We had no navigator, no support crew,one missing teammate, an almost non-existent training regime leading up to therace. Sean’s only exercise in the past 4 months had been eating donuts andwalking to the photocopier. Geoquest was upon us.
With the usual mix of arse and class weherded a motley crew of Sarah, my 69 year old dad and my wife – due to delivera baby in 2 weeks... or less, as our support crew. We convinced the highlyesteemed Pete Marshman to join the race crew and, after minimal fuss we bundledourselves into the car and headed north to Harrington - dads burgeoning car andtrailer overloaded with bikes, kayaks, flippers, lycra and arse-lube. Thekayaks were of particular concern. They were held to the car with a few piecesof old wood, screwed together that morning – the setup looked anything butconvincing. Dad – the dodgiest man to have ever wielded a hammer – assured meit would be fine for the 1500 odd kms they had to travel.
After the usual pre-race preparation ofdrilling holes in kayaks, replacing vital bike bits and eating copious amountsof food, we were ready. Race day dawned with high cloud, hardly a breath ofwind and a good forecast. As we lined up for the le-monde start I felt relaxedand calm – I was ready to suffer.
The gun went off the sprinting started.Outer Edge Racing were straight to the front of the pack leading the field downthe hill with Macpac hot on our heels. After a glorious 200m we took a wrongturn (Macpac satisfyingly in tow) and relegated ourselves to the middle of thepack. We arrived at the boats, donned gear and began the dreaded ocean kayak.
Sean and I were terrified of this leg.Two years ago we had capsized a thousand times in 20kms in open water – the legtaking us hours longer than it should have. We quickly settled in to a slow butsteady rhythm. 1⁄2 way through we were yet to go for a swim, and though the swellwas turbulent, we were feeling OK. But no sooner had I congratulated Sean onnegotiating another wobble, we both went swimming. And so began the next70minutes of agonisingly wet and slow progress. We later found out that severalboats had seen sharks in the water. Had we known we would probably have been acrying mess. We capsized twice more into the shark-infested waters before landwas in sight.
Somehow we managed to surf a wave intoshore perfectly, and made a dash for the transition. To this day I will neverknow how we managed to finish so elegantly. Now that that leg was over, wecould concentrate on racing rather than surviving. Staying in our wet clothingwe strapped fins and life jackets to our packs and began the next leg – the runof chafe! We ran through the first short section of navigation without dramas,then headed through bushland to a 500m swim. After collecting the next checkpointwe began a tough slog up the 500m high North Brother. 5:40 hours into the racewe topped out, clipped a checkpoint and began the run down into Laurieton. Allleg we had been overtaking teams and we were feeling good.
From Laurieton we had a fairly uneventfulpaddle through Watson Taylors Lake picking up several cheap checkpoints beforepaddling up the Camden Haven River to Rossglen for the next run. We weregreeted by our now growing support crew. Pete’s parents had turned up takingthe total number of supporters to 6.5. Larissa, Pete’s wife had also joined theranks from the start with their one-year-old – Haydon – in tow.
We had been getting our mojo back afteran appalling first leg and were setting times in the top 10, even thoughrunning and especially paddling were our weakest legs. After 8:50 hours ofracing we set off for perhaps the toughest leg of the race. Starting indaylight was a fantastic start. With salty chafed testicles protesting, weclimbed 260m to checkpoint 8 then started the Rogaine section of the leg. Wepicked up checkpoint D without any issues, then bombed off the backside of thepeak to pick up the main road. In typical (Craig) Bycroft style the racecovered an area where the maps and the terrain didn’t quite tell the same story.Thanks to loggers many moons ago, a series of overgrown tracks wrappedthemselves around the ridges and mountain tops, leaving would-be navigatorsfloundering. Was this the right track? It didn’t look like it... With me on themaps we wallowed for 15 minutes looking for possible tracks. Feelingexasperated, we then ditched them in favour of Pete’s suggestion: “Lets headthat way, I think I saw someone earlier and now I can’t – maybe they’re on aroad”. To any seasonednavigator, postulations like that would be fraught. Butto us it was our best option, and it worked a charm. Back on track we picked upcheckpoint E and headed for M: tactical error. As we circled roundanti-clockwise slowly picking up checkpoints we found ourselves diving down asteep ravine looking for K. Luckily Renwick was on the ball and now in controlof the maps, but it was a long diversion and our progressed slowed even more.
To compound our slow pace, my feed haddeveloped an odd pain at the base of the 5th tarsal – (the middle outside ofthe foot). The pain was sporadic but agonising. I’d never felt anything like itbefore – the leading theory of its aetiology was that the kayak footrests hadsomehow caused my feet to bend in odd and now very painful ways. When we wouldusually be running, we were now dordling with me limping along behind. And soit was that a 16km trek turned into 18kms and almost 6 hours! As we limpedslowly into transition I prayed to the pain gods that my feet wouldn’t feellike this on the bike. If they did it was probably going to be race over forOuter Edge Racing.
Luckily my bike shoes were far kinder tomy feet and the pain subsided. My concentration returning we changed into bikegear and began a 50km bike. Feeling relieved we made fairly easy work the bikeleg. Sean was evidently feeling his three-month taper, though in typical styledidn’t complain once. The last trek had been tough for the both of us andsapped a bit more juice than it should have. We arrived at Swan Crossing ataround 4am. Our support crew were in form and on fire. Sandwiches were ready,boats had been fixed (not ours it turned out), chaffing cream was at the ready.Even at 4am they were perky, full of praise and ready to nudge us along withsome stern, cajoling words and a little smooch for those of us lucky enough tohave our wives supporting us.
The 3rd trekking leg – Leg 6 – was to bethe toughest of them all for me. My feet ached mercilessly and trying to runhad me wincing, groaning and carrying on endlessly. Renwick had been in good formand so took the maps as dawn approached. We chugged along a road then diveddown a small fire trail. From there we headed down a steep sided mountain forthe river and hopeful checkpoint. We were to descend 50m apparently beforefinding a saddle. After 50m came and went we were still descending with only afleeting protest from Pete and I. Seanprotests at nothing, you could tell himhe had to carry 20 bricks for the race and he’d just do it with a smile on hisdial. After 150m Renwick started to swear:
“Fuck Fuck Fuck”, “Fucking stupidAndrew”, “Foooorrrk!” pause “Fuuuuuck!”
I was a bit too tired to be tooconcerned – so was everyone else. What’s more it’s not the mistake but thesolution that really mattered now. It turned out that we had headed east downtoward a river when we should have headed west. With a wry smile, we assuredRenwick that yes, it was a pretty good balls up, but that at lease we knewroughly where we were and we’d get to the next checkpoint eventually.
Two hours and two kilometres later thefour of us were in la la land. We’d descended into some sort of prehistoricwilderness, which had probably never seen humankind before. A steeply droppingriver, strewn with giant boulders, vines – and for all we knew, a troll or two– led us up to our checkpoint. Not knowing how far down the river we had endedup, we didn’t know how
far upstream we had to go. The sense of urgency wasreplaced by a sense of wonder. We weren’t racing anymore, as the sun shone downand we worked our way through the caves and bridges of an endless boulder fieldand rapids, our sense of adventure overtook us. We no longer went the way ofleast resistance – what was the point? This ‘navigational adventure’ was surelyendless and removed us from any sort of respectable placing in Geoquest. But itwas the happiest the four of us had been all race. We chatted like schoolboys:
“lets go through there”
“look at that!”
“Wow, check out that cave – that’sawesome”
“Can you get through there?”
We even took our shoes off to cross theriver on several occasions. And then, all of a sudden the river had changeddirections and we were on top of checkpoint 18. We slowly began to switch on –but gave up all hope of a top 10 finish. We met briefly with team 24 (Bec, Ray,Steve and John). Turns out Bec Wilson (the pinup girl or Adventure Racing – SeeRogue Adventures site) knew Sean. A hilarious interaction ensued where Becdived in for a greeting kiss on the cheek, while Sean shot out his hand for afirm manly shake while calling her “Missy”. Somehow she landed puckered lips onmuddy, sweaty stubble and Sean went instantly quiet. The remaining lads ofOuter Edge Racing were slack-jawed, wide-eyed and stunned that the mosthaggard-looking man of the entire race scored a kiss from the supermodel ofGeoquest, despite trying to punch her in the guts with a wayward handshake.Unfortunately they powered ahead of us on foot, leaving us for dead in theundergrowth. The jog/shuffle into the next checkpoint was slow and‘uncomfortable’. Sean and I especially were feeling the last 28 hours ofracing.
Comboyne is a lovely little town. As weneared the transition area we saw long time rivals the The BMX Bandits leaving.In the sun, surrounded by clean, smiling friends and family with all the foodwe could possibly want, it was a struggle to get up chase them down. And itshowed. Our transition time was almost 30 minutes!!! On the bike things startedto feel better. I could sense the end was near. Sean too was feeling morecomfortable on the bike. Renwick was no slouch on two wheels, and for all Iknow, Pete – or Marshdude as he was now known – was born on a bike. He was theundoubted freak of the team. On his 11 year-old 18 speed bike made of leather,cast iron and stone – he left us for dead on the hills. As the race drew to arapid end, I learned that Pete’s brother turned down an offer to represent theAustralian mountain biking team, and Pete – though he never said as much – wasnot far behind.
The leg went quickly. Determination hadreturned and I was feeling fast and decisive. We powered through leg 7,satisfyingly overtaking the Bandits who had shot past a checkpoint. Later on wepassed team 24 and several other teams we had been exchanging waves with. Weset the fastest time of the field for leg 7, which was a great relief ifnothing else. Coming into Lansdowne State forest we pulled in to leg 8 – ashort split leg/rogaine. After some brief negotiating we decided that Sean andI would get the closer checkpoint and Marshdude and Renwick would get the otherthree. They set off at a blistering pace. Sean and I doddled as fast as ouraching feet and legs would allow us. 50minutes later the four of us were backready to jump on the bikes. We had again set a blistering time, beating almostevery other team in the field.
We transitioned slower than we shouldhave before setting off on the last bike. Maps in hand, and still feelingresolved to smash the final few sections of the race for all it was worth, wepounded out the final 18kms only a few minutes slower than the fastest team. Wehad well and truly found our racing mojo again, and even though we thought wewere a fair way behind the lead teams, we were gunning for the finish line.Some decisive navigating saw us negotiating some map vs reality discrepanciesbefore we pulled in to Coopernook for the final leg.
Our dear little support crew was full ofgusto. Perhaps spurned on by our sudden form, perhaps by the impending end,they shoved a sandwich in our mouth then set us off for the final fling – a13km paddle via checkpoint 30. It was dark and navigation would be a littletedious, but Marshdude had just had a redbull and was paddling like a manpossessed. I sat back and concentrated on getting our bearing right as theother two called for Marshdude to slow his maniacal pace. We worked our waydown the Lansdowne River and then the widening Manning River, picking upcheckpoint 30 on our way to the finish line. We set a much faster pace than wethought, and ended up at Harrington just after 9pm. We had been racing for justover 37 hours without reprieve. We finished in 7th, 15 minutes behind the 2ndmens team.
We hugged our support crew, high fivedthe organisers, chatted about the next race and went to bed.
Races like this simply aren’t possiblewithout a support crew. Cath, Sarah, Wes, Larrissa, Rob and Jane were pivotal.Their smiles and words of support at the end of a leg become the reason forracing when things get tough. More than anyone except maybe your race mates(though that’s a tough contest) it’s your support crew that you feel indebtedto, bound to and in love with. Without their hard work – it simply can’t bedone. Thanks guys.
Sponsors too make the whole process somuch easier. Several companies deserve special mention. Hammer Nutrition fortheir nutrition and clothing (especially bib knicks and vanilla, banana andespresso gels), Silva for their hands-down brilliant compasses, Suunto fortheir very reliable barometers/watches and compasses, icebreaker for the mostcomfortable clothing worth racing in (except for the fore mentioned knicks),Salomon for what have long been the racing shoes of choice, Petzl for their head torches (especially thenao which is the business), Sea to Summit for stellar paddling gear anddry-bags, and of Moxie – who also kindly sponsored the race. To our namesake –Outer Edge (Magazine) – we are especially thankful for their ongoing support.
