Boar AR with Canyoneros Crossover

One of our mantras during raceday is "Race our own race."  Often, this means avoiding group think and making sure our navigator makes the calls.  Other times, it's about pace management when you don't know where other teams are.

Case in point:  Canyoneros were all out speed-demons on this Boar AR, and when Hien graciously gave me their gps data, I knew I had to dissect their routes.  While we were proud of our second place finish in elite, these guys came in 16 minutes before us!

A quick overview of the race.  The Boat section (typically not our best discipline) put us ahead by 22 minutes that Canyoneros ate away at over the next several sections.  Our team optioned to do the Foot 2 and finish with the Bike 2, whereas Canyoneros did the opposite.  Orange times indicate where Cow Tipping Dwarfs were ahead.

	Canyoneros	Cow Tip	Delta	Cumulative
Bike 1	0:53:00	0:59:00	0:06:00	0:06:00
Boat	1:54:00	1:32:00	0:22:00	0:18:00
Bike to Foot1	0:09:00	0:06:00	0:03:00	0:21:00
Foot 1	0:31:00	0:44:00	0:13:00	0:08:00
Bike to TA	0:11:00	0:12:00	0:01:00	0:07:00
Bike 2	0:43:00	0:50:00	0:07:00	0:00:00
Foot 2	0:41:00	0:55:00	0:14:00	0:14:00

Bike 1

The first section was a run over the bumpy cow pastures to Ron Eaglin hidden behind some trees where each team member had to give him a high five and return to the staging point and grab our bikes.  Looking at the replay, Canyoneros got back first but had a much longer pit stop.  But their speed allowed them to quickly catch up and pass.  Unfortunately our course ran us into an unexpected fence.  By CP 3 Canyoneros had a sizeable lead.  At some point they ran into some bike troubles according to their blog, but it didn't seem to slow them much.

Takin' bumps like a boss

Boat 1

At some point I think Canyoneros had more bike trouble on the way to the Boat TA.  We about 4 minutes behind them, but were able to transition in a little over 2 minutes.  Their transition time was almost 4 minutes and this got us just two minutes behind them.  At this point Mugwumps and an M2 team we didn't recognize were right with us.

A good deal must be said of our Navigator, Ben, as he was able to leverage his previous experience in the boat section, including some repeat points that Greg indicated were on the maps.  Perhaps most importantly, Ben picked a key portage that got us ahead of both Mugwumps and Canyoneros.  From the Canyoneros blog:

For CP7, we took a shorter route, but I'm not 100% sure it was the fastest route.  Even though we were first out on the boat, a couple teams mysteriously hopped ahead of us at this control.

Key Portage approach from 6 to 7

The key portage from CP 6 to 7 gave us the lead for the first time in the race.  We took CP 8, which was furthest south, and headed to CP 9.  We ran into several teams that appeared to portage across from CP 7 to CP 9 and continue north?  We were confused as it seemed like they had to have skipped CP 8, and the Mugwumps who had caught up with us again, agreed.

Now, with the Mugwumps nearby, and several other teams slightly in front, we rode a wave of other teams that helped verify CP locations on 9 and 10.  By 11 they were ahead but clearly confused with the exception of the Mugwumps, and we grabbed CP 11 and continued on without much delay.  CP 12 followed, and then on to CP 13 where we got turned around a bit and actually happened on CP 14 first and then CP 13.  Well, it was more like: stinging nettles, CP 14, more nettles, then CP 13.  Mugwumps were on the southern side of all this and had the lead on us.  That M2 team also appeared at this point, although I don't know where else they had been up til then.  Back to the Boat to head on bike to the Foot 1 section!

First (and last?) time I've seen felt these in Florida

Foot 1

"Race our own race".  Right behind the Mugwumps, we made a conscious decision to take a clockwise route instead of following the Mugwumps.  We opted to cut a corner but that put us going thru high grass or parts of the forest.  We lost time there, but not so much.  Notably on the opposite direction, Canyoneros were faster in almost the same area.  Well they were faster overall on this section.

Passing between CPs 17 and 18

This course bearing portion was the funnest portion for me.  We might have been faster but we were taking careful bearings so as to not miss any CP's.  Once we got out of the forest, there were the Mugwumps again, having just turned in their card.  We followed them back to the Main TA.  We were leaning toward finishing on bike, and taking the Foot 2 next... when the Mugwumps heading out on bike, it was clear we would do Foot 2 and race our own race.

Foot 2

Our first interaction was with actual cows... and they weren't in the mood for tipping.  They stood their ground and looked on as we wisely veered off our course.  Foot 2 was fairly straight forward although it took some careful consideration to find the white hash line to CP 29.

Note to self: don't be the red shirt

Bike 2

For this leg, a number of other teams were alongside us for the the first half, although they may have been the sport teams.  At this point, we hadn't seen the Canyoneros since early in the boat section, but we knew the Mugwumps were ahead at the start of the Bike2/Foot2 portion.  We definitely didn't have the stamina for the 6 hour races like other seasoned elites, but we pushed on knowing that Mugwumps were likely on slightly ahead.  The bike CP's weren't hard to locate, but the wind and distance made this challenging.  Everyone at this point had suffered cramps, except maybe Josh, and the promise of the finish being close kept us going.

The Finish

By the time we came in, I noticed Hien was already comfortable in post race clothes.  Well, we were surprised because we expected to be behind Mugwumps, so we anticipated maybe a third place finish.  The story afterward was a bad nav error held up the Mugwumps, giving us the second best time and our first top-three finish in an Elite!