned out to be a dead end. We tried to figure out what to do, and
eventually followed team Royal Caribbean and a few others down the east
channel. All of a sudden, we were back in the river! However,
it was now dark and hard to navigate. We somehow missed the right turn and
ended up at Eureka Dam along with several other boats, so we had to turn back
around and figure out where we had missed the turn. We eventually found
it, and had to make our way through some tight, overgrown river sections.
We weren't sure if we were in the right area, but after searching around for a
while, we finally saw lights at CP4.
Many teams had trouble finding CP4, so they were flashing a
spotlight to the sky. It had also rained quite heavily, so the race
directors decided to give us a surprise full support transition, where we could
get items other than just water. We had reached this section at 10:26 p.m., after almost
8 hours on the kayak. We guesstimate that we lost
around 3 hours stuck in the swamp and circling around the river near the dam,
etc. We were both quite disappointed that many of the boats we had passed
were now far beyond us. However, we weren't the only boat that had issues,
so it wasn't too bad. We later found that we had worked our way into the
top 10 or so on the water before we got lost, and we had come in around 22 or 23
when we finally found the CP.
At this point, my stomach wasn't doing that great. I had
not eaten properly when we had been lost, and it took a while to get it back to
normal. Luckily, it was a full support transition, so I got to eat food
that I hadn't carried. Janet made me a tuna sandwich, and I had a frozen popsicle
that was really sweet and cold. I started to feel better, so we
headed out on the trek to CP5 at about 11 p.m.
It was here that I first found out there had been no cell
coverage, so Janet and Rick and not been able to reach Kelly or Samantha and
Eric! I started to get worried that Kelly would have no idea where
to go!
CP5
From CP 4, we were to trek on the west side of the Ocklawaha
River to Gores Landing. We had been told this was a 6 mile trek, but on
the map, if you tracked the river, it was much much longer. We started
bushwhacking, but it was dark and very thick, so we decided to head up to some
jeep trails to try to follow them. Along the way, we met up with several
other teams, and we eventually found the white blazes that marked the Florida
Greenway. We followed these as much as possible, but all of a sudden we
were heading north instead of west on jeep trail. All of us sat down for a
few minutes, rested, studied the maps, and head back where we had come from to
take another jeep trail.
We again followed this until we found the greenway again, which
at this point tracked a fence line. We tracked this for a while as it zig
zagged along. Eventually, Will and I and another team, Connie and Mike, let
the other teams go ahead. We felt it was starting to get too far
away from the river. We could see their lights further up, and felt that
they were going the wrong way. We followed the fence a bit longer, but
eventually took another jeep trail south and east to head back towards the
river. We eventually reached it, but at that point we couldn't really come
to a consensus on what to do. We decided to take a 30 minute nap and then
re-evaluate the situation. We walked a hundred yards up the jeep trail
away from the river to avoid being dessert for any alligators that caught us
napping. This was around 3:30 a.m. I checked my cell as
I wanted to call Kelly to see if she had met up with anyone, but I had no
coverage. Just before I fell asleep, I saw a green streak along the
sky. It was so bright I thought it might be a flare, but later found a few
other people who had seen it and said it was a very bright shooting star!
The alarm we set did not go off, and I eventually awoke around
5:30 a.m.! We had unexpectedly gotten 2 hours of sleep! We got up,
and evaluated our position. We thought we had gone an awfully long way,
but we hadn't crossed the river or a road leading to Gores landing, so there was
no way we could have passed it. We decided to continue to track the river
south west rather than trying to use the jeep trails. We calculated we had
a couple of miles to go. After an hour or so, I started to get really
worried. The going was slow through the woods, but I still thought we
should have reached the CP by then. I felt like we were going to come out
on some road 10 or 20 miles from the CP and the race would be over. I
really thought I'd drop out if that happened.
However, a few minutes later, Connie, who had made the
navigational decision to go this way and felt strongest about it, turned around
and held her arms overhead in a triumphant V. We had finally found CP5 at
7:26 a.m.
We checked in and were very surprised to learn we were the 24th team to do
so. We had only lost 1 or 2 spots all night -- so many other teams had
also had difficulty. We learned that team Running Wild, who is usually top
five team, had gone in to the woods at 9 p.m. a couple of hours before
us, and had still not come out!
Eric and Samantha were at this checkpoint, but still no
Kelly. Eric said he had talked to her late the night before and given her
direction to CP9, and that she should be there. There was no coverage at
this CP either, but he said as soon as they left and got coverage, he would call
her and give her directions to CP7.
My spirits were lifted that we had finally found the CP and that
we hadn't lost that much ground. We refilled our drinking bladders, and forced down
some dry tuna. I also ate some Sour Patch Kids to get rid of the tuna
taste, and we headed out on our bikes towards CP6.
CP6
We left Gores landing and followed the paved road around to
highway 315. I was a bit weak at this point, so I drafted off Will.
Eventually a team of 4 guys came a long, and we jumped in their draft
line. Will pulled once, and then I did, but I decided it would be best if
we dropped off because I still wasn't that strong. Highway 315 was about 8
or 9 miles long before we reached the end at Highway 40. We took highway
40 west a couple of miles, over a tall bridge, and reached CP6 at
???. There was just one volunteer here -- no support. Our
check in time was 9:11 a.m., Saturday morning.
CP7
From CP6, we had to bushwhack with our bikes along the Ocklawaha
River south to highway 314. In a straight line, this appeared to be 3 - 4
miles. But when you are bushwhacking, you certainly can't go
straight! This was pretty rough going. It was very hot in the woods,
and there were many cypress knees that kept catching the bike pedals, which
often meant you'd slam your shin into the other pedal. There were also
many trees to carry the bikes over, and we could not keep a very straight path
at all. Here, we passed the group of 4 guys that we had drafted with for a
bit on highway 315. We eventually made it out to highway 314, and headed
west about 1.5 miles to the Marshal Swamp Foot Trail. This was CP7, which
we reached at 11:03 a.m.
Finally, Kelly was here and we had our full support crew
together! (This is also where the pictures start!) We took a few minutes to fill up on water before we
started the next section, which was a long trek.
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Here we are about to head off onto the long trek section.
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CP8
We trekked the "Red Foot Trail" in the Marshall Swamp
to CP8. We reached this about 12:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon, and we figure that was about
4-5 miles.
CP9
There was no support at CP8, so we quickly headed out again. We
headed just a bit north, before we took a 220 degree heading where we followed a
"corridor" between two neighborhoods. We followed this heading
about 2.5 to 3 miles, when we reached the intersection of highway 464 and
highway 35. At this point, it was really getting quite hot. It was
the middle of the afternoon, in the middle of Florida where there aren't any
coastal breezes, and we were trekking through open fields. Most of the
ground is sand, which acts as a heat amplifier!
After the intersection, we had to continue on a 220 degree azimuth.
However, there was barbed wire fence here, though there were still Florida
Greenway signs. A minute later, another team came up and hopped the fence,
so we followed suit. We continued on, and eventually came to more barbed
wire fence. This time, it was surrounding a landfill which the passport
explicitly warned us to stay out of and keep to our left. So we started
tracking the fence line. We eventually came to a neighborhood, and walked
a bit around that, before we could get back to the greenway. We followed
that and then hit another neighborhood, and finally hit SE 41 Court, which was
the road we were looking for. We probably ended up a bit farther north on
this street than was necessary, but took it a mile or two heading south to NE
80th Street. We headed west on 80th street for about a mile, across
highway 441, and then turned left into the Santos mountain biking area.
This was CP9, the full support transition area! We reached
it at 4:03 p.m. My feet were throbbing, so I soaked them in ice water for
a few minutes before letting them dry out. Janet and Samantha were there,
but Kelly, Rick, and Eric were out getting hot food for us. We both
rested, while Samantha washed our nasty eco-mesh shirts! Soon after, the
gang showed up with hot food -- sushi and hot tofu and vegetables for me, and
Spanish chicken and rice for Will. We spent nearly an hour and 45 minutes
here, resting, refueling, changing clothes out, repacking food for the rest of
the race, etc. We headed out about 5:45 p.m.
CP10
From CP9, we followed the yellow mountain bike trails towards
the rock quarry. The passport said we'd come to a metal fence, where we
should cross the road and continue. We passed the fence and had to
backtrack a bit, so we did that. The road we crossed wasn't quite gravel,
so we weren't sure if that was the road to follow or not. The yellow trail
did continue on the other side but we weren't sure how far. So we
followed the road we were on, eventually saw a gravel road, and headed down
that. There were a bunch of quarries here, so the one with the ropes was
not easy to find! We asked a couple of bikers, and they pointed us in the
general direction. We ended up taking a few technical trails to get there.
We arrived at CP10 at 6:23 p.m. Saturday evening. We quickly got our climbing gear
out and put it on. We first had to use an ascender to go up a short rock
wall. From there, we put on pulleys, attached them to our carabineers, and
did a traverse of a couple hundred feet. I jumped first, but Will soon
passed me as he got a much better jump. After about half way, we had to
start pulling ourselves up the rest of the way. I remembered Myakka where
I got a bit nauseous from the exertion that far into a race, so I decided to use
an ascender the rest of the way. That would save me a bit of energy
anytime I needed to rest. Will just pulled himself along, and I soon
followed. We got off the ropes and headed down a steep path back to the
floor of the quarry. We got out of our climbing gear, repacked it all, and headed out
on the bikes.
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Here I am on the ascent. We didn't climb at all -- we had
ascenders which allow the rope top move through in one direction
only. So we just pulled ourselves up with arm strength, let the
ascenders lock us in place, and used our feet to balance on the wall
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And here I am on the traverse. I didn't get that great of a
jump, so I only made it a little past half way. From there, I had
to pull myself up to the far side.
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And here we both are nearing the end of the traverse. Will got
a great jump and pulled himself right up. He passed me a second
later in this photo, while I rested!
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CP11 and CP12
From CP10, we headed west on the yellow trail. The
passport said we'd pass highways 475, 475B, and 475A. It said don't ride the roads,
just cross them.. We crossed over 475 and 475B without any problems.
At that point, the trail seemed to turn much more South than west, and started
to parallel 475A. Eventually, we reached a point in the woods where
there were blue blazes all over the trees, instead of yellow trail
markers. We thought we must be too far south, so we back tracked a couple
of miles. We checked the roads we had crossed to verify they were what we
thought they were, and eventually ended up back where we had stopped. We
found a yellow horse trail that crossed 475A, but then it seemed to disappear on
the other side of the road. We decided to take 475A south just a bit to a
point parallel to where we were on the trails, to see if we could find the CP.
A minute later, we saw signs for the Florida Land Bridge.
This was a CP, so we started riding the trail for it. It took a while, and
it was now getting dark. After looping around mountain bike trails for some time, we reached the land
bridge. We could not find anybody to check us in, which was quite
odd. A few minutes later, another team rode up, so we asked them about
it. They told us the guy at CP11 said the race directors decided to unman
CP12 so there would be no check in there. It took a minute, but we
realized we had somehow missed CP11 altogether!! :-(
The other team said it was just "15 minutes back," but
this was the team that we had drafted with much earlier in the race and we knew
they were strong riders. We also thought that we must have looped around
many trails on the way to the land bridge, because it had taken much much
longer. They told us to just follow the yellow trail back, and we couldn't
miss the CP. So, we went down the bridge, and tried to find a yellow trail
marker. However, there wasn't one! We only found one mountain bike
trail, and it had a blue marker. This was the trail we had come out on
earlier, so we eventually decided that must be it. Soon after, we saw
yellow markers, and we rode that all the way back to 475A.
We figured out that the land bridge sign we had seen earlier was
just 50 or 100 yards north of CP11, so that is why we missed it. We had
gotten off the yellow trail and ridden the road just a bit. If we had
stayed on it just a bit further, through the blue blazes where we had turned
around much earlier, we would have seen it. We checked in at CP11 at 10:33
p.m. Saturday night and
headed back to the land bridge.
We figure we wasted at least 2.5 - 3 hours on these two check
points. The first time we reached the blue blazes and turned around, we
were just a couple of hundred yards short of CP11. So we tracked back 2-3
miles, and rode it all again. Then we went on the road just a few hundred
yards before the blue blazes, went south, and saw the signs for the land
bridge. We headed off there towards CP12, which was just a hundred yards
short of CP11. So we ended up riding that area twice!!!
CP13 and CP14
When we reached CP12 at the land bridge again, we sat down for a
few minute rest and to review the maps. We headed out on the horse trails
a hundred yards or so, but then decided to reevaluate the maps because the sand
was so thick. I sat down while Will reviewed the maps and got really
sleepy (We had been racing 42 hours at this point, with just 2 hours of sleep
the night before.). He said something a few minutes later, but I didn't catch
it. I suggested we sleep for 15 minutes. This was about
midnight. I woke up 10 minutes later, and we got up. We headed back
up the horse trail the 100 yards, where we hooked up with another team of two
guys. We had decided to follow a jeep trail, and they agreed that was
the way to go. We had to push the bikes for a bit because of the sand, but
eventually it was rideable. We rode this for 2 to 3 miles, where we
eventually hit a paved road. We saw the CP was south on the road a 1/2
mile to a mile, so we rode down and checked in. We reached this CP at
12:54 a.m. Sunday morning.
Our support crew was not here, but there was water, so we filled
up. There were several teams sleeping here, but we decided to keep pushing
on with the other team. We jumped the fence and headed down to the
"tunnel" that went under the road. A few other teams were coming
in and checking in, and a few of the sleeping teams were getting up. We
came out of the tunnel and headed up the bank. From there, we could follow
the the Florida trail, jeep trails, or horse trails. We eventually decided
that we should try the Florida trail for a bit and see if it tracked west or
not. We thought that trail was most likely to have much less sugar sand
than horse or jeep trails.
We had made the right choice, as this trail was mostly packed
and did track west, though it did have lots of turns. It crossed over
roads a few times, and we lost the trail once or twice, but tracked the roads
then. Eventually, we reached a point where a tornado must have blown
through, as the trail was completely blocked by fallen trees for about 1/2
mile. We had to bike bushwhack again, but we eventually made it
through. Finally, after several miles from CP13, we reached a fence
line. We jumped the fence, headed just a bit up highway 484, and checked
in at CP14 at 2:37 a.m. time.
CP15
From CP14, we again headed west along the Florida Trail for a
few miles. There was more sand here, so we did have to get off the bikes
many times. We still made pretty good time, and we were still with the
other team. We eventually reached another fence at highway 200. At
this point, I wanted to take a short break and get some food. The other
team decided to head on. After a few minutes, Will and I headed out,
southwest on 200. Will drafted off me some, and he was getting quite
sleepy. One time I looked back and he was swerving, so I slowed down to go
back and try to keep him awake. We rode on 200 about 8 miles until we
reached the Withlacoochee River. Just past that, we turned west on 39, then
took a right on Grey Eagle Way, to the boat ramp.
This was CP15, which we reached at 4:05 a.m. At first
I couldn't find our crew! I finally found the cars, and knocked on the
window to wake Rick up. Janet had been up, but I had somehow missed her as
I circled around. Several teams had come in just behind us, though they
checked in 1st, so Will and I decided to head right out. He was quite
sleepy, so he took a hit of caffeine. We filled up on water, and jumped in
the kayak to track the Withlacoochee westward.
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Here we are pushing off to start the Withlacoochee kayak leg.
You can't really see the fog in this picture, but it was really thick
once we got out on the water. This is about 4:30 a.m. on Sunday,
almost 48 hours into the race.
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CP16
We headed west on the river in the dark. It was quite
foggy, so using the lights was often worse than going without. At this
point, both of us started getting really sleepy. It was quite strange, as
we couldn't remember if we had just said something we thought we said or not, so
we kept having to ask "Did I just say ....?" We passed several
boats here, and most of them looked like they were zombies too. We passed
one that was trying to sleep by holding on to a dock. I eventually took a
caffeine pill too, and it finally started to get light, which really
helped.
The river did not really seem to follow the map much. On
the map, it was pretty much just a winding river, but out on the water, there
were many possible turns that seemed to head off into the swamp. After a
while, we started thinking that we must really be circling in the swamp because
we thought we should have reached the next CP. We finally saw some people
fishing, and we asked them how far we were from the boat ramp at highway
41. He told us we were going in the right direction and it was just 2
miles away. After 2 to 3 more miles, we asked someone else. He told
us it was just 1/4 mile away, and that we were still on track. After
another 2 miles, we finally came around a bend and saw the bridge and the boat
ramp. We checked in at 7:26 a.m. Sunday morning.
We were amazed that two teams pulled in just a few minutes
later. We had passed 6 or 7 boats along the way, but none in quite some
time. We must have slowed down a lot once we began to think we were
lost! At this point, there was just one more bike leg and one final
kayak leg before the finish, so we decided to push it. We did not want any
of those teams to pass us!
We quickly filled up on water. Rick and Eric had been out
to get some food, and they drove up with coffee and Egg McMuffins! I
wanted one of each so bad, but we weren't allowed to get anything except
water! :-( So, we just got the water and started out on the
bikes.
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Here is Will leaving the transition from the kayak to the final bike
section, giving a thumbs up. At this point, we both realized we
were almost done!
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CP17
From here, the passport got a bit confusing. It made
perfect sense for a few minutes in our sleep deprived state, but we soon found
that it didn't make any sense. It said head west on 41 to Dunnellon Road
(8.6 miles). So we headed west on 41. However, 41 soon started
tracking south instead of west. At this point, a girl in a red Miata
asked us if we were with the Coast to Coast. We said yes and kept
riding. Apparently, she also yelled out we were going the wrong way but we
never heard her. We headed just a bit further on 41 to see if it would
curve west, but it never did. So we stopped, pulled out the maps,
and tried to figure out what was going on. We could see on the map that we
41 was a north - south road, so that couldn't be right. We saw that
shortly after the boat ramp when we had come out on 41, there was a road 488
that headed west. We had even marked this on the map as the road to
take. So we headed back and started following that. I kept running
over the wording in the passport, and eventually I saw how it could make
sense. However, we later found that several teams had gone 10 miles south
on 41 before figuring it out, and one team, Adventurous Concepts, had gone 10
miles south, then 10 miles north of the boat ramp, before figuring it out!
We rode west on 488 for 8.6 miles. This was hilly, and we
were getting tired. Will drafted on me some, but we were both getting too
tired to make very good time. We eventually reached the turn to Northcut Avenue, which we took
for 1.3 miles, then turned right onto Bass Lake Road, which turned into West
Riverwood drive, which we took for 3.8 miles. We then turned right onto
Cornflower Drive, which took us to US 19 after a couple of miles. From
there, we headed north just a bit to the big bridge that crosses the barge
canal. We turned off just before this to go the boat ramp and CP17.
We checked in at 9:25 a.m. Rick, Janet, and Eric were all
there, but Kelly and Samantha had gone out to find us. The girl in the
red Miata told them we had gone in the wrong direction, and we somehow missed
them on the roads. Here we found that many teams had trouble getting
to this CP, so we still hadn't lost much ground. The volunteers here told
us that there would be no CP18. CP18 was out on one of the long fingers that
jut in the water out from the power plants. We were supposed to kayak out to that,
check in, and then use our mask and snorkel to find a balloon with our team
number on it, where we'd have to dive down and puncture it with our knife.
However, the night before, when the first team had gone through that, the race
directors decided to eliminate it because of the rough waters. I
was a bit disappointed to find this out, as it would have been fun to do, but it
also cut off 8 miles off the final kayak to make it 18 miles instead of 26, so
that was fine with me. The new plan was to stay closer into the
coast line and do three portages over the long fingers instead.
Four teams had come in in the last hour, so we quickly jumped in
the boat for the final leg to see if we could catch any and crack the top
20 overall.
The Finish
We paddled west on the barge canal and quickly passed one
team. After that, we slowed a bit as Will put on sun screen, and I ate
some food, and then Will ate. We eventually made it out of the canal
and started heading south hugging the coast. There were many small islands
and oyster beds, and we were trying to figure out which land mass was the 1st
finger. We finally got there, and began the 1st portages. These were
a pain, as the terrain was rough -- loose rocks, oyster shells, brush,
etc. We also had a glass boat, so we had to be careful and carry it the
entire time.
We eventually made it through them all, and then started
heading south east towards the mouth of Crystal river. We passed Shell
Island, and then went East into the river. At this point, the river was
crazy. It was mid-day on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, with tons of
boats and jet ski's making crazy wakes. We got swamped a couple of times,
though we never felt like stopping to put on our skirts. Will was getting
really sleepy, and fell asleep a few times. Since he was in the back of the
boat, that meant we had no steering until I was able to wake him up!
After a couple of miles, we eventually made it to the north
bound channel that would lead us to the finish line. Will had eaten about
15 chocolate covered coffee beans, so he had some energy! He decided that
since we only had a short way to go, he would deal with the stomach problems the
caffeine would cause. We headed north, then east a mile or so, and finally
came around the bend to the finish line! We pulled the boat up the
ramp and checked in at 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon. We had done it! It
took us 56 hours, in 25th place out of 63 teams that started. There were
about 20 "DNF's" (Did Not Finish).
We were about 5th overall in
the kayaking sections, even with getting lost in the swamp for about 3
hours! This number was pulled out separately, as there was a $500 prize
for the fastest team in all of the kayak legs. We would have won it if we
hadn't messed up so badly between CP3 and CP4! (Actually, it may have been
close. Team Environeers, who won the overall race, also won the fastest
kayakers. But they also had to do CP18 and the snorkel dive, which the
race directors cancelled after the Evironeers went through due to rough
waters. So they had about 8 more miles of kayaking, plus the snorkel dive,
while we had more portages. There were 1 hour and 55 minutes ahead of us
in the official kayak times, and we guess that we lost 3 hours in the
swamp. So, if we could have done the extra 8 miles and snorkel dive in an
hour, then we may have won the fastest boat. If, if, if...)
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Here we are pulling up to the boat ramp at the finish line, after 56
hours of racing!
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We went over to the area our crew had set up, and they sang us a
song they had written just for us! See below for the lyrics -- they are
hilarious, though you might have had to have been there through some of the race
to understand it. Will crashed in the grass a few minutes later, but
I was so hungry I did not want to sleep until I got some real food. I knew
if I did sleep, I would not be getting up again that day. So I showered,
waited for the crew to gather the gear and shower, and then Eric, Samantha,
Rick, and myself went out for seafood. Will was still pretty much out of
it, sleeping in his hotel room, and Janet stayed behind with
him. After we ate, we went back to the hotel and I went to sleep
around 7 p.m. I got up a little after 7 a.m. and felt much better. I
was amazed, but I wasn't as sore as I thought I would be.
We all went out to breakfast, and then headed home. For
Kelly and me, it was just two hours south on US 19, but for the rest of the
gang, they had to head across the Florida Turnpike and down to the Ft.
Lauderdale area.
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Here is the entire team, from left to right: Samantha, Eric,
Janet, Will, Sean, Kelly, and Rick. This was just after we
had a big breakfast and were about to head home. We thank
our support crew for all they did -- without them, we would never have
been able to finish the race!
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(click the title to listen to
Here
we are in St. Augustine
And
this race seems like a dream
Maybe
that's because we didn't get to sleep!
Crystal
River seems far away
We
can reach it in a day
Or
wait, maybe two, or even three!
Are
we there yet?
We're
so tired we can't see straight
We're
here dying,
Our
crew is lounging at checkpoint eight
Are
we there yet?
Why
are we doing this to ourselves?
Our
food's soakin' wet & my partner really smells.
We've been trekking
thru the woods
In the dark is where
we stood
To try to read our
compass and our map
It's been raining on
my head
And we should be
home in bed
But instead we'll
have to bushwhack thru the swamp
How much longer?
Just 200 miles to go
That's just biking,
then again we'll have to row
How much longer?
I can't stand this
on my feet,
My butt's gotten
sore & I really need to eat.
Transition time we
just can't wait
We'll get to sit
& re-hydrate
And rest our weary
bones for a spell
Our crew is working
'round the clock
To keep us fresh and
fully stocked
As a team we'll
handle anything to come
Are we there yet?
Oh look we're coming
round the bend
I can't believe it
We're almost at the
end
Are we there yet?
The answer's a
resounding yes!
We made it feelin'
good and we know our team's the best.
Are we there yet?
We're so tired we
can't see straight
We're here dying,
Our crew is lounging
at checkpoint eight.
Are we there yet?
Why are we doing
this to ourselves?
Our food's soakin'
wet and my partner really smells.
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