The BEAR promised to be one of the most physically challenging Adventure Races in the sprint AR category. With a 12 hour time limit and previous years winners finishing in the 9 hour time frame this is not an idle boast. The race also promises challenging (mentally and physically) mystery events – and the start of the race showed that this was definitely going to be the case. 

The race started on the beach where each team was given a closed bag (and told not to open the bag until the race whistle). After the start signal was given all teams opened the bag to find an instruction sheet and four strips of rubber. The race started with teams taping their legs at the ankles and knees (to form a 3 person-4 legged racer) racing down the beach to a turnaround where we had to switch the order of the team-mates being tied and race back (with a little crawl course under some pipes on the way for good measure). Once completed even numbered teams went north, and odd numbered teams south for a 2 mile out and back beach run. 

As we soon were to find out – every time we headed for the transition area we needed to cross the great wall (a roughly 12 foot wall) to get instructions for the next leg. (At this point our team was the second one over the wall). Each time we crossed the wall we got our passport stamped and directions (written) for the next event. Directions were a series of explanations and compass bearing that were to be to be followed. As it turns out the next event was mountain biking. 

We headed out strong on the bikes south along the beach, up the boardwalk, and the small wall (only 8 feet). As the first three teams approached the wall we went over with our bikes. The wall attendant told us we had done it wrong and could not proceed – after reading the directions again, we noted it said nothing about taking bikes over the wall and so all three teams had to rescale the wall – this time without bikes to proceed. I don’t think the teams behind us made the same mistake. It was then on to about 7 miles of excellent critical terrain biking down trails with names like “Grunt”, “Steamer Lane”, “Log Jam”, “Toxic”, “Twister”, and “Misery”. It was hard riding at a brutal pace on critical terrain – all the while looking for the yellow flags indicating control point punches and the course markers. At also started raining at this time – and hard. (It least it kept it from being too hot). I only face planted one time and luckily did not break my arm. The biking looped us back to the short wall and then back to the tall wall and instructions for the next event. 

Before the race started we had been required to drop off our boats a few miles away at a boat ramp on San Pablo Creek. We were now to navigate to the back entrance of the park and run (via roads) to the boat ramp. After one required gear check along the way – we were on the boats and in the water paddling hard. The marine navigation proved challenging for many teams as they made their way through the marsh and to the intracoastal waterway. Using the small map we had we saw that a 100 yard portage would save us about ¾ mile paddling. We headed to the portage point and sent team-mate Mickey out of the boat to take a look. He immediately sunk waist deep in black muck. We decided to skip the portage (we found that some teams had successfully made the portage and saved a little rowing time). It took us about 5 minutes to unstick Mickey and get him back in the boat, meanwhile we had dropped from 2^nd on the water to 5^th. Paddling hard to make up time – we navigated the creek, headed south down the intracoastal waterway to Dutton Island. After weaving through the marsh to the island and finding the take-out we headed south inland to the next Checkpoint. At this CP we were given another sheet of instructions, and without giving too much away these instructions had us singing, and also running all over the island looking for the required elements to continue. My only complaint was the amazing number of deerfly on the island – they seemed like a fog around us as they feasted with their nasty stinging bites. After completing the island special events we were back on the boats heading for the take-out well in the marsh past where we had put-in. The rain had stopped and now the brutal Florida summer sun was upon us. Total distance of paddling was about 9 miles. 

At the take-out we were about 5 minutes back of the leader (Team Penta Water), and about 3 minutes ahead of the next team. There was a long gap (roughly 20 minutes) before the 4^th team pulled out of the water. We were now faced with a 2 mile portage to return the boats to the main transition area. We kept a strong pace throughout the portage running our canoe along on the portage wheels we had in the boat. Once we reached the beach we were told that we needed to swim out (in the ocean) and around a buoy in the water. The swim was quite pleasant, though the waves were rough. We finished portaging our boat to the transition area, went over the wall and got the next set of instruction. 

By this time the Florida Sun was making up for the cool reprieve it had given us in the morning (meaning it was hot!). The next leg was an orienteering run with written instructions (nearly a full page). This was not map orienteering – but written direction like you would take over a phone, but with compass bearings. Kind of like go south for 100 meters until you reach a trail intersection, go 70 degrees into the woods (bushwacking) until you reach a foot-trail, go 100 degrees along the trail …. And so on. We had been passed by one team at the transition area – but as navigation was a team strength we were planning on catching them during this leg. This was not going to happen; the sudden heat and the exertion of the morning portion of the race (including a bad training week) was having its effects on one of our team members – and we were slowed to a walk throughout much of the course. As we completed the course roughly an hour later – we had lost nearly 20 minutes on the lead teams – but we had not been passed by any teams, who were at this point still well behind us (15 minutes). This leg did have the best special event I have ever done in an AR. We reached a children’s playground (a fairly large one). We had to traverse the entire playground – up the slide, across all the equipment (Monkey bars, etc…) without touching the ground or any of the walking areas of the equipment. Basically we had to crawl over the entire thing – it was quite fun. Once again we were to the main transition area, over the wall and to the next leg of the race. 

At the Transition area we worked to recover our team-mate (Electrolytes and Gatorade) and set out on the final bike. We started strong, however we soon crashed hard. Cramps were taking a toll, and we were forced to walk the bikes. We did our best to keep a strong pace – but were passed once while on the bike leg. The second bike trek had bike trail names like “Devilstick”, “Dead Dog”, and “Briar Patch”. As we headed out of the last bike leg and back onto the beach we were literally neck and neck with another team. They had 2 team members who were visibly hurting, and we had one. We both hit the great wall at the same time – however they went over faster and edged us by mere seconds. It was a deserved come from behind as they pushed all out with two suffering team members. 

All in all 8 ½ hours of racing. It felt good to stop – our team had done quite well. One team-mate felt guilty about cramping and slowing the pace. Adventure racing is a team sport and the team that does well figures out how to overcome problems as a team. It was a great race on a fantastic course with challenging special events; just the type of race to use to find you physical limits. 

Side note: The majority of the teams did beat the course 12 hour cutoff time limit.