I did my first ever adventure race at the weekend and it was great fun. It was a team event, each team consisting of two people, so Becs got roped into being my teammate and we entered in the Mixed category. Given that neither of us had ever done an event before, we enrolled in the training day which was held the day before the race.

Saturday morning dawned to a light drizzle which put a bit of a dampener on things, but we drove down to the Royal National Park with only a vague idea of what lay in store for us. We knew it was a training day, but I wasn’t sure whether they’d have us running around all day or not. As it turned out it was quite relaxed. We spent the morning learning the basics of navigation; how to use a compass, plot your location on a map and then navigate to your destination. We wouldn’t actually need much navigation skills for the race, but they’ll come in handy at some stage in the future. We also got plenty of tips for route planning, and got advised to arrive early so we’d have plenty of time to annotate our map with our chosen route and some navigation clues.

After that it was a spot of lunch, followed by the rudiment of mountain biking (which I already knew) and the basics of kayaking. Having been on the kayaking course previously I thought I was well prepared, but as the kayak we’d be using in the race was only half the length of a sea kayak, and also inflatable, it spun on a dime, so most of the what we’d learnt on the kayaking course no longer applied. If we tried using the ‘torso rotation’ method of paddling, the kayak just spun underneath us! It had rained on and off all day, so I ended up soaking wet and freezing by the time I got home. I’d have to prepare better for race day!

The alarm went off on race day at 5:20 and I could hear the rain outside. “OK,” I thought to myself, “it’s going to be a mud fest!” After a quick bowl of cereal I packed up my gear, making sure I brought a complete change of clothes for after the race. Becs picked me up a little after 6:00 and we made it down to the Royal shortly after 7:00, dropped off our bikes at the bike transition, then got a great park near the start and registered nice and early. We picked the map and race instructions out of the bag and headed back to the car to plot our route around the course.

8:40 saw us standing in the rain listening to the race briefing, feeling surprisingly relaxed. Probably worrying more about the weather than the race itself! The gun went off at 8:56 and we sauntered off at the back of the pack. Our first checkpoint was about 1.5km up the Hacking River and we had to row to get there. I started off the rowing, though launching the boat amongst about 10-15 other teams meant that the first few minutes were spent trying not to crash into someone. Becs navigated out to the checkpoint which was a lot further than it had looked on the map and it took us about half an hour to reach it. We punched our card, then turned to head back to the boat shed. We considered swapping places and letting Becs row for a bit, but decided against trying to swap places for fear of ending up in the water. I’d remembered that the current flows fastest in the centre of the river, so we did our best to stay away from the banks and it only took about 20mins to get back to the boat shed.

The second section was all running, with a further three checkpoints to navigate to. Our preparation in the car paid off as we knew almost exactly where we were going, though as it involved gaining and then losing about 100m in altitude, my legs weren’t too happy with the whole operation. Carrying about 5kg of stuff in my backpack didn’t really help either. I was pretty pleased after nabbing the 4th checkpoint until I realised we had to run back up to the Visitor’s Centre to start the bike legs. Anyone who has driven into the Royal National Park knows that the hill down to the weir is bloody steep, so can imagine having to run back up it. The road was off-limits, so we had to use and adjacent walking trail which consisted mostly of steps. I decided from the start that I was going to walk it and Becs was happy to oblige, though I suspect I was holding her up as trailwalking is her strong point.

By this stage we’d been going for almost two hours and I was feeling a bit tired. I’d been drinking water regularly and had eaten a Mars & a breakfast bar, but it was now time to bring out the heavy artillery in the form of a Gu Energy Gel. It was quite tasty, but I didn’t get any sugar rush from it. However, I soon forgot about being tired and it was only an hour later that I realised that I’d been charging around the place without issue, so they obviously work very well!

We finally made it to the bike transition at the Visitor’s Centre, checked in with the course marshalls and jumped on the bikes for the MTB leg. There was mud everywhere so we had a great time charging through the puddles and just getting completely spattered with dirt. Becs took a turn at navigating, but I ruied it a bit by taking off down what I thought was the right track, but turned out to be the wrong one. Luckily we didn’t end up too far from our desired destination so we didn’t really lose any time.

There was one tricky section of the course which was a steep downhill. Given the conditions you’d fall over if you went too slow, but you couldn’t go too fast either as there were other teams walking uphill towards us. We made it down at a reasonable pace without issue, clicked off our 7th checkpoint and started the long walk up the hill on the other side. Cycling up wasn’t really an option as there was so much mud it was almost impossible to get traction. The 8th checkpoint was at the school near Grays Point, where we ditched the bikes and ran (well walked) through suburbia to the local boat ramp for the kayaing leg, stopping en route to explain to some kids what was going on. After all, there were plenty of mud-covered lunatics running back and forth through their streets.

The kayak leg was a pain in the arse as the kayaks were inflatable. The recommendation was to put the heavier person in the back, so that left Becs up front. Given the weight difference between us the boat actually bent in the middle! Ideally we should have been kneeling up and leaning slightly forward, but I wasn’t able to kneel due to my recurring foot issue. It hadn’t been bothering me during the race, but it seems to be triggered by stretching my foot, so sitting on it was almost certain to aggravate the problem. I ended up sitting on my arse, in probably the least efficient paddling position. Thankfully the leg was only about 30mins long, after which we ran back to the school, picked up the bikes and entered the great unknown.

In an effort to prevent any cheating, the last six checkpoints were not marked on competitor’s maps and had to be acquired on course. As we picked up the bikes, the course marshall showed us his map with the next checkpoint marked on it and we were off. It was now just one long MTB dirt fest to the finish. At each remaining checkpoint there was the hole punch to mark your control card, and a map with the next checkpoint marked on it. We flew around the rest of the course, apart from a hiccup at checkpoint 12, where some kind soul had stolen both the hole punch and the map showing the location of checkpoint 13. Thankfully some volunteers were on hand to explain the situation and point out CP13 on our map.

CP13, CP14 and CP15 followed in rapid succession, with us passing a couple of mixed teams en route. CP15 was the last checkpoint, and all that remained was to ride to the road and speed downhill back to the weir. There was another mixed team right in front of us, so we hammered downhill and managed to pass them. We dumped our bikes in the last bike transition, shouted our team number to the marshalls and asked “Is that it? Are we finished?”. The response was “What does your course card tell you to do.” Unfortunately it said we had to run back to where we’d started the race, a distance of about 1km. Off we went, but my knees were in bits at this stage and my run more closely resembled a hobble. The teams we’d passed on the downhill sauntered past us and there was nothing we could do. We crossed the line with big grins on our faces with my watch reading 4hrs 34mins. Happy Days ;-)

We’ll definitely do another one.