Training Log Archive: nmulder

Needless to say that it wasn’t simple or short (time-wise), and that we spent a lot longer than planned on the next 25km coasteering leg. We left transition at midnight, but immediately found ourselves struggling with sleep deprivation. We found the first CP fairly easily, and then set off down the beach before hitting the first pieces of rocky shoreline. Our pace was achingly slow, although we did get an adrenaline shot when we saw the light of a team coming down behind us. We never found out who it was, as we spent the next hour searching various dead-end trails before finally finding one that took us across the Rocky Cape peninsula to the next CP at a jetty.

At 3am in the morning, we decided to give in to sleep deprivation and seek shelter in a parking lot’s toilet facilities for a short sleep. Sleeping on the cold concrete floor of toilets has become a common theme in all of the teams expedition races over the last four years. Whilst sleeping, the weather finally decided to take a turn for the worse and the roof was soon being pelted by a good storm. At the time, we felt lucky to have found this shelter to sit the storm out, but at the same time, a 1 hour sleep turned into 2.5 hours, much more than we needed in hindsight.

At dawn, and with an improvement in the weather, we headed out onto a hiking trail that went over the hills just back from the shoreline, allowing us to avoid a particularly nasty section of the coast with cliffs and lots of rocks. Returning to the coast, we had our biggest surprise in a while when we saw Team Merrell just 15 minutes ahead of us, having spent the previous night negotiating the coastline right at sea level. We pushed hard to close the gap, having a brief chat to them as our paths crossed going to a CP on a rocky peninsula jutting out into the sea. With the race on for 6th / 7th or 8th (we didn’t know our standing), we kept the pace high, jogging the coastal trail as it weaved around headlands and through small seaside towns.

We finally caught them searching for the final CP of the leg, which was positioned slightly dubiously. The control description indicated it was 20m upsteam of where a creek crossed the trail. There was no specific stream or hollow here, rather just a medium sized valley between two hills. After about 5 minutes of searching, we eventually found it only about 20m to the side of the lowest part of the valley. Unfortunately, 20m in this bush made it fairly invisible, with many teams struggling to find it, particularly at night. We attempted to sneak out of there before Merrell saw the CP, but were unsuccessful, leading to a head-to-head race along the coastal trail to the final transition in the village of Boat Harbour. About 1km away, Merrell took an opportunity to get away from us and ramped up the speed, in the end opening 4 minutes on the final rocky section. We were disappointed, but not surprised to see that another team had passed us in the night, Team FJS from Sweden, who had done a sterling job to finish the river paddle within 1 day and avoid the darkzone.

We had our quickest transition of the race, less than five minutes, before starting the final leg, a 35km cycle to the finish in Burnie. We pushed hard, but never got in sight of Merrell, who were undoubtedly also going flat out. The terrain was hilly and the roads wove us past Table Cape, taking us east into a headwing that had been our standard fair for all of the bike legs. With team work, we managed to keep the speed high however and covered the distance in just less than 2 hours.

We entered the velodrome at Burnie’s main stadium for 1 and a ½ laps of the track, taking the South African flag for the final lap. After 6 days, 2 hours and some minutes, we finally crossed the finish line to take 8th place. This race will be noted for its close finishes up and down the field, with less than 2 hours separating winners Team Thule from 3rd place, and a track sprint between Adidas Terrex and AXA separating them into 4th and 5th position by 1 second. We were 15 minutes behind Merrell in 7th and a further 8 minutes behind FJS in 6th, but the disappointment on loosing out on a close race paled into insignificance compared to the joy and relief of having finished this 733km expedition.

Overall it was a great result for the team, achieving our goal of a Top 10 finish and once again improving on our World Champs final position. The team worked very well together, despite having been put together quite late in the day, and have taken a horde of valuable experiences away with us. Cyanosis couldn’t have asked for much more, with our race strategy paying off and with navigation mistakes kept to only a few hours. We thoroughly enjoyed the race and the Tasmanian wilderness; it was definitely a World Champs that was not to be missed!

C • Awesome! 6

We were ready to go 1 minute before 6.30 the next morning. Since no-one had synchronized watches, all the teams started paddling downstream together, Merrell and AXA pulling ahead as expected and us settling down between Blackheart and CBD. The region was pristine wilderness, with thick forest coming down the sides of the gorge on both the left and right. From the put-in till the take-out 75 km later, we floated through the heart of the Tarkine, only seeing one man-made feature, a pipeline bridge. Through this whole distance, the river was a regular series of easy to moderate rapids, with no major dangers of tree blocks, strainers or siphons. About mid-morning, we were given a chance to stretch our legs to get a CP on a small hilltop to the left of the gorge, which gave us good time checks on all the positions from 4th through to 9th. Round about midday, Nathan and I took our first swim in a rapid. The red plastic boats had a tendency to allow water over the shallow back deck (especially when coming to an abrupt standstill on a rock in a rapid), which quickly flipped the boat. Shortly after our swim, one of the Blackheart boats did the same, resulting in a map loss for the team. Rob, their navigator, quickly checked our maps to try and memorize the river ahead and the final CP up a side river before the team pulled away from us again.

Nathan and I took a second swim a few kilometers later, which allowed CBD to catch and pass us. They were pushing the pace to stay in contact with their fellow Australians, Blackheart. Meanwhile, I got a bit confused with the navigation for a while, as the dense forest didn’t leave too many distinguishing feature whilst paddling down the river. Keeping tabs of the map for a few major river bends helped and we soon started looking for the side river to our left, whilst Blackheart, then CBD paddled about 500m ahead of us.

We eventually found the side river and paddled up it for about 400m where we reached a rapid. Team Adidas Terrex passed us going the other way as they made their way back downriver after finding the CP. We left our boats lying at the first rapid next to AXA’s and Merrell’s, with us wondering where Blackheart and CBD were. The bush on the side of the river was unusually passable and we made good progress for the remaining 700m upstream, hearing, but not seeing Merrell and AXA as they returned to their boats. We found the CP and retreated as quickly, getting back to our boats with no sign of the two Aussie teams. From there, it was a final 15km stretch down to the end of the paddle, with us pushing the pace to avoid spending a second night on the river. We got to the take out at about 5.30pm, finding that Blackheart and CBD had both missed the turnoff up the side river and were now preparing to trek back overland through the night to get to the CP.

Our bodies had had a good rest in the last 24 hours on the river and with the dark-zone, so we had a quick transition and set out on a 70 km mountain bike leg that we expected would go pretty quickly. We were now firmly in 7th place, but there was a danger that a few teams could complete the entire paddle within one day, getting off the water before the 7.30 pm dark-zone and challenging us for this position. The first part of this cycle did go fast, as we averaged about 25km/hr along flat tar roads which gradually took us north and east towards Tasmania’s north coast. There were a few route choices where we stuck to the flatter sections as long as possible, before entering a final hilly section with some more forest. With darkness now hanging over us again, we struggled to find the correct trail shortly after crossing the Black River, and in the end decided to reverse and take a longer detour around this complex section. We must have come extremely close to getting out, but the map just didn’t make sense at the time. A final downhill took us to the coast near Rocky Cape, where we reached transition, about an hour adrift of Team Merrell. Just two short sections left!