Spring Challenge is an all-girls adventure race. I don't really do all-girls races. I don't need the camaraderie, support and 'frills' supplied with female only events, which tend to be much more expensive than a comparative mixed event. But Spring Challenge is run by Nathan Fa'avae, an off the planet amazing adventure racer, and he has brought it to the North Island for the first time in years, so Taryn and I convinced Tilly to race with us. The key goal (for me) really was to give it a good competitive shot - knowing that we'll be not amongst the fastest teams, but to see just how close we could get.
Friday afternoon I get chills and shakes, teeth chattering ones, my bones start aching, my skin hurts, and I don't eat dinner. Registration and getting the maps busts me out of the doldrums and I cope ok over the rest of the evening getting everything prepped. I sleep ok, although I've been hydrating all day and every time I get up to go to the bathroom I come back shuddering and freezing.
6:30 sees us on the start line at the Tarawera Outlet, being informed that the inset maps we've been given don't match our main maps so to rely on the main maps for navigation. Helpful those inset maps then? We plan to protect Taryn a little on the bike, as our least experienced rider, making sure she has space to ride freely, and to draft behind us to make the going a bit easier. From the start gun she takes off and I can't keep up.
The 5km to the bike drop goes fast, we hand over bikes to Tom and Squid, and charge down a muddy bush bash path to the river. We hope in the boat with our guide, Manu, and team #214 join us as paddlers. A few instructions and we start our journey.
The rafting was amazing. The sun was coming up, mist was swirling, the bush there is just SO green, and it felt a million miles away from civilisation. Funny how I scorned Grade 2 rafting last week, but when approaching rocks with fast flowing water gushing over them I made sure I was well wedged into the raft. We had some fun moments, swinging a little wide at times so the paddlers at the back (me!) brushed through the trees and overhanging branches. I developed a good Emu - "head in the sand" impression, which basically involved turning my back to the approaching obstacle, and putting my head into the bottom of the boat.
The support crew extraordinaire had our gear set out perfectly for us, helping us make a quick transition on to bikes, and telling us we were the fourth boat off the river, so in 7th/8th. The other team left transition shortly in front of us, but we caught them quickly and headed off road onto single track trying to stop them following us. And here the problem happened. At the right (estimated) distance, in the right direction, a road appeared, and we took it. We hesitated as the curve on the trail didn't seem quite right - but we didn't want the team behind to follow us "Shall we back ourselves?" "Yes" and we biked up the wrong road. I wasn't happy with my compass reading - we seemed to be heading too much North, but on a wiggly road, topo map with poor details maybe those curves just aren't showing up? Another team came down, but we pressed on, just a bit further. Eventually, this cost us over 40 minutes. It was absolutely defeating to hit the correct road and be behind all the last teams from the raft, ladies having a great time chatting and pushing their bikes up hills. It was embarrassing that they were impressed as we rode strongly past, knowing that in adv racing, it doesn't matter how fast you go if you've been going in the wrong direction!
Hit: Low point
Tilly reminds us to make sure we are eating as we've now been going for a couple of hours, and I admit I just haven't felt hungry. I usually try to eat a mouthful of something every 15 minutes, so by this stage I'm probably already in deficit. Over the next part of the race, this develops into me retching every time I put something into my mouth. I can't stomach any of my food, or even my rehydration fluid - I start to get chills again and my body hits the wall.
Hit: Real low point
I can't really race report the next few hours, besides saying that I handed over the maps and compass, then settled in to endure. It was like some blurry vortex of internal discomfort. That was the unhappiest that I've ever been in a race. With no idea how far it was to go, and rapidly hitting the wall with no nutrition, I kept sneaking peeks at the maps and trying to work out where I could skip out to access the support crew. Somehow Tilly and Taryn kept me going, sharing some food, riding patiently behind me, while nailing the nav and being remarkably calm about the disasters that we'd hit. I told them that if they had been sick I'd be really pissed off as the race was just so important to me. They laughed at me, said I was a b***h and kept me pointing in the right direction. I do have to say - they made the most of the situation to really enjoy the chance to navigate - and they owned it! The trickiest foot section we passed at least a couple of teams, and although Taryn complained that she didn't understand how my flash back of hand compass worked, you wouldn't have thought so.
Anyway, eventually Taryn got an anti-nausea pill off a passing doctor, and over the next hour or two of slow grinding uphill I gave up on all my nutrition plans and just did whatever Tilly said. Obviously at this stage I had nothing to offer to the team but liabilities so I was just doing what I was told. And somehow, as the tablet kicked in and I started to get some fuel in me; the biggest negative of the day became my biggest positive. Team captain; founder; organiser; navigator; mother hen; motivator was a complete liability and with total potential to ruin the day for everyone. Instead, these young ladies who I have introduced to adv racing, knew exactly what to do. They navigated, force fed the weak link, encouraged, maintained positive attitudes, cajoled, planned, admired the views, and somehow managed to still be enjoying themselves.
So, I ate that humble pie and decided that it tasted not too bad, given that I was bloody proud of them. And lucky they hadn't throttled me.
At transition in the safety of Tom's hugs I was shedded a few tears and used the portaloo twice. I wasn't retching any more, but was apparently still suffering some gastric distress..........
Taryn's partner commented that "You girls are good with the runs" (bad joke) "so go knock this one off in two and a half hours aye?". 2.5 hours was the given 'fast' time in the logistics planner for this leg, so quite unlikely for us!
The final run leg was a teensy bit of an anti-climax given the drama's that we'd had so far, and that Taryn and I had run exactly the same loop in an adventure race just a few months before. It was a steep hike up a dry canyon, with lots of scrambling over rocks and trees, up a bush bash path and onto a hill top. However, we steadily made progress, passed a few teams, the nav was smooth and we made the hut at the top in good time. I had to make a couple of bush stops with tummy gripes but was mostly feeling the best I had all day. I made the mistake of asking if the (new) navigators thought we could actually make it in the 2.5 hour goal - and they said we could, if we picked it up. So we picked it up! We didn't muck around down the roped descent, hit the lake and tried to keep a steady jog for the last couple of kms to the finish line. That was a long 2km; I'm really familiar with that trail and kept thinking we were nearly at the jetty; it was like running on a treadmill.
Anyway, we hit the jetty, turn a couple of corners, and see a flash of a white bib not far in front of us. "Go!" I gasped, and Taryn went. We hit the Outlet bridge, where spectators clapping for the team in front saw us coming and started yelling "You can catch them!" We'd caught them by the end of the bridge but couldn't get past in the narrow pedestrian gate, and all spilled onto the open grass leading into the finish chute. The finish line announcer was pretty loud and excited about a sprint finish, people were yelling, I was too tired to even look behind and see if we were ahead. I was vaguely wondering whether the first person across the line would be placed next, or the first whole team, or the person with the transponder...... turns out it didn't matter, Taryn and Tilly were right with me and we crossed together, that little effort moving us from 10th to 9th for our days work in 9:50ish.
The support crew heard the sprint finish action over the loudspeaker from the comfort of the car.......
Learning Points
Don't put all your eggs in one basket. This race was beyond my budget and so the pressure I put on myself was too great - I wasn't in it for the adventure.
If your compass says you're going the wrong way, trust it.
Have a 'marker' when you're not sure - if we've gone 200m and it's not 100%, come back and check, rather than throwing good money after bad.
Don't make things harder than they need to be.
Have nutrition communication times set up from early in the race - I was off my game and wasn't taking responsibility for my own fueling - but I was off my game and not really thinking through the consequences of this! It may not have made any difference with a viral bug - but I should have worked harder, earlier, to get something in me.
Successes
Pre-setting the maps with Mag North arrows and scales in convenient places - no rearrangements needed during the race
New Vapro control description holder on forearm with control descriptions ready to go. In the end having these handy was the only real positive contribution I was able to make during the event! :)
Good choice of teammates - when the going gets tough, the tough get going!
