The clocks went forward on Saturday night, meaning that I lost an hour of sleep. No big deal you say, so did everyone else. True, but everyone else didn’t have to get up at 5:10, meaning that I was effectively getting up at 4:10. I wasn’t too happy about that, but as Becs was picking me up at 6:00 I had no choice. Having loaded the bikes and gear in to the Pajero, it was off to collect Niall and Team BND was ready to hit the road for the TEVA Sydney adventure race (AR).

The event was being held in Belanglo State Forest, scene of Ivan Milat’s backpacker murders back in the early 90’s which was a comforting thought. I was unaware of this piece of trivia, but every Aussie I’d mentioned the race to commented on it straight away.

Myself and Becs had done the Kathmandu AR back in June, which was a two-person team event. This one required teams of three, so we drafted Niallo in as he’d previously expressed an interest. Having recently run a 3:28:59 marathon we figured he could be the pack horse for the team. As it turned out, we distributed the load fairly equally and he only had to carry a bit of nylon rope.

It had pissed down for our last race and we had hopes this one would be a little drier. I checked the rain radar in the morning and while it was raining lightly in Sydney, it looked like the rain clouds were passing north of the race location, itself 130km south of Sydney. However, there were plenty of grey coulds around when we arrived, and sure enough it started pissing rain shortly after the start.

The race was set up as two bike/run/bike legs, with a number of checkpoints throughout each leg. Some checkpoints were mere locations, where you looked for a coloured flag, and stamped your card with the punch hanging it. Others involved completing a challenge before receiving your stamp from an official. Challenges ranged from the bizarre to the straightforward, for example;

• Three Wise Monkeys Becs stood in an obstacle course, Niall stood 5 metres behind her, and I stood a further 5 metres behind Niall. The obstacle course contained a stuffed monkey, two small poles stuck in the ground, a toy crocodile, an upturned bucket and a broom handle. I had a card with instructions on it telling Becs what to do (see photo above). The instructions for Becs were roughly as follows;

  – Bend down on one knee and bow to the monkey god.

  – Pick up the monkey and place it on your right shoulder. It must remain there at all times

  – Walk around the left pole. You are not to touch the crocodile at any time, nor are you to step outside your team’s square.

  – Pick up the broom handle, and use it to manoeuver the crocodile outside the square

  – Walk to the upturned bucket and place the monkey on top of it

  – Bow down to the monkey god

  Now, this all sounds very easy. However, Becs had to wear a blindfold and I wasn’t allowed to talk, so I had to mime the instructions to Niall, who could then speak them on to Becs.

• VO2Max Blow up enough balloons to make a stack which touches a rope hung about eight feet off the ground (see photo above).

• Navigate on foot around an area to pick up 4 out of 5 checkpoints

• Build a sculpture using swimming pool noodles (flotation devices for kids to play with)

We failed our first challenge (throwing two eggs into a bucket of water without breaking them) and had to do a penalty run through an obstacle course to get our stamp. After that it was off on the bikes for a straightforward ride to a couple of checkpoint before ditching them for the run leg. The first run leg saw us being given a new map with five points marked on it. We had to visit 4 out of these 5 points using our compass and terrain-reading skills to figure out where to go. The first three were OK, but the last took up a bit longer, partly due to the map disintegrating in our hands due to the torrential rain.

Having compeleted that section we were then faced with a music trivia quiz/crossword before being allowed back on the bikes for some more fast riding between checkpoints to complete the end of leg one. This was when we had to complete the Three Wise Monkeys challenge mentioned above. We made a balls of the first attempt, and after completing a penalty run, we got through on the second effort.

Out we went on the second leg. The constant rain and copious mud was starting to take its toll on my bike and I was having awful trouble shifting gears without severe effort. My disc brakes were also squealing very loud in protest at all the gunk they had to deal with, so when we reached the last run leg they were glad of the rest.

This run leg involved copying the checkpoint from an official’s map, navigating to that checkpoint, stamping your form to prove you’d been there, then reading the next location off a map at the checkpoint, navigating to that and so on. After racking up four checkpoints it was back to pick up the bikes for the final bike leg. It was long, muddy and the crap weather was starting to piss us off, so I was looking forward to the end. We reached checkpoint 20 where we had to use our rope to carry a basketball, then throw it over a ten foot high rope, without touching the ball with our hands. That was the final obstacle and it was a fast 1.5km ride to the finish line, where we began stuffing our faces straight away at the post race BBQ. Our final time was 4hr43mins according to my watch.

Overall it was good fun, though I think we’re all looking forward to doing a race in the dry!

Update: The official results are out and we finished in 4:43:53, 19th out of 42 Mixed teams, and 34th out of 80 overall.

S: 2000m – B: 41.4km – R: 10km