Sunday 5 October 2014

Nailing it in Nagambie

Dynamite Adventure entered two teams in the Winter Challenge which was held at Tahbilk Winery at Nagambie. The teams were Bruce and I and Karina with her new recruit, Shelly. 

Kayak 12km

A mass start saw Bruce and I take off in pursuit of teams Peak Adventure and  Roblex. As we began to wash ride, Jarrad and Elisabeth took off ahead of the forming pack. It was a great strategy given the carnage that began as teams tried to maneuver in and out of CP31. Thinking the water was only two foot deep I jumped out and tried to turn our ski around...when I ended up armpit deep I figured twas probably better to have stayed in the ski!
At least this prepared me a little for CP32 which was located further upstream. Almost all teams decided on the same strategy. Dump the boat and run across the short bank instead of paddling around. Great idea except that the 50m swim required out to the tree was in FREEZING cold water! Bruce's face was spectacularly funny to see as he swam over and the shrieks heard as more and more people waded into the creek after him were hilarious. We reached the transition in fourth place I think. 
Karina and Shelly had a great paddle and were all smiles when they got to transition.

MTB + roadbook 20km

Note to self. Check you have your race bib on BEFORE you leave transition, not 1.5km out of transition!?! This will avoid embarrassment, and prevent having to lose time to other teams. After returning we headed of again, now in pursuit of a few extra teams. The mtb course was a good mix of roads, fire trails and smaller tracks and enough rocks, sticks or soft patches to catch you out if you weren't paying enough attention. The road book gave us a chance to catch up some lost time and we flowed through it pretty well. 

Trek 10km

The trek started well by lucking out on dropping into the river bed right at CP59 (along the orange line). We caught team YY men on the way to CP57 and stayed close until choosing separate routes after CP56. We continued to nail each CP one by one.  (Our order was 59,58,57,56,54,55,53,52,51)
Karina and Shelly had struggled during the trek. An early mistake had meant that they had overshot CP57 and the lack of obvious reference points meant they decided to head to the creek and come back via the opposite direction. They had lots of trouble finding another CP and ended up deciding to pull the pin on it and made sure they got to ride before it got dark.

MTB 25km

Coming into transition TA2 YY men were just behind us. We made a speedy change of shoes and off we went riding scared. We rode the steep technical track up to an awesome view from CP71 then continued to push hard among the long straight back roads. I hooked on to Bruce to tow me along and lift the pace as my legs didn't have enough in them and was sure the others were just behind us. A few dozen head checks later and with the last two CPs found, we were headed for home. Little did we know we had pulled some time back on Alex and Robbie in front of us and got ourselves into third place overall and second in male pairs.
The girls made it back late in the day, well after when we thought we would see them finish. They rode well, making back some time and both finished with big smiles and eager to tell us about the adventure they had. Great event AJs.... looking forward to Grampians next year!!



Course maps:
Kayaking map
Mountain bike map 1
Mountain bike map 2
Mountain bike roadbook
Trekking map