Whangamata 12 hour
Walking down a stream, for hour after hour...........hours after we thought we'd be finished the race.
That's pretty much all I remember of this race, trying to write the blog a few months later.
Wow. Boy, were we in a tough place. Short of food, short on energy, stumbling down a steep gorgy creek with numerous falls, pools, technical difficulties. 2am, 3am, 4am, and we thought we'd be finished around 8pm. Where did this all go wrong?
This race had a Godzone level trek - a full on off track, hours bush bash in impenetrable forest.
We got to this trek stage in good spirits, albeit a number of hours later than the leaders. Bang - we hit the first CP like a brick wall. A tricky off track bush bash from a high point, down and up to hit a ridge and out to another high point. Except we ended up back where we started, doing a complete 360 back along a ridge. Ouch. Loads of teams struggled, and most turned back, opting to finish the bike leg back to the coast.
Not us. No, no, not us. We sat down for a good 40 minutes, looked over our maps, even rang the race director. And decided to go on, because:
A) We had live tracking beacons enabling us to communicate with base - when do you get the chance to test navigation with this level of safety?
B) It was a point to point race, miss a CP and become unranked instantaneously.
C) This IS the next level of nav that we need to work on, we'll never be able to do it, if we don't give it a go.
D) We had an escape route - at any time, if we turned and headed East, we would be funnelled into the river system which would return us to the end of the trek. An excellent (foolproof?) catching feature.
So, we backed ourselves and went for it. Looking over the maps the night before, I was struck with the difficulty of the section between the next two CPs. I couldn't find a handrail, nav feature, catching point - it was just a long stretch through thick bush, relyling on a compass bearing which can so easily go wrong. Talking to other teams the following day, I learned that some experienced navigators actually took a general bearing, put their maps away, and simply said- we have to go that way for a couple of hours, and put away their maps. They planned on the height climb toward the end to put them right - and they had the benefit of daylight, so as they got closer, they could SEE the high point they were aiming for.
Despite pushing hard, and even climbing trees - we didn't manage to spot the high point before the sun went down. In the dark, we knew our chances were slim, so turned to Plan B, and headed out through the river.
Hours later, stressed, tired, over it, we had to face reality. It was taking SO long to get down the river to the next CP, something must be wrong. The only alternative I could see, was that we had headed south PAST the previous CP, and instead of being in the river which would track us north back to transition, we were in the river which would keep going West and take us to Thames. It's a long walk back from Thames. We dug out the yellow tracker. "Please confirm position". And we trudged on.
About 40 mins later a reply came, confirming that Plan B was in fact successful, it was just very slow, and we were tracking as planned towards the next CP.
Wow. Boy, were we in a tough place. Short of food, short on energy,
stumbling down a steep gorgy creek with numerous falls, pools, technical
difficulties. 2am, 3am, 4am, and we thought we'd be finished around
8pm. Where did this all go wrong?
Learning:
We've discussed this so much. The following day, the following week, months later. We still back the decision to go for it, even though it resulted in hours of torment. We're proud we had the guts to give it a go. You don't learn to swim without getting in the water............
Altimeter - I need a good accurate one as we could have used it to help us know when we were off the table lands to a sufficient height.
Get all the way to a high point before taking a bearing - being just 50 m off top will run the risk of heading back up to the same high point!
Even when you've given up and decided just to go home, keep eating, drinking, talking, planning, as it might be HOURS until you make it home. We stopped eating, drinking, and lost the will to live, and this made our exit even longer and slower.
If you get an emergency evac in a vehicle at 4am, you'll struggle to find the driveway into the forest where you hid your bikes.
And, you know you've had a long day, when your alarm to get up that morning for the race, goes off just as you get into bed after the race..............
