2011 World Adventure Racing Championships
Team Seagate Race Report
By Nathan Fa’avae
Adventure Racing World Champs 2011 / XPD, Tasmania, Australia
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On the north coast of Tasmania, sits a quaint seaside beach town called Boat Harbour, a waterfront popular for surf life saving and outrigger paddling. It also provides an ice cream shop, café and a chippie, a perfect place to spend a few hours, which is exactly what my team did on Monday November 7th, 4- hours in fact. But it wasn’t the fun filled 4-hours we would normally spend in such a place, it was instead, a frustrating 4-hours where we sat and watched our lead and victory in the World Championship race go to the 2nd place team, Team Thule (Sweden / France). Rubbing salt into the wound, we then waited and watched as Team Silva (Sweden), the 3rd place team, go by as well.
It was an unfortunate end to the epic endurance race, for both us and the teams going by, leaving us all with final placing’s we probably didn’t truly deserve. But that’s the harsh reality of racing and sport; it’s not always fair.
We ended up 3rd and this is what happened from my view of the race.
The team consisted of myself, Chris Forne, Sophie Hart and Marcel Hagener.
Going into the race we believed we had a high chance of winning, we believed in our skills, experience and conditioning. Our race strategy even before we got the course was to go out hard from the start with the aim of leading from start to finish. We reckoned that very few teams would be able to match our speed and that any teams who tried would likely be worse off as a result. All theory of course, but that was our plan, to smash it.
Stage 1 Ocean Kayak 17km
The race started on the beach in Burnie, 80-teams lined up behind their kayaks, each team equipped with a plastic kayak and an inflatable. Sophie and I opted for the plastic leaving Chris and Marcel the inflatable. 15-minutes before the start I collected our Spot-tracking device. A small handheld unit that transmits a signal that allows spectators to follow our progress online.
The Spot tracker must have a clear signal with the sky so we 2 were asked to attach them to our life jackets for the kayak stage. I made a mental note to make sure I remember to take the Spot off at the end of the stage and attach it to my backpack..jpg "Adventure Race (1)")
As Sophie and I loaded our kayak, it became apparent that room on the kayak was very limited, so I decided 10-minutes before the start that we would not carry the sleeping bag on the kayak, which normally is compulsory gear but an exception had been made for the first stage. With the sleeping bag now in the paddle bag being transported by the organisation to TA1, I made a mental note to make sure I collected the sleeping bag at the end of the stage. I was
really worried I may forget it. Soon into the race we pulled away from the field and started to build up a lead, 5-minutes by the first CP and 11-minutes by the end of the stage. Coming into TA1 at Penguin it was a media frenzy, high excitement, spectators, busy. I had to sign in and register our team then went to our gearbox and paddle bag. The whole time repeating a mantra in my mind, “sleeping bag, sleeping bag, sleeping bag”. I immediately grabbed the sleeping bag and put it in my pack. Relief. In a flury of action, getting changed, packing gear, answering questions from reporters we rapidly left the transition, eager to send a message to the chasing teams that the race has started and asking the question “what have you got?”
Perhaps the question should have been “what have we forgot?”
Unbeknown to me, tucked safely inside the paddle bag was the Spot tracker, unable to send a signal to the outside world but at the same time sending a signal to the organisation there is a problem with our device. It’s either malfunctioning or we don’t have it.
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Stage 2 Trail Run 20km
15-minutes into the stage we entered a rifle range, one team member had to shoot 1-out of 5-clay birds. If unsuccessful the team had to sit out a 10-minute penalty. I put my hand up to shoot. I shot the first one and off we went, running into the forest in search of 5-control flags en route to TA2. We were running well into the Dial Range and Chris was quickly into the navigation nailing all the controls smoothly. We were pushing the pace and knew we would be applying early pressure. By the end of the stage we arrived into the TA needing to assemble our bikes. On registering, one of the staff asked if our Spot unit was working. “Buggar!” I left it at the kayak. “No sweat, I can give you another one” he replied.
At the time I thought that was lucky, some races that would incur a penalty but I also reasoned that it wasn’t a major piece of equipment and it’s one piece you definitely wouldn’t leave behind on purpose, because it transmits.
In general terms, I don’t believe there are teams who deliberately cheat and sneak on course trying to save weight, the gear list is so minimal you’d be an idiot to head into the hills with any less gear in which case the penalty would be of natural consequences. With that in mind I think a penalty of 30-60 minutes is enough to make sure teams are diligent, but not so big that the outcome of race is decided on such a trivial matter. I decided not to the tell the team about the Spot episode as it seemed like it may be okay and I didn’t think they needed any distraction. We were racing really well and focused. I just vowed not to leave it behind again.
Stage 3 Mountain Bike / Cave 70km
Punching into a strong headwind we made way through undulating farmland and after an hour descended to the cave at Gunns Plain. Here we dropped our bikes and ventured underground for an hour. It was a welcome change from the hard biking to crawling through underground passageways to a number of controls. On exiting the cave we were able to assess some of the time gaps between the tops teams and the order. There were no surprises, Team Silva, Thule, AXA (Sweden), Buff (Spain), Blackheart (Australia), Adidas (UK) were all within an hour behind us, with a constant stream of
teams behind them.
Back on bikes we kept the speed constant and enjoyed a great ride through some forest roads to end the stage with a growing margin.
Stage 4 Trek 60km
Just on dusk we set off into the first of the big hiking stages. The section had a combination of forested trails and climbed up into sub alpine mountainous regions of Black Bluff and Reynolds Falls. The team were moving well, Chris
had the navigation going well and on some sections we were able to look back down the course confirming we were slowly extending our lead. It was a cold night in the mountains but we felt great and moved well, enjoying lots of
wildlife siting, the Wombats being one of the highlights. All night we kept pushing and ticked off the CP’s and the kilometres. Soon after the sun rose we arrived at the river. The next 20km was downriver and started with a number of deep pools we needed to swim over. We were cold from the previous night and the river was freezing, probably about 12-degrees.
The sport of adventure racing often has athletes suffering great discomfort and this was one of those times. The icy waters left us shivering so we moved as fast down river as we could to generate heat, crossing the river multiple times.
Eventually we made it to the TA on the edge of Lake MacIntosh.
Stage 4 Paddle 28km
The sky was clear but a crisp cool wind blew up the lake. We took a few minutes to have some food and then loaded our kayak. For the first 8km on the lake, we were supplied one inflatable kayak. This was one section I was not pleased about. I think event organisations have no right to supply us gear that exceeds the manufacturers safety limitation of the equipment. We were a 4-person team and given a 3-person kayak. Plus we had a lot of gear. The result was we completely overloaded the kayak leaving almost no freeboard..jpg "Adventure Race (27)")
This resulted in the kayak constantly filling up with water and increasing our exposure to the cold, when it should and could have been avoided by issuing 2-kayaks.
However, if we thought that section was bad, we were about to really learn what bad was.
At the next CP, we were able to trade the inflatable kayak for 2-plastic ones. At this point the Race Director Craig Bycroft met us and asked to speak to me. I was informed that we would be receiving a 5-hour penalty for not carrying the Spot device on the second stage. While not surprised we were getting a penalty, I was shocked at the size of it. Typically 1-2 hour penalties are given for such things. A 5-hour penalty would most likely put us out of contention, which is what needs to happen if a team is caught cheating and racing with poor sportsmanship, but our mistake was undisputedly an honest error. Invited to comment, I asked Craig to reconsider the penalty given the circumstances, the main one being that our team does not get to transition like most teams, we are bombarded by media and hype, being the first into the TA’s the race officials rarely have things organised and subsequently consume more of our time, there is no privacy and little space to
think clearly among the chaos. Craig said he’d think about that and inform us at the next TA.
Back on the water we quickly got back to racing and made a decision we needed to go even harder to get a bigger lead, to neutralise whatever the penalty was going to be. We had to portage the kayaks 2km over a small hill into a river and paddle further into a lake to the TA.
On arrival Craig met us and informed us our penalty would be 4-hours and that it would be served at the final TA.
At this stage of the race we had about a 2-hour lead on Silva and 3-hours on Thule, so we felt we still had a chance of winning, we just needed to keep going hard.
Stage 5 Mountain Bike 105km
From bad to worse. Team spirits were high, we were motivated and keen to win this race. We believed even with a 4-hour penalty we could do it. As the team settled into a long night on the bikes, so did the rain and cold. Through
some challenging and slippery mountain bike trails, we were making good progress in the Stirling Valley. Then disaster struck, worse than the leeches that were getting onto our lower legs. I was riding behind Chris when a stick flicked into his rear derailleur and snapped it off..jpg "Adventure Race (3)")
This was a major problem. We stopped on the trail and tried to fix it but to no avail. We needed a workshop. Chris unable to ride his bike, the team pushed and towed him for 10km to the next town. About 3am we looked around trying to find ways of fixing the bike but no success. Now on sealed roads for a while, we managed to make Chris’s bike into a single speed and he could ride it fairly well. After losing hours of time we kept expecting to be passed by the chasing teams but somehow we limped into mid camp still holding a lead.
Mid Camp
A 6-hour compulsory rest stop. We were able to eat and sleep. Marcel sacrificed sleep to get the bike repaired in a local town. He did fix it but he didn’t hold much hope that it’d last for long, the derailleur had been severely damaged too. By now word had got around the top teams that we had a 4-hour penalty and this gave them renewed hope that the race for first was still on. While we were still the leader on the course, in adjusted time with the penalty, we were in fact in 3rd place.
Stage 6 Hike 65km
Jogging out onto the next stage we made a plan. We wanted to retake control of the race again and quickly build a lead big enough to consume the penalty. Onto Ocean Beach in the morning we felt energized and motivated. It was truly spectacular and we ran. We ran through dunes, swam tidal rivers, ran trails and ran on the sand. When we finally reached the end of the beach run segment, some local fisherman greeted us.
“where the hell have you run from?”.jpg "Adventure Race (6)")
“25km down the beach, deserves a beer don’t you think?’
“to bloody right!” and they proceeded to load us up with cans of beer.
We knew we’d be pulling away again from the field and this fed our spirit. Intothe night we ran and were eventually slowed by difficult terrain on Mount Heemskirk. By the end of the stage though the toll of going hard started to show. The fellas, Chris, Marcel and I, started to get diarrhoea and a bit of spew spat out. Sophie on the other hand, hadn’t yet broken into a sweat and was prancing through the course with dignity and ease. Reaching the TA at Granville Harbour we decided to take some rest. The wheels had started to fall off and we identified we needed some recovery. It seemed very well timed. Race officials ascertained we had a 3-4 hour lead so this was pleasing. We crawled into bed for a 3-hour sleep. Little did we know, as we nestled happily into the comforts of our beds that coming up next was the bike ride to Armageddon.
Stage 7 Mountain Bike 150km
As we were leaving Team Silva arrived which put them approximately 4-hours behind us, effectively meaning we were now back in the lead. All good, off we went, determined to increase the time gap. The bike ride started off really hard, in deep sand and bogs. The coastline was spectacular but it was heavy going. With lots of bike pushing for a few hours, we reached some sand dunes that had over time covered up the old roads. This took us at least an hour to piece together and the route off the dunes and leaving behind us in the sand, the answer to the puzzle for the chasing teams … ‘this way everyone, follow us’.
As the trial descended into a total state of abandonment, for hours we pushed our way through thick tree and windfall, complete shit. Thanks to Chris’s super human efforts, we finally we broke through onto the open land and roads.
We were jubilant. On we went. As the day heated up I my energy started to go down. The biking was undulating and I was losing power. We were going okay but I could tell our speed and efficiency was waning. After about 50km we arrived at the Gordon River. Here we were supplied 2-canoes and a paddle and had to shuttle our bikes and ourselves over the river. There was a general store there and we agreed a stop to rest, eat and drink would be an investment. We still had 100km to go on the stage. After an hour I hoped we’d be charged up to crank the final part of the ride. At the end of the ride we were due to reach a dark zone before the river kayak, meaning, a sleep was awaiting us so the faster we rode, the bigger the sleep would be. Soon into the ride Chris did a gear change and bang, broken derailleur again. Not good.
Back on a single speed it was hard to remain positive about this bleak situation. Racing with a 4-hour penalty looming over you is not pleasant and we knew for the chase teams that it must be the opposite, very comforting knowing the leading team has a massive penalty..jpg "Adventure Race (9)")
The ride was good road now and pretty scenery as we climbed into the Tarkine regions and made our way to Savage River, but as the ride went on and on, and up and up, I went down and down. The team started taking my gear until I didn’t have any left, but even then I still had no energy and all I wanted to do was lie down sleep. We battled on through the night until the inevitable happened. A team caught us, but to our surprise, it was Thule, not Silva.
Soon after they passed us though they missed a turn and we were back in the lead. They caught us again but after a few hours of hiking bikes through thick mud we pulled away and arrived first at the TA. This was the start of the kayak and the dark zone was lifted as it was after 6:30am. Part of us wanted to go straight onto the river but we were severely beaten up.
The toll of the pace we had set from mid camp had hit us all, except perhaps Sophie, who, if anything, was getting stronger. Not believing we could clear the river section in the state we were in, we decided to rest. We took a 90-minute sleep. It was a huge risk and I knew we were potentially giving away our last hope of winning, but to go onto the river in the state we were in seemed crazy. We just had to hope that Thule may have some of the bad luck we’d been plagued
with all race. They opted to go straight onto the river. In hindsight, we needed to risk going onto the river and seeing what happened but at the TA, things seemed very dire and I think collectively we weren’t able to make a sound judgement on what best to do. I think we’d just ruled out any hope that clearing the river in a day was possible.
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Stage 8 Kayak 75km
A few hours later we took to the river with energy levels topped up. We paddled off down river strongly. The 3-CP’s on the river section were short hiking stages. It didn’t take us long to catch Thule and pass them, confirming for us that the rest we took was probably a good thing. Interestingly, Thule had reached CP46 before us, which was the first time in the whole race a team had beat us to a CP or TA. All we could now was try and put as much time on them as we could. We still had 2-bike and 1-hike stage to follow so we held hope we could pick up time before the penalty box.
We paddled strongly but not well enough to get off the river. We camped the night on the riverbank and on day 6 we woke to a 12km section to the end. The river was really special, great scenery, some excellent grade 2 rapids and
a very authentic adventure feeling. We didn’t know the time gap but we hoped optimistically that we may have
crept the lead out to 2-hours. We were all firing and my illness had passed, I was back to full power.
Stage 9 Mountain Bike 70km
The sad reality of our situation was quickly reminded to us again as Chris was back on a single speed mountain bike. He did exceptionally well riding the bike but the additional workload that put on the rest of team under was immense, elevating the challenges we faced to epic proportions. We worked hard as a team to get through the ride as fast as we could but try as we might, our bike mechanical problem was too much of a handicap.
Stage 10 Hike 25km
Starting the final run we knew it was highly unlikely we’d be able to hold the lead of the race given our penalty coming up. Our next concern was that we may not be able to hold 2nd either. Silva were not that far behind and like Thule, were fired up knowing that soon, they would have the satisfaction of passing us while we had a forced stop.
The final hike around the Rocky Cape was an amazing area with views to take your breath away. We fought hard all the way but made a vital error in taking advice from some locals on the trail, who told us the inland track was quicker than the coast. As hard as it was to believe, they were adamant so we trusted them. In hindsight, it was a mistake that cost us probably about 20-minutes.
We arrived at Boat Harbour and began the wait. We sat in the café for a while, coffee, milkshakes, ice creams, sofa … bliss, but also quite a surreal and sombre situation. We waited, reflected, talked. A kaleidoscope of emotions.
Stage 11 Mountain Bike 35km
During our forced wait and slipping to 3rd place, we met a local from Burnie, Keith, who had his touring bike on his car. Not being able to receive help from the organisation, we were allowed to gain help from the public. Chris had some new wheels. I had told the team that we could take about 15-minutes out of Silva on the final ride, perhaps much to their disbelief. I also knew it was going to be better for our souls to race hard to the end and not ride in like a funeral procession. If we rode hard knowing that if Silva has one slip up, we’ll have them.
In a true display of courage and determination, we rode out of our skin and crossed the line a mere 3-minutes off 2nd place. It was no consolation in anyway but it wrapped up our race and also our pre race goal, “to fight like dogs, to scrap and battle all the way to the bitter end”.
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On finishing, Kiwi Aaron Prince handed me a NZ flag but I didn’t take it ‘we’ve brought shame to the flag I told him’. Despite all that had happened, we’d let down thousands of Kiwi supporters and with no disrespect to the team, I for
one simply felt I had nothing to celebrate.
Time heals
A few coffees, scoops of ice cream and sleeps in a comfy bed later, I’ve accepted the reality of the race. It needs to be kept in perspective. It’s only a sporting event and if the only problem one has in their life is losing an adventure race, then one must lead a very privileged and blessed existence.
Despite all our mis-fortunes and set backs, the team rallied and preserved to a level that demands huge respect. The characters in my team proved their tenacity and value over and over again. Chris did an exceptional job of navigation and breaking trail, a job that the chase teams also benefited from at times. Marcel is always a loyal and committed teammate prepared to hurt for the team at high levels. Sophie who is a relative new comer to expedition racing has well and truly proved her value. I’ve been lucky enough to race closely with the best female the sport has ever seen, Kristina Anglem, and Sophie is fast following in her footsteps. I really hope that one day she wins the World Title as she’s one of the most deserving and worthy athletes in the entire field, she may just have to get some better male athletes to help her
achieve that.
Despite our penalty, we had plenty of opportunities to still win the race, it just wasn’t meant to be, we just had one of those races where the curve balls kept getting thrown at us.
Results are reality, I’ve been around long enough to know that, and Thule and Silva both race well enough to keep in contention and were rewarded justly fortheir efforts as we sat out our penalty. Personally, I don’t have any issues with the organisation. Craig was following procedure and sticking to his race rules. While I don’t agree with the rules and the size of the penalty, I respect that they are the rules of this race and we broke them. I’m quite a purest when it comes to adventure racing, I want races to be won on paddling, biking, hiking and navigation ability. I don’t want to see the sport in a corridor of rules and regulation.
My personal view is that as teams, for those of us who share this view, we need to be vocal and protect what is important to us in the sport. I would have protested had one of our competitors been given such a penalty.
I’ve done that in the past. It’s not how I like to win or lose races.
In Primal Quest 2004, our team was in a situation when a tragic event took place, friend and racer Nigel Aylot was killed. The race was stopped and restarted and stopped again. In the aftermath of all the goings on, our team found ourselves gifted a race win. On the line was $100,000USD to win.
Excited by this we paddled on with huge grins. However, as time went by, we started to become uneasy about the situation. We were about to win the race,not because we were the best team in that race, but because of a series of events that were not directly related to adventure sport. Further discussion amongst our team we all agreed that the deserving winners were US Team Nike. They had been the fastest on course post the accident and were the real worthy winners. The only reason we could see that was good about the win was more prize money, but we all agreed that our integrity and values as athletes were beyond that. We waited mid stream and when Nike caught us we offered them a draw. For the next few hours we raced side by side and shared the victory with them. We felt lucky to be crossing the line in first place when deep down, we knew it wasn’t our line to cross first.
What happened here in Tasmania falls into that category for me. I wouldn’t have taken the victory under these conditions, but saying that, I’m not making a case of right or wrong, just different. Thule and Silva had every right to see the situation differently and therefore react differently. I’m cool with that, it’s their prerogative.
XPD is one tough race, 733km through some stunning but punishing country. I applaud Craig for putting the race on and allowing us to be subject to some real risk in pure wilderness areas. Adventure Racing is a symbol of extreme challenge in a world of comfort and convenience, may it long prosper.
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Special thanks to our sponsors SEAGATE, Patagonia, Gu, O2B Healthy, Inov8 Shoes, Numa Eyewear, Mont Bell Tents, GoLite Packs, Silva, Tineli,Bridgedale
By Nathan Fa’avae
Adventure Racing World Champs 2011 / XPD, Tasmania, Australia
On the north coast of Tasmania, sits a quaint seaside beach town called Boat Harbour, a waterfront popular for surf life saving and outrigger paddling. It also provides an ice cream shop, café and a chippie, a perfect place to spend a few hours, which is exactly what my team did on Monday November 7th, 4- hours in fact. But it wasn’t the fun filled 4-hours we would normally spend in such a place, it was instead, a frustrating 4-hours where we sat and watched our lead and victory in the World Championship race go to the 2nd place team, Team Thule (Sweden / France). Rubbing salt into the wound, we then waited and watched as Team Silva (Sweden), the 3rd place team, go by as well.
It was an unfortunate end to the epic endurance race, for both us and the teams going by, leaving us all with final placing’s we probably didn’t truly deserve. But that’s the harsh reality of racing and sport; it’s not always fair.
We ended up 3rd and this is what happened from my view of the race.
The team consisted of myself, Chris Forne, Sophie Hart and Marcel Hagener.
Going into the race we believed we had a high chance of winning, we believed in our skills, experience and conditioning. Our race strategy even before we got the course was to go out hard from the start with the aim of leading from start to finish. We reckoned that very few teams would be able to match our speed and that any teams who tried would likely be worse off as a result. All theory of course, but that was our plan, to smash it.
Stage 1 Ocean Kayak 17km
The race started on the beach in Burnie, 80-teams lined up behind their kayaks, each team equipped with a plastic kayak and an inflatable. Sophie and I opted for the plastic leaving Chris and Marcel the inflatable. 15-minutes before the start I collected our Spot-tracking device. A small handheld unit that transmits a signal that allows spectators to follow our progress online.
The Spot tracker must have a clear signal with the sky so we 2 were asked to attach them to our life jackets for the kayak stage. I made a mental note to make sure I remember to take the Spot off at the end of the stage and attach it to my backpack.
As Sophie and I loaded our kayak, it became apparent that room on the kayak was very limited, so I decided 10-minutes before the start that we would not carry the sleeping bag on the kayak, which normally is compulsory gear but an exception had been made for the first stage. With the sleeping bag now in the paddle bag being transported by the organisation to TA1, I made a mental note to make sure I collected the sleeping bag at the end of the stage. I was
really worried I may forget it. Soon into the race we pulled away from the field and started to build up a lead, 5-minutes by the first CP and 11-minutes by the end of the stage. Coming into TA1 at Penguin it was a media frenzy, high excitement, spectators, busy. I had to sign in and register our team then went to our gearbox and paddle bag. The whole time repeating a mantra in my mind, “sleeping bag, sleeping bag, sleeping bag”. I immediately grabbed the sleeping bag and put it in my pack. Relief. In a flury of action, getting changed, packing gear, answering questions from reporters we rapidly left the transition, eager to send a message to the chasing teams that the race has started and asking the question “what have you got?”
Perhaps the question should have been “what have we forgot?”
Unbeknown to me, tucked safely inside the paddle bag was the Spot tracker, unable to send a signal to the outside world but at the same time sending a signal to the organisation there is a problem with our device. It’s either malfunctioning or we don’t have it.
Stage 2 Trail Run 20km
15-minutes into the stage we entered a rifle range, one team member had to shoot 1-out of 5-clay birds. If unsuccessful the team had to sit out a 10-minute penalty. I put my hand up to shoot. I shot the first one and off we went, running into the forest in search of 5-control flags en route to TA2. We were running well into the Dial Range and Chris was quickly into the navigation nailing all the controls smoothly. We were pushing the pace and knew we would be applying early pressure. By the end of the stage we arrived into the TA needing to assemble our bikes. On registering, one of the staff asked if our Spot unit was working. “Buggar!” I left it at the kayak. “No sweat, I can give you another one” he replied.
At the time I thought that was lucky, some races that would incur a penalty but I also reasoned that it wasn’t a major piece of equipment and it’s one piece you definitely wouldn’t leave behind on purpose, because it transmits.
In general terms, I don’t believe there are teams who deliberately cheat and sneak on course trying to save weight, the gear list is so minimal you’d be an idiot to head into the hills with any less gear in which case the penalty would be of natural consequences. With that in mind I think a penalty of 30-60 minutes is enough to make sure teams are diligent, but not so big that the outcome of race is decided on such a trivial matter. I decided not to the tell the team about the Spot episode as it seemed like it may be okay and I didn’t think they needed any distraction. We were racing really well and focused. I just vowed not to leave it behind again.
Stage 3 Mountain Bike / Cave 70km
Punching into a strong headwind we made way through undulating farmland and after an hour descended to the cave at Gunns Plain. Here we dropped our bikes and ventured underground for an hour. It was a welcome change from the hard biking to crawling through underground passageways to a number of controls. On exiting the cave we were able to assess some of the time gaps between the tops teams and the order. There were no surprises, Team Silva, Thule, AXA (Sweden), Buff (Spain), Blackheart (Australia), Adidas (UK) were all within an hour behind us, with a constant stream of
teams behind them.
Back on bikes we kept the speed constant and enjoyed a great ride through some forest roads to end the stage with a growing margin.
Stage 4 Trek 60km
Just on dusk we set off into the first of the big hiking stages. The section had a combination of forested trails and climbed up into sub alpine mountainous regions of Black Bluff and Reynolds Falls. The team were moving well, Chris
had the navigation going well and on some sections we were able to look back down the course confirming we were slowly extending our lead. It was a cold night in the mountains but we felt great and moved well, enjoying lots of
wildlife siting, the Wombats being one of the highlights. All night we kept pushing and ticked off the CP’s and the kilometres. Soon after the sun rose we arrived at the river. The next 20km was downriver and started with a number of deep pools we needed to swim over. We were cold from the previous night and the river was freezing, probably about 12-degrees.
The sport of adventure racing often has athletes suffering great discomfort and this was one of those times. The icy waters left us shivering so we moved as fast down river as we could to generate heat, crossing the river multiple times.
Eventually we made it to the TA on the edge of Lake MacIntosh.
Stage 4 Paddle 28km
The sky was clear but a crisp cool wind blew up the lake. We took a few minutes to have some food and then loaded our kayak. For the first 8km on the lake, we were supplied one inflatable kayak. This was one section I was not pleased about. I think event organisations have no right to supply us gear that exceeds the manufacturers safety limitation of the equipment. We were a 4-person team and given a 3-person kayak. Plus we had a lot of gear. The result was we completely overloaded the kayak leaving almost no freeboard.
This resulted in the kayak constantly filling up with water and increasing our exposure to the cold, when it should and could have been avoided by issuing 2-kayaks.
However, if we thought that section was bad, we were about to really learn what bad was.
At the next CP, we were able to trade the inflatable kayak for 2-plastic ones. At this point the Race Director Craig Bycroft met us and asked to speak to me. I was informed that we would be receiving a 5-hour penalty for not carrying the Spot device on the second stage. While not surprised we were getting a penalty, I was shocked at the size of it. Typically 1-2 hour penalties are given for such things. A 5-hour penalty would most likely put us out of contention, which is what needs to happen if a team is caught cheating and racing with poor sportsmanship, but our mistake was undisputedly an honest error. Invited to comment, I asked Craig to reconsider the penalty given the circumstances, the main one being that our team does not get to transition like most teams, we are bombarded by media and hype, being the first into the TA’s the race officials rarely have things organised and subsequently consume more of our time, there is no privacy and little space to
think clearly among the chaos. Craig said he’d think about that and inform us at the next TA.
Back on the water we quickly got back to racing and made a decision we needed to go even harder to get a bigger lead, to neutralise whatever the penalty was going to be. We had to portage the kayaks 2km over a small hill into a river and paddle further into a lake to the TA.
On arrival Craig met us and informed us our penalty would be 4-hours and that it would be served at the final TA.
At this stage of the race we had about a 2-hour lead on Silva and 3-hours on Thule, so we felt we still had a chance of winning, we just needed to keep going hard.
Stage 5 Mountain Bike 105km
From bad to worse. Team spirits were high, we were motivated and keen to win this race. We believed even with a 4-hour penalty we could do it. As the team settled into a long night on the bikes, so did the rain and cold. Through
some challenging and slippery mountain bike trails, we were making good progress in the Stirling Valley. Then disaster struck, worse than the leeches that were getting onto our lower legs. I was riding behind Chris when a stick flicked into his rear derailleur and snapped it off.
This was a major problem. We stopped on the trail and tried to fix it but to no avail. We needed a workshop. Chris unable to ride his bike, the team pushed and towed him for 10km to the next town. About 3am we looked around trying to find ways of fixing the bike but no success. Now on sealed roads for a while, we managed to make Chris’s bike into a single speed and he could ride it fairly well. After losing hours of time we kept expecting to be passed by the chasing teams but somehow we limped into mid camp still holding a lead.Mid Camp
A 6-hour compulsory rest stop. We were able to eat and sleep. Marcel sacrificed sleep to get the bike repaired in a local town. He did fix it but he didn’t hold much hope that it’d last for long, the derailleur had been severely damaged too. By now word had got around the top teams that we had a 4-hour penalty and this gave them renewed hope that the race for first was still on. While we were still the leader on the course, in adjusted time with the penalty, we were in fact in 3rd place.
Stage 6 Hike 65km
Jogging out onto the next stage we made a plan. We wanted to retake control of the race again and quickly build a lead big enough to consume the penalty. Onto Ocean Beach in the morning we felt energized and motivated. It was truly spectacular and we ran. We ran through dunes, swam tidal rivers, ran trails and ran on the sand. When we finally reached the end of the beach run segment, some local fisherman greeted us.
“where the hell have you run from?”
“25km down the beach, deserves a beer don’t you think?’
“to bloody right!” and they proceeded to load us up with cans of beer.
We knew we’d be pulling away again from the field and this fed our spirit. Intothe night we ran and were eventually slowed by difficult terrain on Mount Heemskirk. By the end of the stage though the toll of going hard started to show. The fellas, Chris, Marcel and I, started to get diarrhoea and a bit of spew spat out. Sophie on the other hand, hadn’t yet broken into a sweat and was prancing through the course with dignity and ease. Reaching the TA at Granville Harbour we decided to take some rest. The wheels had started to fall off and we identified we needed some recovery. It seemed very well timed. Race officials ascertained we had a 3-4 hour lead so this was pleasing. We crawled into bed for a 3-hour sleep. Little did we know, as we nestled happily into the comforts of our beds that coming up next was the bike ride to Armageddon.
Stage 7 Mountain Bike 150km
As we were leaving Team Silva arrived which put them approximately 4-hours behind us, effectively meaning we were now back in the lead. All good, off we went, determined to increase the time gap. The bike ride started off really hard, in deep sand and bogs. The coastline was spectacular but it was heavy going. With lots of bike pushing for a few hours, we reached some sand dunes that had over time covered up the old roads. This took us at least an hour to piece together and the route off the dunes and leaving behind us in the sand, the answer to the puzzle for the chasing teams … ‘this way everyone, follow us’.
As the trial descended into a total state of abandonment, for hours we pushed our way through thick tree and windfall, complete shit. Thanks to Chris’s super human efforts, we finally we broke through onto the open land and roads.
We were jubilant. On we went. As the day heated up I my energy started to go down. The biking was undulating and I was losing power. We were going okay but I could tell our speed and efficiency was waning. After about 50km we arrived at the Gordon River. Here we were supplied 2-canoes and a paddle and had to shuttle our bikes and ourselves over the river. There was a general store there and we agreed a stop to rest, eat and drink would be an investment. We still had 100km to go on the stage. After an hour I hoped we’d be charged up to crank the final part of the ride. At the end of the ride we were due to reach a dark zone before the river kayak, meaning, a sleep was awaiting us so the faster we rode, the bigger the sleep would be. Soon into the ride Chris did a gear change and bang, broken derailleur again. Not good.
Back on a single speed it was hard to remain positive about this bleak situation. Racing with a 4-hour penalty looming over you is not pleasant and we knew for the chase teams that it must be the opposite, very comforting knowing the leading team has a massive penalty.
The ride was good road now and pretty scenery as we climbed into the Tarkine regions and made our way to Savage River, but as the ride went on and on, and up and up, I went down and down. The team started taking my gear until I didn’t have any left, but even then I still had no energy and all I wanted to do was lie down sleep. We battled on through the night until the inevitable happened. A team caught us, but to our surprise, it was Thule, not Silva.
Soon after they passed us though they missed a turn and we were back in the lead. They caught us again but after a few hours of hiking bikes through thick mud we pulled away and arrived first at the TA. This was the start of the kayak and the dark zone was lifted as it was after 6:30am. Part of us wanted to go straight onto the river but we were severely beaten up.
The toll of the pace we had set from mid camp had hit us all, except perhaps Sophie, who, if anything, was getting stronger. Not believing we could clear the river section in the state we were in, we decided to rest. We took a 90-minute sleep. It was a huge risk and I knew we were potentially giving away our last hope of winning, but to go onto the river in the state we were in seemed crazy. We just had to hope that Thule may have some of the bad luck we’d been plagued
with all race. They opted to go straight onto the river. In hindsight, we needed to risk going onto the river and seeing what happened but at the TA, things seemed very dire and I think collectively we weren’t able to make a sound judgement on what best to do. I think we’d just ruled out any hope that clearing the river in a day was possible.
Stage 8 Kayak 75km
A few hours later we took to the river with energy levels topped up. We paddled off down river strongly. The 3-CP’s on the river section were short hiking stages. It didn’t take us long to catch Thule and pass them, confirming for us that the rest we took was probably a good thing. Interestingly, Thule had reached CP46 before us, which was the first time in the whole race a team had beat us to a CP or TA. All we could now was try and put as much time on them as we could. We still had 2-bike and 1-hike stage to follow so we held hope we could pick up time before the penalty box.
We paddled strongly but not well enough to get off the river. We camped the night on the riverbank and on day 6 we woke to a 12km section to the end. The river was really special, great scenery, some excellent grade 2 rapids and
a very authentic adventure feeling. We didn’t know the time gap but we hoped optimistically that we may have
crept the lead out to 2-hours. We were all firing and my illness had passed, I was back to full power.
Stage 9 Mountain Bike 70km
The sad reality of our situation was quickly reminded to us again as Chris was back on a single speed mountain bike. He did exceptionally well riding the bike but the additional workload that put on the rest of team under was immense, elevating the challenges we faced to epic proportions. We worked hard as a team to get through the ride as fast as we could but try as we might, our bike mechanical problem was too much of a handicap.
Stage 10 Hike 25km
Starting the final run we knew it was highly unlikely we’d be able to hold the lead of the race given our penalty coming up. Our next concern was that we may not be able to hold 2nd either. Silva were not that far behind and like Thule, were fired up knowing that soon, they would have the satisfaction of passing us while we had a forced stop.
The final hike around the Rocky Cape was an amazing area with views to take your breath away. We fought hard all the way but made a vital error in taking advice from some locals on the trail, who told us the inland track was quicker than the coast. As hard as it was to believe, they were adamant so we trusted them. In hindsight, it was a mistake that cost us probably about 20-minutes.
We arrived at Boat Harbour and began the wait. We sat in the café for a while, coffee, milkshakes, ice creams, sofa … bliss, but also quite a surreal and sombre situation. We waited, reflected, talked. A kaleidoscope of emotions.
Stage 11 Mountain Bike 35km
During our forced wait and slipping to 3rd place, we met a local from Burnie, Keith, who had his touring bike on his car. Not being able to receive help from the organisation, we were allowed to gain help from the public. Chris had some new wheels. I had told the team that we could take about 15-minutes out of Silva on the final ride, perhaps much to their disbelief. I also knew it was going to be better for our souls to race hard to the end and not ride in like a funeral procession. If we rode hard knowing that if Silva has one slip up, we’ll have them.
In a true display of courage and determination, we rode out of our skin and crossed the line a mere 3-minutes off 2nd place. It was no consolation in anyway but it wrapped up our race and also our pre race goal, “to fight like dogs, to scrap and battle all the way to the bitter end”.
On finishing, Kiwi Aaron Prince handed me a NZ flag but I didn’t take it ‘we’ve brought shame to the flag I told him’. Despite all that had happened, we’d let down thousands of Kiwi supporters and with no disrespect to the team, I for
one simply felt I had nothing to celebrate.
Time heals
A few coffees, scoops of ice cream and sleeps in a comfy bed later, I’ve accepted the reality of the race. It needs to be kept in perspective. It’s only a sporting event and if the only problem one has in their life is losing an adventure race, then one must lead a very privileged and blessed existence.
Despite all our mis-fortunes and set backs, the team rallied and preserved to a level that demands huge respect. The characters in my team proved their tenacity and value over and over again. Chris did an exceptional job of navigation and breaking trail, a job that the chase teams also benefited from at times. Marcel is always a loyal and committed teammate prepared to hurt for the team at high levels. Sophie who is a relative new comer to expedition racing has well and truly proved her value. I’ve been lucky enough to race closely with the best female the sport has ever seen, Kristina Anglem, and Sophie is fast following in her footsteps. I really hope that one day she wins the World Title as she’s one of the most deserving and worthy athletes in the entire field, she may just have to get some better male athletes to help her
achieve that.
Despite our penalty, we had plenty of opportunities to still win the race, it just wasn’t meant to be, we just had one of those races where the curve balls kept getting thrown at us.
Results are reality, I’ve been around long enough to know that, and Thule and Silva both race well enough to keep in contention and were rewarded justly fortheir efforts as we sat out our penalty. Personally, I don’t have any issues with the organisation. Craig was following procedure and sticking to his race rules. While I don’t agree with the rules and the size of the penalty, I respect that they are the rules of this race and we broke them. I’m quite a purest when it comes to adventure racing, I want races to be won on paddling, biking, hiking and navigation ability. I don’t want to see the sport in a corridor of rules and regulation.
My personal view is that as teams, for those of us who share this view, we need to be vocal and protect what is important to us in the sport. I would have protested had one of our competitors been given such a penalty.
I’ve done that in the past. It’s not how I like to win or lose races.
In Primal Quest 2004, our team was in a situation when a tragic event took place, friend and racer Nigel Aylot was killed. The race was stopped and restarted and stopped again. In the aftermath of all the goings on, our team found ourselves gifted a race win. On the line was $100,000USD to win.
Excited by this we paddled on with huge grins. However, as time went by, we started to become uneasy about the situation. We were about to win the race,not because we were the best team in that race, but because of a series of events that were not directly related to adventure sport. Further discussion amongst our team we all agreed that the deserving winners were US Team Nike. They had been the fastest on course post the accident and were the real worthy winners. The only reason we could see that was good about the win was more prize money, but we all agreed that our integrity and values as athletes were beyond that. We waited mid stream and when Nike caught us we offered them a draw. For the next few hours we raced side by side and shared the victory with them. We felt lucky to be crossing the line in first place when deep down, we knew it wasn’t our line to cross first.
What happened here in Tasmania falls into that category for me. I wouldn’t have taken the victory under these conditions, but saying that, I’m not making a case of right or wrong, just different. Thule and Silva had every right to see the situation differently and therefore react differently. I’m cool with that, it’s their prerogative.
XPD is one tough race, 733km through some stunning but punishing country. I applaud Craig for putting the race on and allowing us to be subject to some real risk in pure wilderness areas. Adventure Racing is a symbol of extreme challenge in a world of comfort and convenience, may it long prosper.
Special thanks to our sponsors SEAGATE, Patagonia, Gu, O2B Healthy, Inov8 Shoes, Numa Eyewear, Mont Bell Tents, GoLite Packs, Silva, Tineli,Bridgedale
