BEAR 2001

Cathy opted out of this race because of the heat and sharks, so Jon Barker, our teammate from the Blue Ridge Mountain Adventure Race 2001, and Zach went to Jacksonville, FL to compete in this race. Cathy went along as the official photographer.


In most other adventure races in which we have participated we knew the order of events the night before. With this race we didn't know anything about the course until we received instructions during the race which made things very interesting. We knew we wouldn't start off in our kayaks because we had to drop them off at another location. We also knew it was going to be hot. Jacksonville is always very hot in August. The humidity was high, the temperature was in the 90’s and there wasn't a cloud in the sky all day. Finally, we knew we would be swimming in the ocean and river, so we packed all the equipment we had to carry with us at all times accordingly.

The race started with a javelin throw, which separated the 40 two- and three-person teams into two groups. Each group was sent off in different directions. The race was heavily into orienteering. Every instruction we received always had a distance and direction. We started with about a mile run south through the surf to pick-up our first checkpoint marker. The checkpoint markers are our proof we had been to that particular location. We had to keep them with us throughout the race and turn them in at the finish. We retrieved our first marker which was a large piece of Styrofoam. Then it was back north up the beach where we had to swim out to and around a buoy in the ocean, return to the beach, low crawl under some barriers, and climb over the 12-foot wall. The race was just getting started and we were already wet and full of sand.


From there we went on about a 5-mile orienteering course that took us to the kayaks. We were not certain how our inflatable kayaks would do on a large river and in the ocean and competing against sea kayaks. We traveled a couple miles down several small tributaries that emptied into the St John's River. Once we reached the River we had another three miles of kayaking before our next stop. The St John's River is the home of Mayport Naval Base and the home of large aircraft carriers and other naval vessels. It is no small river at this point, probably a half mile across and wider as it flows into the ocean. Of course we were heading to the ocean in our little kayaks with all sorts of boats on the river and we had to cross to the north side of the river before our next stop. Our kayaks were doing well but were not as fast as the sea kayaks, so we were passed by about five or six teams in the two and a half hours of kayaking before reaching our next check point.


From there it was out of the kayaks and back to another running leg which took about two hours and included three checkpoints. At the first of the three checkpoints we had to do the human wheel barrel for about 100 yards for a special test. The second check point was at the end of a jetty that required us to cross water and scramble over large boulders. We did well on this run and were able to pass most teams that were ahead of us.


The third checkpoint brought us back to the kayak for the second kayak leg which took us out of the river into the ocean. Our plan was to cross the river to the south side and follow the coastline as close as possible. As we were crossing the river we suddenly realized the current was pushing us back up river, so we let the current take us to the other side and then worked our way along the shore.


When we came to the south jetty which is at least a half mile long we decided to portage over the rocks and across the beach which saved us at least an hour and allowed us to pass two teams that were ahead of us. Two and a half hours after we started this leg we arrived at the starting point. Then we had to crawl under the obstacles and go over the wall and do two special events before starting on the bike segment.


The first special test was to fill-up a ten gallon water cooler bottle with water and carry it top down for 100 yards without spilling it. If that wasn't enough, we then had to fill the jug with sand and carry it the same 100 yards. From there it was on to "islands" which we breezed through and passed another team that was having problems with completing it.

It was on to the bikes with less than two and a half before the cut off time. Before entering the trail on the bikes we had to go over another wall. While we were biking we had to find six key punch checkpoints as well as navigated on very winding trails through a virtual jungle. The end of the bike brought us back to the beach and one more time over the wall before hitting the finish line.

Our time was about 10 hours and 10 minutes. We finished about 20 minutes before the cutoff. The best part was we finished fifth place overall and third in our division of two-man team. Only 15 of the 40 teams that started the race finished and most of those finished after the cutoff. It was indeed a "BEAR" of a race.