Training Log Archive: britty327

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.