The South Canterbury Adventure Race Club have a reputation of putting on awesome events and this years 12 hour AR was no exception. After placing 4th at last years event, I was hoping for another good result despite being in a different team, this time with my GODZone 2016 team.
The event didn't start great with Blake being unable to attend last moment after collapsing in his driveway just before driving down, and my dad was also run down with flu, but chose to attempt to push through.
23 teams braved the challenging conditions for this years 12hr AR at Blue Mountain and Lochaber stations. Teams had the choice to either bike or run first, with 14 teams choosing to do the bike leg first. I made the decision during the night to do the bike first, thinking it would be easier on my dad to maintain a decent pace on the bike, then we could assess the situation and he could pull out if need be. We woke up in the morning to a decent frost, confirming that biking first was a good idea, hopefully letting us get through the bike course while all the pre-warned mud sections were still frozen.
Unfortunately, a warm breeze picked up just after we started and the ground soon turned into thick mud. 5.5hrs later and only 47k covered we finally ground our way into transition. It was here that we made the decision that it wasn't sensible continuing for the entire trek but would go out for a quick jog to grab the few checkpoints that were closest.
While disappointing to finish early, it provided me with some more nav practise on reasonably unfamiliar terrain and highlighted that my training is going in the right direction. Another bonus with finishing early was that it gave us some time to grab some delicious pies from Fairlie Bakehouse while the others were still suffering out on course!
The event didn't start great with Blake being unable to attend last moment after collapsing in his driveway just before driving down, and my dad was also run down with flu, but chose to attempt to push through.
23 teams braved the challenging conditions for this years 12hr AR at Blue Mountain and Lochaber stations. Teams had the choice to either bike or run first, with 14 teams choosing to do the bike leg first. I made the decision during the night to do the bike first, thinking it would be easier on my dad to maintain a decent pace on the bike, then we could assess the situation and he could pull out if need be. We woke up in the morning to a decent frost, confirming that biking first was a good idea, hopefully letting us get through the bike course while all the pre-warned mud sections were still frozen.
Unfortunately, a warm breeze picked up just after we started and the ground soon turned into thick mud. 5.5hrs later and only 47k covered we finally ground our way into transition. It was here that we made the decision that it wasn't sensible continuing for the entire trek but would go out for a quick jog to grab the few checkpoints that were closest.
While disappointing to finish early, it provided me with some more nav practise on reasonably unfamiliar terrain and highlighted that my training is going in the right direction. Another bonus with finishing early was that it gave us some time to grab some delicious pies from Fairlie Bakehouse while the others were still suffering out on course!
Comments
Post a Comment