Adventure Junkie

Brendan: Our team, AEBB, was Lloyd, Doug, Mary and Brendan.  Mary, an Irish girl from Wellington, joined the team fairly late, but with enough time that we were able to set up one trans-Tasman training session.  We discussed our team goals a lot before we arrived in Queenstown, so I think we were pretty much on the same page by the time we started.  Our ambition was to finish ranked, stay uninjured, and still be friends afterwards.  It doesn’t sound like much, but in expedition adventure racing, you can’t take any of those three things for granted.

Hugh: Our team had never raced together before, but we ended up with a reasonable mix of skills and a good match of speed.  Given we had come together at the last minute and we all had similar expectations about having a good crack and just seeing how we went, we also ended up with a pretty relaxed attitude which made getting ready and racing good fun.

Brendan: Our strategy was to keep moving, try to be efficient in our stops, and to maintain a pace that would see us to the finish without burning out.  Also, we decided early on that we would take the “conservative” route options when we could – preferring to walk a bit further rather than risk being cliffed-out or lost etc.

Hugh: Our strategy was to go as hard as we could for as long as we could and it worked OK till Hugh had a bike crash and from then on it was to go as hard as Hugh could with one arm!

Brendan: Our approach was for 2-3 hours per night.  However, as it turned out, this wasn’t sustainable as one of our team got the flu just before the start and he needed more sleep to be able to keep going.  In the end we slept 2 hours on the first couple of nights, and 6, then 8 on the subsequent nights.  Our race was over by then.

Hugh: All up we probably had about 6 hrs sleep – 2hrs a night for all but the first night.  We took a longer sleep on one occasion because we waited for light to start a section with harder navigation and terrain.

Brendan: The first (Milford Sound) and last (Lake Wakatipu) kayak legs were both challenging, but extremely inspiring and rewarding.  Doug and I had difficulties with the AR1 kayak on the start line: our rudder cable untied and we turned at 90 degrees left.  In the darkness and swell, we immediately lost Lloyd and Mary, and as we struggled to get control, we were lucky to stay upright.  It took a long time to get the boat further up the sound where the water was calmer and we could peel back the spray deck to attempt to fix the rudder cable.  We eventually limped home, nearly last.  The kayaks were fixed for the final leg up  Lake Wakatipu, and for me, that was one of the highlights of the event.

Hugh: The paddling was great (thanks to Seamus making up for Hugh’s one armed paddling) with strong tail wind and waves for both kayak legs. The boats were surprisingly good for big wide monsters.

Brendan: The MTB legs were good, though there wasn’t much singletrack or technical riding.  Riding through Milford tunnel was hard, but good.

The trekking stages were very tough – but enjoyable.  We expected them to be tough.  Many teams ran out of food on the first trek, but we had plenty since we anticipated that the leg would take a long time and be hard.

Hugh: The MTB was pretty average as they were really just connections between the treks and the trails (when there was a trail) were 4wd tracks or bitumen.  The treks were long and challenging, but very rewarding and beautiful.

Brendan: A few issues: 

• The broken rudder cable as mentioned. 

• Lost a goretex jacket (mandatory safety equipment)

• Left fleece jacket in a box we wouldn’t see for several days (more mandatory equipment)

• Sprained ankle when a log fell on Lloyd during the first trek

Hugh: Apart from a flat and some minor gear cable issues we had a mechanical free race (nice!).

Brendan: The toughest moment was when, at the beginning of the 2nd trek, we were told that we were not allowed to finish the course.  There wasn’t a published cutoff time, but the organizers had decided that we were moving too slowly and we would not be able to complete the next legs before they had to pull the staff out.  It was incredibly disappointing as it meant the race was completely over.

Hugh: I suspect this was the same for all the team.  I had a pretty serious bike crash on the second day, landed on my shoulder at speed after which I could not lift my arm.  I managed to keep going, and the team showed great patience in supporting me through this (including doing my shoe laces and similar trivial things!)

Brendan: The maps were not that good.  They were reasonably up-to-date (unlike XPD) though not consistent in scale – and the scale was not actually marked.  There were no “legends” on the maps which I thought was a bad arrangement, and there wasn’t even a magnetic declination nor any indication of whether the North was grid or magnetic.  Personally, I think that’s pretty poor form.

The route choice was reasonably challenging, but once on course, the navigation wasn’t difficult.  The terrain was very dramatic and that makes it pretty easy to figure out where you are – though it does make it possible to end up at the top or bottom of a very steep incline or cliff!

Hugh: I did not think navigating was too hard, but route choice was critical.  Local experience would have been useful in making creek vs ridge top decisions.  Having two sets of maps is fantastic as transition between navigators and checking each others work did not cost time.  There was much more scrub and fallen trees than I expected so the going was quite slow at times.  The ridge top walking above the tree line was pretty spectacular as well as good going.

Brendan: We were incredibly lucky with the weather.  There was one particularly cold night – I vividly recall having to scrape ice off my map-board so that I could navigate.  The last leg on the lake was very cold too.  Although comfortable when we started, I got incredibly cold once the sun had set – and we were too far off a rocky shore to be able stop and put on more clothing.  I managed to warm up only once we arrived at the first CP, but I had mild hypothermia by then.

Hugh: The nights were very cold.  The first bike leg was wet but the rest was dry so that made it easier.  There were lots of creek crossings so the feet got cold walking on frosty ground between walking in cold water (most of our team are still nursing numb spots on our feet), but other than that it was just a matter of wearing the right amount of clothing.

Brendan: Unfortunately we didn’t do well at all.  We were a DNF.  We could have done much better if we didn’t have a sick team member.

Hugh: We lost a bit of time due to my injury (we would like to think at least two places).  Better route choices would have got the most time back and we always seemed to hit hard navigation at night so were quite slow at times.  Being a new team we were not as efficient as we could have been managing stops for clothing changes, lights etc and over the race this was worth a few hours probably.

Brendan: It’s really important to communicate if someone is sick.  I think if the team had known the state of our sick member, then we could have taken some weight, fed them drugs (appropriate and legal ones of course!) and made sure he was warm and got a bit of extra sleep.  As it was, we didn’t know how much he was suffering, so we couldn’t help.

Hugh: Bike crashes are not fast, but it is amazing what a team can do when everyone helps each other out.   We had a few lessons on route choice in the NZ mountains.  Being efficient with gear (clothing selection etc) to avoid stoppages was the main thing that I “relearnt”.  Sleeping in the cold is hard so finding warm spots (eg huts) can be a major time saver to avoid dealing with a tent etc.

Brendan: They were OK, but a bit over ambitious.  The course was too long (even SeaGate were shortcoursed) and the organizers didn’t really have a good or consistent way of shortcoursing teams to get them to the end.  It did seem like their first event, and I hope they learned a lot, and will be better next time.

Hugh: Excellent.  The course was probably a bit too long and trekking heavy, but very challenging which made for a rewarding race.

Brendan: We didn’t have one! 

Hugh: City Bike Depot help Hugh and Richard out with bike stuff, other than that the team was self supported.  Oceanpaddler help Hugh with kayak training and paddling tips (mostly ocean though – not that good for NZ rivers)

Brendan: I would love to do it, but I had already entered the Cape Epic in South Africa, and it starts the day that GodZone 2 finishes.

Hugh: I am keen – I think next years will be an absolute cracker with longer and warmer days being a few weeks earlier.

 

All photos from godzoneadventure.com