Adventure Racing: Not for the Lazy

I have experienced such an amazing and painful thing over the weekend. It's called Adventure Racing. This style of competition involves mountain biking, cross country running and canoeing. I'm sure other sports can be involved but for our event this was what we had served to us. Tentions were high, dirty looks flowing through the crowd from person to person and then there was us.

Tam had already planned to compete and had been training prior to the race with her team mate Cas - you may remember Cas climbing with us one fine Sunday afternoon. Marty and I decided we would head down to the Gold Coast with them to search for some untouched rock to climb. We brought our bikes and about 20 - 30 kilos of climbing gear. I could see in Marty's eyes, he was exceptionally jealous and was really quite eager to compete in the race. If only he had a team mate to compete with. This is where I came in. Ideas and questions were thrown around and before I knew it I was dragged into this pain staking journey of discovery, pain, exercise, adventure and of course pain.

I began my day with 2 pieces of toast. The winning formula for any adventure racing team. Followed by a couple of cigarettes. This was a bad start to any day, let alone a grueling race through the hills around Hyines Dam (spelling).

Marty and I had very little time to prepare so we urgently ran back to the cars to grab our bikes and headed back to the marshalling area. When asked for the name of our team I immediately thought of "Better late than never". Unfortunately this was taken so the most appropriate name I could think of was "Preparation is everything", nothing like lazy irony.

We scrambled to the start line while the safety presentation was going and tried to study the paperwork we had shoved in our faces 5 minutes prior to starting. Before we knew it the siren went and we were hurdling down the hill at the speed of, "Oh my god. This is crazy. Where is my breakfast and smokes?".

Our first leg was the canoeing. It has been many years since I have paddled my way across a lake and now I understand why. Paddling is grueling work. Much energy is used through the legs, shoulders, hands and back. To make it worse we had to, somehow, mount 2 bikes in the middle of the canoe. It was recommended that we use our bags to harness the bikes to the boat. Unfortunately we had poor excuses for bags so we just tried the balancing act. The handle bars were dragging in the water which made each paddle more arduous that desired. Approximately 2 kms later we reached the end of the leg and were launching into the water, trying not to drop our phone and camera laden bags in the water.

The mountain biking leg was great fun, absolutely exhausting but quite enjoyable. There were many checkpoints to make in this leg. Marty and I were ranking around the middle of the pack but atleast we were enjoying this up and down style of riding. I had never realised precisely how hard it was pushing a bike up a dirt track. My legs were aching, lungs burning and general exhaustion set in. I was seeing stars but luckily I had Marty on side. He was surely the driving force behind our team. The ride firstly took us through the narrow dirt and sand tracks. This, followed by some nice road riding towards the pumping station for the damn, checkpointing as we rode. To finish off this leg I struggled up a climb. This hill was probably about 500m long and by the top I was spent. Luckily as my worst leg was next in line. The run.

I was dreading the next leg as we approached the marshalling station. We dropped our bikes and consumed some gooey power sludge stuff. It is supposed to be full of energy goodness but honestly it simply reminded me of that caramel topping you get at Maccas. Once again we were off and running. This style of competition was a major undertaking on my part as I have always considered myself as a short distance racer - even that is somewhat of an exaggeration as I am not really that athletic anyway.

The run started ok but about 1km down the track I started to feel the lack of oxygen in my legs. My lungs were a flaming in pain like no other. To top it off I was hyper ventilating fairly badly. Martin saw me starting to slow down and responded by coaxing me into moving again. "Come on, remember to breath". It all seemed so obvious but so out of reach. I was breathing rapidly and was starting to get a little delirious but I pushed on. hehehe He even tried to gain my conformation that I wasn't becoming disgruntled with his coach like coaxing. I understood why he was doing it and, chances are, I would have walked most of the way if it weren't for his support. After lots of walking and running I was surely spent but I still had 2 legs to go before I could rest. The "Mystery Leg" (more mountain biking) and the last canoeing leg.

The "Mystery Leg" consisted of very narrow trails, mud and lots of little hills to ride up and down. The aim of this leg was to write down the 10 track names as we progressed through the course. Marty was flying along and I was generally trying not to have a serious accident. Mountain biking in such narrow quarters can be a harrowing experience and I was just trying to be as cautious as possible. It seemed as though this leg lasted forever, mainly because there were so many little hills. I often found myself having to dismount just to get up some of them. I felt a great sense of relief once we had finished this leg as I knew the final leg was due and then the finish line would be in sight.

Our final push for victory (finishing the race without passing out) was the canoeing. I was tired but I still had some energy left. One great aspect of this type of racing is that once a leg is finished the racer can move onto the next leg which involves different muscles and different styles of movement. This time round we didn't have to take the bikes along so we could paddle to our hearts content without the added drag. My hands were aching after a short time but we knew the finish line was close so we paddled and panted until we reached the other side of the Dam. From here Marty quickly jumped out of the boat and clipped our last checkpoint marker while I turned the canoe back around. As we headed back towards the other side of the Dam my hands, back and legs started to hurt. I stopped paddling for a moment. As I tried to open my hand a surge of pain went through my fingers. The pain was just bearable so I thought it best to continue. We weren't going to win the race but we atleast had the motivation to be competitive. The last half of the leg finished quickly and our excitement forced us to launch out of the boats feet first into the shallow water. We hauled the boat back onto land and could see the end in sight.

Our bikes were waiting for us where we left them. We mounted and started the last push for glory. I had a new burst of energy due to the excitement of completing this arduous event. Martin was complaining of cramps in his legs and I could only say "Ha, payback for the running". 2 opponents were in sight so I started pushing harder and faster. They didn't look all that competitive by that stage so Marty and I passed with ease. I felt an amazing sense of achievement because I had completed something I didn't expect to, and ofcourse due to the fact that I did it with my very good friend Marty. We ranked 21 out of 38 teams and I considered this a personal victory as this was Marty and my first adventure race.

As we waited for the girls to come in we treated ourselves to the complimentary lunch talked about the wonderful pain and suffering that is Adventure Racing. The girls came back though a little behind scheduale due to a navigational malfunction (hehe we will blame the event organisers to save face for the girls). Very unceremoniously we all sat on the ground eating while the winners were announced and prizes handed out. We didn't mind how we placed. It's all about being involved and stepping outside of your comfort zone.

So now I sit in front of my computer questioning the logic of this adventure. I will surely be back to compete again but the question is, why? Well it's because us humans can be hard to satisfy. We push through boundaries because we are curious to see what is behind them. Do we accomplish our goals, or do we fail and learn from these mistakes? There will always be a second chance and I will harness every chance I get. Who knows, maybe we will rank 10th instead of 21st next time.

Probably not.

My apologies for all the gramatical error. I'm too tired to stress about bad english on a public blog.