Howl at the Moon Adventure Race
2007 Howl at the Moon Race as seen by Team Freaks Uf Nature (FUN)
Dennis Godber / 26.10.2007
The Howl has always been a great race and except for the very first one I have either raced or volunteered in every one. This time I participated and did it with Chris Cooper, who is pretty new to the sport, but rocked on this race!!!! Going into it and from his experience at Swamp Stomp we had anticipated 16 + hours at an average semi aggressive pace where we planned on having a lot of fun! Always good to set realistic expectations going into a race, especially with someone you have never raced with before.We carpooled up to the Suwannee River area on Friday from the Tampa/Clearwater area, stayed in the local Econo Lodge on Friday. We got to the T/A, set up, and hung out for a bit talking about the rac! e and the gorgeous area. The check-in is always a good time with seeing and catching up with racers from this awesome community as well as meeting new racers. Got checked in and went back to go over last minute arrangements and to feast on our Publix subs! The race briefing was thorough talking about the safety aspects of the course and acknowledging all who assist with putting on such a race. Gomez teased everyone by holding up a medium sized heavy looking pumpkin hinting we may have to carry one (reference to previous races). We all laughed and those who did those previous races immediately worked through the logistics in our heads as to how we would handle that. Got the maps and went back to our T/A area to work on them but it was only 2 maps and a few points so working together with Chris reading the passport while I plotted the points and then both of us double checking we were done in no time. While formulating our route and plan of attack where I realized we could take off mileage by swimming the river near 10th Ter. and after a brief discussion we agreed that is what we would do.
The race started with a social tour of the local woods lead by Gomez, common sense gives that it was to spread the racers out before the first swim where we would pick up CP1. I decided to try something different and started off with wearing my Dallas Cowboy Crocs with my shoes and pants in a dry bag in the pack (Yeah, I am a Dallas Cowboys fan through thick and thin!). It worked really well, and I didn’t need to stop and take anything off before the water. Normally I just go through water and not worry about it but since we weren’t shooting for first place and since wet shoes and socks increases chances of blisters on such a long trek we opted for dry feet! There was a picnic bench on the other side that we used to put our shoes and socks on, plus my ankle brace and it was a good thing because we inadvertently helped a couple of teams remember CP1. We were jogging down the trail and hung out with Beth and Yvonne for a bit joking around as I (and apparently several other teams) was waiting for the trail to turn South Westerly which was our attack point for OP1. We were just remarking that it felt like we had gone to far when we saw several teams coming back at us for OP1, upon rechecking the maps I realized that there was two lines in this area and the trail didn’t actually turn, as it had initially appeared. We quickly got our bearing back and found OP1, which was in a cool sink hole with caves and all!See All Event Posts
