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Gobbler Adventure Race - Adventure


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Apopka, Florida
United States
Total Time = 3h 12m
Overall Rank = 12/15
Age Group =
Age Group Rank = 0/
Pre-race routine:

Drove from Miami to Apopka, somewhere NW of Orlando.

Got there before noon, and the 12hr race was already underway. We registered, prepared our gear, changed, had lunch and went back for team meeting.

We were given our maps about 40 mins prior to the start.

Here's our first mistake: we opted to do only the mandatory CP's and not any of the bonus ones.

Then on to our second and most crucial mistake: I decided to do the bike orienteering in reverse order. The bottom of the map indicated a fence. From there we would just go west about 10 min and find a paved road. (more on this later).

Everyone was really laid back and friendly, as AR people usually are all over the world.

RACE START: We run about half a KM toward the bikes.

Once we got on our bikes we rode out of the park toward the TA. Most of the road was sandy, so the bikes were hard to steer on some occassions. Mayde did a good job staying on the bike and choosing good lines.

We got to TA among the first 4 teams, got our passports and started off on the trekking section. We reached the first CP in about 4th place, the second and third ones in second place. The team in front made comments implying that we were following them, but they were simply going in the right direction.

We found our way toward the TA (bypassing the bonus CP's) in first place. Completed a special task (walking on tandem wooden skis) and left TA with no other teams in sight.

We should have quit while we were ahead. LOL!

Here's where our most crucial mistake took place. We rode South toward that "fence" on the map. We rode on sand and rough terrain. Never found it. It seems that the fence simply indicated the end of the map, which I later realized. Stubborn as I am, we kept going south to find it. After an eternity, I just opted to navigate toward the west and find the paved road showing on the map. But, of course, we were too far south to ever get to it. Frustrated, we opted to ride back to TA after failing to find 2 of the 3 mandatory CP's.

Once at TA, we saw only 1 pair of bicycles, which meant that we had gone from first to next-to-last. A full hour had passed since we left that point.

We rode as hard as we could and finally, on the right track, found the 3 mandatory CP's fast, passing a few other teams. We rode really hard and showed good teamwork.

Once back at TA, we completed a frisbee task and rode back to the starting line. Dropped off the bikes and completed a short rock climbing task. From there, we got on the canoes for the first time in our lives.

We did OK, getting passed by one team and passing two others. But would have definitely done better if we had managed to keep the darn thing going straight most of the time!

Overall, we finished in 3:12 and the winners in 2:56. But because we were over than 3hrs, we received a time penalty and we also didn't collect any bonus points (though we passed right by the bonus CP's!), which would have helped.

I'm used to racing by time and not points. Anyways, it was a fun day and we felt really strong and worked well together.

Of course, I'll be the first to tell you that AR is all about navigating correctly, something I did not do on this day! A little bit of inexperience and maybe a bit of overconfidence affected an otherwise excellent day.
Post race

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Last updated: 2007-11-30 12:00 AM
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall:
Mental exertion [1-5]
Physical exertion [1-5]
Good race?
Evaluation
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Events on-time?
Lots of volunteers?
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Post race activities:
Race evaluation [1-5]

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2007-11-30 12:14 PM

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Extreme Veteran
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Brisbane
Subject: Gobbler Adventure Race


2007-11-30 7:48 PM
in reply to: #1076424

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Master
2314
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Gulf Shores, AL
Subject: RE: Gobbler Adventure Race
Fun report even if you made a navigational error. You adventure racers are a different breed.
2007-12-02 7:27 AM
in reply to: #1076424

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Master
1573
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Red Sox Nation
Subject: RE: Gobbler Adventure Race
Canoes?  That's a recipie for 'when bad things happen to good people!'  Glad you two made it back! 
2007-12-02 7:16 PM
in reply to: #1076424

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Extreme Veteran
600
500100
Melbourne
Subject: RE: Gobbler Adventure Race
Stubborn, you? Who would have thought...
Glad you enjoyed the day otherwise.
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