Florida Coast to Coast Adventure Race
A First Person Race Report from Team Adventure World Magazine's Dr. Ron Eaglin
Dr. Ron Eaglin of Team Adventure World Magazine / 27.05.2008
It was a small crowd of racers that would be facing what is now by far the most challenging race in Florida – the coast to coast. I would be racing with my Primal Quest partner – Julie Ardoin, and two of her friends – Clay Abney and Joshua Trivet. The pre-race and preparation were the usual – though we did not get our maps until 8 and did not get a chance to start plotting (40 UTM points) the first half of the course (all we had maps for) until 9 PM which as always makes it a long night. We finally got to sleep around midnight which would give us a good 5 hours of sleep before we headed out the next morning at 6 AM.The race started with a prayer and then a 4 ½ mile beach run followed by a roughly 18 mile paddle across the Banana River, north up Sykes Creek, west down the 528 barge canal and then south to Hubert Humphrey Park on SR 520. The weather was cool and slightly overcast making for very pleasant paddling. The last 4 mile section was quite exciting for Julie and I as we were paddling in a Pamlico 160 with an open cockpit. Their was a strong headwind and the waves were cresting the boat. Our paddling experience helped keep us upright, but we did have to essentially paddle sprint the 4 mile section to keep the boat in solid control. Josh and Clay, paddling an Amaruk had a difficult time keeping up.
The transition was to bikes at this point and our crew, made up of Heather, Oscar, and Abhijit showed us how a good crew can help keep you moving. Their were a few teams in front of us – but I was not concerned, this was way too early in a long race to worry about field placement. Our objective was to keep a strong pace for this bike leg which started with an easy, but long bike ride straight west on SR 520 to the southern entrance to Tossohatchee near SR 528 – about 34 km. The cooler weather we had on the paddle gave way to sun and heat and it was starting to get to Joshua. We stopped once to eat and cool him down. We were staying close with Troy Couture – one of the brave solo racers to attempt this challenging race.
The next leg of the race though Tosohatchee would be a much tougher experience for most teams than it looked. The navigation held some challenges, but the heat held more. This is where we started with problems. The heat was putting Joshua into heat exhaustion and Clay was suffering from a knee injury. We were finding it very difficult to keep the group moving. At one point Clay was curled up in fetal position, looking really pale. He told Julie that he might pass out. Julie deadpanned – “If you pass out we’ll stop – now get your bike and let’s go�. Josh meanwhile was showing early signs of heat exhaustion with serious muscle cramps and alien looking spasms in his leg muscles. We used combinations of walking, resting, coaxing, double biking, and pack carries to make it through this section and finally emerged at the other end of Tosohatchee a pretty bruised up team. The good news is that the remaining bike leg was a 26 km road ride. I had brought my tow rope so was able to tow Joshua to the TA and Clay had recovered enough that he was able to maintain pace. It was not necessarily a fast road ride, but it was good enough to get us there. At the TA it was pretty obvious that our 4 person team was about to become a 2 person team. Josh had full-blown heat exhaustion and Clay was pretty much in and out of pain. The only team ahead of us at the time was Nature Calls and there were a few other teams in the TA that looked like they had been sent straight to the TA. My family was here which gave me a great mental and psychological boost. We decided that Julie and I would continue on, we also started calling ourselves Team Blue (our Primal Quest team name). See All Event Posts
