GFR - control collection

Great Forest Rogaine  - one of my favourite OBOP events.  But this year (somehow) Tom got priority to race.  :(  I met  him after the race, swapped the kids into his car, and Clare and I headed out in the dark to collect controls.

This turned into a mighty adventure on a squally night, with a number of wallabies making appearances and a general feeling of eeriness in the deserted forest.  I somehow came off my bike while going at snail's pace; and our lighting systems started to die while in the corner of the forest nearest town.  While you'd think it was reassuring that we were near town, actually we were most concerned as it seemed the most likely place someone dodgy would be hiding!

And nothing beats a hot pie at the service station after a hard night!  The attendant seemed a little surprised at my fleecy trackpants but after a few hours out in the chilly rain, they were gold. 

Whangamata Adventure Race - 12 Hour

Pretty much all of the action of this race happened in the first half an hour.  Taryn and I had two speed demon triathlete/multisporters join us - looking forward to making use of their strength to get me through!  In the pre-race discussion, Tilly's weakness was identified as being extreme sensitivity to cold, so we had a plan to protect her from anything wet. 

I'm not sure then, how half an hour later on a drizzly, cold July day, Tilly ended up being the one holding a rope tied to a kayak crossing a tidal river..... a rope which was about 20m too short and dragged Tilly into the deep water.  AND we hadn't told her that adventure racers dry bag their gear, so all her spare clothes were also wet!!  The disastrous crossing ended with me in an IRB rescue, and the team dead last heading across the mudflats.  After a couple of CPs and growing miserable with cold, we turned back to transition, agreeing that it was best to miss all those points, change, get warm and try to re-set our day. 

Please Sir - taking the kayak, rope, and life jacket is just a hindrance - can't we just swim??

No swimming allowed....... 

After the near-death experience of the start, and writing this blog nearly 12 months later - I remember very little else of the race!  I know my navigation wasn't tight - relying on my growing familiarity in the area.  I remember Taryn's bike light dying and riding alongside with my head on an angle trying to light the path for both of us.  And I remember dreading an urban rogaine to finish the 12 hours - and it turned out to be my favourite leg with lots of fast nav and some mystery activities including a flying fox and pumpkin soup! 

Add caption

Kawerau Adventure Race

Aaah.  Kawerau!! 

The good news is we got third.  The bad news is we found enough checkpoints to be at least second, we just didn't write them down.  The good news is, we finished in 5:20.  The bad news is; that was 40 minutes of time we could have been collecting points!!


Leg 1 - 45 min rogaine close to Tarawera Outlet.  There were options for bike and foot but we stuck to the bikes on open forestry road to avoid congestion which worked well for us.  Good nav, found lots of CPs but arrived back right on 44 mins, freaked out about time penalties, and gave up on writing onto our points card.

Leg 2 - We ran along the edge of Lake Tarawera, then had a steeeeeeeeep climb straight up to the top of the northern ridge.  Given the disaster of Leg 1 and that we were now behind the general flow, we skipped the advanced loop, which was unfortunately very early in the trek........... a decision that bit us on the bum later.  Unfortunately a couple of hunters had taken offense to CPs being placed on 'their' track and decided to throw them into trees, so there was a bit of luck involved in finding some of them, or seeing a marshall to tell you it wasn't there to be found!  We navved around the hut early and were rapt to sneak past a number of teams hunting for a tricky CP in the wrong valley - getting it bang on ourselves.  Highlight was a gorgeous trek down a dry river gorge - very wild, including wild rocks which jump up and pound on your shins making them bleed.

TA and Mystery activities - Taryn fly fished for a tyre....... I identified bush tucker, pig, deer and possum!  First two were ok!!!

 
Leg 3 - Out on the bike for some fun - again we missed an early checkpoint that we judged would take ages on foot to give ourselves time for the fast wheeled checkpoints.  Made our way around the simple ones in good time and were amongst some fast mixed teams heading towards the finish.  (They'd got more CPs than us earlier!).   We were fairly quick to find all the letters hidden in the forest and to unscramble the words "Whanau" and "Whenua" but one of the teams nearby couldn't work it out.  After trying to wheedle it out of us, they tried to read it over Taryn's shoulder on her mapboard!!  :)  We were still with this team at the next activity -which was a series of 6 CPs, spread over forest pines, with detail compass work.  85m @ 145 degrees.  As we headed off on the first step, all the blokes were faster running - but as they spread out they fanned off course and had to come sideways to where I found it.  Rinse and repeat - until eventually they just waited to see what direction I ran in.  The very last step, I was the westernmost runner and glimpsed the CP just to my West - but as I glanced over my shoulder to try and read it the others noticed my movement so we couldn't even lose them there.  From there I took a bearing to hit a path shown on the map just beyond us, for smooth running back to the bikes.  Slightly proud, slighly frustrated, to have 7/8 people follow us, with one saying "Why are we going this way Tui, our bikes are over there somewhere??"
Final few CPs and we realised we had stuffed it all up - finished way too early, navved ourselves off the map with potential points too early in the day to go back for.  Decided to punish ourselves by biking back to the car!

Learning Points
In a short time leg, in dry weather - write straight on to the Points card - no transferring necessary.
Always know what the time penalty is!!
Allow ourselves more time - don't risk crippling penalty points
Use all the time allotted - don't miss early CPs and nav yourself off the map.
You can win it and lose in in the organisation!


Successes
Nav tight all day
Nailed a remote foot section with compass work in open pines - collected copycats!

Wheels on Waihaha to Waihora

Mad Hatters Road Trip

A bit of drizzle doesn't put off hard core chicks like us. 

This is a very cool track - undulating downhill through a lovely valley until you bust out on clifftops overlooking the lake, where you can ride in and out of the headlands and gorges working your way north.   Not enough time today to get ride to the trail end, but plenty of fun to be had anyway!

Whangamata Training with Tom

So, a couple of weeks after our last race we are visiting family in Whitianga, and they've taken the kids for a morning so we can go training together.  We're making use of the Whangamata area particularly as we had missed the trek loop which went over Rangipo in the last race. 

We focussed mainly on nav - it was great to have no time pressures and be able to talk about the features we were each using to navigate.  Tom is pretty technical with his compass, whereas I have a little more experience use a bit more intuition at times.  At one point we disagreed on where the checkpoint would be, so each went out own way - and I found the checkpoint!  However, he checked our GPS trails later at home, and that showed the HE was actually in the position shown in the map.  I did point out that you only get points for finding the checkpoint, not for being in the right place on the map..........

He's looking for the CP..   I'm standing on it.  :)  0-1

Lots of fun to be had -a few nerves skirting around farmland worried about farmers, big bulls but not keen to get neck deep in the alternative swamp.  The swamp cp was really tricky - a real lack of navigable features nearby while standing in tall scrub restricting all views.  I had the clever idea to climb a tree and look across the swamp for features, unfortunately Tom chose the tree to climb which actually looked over the cp so he claimed that as his win!  :)

Whangamata Adventure Rogaine - Girls vs Boys

To celebrate 15 years of matrimonial harmony (!) Tom and I  arranged to  compete against each other at Whangamata Adventure Race.  I've got the adventure race team, all fairly experienced and focussed.  Tom has his hockey team.  They've actually taken it fairly seriously and been for a couple of runs in their two weeks of preparation. 

Round 1 is a 3 hour MTB rogaine.  I talk to the course setter to check for areas that I should avoid with fairly new MTBers.  And promptly go off and plan to head to those areas, although at Rochelle's encouragement we drop our bikes to run the loop 100-101.  I'll go back to ride it one day!  As per usual we head away from the congestion and ride into the navigation heading straight out to the Mystery Activity and beyond to the checkpoints furthest South.  Approaching CP 100 we are running low on time, and head straight down through 26 - finishing a good 5 minutes late and losing lots of our points! 

After soup, sausages and fruit for lunch, it's an awkward feeling to head back out for round two - a 3 hour trek rogaine.  We worked bloody hard in the morning, we think we are ahead of the boys despite our penalties, and have offered a bribe to the race organiser.  The boys are looking mighty slick heading out for this one - intimidating even.  

CP 21 had been used in a race previously and Chelle and I couldn't find it, so took great pleasure in pipping a number of teams to this one.  Heading out to 52 was some loose nav, allowing myself to be drawn away from a compass bearing by the teams ahead.  A big climb and we ended up behind the boys - chasing Cam's bright orange top which could be seen kilometres away.  The MA was a tangram puzzle - quick result as I've been working on these with one of my students laterly!  CP 53 no worries, then again didn't take a compass bearing, followed the wrong ridgeline down after other teams and spent a long time in the wrong place for CP 54.  Feeling behind the game, we took a shortcut to head out to CP 31 and followed Tom's team into the dreaded Swamp for CP 104.  Less than 20m in, as we watched them hauling themselves through blackberries and plunging thigh deep into manky swamp water, we headed back to the road, crossed the stream, hit the forest on the north side and ambled in to the CP.  This was a highlight of the race, an easy walk while we listened to the blokes tacking the swamp metres away.  Although, I think the swamp was a highlight of their race as well - it certainly sounded like they were having a great adventure!

We detoured on the way back to collect a couple of CPs not far away, totally misjudged the distance to the finish line and were 20 minutes late with very harsh time penalties in place.  The race organiser proclaimed us "ambitious" which is the nicest was he could explain that we lost nearly half our points.  I'm going to own 'ambitious'.  Maybe a future team name?

Although we biked and ran for a truckload more points, the lack of timekeeping cost us most of them, just scraping in to beating the boys who bought us dinner. 

Happy 15th anniversary Tom Hambrook. Normal people go out for dinner. I'm glad I married a man who agrees it's more fun to race against each other through trails, pines, Bush, streams, farms, cutty grass and swamps for six hours instead. Xx

Easter Sunday Training - Sunrise to Moonrise at Broken Hills

 My day started in darkness, with a 12 km slog to spot a beautiful sunrise over a foggy valley, then tramp through the swampiest ridge I've ever experienced to reach Hihi trig and hunt for a geocache.

 My day ended in darkness with Taryn and I setting ourselves a tough night bush bash through scrub, bushland, farmland and streams.  This will henceforth be known as the day when the phrase "is that ground?" was first started, as I found myself scrambling on windfall only to peer down between branches and spot my headtorch hitting the ground some distance below - realising I was suspended over a bank.  Fantastic adventure and great learning opportunities in our nav mistakes!