Florida Coast to Coast Adventure Race
Florida Coast to Coast a racers view
Dr. Ron Eaglin of Team Dirty Fish / 02.06.2007
This was the 9th installment of the classic Florida Coast to Coast Adventure Race. I’ve raced 7 of them, finished 6, and helped directed one. This was also my first time as a relay racer – since I really wanted to try this format where 6 team-mates race with always 4 of the 6 on the course. My team-mates were Rod Price, Dave Brault, Bob Denney, John Hollingsworth, Jim Fuedner – and we would be racing as team Dirty Fish.Many of the teams had a hard time finding the start, so the 6 AM start time ended up being pushed back to 6:30 (hmm….). We started with a 3 mile run down A1A where we entered The Guana Forest. John and I ran the first road section and then waited for first Dave and Bob to catch up, enjoying the facilities at the entrance of Guana. Once entering Guana we were greeted with wonderful shaded trails and relatively simple navigation. Towards the end of the trek we decided to shortcut across the saltwater marsh as the tide was low and the water was very shallow. This turned out to be a good move as it saved about 20 minutes, however as we reached TA1 at 11 AM our “walking only� pace had put us already 2 hours behind the lead teams, which had arrived and left at 9 AM. I vowed to not look at the TA splits after that.
A quick road ride of about 20 miles left us at the edge of the St. Johns River and the first paddle section. It became obvious that the team would not transition quickly as we spent nearly 45 minutes preparing to enter the water and start the paddle. I sat out this section, which was advantageous as I needed to do some bike repairs. I also was able to go by Publix and get some Fried Chicken – a real treat for an adventure race. We drove to the TA (fighting nasty Jacksonvillle traffic) and soon after the team arrived. We heard stories of teams capsizing their boat on the heavy chop on the St. Johns – as it turns out our team was one of those, but it must not of hurt them tremendously. We had another slow transition preparing for the next leg which would be a long (we estimated 12 hours) bike ride. This would also require tricky night navigation (my strength) and I was determined to bring our team back up into the front pack.
TA4 was relatively easy, though the correct road from CP4 was tricky as it looked like a driveway in the dusk and our small group (2 teams) was reluctant to take it. We entered some nice single track as it was getting dark and got to the final dirt (and sand) road leading to CP5 just as Bill Jackson’s was coming out. A quick consult with them confirmed my strategy – to use trails to get as close to the river (either one) as possible and then handrail the river to the control. We ran into Jason (Team Hoof-hearted) who had been searching for 3 hours and was thinking about bailing – I told him to come along and I was confident we would find it relatively quickly. He dropped his bike (I promised to bring him back to it) and we found the flag in about 15 minutes.
On the way out from CP5 we decided to use the western trail (hoping to avoid the sandy trail coming in) and were rewarded by a rideable trail back out from TA5. We also got to be yelled at by some redneck lady who claimed we were trespassing. We basically ignored her and got out of there. In my experience paranoid folks who live deep in the woods are paranoid for a reason, and though there was no threat of her calling authorities (they also don’t want cops around these activities), they do sometimes decide to protect their turf.
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