A couple of months back, I got a phone call from Becs asking if I wanted to do the Kathmandu adventure race which we did last year. I agreed, thought no more of it and continued with my half-marathon training. After completing that, I pretty much sat on my arse for a few weeks. My legs took quite a beating during the run so I wanted to take things easy, and once the World Cup started my sleep patterns went out the window anyway and training suffered.

Still, I was determined to do the race, as was Becs, so we rocked up to the Royal National Park at 7am on Sunday as ready as we’d ever be. The format was pretty similar to last year apart from the fact that we’d be bussed to the start after registration, and would only be given our course maps once on the bus. This left us very little time to mark up the maps with our chosen route, but given the terrain, and the admonition to stay on the tracks and not go cross-country, there was really only one route to take.

We were in the second wave starting at 9:30, so when we got the command 200 people headed off on the run segment, starting from Heathcote. Another 200 had left at 9:00 to avoid overcrowding on the course, and once we’d reaced the second checkpoint the crowding wasn’t too bad. Neither myself nor Becs were overly keen on the run section and took it relatively easy, especially since the still freezing air was aggravating Becs’s asthma. The run to CP4 & 5 was rocky and involved a lot of climbing and descending which hammered my legs. There was only one way to go and we ended up behind a line of people travelling at around our pace, so there was no point in attempting a pass.

We finished the run section in 1hr 20mins and went straight to the canoes, this year’s surprise discipline. The canoes were Canadian style, so it was a quick paddle to CP7 and back to the boathouse at Audley Weir. We both had paddles, so thankfully Becs had to do some work unlike last year when we had to row a section and I did all the work! No sandbagging this time! Once out of the boats we had to climb the same bloody set of steps as last year up to CP8 and the bike transition. We walked the steps, same as last year, as it was still early in the race and my heart rate was already up around 170.

Got to the top and onto the bikes which was going to be our best leg. This section of the course overlapped a lot with last year’s, so it was faily easy to navigate and we’d no problem finding CPs 8, 9 and 10. My mountain biking in Canberra paid off in spades as there was a long, rocky downhill between CP 9 & 10 which I flew down, passing quite a few other riders who were a bit more tentative. All was going well until we were heading towards CP11. We had a bunch of people following us down some singletrack when we got to a slow, twisty, rocky section. I made it through and kept going only to hear a shout from behind as Becs had crashed. I went back and discovered that while she’d gone over the handlebars at a slow speed, she’d landed on her kneecap on a rock and was in quite a bit of pain. She was adamant that she was continuing, so we took off again a bit more slowly.

The next couple of checkpoints were OK, though Becs found it increasingly hard to put significant power through the pedals, so riding uphill was an issue, and running anywhere was out of the question. Thankfully we’d got the running out of the way early, though there were still two short sections which we had to walk instead of jog.

Once we’d made it to CP16 there was another surprise in store for us. We were given a map of an old folks’ home and had to run around looking for answers to clues, and also shovelling some dirt as the hard-labour part of a landscaping project. Once we had all the boxes ticked, we had our cards examined and, if satisfactory, we got our CP17 marked and were back on the bikes.

By this stage we’d been going for four hours and Becs’s knee was swelling up and getting more painful. Thankfully we’d only a few bike CPs to go, none of which involved riding uphill. There’s a rule in AR which states that both team members must remain within 100m of each other at all times, so we made full use of that by getting Becs to stop once we got close to the CP and having me go and punch our card. We checked off CPs 19 – 23 in quick succession, then we’d a high speed descent of Audley Hill back to the registration area for our final leg – kayaking.

Heading out on the kayaks was made particularly hard since we were leaving from beside the finish area, and quite a few of the better teams were already sitting there enjoying their post-race hot food. The smells were particularly enticing after surviving the previous 4.5 hours on gels and water! Max Adventure had acquired solid, plastic kaaks for this year which were a marked improvment on last year’s inflatable ones. With me weighing a good 20kg+ more than Becs, sitting me in the back of the inflatable ones saw them bend in the middle and become a pain in the arse to paddle. This year it was much better and we’d no problem flying down the river to our last two CPs, 24 & 25. Once we’d got 25, it was a straight race back up the river to get in under the five hour mark. We made it with 40 seconds to spare, crossing the line in 4:59:20 which we were pretty happy with.

We munched our way through the post-race food, hung around for the presentations and congratulated Amanda & Matt who’d won the mixed teams division. We also managed to pick up a spot-prize! Woo hoo! The official results were posted on the Max Adventure web site on Tuesday and we managed to come 13th in the mixed category which we’re delighted about. Becs reckons that if she hadn’t crashed we could have got as high as 8th too. All in all it was a pretty good day, particularly as it didn’t rain at all – a first for our AR team. We’ll have to examine the calendar now and decide when our next race is going to be!

The clocks went forward on Saturday night, meaning that I lost an hour of sleep. No big deal you say, so did everyone else. True, but everyone else didn’t have to get up at 5:10, meaning that I was effectively getting up at 4:10. I wasn’t too happy about that, but as Becs was picking me up at 6:00 I had no choice. Having loaded the bikes and gear in to the Pajero, it was off to collect Niall and Team BND was ready to hit the road for the TEVA Sydney adventure race (AR).

The event was being held in Belanglo State Forest, scene of Ivan Milat’s backpacker murders back in the early 90’s which was a comforting thought. I was unaware of this piece of trivia, but every Aussie I’d mentioned the race to commented on it straight away.

Myself and Becs had done the Kathmandu AR back in June, which was a two-person team event. This one required teams of three, so we drafted Niallo in as he’d previously expressed an interest. Having recently run a 3:28:59 marathon we figured he could be the pack horse for the team. As it turned out, we distributed the load fairly equally and he only had to carry a bit of nylon rope.

It had pissed down for our last race and we had hopes this one would be a little drier. I checked the rain radar in the morning and while it was raining lightly in Sydney, it looked like the rain clouds were passing north of the race location, itself 130km south of Sydney. However, there were plenty of grey coulds around when we arrived, and sure enough it started pissing rain shortly after the start.

The race was set up as two bike/run/bike legs, with a number of checkpoints throughout each leg. Some checkpoints were mere locations, where you looked for a coloured flag, and stamped your card with the punch hanging it. Others involved completing a challenge before receiving your stamp from an official. Challenges ranged from the bizarre to the straightforward, for example;

• Three Wise Monkeys Becs stood in an obstacle course, Niall stood 5 metres behind her, and I stood a further 5 metres behind Niall. The obstacle course contained a stuffed monkey, two small poles stuck in the ground, a toy crocodile, an upturned bucket and a broom handle. I had a card with instructions on it telling Becs what to do (see photo above). The instructions for Becs were roughly as follows;

  – Bend down on one knee and bow to the monkey god.

  – Pick up the monkey and place it on your right shoulder. It must remain there at all times

  – Walk around the left pole. You are not to touch the crocodile at any time, nor are you to step outside your team’s square.

  – Pick up the broom handle, and use it to manoeuver the crocodile outside the square

  – Walk to the upturned bucket and place the monkey on top of it

  – Bow down to the monkey god

  Now, this all sounds very easy. However, Becs had to wear a blindfold and I wasn’t allowed to talk, so I had to mime the instructions to Niall, who could then speak them on to Becs.

• VO2Max Blow up enough balloons to make a stack which touches a rope hung about eight feet off the ground (see photo above).

• Navigate on foot around an area to pick up 4 out of 5 checkpoints

• Build a sculpture using swimming pool noodles (flotation devices for kids to play with)

We failed our first challenge (throwing two eggs into a bucket of water without breaking them) and had to do a penalty run through an obstacle course to get our stamp. After that it was off on the bikes for a straightforward ride to a couple of checkpoint before ditching them for the run leg. The first run leg saw us being given a new map with five points marked on it. We had to visit 4 out of these 5 points using our compass and terrain-reading skills to figure out where to go. The first three were OK, but the last took up a bit longer, partly due to the map disintegrating in our hands due to the torrential rain.

Having compeleted that section we were then faced with a music trivia quiz/crossword before being allowed back on the bikes for some more fast riding between checkpoints to complete the end of leg one. This was when we had to complete the Three Wise Monkeys challenge mentioned above. We made a balls of the first attempt, and after completing a penalty run, we got through on the second effort.

Out we went on the second leg. The constant rain and copious mud was starting to take its toll on my bike and I was having awful trouble shifting gears without severe effort. My disc brakes were also squealing very loud in protest at all the gunk they had to deal with, so when we reached the last run leg they were glad of the rest.

This run leg involved copying the checkpoint from an official’s map, navigating to that checkpoint, stamping your form to prove you’d been there, then reading the next location off a map at the checkpoint, navigating to that and so on. After racking up four checkpoints it was back to pick up the bikes for the final bike leg. It was long, muddy and the crap weather was starting to piss us off, so I was looking forward to the end. We reached checkpoint 20 where we had to use our rope to carry a basketball, then throw it over a ten foot high rope, without touching the ball with our hands. That was the final obstacle and it was a fast 1.5km ride to the finish line, where we began stuffing our faces straight away at the post race BBQ. Our final time was 4hr43mins according to my watch.

Overall it was good fun, though I think we’re all looking forward to doing a race in the dry!

Update: The official results are out and we finished in 4:43:53, 19th out of 42 Mixed teams, and 34th out of 80 overall.

S: 2000m – B: 41.4km – R: 10km

I did my first ever adventure race at the weekend and it was great fun. It was a team event, each team consisting of two people, so Becs got roped into being my teammate and we entered in the Mixed category. Given that neither of us had ever done an event before, we enrolled in the training day which was held the day before the race.

Saturday morning dawned to a light drizzle which put a bit of a dampener on things, but we drove down to the Royal National Park with only a vague idea of what lay in store for us. We knew it was a training day, but I wasn’t sure whether they’d have us running around all day or not. As it turned out it was quite relaxed. We spent the morning learning the basics of navigation; how to use a compass, plot your location on a map and then navigate to your destination. We wouldn’t actually need much navigation skills for the race, but they’ll come in handy at some stage in the future. We also got plenty of tips for route planning, and got advised to arrive early so we’d have plenty of time to annotate our map with our chosen route and some navigation clues.

After that it was a spot of lunch, followed by the rudiment of mountain biking (which I already knew) and the basics of kayaking. Having been on the kayaking course previously I thought I was well prepared, but as the kayak we’d be using in the race was only half the length of a sea kayak, and also inflatable, it spun on a dime, so most of the what we’d learnt on the kayaking course no longer applied. If we tried using the ‘torso rotation’ method of paddling, the kayak just spun underneath us! It had rained on and off all day, so I ended up soaking wet and freezing by the time I got home. I’d have to prepare better for race day!

The alarm went off on race day at 5:20 and I could hear the rain outside. “OK,” I thought to myself, “it’s going to be a mud fest!” After a quick bowl of cereal I packed up my gear, making sure I brought a complete change of clothes for after the race. Becs picked me up a little after 6:00 and we made it down to the Royal shortly after 7:00, dropped off our bikes at the bike transition, then got a great park near the start and registered nice and early. We picked the map and race instructions out of the bag and headed back to the car to plot our route around the course.

8:40 saw us standing in the rain listening to the race briefing, feeling surprisingly relaxed. Probably worrying more about the weather than the race itself! The gun went off at 8:56 and we sauntered off at the back of the pack. Our first checkpoint was about 1.5km up the Hacking River and we had to row to get there. I started off the rowing, though launching the boat amongst about 10-15 other teams meant that the first few minutes were spent trying not to crash into someone. Becs navigated out to the checkpoint which was a lot further than it had looked on the map and it took us about half an hour to reach it. We punched our card, then turned to head back to the boat shed. We considered swapping places and letting Becs row for a bit, but decided against trying to swap places for fear of ending up in the water. I’d remembered that the current flows fastest in the centre of the river, so we did our best to stay away from the banks and it only took about 20mins to get back to the boat shed.

The second section was all running, with a further three checkpoints to navigate to. Our preparation in the car paid off as we knew almost exactly where we were going, though as it involved gaining and then losing about 100m in altitude, my legs weren’t too happy with the whole operation. Carrying about 5kg of stuff in my backpack didn’t really help either. I was pretty pleased after nabbing the 4th checkpoint until I realised we had to run back up to the Visitor’s Centre to start the bike legs. Anyone who has driven into the Royal National Park knows that the hill down to the weir is bloody steep, so can imagine having to run back up it. The road was off-limits, so we had to use and adjacent walking trail which consisted mostly of steps. I decided from the start that I was going to walk it and Becs was happy to oblige, though I suspect I was holding her up as trailwalking is her strong point.

By this stage we’d been going for almost two hours and I was feeling a bit tired. I’d been drinking water regularly and had eaten a Mars & a breakfast bar, but it was now time to bring out the heavy artillery in the form of a Gu Energy Gel. It was quite tasty, but I didn’t get any sugar rush from it. However, I soon forgot about being tired and it was only an hour later that I realised that I’d been charging around the place without issue, so they obviously work very well!

We finally made it to the bike transition at the Visitor’s Centre, checked in with the course marshalls and jumped on the bikes for the MTB leg. There was mud everywhere so we had a great time charging through the puddles and just getting completely spattered with dirt. Becs took a turn at navigating, but I ruied it a bit by taking off down what I thought was the right track, but turned out to be the wrong one. Luckily we didn’t end up too far from our desired destination so we didn’t really lose any time.

There was one tricky section of the course which was a steep downhill. Given the conditions you’d fall over if you went too slow, but you couldn’t go too fast either as there were other teams walking uphill towards us. We made it down at a reasonable pace without issue, clicked off our 7th checkpoint and started the long walk up the hill on the other side. Cycling up wasn’t really an option as there was so much mud it was almost impossible to get traction. The 8th checkpoint was at the school near Grays Point, where we ditched the bikes and ran (well walked) through suburbia to the local boat ramp for the kayaing leg, stopping en route to explain to some kids what was going on. After all, there were plenty of mud-covered lunatics running back and forth through their streets.

The kayak leg was a pain in the arse as the kayaks were inflatable. The recommendation was to put the heavier person in the back, so that left Becs up front. Given the weight difference between us the boat actually bent in the middle! Ideally we should have been kneeling up and leaning slightly forward, but I wasn’t able to kneel due to my recurring foot issue. It hadn’t been bothering me during the race, but it seems to be triggered by stretching my foot, so sitting on it was almost certain to aggravate the problem. I ended up sitting on my arse, in probably the least efficient paddling position. Thankfully the leg was only about 30mins long, after which we ran back to the school, picked up the bikes and entered the great unknown.

In an effort to prevent any cheating, the last six checkpoints were not marked on competitor’s maps and had to be acquired on course. As we picked up the bikes, the course marshall showed us his map with the next checkpoint marked on it and we were off. It was now just one long MTB dirt fest to the finish. At each remaining checkpoint there was the hole punch to mark your control card, and a map with the next checkpoint marked on it. We flew around the rest of the course, apart from a hiccup at checkpoint 12, where some kind soul had stolen both the hole punch and the map showing the location of checkpoint 13. Thankfully some volunteers were on hand to explain the situation and point out CP13 on our map.

CP13, CP14 and CP15 followed in rapid succession, with us passing a couple of mixed teams en route. CP15 was the last checkpoint, and all that remained was to ride to the road and speed downhill back to the weir. There was another mixed team right in front of us, so we hammered downhill and managed to pass them. We dumped our bikes in the last bike transition, shouted our team number to the marshalls and asked “Is that it? Are we finished?”. The response was “What does your course card tell you to do.” Unfortunately it said we had to run back to where we’d started the race, a distance of about 1km. Off we went, but my knees were in bits at this stage and my run more closely resembled a hobble. The teams we’d passed on the downhill sauntered past us and there was nothing we could do. We crossed the line with big grins on our faces with my watch reading 4hrs 34mins. Happy Days ;-)

We’ll definitely do another one.