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Contents 1 2009 Atlantic Coast Conquest Info 2 2009 Atlantic Coast Conquest Pictures 3 2009 Atlantic Coast Conquest Maps 4 2009 Atlantic Coast Conquest Website 5 2009 Atlantic Coast Conquest Results 6 2009 Atlantic Coast Conquest Reviews 6.1 Joanna's Take 6.2 Jack's Take 6.3 Jordan's Take 6.4 Josh's Take

2009 Atlantic Coast Conquest Info

Pangea Atlantic Coast Conquest

• Date: April 18th-19th
• Location: Jacksonville, GA
• Event Details: 30 hours
• Event Description: This race takes place around the intercoastal waterways between quaint and historic St. Augustine and beautiful Ponte Vedra, south of Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Among this pristine coastal region you can expect active gators, bushwacking, mysterious waterways, historic sites and more!
• Event Points Category:
  • USARA Nationals Regional Qualifier, USARA Expedition Race + 10 pt bonus
  • Checkpoint Tracker Day Race
• Team Registered: Josh, Jack, Joanna, Jordan

Format:

• 30 hour unsupported modified rogaine

2009 Atlantic Coast Conquest Pictures

2009 Atlantic Coast Conquest
Before Race	Team Running Through Water	Jack & Josh at CP5	Jack & Josh Paddling
Jordan & Josh Heading to 2nd Paddle	Start of Paddle	Jordan In Canoe	Jack At Lookout Tower
Josh in Swamp	Jordan in Marsh	Jack & Josh Paddling at Night	Florida Paddling
Josh & Jack Biking

2009 Atlantic Coast Conquest Maps

2009 Atlantic Coast Conquest Website

Atlantic Coast Conquest

2009 Atlantic Coast Conquest Results

• Placed 8th in 3- and 4-person co-ed division (10th overall) with 41 CPs and a time of 28:09.
• Results

2009 Atlantic Coast Conquest Reviews

Joanna's Take

Back in March when I realized that ACC was only a month away, I suddenly became very concerned that I would screw up this race for the entire team. I had been a little over ambitious at the end of 2008 and burned myself out on too many races in too short a period of time (three races three weekends in a row = bad idea). After Nationals, I decided to take a short break from training and after a couple of months of being a very lazy bum, I thought it was a good idea to go for a very long run. Nope, another very bad idea. With a shot IT band and no motivation to kick back into my training routine, I was very unprepared for this race. Not to mention that I had barely been out on my bike or stepped foot in a canoe since November. Also, I was well aware of how much sugar sand there is in Florida and how tough it is to ride on – my first experience with sugar sand ended up with me lost all alone in the middle of nowhere with an empty Camelback and no map (lucky for me that suspicious truck that kept driving by turned out not to be a serial killer, but an off duty fireman who gave me a lift back to civilization). Needless to say, I made sure the guys were well aware that tow ropes would be necessary.

The Start
I liked the idea of the race start for the ACC, there were two different legs - trekking and biking. Each team could pick which they wanted to do first and move on to the other upon completion. This was a great way to spread the teams out and help prevent a bottleneck. I also liked the fact that trekking was going to be minimal – usually trekking is our strongest discipline, but with my knee being in the state that it was, I felt the less trekking we had to do, the less chance I would have of screwing things up.

We decided to push as hard as we could on the initial two sections since they were short and sweet and we would have a long paddle after to rest our legs. We chose the bike leg first to help prevent us from overexerting ourselves and/or getting a little overambitious and erring on nav like we tend to do when we start on foot. This first section whizzed by pretty fast with the exception of the precarious ride along the barbed wire topped fence which was right at my face level (“don’t fall, don’t fall, as much as that Lasik cost, I’d like to keep my eyes!!!”). Not to mention zooming downhill on a narrow enclosed path, right on Josh’s wheel with confused, angry runners dodging us (something tells me we were supposed to be on the other side of that narrow path, but oh well, too late for that!).

Time to transition to the hike. Stupid gaiters are taking too long to put on, forget the gaiters! The CPs seem pretty close to the trails anyway, so the bushwhacking should be minimal…..

After tromping around through various mosquito infested marshes and wading in ponds full of razor sharp grasses, I determined that leaving my gaiters behind was another, very bad idea of mine. After spending a lot of time searching for a couple of different CPs, I realized that with the absence of key land features in the flat terrain, keeping count of our pace was going to be crucial in this race. I also realized that not thinking about what was lurking in the black water I was wading in was going to be just as critical. Running from the herds of wild boar was going to be VERY important. I decided that a hardened stalk of dead saw palmetto was a good weapon against the raging boar and moved on.

The Paddle
After the first two legs, there was some paddling. Then we paddled some more…. and we paddled a bit more. Okay, we paddled A LOT. After a lot of discussion regarding high and low tides, we decided that kind of stuff was too confusing for our fresh water brains and made the decision to hit every paddling CP on the way out and paddle directly back after the trek. Unfortunately, we had a bit of trouble getting to CP11 on the way out, so we decided we’d hit it on the way in. If we were fast enough on the trek, we might even be able to hit it before it was too dark to spot it.

After falling thigh deep into sink holes and stampeding through mini crab villages, crushing many inhabitants in our wake, we made it down to the second trekking leg. We had discussed having a bite to eat when we hit land in order to keep us from rushing off and forgetting any important tidbit of information. We actually had a very quick bite to eat (more like running and eating) and a few hundred meters out realized we were without a passport to punch. Back to the TA, quick, grab the passport, go! Second trek, second try, I think we’ve got everything now!

2nd Trek
We had heard a rumor that there was one CP on this trek which was a bit hard to find. "No worries," we thought, "we’ll get it!" For the most part, the CPs were all pretty straight forward, but once we hung out on Sunset Blvd for awhile, we got a little worried. “No worries,” I said, “let’s just take Sunset over to Magnolia, then shoot the bearing from there to the end of the firebreak.” That would have been a great idea if there was a Magnolia St. like the map said, or a firebreak to go with it. After finding about 20 different potential firebreaks and Magnolia Streets, we were about ready to give up when, lo and behold, we ran into a real firebreak - one with a very nasty puddle at the end of it.

Okay, shake it off, time to paddle back and find that CP 11.

More Paddling
CP11 became about as elusive as the Fountain of Youth. After trying to paddle through low tide, navigating around treacherous oyster beds, and dodging flying fish which weren’t too fond of our headlamps, we determined that CP11 was a lost cause and accepted our fate of having to skip a CP. At least Jordan & Jack were able to catch a pretty good sized fish in their boat during this effort.

I’m not quite sure how we got the canoe back through the sludgy mud and over to the street. It was most likely due to the fact that Josh got to do most of the work while I put forth some effort to force my arms to work enough to push the canoe behind him. Needless to say, I was pretty worthless on the portage.

Back to the TA
At this point, we were transitioning to the second bike, and it’s at this point where my brain began to fog up and the entire race gets a little fuzzy. When I had packed for this race, I had thought “it’s Florida, it’ll be hot, I don’t need any warm clothes.”
If I only had a dime for every bad idea of mine….
By the time we got off the paddle it was cold and I was wet and shivering. I did what I could to get into something warmer and dryer, but there was only so much I could do. I just had to keep reminding myself that I had survived CP0 ’08 so I could survive a measly, chilly Florida night. In addition to being incredibly cold, I was ravenously hungry. No matter what I ate at this TA, I wasn’t sated and kept feeling like I needed to eat more. I finally gave up and decided I’d just have hit up the next leg with an empty pit of a stomach.

2nd Bike
Bike leg…...... bike leg? What bike leg? Let’s just say I was pretty out of it for that entire bike leg. Going into the bike leg and all the way up to the end of the race, I was incredibly dehydrated. After getting tired of having to constantly yell at the guys to keep going and to not turn around while I ducked behind random clumps of vegetation for my “breaks”, I decided it was better to just not drink any water at all and save the time since my body didn’t seem to be absorbing anything that I drank. I was also incredibly undernourished since I still couldn’t find anything to eat which would fill me up from my multi pound bag of nutrition. I can honestly say that I’ve never been as hungry during any race as I was at this one.

What do I remember about the bike leg? I remember trying to find CP30 multiple times to no avail, I remember Jordan’s derailer breaking, I remember yelling at Josh and Jack to step away from the gator since Josh had the emergency phone and if the gator ate Josh, we would have nothing to call 911 with. I remember having a flat tire, I remember wondering what I was doing at home in my comfortable bed, then realizing I was sitting in a swamp being eaten alive by mutant mosquitoes (resting your eyes during the wee hours of an overnight race, bad idea). One good idea I had was never asking the guys what time it was – being clueless as to the passage of time really works wonders and helps the sunrise come a lot faster.

3rd Trek > 3rd Bike > FINISH
The final trek was pretty uneventful since it was a straightforward scavenger hunt on state park trails. Having decided to leave my trekking shoes at the main TA and do this trek in my “hike a bike” shoes caused some issues since my feet were pretty swollen at this point, but the trails were tame enough that I was able to take my shoes off and walk around in my socks. The fact that my body was impenetrable to water absorption turned out beneficial when the TA was out of water and I was able to share my reserves with the guys on the long bike ride to the finish.

All in all, this race didn’t turn out quite like we had planned, but given the circumstances and the obstacles we faced, I believe we did really well. I don’t judge a race by how well my team placed, but by how well I feel we raced as a team, and I think we did a really great job overcoming each challenge and banding together as a team to get each other over the finish line. Jack did a great job toughing his way through his first full day race, Josh was super at navigating tough, unfamiliar terrain after several months of the off season (Jordan as well on the bike legs), and Jordan amazed us all with his adept single speed skills. I feel that this was a great warm up race for us to kick the season off with, and as in every race, we each learned a lot of valuable lessons that will aid us in all our future races.

Jack's Take

This was my first race that was over 14 hrs long. Rather than starting with a 24 hrs race in the mountains, I opted to do a 30 hr race in nice flat Florida...unfortunately, there was way more sugar sand than I'd hoped there would be...and water, lots and lots of water...

I was a bit disappointed to find out that we could have been racing as a 3 person coed team and still be in the elite category for USARA, Checkpoint Tracker and the Pangea Point Series. Had we paid closer attention (or if that question was answered when I posted on the Trailblazer site), we'd have been racing as a 3 person coed team, so we'd have an extra paddler in the boat. With a 4 person team, we had to use 2 paddlers in 2 boats--probably slower than 3 paddlers.

The race started at 8am with either a bike and get CPs in a new development area or a trek through the woods/marsh for CPs. We picked bike, so we could hopefully burn off some of the adrenaline of the race start that normally causes us to overshoot the first CP (and keep our feet dry a while longer). Well, by 8:27am, my feet were wet, as I was the passport punch guy. The CP was only 20m off the trail in the water, so no need in everyone getting wet yet. We finished the bike section with only one short "wait, not this way" turns. We finished the bike in the second fastest time only 4 min behind the fastest time. (split time: 59 mins)

The trek was next. This involved following forest service roads and trails through the woods/marsh/palms and water, dark, black water...We picked them up in CP1,5,4,3,2 order. We had a bit of trouble with CP4 (NE of marsh), but managed to find it after some searching (and helped quite a few other teams in the process). We decided to follow the fence line from CP3 to CP2 to save some distance, but that's where we encountered our first thigh deep water--what just touched my leg! We had some trouble finding CP2, as we really didn't put ourselves in a good position for an attack point. We ditched the road and headed into what we thought was the "small pond". As we were wading in the marsh, the tall grass started moving violently about 20m away. What the heck is that! It's big! Gater?!?! No, just a deer. We went a bit further south, found the road that led to the parking area, then hit CP2 from there, but not before startling about 5 boar, which luckily ran away from us... Back to the main TA to begin the monster paddle. (split time: 2:20hrs)

They mentioned high tide time would be around 4pm, but when we started the paddle it was around 11:30am. Our plan was to pick up all the paddling CPs on the southbound paddle while we were fresh, but turns out that was not the best plan. We had no real experience with paddling tidal waterways and ended up getting jammed up on some shallow water. We had to ditched the first CP, thinking we could hit it on the way back up when the tide was higher. We got all the other CPs on the paddle down, with relative ease. Josh did a great job navigating the maze of tidal waters through the marsh. We made it down to the southern trek (and TA1) in 5:01 hrs.

The southern trek was very straight forward--on paper. Look at the map, it's basically a cross. No way this could take more than an hour. The RD already said, this is the best map ever. We grabbed a banana or 2 at the TA, but took no extra water, to stay light for the easy hike. We picked up CP20 & 19 without issue, then continued straight south on the southbound trail, where we hit a fence about 1/2 the distance we were supposed to travel. Continuing on, to get to our expected distance put us at a paved road (gotta be E Magnolia, right?)..nope, Sunset Blvd!!! WTF. Apparently, the "paved" roads on the map (including E Magnolia) are now dirt or no longer exist. To get CP21 (southern most CP), you had to turn left at a 4-way intersection south of the CP19/20 intersection, travel quite a bit, then turn left again at the fenceline to get the CP. We'll we found it, finally. Back to the TA to fill up bladders and return to paddling. Oh snap, no water left at the TA!!! Sucks for us, but it had cooled off by now, so we figured we'd be okay for the paddle up. (split time: 2:10hrs)

The paddle north was on nice calm water, but unfortunately, finding the north most CP in the dark in the marsh, at again, low tide, was next to impossible. We paddled up, down, in, out, to no avail. We had to abort and return to the main TA, skipping 1 CP and losing at least an hr. (split time: 4:20hrs)

After the race, in talking to the winning team (Shake-A-Leg Miami), they had a much better plan of skipping all CPs on the southbound leg, doing the trek, and hitting all the CPs while northbound, at high tide! Lesson learned.

Anyway, after returning to the main TA much later than planned, we were glad to be done with the paddling--all 9:21 hrs of it. We refilled bladders, packed more food, changed to dry clothes, and got ready to leave. Biking! Yes! But dang, 9hrs on a metal canoe seat does things to you..no pain, no pain. Off we go.

Our plan on bike was to get all CPs on the southbound run (mainly because that's what the rules said ;) ). We were a bit worried about the trails on the map existing. Some new trails had been overlaid, but that left you wondering if the old trails still existed. My guess, most of the old trails did not...and I'm probably right. They placed CP27 in the middle of a lake about waste deep..that was fun. Then after a few more CPs, we spent a lot of time looking for CP 30 at Cook Landing, to no avail. There were ALOT of trails or firebreaks out there, that just were not on the map. I heard alot of teams ended up bushwacking quite a bit to get that one. We even went back after CP33, to try to find it again with another team. That didn't turn out well, as Jordan hit a log and snapped his derailler off. Luckily, I'd converted another bike to a singlespeed on the fly, on Bull Mountain, so we managed to convert his bike in 10-15 minutes (while being drained of a pint of blood by the nickel sized mosquitoes--no the mosquito size was not an exaggeration! Still we could not find CP30. Abort. A few CPs later, and we were at the next "center of lake" CP, 35. We hit the lake and started looking around for the CP, hoping to be able to see it from dry land before venturing out in the marsh with the gater (yes, we saw the glowing eyes of one that was probably 4-5ft long). While keeping a close eye on those glowing eyes, we made our way out to the clump of trees, where we assume the CP was. Then the glowing eyes dropped below the waterline--break right! We got over to the clump of trees--and dry land, and punched the CP. We returned to the bikes, to find that Joanna had a flat tire. Changed that, then off we went. We skipped one other CP on the way down, since the trail we expected to take was not readily found and we were concerned with the time (maybe CP36, but I didn't have the map). My right knee was really burning (quad tendon) from about halfway down. Eventually we made it to the remote TA2 for the trek. (split time: 8:52hrs)

Southern trek in the preserve, mid bike leg, was straight forward. Wanting to stay light for the trek, I stuck with the 1.5 liters of water/Nuun I had left (out of the 300oz bladder I started with). When we returned, again the TA was out of water. Disappointing when the RD says there will be water available at the remote TAs. We had about 1/2 cup each, except for Joanna, who apparently filled up at the beginning of the trek--thank God. (split time: 2:57hrs)

Northbound bike. Joanna let us nurse off her bladder, as we rode back north on the sugar sand in the noon sun, trying not to dry up into a raisin. My knee didn't like the sugar sand at all, but as we hit the hardpack, I could really cook it, just using my left leg for power. We made it back with no issues. (split time: 1:30hrs)

Jordan's Take

Josh's Take

I wanted to do the Atlantic Coast Conquest because they promised me gators, but we only saw one. Fortunately, it was sharing a pond with a checkpoint, so we had to wade out into the black water at night to punch it. That was CP35 at 3am.

There were 45 checkpoints in the 2009 Atlantic Coast Conquest and 25 miles of water, and so I knew a couple of factors would come into play--navigation and paddling--and that proved to be the case. 45 checkpoints on a 30 hour race does keep them closer together--which helps in terms of knowing exactly where we are on the map, but it inevitably results in more "problem CPs". This would prove to be especially true for our team, since it was only our second time racing in Florida, where the navigation is focused on distances, heading, and tide. How we dealt we this adversity would be our greatest challenge.

I'll be honest and admit with the results posted, that we came to the race with hopes of winning. I had actually picked the teams that we thought would be competing for the podium, and turned out to be mostly right. The first wrench in our gears came when we found out the night before that the 3- and 4-person teams would be combined into the elite category, and later that the amount of 4-person coed teams had dwindled from 6 to 2 and the 3-person coed category had grown by the same. Then we found out that the paddle leg would be 25 miles, which was another bummer, as we knew the 3-person coed teams (now more numerous) would have an advantage on the water (and the majority of them--Floridians--would have twice the advantage, since they tend to paddle more). With 25 miles of paddling, 30 miles of biking, and 15-20 of trekking/running, no altitude gain/loss, and a lot of marsh, this race was the exact opposite of the environments in which we commonly train and race. Laughing our situation off, we tightened our belts and decided our plans were unchanged--we'd work towards a podium finish. Now that the embarrassing part is out of the way, we can talk about our race and how our goals were not met.

I thought the design of the course was nice. It was a modified rogaine format, whereby teams could get the CPs of each section in any order, but the sections were offered up in pairs. When I say pairs, the teams could choose either of the two sections, then within each section, get all the CPs in any order, then move on to the other section of the pair and do the same. The first trek (CPs 1-5) and bike (CPs 6-10) sections were pairs, the first paddle (CPs 11-17, 22; 14 was removed by RD) and second trek (CPs 18-21) were pairs. Then it was bike (CPs 23-39), trek (CPs 40-45), bike back home. Though the layout meant most people were taking the same routes for the rogaine, there were some small alterations. That competitors could choose different sections in the pairings allowed for teams to make a breakaway.

Coming away from a failure, we always tend to focus on the bad. I'll take them on first and then focus on the good:

• The Bad
  1. We Made a Greedy Decision: On our way to CP11 on the paddle, we misread the water levels and turned into the creek prematurely. We stuck in the sludge and lost 20 or so minutes. When we got out of it, we turned in to the correct inlet and saw teams immediately turning North on the first creek on the map. Having just been in the shallows, we opted to paddle to the second creek directly north of CP12, as it looked more promising depth-wise. It didn't exist. By the time we were certain that it didn't, we were 400m south east of it and decided instead of backtracking, we'd continue on and get it on the way back up. This was a poor decision because upon our eventual return, the tide had come and gone, the sun had gone down, and the creek had turned into a maze of mud and oyster beds that were impassible.
  2. We Trusted the Map: I'm still trying to decide if this was a mistake. It certainly was in the case of CP21, but I'm not sure given the map and the bearing on the compass, that there's anything to be learned here. None of the roads from E Magnolia Dr. to the point where it connects to Lakeshore Dr. exist. So after heading directly south from the intersection where CP 19, CP 20, and CP21 are accessible and ending up on Sunset Blvd (far to west according to map), we were quite confused. I had checked the compass as we headed down the road and passed several dirt tracks that weren't on the map and it consistently read south. We circled around, retraced our steps, arrived at the same place. Then we backtracked, found the intersection not on the map, took it in a direction that did not make sense, then did, then didn't. We went through 3 navigators and finally found it, partly though chance, as we were disgusted with it. We scratched our heads all the way back to the canoes.
  3. We Gave Up On a Tough CP: 5 teams out of 16 got CP30. Who knows if we were in the right spot. We approached it from CP28, couldn't find it after searching for 20 minutes, then left, got CP33, then came back to it (after converting Jordan's bike into a single speed when his rear derailler broke off) and arrived at the same place. We searched again, not finding it, we left frustrated.
• The Good
  1. We Kept At It: When you are shooting for the lead, and you realize that it won't happen, it's a big let down. There was nothing we could do about CP11. The decision had been made and now it was not gonna happen. We rallied back and started competing for places, but then missing CP30 and spending a lot of time on CPs we did get, we were well out of the running for anything. In fact, I was pretty sure we were running in last or close to it for the latter portion of the race. Why did we keep at it? Because we're good at fighting wars of attrition, and we knew we could press on and survive. We may not have experience in Florida, but we have experience suffering elsewhere and knowing that we can overcome.
  2. Jack's First Day Race: Jack, hesitant about being able to do it, made it through his first overnighter. That's a big accomplishment.
  3. Joanna Continues To Impress: On the final trekking leg, Joanna, when the other three of us were lacking energy, stepped up helped us get through the final trek. It wasn't motivation, but the care taken that was uplifting, and at the end of a 30 hour race, that goes a long way.
  4. We Met a Lot of Great Floridians: It was good to meet a lot of the Floridian racers. It was quite amazing to discover what adventure racing is like for them.
  5. The Win Will Be Sweeter: When we finally do get our 1st place, the win will be sweeter.

The last thing I want to talk about is the vegetation and animals in Florida. I now know that the "death of a thousand cuts" does not exist--because I have a thousand cuts and I'm still breathing. We bushwhacked through a bunch of saw palmettos and saw grass. We navigated high and low tide conditions in marsh and wetlands, paddling creeks and waterways watching yachts boat by. We had ticks and nickle-sized mosquitoes shrugging off our deep woods Off and feeding off our blood; startled a herd of wild boar across our path; saw armadillos in the trail; had fence lizards speed across the path of our oncoming bikes; eastern box turtles sunning; paddled by exposed oyster beds; banked near piles of clam shells; nearly lost our shoes in mud with hundreds of little crabs scurrying underneath; observed a whole host of wetlands bird species; and watched an american alligator submerge into the black water in which we were wading. It was an amazing adventure!

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