Team Delmarva Adventure Sports

Here we are, 3 days gone from a major personal accomplishment. I , along with my steady, ride or die teammate Dennis, have completed the 2024 Sea to Sea Expedition Race across Florida. Starting in St Marks on the Gulf of Mexico and traveling across the northern part of Florida, we arrived to St Augustine roughly 72 hours later. It’s impossible to remember every detail that happened in that foggy, grueling timeframe, but I’m going to try!
The whole story begins more than a year ago. Dennis and I had committed to tackling this race together and signed up in the summer of 2022 for the race in February of 23. We were able to reel in our teammates Andrea and Jonathan Offen to join us in the chaos. Training and smack talk ensued. We really started kicking in some long rides and treks in the early winter of ‘22. My dad was starting to show signs of a rapidly declining health, but denial is a crazy thing. Andrea was starting to lay hints that she didn’t feel nearly trained enough for the upcoming race and was often saying how she thought she wouldn’t make it. I ensured her that her baseline physical abilities were higher than mine when I train.
As the winter wore on into January, dad got worse. Much worse. I kept training alongside Dennis doing long rides at breakwater and treks around Trap Pond. One day when we were meeting up for a trek/ride at trap pond, I swung into mom and dads and ended up having to call an ambulance to transport dad to the hospital. Dennis and I completed that training day, but mom had laid the seed of doubt in my mind that I would be able to make the race that year. Her premonition proved true. A few painfully short days later, we brought dad home on hospice and he passed away within hours of returning home. Life was rocked, the race was off. Priorities can shift in an instant and the race dropped to the very bottom of my list.
Thankfully, the race director was willing to defer my entry to the following year. Once I was able to emerge from the labyrinth of losing a parent, we started planning my race redemption. Andrea also wanted to redeem herself. Jonathan and Dennis had tackled the race as a 2-person male team and landed in 12th place overall. A FAR higher placement than they would have earned with the 2 chatterboxes who didn’t make it that year. Together we all signed up for a second time. With 2 experienced Sea to Sea racers in company, we started to plan our training early this time to ensure we all felt ready for the race this go around.
Life is funny. Within 6 weeks of signing up, paying the costs, and committing to the race and encouraging each other, Andrea and Jonathan were blessed with a MAJOR surprise. They would be having their 5th little Offen roughly a month before Sea 2 Sea 2024. Aaaaaaaaaand they’re out. Back to the very original and final team roster. Dennis and I were in this.
Training, planning, challenging, plotting, scheming, packing, and ordering went full send. The months ticked by as fast as the miles we put in on trainers and trails, and before I knew it, we were driving south on 113 heading to Florida for a race I had been looking forward to for over 18 months.

The ride down was high energy for me. Excitement for the race, but slight guilt for leaving my 5 kids, husband, and widowed mother to pick up my slack for a full week so I could go play in the woods. We listened to podcasts, comedians, tasteless music from our youth, and had lots of entertaining conversations. A few detours for fictitious REI stores and rest stops and we arrived at our destination hotel. Just parking we saw evidence of other racers and the beginning signs of an explosion of activity for the upcoming race. We checked in, dropped our stuff in the room and went in search of some dinner. A short walk and some tacos later, we headed back to the room.
The following day was more of the same. The race check in went smoothly, we handed all our gear over, got our team photo taken, nabbed our swag, and committed the rest of the day to relaxing and enjoying the totally foreign feeling of not having a pile of adulting responsibilities to accomplish. We had a bougie lunch at a coffee shop, wondered the narrow paths of a thrift store, and strolled the back streets of a Floridian town. We had the pre-race briefing and dinner that evening. It was both comforting and overwhelming to see all the other racers. The adventure racing community is a beautiful and eclectic group of people, and I love them.
After the meeting we headed back to the room to clean up, rest up, and charge up. Everything was in order. Packs were, well, packed, clothes were laid out, and all we had left to do was try to get a restorative night sleep… before the biggest race I’ve ever done…. with a whole list of what ifs pinging around my head like a pinball machine. Sleep finally came, and then it was race day.

We woke up on time, dressed, gathered our stuff, and headed to get maps and a good seat on the bus. I popped some Dramamine in hopes of warding off any motion sickness monsters and we started pouring over the maps. I wanted to contribute as much as I could before the busses started moving because I knew once we started rolling, I was going to be pretty much worthless. Dennis would hand me a map he was finished measuring distances out on and I would write in the clues near the CP points. I wrote the last clue in as our busses merged onto the first major highway heading west. I finally had a chance to look around the bus at our fellow racers. Sometimes I get hit with the fact that I am, in fact, an adult, and that I can, in fact, do cool things. That was one of those times. Here I was, one of over 200 racers, being shipped across the state of Florida to navigate my way 300 miles through forests, rivers, fields, parks, swamps, and towns back to the east coast using only my body, bike, and gear. This. Is. Awesome.

The state of Florida glided past our windows over the next 3 hours as our excitement mounted. All the training and planning was about to be tested, and I was PUMPED! Chatting with other racers we learned that a team sitting across from us were actually the ones who bought Jonathan and Andrea’s tickets for the race! And he was from the Netherlands! Crazy coincidences!
We pulled into the starting area, gathered our stuff, and awaited instructions. I got in line to seal up my phone, grab a tracker, and nab the map for the first trek. I used the waiting time in line to send out one last round of messages to family and friends letting them know we were going off the grid and that we would do them proud. Phone off, bag sealed, communication cut.
I ran back to Dennis, shouldered my pack, dawned my ridiculous sun hat, smeared a last layer of sun block, and was READY. A few more words from the director and he (tried to) shoot the gun. Faulty shot, “GO!!” We were off.

We had decided we wanted to be strong for the whole race, so we weren’t going to red line anything, including the adrenaline packed prologue. We back and forth trotted, fast walked, jogged through the first leg and found every checkpoint without a glitch. Photographers were everywhere, teams were buzzing with energy, it was fantastic. We made our way to the boats and saw our friend Mark Montague and were greeted with a warm hug and high five. We transitioned well, turned in our paddle bag, and pushed off from the shoreline. One leg down! Paddling is hands down our strongest discipline. I love it, and Dennis has learned to excel in it. We were easily passing teams left and right. The waterway quickly opened up from the small branch into a river, then sound, then bay, then finally the Gulf of Mexico. We were still steady passing every team we approached. We came around a bend in the shoreline and docked in a bog of reeds and mud. Teams were scattered all around the area, all heading into this one trailhead. Being at the front of the boat, Dennis yelled for me to go and just “follow them to the checkpoint!” I scurried out of the canoe, forged through some reeds and came to another small stream. There was an all-male team getting back into their canoes at that point and I asked if they knew how deep the water was, I was considering fording. They weren’t sure, but assumed it wasn’t too bad. I started across and quickly realized the water wasn’t very deep at all, but the mud was up to my knees! My feet sank and the mud wrapped its slimy, sticky arms around my Sandals and claimed them as its own. I was either stuck or would have to sacrifice my shoes. The guys saw my struggle and came to my rescue, let me hold onto their canoe as I pulled my feet out of the slop and then reached down into the abyss of blackness for my shoes. After a valiant effort, I won. I thanked the guys and continued on, now really looking the part of an adventure racer, covered in mud and a smile on my face.
I started jogging along the trail I had seen everyone else go down and caught up with another racer. We kept going, and going, and going. I realized my teammate had sent me out for a checkpoint without a hint or idea of where I was going!! I had to rely on the herd. Thankfully, the herd came through. Trail to the right, ankle deep swamp, bushwacking, trail to the left, ridge line, dilapidated bridge, checkpoint! And now following the herd back to the boats. How in the dickens was I supposed to find that without a map and compass?!?! I hopped back in the boat, freshly bailed and lined up ready to go, and we shoved off.
We paddled straight into headwind, choppy waves, and blazing sunlight. It was hard, but we were still super fresh, full of excitement, and great conversation to keep us going. Another checkpoint finally came into view on a small island. We beached, grabbed some beautiful white sand for our bottle (which we had totally forgot to grab at the transition area), punched the checkpoint, peed, and we were off again, leaving behind teams sitting in the beach that had been there since before us. We were rocking this!!
The next stretch of paddling was the hardest. We were far from shoreline, in open water, strong headwinds, choppy waves, and clouds slowly increasing in the skies. A 2-person male team was the first boat to pass us, dang it! Not enough to really upset us, but we hadn’t been passed at all at that point.
We were gaining on a group of paddlers as the male team passed us. 2 canoes and a kayaker. The kayaker seemed to be struggling, and as we watched, he scurried up to the side of one of the boats, passed his gear bag, and started bailing frantically. Within seconds his kayak started to tip up in the front, and almost instantly it went under. His yells of frustration carried across the open water.
He was safe, hanging on the canoe, and multiple other teams were close by to help him. But seeing that happen gave the possibility of derailment of the race some plausibility. We kept on. Dennis was having some pain in his shoulder from having to paddle harder to the right to accommodate for the headwinds. We had picked up the mantra “Quit being a bitch and COME ON!” It felt like the right time to throw it out there. With a chuckle, he put his head down and kept on.
We rounded a bend on the shoreline and the wind was finally at our backs. The sun was starting to dip, and it was cooling off. We wanted to get off the water soon. We located our last checkpoint down a little estuary, picked up a lost glove for another racer, and beelined for the transition area, being sure to pass at least a few more teams on that last little stretch.
We realized at that point we were over 2 hours ahead of where we wanted to be on time. We were soaked, cold, and ready for a change. We packed in our paddle gear, hauled over our canoe, checked in to the TA staff and headed over to our bins to change into dry clothes and get ready for the next leg. The sun was nearly set by this point and somehow modesty was a luxury we didn’t have time for, so as inconspicuously as possible, we changed, reapplied lubes, repacked our nutrition, filled our drinks, and headed over to the bikes. It felt like we were super-efficient, but discovered over 40 minutes were lost in that TA.
We found our bikes, double checked our lights, shouldered our packs and we were off, heading down a nicely packed dirt road. Dennis was good with navigating, and we found the first checkpoint much faster than the cackle of teams we came upon roaming the woods. We quietly punched the CP and headed back to our bikes. Another team was coming down the trail we had just found the cp on and asked if we had any luck. I can’t lie and mislead another racer, so I just said, “a little luck.” Let the good race mojo begin.
We hopped back on our bikes and headed through some fire roads until we found our way back onto the hard packed dirt road. We had a good pace going, and when we met up with a group of 4 guys who were going just about our speed, we capitalized. Drafting behind these guys we put our heads down and trudged on for what seemed like hours. There were no checkpoints for the next 25 miles. Just miles. Eventually our teams altered on when we needed to stop, and our free drafting ride ended. I can’t remember the reason we needed to stop just off a paved road, maybe to pee? But after the break, we were standing talking for a moment, and I had forgot I had my right foot in my toe cage. I leaned too far to the right and next thing I know, I fell smack onto the gravel roadside, jacking up my right wrist and leg. FROM A STANDING POSITION. I FELL OFF MY BIKE. Leave it to Elke.
We hopped back on, and as best I could with an angry right wrist, we trudged on. The roads kept going and going, and eventually we came upon a 2-man team who had a great pace. We fell in line behind them and started drafting again. It was a hard pace, but I was feeling ok, so we kept up. After about 20 minutes I started to think “I can’t keep this up, but there is no way we have all that much further to go, I’ll just keep trucking.” Bad call. Eventually my energy crashed, and I had to call to Dennis that I needed to stop. He was disappointed to lose the pace setters but agreed. Once we pulled over it hit me. I couldn’t take a deep breath, my heart rate seemed extra “thumpy” and I felt like I was going to throw up. I sat down on the ground and put my head between my legs. It was at that point where you think “I bet I would feel better if I just threw up.” I considered helping it along, but then also thought throwing up would throw off my electrolytes even more than they already were, and it would be harder to stabilize myself. So, I settled on sitting, drool-spitting, and waiting for the feeling to pass. Every racer that passed us on the side of the road checked in with us. The community is everything out there. Within 5 minutes I felt well enough to go on.
We were back on the bikes, and trucking on. Finally, we were coming up to a few points, and we made our way into a wooded area where we thought cp 13 would be located. We tried going directly for it, regrouped, reattacked, regrouped, pace counted, and still were coming up short. We had to decide to drop that one and move on. After only a few minutes we realized our goof and got ourselves together. Once we had our location figured out, we were able to grab the point where it actually was. We ran into the same 4 guy team we had been drafting with earlier and commiserated our miscalculations. After cp 13 we set our sights on 14. We got it, but that trail was awful! Imagine trying to ride your bike down a trail freshly tilled by a tractor, in the rain. Cause oh yea, it started to rain a little here, too.
We were starting to wear down at this point a little. Dennis was navigating great, thankfully. We eventually came upon a whole cluster of teams in the middle of the woods stopped at a trail blockage, all trying to figure out which way to go. I’m still not sure how the guy found it, but we followed a team by bikewacking through nonsense for about a quarter mile. We eventually hopped on a pretty technical trail, evidently, the right trail! It really wasn’t too crazy of a ride, if it hadn’t been at the tail end of a 50+ mile ride, nearly 20 hours into a race. I kept it up as long as I could, but eventually realized I was gambling with a high possibility of falling and either messing my bike or myself up. I had to be the annoying teammate at tell Dennis I was going to have to walk a section. Our sweet time cushion was deflating.
We walked for a good hour, probably more. Attempted to get cp 16 and 17 and decided we were too strapped for time and that we needed to make it to the TA soon. The teams we had been ping pinging with were now so far ahead of us, I had my first feeling of true disappointment in my abilities. We trudged on for a while longer, and eventually got on a rideable trail and navigated our way into the TA where hamburgers and clean clothes lifted our spirits.
I dropped my bike, emptied the trash from my pockets and pack, filled my water bottles, and located our bins. The sun was coming up, so I didn’t want to change my clothes completely out in the open. I walked over to the wood line to change my top as modestly as I could. After I pulled down my clean mid layer and felt I had done a good job maintaining some dignity, I looked to my right. An entire team is laying in the woods, resting. No one makes eye contact with me. Well dang.
I packed up my bin, walked to the bikes, and inhaled the burger Dennis had grabbed for me. We were transitioning to a trekking leg, so I did my foot care, repacked my pack, stored my lights for the bike in my bin on chargers, and we set off.
The trek began on railroad tracks. All the years we spent hiking to Harpers ferry via the tracks came back to mind. We weren’t rushed on those hikes, and I always loved hopping from railroad tie to railroad tie, but with being in a race at this point, the tracks were a pain in the butt to walk on. We hiked along and Dennis found the side trail that would take us to the next CP. We found it, punched it, and we’re trying to figure out our next move when a photographer literally popped out of the woods and did a super quick interview with us. Apparently, another team had made the decision at that site to cross the river and shave off over 5 miles of hiking. If Dennis would have said he wanted to do it, I would have been game, but I was just as happy to take the longer route and avoid a drenched outfit that early in the leg. We did a 180 on the trail and hiked on the long way around. We stayed along the river until we came to a roadway, stopped for some sun block, and kept going. We attempted to jog a small bit, just to see how it felt. Nope. We agreed we were going to have to stick walking.

We turned into a “residential” area with some classic Floridian “estates”. Plenty of trailers, dogs, and dilapidated vehicles. At the far end of that neighborhood, we converged on a foot trail. I started to feel some hot spots in the balls of my feet and decided it was time to address it rather than suffer on and really pay the price later. We stopped for a few minutes, and while I was reapplying, Dennis leaned on a log. He admitted to falling asleep standing up at that point. We had been going for near 26 hours at that point. I’ve never been a believer in naps, but within the next hour it became apparent that we needed a recharge.
We found a little sandy clearing along the river edge and decided to lay down for a quick nap. I honestly didn’t think I would be able to sleep, let alone recharge. Surprise, surprise! 20 minutes later Dennis’s watch alarms and we get up feeling astoundingly improved. I’m a believer now. Spirits lifted; we head on to the next cp. We merge back on to a roadway, attack the CP along a sinkhole, and push on to a trail on the far side of the sinkhole. I don’t remember exactly how, but I know I caught something here in the map and our route that kept us from getting turned around. Go me!
We found the next few CPs pretty easily. One was in a lime sink hole that was surrounded by a huge amount of deadfall trees and shrubbery. I didn’t think anyone else was out there with us, so when I found it, I yelled for Dennis to come over so the tracker would pick up our ping close to the CP. Usually when one of us find the CP and others are around, we’ll yell out “I GIVE UP!” But I gave away the cp to at least 2 other teams there. Meh. Race magic comes and goes.
Another CP in the area was at a huge cypress tree that Dennis says was the size of a VW bug. I didn’t head down that trail all the way because I was feeling a little electrolyte depleted and overheated.
We were on trails for a while at this point, and I’m seriously drawing a blank at the time frame between the sunny part of the afternoon and when we were got stuck at the next CP, in the middle of sinkhole central, in a deluge of a rainstorm. We had stopped for another foot care break, and we saw the dark clouds starting to gather behind us. The trail was much less clear with an insane amount of deadfall. I have no clue how Dennis was navigating this section of trail, because I was just along for the ride at this point. It had already rained off and on a few times by now, and never enough to really soak me, so when the skies started to darken, I just kept my raincoat tucked away. It seems crazy now, but I had wanted to keep all my rain gear clean and dry for the second paddle that I knew would be at night in the cold.
We found multiple sink holes, and with the clue “oak overlooking sinkhole” we knew it had to be close. Well darn if EVERY sink hole had a a huge oak overlooking it. There were so many that we were beginning to wander off from each other investigating possibilities. And then, the bottom dropped out. The rain was so thick and hard I couldn’t keep it out of my eyes. The sweat and sunblock dripping into my eyes made them burn, and the sound of the rain was deafening. I knew Dennis wouldn’t be able to hear me if I “coo-eed” for him. So, I did what any good Girl Scout was taught. I stayed where I was. Literally soaked through to the core, thunder, lightning, no trail, no map, no teammate. I can’t say I get nervous very easily, but at that moment, I was apprehensive. I spoke to the only one who could hear me and handed my situation to Him completely. I had nothing. Slowly the rain started to ease. I started my family call, as much as my teammate hates it. I called for about 2 minutes before I finally heard the slightest returning call. Sweet relief. Thank you, Lord!
We found each other and pressed on. At this point I don’t know if I was even looking for the cp anymore or just wanting to get oriented, but we literally stumbled upon the CP. We soon found the trail and pushed on. It was on this next trail that we started to meet up with a few other teams. It was a decent trail to the final CP. This one was the first A/B checkpoint of the race. We were in the homestretch to TA 3 where we had decided we would try to get our first real sleep. We found the A point easy peasy. We then came to a cow pasture as the sun was going down on day 2. After following a crowd of racers who proved they knew less than us, we ended up on the wrong side of a barbed wire fence and wasted about 30 minutes making a path through briars and bull skeletons. Once back of track, we hiked the last bit of that trek through open fields and found the B point. We were walking alongside a guy who had raced with This Ability in Africa. I love the conversations had on races almost as much as the races themselves.
We made our way into the TA, checked in, and found our bins. First big, BIG disappointment of the race. Our bin lids had been shattered and all the rain of the afternoon had poured into our gear. Thankfully, we had packed most of our clothes into individual zip lock bags, but our sleep gear was all a little wet. It could have been much worse, but it was enough to get Dennis agitated. He went to the race staff and was able to get me a new lid, since mine was shattered. His was still manageable, but later we discovered, it wasn’t even his lid! Someone swapped it out. Jerks. Anyway, we wolfed down a ramen cup, egg sandwich, a few sodas and set out to find a good sleep spot. All the tents were taken, there was way too much activity by the bins, bikes, and food tent. The ground was still kind wet from the rainstorm. Hmmmmm. There was a huge wrap around porch on the farmhouse at the TA. While we didn’t think it would be right to sleep on their porch, we figured they wouldn’t mind us hunkering down under it. We crawled through the shrubbery, laid out our ground pads, blew them and our pillows up, laid out our bags and crawled in. I had brought ear plugs, but Dennis was confident he would be tired enough to sleep through anything. We chatted for less than a minute and then waited for sleep to conquer us. And then the cows. Those chatty little Betties got to singing and they all joined in. I could hear them through my ear plugs so I’m sure Dennis couldn’t ignore them. Eventually I must have fallen asleep, because I was awoken by the beep beep of trucks backing up at one point. Then back to sleep, I think. Finally, a breeze picked up and the one part of my body exposed was cooled to the point I started shivering. I had no clue how long we had been sleeping but figured Dennis’s watch alarm would wake us soon enough. And it did. We begrudgingly emerged from our cocoons, packed up our gear and hobbled out from under the porch like two haggard trolls. We got ourselves together, repacked our bins, loaded them on the trucks, checked out of the TA and eased our sore tushes back into the saddles. I made sure to turn on my super exciting disco spike lights for the night ride. Come to think of it, not a single person said anything about them. Whatever, they brought me joy!
We headed out on a paved road that turned into a dirt road faster than I had hoped. We flew right past the next checkpoint but pretty easily went back and found it when we realized where we were. We then stuck to roads for quite a while. One checkpoint was within a forest trail that got us flipped around a bit. We passed other teams that all said that weren’t able to find it. We pace counted, bike clocked, shot bearings, and reattacked a few times. By the 4th attempt, I had had enough. Dennis was persistent and upset that I had thrown in the towel, but it seemed like a time sucker at that point. I would say that was one of the only times we disagreed on anything during the race. And we both settled down quickly, falling back into our standard race banter and laughter.
We headed on and decided we were falling too far behind to tinker with the big A/B point section. But my butt was really starting to hurt by this point and the thought of single track made me cringe. Those points called too strong in the end, and we decided to try for one set, just to see how it would go. The first point was a cinch, but its counterpart was a jerk. We were close enough that our tracker pinned us at the location, but we never laid eyes on the actual CP. The experience reinforced our decision to skip that cluster of points. We got back on the roads and started heading toward the o-course TA. Road after road, mile after mile slid by. A nap was starting to sound good at this point. We were trying to decide on a nap or another 5-hour energy when the sun starting peeking over the horizon. With a full moon to our right and a warm red sky and single morning star to our left, we pulled over on the side of the road for a quick break. It was one of those moments where you’re undeniably miserable but unmistakably happy. And then Dennis realized we missed a turn 3 miles back and we became simply undeniably miserable.

We pulled a u turn and headed back, found the correct road and went to work ticking off more miles. This section of Florida was remote, swampy, piney, palmy, and primitive. Just road after road of hard packed dirt and potholes that jarred my soul with each hit. My pace slowed, my motivation waned, and my enthusiasm sapped. Dennis didn’t know whether to encourage me kindly or in his natural way of challenging. Neither worked. I just needed to get through that mundane mess on my own. Once we finally hit hard road again, I had a renewed energy and kept with him in a draft line well all the way to the o-course relay. We were even passing a few teams, which always lifts a downtrodden racer spirit.
Pulling into the TA I realized we were more strapped for time than I had thought. Dennis said we wouldn’t have time to grab any points there. And as much as that sucked, what was worse, was that if we were skipping the o-course, then we were forging on to the next bike leg. Another 50+miles on top of the 50+ miles we had just done. With only a quick in and out TA to rest my brutalized backside. I do this for fun?!?!
We scarfed down some chili, repacked our packs, used the bathroom, and chatted with some other racers. Within 5 minutes we had one team tell us that we had motivated them to keep going from the last TA (the Dutch guy team) and had another team tell us helping them in the first bike leg with a checkpoint helped lift their spirits for the rest of the race. Those comments put smiles on our faces and really made us feel good. I’m going to keep saying how great this community of racers really is.
We hauled our bins to the truck, clipped on our helmets, and mounted those ding dang bikes again. Dennis had mapped out the fastest route we could take that covered the mandatory waypoints and we were off. We started on roads that lead to hard packed trails, that lead to lose sand trails, that lead to submerged trails. Like water so deep you’re peddling with feet below the water. I love this sport. We emerged into an open campground looking property with multiple zigzagging trails. We knew we had to go north-ish and find a trail with a gate. Nothing looked right. We went this way and that way. Passed an open field surrounded by bleachers, a civil war information board, a hunting information board, and more intertwining trails. But nothing was adding up to the map. Eventually we came to the back side of whatever this property was and found a controlled burn area along with a very VERY rugged trail. It went right and left, but we needed to go north! Neither direction looked correct. But looking at the map, we decided whether we were further right or left than we thought, if we went left, we would intersect SOMETHING that we could figure out our location from. So, we committed to going left. We slogged through muck, mush, reeds, and alligator heaven. (probably not, but I just imagined they were there the whole time we were pushing our bikes through the grassy swampy sludge)
Finally, we came to a hard dirt packed road with a blessed gate. I very arrogantly assumed I had found exactly what we had been looking for and was now going to be the lead navigator. While I did get us to place where we could figure out our location, we were actually far from where we had wanted to be. In fact, we had tacked on an additional 5-mile loop, just for giggles.
Dennis replotted our route and we were off again. So long as we were on paved or hard packed roads, I could keep it up. But every bump and pothole stole a little piece of my willpower and motivation. After about 2 hours of progressively worse roads, I was down to about a 5mph pace. I didn’t feel weak, I felt defeated. My muscles weren’t spent, my resilience was. It made no sense to me; I was peddling harder and harder and going slower and slower. Finally, I complained out loud, assuming I would get our mantra thrown back at me to “quit being a bitch and come on!” But my teammate can surprise me from time to time. He stopped and looked to make sure it wasn’t something mechanical. And I’m not sure if he was just being kind and telling me this to keep me from giving up, but he attributed my slow down to lose mud clogging up my chain and tread and weighing me down.
Lie or not, it worked. With the blame of my crappy performance passed on to my inanimate bike, I was able to keep going, even if it was frustratingly slow. We pushed and pushed and pushed on until we finally came to a beautiful and forgiving paved road. I lit up. As soon as my tires shook off the packed mud, I opened up and was finally going a decent pace again. It was short lived because within 10 minutes Dennis was yelling for me to turn right into our next soft dirt road. I could have screamed. Dennis must have seen the defeat in me, and he stopped to talk through our route with me. We had the option of trudging forth with more of these evil cursed dirt roads, or taking a route that went off our maps, but would hopefully keep us on paved roads to the next TA where we had a time cut off looming. We went with the gamble.
Both of us were getting hit with exhaustion at this point and were considering a nap. The roads where we were riding were definitely not conducive to napping, nor were the neighborhoods we were crossing. So, we pushed on. Our route choice paid off and we discovered we were far from the only racers who had gone with our plan. But that time cut off was becoming more and more serious. We were on a long straight paved road with multiple towns. We turned off a town early and followed the route we thought we were on only to come to a dead end where it should have been a through road. I realized we were a town early and said as much. Once Dennis succumbed to the fact that I was right, I felt a little twinge of pride that put a quick smile on my face. We doubled down and headed on to the next town. Once we got through the correct route and ended up on the intended through road Dennis started to lay hints that we just were not going to make that time cut off. It was “doubtful” were his words. I got mad. There was no way we were going to drop or be forced to drop this far into the race. Bullcrap. I pushed. At any point I realized I was starting to drop off I dug a little deeper into that pain cave and regurgitated whatever I had in me. The road sucked. It was a busy road, no shoulder, a community of bicyclist haters who didn’t know what the heck we were doing. Not a comforting situation. But I wasn’t going to quit. Teams were passing us, but I refused to give into the desire to ease off. And while I wasn’t fast, please know I wasn’t fast, I kept going. Dennis could have kept pace with every team that scooted past us, I know he could have. But we trudged on together.
We came to the next town intersection, made a goofy wrong turn, corrected ourselves and pressed on. A family with 3 boys, one the same age as my youngest, was in their yard with a 4-wheeler idling. A helmet was being passed around as we rode by, and I waved. I don’t think any of them waved back, but it made me think how it was just a normal day for most people. They weren’t having this existential crisis that I was imagining myself in. I had to giggle at myself. And then I heard the rev of an engine come flying up past us. It was that tiny little 5-year-old looking boy who reminded me of my little Calvin, manning that four-wheeler like a boss. I had to laugh.
Time was still ticking, Dennis hadn’t updated me on how our time was looking, but I knew I still couldn’t slack off. We came to a dirt road. Not just a dirt road, but one riddled with potholes and bumps. I looked at it and saw deep visceral pain from my butt up. Whatever. “Let’s just do it.” So, we did it, and it hurt. And it sucked. And I wanted to give up. So, so, so bad. But then, I don’t know why, but I started to think of my dad. He had endured a dumb amount of pain in his last few weeks of undiagnosed metastatic cancer. Who knows how much because he was such a stubborn, stubborn man. And in that moment, I realized what I was “suffering” through was a joke compared to him. Dad, this is for you. I put my head down, literally, because I didn’t want anyone to see me cry, and I gave it all I had for those last few miles to the TA. Everything.
Flying into the TA with 30 minutes to spare I could not keep my act together. I hate for people to see me cry, so I dropped my bike and walked over to a wood line to give myself a minute. Dennis and I had joked about at what point we would need a hug during the race. He had offered two other times when I was moody or quiet and I had laughingly declined. When he asked this time, I took him up on the offer. I needed a hug more at that moment than I had in a long while. A hug from my dad would have been worth everything to me, but he was a good substitute. A few sobs and deep breaths and I was better. Embarrassed, but better.
Back to work. Clean clothes, clean feet, full water bottles, repacked packs, ate the best quesadilla I’ve ever had, and bins on the truck. While all this was going on I saw racers across the river putting clothes on and didn’t even wonder what was going on. I think I honestly thought they were being ridiculous and taking a dip in the freezing water for fun. Idiots.
We shouldered our packs and headed down the trail. Wrong trail. Wait. We HAVE to cross the river. *expletive* We JUST got clean and dry, and we have to start this next trek leg wet?! Grrrrrr. But there was no other option. Shirts off, trekking poles through the straps of my sports bra, pack over my head, I breathlessly crossed that freezing cold river, chest deep. Slightly cursing my friends who swear by ice baths for not pushing me to get better at this nonsense.
Redressed and “refreshed” we head off on the next leg. We quickly realized we were going to struggle big on this section. Not only was the sun going down quickly, but we were in a bad place as far as our lack of sleep induced confusion and navigation. We retraced our steps at least 3 times before race staff was kind enough to point us in the right direction. That trek was a blur. We tried for 1 checkpoint and realized we were so off on our map scale that it was embarrassing. We decided to just push on and make it to the next TA and get on the last paddle section where we could hopefully make up some lost time.
We took a shorter route and ended up walking through a large residential area. The sleep monsters were stalking us at this point. Every house seemed to have multiple large angry dogs who rapidly voiced their displeasure at our arrival in their area. There were no churches, playgrounds, or public areas we could sneak onto for a quick refresher nap. We had no choice but to keep putting one foot in front of the other. But we couldn’t even do that!! We were stumbling like drunkards! Slurring words, wobbling gaits, whining complaints. We were a sight. I really hope no one was looking out their windows. At one point I was convinced a cop was going to find us and arrest us for public drunkenness. Somehow, we made it through. After a few miles the road narrowed into a state forest road, and we quickly spotted a clearing with a few pine trees perfect for laying out our bivys and catching a nap. We treated ourselves to a 30-minute sleep and passed out quickly. I heard a car go by slowly at one point and thought I heard them stop. In my mind I thought (I’m not even going to waste my rest time to look and see if they’re coming for us. If they poke me, I might even pretend I’m dead, so they go get help.)
Eventually Dennis’s alarm went off, and we shiveringly packed up our stuff and headed back down the road. The nap helped, but we weren’t well. Not unwell enough to stop though. Red Bull it is. We each chugged a can and kept walking. Finally, the paddle TA popped up in front of us without warning. There were only a handful of race staff loading up kayaks and paddle bags. Not a single other racer. We were crushed to hear we were the last team to come through. Only 1 solo female racer was behind us, and they were told to pull her from the race when she finally got to them. We were literally the back of the pack.
We prepped for the paddle, turned in our paddle bag, got our passport, and hauled the canoe to the launch. For just a moment we thought we were going to have to paddle upstream. Once we realized we were wrong, anything seemed possible! We were going to NAIL this section. With a fast moving current and the Red Bull kicking in, we were scooting down the river like the bosses we were. As we soared around a bend in the river, we caught sight of something swimming across the stream. I saw something light brown and shiny that swam like a mammal and then dove down gracefully. In my sleep deprived irrational mind, it was an armadillo. I know. It makes zero sense, but what does at that point in a race? Dennis is firm in his opinion that it was in fact, an alligator. We’re gonna have to agree to disagree. While I’m now sure it wasn’t an armadillo, I still don’t think it was a gator.
That paddle was life giving. We were back at making great time, laughing, actually having a good time grabbing all the checkpoints we crossed. Then the stream widened into a creek, and onto a river, and finally it was so wide we couldn’t see the opposite shoreline in the dark. Not being able to gauge our speed took the wind out of our sails. We passed another canoe with 2 solo men. The guy in the back was huddled under a blanket trying to nap while the other guy was slowly paddling along. They said they were waiting for rescue to come pick up one of them. Yeesh. At least we’re doing better than them. They said they didn’t need any help, so we kept cruising. We punched another CP down a small stream and came back out into the main canal. We passed them again and the back guy looked like he was shivering. We had some extra hot hands packs, so we pulled up and gave him a few to try to warm up with while they waited. They thanked us and we pressed on paddling through the night. We came to a bridge and looked at the map. The only bridge on the map was a railroad bridge with a CP to the right. Must be it, right? Wrong. It was a new bridge under construction that wasn’t accounted for on the map. We kept going. Another bridge, also not on the map, also without the checkpoint. This was starting to suck. The river was wider and wider, our eyes were more and more tired, the leg seemed longer and longer. Finally, we saw the rescue boat go past us for the solo guys. They checked on us and we said we were fine. A while later they passed us with the one guy and said the other guy wanted to continue on alone.
At this point Dennis started to crash. He was overly tired, cold, and honestly, I think he was bored with the paddle. His head was bobbing, and he was falling asleep sitting upright. I wasn’t at that point yet, so I told him to lay back, take a nap, and I would keep us going at a slow and steady pace. He tried to sleep but said he was terrified of falling over into the water and he was too cold. We paddle on together for a while longer. Too tired to talk, too tired to paddle, but we kept on paddling. Again, Dennis was falling over paddling. I told him to take my bivvy and his trash bag and lay down and sleep. He tried again. I think he was able to sleep for at least a smidge at this point. But now I was totally alone trying to fight sleep monsters. And they were coming out in force. Lilly pads along the river were all heads of people, I heard detached conversations coming from the uninhabited woods lining the waterway, large cartoon characters were morphing from trees to silhouettes to clouds. For a while I was convinced Dennis was replaced by my husband and I was wracking my brain trying to figure out when they had swapped out. Nothing made sense. I would blink and open my eyes, and we had suddenly turned into a patch of lily pads, I would correct our path only to have it happen again and again.
Eventually Dennis woke up (and I’m still not sure if he’s Dennis or Chris) and he suggested we make the call for help. I needed that. I needed the possibility of failure to ignite my need to keep going. That moment I knew we were not going to quit. I don’t think we really argued, but I absolutely insisted that I was not going to unseal my phone to make that call with only one leg left in the race.
We kept on. Painfully slowly we began to see signs of daylight. It was enough to keep us going. As we paddled down the river the sky replayed the same stunning scene it had showcased 24 hours before when we were on the bikes. The bright clear fullish moon to our right, and a deep red to pink to purple ombré to our left accented by that solitary morning star. If there was a visual memory from the race that will be etched in my memory, it’s those early morning sunrises.
The rescue boat came cruising toward us as the sky lightened. They slowed as they approached us, asking if we were good. “Relatively!” Was all we could answer. They were heading to pick up the final solo male behind us. We were back of the pack again. We made it to the boat ramp and were greeted by two jolly race staff members. We took a pit stop in the bathrooms, loaded our gear into the cargo truck, and were chauffeured to the next TA. High winds and choppy seas had shortened the paddle by about 10 miles for all the teams. This transport was not considered an assist, since everyone got a lift. When we arrived at the TA, I checked us in and apologized for being late to the party. We had been under the impression since we arrived 30 minutes after the cut off for this TA that we were to be short coursed directly to CP 72 on the beach and then directly to the finish line. I’m still questioning whether we could have gone on to get more points in the last bike leg from the response i received from the staff. He may have been very clear, but my mind certainly was not clear and open for rational communication. Either way, we transitioned as fast as possible and hopped back on the bikes. We hadn’t eaten, neither of us were drinking enough. Our only sight at this point was the finish line. We started out over a bridge. I was waiting for the deep muscular exhaustion in my quads to hit me. There was no way my legs were still going to have gas left in them. And yet, as we started to get into a groove we were passing a few teams. I was drafting behind Dennis and realized I felt like I had more in me. I yelled ahead to him that he could pick up the pace if he wanted to. He gave me a questioning look and then sped up slightly. I kept pace. We stopped to take off some of the ridiculous amount of clothing we had wrapped ourselves in and then fell back into that fast pace again. Dennis flawlessly navigated us directly into St Augustine. We found the route to the bridge that takes you to the beach and final check point. The sun was high, the breeze was cool, we felt great, and we were crossing paths with dozens of other teams. Everyone was giddy and smiling. No matter who you were, if you had a race bib on and were on a bike, we all bumped fists and gave shouts of joy and accomplishment to each other. There was such comradery it makes me smile just thinking about it. This may have been my very favorite part of the entire race.
We made our way up that huge bridge and flew down the other side, coasted into the parking area after making a few misguided laps around hotels, dropped the bikes and climbed the dune. There it was. The Atlantic Ocean. We had done it. Miles upon miles of biking, paddling, trekking, laughing, talking, crying (just a little), behind us. We did it. WE DID IT!

We walked across the sand to the final checkpoint. I punched it while Dennis filled up our sand bottle. The photographer snapped the obligatory photos, and we turned to head back to our bikes for the very final ride to the finish. Coming back to the dune crossing we crossed paths with another team. We took their photo for them, and they took ours with my phone. I was skeptical if it was ok to take the seal off the bag that far into the race if it was a chance we could get disqualified for having done it. But rational thoughts don’t win at moments like that. They took our picture, and we headed out.
That final ride was great. Sure, we were tired, sure we were depleted, sure we wanted it to be over. But now that it was almost over, it was almost sad. It was almost over. Whatever remorse I felt in that moment was replaced by the elation of crossing the finish line. We saw teams we had met along the way who had dropped out lined along the road cheering us on in that last stretch and it felt like family cheering us on. I only learned the actual names of a handful of other racers, but I’ll keep their faces in my memory.

We crossed over the official finish line with the biggest goofiest smiles possible. I didn’t cry, I didn’t even think of crying. It was just satisfaction and completion. We did it. The staff placed our earned medals over our heads and around our necks. We pushed our bikes to the side and grabbed a few cookies and brownies, not realizing just how nutritionally depleted we were at that point.
The next few hours were a blur of sweet conversations with other racers, pizza, awards (We got 3rd in the 2-person coed division, 40th overall out of 101 teams. Only 72 teams finished the course!) and waiting for our room to be available. Once in we each got showers and crashed for an hour or so before we headed over to a free dinner with all the other racers and staff. Everyone enjoyed more great conversations and laughs. We were exhausted and shivering by the time we got back to our room. That night we slept hard. Like I don’t think my body moved from the position I fell asleep in for the entire 8 hours of sleep I had.

We drove home less sore than expected and finally pulled into Dennis’s driveway around 12:30am. We unpacked his van; I loaded my truck in record time. Coming around the back of his garage toward my truck I considered giving him a huge thank you hug for sharing such an all-around amazing experience together, but I settled on a fist bump. Seemed fitting for the ending of a successful first expedition race.

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