After my last event being the Tekapo 10 hour many months ago it was good to get out racing again! Well sort of... sort of on the good part and the race part...
The South Canterbury Adventure Race has become a yearly event on my calendar and for good reason. Cheap entry, good food afterwards and quality company for 12 hours (give or take speed differences and navigation mishaps). This year was held on Bog Roy, Rostreiver and Otamatapaio stations near Otematata. I had been down there 2 weeks previously with RATS getting an alternative version of pre-race scouting which you can see here: https://clients.shanebriggs.photography/rats-nzrt1/
Overall I was looking forward to getting out again and getting a good training day in the legs with Rosey, especially after a great few hours riding on the Tekapo 10 hour course the day before (I can highly recommend this loop even if you aren't racing).
Then morning hit.
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| A thin layer of snow on top of mud to start the day |
Normally a little bit of snow wouldn't worry me but I was feeling extremely unenthusiastic about 12 hours freezing my arse off in it. Fortunately the sun came out just before the start... for 10 minutes before deciding to snow even heavier. The knee deep river crossing at the start of our first bike leg didn't really help my enthusiasm either. After battling our way up the valley into a headwind and a strange mix of ice and sludge, I made the decision to skip one checkpoint and move on to the second bike loop (this would later turn out to be a good decision with us making 2 hours on teams that had decided to continue).
From here on my memory of the race gets a bit blurry with flash backs of brutally long tows up steep climbs, pushing two bikes when I failed to tow right up the climb (or it got too steep) and some amateur navigation that I should have really known better. Throw in a few intervals since it was a training day, very limited food and drink (I should have known better), and the ever evolving Otago weather and you get the idea that I had a hard day. Atleast the snow had disappeared... for now. Oh and that was just during the bike leg which should have been my strength...
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| Does my bum look big? |
Going into the trek I knew we had the time to get most of the controls thanks to a pretty good bike time but with having spent all year on a bike and not in running shoes, I wasn't really sure my legs would be capable of achieving it. Fortunately my body seemed to have forgotten this fact and I felt super strong, strong enough to once again put myself in the pain cave and tow Rosey straight up the hill.
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| Atleast the view was good... temporarily |
In a continuing theme for the day the clear skies decided to disappear and we soon found ourselves in snow once again. By now I was over being cold and fortunately Rosey was willing to call it a day as well. In the end we were out for just over 10 hours, finishing just before it went dark out.
So back to my original sentence "it was good to get out racing". In a masochistic way it was "good" how hard I had to push, setting new power pb's, and confirming my last 6 months of training is putting me in a good place for upcoming races. "Racing"... well while we didn't win, we couldn't really expect to when our goals were to just go out, have fun, and get some good training. Finishing mid field and having the fastest time for 11/15 checkpoints was a good result though considering our decisions to skip checkpoints and finish early. I think next year I might actually have to do some training as Rosey won't be allowing me to be soft and not do the whole thing!
While my report is full of, lets face it, complaining. You can head over to Rosey's report and get an idea of what the race was like from her point of view: https://rosey-acker.blogspot.co.nz/2017/09/adventure-racing-rookie-adventures-with.html
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