Training Log Archive: Georgia

Race restart. The quite short race was now even shorter. Not really my favorite style of race. I meed to go overseas and do something more epic. This was feeling like a two day multisport race at this stage.

Upper Shotover paddling with Stu. This was a nice change to previous years canoeing with it all being in nice control and efficient. A fun section of river to paddle.

Despite maybe 8-9 teams coming in over night things seemed to fairly quickly sort themselves out into the order we had arrived in. Jo and Greig tried to keep up for awhile but had to stop and wait.

After the river there was bit of pointless abseiling to be done. We got through that pretty efficiently despite leaving our clipcard at the boats. I was a bit nervous the night before when we walked over the bridge and looked at the abseil but it all went pretty smoothly. My harness was a bit annoying to put on with cold hands and wet straps.

C • Negative Nancy 5

The wetsuit walk with the freaks for most of it. It turns out we had been quite cunning with what gear we took on this trek compared to other teams but they guys still had pretty heavy packs. It seemed like we were pretty smart having everyone with their own little pack and not trying to fit everything into big drybags. Just using our own little ones in the rafting was smart. A fairly uneventful walk although things got hot towards the end and there seemed to be a lot of hill climbing going on.

Commercial raft in the lower shotover. I think we were all feeling a bit wasted from the wetsuit walk so just took it easy down the river. I don't really remember much of this but I guess it was fun.

Moonlight track - Moke lake - Golddigger - 7mile

A return to the tracks I rode over summer with Em. I was a bit unco and useless to begin with but seemed to come right by the bike park. We overshot the control on golddigger by quite a bit and probably lost 10min, but then must have ridden well through the bike park as we seemed to catch up to Yealands again and meet them in transition. The bike park felt a bit pointless being a non-navigator. I can understand why people don't like orienteering in adventure racers. If you don't have a map it just feels like you are going round and round and round in circles. I think we actually were this time.

Mt Crichton

Fairly cleanly through the sneaky controls after overshooting the first "track". Sounds like everyone did. Then a pretty uneventful climb up and over Mt Crichton and down to the lake again. 2hrs sleep in transition in some bushes after this stage. I didn't really sleep very well. Was freezing cold and felt like I was awake the whole time. Heard Yealands and tiki tour transitioning about 30min after we went to sleep which probably didn't help me sleeping. I think I get too wound up in the race and that stops me sleeping very well. Maybe best not to sleep in transition. Also need warmer something to sleep in.

Event: Godzone Adventure Race
 

First stage multisport race.

1a - Run up to skyline. Not too much going on here. Brent and Stu had the navigation under control and we seemed to be pretty clean through the first control and managed to get the one in the wrong place with the others. I was feeling it a bit on the hill but made an effort not too push too hard and get into trouble. Some good help from Stu pushing me up the hill at the end.

1b - Mtb over Queenstown Hill. Found the bit up through the trees pretty hard work keeping up. Was cursing the fact that Id done lots of work on my biking but was still feeling week and pathetic. Luckily the climb was shortish and over quickly.

1c - Paddle down the shotover and kawarau. A good transition from us passing T7 and probably quicker than yealands. We seemed to be pretty good at this stage getting the tow on quickly and paddling well. It seemed like we gained on yealands and tiki on this stage

1d - Georgeering. Another good transition had us leaving just behind yealands and in front of tiki. This was a fun stage for me. I enjoyed running up the river with all three teams pushing each other along and the general banter/ Was feeling good for this stage too and not struggling to keep up.

Stage 2 - Trek into the shotover. Started out with tiki and yealands. We all jogged together along the track to Arrowtown. This seemed to be at a reasonably comfortable pace. Split with tiki at the track junction as Chris and us had decided to go further up the stream over the hill. This was probably 10-15min slower but I don't think I'd pick any other route if I did it again. It just turned out that there was a track the other way and the sidling was nice even though it looked crap on the map. Jogged with yealands down to the next control at the waterfall catching tiki here who were sitting down doing something. Pace seemed to be just fast enough that I could keep up but never quite catch up, I always ended up hanging off the back a bit. We took it easier after the waterfall control cruising out the gorge and just walking the road and track eating some food. I was happy to take it easy as there didnt seem much point now given the dark zone.

Timed our "lights on" point badly just before the turn off to the last control and ended up messing around a bit in some scrub. Probably should have been aware of this happening and gone a bit harder on the track to get the control in the light.

Up and over the hill with some help from Ash and Stu and down with some nice bum sliding. The guys seemed to find a pretty good way down the hill.

I think we arrived after midnight sometime so probably got about 4.5hrs sleep. Tiki tour got up quite early in the hut but I was awake anyway so it didnt matter. Tooke the opportunity to eat two meals and a smoothie :)

Wanted to go for a short mtb but all the tracks are in the cordon from the stupid fire and ran out of time anyway.

Laras loop with Tane, Matt and La instead.

I wish we could just do GZ now and stop having to talk about it all the time.