March 31, 2012
Myakka Mud Slide AR
SPORT 3 Hour and ELITE 6 Hour Adventure Race
Thanks for coming out to play with us at the Myakka Mud Slide AR.
Thank you to everyone for coming out for the 2nd annual Myakka Mud Slide on Saturday. We enjoyed our second stay at
Myakka River State Park and look forward to coming back. It is a very popular and crowded place daily and the only complaint we received from the park is that the patrons were too interested in what you guys were doing. Next time we need to leave them some fliers or something to answer all the questions they were getting.
The race itself proved to be another challenging one but the top three Elite and top two Sport teams cleared the course in time. The competitiveness atop the leaderboard has been outstanding lately. Some really great efforts. The water conditions were low which made the paddle challenging. Not to mention all of the alligators who showed themselves to the racers. Heard a lot of comments about how passive the gators were but we can still understand being spooked by them.
In an effort to keep things different, we incorporated a modified rogaine style for the race. This gave the teams many options and important choices to make for which points to go after. We also gave out no control descriptions for the checkpoints making this a true map and compass event. Both of these things we wouldn't consider ideal for an adventure race, but we think it is good to keep some variety going at the events. And we plan to keep things fresh at times going forward.
The Sport race was once again filled with new racers. We are glad to see the word keeps spreading and new people are giving it a shot. In the Elite race, the veterans prevailed again with 72 year-old Bill Erwin coming out of retirement and winning with Primal Instinct. But also congratulations to Dash and his Florida Xtreme 3 developmental squad for cracking the leaderboard for the first time.
The post race weather was eerily similar to last year as the rains came in quickly right before the awards. Of course, once everyone cleared out the weather became perfect again with sunny skies. Thanks to everyone who stuck around and hung out for a bit. We will see you next time.
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