Florida Coast to Coast 2006
The Florida Coast to Coast has begun.
Greg Yetter / 26.05.2006
At 1:00am on Friday morning the Florida Coast to Coast sent the racers into the calm waters of the Gulf of Mexico to begin this year’s race. Looking like a line of Christmas tree lights bobbing in the water, 30 kayaks with 59 racers onboard paddled out into the darkness. With light winds and calm seas racers made good time on the initial paddling section of the race. Arriving back at the hotel were most spent the night competitors transitioned to their bikes for a challenging course to include a suburban maze of streets to make it to the bike drop and the start of the first trekking section. This section took its toll on several teams with the heat and humidity of the day. One of the check points on this section was fiendishly placed and teams had to be on the ball to bag this one.
After completing what a member of Team Nature’s Calls (#8) the “suntan death march� teams reached TA 2 to move back to their bikes. The first check point after this TA had the first cut-off time of the race. Teams had to be able to finish the bike leg through past the CP at Tucker Hill to remain on the full course and remain ranked. Unfortunately, several teams did not make this time. At the time of this post, not all information had been relayed from the CP’s to inform Race HQ of which teams were moved to the shorter course.
Team Mighty Dog is holding the lead in the Co-ed division and headed to TA3 and the next paddle section. To make it to this point teams had ridden their bikes over 110 miles through Central Florida during the heat of the day. To make matters worse several severe thunderstorms with lightning and some hail paid the teams a visit after 1500 slowing down some of the racers. Some teams however seemed to take little notice to the sudden change in the environment.
Upon reaching TA3 racers will transition to their kayaks and paddle across Lake Hatchineha to a CP and then exit the boats to do the orienteering leg of the race. Upon completion of the O-course racers will get back in their boats and paddle to the next TA.
Be sure to check the leader board to see where on the course your favorite team may be and watch for future race reports.
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