IT Consultancy and Adventure Racing

link:http://www.keenadventurerace.com/

John Jacoby and his Rapid Ascent team had put on a fantastic first instalment of the KEEN adventure race in 2007 South of Melbourne around the Great Ocean Road, so I was eager to return for the 2nd running of this pairs race and teamed up with Australian Danielle Winslow to enter the mixed category.

Danielle had done a fantastic job of organising the logistics on the far side of the ditch, including her mother Adele, and brother David to fill the incredibly important support crew shoes. With David being in Melbourne, and Adele ferrying across from Tasmania to Melbourne before driving up to Falls Creek for the race, I had the opportunity to spend the weekend before the race catching up with the scaries - a couple of friends from the UK, along with the 2 'little scaries' that have been added to their clan since they returned to Australia.

Monday morning was a good example of the organisational excellence that would be occuring all week as David and Adele picked me and my gear up right on cue, dropped some unnecessaries off at David's place, and then headed north, meeting up with Adele at Mt Beauty before heading into Falls Creek, one of Australia's main skiiing resorts. When we got there I was surprised to find that not only is it cold in parts of Australia, but also high - we were at 1700 metres in the town, not something I was expecting either from my experience of Aussie, or from the drive up which had hidden its elevation change rather well.

The rest of Monday and Tuesday morning was spent sorting gear, talking through equipment and transition details with our new crew, checking out the 'Toucan' sit on top kayak that we would be using for the race, catching up with the people that you see at all of these events, and getting the course details and briefing from John.

The whole "you're big boys (and girls), don't be stupid enough to endanger yourselves" attitude is very refreshing, and meant that we didn't have any equipment or competency checks to go through, along with quite a short briefing that just updated a few check point locations and covered a few of the logistics issues, and then we were off to pore over the maps prior to the prologue start at 14:00.

Having most of the checkpoints already marked on the maps we didn't have to do as much preparation as usual, just highlighted some route choices and laminated up the maps for day 1, and then we headed out and caught the Summit chairlift up to the start of the prologue.

Richard Ussher had been meant to race with his wife Elina, but they were a late scratch as apparently Richard is having some health issues, and so last year's other winner, Gordon Walker had paired up with current World AR ( with team Nike ) champion navigator Chris Forne to defend the title in the name of adventuresportnz.com. Orionhealth.com were also present with a male pair and a mixed pair, expected to do well, and the Stingers were here from New South Wales with some help from Silva, expected to fly the Australian flag as they had for 95% of 2007's XPD that Orion had managed to win on the last day.

The prologue started with a run down the hill ( we started on the summit, so had little choice ) to a couple of check points, that saw Chris Forne _sprinting_ down this scrub covered hill leaving the entire field for dead, blimey that man is good on his feet! Anyway, we arrived in the melee, and stayed with a reasonable number of teams through the second CP and back down the hill to pick up the bikes.

Danielle wasn't feeling the best, but some gel seemed to perk her up, and she survived the ride up onto the peaks to collect the 3 MTB checkpoints, including the one that involved us riding underneath a hovering helicopter that threatened to rip the maps off my map board, and the one that some kind previous competitor had snapped off the tree and hidden in the scrub - 10 minutes wasted there was rather annoying, but at least we weren't the only ones having trouble with it.

The maps being a combination of ski trails in the winter and logging roads in the summer were somewhat confusing, but we found our way down off the hill to the kayaks which had been left on the lake side, and started our circumnavigation of the lake, having to paddle the full length and width, jump out and run to check points in various feeder streams, it was pretty obvious that the prologue was going to take a bit longer than the projected 2-3 hours, especially as on our way back to the start of the rogaine section we saw people running away from rather than towards the town!

Out of the water I quickly marked our next checkpoint locations onto the map, and then got ready to leave as Danielle decided on which one to miss out, and the best route to the ones we were getting, and we set off jogging along the lake side road. First stop was beside a snow making tower which already had some people milling around it, nicely leading me into exactly the right one before we carried on the run away from town.

Next checkpoint was described as 'under timing hut', and confusingly for a number of other teams, the chairlift base station had 'timing' on one side of it, so while they wasted time looking around and under that, we trusted the map and headed straight on to the hut about 100m past it, grabbed the clipper and headed up and over the hill, to be joined at the top by 'Blackheart', who had seen and copied our move.

Travelling about 200m too far, we wasted a little time getting the next 'quarry' checkpoint, before nailing the 'big rock below track' perfectly, and then it was time to return to town. There were 2 CPs in town that we were allowed to get during any stage, and now we had the full course, it was obvious that the MTB was the stage to have done it on, but we're not racing on hindsight, so we still had to get them, and we ran down through them with Blackheart, just beating them across the line despite me trying to go along the wrong road to the first one and being corrected by Danielle.

So there we go, 3hrs38 into the race, mid field in position, but at least we were finished well before dark, unlike Parks Victoria who were shepherded home by John at about 21:30!

Adele and David were amazing, and before we'd even got showered, clothes were being washed and dinner prepared before we went through the requirements for the next day, and then had a great night's sleep not disturbed until 05:30 before the quite civilised ( in comparision to the 05:30 and 06:00 top come ) 06:30 MTB start.

We had to grab a couple of quick CPs around the town, where I once again proved that my navigation was fine but route choice a bit poor as we lead towards the first CP, but arrived there about 5th as we went round the back rather than down and up.

The other CP was an out and back along a water race, so there was a lot of contention for trail space as racers of varying abilities and confidence headed into each other, but the major incident was an individual crashing on his own heading back to hand in the control card as he obviously lost control on the dewy descent, with disastrous consequences - a leg broken in 3 places, ow!

Handing our card in and grabbing the one for the rest of the day, I rejoined Danielle on the Aquaduct trail and we headed out of town, riding round the lake and up and over a trail that Danielle had ridden a few weeks before, and so warned me that it would be bone jarring and scratchy, and though my bar ends did a reasonable job of protecting my fingers, a full suspension bike would definitely have done a better job of protecting my behind!

Arriving at Bogong saddle, we dropped our bikes along with the 40 or so that were already there, and headed out on a clockwise tramp that would take us up from our current 1300 or so metres straight up over mt Bogong at about 2000m, where we bumped into Wilson and Brendan from Team Melbourne Adventure and walked with them for a bit, spotted Jarad and Chris taking the alternative anti-clockwise route, and then dropped down a ridge that was reasonable going until about the last 100 or so vertical metres where we dropped through some nasty scrub into a stream.

A bit of confusion about exactly where we were caused a few minutes of lost time before we decided to head down stream and found the check point at the hut in the creek bed before it was time to climb back up another couple of hundred metres, during which time we saw 2 teams heading down - 1 pair had decided to avoid the bush bash and do another 5+ K on tracks, and the other had already been into the creek and forgotten about the hut check point, so were going back to get it ;-(

Back on the bikes and it was another bone jarring descent, interrupted only by a wait for some of the organisers to stop chainsawing up a huge tree that was blocking the path for their 4WD, a couple of turns and we were looking for a water race that was shown on the map, appeared to be on the ground in front of us, but was blatantly unrideable - not only by us, but also by the other 2 teams in the same location.

After 15 minutes of being positive we were in the correct place, another read of the clue for the next CP revealed it as 'Western end of broken bridge', so I decided that the eastern end of the trail may no longer exist, and we should ride over to the western end and back. Riding up the hill we saw the 4WD had got through the tree issue, and a quick chat to the driver said that our plan wasn't utterly flawed, so we stuck to it.

A couple of hundred metre climb was followed by a great descent, and then we were confronted by a locked gate with a rail cart track and waterway heading off the other side of it - looked right, so round the gate we went and sure enough we soon saw blackheart riding towards us with a couple of other teams. They'd found the Eastern end of the track well below where it was shown on the map, but hadn't made much time up on us, and after reaching the broken bridge ( apparently from the eastern end it looked so broken that some teams had actually reached it and turned back ), we gave chase.

The chase, unfortunately, didn't last much beyond the gate. I was riding along thinking how many broken sticks there were on the ground, and how dangerous that was for rear mechs, and how I really should have a spare derailleur hanger with me when I got my first serious bike mechanical in an adventure race - arse!

A nasty snapping noise from the rear of the bike was followed by me slamming the brakes on and endoing to a stop, but too slow - my rear derailleur was hanging off the side of the bike, only attached by the cable. That's that fooked then!

The derailleur had been slammed round with such force that it had gone past the limiter before snapping, so the piece of hanger that was attached to the derailleur was wedged, looking like it had bent the bolt, and I wasn't able to hold it with enough strength to undo the bolt, so the offer of trying an 'Epic' hanger from Brendan, who was next on the scene, was unfortunately wasted, though his Leatherman was very useful in holding the chain pin in place as I split and relinked the chain to create a single speed, in what appeared to be a 'magic gear' combination that would keep the chain tensioned.

Thanking the guys for their help, we asked them to inform our support crew of the problem, and to try and locate a spare hanger before we got to the TA, and set off after them at a much reduced pace.

Unfortunately it was soon obvious that my gear was not so magic, and the rough ride along the trackside was very frustrating, as if the bike was leant over when it hit a bump, the chain would drop down through the gears, and eventually drop off the inside, requiring a stop and reattach, all the time being gentle enough to ensure I didn't snap the chain, especially as it now had 2 links in it that I had rebuilt on the track!

The ride/ walk/ chain reapply cycle was broken up by a couple of checkpoints, before we thankfully arrived at a downhill that I could freewheel and a short section up to the road, where it was smooth enough to ride, especially if I kept the bike lent over to the left and avoided bumps!

Arriving at Bogong village before dark, there were apparently no parts available locally, but the organisers were trying to get one brought down by a friend of a friend travelling from Aubrey to Mt Beauty that evening - it was a million to 1 shot, but it might just work - so after confirming with the shop in question that they had the hanger for an M5 hardtail we left the crew to do their thing and headed out on a Rogaine section around the lake.

The area had an outdoor pursuits centre locally, so we were rogaining around the permanent orienteering course, and playing around on their ropes course, unfortunately there were quite a few people at the ropes, and thus a long time was spent waiting around and getting bitten by mozzies, but it was a good, fun course, and worth the time if took before we were allowed to scoot up the pole, across the twin wires, over the hanging beams, along the suspended log ( amazing how much easier it is to walk along a log a metre off the ground than one 10 metres off the ground! ), across the wire/ hand rope combination and down the zip line to belay off the end.

By now it was dark, and the AyUp headlights that Andrew had supplied us, along with the new running attachment, came out and we were off finishing the Rogaine section, being very nicely navigated by Danielle, the only surprises were the huge piece of fully lit up construction work that we came across, and the 2 teams trying to tackle the stream section without lights.

The final checkpoint was on an island near the TA, so being the consummate gentleman I didn't argue with Danielle when she offered to get wet, and I went to check on bike progress while the course got finished.

And progress was good!

David had talked to a guy who had picked up the part and headed our way, and would probably be in Mt Beauty as we spoke. Given the town was only 20 mins drive away and our ride started with a 700 metre climb, I decided that gears would be a good thing, and despatched him to town, while Danielle and I fed ourselves as much as we possibly could ( which is quite a lot at this point in a race ), and got the bike ready for the application of the one part it was missing - David and a guy from another support team had managed to prise off the broken part and the bolt was thankfully still straight.

Once David returned, the hanger was fitted, the gears were fiddled with, and all was right with the world of team 4TC/ elsidee.com's bikes again - now all we had in front of us was a 3 hour night ride where I would have to hold my breath the whole way hoping the chain held up!

Out of transition and we followed the sign pointing towards the Spring Saddle track, which took us up to a 'no entry' gate into a construction site, and a sign apologising for the inconvenience of the walking track being closed. Checking the map I wasn't happy with the one option we had, but Danielle rode into the site and found a confused local who confirmed that the track did go where we wanted, but couldn't understand why you would want to.

All 4 of us ( we'd been joined by another team at this point ) agreed it was a silly thing to do, but what else were we here for? So the climb started.

Time shift 1.5 hours into the future.

We had slowly pulled away from our companions, and arrived at the top of the climb along with another team that we'd caught, and thankfully with no further mechanical issues ( my crank was clicking every rotation, but there were no snapping noises, so I was happy ), so it was time to collect the penultimate CP of the night ( yet another photo of a random object, this time an emergency contact number ), and Danielle added another layer to ward off the chill as we headed downhill towards Mt Beauty.

About halfway down the blisteringly fast forest roads we picked up the entrance to the Mt Beauty MTB park, where the organising team had layed out a series of markers and signs to guide us through the park, around some excellent single track, over a few jumps and obstacles, and just generally through a damned fun end to a stage!

We got spat out of the bottom end of the park not knowing exactly where we were, so headed into town in search of the BMX track, which we had to ride around in order to complete the stage, jumps were optional I think, but worth having a go at in case we got any time credits for them ;-)

And so the biggest 'shuttle' ride of my life was over, we were about 1200 m lower than where we had started, and had descended 3100 metres, about 1900 of it on bikes ( yes that means the middle trek had had 1200 m of elevation change in it ), and now we were driving back up to Falls Creek to start the long stage about 5 hours after we arrived - not a lot of time to eat, prep the maps and supposedly sleep, so food and heads went down in the car on the way back to try and get a head start.

I think I managed about 2.5 hours sleep on Wednesday night, which given that I woke up to clean, dry clothes, and fresh blueberry muffins at 04:45, probably means that was about 5 times as much as Adele and David got - I know there have been plenty of thanks made in person, but this really was an awesome piece of support crewing, many thanks again guys, you rock!

Thursday morning was our final departure from Falls Creek, and started with a kayak Rogaine, that would again see us circumnavigating the lake, this time as the sun rose rather than last time as it was setting, and while we slogged our way around pretty uneventfully, the suns rays started to warm us up and prepare us for leaving on the first trek.

This was probably the leg where people got closest to the rather optimistic expected times that the Rapid Ascent crew had set, and as we were leaving after less than 2 hours ( projected winning time 90 mins ), at least one team was standing around hoping that their crew would be returning some time real soon with their tramping gear.

Out onto the trek and we made pretty good progress, jogging past a couple of other teams, and passing others by taking direct routes to the controls rather than following the winding track. Spotting obscure signs also kept us competitive, and we jogged along with BlackHeart for a while, talking to whom I suddenly realised that a change of plan was required as our current route had us travelling along an out of bounds road.

A quick check of the map and we had 2 options - turn back 5 or 10 minutes to take an alternative track, or follow this track and bush bash across to another track heading into the TA.

Marked tracks are boring, and the scrub at this height ( 300 metres above where we would be going in ) was very open, so we decided on the more risky route, and carried on down until we reached an appropriate height, watching intently as the bush got denser and denser the lower we got ;-(

At the appropriate height we took a bearing and headed off into the bush, getting concerned about the time it was taking us to reach the next feature, what should have been about 6-700 metres had taken us about 17mins - 2Km an hour wasn't a good speed, and meant we had another 40 minutes or so to the track, but we were committed, so on we went.

Hearing other competitors crashing around in the bush elicited the response from Danielle that at least we weren't the only idiots out here, and hopefully if we were that close to some others then we were probably heading in the right direction, and indeed when we hit the appropriate height we saw what appeared to be earthworks that turned out to be our ( rather overgrown ) track. I can only assume that someone was sitting around one day with a few spare hours up their sleeve and a bulldozer doing nothing, so they decided to drive it up the nearest hill, as this had obviously once been a wide but steep level track that appeared to go nowhere, but thankfully it had made it onto the map, and was better progress than the scrub as we followed it down into someone's property.

Greeted by one of the dogs and the lady of the house, we were obviously the first teams through as we had to explain what we were doing and where we were heading, to be told that just following the driveway out would take us straight into the TA, which it did about 3 minutes and 1 river crossing later, where we were 2 of the first teams to arrive without penalty - apparently something like 7 of the first 8 teams had come along the road!

Onto bikes for the first ride of the day and we were straight from the quad sapping downhill walk into an uphill ride, so I tried to be clever and take us to a slightly less severe track than the other teams ( according to the kids at the corner house ) had used, but was foiled by it being a private road, and we turned round and followed our predecessors up past the warnings about arsenic laden tailings and collapsing mine shafts that signalled the dangers of the gold mining area.

We slowly climbed up decent tracks that were mainly rideable for a couple of hours, regaining much of the height that we had lost since leaving the first main walking track. It was along ere that I saw a yellow bellied black snake, but unfortunately ( well I say that, apparently these are the leading killer snakes in Australia as they are the most vicious ) it slithered off before I got the chance to take a photo. Reaching the top, we undulated along for a while until we reached Wombat creek track, where we re-passed Wilson and Brendan, who had taken us on the uphill, fixing a puncture, before swiftly losing 700 metres in a brake searing drop - suffice it to say that I'm glad I have cable brakes, they may have been squealing by the end, but at least there was no boiling fluid.

Another checkpoint at Wombat Creek PO Hut and we were heading home ... or at least towards Hinnomungie Bridge where we would jump in a kayak for a change from leg to bum and shoulder pain.

Arriving before darkness fell, we tried to get through transition as quickly as possible, and were soon out on the river heading back up alongside the track we had just ridden down, towards the last CP that we had clipped - a location we would visit 3 times in total, riding South, then paddling North, and much later on tramping West.

Passing a couple of landmarks that we recognised from our ride down, darkness fell and the AyUp lights that were strapped to the front of the boat and to Danielle's helmet gave us a reasonable view of what was going on, but nowhere near enough to avoid the rocks, so we played bumper boats for much of the time.

Seeing a fire up on the bank I dropped Danielle off and carried on a bit further, to be informed when she rejoined me that she had just surprised some local kids having a party - apparently dripping wet chicks with lights on their head don't appear out of the river every night, can't think why not but she didn't really have time to explain in depth or take up the offers of beer as we had a journey to continue.

The bumper boats continued, with us getting a little better at picking the lines, stopping paddling approaching rapids to try and hear whether the water was mainly flowing left or right generally had us in the right channels, but there were still a number of times that we were pushing ourselves over rocks with our feet over the sides, levering off things with paddles, or even getting out and jumping back in.

The checkpoint appeared after about an hour and a half, and we were informed that the river got easier after that, so we should be a similar time more on the water, but all I can say is that may be true with daylight, but in the dark we were out there for nearly 4 hours in total, swallowing a few mosquitoes each as they descended on Danielle's light in a cloud every time we stopped, a cloud that I then had to paddle through when we set off. Getting slowly chillier as the dismounts left us wetter and wetter, the temperature dropped, and the seats got harder, we were pleased to eventually see lights on river right and pull into the Transition for what looked like being the mammoth stage - a c.40 K tramp including a heap of off track navigation and about 2500 metres of climbing

Leaving the transition, Danielle took a bearing and pointed us up the nearest hill, which we followed a goat track up for a while before grabbing the first CP and then hitting 4WD roads, some of which were unmarked, and running into a couple of teams, one of which was obviously taking an alternative route, and a couple of Canadians who said they'd missed the CP and were going back for it - ow!

Walking while asleep, even on reasonable tracks, is never a good idea, so after a bit of snoozing on the move I decided I needed 20 minutes, so we got our heads down though didn't really sleep, and heard 3 teams go past asking if we were OK, so then there was nothing for it but to get the Caffeine tablets out, and I chirped up a huge amount for a few hours, probably the chattiest I got all race.

Heading off track again we descended a spur that Danielle wasn't too happy with, and after reaching the height that we should have hit a saddle at, we traversed around for a while before enacting the 'return to last known good point' plan. While climbing back up, a team came flying down near us, and while we could have trusted and followed them, we decided that knowing exactly where we were was a better plan and headed up to the fenceline at the top.

Sure enough, the team we had seen were on the right spur, heading in the right direction, so we followed them down and up the hillock on the other side of the saddle to find our next CP, before following a bearing down to revisit our friends at the multi-use CP by the river.

The instructions informed us that there was a track that lead directly to the CP, and it was while leaving a clearing looking at a promising looking track that I got a sudden searing pain in my neck, and grabbed something squishy from my collar, throwing it on the ground unfortunately too quickly to see what it was, but suffice to say that I was in the home country of most of the deadliest creatures on the planet, so I was pretty damn concerned and got Danielle to have a look immediately, but all she could see was a red mark that I could feel turning into a bump - oh well, I've never been medi-vacced out of a race before!

It appeared that we had found the track to the CP earlier than the organisers planned, so we were presented with a number of unscheduled twists and turns, but eventually we could see a fire through the trees, and ducked through some scrub onto the side of the river.

Given the amount of time we had spent scraping down this river earlier in the night, we were fairly certain that it wouldn't be particularly deep, and also fairly certain that we didn't want to be soaking wet for the remainder of the tramp, so the judicious removal of shoes and a number of items of clothing was followed by heading back towards the strobe light feeling carefully for any sudden changes of depth that would render the whole stripping process pointless.

Thankfully it was easy enough to find a shallow route across with decent hand holds, a quick scramble up the bank and we were by the fire, drying out using that and the towel that was quickly offered.

The fire and company lulled us into staying in the CP far longer than we needed to - though not as long as the Canadians who had decided to abandon the race after spending far too long failing to get any of the first set of tramp CPs - according to them due to their Northern Hemisphere compasses, though they didn't seem keen to continue even when I offered them my spare Southern hemisphere one.

Eventually we went to leave, and were reminded on the way out that we needed to clip the CP - that would have been an annoying oversight for such a long period of downtime - and we were away, straight up the biggest hill we could find!

Danielle worked us nicely through the next couple of CPs, and our timing worked out perfectly as day just started to break as the technicality of the navigation increased, and we were able to see enough of our surroundings to make good progress, pulling away from the team we had just passed, and catching up with John and Jen, friends of Danielle's, around the last CP of this section.

About an hour later we came out onto a good 4WD track that crossed our proposed path, and it was decision time - bearing in mind that the last hour had only seen us progress 2K, we could either carry straight on and bush bash along the tops for about 5K, followed by a Km on the road to our next CP, or we could take the road, and travel 9K, with an additional couple of hundred metres of climbing.

Neither of us were enthusiastic about either option, so we decided to take the one that would at least provide the opportunity to 'switch off' mentally for a while, and started jogging down the road.

The sun was well and truly out by this stage, and we were heading South, so before we turned to head West, we decided on a short 10 minute nap while the temperature was pleasant, and after the customary checking for deadly creatures, hit the ground and shut our eyes.

Back up again when the alarm went off, we jogged and walked our way up the track at a reasonable pace, commenting on how easy it was to get to sleep when you're in this kind of state, and how damn hot it was getting already - as it was only about 9 in the morning, there was a distinct hope that we would be back in the trees as it heated up even more.

Just over an hour later we'd covered the remainder of our road section, and saw another team having a little bit of a lie down before heading back into the bush, so we compared notes about the amount of time our respective routes had taken us ( they'd gone bush ), and it appeared that we had both saved a little time, and got a sleep in, so that sounded like a successful decision to us.

Finding the next CP was simply a case of looking around on the plateau just above the road, and then we had a reasonably unpleasant bush bash to the next. Starting off by contouring around a hill fighting our way through the detritus from a multitude of past storms saw us making the fantastic pace of around 1 mile an hour, but after about 45 minutes of this we had finished rounding the hill and were back on a ridge, making faster progress.

Finding our way off the ridge onto a prominent flat spot we located a saddle some couple of hundred metres away from where I was expecting it, and the check point hanging from a tree just on the other side of it. A bit more traversing along ridges brought us to another high point and then it was all down hill from here, though very confusingly downhill, with odd features on the map not really lining up with the land, but a decision to press on being made as we were just dropping down into a river valley from here, so the worst that could happen would be having to walk the river.

Popping out onto the river about 1.5K north of where I wanted us to be I decided that I really need to practise using my thumb compass before I rely too heavily on it in future races! It's a fantastic tool for always knowing your general direction, but I'm obviously having some issues with it's detailed use, and the fact that I can't use it in conjunction with a base plate compass due to interference between the 2 needles.

There was a definite slackening of attitude around this point in the tramp where we were well over 12 hours in, had both run out of water, and felt that all we had to do was to follow the river, picking up 3CPs on the way to the next TA where we were really looking forward to getting food and liquid into us and then finishing the day off with a nice ride ... which it was beginning to look like was going to be under lights.

The quite impressive river valley that we followed after the first CP was quite good fun due to the rock hopping that was often needed when crossing the river, but less fun when Danielle managed to pull a rock onto her shin as we were trying to bypass a deep section, but eventually we collected our requisite CPs and headed out of the valley, over a ridge, and down into the Transition, pausing briefly to be told by John and Jen that we'd be on a shortened bike ride.

It seems that the later teams were taking a lot longer on this tramp than expected ( why does that always seem to happen? ), so we were being sent to Omeo on the road, rather than the far more circuitous, 4 or 5 hour original route. Discussions with the organisers failed to change their minds, so eventually we accepted their decision and set off down the road, with the mission of collecting the first and last CPs on the route rather than all 4.

A long, slightly uphill slog was followed by a long, slightly more downhill freewheel that ended with a 5 or 6K flat ride along the river valley. On the outskirts of town we started seeing teams looking under random bridges, which we passed by on our way to following the detailed instructions giving the location of the last CP ( which admittedly was slightly unclear on the map ), and thence to the finish in the local park, finishing the day just as darkness fell with a nice little single track downhill and a wheelie across the finish line.

After the worst Fish and Chips I have had for many a year, we got out of the local takeaway as quickly as possible - not only was the food appalling, but the bullet hole in the front window helped to ensure that the atmosphere remained far from relaxed!

From Omeo it was a 2 hour drive to Buchan, where we would be starting again with a foot Rogaine in the morning, so Adele and David once more manned the wheels and we headed off, I for one soon sparking out despite the vast amount of caffeine that I had consumed since finishing for the day.

Next thing I knew we had parked up and were waiting for Adele and Danielle to catch up, and in my bleary eyed state I saw a cafe lit up across the road, so staggered across to ask them for a water bottle fill before we continued our journey. The staff at the lovely little 'Le Cafe at Applespice Cottage' in Bruthen were sitting down for a post-closing meal, but were still happy to help me out despite me probably presenting the facade of a drunken wanderer, and invited me to finish off the pizza and salad that they were eating. While they went out of their way to make up a fantastic recovery shake with everything they could think of that might prove beneficial to a man in my state, I explained the race concept and the fact that I was coming off a 36 hour day to them.

Arriving late at the backpackers, we grabbed some beds and an unfeasibly hot shower, before sparking out and reawaking to a hive of Adventure Racing activity as we all headed out to Buchan Caves reserve for the start of the day's fun - an hour or so Rogaine around the park.

Starting in darkness, we were given our maps and Danielle quickly decided on a route that we headed off to follow, along with what appeared to be most of the rest of the field, and certainly for the first 4 or 5 CPs we were in quite a large group that started to thin out as different decisions had their impacts, until we were about half way through the leg and were alone. We would come across other teams every now and again, but mainly just went about getting the CPs, and after grabbing the last one from a tree in the middle of a field, we picked our way through the kangaroos back to the finish and onto the bikes.

We had done reasonably well on this leg, and got onto the bike in the top 6 or so teams, noticing Ian Edmonds and Nora following us on the road I tried to get us to the cave in front, as there was a 16 person limit in the cave and I didn't really want to have to wait around. Sure enough Ian dragged Nora past us with about 500m to go, and then we were at the TA, with very few bikes in front of us, we dumped our bags, grabbed the map and followed Ian down the path.

Jumping down into the cave entrance I was very surprised at how gnarly the way in was, and thoroughly confused by the map, we then found oursleves in a North-South cavern which made sense, so chatting with Ian we walked on, trying to make out salient features.

Turning to check on Danielle I spotted the CP sat behind a rock, and managed to subtly clip it without alerting anyone else to it's presence. Now the map made a lot more sense - we hadn't come in the main entrance at all, but a subsidiary, a mistake that it appeared most of the teams milling around in here had made.

Into the next major chamber and we had the surreal experience of seeing Chris Forne apparently not knowing where he was - a very strange experience and one that I am unlikely to ever repeat, unfortunately though I failed to capitalise on it as we ended up in the wrong chamber, before clambering back down and finding the correct one. Even then I managed to miss the CP hanging from the roof, but thankfully Danielle was more awake than I was, so we clipped and headed out through the exit we had been scoping a few minutes previously ( or at least that's my excuse ).

Onto the bikes again, and we had time to get a photo of Danielle in transition with Chris and Gordon before heading off on the road, where they soon overtook us and headed off into the distance.

Onto fire roads, and we had both forgotten our climbing legs today, which was a bit of a shame given we started with a 300 metre climb, and followed that with a number of undulations before we would finish.

Stopping to wait for Danielle at an intersection, I turned after checking the map to find she wasn't behind me, my initial reaction of lamenting her speed on a mountain bike almost immediately turned to concern, as the previous downhill had been fast and a little loose, but not technical, so I headed back up the road.

Rounding the corner to see Danielle doubled up over her bike I thought she'd done some serious damage in crashing her bike, but as I approached she stood up and it was obvious she was bent over a wheel, phew a puncture!

Unfortunately it was a bit more serious than that, and a huge chunk of her rear tire had blown out, leaving a gaping triangular hole about 2 inches along each edge. Obviously just replacing the tube would cause a huge bulge out of the hole, so after cutting off the loose flap, we packed the gap with most of the contents of the first aid kit and pumped the new tube up. Amazingly, a foil packet of painkillers and 5 lint free dressings don't actually provide enough structural integrity to hold 35 psi in check, so as the tube started bulging out I released the pressure and we tried to think of anything else we could use.

Danielle had the brilliant idea of using the mudguard off my bike, so it was trimmed slightly, inserted, and the pump was reapplied. This time we seemed to be containing the tube, so quickly pumped it up to a half decent pressure and set off as fast as we could, me generally trying to stay behind so that I could keep an eye on the tire and hopefully give some warning if it started to go again.

Fantastically the bodge held for the 2nd half of the ride, and we made it to the start of the paddle with no further incident, and a new found respect for corflute as a necessary part of future AR equipment lists.

And we were nearly there ... all that remained was 20 odd K of paddling our Toucan sit on top down a river, across a lake, and along the shoreline to the finish.

Paddling down the river and into the lake Andrew from the organising team took the piss out of us by disgustingly easily paddling his fibreglass surfski past us to take photos, waiting for us to carry on and then passing again Grrrr. Even when we got to the shallows and the beach he was faster as he just slung the boat on his back and ran with it, looking very turtle like as he did.

Reaching the shallows Danielle and I picked up the front of the boat and dragged it surprisingly easily across the mud, remounting briefly to paddle to the sand bar, where we got out and tried to drag the boat again. It was probably 3 times as hard dragging the boat across sand than across mud, but thankfully the distance was way shorter, and we made it to the sea not quite out of breath.

Getting the boat out into the water Danielle mounted and started paddling while I tried to capsize the boat, but just about failed, eventually clambering on board and joining her in paddling out through the breakers, and then turning right to follow the shore down, with just occasional veering to keep us out of the surf break zone.

Arriving at the CP, we got a decent ride in on the back of a wave, but weren't quick enough getting out and grabbing the front of the boat, so got tipped out as the boat got sucked back out towards the sea.

While Danielle went and clipped the control I turned the boat around, and helped Andrew empty his ski of water and then it was time to brave the surf again, and we were soon on the final final leg of the race, where again our attention wandered and we mosied along chatting about the race, and how much we'd both enjoyed it.

We were following Jen and John once more, and after seeing them appear to head past the get out, we went into the shore a bit early, and after an awful beach landing, we almost managed to run up the beach and did manage a decent pace across the walkway and through the finish line after 68 hrs and 44 minutes of racing.

So that was it, another race over, this time with an actual result - 12th team overall, 5th mixed team - several places down on what we had hoped for, at least we managed to come through a lot of adversity, and hopefully learnt a few things about longer races that will stand us in good stead later in the year.

Many thanks to Burkes Cycles, inov-8 shoes, Go Fast sports drink and Fergs Kayaks for their ongoing support in helping me get to these events, and AyUp lights, David and Adele for their helping me get through this particular race, David and Adele going way beyond the call of duty on numerous occasions.