Training Log Archive: britty327

Travel FL to STL

Suwannee cont'd. In TA, we changed into dry clothes and lots of layers and laid down for 30min. Joe and Jeff perched on logs by the fire. I slept surprisingly well under just my E blanket, and it set me up well for the rest of the race. Then again, I can sleep standing up, so to lie down is luxurious.

Rode through the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge to Cedar Key. Grassy doubletrack and sandy roads in the park. Super frustrating section with unmapped roads/trails. Found some CPs then hit the road. When we got into Cedar Key, there was a CP on an old rail trail. At the punch, I realized I didn't have our passport. The pocket was zipped, but it was empty. Ahhhh! In my emotionally fried state, I was ready to melt down. I figured that I opened the pocket but missed sliding it in and slid it past my hip belt onto the ground. We FLEW back to the previous CP, only to come up empty. I ripped off my pack, and there it was in another pocket. I had put it in the same pocket literally 100x this race, but just once I put it somewhere else. Tears streaming, Jeff took the lead and put the hammer down to let me burn off some frustration. Crisis averted, we punched and grabbed a couple more in town. On the final CP, at an Indian burial mound, we met up with Journey. Back and forth with them the whole race, we didn't know where we stood against them. Having cruised the town earlier in the week, we knew just where the mound was. Journey missed it and had to circle around. We high tailed it to the finish to get on water for the final leg, just in front of Journey. Turned out they had a plane to catch and would not be continuing.

To Atsena Otie Key. We chose to paddle to the furthest corned of the island, not knowing initially the water level was too low to paddle in due to the tide. Ended up dragging the boat 300m to shore in knee deep water/sand/mud.

It felt like Day 1 as we race around the island grabbing CPs one after the other. Really cool way to end the race.

Back at the boats, we negotiated the portage and paddled hard to the finish, making it back well before the cutoff. Really can't say enough about my teammates. I will race with Joe and Jeff anytime, anywhere. I had never even talked to Erl before and never raced with Em. But the group worked so well together, and we had a blast!

Back into Newnans TA. They had hot water, and we made some turkey tet. YUM.

We started out in a cypress swamp, which was really cool. Always harder to negotiate a 3p boat than a 2p, but we made it through and broke out onto the lake. Full moon was Thurs, so we were treated to gorgeous moons on paddles all 3 nights. The wide open lake was in some respects harder to navigate than the rivers, and the wind became brutal as we got away from shore. There was a flag on a point in the same park we had visited earlier in the day via bike, and no one was sure if it was the same flag or not. Turns out it wasn't, but I was able to ping it just as my battery died for the night. Back on the water, Joe saw an alligator eating a bird. We finally saw the flag on some sort of boat dock and made our way up an inlet to Kate's Fish Camp just before dawn. Our boat was very stressed and tensed, and TA was entertaining from an outsider's perspective.

Kate's Fish Camp loop through the burial grounds. This section had a group of 6 and a group of 3 CPs. The group of 3 was ~16k roundtrip, so we decided to skip them. This section ended up being my favorite of the race, and we got to see Joe work his magic. In the beginning, he looked like he didn't care but was really figuring out the map. We accidentally ran into CP64, which was mis-hung. After that, he was on! It was all we could do to keep up with him. As soon as he found one, he was off to the next. One was up in a tree for no reason. With 2 left, everything ground to a halt. Eventually, he figured out that the scale was once again off. Once adjusted, we went right to them. We spent some time in the burial grounds, which was mostly a pet cemetery, but people could be buried there too. It was pretty trippy, as we kept seeing things in the wooden abstract grave markers that some of them had.

Monster ride to the Suwannee River. Our feet finally had a chance to dry out here. I felt strongest on the bike sections, which was surprising seeing as I'd really only been not the trainer the last couple months. Temps rose to toasty quickly, and we spent a lot of time on asphalt on busy roads. Hunter's team hopped onto the back of our paceline heading to Little Blue Springs CP. We played eenie meenie minie mo with the roads around Blue Springs and lost but eventually came of with the CP. We later dipped into a bike path for a bit to get off the busy roads and into the shade. Tried to fix a kid's BMX bike chain and failed. Our pace slowed as people got sleepy. As we entered Chiefland, we stopped at a gas station for ice cream and Gatorade. Knowing that we really had to keep moving, we only allowed a 5min stop. Just enough to get in and get out. I saw a dead bobcat on the side of the road and later a tortoise by the river. We made it to the river a little before sunset. Erl and Em were ready for a nap, so Joe, Jeff, and I laid down and put our feet up on a log while gorging on hotdogs courtesy of the race staff. Beautiful TA spot.

On the Suwaaaaannnneeeee River. First CP was upstream in a canal on the tip of a neighborhood. It was mis-hung, but we spent a lot of time looking for it. Very cool/eerie/creepy area, as once we got into the cypress, we were getting a perfect mirror image off the completely calm water. One of those times you just have to experience it yourself to fully appreciate it. Bailed on this one and caught the current downstream. The moon rose for another clear night, and temps dropped. I sorely misjudged my apparel for this leg. Thinking the bike would be half the length it was, I thought we would paddle in daylight. Not the case. I have been cold on a lot of paddles but never this cold. I lost part of the night on this paddle, so Emily will have a better story. At the Catfish Hotel CP, I remember standing in front of the boat with a space blanket. I would repeatedly fall asleep and wake up catching myself from falling on my face. Once back at the boats, Em and Erl saved me with extra clothes, and I was able to function again. Paddled by moonlight to the TA, sometimes with Jeff paddling the boat by himself :)

Dead Lake to our bins in TA

Roads to Dunns Creek Conservation Area. Before that we dipped into a small park for a CP. There, our team's code word for CPs found emerged. We were buried in palmettos looking for the flag and I heard Joe say, "Have you seen Dusty?" I knew what he meant and headed his way. From then on, "Dusty" was the sound of success. Dusty may not have been able to race with us this time, but she was with us in spirit the entire time.

Once in Dunns Creek, things got interesting. After coming up empty looking for burnt pine in a sea of pines...in the middle of a swamp...we realized the maps were no longer 1:24k. This one was closer to 1:31k. From here on out, scales changed with almost every map (we had 21 for the first half of the race). Once Joe recalculated the distance, we walked right into the CP. Later came the infamous "lone pine" CP. The road we were on was unmapped, but we had pulled it from Google the night before, so we knew it existed. We dropped our bikes less than 50m from the CP but spent the next 40min scouring the woods for it. Lots of teams were leaving, telling us they searched for an hour with no luck. We came back out to the road, and more teams were searching. Joe walked up to a lone pine in the middle of a clearing haha, looked down, and there it was, buried in some palmetto and on ground level. Bad news...15 or so headlamps were headed right for us. Somehow, Emily and I were able to punch and get away with NO ONE else seeing this take place. The boys might or might not have been blinding incoming teams with their headlamps. None of the other top teams snagged this one. From here we traveled through the towns of San Mateo and Palatka, which had the biggest mountain of the race (a bridge!), on our way to the Rice Creek TA.

Rice Creek. Very cool boardwalk trail section early in the trek. Walking on plant rails above swamps surrounded by beautiful vegetation. Most awesome CP involved walking along a downed pine to a downed palm cypress to get out to the punch. Best clue for the whole race was here too...50m from a platform. It didn't give a direction, so Joe sent us 1 way. Only while peeing off the platform did he happen to see it in a completely different direction. We'll take it!

When we reached the Backwoods TA, we were handed maps and coords for a bonus trek. Woohoo. Located in the Marjorie Harris Carr Greenway, it was mostly a slog on sandy roads. We saw some wild boar, including 3 piglets. Luckily they didn't come too close. This race had a lot of firsts for me in terms of animals I had never before seen in the wild. Our feet had been wet for over 24 hours now, and it was starting to take its toll.

Back on the road, it was spitting rain. We found the golden arches in Interlachen, and I had a quarter pounder and delicious french fries. We continued through Hawthorne to the Gainseville Hawthorne State Trail. It felt like we were in a wind tunnel that was pushing us forward. We wrapped around the W side of Newness Lake to the TA. There, we were told our bins weren't going to be there even though we had been told they would be. We weren't happy about it, but we realized we did have some food in our paddle bags that were accessible. Yogis rolled up and brought the drama. "You're just gonna let us sit here and starve to death?!" Turns out the truck was there all along, and they decided to grant us access to it. We also received maps for the 2nd half of the race, so Joe pored over those. As we were getting ready to leave, a car rolled up with fresh pizza! Race staff really went above and beyond with food in TA.

Newnans Lake Conservation Area. Prior to dusk, we grabbed several CPs in the swamps in quick succession, and it felt good. Then they spread out and things slowed down. We chose to trek 2k around to a CP rather than a 100m swim as temps dropped below 50. We saw Yogaslackers doing the entire trek with their "media director". Lots of road slogging in this section meant for more painful feet. I did not eat much and was struggling to stay awake. Joe was very tired and cold, edging on delirious. This entire race had been a mind screw for him, as he would nail the nav to each CP, and we would proceed to hunt and peck for the inaccurately placed or partially hidden flags. At a CP, I sat down for a minute, and everyone else followed suit. I fell asleep for a few min, which was just what I needed to be alert the rest of the night. Joe or Jeff began snoring immediately, so it was a much needed rest.

Event: Florida Sea to Sea
 

Racing with Joe and Sony as Rev3 and traveling with sami11 and silkychrome as On Wednesdays We Wear Pink. Had an absolute blast. We "accidentally" received maps for the first half of the race the night before at check in, so we got all of our route planning finished before bed. Loaded buses at 7am for the drive to the Atlantic near Ormond Beach. The prologue was a beach run through palmetto dunes. Fast paced and hot! First blood was shed here, as some people opted for no calf protection (cat protection). Frog protection? Totally on the same page. We were bushwalking almost immediately through palmettos and scrub brush.

Ormond to Bulow Creek. Very scenic paddle. Lots of birds. Some low spots in the sand before we got into the main channel, but we were able to paddle the entirety. Moving fast and feeling out pace with OWWWP's boat.

From TA, we ran up a road to some really cool ruins of an old sugar mill to get our next passport.

Bulow Creek to Black Branch Creek. We started out on fun rooty trails, then hit the road to Graham Swamp for 5 miles of sweet surprise singletrack. We weren't given a map here...just told to follow the trail. We were lost in a matter of minutes. Ron came through the woods and told us which trail to stay on, and we were back on track, punching CPs along the way. Both Odysseys caught up to us by skipping the switchbacks they could see we weren't finding CPs on. Then we hopped onto a rail trail for part of the time enroute to Black Branch. Joe's pedal was locked up and wouldn't spin freely. We slathered it in lube and hoped for the best.

We put in at the Black Branch Canal, which fed into Haw Creek. Black Branch had lots of vegetation and downed trees, and we did many portages and boat maneuvering until the creek opened up. First gorgeous sunset of the race. Just after a bridge, CP18 was located on an island. We circled the island twice and even checked the island to the south but couldn't find it. No one else seemed to have trouble with this one. Knowing that we had an 11pm cutoff looming at the next trek section, we decided to boogie.

"Surprise" foot O at Russell Landing with VERY early cutoff for this stage of the race. 10 or so CPs up for grabs in a small area, but very few teams got to attempt them. Once Joe puzzled out where we were on the map, he was ON! Nailing them in a row. Then we went for a waypoint that was actually not a CP even though it had a punch, so time wasted there. Got a couple more before pushing the pace to get back to TA 3 min prior to the cutoff.

Back into the boats downstream to Dead Lake. At some point on this section, we ran out of moving water and repeatedly portaged. I dumped Jeff into the water, which he really appreciated :)

Road trip to FL continues with silky and Sami. Nashville to race HQ today. Goodbye snow!!!

C • Happy trails 2