Sea 2 Sea

Pangea Sea 2 Sea 3 Day Adventure Race

February 14-17, 2013

Rev3/MK Racers: Greg Voelkel, Dusty Reppuhn, & Britt Mason

FLX/USAF Racers: Dave Ashley & Chuck White

Race Report by Britt Mason
 

Last week, a handful of Rev3 racers traveled down to Florida to compete in the Sea 2 Sea 3 Day AR. For everyone but Dave, this would be our first multiday race. On Wednesday afternoon, we all met in Crystal River at the Best Western, which would serve as race headquarters. We made last minute adjustments to our gear bins, bags, and bikes, and then handed them over at check-in to be loaded into the U-Hauls that would follow us across the state the next few days. After the pre-race dinner (which may have included tequila shots), we had the race briefing, led by Greg, Pangea's race director, where we were given an overview map showing TA locations and a general breakdown of the disciplines. The course was broken up really well, transitioning several times each to bike, trek, and paddle. The distance across the state would be covered in the bike and paddle legs, while the foot O-courses would be out-and-back loops. With no more gear to check or maps to study, we got a full night's sleep!

 

Race Day

At 6:30am, we received maps for the first paddle and bike sections and loaded the bus for a 3 hour drive to the Atlantic near New Smyrna Beach. There was not a lot of route planning to be done, but we pored over the maps anyway and ate as much as we could. At the drop-off point at the Turner Flats, we assembled paddle gear then headed over to the beach for team pictures. We would have a short beach run to CP1 and then head back over to the boats. After final announcements, we were off for what would be our biggest adventure yet!

 

Prologue-Paddle 1 (6mi)

CP1 was being held by the RD's son about 400m down the beach. As soon as the front runners got close to him, he took off at a dead sprint down the beach! Once caught, he surrendered, and we headed back to the boats. On the water, we took the safe route around to the Intercoastal, which was longer but did not cost us much time. We had problems with our 3rd seat, which would be a theme for the paddle sections. Note to self: get a different seat.

Bike 1 (48mi)

We transitioned to a road bike section and immediately fell into a strong 5 person paceline. Unfortunately, as we picked off teams, our paceline continued to grow until it was more than 15 bikes long. No one else could hold the same pace at the front, so we pulled teams along for about an hour. Finally, we made a breakaway and were free! 

Trek 1 (8mi)

Straightforward section in the Wekiva area. Ran this entire course. Took just under 2 hours. Still had about an hour of daylight left as we took a short bike ride over to the Wekiva River.

Paddle 2 (21mi)

Darkness fell and the rain came in as we started this 9 hour paddle. It was all against the current except when we were returning back up a creek and later a spring. Greg and Dave navved the majority of the foot and bike portions, and I did most of the paddle. We had trouble with a couple of the early paddle points but got into a groove after a few hours. For this paddle leg, each CP on the map represented a take-out point. From there you used a bearing to find the actual CP, which was on the back side of a tree. If you didn't come out of the water at just the right location, your bearing was off. Quite a challenge in the dark and fog! The final point was an out-and-back down a spring, about 9k round trip with a stiff current on the way there. We saw Checkpoint Zero coming out as we were heading in, so we knew they had a couple hours on us at this point. Back at the TA, the U-Hauls were heavenly, offering us a dry, warm place to change.

Trek 2 (11.5mi)

Nailed this section. Walked almost all of it. Saw a lot of traffic here as teams evened out by skipping some of the paddle CPs.

Bike 2 (44mi)

All road again. Day came cool and cloudy. This ride was mostly an urban bike trail through northern Orlando to the O course at Lake Louisa. At the first CP, we met up with CPZ. They had been there for an hour searching for the point. We agreed to move on. Turns out we were supposed to get instructions for the bike section, and this point was just a question with no punch. CPZ and the other teams around us were eventually awarded our bike leg time. After this leg, we knew we were an hour behind CPZ, who was in the lead and had emerged as our only competition for the rest of the race.

 

Trek 3 (12mi)

Lake Louisa. The sun came out and made for a beautiful day. Again, easy points here. There was a lot of sugar sand, which made for some tough hiking. We sampled some of the wild tangerines growing along the course. Delish. My knee started going out here and would be the trend for the next 36 hours. When we got back to the TA, we found we were 2 hours behind CPZ and thought we were out of the running. We took a much needed longer TA and agreed to ease up and have fun. Up until this point, we wasted no time getting in and out of TAs. Refreshed, we were ready for the next bike leg.

 

Bike 3 (47mi)

This turned out to be the most challenging bike section of the race. Took almost 7 hours. It started out on roads and then entered the Richloam Wildlife Management Area, a maze of deep sugar sand trails with abundant craters. As difficult as this section was for nav, Greg and Dave moved us through it with no problems. It was just slow going due to the terrain. When we reached the Withlacoochee TA, we were informed CPZ had not been in yet. Game on! Lesson learned: in an expedition race, a couple of hours means nothing and can be made up very quickly. Here, we were given maps for the rest of the race, including this trek, a paddle, and a bike. The amazing volunteers here had made piping hot Ramen noodles, which we all eagerly consumed before getting the heck out of Dodge.
 

Trek 4 (31mi!)

We headed back in to Richloam for a marathon trek that would last 15 hours. The course consisted of a long loop on the western portion of the map, which covered half the points and about 2/3 of the distance. The eastern portion was a smaller loop with points closer together. We opted to go clockwise, getting the furthest western and northern points out of the way first. Most of this O course was based off of an orange trail that we followed for hours. At some point late in the previous bike leg, we made the (bad) decision to not sleep tonight. We all ended up sleeping at some point. I was asleep on my feet most of the night (thank goodness for trekking poles!), and most of us had hallucinations. Dave was talking to plants, and for me, the trail was like a moving walkway in an airport. We would never go anywhere because we were stuck on this walkway. It's really hard to get off an imaginary walkway without falling down! The night was pretty entertaining, and we laughed a lot. When we started having nav problems, we finally succumbed to a nap. Lessons learned: try to sleep before your nav falls apart, and when one person sleeps everyone does. As the sun came up, Dusty, Greg, and I caught back up to Dave and Chuck, who had continued on looking for a point while we took a break. They were stuck, but somehow Greg marched right into the woods to the CP. By this time we were starting on the smaller loop, some of which was on a blue trail. Nothing was too difficult, but people were a little loopy at this point. We saw a baby diamondback rattlesnake on the trail, which was a first for me. Later, Dusty and I were strolling along, and I saw a weird shaped pinecone on the trail. "Hey, that looks like a duck..." and I poked it with my pole. NOT a pinecone. Someone took a dump in the middle of the trail. Who does that?! This would be the source of much laughter for the remainder of the race. The sun was getting hot, and we were running low on water as we hit the last CP and took the road back to the TA. Along the way, Chuck decided to take a nap and wandered all over the road dragging his trekking poles behind him until Dusty woke him up.

Paddle 3 (24mi)

After a gear check and a lightning fast TA, we said goodbye to Dave and Chuck for the final push to the finish. At this point, Chuck's feet were in bad shape, and they took some time to tend to them. The wind picked up on this leg, and as it got closer to dusk, we added a couple of layers to stay warm. The points were pretty straightforward. We just paid attention to bearings and nailed each one. For the 3 of us, this leg was the most enjoyable. We felt great and laughed all the way across Silver Lake. The Air Force guys paddled longer in the dark and felt the effects of the cold a lot more.  As we entered the portion of the paddle lined with cypress trees, I think everyone was having rockin' hallucinations. The best part was no one mentioned anything about them until after the race! The list included wooden sculptures, cars, dinosaurs, modern art, faces, and animals. Very trippy. At one point, I steered us around an imaginary car. As we rounded a bend, Greg said, "Is that the CP?" Me: "No, that's a gator." Gator eyes are orange if you've never seen them at night, and there were plenty of them out on the water. After finding the final CP, the TA was right past a bridge. With each turn of the river, someone yelled out "There's the bridge!" Finally, the real bridge appeared, and we were off the water. 

 

Employees of the restaurant where Chuck and Dave warmed up after the paddle

Bike 4 (44.5mi)

After changing into the rest of our dry clothes, we set off for the bike to the finish. Spirits were still high, but we were ready to reach the finish line. With 2 CPs to grab along the way, we found the 1st with no problem. The 2nd was in a cave. We searched for over an hour with no luck. In hindsight, we were going off a 1:24000 scale, when the map was 1:48000, so we were not going into the woods far enough. We had lost our focus and could not puzzle out the problem. We had a choice to make: either stay here indefinitely and keep looking or hope that CPZ also couldn't find it and head back now. CPZ had an hour time credit, so we had to beat them by that much. We decided to head to the finish. Team motivation hit an all-time low, and our pace dropped considerably. It was all we could do to get to the finish. For the last 5-10 miles, I could barely pedal. The knee was finished. We kept moving forward, and at last the Best Western came into view. We made it to the finish! CPZ finished 51 minutes later, officially clearing the course. Air Force finished shortly after that. We were awarded 2nd place, with Air Force coming in 3rd. It was a great back-and-forth battle between us and CPZ, and while it hurt to not find the final CP, we sure had a blast competing. All told, we traveled over 300 miles in 63 hours, 33 minutes, spending less than 5% of that time in transition.

 

 Entrance to the road to the cave

In the aftermath of the race, we tried looking for a hotel. Dave's wife Diane, with the help of our SPOT, found us and led us to a hotel room, where I promptly fell asleep in my race clothes. The next morning, after sorting through gear and attending the awards ceremony, we all went our separate ways. This race made us all fall in love with expedition racing, and I look forward to doing Rev3's Cowboy Tough this summer. The experience itself is hard to truly put into words. Suffice it to say, we'll be back! We'd like to thank Pangea for putting on such a fantastic race, and we'd also like to thank the volunteers, who are second to none. Your help and support throughout the race kept us going, and it was nice to see a familiar face in the TAs. Also, to all our family, friends, and superfans out there, thanks for tuning in and following our progress with the SPOT. This seemed to be a huge success, and it was great hearing that everyone enjoyed watching us.