Training Log Archive: NSW Stinger

Upper Murray River paddle

walk to the start of the paddle

After a cruisy transition, we left on the mammoth hike just before the next teams arrived, meaning we had quite a good buffer. I like the gradient of the climb up to Feathertop. The weather got progressively worse as we climbed and it was horrible by the time we reached the summit to meet Hal who I couldn't believe was standing in the open rather than shacked up in a tent.
The decent down Diamattina Spur was pretty difficult to follow at night as the bushfires had destroyed the track. We wasted a little time searching for the track in parts, but finally made it down to the valley just after sunrise. Since we had quite a lot of time to work with due to dark zone preventing us from being on the Keiwa river until 6am tomorrow, we stopped at Blair Hutt for a kip. It was pretty cold and we were wet so it took a long time to get settled in. Damon was wrapped up in the tent, I was in an emergency bivvy bag, and Kim and Josh tried to share the sleeping bag. But we still need to work on our spooning techniques as Josh and Kim failed to snuggle up enough to stay warm. After just over an hour we got up and on our way. Following teams also made good use of Blair Hut and thanked us for leaving the firewood ready to burn. Doh!!
There was another big climb up to the snow line pole.

Event: XPD Adventure Race
 

Early morning departure from Thredbo to the race start at Mt Buffalo. Sitting on the buses heading to the start, it felt a bit like Brazil, except Brazil involved 2 full days travelling to the start line.
Race started at Mt Buffalo Chalet just before 2pm, with 5 CP's around the Mt Buffalo plateau to be collected in any order, before running to the TA at the bottom of the mountain. The pace was much more sensible than the fast starts at Bull of Africa and Ecomotion. The top teams- Blackheart Salomon, Tangerine, Bull of Africa, 4TC and us quickly sorted ourselves from the rest of the field. Kim again managed to make like more difficult for herself by rolling her ankle about 20mins into the race. Or maybe she was sick of carrying her pack and was looking for an excuse to give it to Damon ;-)

We jogged the majority of the leg and converved our quads on the decent and came in 2nd, about 20mins behind Bull of Africa who started out hard.

A quick transtion onto the bikes. I rode 200m before realising my front tyre was flatish. Dammit. Stopped to pump it up and surprised the other teams who were in transition didn't pass us. The ride started with a tough climb, fast decent, then 15km on sealed, then unsealed road. We passed BOA at the 2nd CP and were surprised with how quickly we caught them. I started to struggle as soon as it got dark, and was hanging off the back. But a bit of food and nodoze, and a change to 4wd tracks and I started to feel better. There was a tough bike push for about 600m vertical which set the standard for the rest of the race. I was attacked by a rogue wombat descending the hill. He tried to take out my rear wheel but I managed to wrestle it back off him! There was a nice decent into Harrietville but it was starting to rain as we arrived.