Mud
Blackberries
Toil
Challenges
Adventure
Rivers
Caves
Impenetrable bush
Wow - it was definitely 24 hours of adventure. And we didn't even go for the full 24 hours!
Pre-race philosophy: Finish in one piece, still married, finish happy.
Tom and I don't get to race together much at all - in my first 24 hour adventure race I was feeling pretty nervous. Too nervous to feel responsible for taking my usual female teammates into wild bush, in the dark, and possibly getting them lost. Tom was the safety net option.
Leg 1: MTB Broken Hills to State highway and SUP leg. Managed to cling on to breakaway group on this, and grabbed ourselves a Stand Up Paddleboard. Tom stood and paddled while I kneeled on the front and tried not to get too wet and cold.
Leg 2: Trek up towards pinnacles to the Dam, then the course setters favourite trick of having us boulder hop down a stream bed for hours. From the bottom of the stream bed we had to head bush up to the mouth of Collins Tunnel - knowing that if we headed East too early we'd go right over the tunnel with nothing to stop us till we got to the top of the hill in an extreme overshoot. Guess what..... yes, we overshot!! Hence a fairly stressful 40 minutes or so - unsure which direction to head in, until we heard some voices and managed to bust back down right at the tunnel mouth. In hindsight our bush nav is not strong enough, we should have remained in the stream bed and continued climbing right to the trail, rather than gambling on navigating to the tunnel directly.
Leg 3: MTB: Heading through transition we crossed paths with a number of friends on the 3 and 6 hour event - was heartening to get a few cheers as we headed out on bikes but this quickly faded into silence broken only by the sound of my own swearing. Firstly we spent 45 minutes trying to find our way around the river without having to swim down it with our bikes. SURELY the course setter didn't mean us to do that, there must be a better way. It turns out..... no.... we did need to drag/float our bikes down the thigh high river. This was the first of many non-cycling hurdles on the bike leg. After a quick cliff jump, we headed off onto the knee-deep mud and dragged our bikes around for an hour or so. Literally. I couldn't even wheel my bike, let alone ride it. Every 10 seconds or so, a rugby ball sized clump of mud collected in frame blocking the back wheel and I had to claw it out. I was a very unhappy bunny! Further challenges on this leg were having to bush bash through thick scrub and blackberry vs risk drowning trying to swim a river with our bikes...... Tom having to literally throw our bikes up big banks........ before we finally hit the farmland. By this stage I was in survival mode and settled in to follow, as he took all the nav through the tricky farmland with very few features to work from. It was a bit frustrating to constantly be passed by a team of men, all riding faster than me... only to catch them at the next checkpoint where they watched where Tom went then rode past to beat us there again. ^%&%&%&** We were rapt to push hard and get through all the CPs by dark, with only the simpler return trip to do under lights. Teams after us really struggled to navigate to CPs without the benefit of daylight, so this was a bit of a key achievement really.
Leg 4: Trek: Heading into a trek, at 10pm, after 15 hours of slog, in the dark and cold.... was quite exciting really! It was a relief to be off the bike, which was more of a drag than a bike. The night was calm and still - no one had lost their toys, their mind, or their bowels - quite a positive feeling pervailed really. Of course an hour or two of absolutely dense bush bashing with no depth perception in the dark is a good way to re-introduce the adventure to the adventure race. Tom was like Thomas the Tank Engine, forcing his way brutally through the bush, flattening it down to make an easier path for me..... and the two teams of school kids who knew they were on to a good thing and just sat in the carriages letting him do all the work. Again, his nav was spot on, and near the top we quietly lost the others and popped out onto easy walking under powerlines and zoomed ahead. We picked up the next few CPS before a distance misjudgement saw us in circles for nearly an hour under the stars. Eventually we backtracked to our last known point, and finally I was able to contribute some worth and nav us to the next CP while Tom took a break. At this stage, we decided to veto the final loop of 4 checkpoints across farmland, knowing we still had a decent hike back to the finish. Our plan had always been to finish early, knowing that 24 hours was a big jump for us. We spent what seemed like hours walking, climbing, clambering down a steep stream bed. By this stage my body was on autopilot, early hours of the morning, trying not to fall asleep, so I wasn't exactly spritely. Each step I had to crouch down, put my hands on the rocks and carefully lower myself down. Tom told me the next day there were loads of eels in the ponds which he scared away and just didn't mention at the time!
Summary:
This slightly boring recap can't really reflect the race. The 24 hour race largely happened away from the bulk of the other events, so no photos of us, and I'm writing this 6 months later. We signed up for a challenge and we bloody well got one. It was a reality check for me, wanting to move into longer events, that I'm not physically strong enough. I would have had to start digging holes under fences, if Tom hadn't have been there to lift my bike over it. I would have panicked to have had responsibility for losing our way in tough thick bush navigation. I would have not trusted to push on even when the terrain seemed ridiculous. A huge challenge. Probably the best thing of all, was the success of racing with Tom. The reminder of what a good team we are. Who would have thought that all the challenges of parenting together through sleep deprivation and adverse challenges, without enough time to cook a proper meal, would be such specific training to an actual event??? There were times when we were tired, tense and frustrated. But not with each other. I was reminded what a rock he is for me when the going gets tough, and I was in awe of (and dependant on) his physical strength.
