[Triangle-AR] FW: Ron's Race Report from this year's "C2C"

[Sean Butler]

This is long but it's a good read if you want to get into doing longer
races.  I've race the FL Coast to Coast three times, once with Ron who is
the writer of the report below.  

/Sean

   
> 
> Florida Coast to Coast 2005 Adventure Race 
> 
> The first job of being a good team captain is to put together 
> a team. This team should be made up of like minded racers 
> with similar physical abilities and mindset. In preparing for 
> a race like the Coast to Coast you have to think about the 
> distance (from Sarasota to Key Largo is a pretty long 
> distance) and the conditions (the everglades, heat, bugs, and 
> animals) along with all the other factors. Jamie is a natural 
> choice as we have raced together many times and understand 
> each others strengths and weaknesses and compensate almost 
> subconsciously making a team stronger that is stronger than 
> we each are as individuals. After going through the list of 
> possible team-mates Jamie and I were down to three, of course 
> we could only race with two. Of course in the confusion of 
> balancing schedules – we ended up with three, which meant I 
> had the unenviable task of telling one that he was not 
> racing. This is not an easy task as this is more than talking 
> to potential athlete as a coach would – these are friends 
> bonded in the suffer-fests that many adventure races become. 
> Nonetheless – as I headed to Sarasota, the team was ready and 
> able – Mickey, Don and Jamie. We had good boats (3 of them), 
> we were trained and hopefully ready. 
> 
> For the teams the race really starts at the pre-race. 
> Normally you check in, chat with friends from other teams, go 
> through any required skills tests, demonstrate you have all 
> the mandatory gear, and then head for the pre-race. The only 
> skills test required was to paddle your boat into the ocean, 
> swamp it, and then do a deep water re-entry. Don and I 
> demonstrated we could take a very unstable but fast boat (a 
> Simon River Arrow), tip it and re-enter it three times (which 
> is what it took to finally get it upright and completely 
> stable). Jamie and Mickey were in a carbon fiber Necky 
> Nootka. This boat is so stable you literally have to have 
> someone helping you tip it over! Stable, fast, but also heavy 
> – and that would be important in some of the later portages. 
> At the pre-race we received all the safety instruction, but 
> most important – the maps, passports, and instructions. 
> 
> It only takes a few times of taking shortcuts in preparing 
> your maps – that later turn into multi-hour mental gaffes on 
> course to take this job seriously. On one hand, you typically 
> get the maps at 8-9 PM, the race starts at 6 AM the next 
> morning – and to do the job properly it usually takes 4 hours 
> to prepare the maps. A little math tells you that on the 
> night before a race where you will be handed major sleep 
> deprivation, you are only going to get a few hours of sleep. 
> Such is adventure racing and there is no point in 
> complaining. We did receive our maps around 7 PM, the crew 
> went to get Don and I some food, Jamie went immediately to 
> sleep (she has trouble with the sleep monster in multi-day 
> races), and Mickey stuck around to help as he could. The maps 
> were almost 1:100K scale maps, almost meaning that they were 
> closer to 1:105K but that varied depending on where on the 
> map you actually were. The plotting of all the coordinates 
> was going to require meticulous attention. A simple 5 mm 
> error on one of these maps would have us searching for a 
> control 500 meters from the real location in the “real 
> world”. By midnight we had marked the 5 maps, noting one 
> minor glitch that required us to go to the race director – of 
> course he was already aware of the error and would give us 
> correction at the TA prior to that segment of the race. We 
> made it to sleep around midnight, setting the alarm for 5 AM 
> – enough time to dress, eat, and be on the beach with our 
> boats prior to the 6 AM start. 
> 
> The next morning each of the team mates followed their 
> pre-race ritual. Mine is simple. Stuff as much food into my 
> stomach before the race started, and be at the start with all 
> my required gear – which I had meticulously prepared the 
> previous evening. The maps were laminated and numbered (my 
> job as the navigator), all the required team gear was in the 
> packs of various team members, shoes were laid out, and so 
> on. The crew helped us carry the boats to the beach and we 
> conferred with some other teams and instead of entering the 
> water, we had planned a strategic portage at the start. 
> However, the race director had gotten wind of this and 
> quickly nixed the idea by disallowing it at the start. With 
> one minute until start, Jamie suddenly needed to use the 
> restroom, but opted out as the whistle went off. There is a 
> certain comedy to the start of any multi-day race. Teams 
> jackrabbit off the starting line as if the 1-2 minute lead 
> they gain would make all the difference in the world at the 
> end. Experience has taught us differently, we put the boats 
> in and started the paddling. For anyone who has paddled a 
> tippy boats in open ocean waters – they will understand what 
> Don and I knew. Going slow in this boat was like trying to 
> balance on a bike while not rolling. When you talk to someone 
> in a boat nearby – you must do it without turning your head, 
> else you will tip that direction. You paddle, paddle hard – 
> and look forward. 
> 
> We paddled, and paddled – we passed all but one team, E-caps 
> who were about 200-300 meters in front of us. About 80 
> minutes into the paddle I was sure we should have seen our 
> cutover into the intra-coastal waterway – Midnight pass. The 
> shoreline matched, everything in me said this was it – but 
> there was no pass. At 120 minutes, I felt we had to have 
> passed the pass, it was only 12 km from the start and I was 
> positive we had been paddling at a pace of at least 9-10 
> km/hr (6 miles/hr). We must have passed it – and every minute 
> my level of apprehension grew. I asked for Don to take us 
> closer to shore, only to see Team E-caps pulling their boats 
> onto the beach. They had obviously felt the same as I did. We 
> beached and I walked up to the road where a man was coming by 
> on a bicycle. I asked where we were, to which he had no real 
> idea – but he did offer some interesting news; “Midnight Pass 
> was filled in years ago”. Great! Meanwhile Tally-Ho was 
> frantically trying to find a portage over to the river, 
> running up and down the street looking for a spot to get into 
> the intracoastal waterway. We pulled our boats up to the road 
> – also watching other teams continuing south in the ocean, 
> they had seen us hadn’t they? I assessed the situation and 
> was ready to knock on someone’s door when a man came from a 
> house to get the newspaper – Aha! Local knowledge. I asked 
> and got the location of a good portage spot (his neighbors 
> yard), and directions to the creek (sort of). We crossed the 
> yard, put into the waterway and were once again on our way. 
> We moved through a narrow past a creek that I suspected was 
> the creek north of the one we wanted and started paddling 
> hard. We were unsure of our exact location – but I also saw a 
> fishing boat and knew that a local fisherman would know the 
> location of the creek we were seeking. Sure enough he told us 
> to turn around and take a right at the first creek. The one 
> we had just passed. A few teams were now following us and a 
> few more were not (deciding to continue south in Blackburn 
> bay). We turned around and headed into the correct creek and 
> 2 km later were at Transition 1 – onto the bikes. We arrived 
> at 9:24 AM after the paddle, we felt good and we were getting 
> onto bikes. All was well with the world. 
> 
> The instructions for the bike leg told us we could not ride 
> on pavement (except to cross roads) until we reached CP1. 
> This made the logical course of action to take the abandoned 
> railroad tracks. First we had to get there – and we passed 2 
> teams debating the meaning of East. Knowing the maps to be 
> out of date (and they would truly prove this on this leg), we 
> simply took whatever trail looked good and easterly and 
> quickly made our way to the tracks. Riding on abandoned 
> railroads tracks is like trotting a horse. Your rear gets 
> quite a workout and if you try to talk it comes out with a 
> characteristic knock of someone speaking while thumping their 
> chest. Since the time the map was made and we did this race, 
> someone built an entire city along this stretch of railroad 
> with plenty of crossings that had never been mapped. This was 
> no problem, the 13 km I measured to CP1 was not going to 
> change and we simply rode the tracks until we hit CP1 (at 
> 10:50 AM). Along the way we did notice a few teams that 
> decided the road running parallel to the tracks (with a bike 
> lane!) was much preferable to our selected route. Of course 
> this was a violation of the race rules – but my opinion is 
> that is a problem that race directors need to fix. Racers 
> will inherently always try to take the easiest route, and 
> usually out of simply not understanding the rules, not 
> because they want to cheat to gain advantage. A couple of 
> teams missed the CP (it was on the tracks) because of the 
> road travel – so any time advantage they gained, they also 
> lost. No biggie – Gomez was there at the CP1, we got our 
> passport punch, informed him all was well – and went on our 
> way for about 28 km (17 miles) of road biking to the next TA 
> We formed a tight bike line, pushed our speed into the 20+ 
> mph range and flew through the last half of this ride 
> arriving at 11:36 AM (a full hour after the leaders). 
> 
> We took a little time at this TA. I could see the next trek 
> leg would easily be more than 20 miles, and would take us 
> through the heat of the day. My strategy was a solid 
> consistent walking pace and conservative navigation. In 
> retrospect, probably too conservative – bushwhacking south 
> from OP2, instead of using the trail around would have saved 
> 2 ½ km of walking and would have been an easy bushwhack. We 
> still reached CP2 at 3 PM. One of our friendly teams we like 
> to race with, Bill Jacksons Adventure Racing had already 
> passed us twice (they would pass us a third time) – so our 
> navigation strategy must have been working. They would pass 
> us one final time in the leg from CP2 to TA3. This entire 
> section of race was completed in the heat of the day, with no 
> shade except for a few short sections where we instead 
> slogged through water. With at least 4-5 miles to go we had 
> run out of water, I was completely through my 100 oz water 
> bottle and the 2 bottles of Gatorade I had brought. Then a 
> miracle happened, the park service was driving around the 
> course in a souped up golf cart giving out water. Even though 
> I felt that I had been roasted, I was hydrated. We (meaning 
> me, the rest of the team looked strong) dragged into the TA 
> around 6 PM (having been passed by Bill Jacksons again). This 
> was going to be a longer transition – we needed to eat and be 
> ready for the next bike ride. After a (cold) shower, some 
> solid food, and a wet towel – I was ready to mount the bike. 
> Plus – I love racing at night, it is cooler and most teams 
> travel slower at night, but I travel faster. 
> 
> The first part was going to require some serious navigation, 
> the rules had eliminated all the easy routes (power lines to 
> the north, border road to the south) – we would have to weave 
> through a lot of dirt roads. We biked along many other teams 
> at this point who were lost or having trouble. I let Don take 
> the navigation for this leg. As we exited the park though the 
> required waypoint – we had three teams working together. From 
> the Waypoint to the next TA we had road biking and three 
> teams that knew how to form a line. We put the heads down and 
> with Don leading hammered through the ride. As we crossed 
> under I-75 on CR-769 we were flagged off the road. It was 
> about 9-10 PM and the RD had decided that bikers traveling on 
> CR 769 must be followed by a car for safety. It became 
> apparent why as we saw 2 semi-s and a yee-haw redneck fly by 
> at 80+ mph (on a small 2 lane road). Another 6 ½ miles of 
> hammering put us into the TA on the Peace River and what we 
> knew would be the first major navigation challenge of the race. 
> 
> The trek across the Myakka plains would test the physical 
> abilities of the teams, the paddle through the Peace River 
> and up Shell Creek would test the abilities of teams to 
> navigate challenging (meaning many choices) waterways – and 
> for us it would be at night. Mickey had planned on doing all 
> the marine navigation and he had proven himself capable in 
> many races. We put in the boats, with a bit of a switch. I 
> was still queasy from the previous trek and had not regained 
> my balance. Jamie was racing strong – so I got into the 
> Nootka with Mickey and Jamie got into the Arrow with Don and 
> we pushed off. The problem with the navigation in this river 
> segment is there are plenty of choices – all of which take 
> you onto long backtrack legs. I was very comfortable in the 
> Nootka, Jamie looked OK, though you could see she was not 
> terribly happy with the Arrow and the required constant 
> adjustments to keep the boat balanced. 
> 
> Team TAR (Tallahassee Adventure Racers) had lost (yes lost) 
> their map of this section, so they joined us for the paddle. 
> The first portion of the Peace River (heading South) was 
> quite easy, but after about an hour of paddling Jamie had to 
> switch boats with me. This was fine and we pulled over into 
> the mangrove shallows where we switched places. The constant 
> tension required to keep the boat upright had aggravated a 
> muscle pull in her back and she was in obvious physical pain. 
> A little bit of painkiller helped ease up her back pain and 
> we successfully found ourselves in Shell Creek. As we paddled 
> the sound of flowing water grew louder, soon drowning out 
> most all of the other sounds. We had found our way (with 
> minimal) mistakes to the dam noted on our passport after 
> about another hour up the creek. Here we would portage (on 
> the North Side), locate the creek entrance and follow it to 
> the takeout. There is something menacing about a dam at 
> night, it was a long dam with water flowing – though it had a 
> drop of only a few feet. With Team TAR – we portaged the 
> boats, after chasing away a water moccasin from the portage 
> location. Unfortunately – we did not chase away the fire 
> ants, and as Don and I headed out we quickly learned we had 
> stepped in a pretty severe mound. When you are paddling in a 
> boat that tips over when you turn your head, you are in an 
> alligator infested lake, just upstream of a dam, and the 
> water has the appearance of sewage, and it is 3 AM – the last 
> thing you want to do is to risk tipping your boat over 
> killing the fire ants that are chewing on your feet. We took 
> successive turns counterbalancing the boat while the other 
> person squished the hateful little insects, I ended up with 
> only 9 bites. 
> 
> The water in the lake on the other side of the dam looked 
> very nasty – we crossed over to the South side and headed 
> towards the entrance to Shell Creek. We passed a bunch of 
> folks partying by a campfire (it was about 3 AM) along the 
> shoreline and they offered us some beer (we declined) and 
> directions to Shell Creek and some advice, “You’ll get lost”. 
> It did not take long for us to run into trouble – the river 
> seemed to split into about 4 directions within the first 200 
> yards. We decided that east (the general map direction would 
> work) – but we quickly found ourselves hemmed in to a swamp. 
> I heard a motor and we backtracked to the motor location to 
> find a fisherman. He offered some sage advice, “Just hug the 
> south shoreline and it’ll get you to the boat ramp”. Ahh, the 
> obvious, when faced with a maze simply stay on one wall – 
> theory is you’ll always find the way out. After about another 
> 15 minutes we were able to make pretty decent sense out of 
> the river channel and we picked up the pace. There were still 
> a few short creeks on the right shoreline and I’m pretty sure 
> in a couple of places (as mapped) we paddled 200 meters to 
> make about 20 meters as the crow flies. Still, we were making 
> good progress – and I felt for some of the other teams that 
> would surely end up in the swamp that bordered the northern 
> side of the creek. 
> 
> Pulling out of Shell Creek with team TAR, who we had spent 
> the time laughing and joking with (they were a fun-loving 
> team like us), we learned that the next leg had been 
> shortened. The story as we got it was that the Alligators in 
> Cecil Webb WMA were so bad that the Race Director had decided 
> that it was unsafe to send teams into that area. Either way – 
> it meant that we would instead go around the area by bike. We 
> decided to spend a little time in this TA to refuel, 
> meanwhile TAR was ready quickly and came to get directions 
> for the next bike leg. These were simple, head south out of 
> the parking lot for 3 km to CR74 and head east, go 15 km (9 
> miles) to CR 31 and head south about 22 km (13 miles) to CR 
> 78 and head east again 9 miles. I repeated this a few times 
> to make sure they had it, after they could repeat it back to 
> me – they left and we continue to prepare for the relatively 
> short bike ride. As we exited the parking lot we had to make 
> a small jog to the west to continue south. The road was a 
> hard packed rock road that resembled the bumps on a roller 
> coaster. We kicked up our speed to enjoy going over the small 
> rises and dips in the road. These continued the entire 3 km 
> to the turn onto CR 74. It was quite dark with a light fog, 
> and we moved quickly in a bike line down the deserted country road. 
> 
> After about 4 miles on CR 74 we heard a large truck heading 
> our direction and saw the lights appear in the distance from 
> out of the fog. The truck however had not seen us and as he 
> approached us, he noticed the lights of the bikes moving in a 
> line. It must have appeared (as we imagined) as something 
> across the road – as his reaction was to slam on the breaks 
> and start skipping towards us across the center line. We 
> easily avoided him, but behind him we could hear another 
> truck in the fog and we soon passed gas truck heading his 
> direction. Luckily the gas truck was much more alert than the 
> first truck and had already started slowing at the appearance 
> of the first set of break lights. As we biked away I glanced 
> back to see both trucks stopped in the middle of CR 74. I had 
> used enough adrenaline in that small encounter and luckily 
> the remainder of the ride was eventless. As we turned on 78 
> and headed east again, the crew for Team TAR passed us and 
> shouted that their had been a problem on the road with our 
> crew and they would be late to the next TA. Because the ride 
> was so short – I had suspected that we would already beat 
> them to the next TA and sure enough we pulled into TA6 which 
> appeared completely deserted. 
> 
> This was the first time in a race I had actually pulled into 
> an empty TA. We were the only ones there, our team, the crew 
> for team TAR, and the volunteer manning the TA. It was a 
> strange feeling, but it was not long until our crew finally 
> joined us – they had tried to tow the trailer down the short 
> rolling road leaving the last TA only to bottom out the 
> trailers. They ended up backing up 200 yards by one account 
> (1/2 mile by another) and going around the road on real 
> pavement. We still had not seen team TAR who left about 10 
> minutes prior to us, and we had not passed them on the road. 
> We had lost our race-mates and they had no map. I went over 
> the instructions I had given them – it would have been 
> difficult to get lost, each intersection was well marked and 
> lit, and there were only three. Oh well – we prepared the 
> boats and got ready for the next leg – an 18 mile paddle east 
> on the Caloosahatchee River, we expected 3 ½ hours of 
> paddling under good conditions. 
> 
> The sun was just rising as we put the boats into the 
> Caloosahatchee River. The water was beautiful. Don and I 
> decided to switch to rowing the Pamlico. We had both had 
> enough of the Arrow and really just wanted to relax on this 
> paddle segment. The navigation on the river was trivial – the 
> river was 200-300 meters wide and there were essentially no 
> intersections on the river to allow anyone to make a wrong turn. 
> 
> The north side of the Caloosahatchee River is a sheer cliff 
> face about 10 feet high, the south side is gently sloped with 
> many large homes and beautiful houses. Don and I settled into 
> a rhythm with Mickey and Jamie behind us in the Nootka. We 
> chatted and admired the scenery, essentially zoning out and 
> enjoying the paddle. As the sun rose, so did the temperature 
> – but it was still nice and fairly cool on the water. As we 
> turned into the northern bend in the river (before Denaud) we 
> noted that we could not see Mickey or Jamie behind us, so we 
> pulled to the side to wait for them. After 10 minutes we 
> began to worry, they could not have gotten lost – and it 
> would have been relatively impossible to swamp the Nootka in 
> the river. I said that if they did not show in 5 more minutes 
> we would go back and find them, sure enough as soon as I said 
> that we saw a boat make the turn north and head our way. It 
> was hard to make out in the low sunlight – but the rhythm of 
> two kayak paddles was unmistakable. As the boat got closer I 
> realized the rhythm was wrong – it was Team TAR, not Mickey 
> and Jamie. This immediately set off a surge of panic, but as 
> I looked beyond them I was relieved to see another boat, this 
> one unmistakably the Nootka. Only one paddle was moving. Don 
> and I hopped into the boat and rowed out to meet Team TAR. 
> They informed us that our girl was seasick and might need 
> help. We rowed back and stopped, meeting them at a dock. She 
> crawled out of the boat onto the dock and proceeded to dry 
> heave over the side. 
> 
> Don and I quickly assessed the situation. We had no real hope 
> of rescue – we needed to get our injured team-mate to the TA, 
> which was still 6 miles distant. We hoped we would be able to 
> recover her there – but we would need to allow her to rest on 
> the paddle. The plan became to put Don and I in the Nootka 
> and Mickey in the back of the Pamlico. We would slide the 
> front seat of the Pamlico back enough so Jamie could lie down 
> and then we would tow the Pamlico. This worked quite well for 
> the next couple of miles and then the boaters arrived. 
> 
> I have paddled in many places, but never had I paddled in 
> places where large cabin cruiser style boats would blast by 
> you without the least attempt to slow down. In the distance I 
> watched one ski boat towing two skiers get caught in the wake 
> of a cabin cruiser and nearly backflip. These boaters were 
> sure in a hurry to get somewhere – and here we were towing a 
> sick team-mate in an open cockpit boat with about 6 inches of 
> clearance over the water. I was steering the Nootka and made 
> it my challenge to ensure that we took the massive wakes from 
> these boats at the best possible angle. This was incredibly 
> challenging as the north shore (still a sheer cliff) simply 
> reflected the waves back at you from that shoreline. Then to 
> make it worse the large boats started coming from both 
> directions. A miracle, some hard paddling, and a lot of luck 
> got us past this challenge and into TA7, exhausted but 
> surviving. Jamie was in bad shape; she was nauseous and dizzy 
> – but she was also cold to the touch and not sweating (and it 
> was 90+ degrees out). We had given her 30 minutes in the air 
> conditioning to try and cool her off and get some semblance 
> of recovery – but she was getting worse, not better. The 
> safety director for the race called for an ambulance and we 
> knew that the race for our team was about to take a bad turn. 
> We were in 4th place at the time. Jamie had gone from a 
> pillar of strength to incoherent and unable to move in the 
> span of 15 minutes and now she was about to be ambulanced off 
> to the hospital. 
> 
> It was a tearful farewell as the paramedics took Jamie away. 
> Any racer who has ever left the race course on a stretcher (I 
> have) cannot help but feel they have let the team down. 
> Having been on both sides of the stretcher – I also know that 
> all we feel is compassion for our fallen team-mate. Jamie’s 
> last words before the ambulance doors closed were “keep 
> going, make me proud” and there we were. Don, Mickey, Jamie’s 
> Father, and I were standing in the parking lot watching her 
> pull away. Jamie’s mother was with her in the ambulance. It 
> was a cold feeling. I knew as the team captain I had to make 
> a choice, I asked and Don wanted to go on, Mickey wanted to 
> go on – and I would never let Jamie down when her last words 
> were “Keep going”. We now had to decide what we would do next. 
> 
> There we were standing there watching the ambulance pull away 
> with our team-mate. Being upset by this turn of events I went 
> into the trailer and sat for about 15 minutes to think about 
> what our options were. I felt sick to my stomach and was 
> wavering in my resolve to continue – but I also knew that 
> Jamie would want us to go on with the race, that for us, was 
> no longer a race. Eventually I shook myself from the funk and 
> headed out to make a plan. The first thing we had to do was 
> let the race management know that we wished to continue – of 
> course with 3 people this would be a real problem. After a 
> few phone calls we had made contact with Team Guinness who 
> was ready to head home having also lost a team-mate. They 
> warned us they were not fast and that they were a couple of 
> hours drive away – but that did not bother us, we had no 
> plans of racing fast at this point, and were in no hurry to 
> get anywhere. It is amazing how your motivation simply melts 
> away after losing a team-mate. 
> 
> While we were waiting for Team Guinness to show up we greeted 
> the few teams that came through the TA. I pulled my phone 
> that was mandatory gear out of my pack and decided to make a 
> few phone calls. I called my wife to find out that she was 
> only a couple hours away also. While we were waiting Don’s 
> wife also showed up with his daughter. Sure enough my wife 
> beat Team Guinness to the TA so I was able to see my wife and 
> kids which tremendously lifted my spirits. When the “Guinness 
> Boys” as we came to call them showed up we were back in 
> action. We talked about our skills and goals for the race. 
> They warned us about not being fast – but they were all good 
> bikers and that was our next leg. I said good-bye to my wife 
> and kids, mounted the bike and headed out on the next leg. 
> They asked me how long the next bike leg was and my response 
> was 35 miles. This also became an ongoing joke – because 
> every time I was asked how far we had to go I would respond 35 miles. 
> 
> The first part of the ride was quite fun, we headed south 
> across the Caloosahatchee bridge in Labelle and shortly 
> afterwards my wife passed us in the van. Dave Brault’s wife 
> (team Sun-tek) also passed by. A couple of miles later on we 
> were greeted by a cheering squad on the side of the road as 
> they stopped to cheer us on. The two women and 7 kids were 
> all out there screaming and hollering. In adventure racing 
> you don’t get a lot of cheering sections and this really felt 
> good. It was not too long until I was smiling once again – 
> the adventure was still on. 
> 
> The ride took us to a little area (I cannot call it a town) 
> called Sear. On the way, we passed a large white old school 
> bus filled with immigrant workers and I had flashbacks to 
> some of my trips to other locations. (Realize I had not slept 
> yet). As we arrived where we were supposed to turn south down 
> a dirt road to find a CP we ran into Team ARFE. One of their 
> members was crashed under a tree and they looked like they 
> were having trouble both navigating and with the now 
> oppressive heat. They were at the north end of a dirt road – 
> and we started down the dirt road, but I immediately realized 
> this was wrong. The road was bordered on the east by a ditch 
> and the map showed a road coming in from the east. My thought 
> was that we were on the wrong side of the ditch so we 
> backtracked and went down the correct trail on the west side 
> of the ditch and found the CP soon after that. We continued 
> south on the dirt road which started becoming softer and 
> softer sand. I thought about the Coast to Coast from last 
> year where I spent 10 hours pushing my bike through sugar 
> sand in 100 degree heat – I was hoping the road would improve 
> and sure enough it did shortly. The remaining navigation was 
> quite easy with a simple out and back on a named road with 
> road maps posted at the trailhead of the wilderness area. 
> Team ARFE had passed us on the earlier bike ride and we 
> expected to see them on the out and back – but did not. Don 
> had been towing Mickey through much of the ride, but he was 
> looking strong as were all of the Guinness boys. I felt good 
> and Mickey was also looking strong, though he had been having 
> trouble with the pace of the bike ride. Team Guinness had 
> been quite capable of keeping a strong bike line and with all 
> six of us riding line – we were able to keep a solid pace 
> just under the 20 mph range. We headed east down the main 
> paved road for a few miles, turned right on Wild Cow Road (I 
> liked the name) and pretty soon were at the Transition Area. 
> 
> In our current condition, even though we were all doing well 
> physically – we were also not motivated to move through the 
> TA quickly. With the loss of Jamie – we also lost her parents 
> who made up half of our crew. Jamie’s mom and dad had been 
> making Don and me food, giving us cool towels in the TA, 
> icing down the coolers, generally doing all those things that 
> make the race less suffering. By now my cooler had about 10 
> Gatorades, a half-filled gallon of Accelerade, a Mountain 
> Dew, 2 Red Bulls, and some miscellaneous energy bars and gels 
> floating in lukewarm water. I started the race with 4 
> bladders (I carried only one) which allowed me to easily 
> switch out water bladders. I typically carry only water in my 
> bladder – but I also grab a few drinks (hopefully cold) and 
> chug them in the TA, and also carry one or two with me in 
> each leg. I stuffed down some food and took my time packing 
> food for the next trekking section. It did not look like a 
> long section (maybe 4-5 hours) and since we would get out 
> around 5 PM we would hit darkness while out there on the 
> course. We gathered the six team-mates together and headed out. 
> 
> Duct tape and Vaseline are two items no adventure racer 
> should be without. Vaseline protects your feet from forming 
> blisters, at least for a while. Duct tape protects the 
> blisters once they have formed. My feet were in relatively 
> good condition – I had one large and two small blisters on 
> each foot – but the “hot spots” or so we called them were 
> well protected by the tape. Don’s feet were in worse shape, 
> his blisters covered most of the sole of his feet, though he 
> had bled out the blisters well and had done a good job of 
> covering them with duct tape. We hoped the trek would remain 
> dry for at least the majority of the trek – as water would 
> bring rubbing, and rubbing would bring pain. 
> 
> The trek appeared that the navigation would be easy – but we 
> soon realized that would not be the case. I realized that the 
> race director had used a GPS unit to map the trails in the 
> area – but only those trails he had used. The other trails 
> were not mapped and they were important as they intersected 
> and crossed, and joined the actual mapped trail that made up 
> the course. We took an early easterly turn (as did other 
> teams judging by the footprints) but realized that we were 
> wrong as the bearing was off by 20 to 40 degrees from what 
> the mapped trail showed. We backtracked a kilometer and took 
> the next trail about 250 meters further down and this time 
> the bearing was correct. After about another kilometer the 
> map showed the trail taking a 90 degree turn from due south 
> to due east. At about the location mapped the trail continued 
> south with another trail forking out at a T at 90 degrees. At 
> that point I realized that we would have to be meticulous in 
> tracking our distance. We needed to take the trail that 
> turned, but it was not mapped as a T intersection – meaning 
> that we would be making turns to go the correct direction 
> that would not be mapped. After about another kilometer we 
> ran into our first marsh section – this meant two things – 
> one our feet would be wet, and two we would be able to easily 
> track any other teams that were in front of us. I counted 8 
> sets of prints here traveling in two distinct groups – two 
> teams had gone this way prior to us. At the next intersection 
> we also picked up fresh automobile tracks. I suspected the 
> control at OP9 had been set by vehicle and we were following 
> the vehicle tracks. As we continued the truck tracks 
> continued also. After what seemed like an impossibly long 
> sludge through the marsh going due east we reached a fence 
> line and OP9. I had though we had gone a bit further than 
> mapped – and the team was both stunned and elated to find the 
> control. 
> 
> Our trek was not over, we headed north on a berm road that 
> was only vaguely mapped. By my calculation we needed to head 
> north 3 km, it became dark while we trekked this direction. 
> After roughly 3 km we saw the mapped trail heading east 
> again. I noted that the eastern trail had been kind of 
> “squiggly” but thought that we really only needed to follow a 
> single. I also noted the print of a bike that head headed out 
> and back on this trail (and the northern berm trail). I was 
> not sure why a bike would be this far out in the middle of 
> nowhere – but I did feel sure that nobody other than an 
> adventure racer or crew would ride one out here. I was now 
> sure of the fact that we were the third team through this 
> section and the tracks were distinct in the mud. As we 
> continued I realized the squiggles on the map were important 
> – they indicated the direction we needed to take at the 
> intersections. At one point we needed to take a right on a 
> road and the next left, all indicated by a small line going 
> east, then south, then east again. About the time I pointed 
> out we had 30 minutes to go, we ran into the TA – Oh well, no 
> point in complaining, we were there and we had only trekked 4 
> ½ hours. 
> 
> We checked in at the TA. We learned that this section had 
> taken the teams in front of us a lot longer to do and there 
> were at this time only 4 teams in front; ASM, E-caps, 
> Tally-Ho, and Nature Calls (who were still in the TA). I knew 
> we would be slow through the transition, so I went over and 
> chatted with Jim and Lori of Nature Calls. They were worried 
> about Jamie (as was I). I had never raced with Nature Calls, 
> but I had raced side by side with them many times and they 
> had always been great companions. When I raced alongside them 
> I would always forget that we were racing, instead we were 
> working together to overcome the course. They are one of the 
> teams that make me love the sport – the camaraderie between 
> teams is alive in them. Eventually I went back to our TA and 
> checked my cooler – I now had no Red Bulls or Mountain Dews, 
> and I was down to 8 Gatorades (I had drunk two earlier). I 
> drank some of the now warm Accellerade to wash down a couple 
> of Granola Bars and waited in my lawn chair for everyone to 
> get ready. 
> 
> While this was going on I was getting news of the course. 
> E-caps had taken nearly 11 hours in the previous trek, all 
> teams but Tally-Ho had had difficulty. Team TAR who went in 
> the woods 5 hours before us, were still in there and their 
> support crew (also wife) was extremely worried. We also heard 
> that one of the support crew for Team E-caps had driven off 
> the road and her car had blown up, but that they were OK. The 
> location of the TA made it very limited access for teams – 
> luckily there were only a few there. The large vehicles had 
> to park 5 miles away and ferry into the TA in smaller 
> vehicles. The route was easy to follow – but contained a lot 
> of turns. Our next leg was a road bike into TA10 and a new 
> set of instructions – we did not know what was going to 
> happen after TA10 as our instructions ended there. 
> 
> The team of 6 men now being called CFAR/Guinness headed out. 
> We were in a very desolate area of Florida. But we were also 
> soon on pavement. Don put Mickey on the tow and we headed off 
> into the darkness at a moderate pace (16-18 mph). We stopped 
> a couple of times to pee, and also change gear and lights. At 
> one point I lost sight of at least 5 others as Will from Team 
> Guinness and I stopped to change the batteries in his light. 
> We took 4 miles to catch up. As with every bike leg I was 
> asked how far this one was – and of course I answered 35 
> miles. Our only obstacle here was the bugs and there were 
> plenty. They got into your mouths and eyes, but did not 
> really slow the pace. We even knew how far we had to go – as 
> there were plenty of signs telling the distance to Billies 
> Swamp Safari (which was TA10). We simply followed the signs 
> and around midnight we arrived. Here we were going to get 
> some interesting news. The next leg was a long orienteering 
> leg with 3 checkpoints. Only Tally-Ho and E-Caps were 
> actually out on the course. ASM was standing around in the 
> checkpoint area and Nature Calls was over with their crew 
> preparing for the trek. All the other teams in the race had 
> been diverted off the course and leapfrogged to this TA, 
> though not all of them had arrived, but none of them had 
> actually gone out on the orienteering. We were told that 
> Tally-Ho had been out there for over 10 hours. As always, the 
> race had changed and it was about to change again. After 40 
> hours of racing all the front teams were fairly tightly 
> bunched. Two were out in the wilderness of the Big Cypress 
> Indian Reservation in the darkness and we were about to head 
> out there also. 
> 
> One thing I needed and wanted before heading out on the final 
> trek leg of the race was food, real hot steaming food. With 
> part of our support crew gone, I was willing to beg for it. 
> All I had left was bars – I did eat some. We had decided that 
> since we were unofficial anyway – only Don and I would go out 
> on the trek, which was good since we were pretty resolved at 
> this point. We made a pact that we would ensure to each other 
> that we would both finish and do every leg of the race. I was 
> chasing the personal demons of a DNF from the previous year 
> where I was medically pulled due to heat exhaustion. This 
> year would be different; I was not so much resolved to 
> finishing quickly, as much as I was to simply finishing. Don 
> had his own reasons for going on, but they drove him the same 
> way mine did me. My plan was find some food and head out with 
> Don and any of the Guinness team that wished to go. I talked 
> with them and they seemed pretty lukewarm to the prospect of 
> 8+ hours of trekking. I said I was positive we could do it in 
> less than 8 hours, but none of the evidence from other teams 
> seemed to make that look like a certainty. Will of Team 
> Guinness said he would go, the other team members and the 
> Guinness crew looked at him like he had just committed to 
> walking into a snake pit. I said we would meet in 20 minutes 
> and head out. 
> 
> My next objective was food. We had to have something, so I 
> headed to the camper and started working on Noga, Mickey’s 
> wife to see if we (Don and I) could get some hot food. She 
> thought that there was nothing we could eat in the camper, at 
> the same time she was looking on the cupboard and pulled out 
> a container of baked beans. In the refrigerator there had 
> been a package of Hot Dogs, so we were in business. Cut hot 
> dogs – add to baked beans and instant racing fuel. Don and I 
> polished off both cans and a 6 pack of hot dogs and then met 
> Will (from Team Guinness) to head out on the course. As we 
> arrived at the TA tent, two wildlife officers were talking 
> with Gomez, the race director. There seemed to be some 
> problem and Gomez told us to return in 30 minutes. I told 
> Will to meet us back at our trailer in 30 minutes and Don and 
> I decided to try to catch some sleep, 30 minutes worth to be exact. 
> 
> 30 minutes later we arrived (it was now 3:30 AM) at the 
> checkpoint just as team Tally-Ho was coming off the course, 
> after nearly 12 hours. We knew it would be difficult 
> navigation. Will decided to opt out on the orienteering, so 
> it was just Don and I that would be heading out. Being 
> already unofficial, there was no pressure for Mickey to join 
> us – and Don and I, even with our blistered feet would be 
> able to move fairly quickly. The 30 minute nap had me feeling 
> remarkably refreshed. When I had first shut my eyes, 
> thousands of images flew past me as my subconscious mind 
> moved quickly to remove 40+ hours of litter from my brain. 
> The sleep was more mental than physical – our bodies were 
> still quite tired from the long race – but I did feel 
> mentally sharp. The first order of business on the trek was 
> to get a solid feel for our walking pace. On the first trek 
> we had been walking at about 9 min/km, our pace here was much 
> closer to 11 min/km – but knowing this allows us to estimate 
> how long we would take to reach each important point on the 
> map. We estimate our pace by taking a known measured distance 
> on the map and timing it. We then simply divide by distance 
> and we have pace. 
> 
> The first control, OP10 was quite easy to find and we came 
> upon it exactly 32 minutes after the southward turn. 3.1 km 
> in 32 minutes – our pace was pretty solid. 14 minutes later 
> we were making the westward turn to collect OP11. As we 
> walked towards this control we could see headlamps 
> approaching us. We passed Kip and Ulf from Team E-caps. The 
> conversation with them was nearly surreal, almost something 
> you would have in the halls at work; “Hi Kip”, “Hi Ron”, 
> “Need Anything ?”, “Nope we’re good”, “Good luck”, “Thanks, 
> see you later”. We had passed Jessica and Murray earlier, 
> they were sitting on the side of the trail, they saw us – 
> though we did not see them in the darkness. 
> 
> To get to OP10, the map showed a subtle northward dimple off 
> the due east trail, which was following a fenceline. This 
> subtle dimple was actually a trail with a fairly hidden 
> entrance that Don had spotted. The trail simply took us 
> around a wetland and returned us back to the fenceline. It 
> appeared to me that the flag should have been along the trail 
> off the fence – but Don spotted the flag in a bush after we 
> had returned to the east-west trail on the western side of 
> the marsh. Nonetheless, we had found it without any real time 
> wasted and quickly turned around for the long trip back. When 
> we reached the north-south trail we had come in on, we broke 
> into a light jog. It was quite cool and the trail had good 
> footing and good running conditions. We knew the sun would be 
> rising soon and the heat would be something we would contend 
> with for the third day of racing in South Florida. We passed 
> one team resting by OP10, we passed a second team resting at 
> the entrance to the road. It was now light, and we continued 
> to run until we reach Feeder canal, about 5 km of running in 
> all. We had made excellent time and I estimated that if we 
> could avoid any major navigation errors we would finish this 
> leg in about 5 ½ hours. 
> 
> We slowed the pace on the feeder canal heading east. I had 
> measured the distance to the southern road we needed to take 
> at 3.4 km, and estimated the time it would take to reach it 
> at 36 minutes. Along this route we ran into Nature Calls and 
> stopped to chat with them for about 10 minutes (I did stop my 
> watch). We exchanged some local knowledge and wished each 
> other luck and then continued to the flag. The actual 
> location for the southern turn had 2 roads heading south, 
> about 200 meters from each other. We took the eastern-most of 
> the roads and quickly (within 9 minutes) found the flag. It 
> was simply head back to the TA, a 7.4 km journey and we would 
> be done. We had only about an hour worth of trekking and that 
> would be our last trek leg of the race. 
> 
> The sun had already gotten quite hot as we finished the last 
> few miles to the TA. I pulled out my cell phone as we walked. 
> Amazingly for the first time I had tried it in the race I had 
> a decent cell phone signal. I called into the TA to let them 
> know we were 20 minutes out and that they could start 
> breakfast. Noga had planned on eggs and sausage and I could 
> almost taste them, I was quite hungry. I called to see how 
> Jamie was doing and to let her know we were fine. As we 
> turned the corner into the big parking lot at Billie’s Swamp 
> Safari most of the vehicles that were there the previous 
> night were gone. There were still quite a few crews left – 
> but it appeared that most of them had moved on to the next TA. 
> 
> We took our time and ate a good breakfast. We had to drive to 
> the next TA and I went over the driving directions (which 
> were wrong as they had been changed) for the TA. The mistake 
> we made next would never had been made had we been fresh. The 
> instructions to the next TA had been changed to have us take 
> the main road to I-75, head East, and get off at the exit 
> where there was a boat ramp on the Miami Canal. The old 
> directions had us following a dirt road along the Feeder 
> Canal for nearly 15 miles. We followed the feeder canal and 
> when we reached the location in the instructions and there 
> was absolutely nothing there. We called Gomez who told us to 
> go back to the TA, a 30 minute trip. We called Noga who was 
> in the TA to get directions from the TA attendant. She walked 
> over to the TA tent and proceeded to repeat the instruction 
> given by Steve who was there. I could not make heads or tails 
> of the instructions, so I asked her to give the phone to 
> Steve – but for some reason she did not understand me or 
> would not do it. This went on for about 15 minutes. We 
> stopped and started debating a course of action when Team 
> Guiness called, from the actual location we needed to head 
> towards. I grabbed the phone and asked the simple question 
> “where are you?”. After learning that they were at a boat 
> ramp at exit 35.7 off of I-75 – I knew where we needed to be, 
> but it appeared the only way we would get there would be to 
> double back. Except
 
> 
> We had passed a concrete bridge over the feeder canal about 1 
> mile north of our location. The bridge looked sound. I had 
> also noticed a dirt road leading along I-75 on the east side 
> of the canal. It appeared to head towards a fence that gave 
> access to I-75. We turned around, headed for the bridge – 
> where a few folks fishing had to move so we could cross the 
> narrow bridge. Then a huge stroke of luck, there was a man in 
> a truck with a Nam-vets sticker and 2 tow trucks on the east 
> side of the bridge. The man could open the gate and show us 
> how to get onto I-75, and just like that we were back in 
> business, of course had the crew gotten instruction this 
> could have been avoided. Mickey complained about the poor 
> quality of the crew instructions, and I could not argue with 
> him. I did point out though, that we had the only crew that 
> did not know how to drive to the next TA – and my philosophy 
> has always been, “if you are the only person to make the 
> mistake – it is probably your fault”. I did not argue the 
> point – we were heading to the next TA and we needed to save 
> our energy for the remaining legs of the race. 
> 
> Team Guinness met us at the TA and they were eager to hit the 
> water and complete this paddle. I was looking forward to a 
> relaxing leg of the race. My plan was to race with Mike from 
> Team Guinness in the Amarook. I would have now paddled in 
> four different boats in the race. We hit the water with Mike 
> in the back and me in the front and proceeded to steer into 
> the west shore, then the east shore, then the west shore. 
> Mike explained that he had never steered one of the boats 
> before and he was having an issue with over-steering. I 
> helped coax him and also had him reset the foot pedal and 
> then he was doing much better. He was still having a little 
> problem with the steering, but we were not running into the 
> shoreline – and every overcorrection Mike would curse himself 
> and apologize. This did not matter to me – the paddle was 
> short and straight and surprisingly scenic, mostly due to the 
> incredible number of alligators. 
> 
> The paddle was essentially uneventful. With about 2 miles to 
> go, down a long straightaway I noted that we should be moving 
> faster. InkoSport (I think) was paddling next to us and even 
> though I was hammering the water we could not make any real 
> time on them. That was when I craned my neck around and 
> watched Mike’s paddle stroke – a long stroke reaching way out 
> and pulling as far back as he could reach. I explained and 
> demonstrated the proper form and why knifing the paddle out 
> of the water at the hip line was important. He picked up on 
> the new stroke technique immediately and just like that we 
> were pulling away. Of course this was in the final 2 miles of 
> the paddle. 
> 
> My wife and kids were waiting at the next TA, which was good 
> because our support crew was not, they were on their way. The 
> area was a complete madhouse with drunks at the local bar, 
> tourists going on airboat tours, and everyone else jockeying 
> for the few parking places available at the boat ramp and 
> bar. I went to my cooler to at least get a drink and found 
> only brown hot water and a single remaining Gatorade. What 
> happened next was a matter of debate – though I do know I 
> went to Mickey to plead my case for crew support. After 5 
> TA’s of warm drinks, I was about to lose it. My wife spotted 
> this and went to the bar/convenience store/bait 
> shop/restaurant to get some ice and some Gatorade. She came 
> back with at least a dozen bags of ice and some cold Gatorade 
> lemonade flavor – she really knows how to make me happy. She 
> then got the crew to empty the water from my cooler and ice 
> it down. Later they told me I was yelling and pleading and 
> had pretty much started to unwind. Luckily I rewound myself 
> and after about 3 false starts, Don and I, and the 3 Guinness 
> boys (Mickey stayed behind) headed out on the last bike leg 
> of the race – a 55 mile bike ride down the berm road to Homestead. 
> 
> I did want to get out as early as possible on this, the RD 
> had estimated that the ride would take at least 6 hours. We 
> had hoped for more like 5, but in true adventure racing 
> fashion we would do what had to be done. The daylight would 
> be important as the berm road was littered with giant bike 
> eating rocks. We tried a bike line for a while, but for some 
> reason even though the line would miss it the rocks always 
> seemed to nearly take out my bike. We instead moved to a 2 
> across line (we had 5 riders) and left a little more distance 
> to allow the rear riders to see the roadway. Of course this 
> would only work until darkness. There were two OP’s along 
> this route and the plan was to stop and eat at the first one, 
> which we did. We passed two teams along the way – both moving 
> quite slowly, it would take them at least 10 hours to 
> complete this leg. I admired their determination, though they 
> were tired (not that we weren’t), the race had taken a 
> tremendous physical toll on them and they still had the 
> resolve to keep moving on a leg that would take them half a day. 
> 
> We kept moving. We passed more teams. It got dark and we all 
> got our lights going. We would see a light along the berm in 
> the darkness in the distance. We would reach it, we would 
> keep going. We traveled with other teams, passed them and 
> then were passed. As we passed the major landmark on the east 
> across the canal we were riding along, the Homestead Airport, 
> I knew that the leg only had about 10 more miles. I was 
> having minor hallucinations, mostly imagining I was in a 
> tunnel. The road was in much better shape for the second half 
> of the ride, which was wonderful considering the darkness. 
> When I passed a large Italian woman on the side of the road 
> selling lasagna and then Mickey Mouse wearing golf shorts and 
> cheering us on I realized that I might be hallucinating. It 
> did not matter we had only 5 miles to go and at least the 
> hallucinations were benign. The only problem with 
> hallucinations on a bike is when they either cause you to 
> react (and ride your bike into a fence or canal), or you 
> ignore something real like an alligator on the road because 
> you think it is a hallucination. I was kept company all the 
> way to the TA by a score of characters, mostly imagined – but 
> still they kept me going. 
> 
> The scene at the TA was quite different from the previous TA. 
> I had already decided we would take at least a 60 minute nap 
> before the next final 22 mile paddle to the finish line. 
> Partly because I was tired, but mostly because I wanted to 
> arrive around 8 AM so my wife would have time to be at the 
> end. If we had cared where we were place-wise I had thrown 
> that out the window long ago. Don and I would follow our pact 
> to finish every leg and finish strong. Mickey, who had not 
> ridden, had made us Chicken Rice soup with hot dogs (don’t 
> knock it until you try it). I lay down in the camper, and 30 
> seconds later I was being awoken. Amazingly someone had reset 
> my watch (on my arm) to exactly one hour since the last time 
> I had looked at it. I groggily stumbled outside, put on my 
> shoes and clothes, slammed a Red Bull (my last), got my pack, 
> water bladder, and paddle – and got into the boat. 
> 
> In this last paddle segment, we took the Pamlico, I was in 
> the back this time with Mike in the front. I could better 
> coach his paddling from this side and he was doing well. The 
> other 2 boats had a 5 minute lead on us so we hustled to 
> catch up. Since it was dark I was unable to see the water we 
> paddled in, but after running into a tire, and picking up all 
> types of debris – I suspected it was not necessarily clean. A 
> few miles down we portaged around a lock and the water seemed 
> to be much cleaner. A berm road ran along the east side of 
> the bank. The portage had brought with it a swarm of 
> mosquitoes and they seemed to be able to follow us even after 
> we headed out on the water. The repellant which had been so 
> effective the night before seemed to not have the same effect 
> tonight. After a few minutes we left the swarm. 
> 
> Mike and I paddled well together and eventually we all came 
> to US1. We went under US1, portaged another lock and then Don 
> and Mickey debated the route for a few minutes. To me it 
> seemed simple, follow along US1 until we could cross under it 
> again at Jewfish Creek and then we would have 3-4 miles to 
> the hotel. Another great thing about the time we chose to 
> paddle was the sun would be rising across Lake Surprise as we 
> paddled across the lake. The water was surprisingly choppy 
> and we had to pay close attention to keep the waves from 
> swamping our low riding Pamlico. Mike was also having some 
> issues with the sleep monster. I would yell “Mike!” and he 
> would start paddling hard, then would start fading slowly out 
> over the next few minutes until he was stating to doze – I 
> would then yell “Mike!” and he would start back hard. I was 
> having no trouble staying awake – realizing that if we hit 
> any wave wrong we would be swimming. We passed another team 
> on the water – I think it was Inkosport. They followed us to 
> Jewfish Creek. 
> 
> Don and Will led the way in their Amaruk to the finish line, 
> we were about 5 minutes behind and I even took the time to 
> play with a victory lap. We could see the hotel, and the 
> finish line. Then I could see my wife and kids. My wife would 
> later say that I looked half-dazed, but I knew in my heart I 
> was elated to be there and to see them waiting for me. A 
> bottle of champagne was opened, and I remember the tastes and 
> feeling it in my hair and face. After nearly 74 hours of 
> racing that was more than just a race – it was a journey. We 
> had lost a partner, we had made new friends, and we went 
> through many physical and emotional ups and downs. Don and I 
> had learned that we were solid as a team – and I had the 
> feeling of invincibility when we were racing together. 
> 
> The end of the story is like every race, we slept for a while 
> and then had the ceremonies where we chatted about the course 
> and congratulated the winners, Teams Tally-Ho, E-Caps, ASM, 
> and Nature Calls had completed the entire course and finished 
> places 1 through 4. Later that evening we would get up and 
> eat dinner, pack up and get ready for home. We would say our 
> good-byes. For those who have completed an expedition 
> adventure race, they understand the bond and the strength of 
> the friendships formed, the throwing yourself against your 
> own physical and mental limits and seeing where you stick. 
> These are the types of things that are impossible to explain 
> to those who have not felt it. Now, weeks later one thought 
> goes through my head – “So when is the next race?” 
> 
> - Dr. Eaglin
> 
>