Adventure Race race (Espresso) 19:25:00 [3]
Espresso,
Pre race.
Our usual disorganised team start with Cam turning up about 2 minutes before the maps were handed out and the other boys not much before that, but again as usual it didn’t seem to matter as we were ready to go with plenty of time to spare and made no logistical errors. (other than BJ throwing map 6 out with the discarded contact backing) We had forgotten to figure out who was paddling with whom though.
Paddle:
Cam was nominated as runner for the race start break up leg and he came back in the first little group so we had a decent range of boats to choose from. This doesn’t excuse me from picking one good one (which I gave to the Cam and Robbie) and one dud (which I kept for myself and BJ). They both looked identical until we hit the water and we realised that we were losing air from 3 of the four pontoons, with the left floor one being the worst.
We were still going OK for the first bit and after hitting the water in about 8th we worked our way up to the front until the deflation got too bad and we had to pull over and pump up. Rach paddled back past at this stage and her VERY wide grin was noticed. The rest of the stage consisted of taking every opportunity to get air into the boat including one stretch of paddling along with the pump hooked up to the bladder and me squeezing it between my legs as we went. Stylin. We picked up all the controls pretty easily and hit TA in 3rd.
Ride:
A slow transition into riding gear then out on the bikes. Our intention was to just carry the bikes up the hill to pick up the tail end of the track and follow that into transition. That turned out to be a bit optimistic as we found the track, lost it, found the other track, started riding it in the wrong direction because we still thought it was our first track, met Andre’s team coming the other way who corrected us, followed them for a while until Robbie’s map board fell off, then went the rest of the way to #4 by ourselves. Sticking to the main trails would have been much faster.
We picked the pace up again on the way to #5 and caught Andre’s and Si’s teams, we rode as a group to #6 then on the way out Cam managed to clip a tree at speed which clamped his front brake lever and sent him flying. He gave his knee a good touch up and we had to stop for a bit then slowly let him get it moving again.
We were back in a pack though by #7 where my map board fell off and we lost the group, we caught up to them again not much later when a link track was missing and followed Andre into #8. Thankfully we let them go ahead as we caught up with Dalto et al to realise the track to TA was missing so we went the long way together and came into TA in 2nd and 3rd behind One Night Stand (I think)
Annoying leg with lots of stops for silly things like map boards, we were luck with the nav at the end to hold our position after being not as smooth as we like to be.
Run:
Out on the run and I sillily decided to take us up the creek to #9, looking at the map later I realise that there was a loop off the main track that went right near the control and we could have saved a bit of bush bashing. It wasn’t that clear on the map though. At #9 with two other teams we found the flag and not the punch. As it was crowded on the back by the flag I didn’t go down which meant when Muz later told us the punch was tied to the log in the river I couldn’t argue much. I still swore at him a lot. It didn’t affect the result when they decided to ping us for that but there would have been quite the outcry if it had.
Up to #10 we played it safe and dropped onto the creek early, Dalto led us straight to the control though so no worries there. Up to #11 we had caught Andre’s team and followed them in whilst complimenting them on the view from behind. They liked it. After #11 they went a different way though so we were on our own for really the first time in the race, and it was the story for the rest of it.
Hitting #12 in the creek was a bit nasty, easy to find but slow going through the thick bush. #13 on the water bore caused us a bit of trouble as we had to go out to the bitumen road and then cut into it, it was another case of the slightly dodgy marked up tracks and wondering how much to trust them. This was the spot where we said we would make the call about getting more optionals, Cam’s knee was causing him some pain but he was still running well, it was seizing up a fair bit when we stopped though. So we made the call to skip them and hope we could make up enough time by going faster than the teams who had tired themselves out going for more distance. Being a compulsive :Gotta get em all” kind of racer that was a bit of a weird feeling for me. The time bonus for the time trial later on also helped us make our minds up, hitting that with fresher legs made a difference.
We picked up #18 on the way back and my stomach which was still struggling from the extra core work it did paddling the deflated boats decided to chuck a tanty at this point. As I squatted there I remember the pre race chat I had with Rach about putting some toilet paper in my bag….. and then not doing it. The Aussie bush is harsh. And prickly. A bit of a run to get back to TA and we saw about three teams heading out on the loop in the other direction, stomach was happy for me to stop jiggling it around when we hopped on the bike.
Ride.
There were still teams coming from the first ride as we took off on the second and they were the last teams that we were going to see for a looooong time. We had a nice ride down the Munda Biddi to the first control but my brain was struggling to engage a bit. Easy to the start of the track that led up to the second control but we were the first people to attempt to get through that track for at least 10 years so it was a tad overgrown. Robbie asked if we were coming out that way and when I said yes he decided to drop his bike since the bush was so thick. A minute later when I realised that we weren’t we then had to go back to get it. The “trail” got a tad overgrown in sections and we were using the zen trial finding technique for a while but we picked up the next intersection easily and rode straight to the control.
It was a bit of a slog to the next TA via the last control with a brief stop to sort out some very impressive chain suck. Somehow this incident stuffed my front derailleur and I couldn’t get out of the small chain ring after that, with the 2 x 10 gearing it wasn’t a huge issue until the very end.
Run
We hit the TA at the town hall to find some disgruntled TA crew upset that we hadn’t got the previous bonuses, which meant we were running ahead of schedule and interrupted their TDF viewing right on one of the big climbs. They still found the enthusiasm to take photos which thankfully stopped when I took my pants off. I was the slowest here and it took me three goes to get the map sorted for the next leg.
Once out on the run I was still struggling to get the brain working but the biiiig climb at the start somehow helped that. I was really glad the race had changed order since this was meant to be the first leg and going up this hill in company would have challenged the testosterone limits. Once up in the pine plantations the brain turned back on and we started nailing all the controls, we really had no issues on this leg right up until the last control. We were trying to stick to the trails as much as possible and keep running. My right knee started playing up early on though and by the end of the leg it hurt the whole time whilst running.
When we got to #29 I was 100% confident we were at the right spot where we left the track and we were looking the junction of the creek running parallel to the road and one that came perpendicularly down from the opposite hill. I think this would have been much easier in the daytime but since it was pitch black we couldn’t see the creek on the other side of the valley and in the end we bashed through the blackberries, followed the creek by wading up the middle of it till we could get out the other side then went a bloody long way up the other side of the hill to it was clear enough to follow the valley up to where the other creek came down. It was relatively easy navigationally but damn hard to make forward process through all the blackberries. And if we got more than 10m apart we almost lost each other in the thick stuff. After wasting over an hour at this control we got the angry on and ran in to the next TA.
Time Trial
Another slow transition (spot the trend here) and we lined up for the time trial at the start. Part of our justification for dropping the previous bonuses was that we would be fresher here and in with a chance to pick up the 1 hr time bonus so we took it pretty seriously. Off the start we had Robbie leading us out and he did a good job up until a sharp muddy pinch climb where he hopped off the bike to push up, lost his footing, landed on his face and slid back down again. We were taking it so seriously though that we didn’t laugh at him until the end.
Cam took the lead from there and guided us the rest of the way up the hill well, I felt bad for some of the later teams as the track was clean but we were chewing it up a bit, and the climb would only have gotten tougher as more teams did it. On the downhill Cam almost missed a turn so I ended up on the front, and realised my helmet light wasn’t set up properly and was pointing too far down. This made for an interesting descent until I could adjust it but I managed to avoid eating a tree and we got back to transition in 15 minutes something which ended up being the undefeated time.
Ride.
We did pay a bit for our efforts in the TT since the start of the ride was a massive climb. Cam pulled out the tow rope for the first time and he and Robbie towed BJ up the hill whilst I pushed him. It was very strange for me as my legs were handling the climb OK but my arms were so tired that I could only push for a while before they got too tired to hold up and I had to swap sides. We saw One Night Stand and Woop Woop coming into TA as we rode out so we knew we had lost time with the debacle at #29.
I took a big (and unnecessary) spill trying to follow the powerlines after #30, which was ten compounded by realising that I had misread the map and had to go the around to the track as there was no way to cross the creek. We picked up 31 OK but coming into 32 Robbie started to bomb out. We stopped next to 32 for a while so he could eat and rest up then he seemed to come good and he kept the pace through the single track. Well, as well as anyone did as we cleared away the shrubbery for the following teams. A little thick through there. The ride to 37 was tough with BJ really struggling on the climbs and no one really had the energy to push either. We punched 37 just as it started getting light so we got to do the long downhill at officially the coldest part of the day. I couldn’t get into to big chain ring so I had to tuck in and try to keep the speed up and we blasted down the hill. After 5kms my fingers were numb along with many other body parts and it was getting hard to control the bike. We got 38 OK and then struggled to cut out to the back of town to get 39, brain was already at the finish line. We initially missed the track to 40 but once on it found the punch under the bridge easily then rolled in to claim line honours, but not the win since some team with a god awful name rolled in not long after us.
Finished at about 7am and tucked into the hot tea and pumpkin soup that Marcus put in front of us. My body started to shut down fairly quickly so I got the swag out of the car and picked up a few hours sleep before hearing Rach’s team get announced so I got to watch them come in too.
Summary
Damn it was cold! I was possibly the coldest I have ever been in a WA race.
A good race from us, not perfect but then they never are. The course was probably the most navigationally challenging Espresso yet, there weren’t really many spots that I could turn the brain off and just chug along. Still, it also felt like one of my best navigational efforts as well so that made me really happy. I was quite rough at the start and I was getting distracted by the other teams but once we got out on our own I really got the smoothness back and that is how we make time on other teams. Cam and Robbie helped a lot with the flow by making sure I had a plan for each CP and never lost concentration.
The team was really good, very upbeat and kept talking for the entire race. Some of the topics of conversation were a little dubious but having the energy in the team makes things a lot more enjoyable. Everyone had their weak moments but nobody got upset about them, we just helped the person through until they came back to life and off we went again. The boys really had the sorts of personalities that make great team mates.
I felt we were slow in transition but there was never a main culprit, we all took turns being a bit crap and taking our time so it will be interesting to see the splits. It was annoying getting a leaky boat at the start which really tired me out, given that almost half the teams had a similar complaint I really wonder if Muz can squeeze another year out of them. I am sure he will try but it is already affecting entries.
The 29er was fantastic for the race, so light that I could easily carry it through the bushwacks and given the quality of the tracks and the amount of overgrowth we had to ride over the bigger wheels seemed to do it much easier. I only missed the lower gearing a couple of times as the bike climbs much better than the Anthem. 100kms on a hardtail was a bit interesting though and the words “ravaged”, “mutant” and “gerbil” may have come up in conversation.
Nutritionally I went OK. My stomach was a bit precious early on which I thing contributed to my vagueness on the second ride. I went for a bang or bust technique after that and started shovelling food onto it with the theory that I wasn’t going to get through the race otherwise and it held it in OK. From about 10pm the boys made sure I was well stocked with caffeine and I may stop shaking in about a week. I have never consumed so much caffeine in a 24 hr period before. Seemed to work though. The Gu chomps were probably my saviour early on since the stomach could handle them even when the concept of a gel or solid food was beyond it. And they have caffeine in the too! I did end up taking 6 nurofen as well to try and stop my knee complaining. Didn’t work.