Manawahe Adventure Race Reunion - Mad Hatters (Take 2)

Early morning Saturday 27 June, at a small country hall in rural Bay of Plenty, sees us take the start line with a couple of hundred other racers.  Actually it doesn't.  We were running a tad late, Clare had been appointed team captain by some reverse military coup, so she had raced straight across to the race briefing.  The rest of us wandered across mere minutes before the start hooter went and realised Clare's race gear was now all locked in the truck in the car park.  Over there. ------------------------------->

So we stood on the race line and watched everyone else race off into the distance.

We are not in this start line photo.....

Never mind, we have great fortitude and resilience and a few minutes later set ourselves to the challenge of minimising the damage.  We make it about a hundred and fifty metres before we realise that that 'sound' is the contents of Sally's pack emptying as she runs down the road, and we have to back track collecting glasses case and various food items. 

For me, this race is a holiday.  An experienced team and the chance to not have to be captain.  The others know I'm actually a bit OCD and love to be captain even thought I get tired, so they enjoy winding me up about it.  The night before, when all the important work is done on the navigation and course choices....

So, I had no maps, clues, map bags or information about what's happening.  I was determined to not be a bossy britches and take over, so I had left my map board at home.  This mostly worked pretty well for me, although I was at times sent off to pick up a checkpoint and meet the others in the far corner of the field.  (I did make an exception for a lovely tricky checkpoint "175 degrees, 45metres"  which I added the magnetic north variance to and completely owned.  I know it's not nice to blow your own trumpet, but using a compass is a bit of an achievement for me, so I just did.)

I really can't remember much of the race!  We had a hideous road climb on the bikes, then a lot of farm riding, which is really not my favourite use of a mountain bike.  I sucked at beach golf but strokes weren't counted so I ran it like a hockey player.  I discovered that a motocross track is quite tricky on a bike without a motor.  We did end up descending a cliff face and I thought I was going to die, but my lasting impression is of a group of young girls in a team, with poor bike set up, in tears, who practically fell on some food I shared with them.  I looked around my experienced, resilient team, and wouldn't have swapped them that day for the world.  xx

Manawahe Adventure Race with the Mad Hatters

Five years ago, it all started here:

Manu (left) was the undisputed adventure racing queen and the one who knew which way up a map and a bike went.  Sal (right) had been a sponsored athlete in the Spring Challenge Adventure race, and had the hi-vis PakNSave jacket to prove it.  Clare had just got the trainer wheels off her mountain bike, and it's pretty clear that I bought the MAD into the Mad Hatters, which is our team name.

Clare still has post-traumatic stress disorder and nightmares about the huge hill in the Rawhiti MTB park.  Manu's partner has never offered to crew for us again after we were dead last out of the second leg.  I missed the archery target by so much they never found the arrow again.  Someone, (who was that?) got stuck waist deep in the estuary mud and we had to go back and haul them out.  We were late to registration so the only shirts left were size XL so we had to adapt them to actually make them suitable for exercise.  Except Clare who still wears hers for PJs.  I chopped mine in half and still had enough left for that mask I'm wearing.  Thinking back, I think this was the most fun and laughs I've ever had racing.  Especially when Manu fell off her bike on the flat grass.

 

I've got completely sidetracked from the point of this post, which is the 2016 Mad Hatters reunion for the Manawahe Adventure Race.  But I don't want it to cloud these fond memories so I'll start a new post for that one.  :)