Red Yeti 36hr Adventure Race

Got home yesterday from the Red Yeti 36hr Adventure Race. What a hoot, but man, how hard was that?


Team Wacko Jacko's
I'm not sure who had this idea at the start (probably Ed), but someone did. With Martin as navigator, we had done well in the 24hr Victorian Rogaining Championships (2nd overall, first Men's team), and so I guess our confidence was high. I'd known from Ed friends and climbing, and soon met David who had happily stepped in to replace Ian who had a wedding on race day.

The team name was obvious, since Ed and Martin both share the last name Jackson. But the distance was unknown. We hadn't raced this far together before, and the kayaking was a bit un-nerving for us. How would we handle two nights without any sleep? We signed up to find out!

The team (and support crew) traveled to Yarrum about 2hrs east of Melbourne on the Friday morning, after packing so much gear I thought we may have needed 3 cars. Five mountainbikes, paddles, clothes, wheels, food, chairs, tables and 6 people were all jammed into the Subaru and Ed's Prado. We had some sponsorship from Gatorade (thanks Liz!), which was an esky full of goodies which we somehow jammed in. We checked in at the race and did our competency checks, then got the maps at the race briefing at 4pm.

The Preparation
There were 15 maps in total. Whoa, dude! We were used to only one map from Rogaining, but now there were 15. We started to worry....what had we gotten ourselves into here? Did we have enough contact to cover all our maps! There were no checkpoints were marked on the map (which Martin soooo loved, "back to the good old days" he reminisced) , so we had to plot the coordinates (a mixture of 6 and 8 digit coordinates, just to confuse us), and then hope we got them right! Yikes. Martin was in his element.

After getting back to our accommodation, it took us another 5hrs to locate all the checkpoints, plot a course and work out how to get between the checkpoints. It even took us about 30mins to work out which map the start was on. To confuse things there were maps that we didn't need, and some maps overlapped. By the time we finished it was about 9pm and our hopes for a few hours sleep before the race start at Midnight (Friday) were gone. We got about an hour with our head down then got up and got ready to race.

The Start - (Friday midnight)
It was a remote start, about 10km out of town at the rifle range. Teams struggled to arrive (one team arrived late and missed the start). The Wacko Jacko's were all pumped and ready to go, though there were a few yawns here and there. We headed out pretty quickly and started trotting along. I looked back after jogging to the end of the rifle range, and saw a weird sight of 40 or so headlamps all bobbing towards me. Spooky.

Moving on, our first problem came a bit later at CP2, which was nicked, probably by a local, and we wasted 20 mins looking for a checkpoint (supposedly 5m from a road junction) that was no longer there. Bugger, not a good start. The Wacko Jacko's moved on without CP2. We worried about possible penalties, but kept going. A few more CPs later and before long we were into TA1 in Won Wron oval under floodlights and on to our mountainbikes.

I was feeling reasonably good, though a felt a bit sluggish given the time of night. We were a bit slow in transition, but that's Ok, we had a long way to go. Onto the bikes, and we missed the first turnoff onto a crucial dirt road, so we backtracked and headed into the bush up a steep climb. Another team who had passed us in transition was now nowhere to be seen, and certainly not on this dirt road. So where had they gone? Lost already, we found out later...

We soon found the next checkpoint, and continued on.

Confusion - The mountainbike (Saturday 1.57am)
Confusion is a funny thing (and also a Pet Shop Boys song). When you are well rested, and it's the middle of the day, a bit of confusion isn't usually a problem. Where did I leave my keys? - Here they are (no problems), sorry, I was a bit confused. But throw in sleep deprivation, unfamiliar countryside and fatigue, and then 4 people in a team, and confusion is suddenly bigger than losing your keys. Much bigger.

Our fun continued at the next checkpoint, when we had problems finding a faint track junction. We at first rode past the junction altogether, then soon realized and backtracked. But searching for 15mins in the bush (for a checkpoint that should have only been 25m from the junction) proved fruitless. If only it was as easy as finding keys. We cycled further back, hoping to find a clue as to where we were. Soon other teams were arriving, confusing the issue. Teams were heading forwards and backwards along a section of track. People were tromping through the bush at different places. We double checked the map, and triple checked all the clues.

Bend in the track? Yep
Bearing of the joining track Ok? Yep.
Are we sure we are at the right place? Yep.
Can we find the checkpoint? No f#$%ing way!

After at least half an hour of searching, and not finding, we gave up. Bugger! We knew that we may cop a penalty here, but were so frustrated at the other teams closing on us that we just left, and would bear the consequences later.

The confusion continued at the next checkpoint, where tracks were slightly different than marked. We've learnt this lesson a few times (never trust a track, not even a friendly well paved track). But we had to learn this lesson again in the dark that night until we finally found the checkpoint somewhere else.

After a good long ride on sealed roads for an hour or two, we arrived just after dawn at Mann's Beach ready for the first kayak leg.

The Kayak (Saturday 6.17am)











We woke up our lovely support crew Liz and Sophie, who had dropped our mountainbikes just after midnight and headed here for some sleep. They look so peaceful asleep on the grass at Manns Beach, all snuggly in their sleeping bags under the stars. By comparison we were a bit dirty, stinky and the odd scratch was bleeding here and there, and in 2nd place. Not bad.


A feed and quick gear repack saw us into the kayaks for (what we thought) was a 21km paddle west from Manns Beach to Port Albert. We didn't hurry. It was easier to follow other teams and take it easy, and paddled with 3 or 4 other teams as we all paddled to Port Albert.


We paddled well, and made good speed in the conditions coming in about 2 hrs later.









The Run (Saturday 8.22am)

We had another slowish transition, and headed off running to find two checkpoints before another kayak leg. We made a great navigational decision (thanks Ed!) and ran the sand flats along the beach instead of the trail, and made up lots of time on the lead team (we were back in 2nd at this point). We left transition with the leaders 100m ahead.






The Kayak from Hell and further... (Saturday 9.50am)










Pretty soon, the lead team were hauling the kayaks out of the water for a portage. Hmmm, we didn't even think of that one. Checking the maps of our route, it looked like a few hundred meters of dragging kayaks against a few kilometers of paddle. We weren't sure, so we elected to continue paddling. This was probably a bad decision in the end, but in the sunshine and out of the wind while we paddled down a large tidal creek, it just felt right at the time.

We continued paddling and wondered if we would see the leaders again, or maybe pass them as they waded through some swampy portage.

We soon exited the tidal creek, and headed into protected open waters. We were paddling between mainland and small mangrove islands that protected us from the open ocean, and made for nice paddling in warm shallow water.

For about 2-3 hours we kept paddling, and tried to stay close to other teams. We had a chat to a few as we paddled beside each other and then slowly drifted apart; each of us paddling at slightly different rates. We tried to keep them in view, to basically minimise the navigation challenges, and also as some company out in the water. At some point, we noticed clouds ahead, and we started to get a bit of wind. I could see storms brewing ahead towards where we were heading.

And before long, the waves picked up, and it got cold. Yuck. How far to go? We couldn't even see Port Welshpool yet, and the other boat (Martin and Ed) had the map. Bugger. We kept paddling hard. It was about 2pm and already we were 4 hrs into this leg.

It's funny now how the conditions changed so quickly, from a "suntan the legs, this is a nice paddle" kind of day to a "fuck me, this really, really sucks" kind of day.

I'd seen this a few times before. On Mt Wedge on 3 seperate instances: 1998 in a huge electrical storm with Sophie scared shitless in a tent with huge avalanches craching into a frozen lake we were camped near, again on Mt Wedge when I was almost caught by a huge avalanche on the approach, and then finally falling down a slot on the glacier below Mt Wedge. New Zealand Hopkins Valley 03 when we had 13 inches of rain in one night. Now that really, really sucks.

Somewhere in here, David started to struggle. Ed said that he never wanted to see a fucking kayak ever again. Ever. He would have pitched his paddle far away if he didn't depend on it. Martin started to cramp, and Martin never cramps (or complains). David started to shiver, and shiver some more, and then get really cold. Shit, this sucks.

And as we kept being hammered by waves breaking over the front of the boat, and Martin seizing up, I realised we had to ditch the boats, and that maybe our race was over.

Ditch, baby, Ditch (Saturday 4pm)
So we paddled for shore, hauled boats out of the water, and then hauled them through the mangroves until we reached a fence line. Climbing into some grass to warm up, as we were in a pretty bad way. David wasn't too well. David wasn't eating, and David looked pretty sick. David was definitely hypothermic.

So we sat there for a while, called the race director and told him we had ditched the boats. We then crossed the electric fence and hiked across the paddocks to find a road to Port Welshpool.

It felt like about 10km, but was probably 5km in the end. We eventually had Liz come and pick us up in the 4WD, and my feet were raw from not wearing any socks.

Mtn Bike Ride (Saturday 6.55pm)
Back at the transition, I was in no mood to continue. My brain had basically shut down once we had ditched the boats. The 3 remaining guys, including David who had magically recovered somehow, then gingerly got on their bikes for more punishment. They set off just as the sun lowered.

37km Hike (Saturday 11.00pm)
After the mountain bike leg, they then set off for a further 37km hike, which saw them finish around dawn.

The Last 37km Mtn Bike ride (Sunday 7.30am)
And finally a 37km downhill mountain bike ride back to the finish at the Yarrum Secondary School.

The Finish (Sunday 9.10am)
The Wacko Jacko's were second across the line at 9.10am, approximately 33hrs later. We placed third overall after penalties and extra legs were considered.

Red Yeti Official Results


Support Crew

Sophie and Liz crewed for us the whole weekend. What angels they were. Here was all our gear set out for us, ready to go. Food, lights, shoes, bikes and helmets were all arranged neatly.






The Good, the Bad, and the think about it

Lights - well, the home made 3W LED headlamp worked a treat, though the headstraps are loose and wobbly. This is because it was based on an old Petzl Micro that is past its days and should be binned. Not sure what to do here. The prototype is still a bit heavy though, and the second model (without the heatsink) is much better. Need to also make the batteries watertight, since I fried a set of batteries that were in my pack during the last paddle.

Mountainbike Lights - Ed and David had the Cateye Double Shot LED lights with 5.5hrs runtime which worked fantastically. I had borrowed some 5W halogen which went flat too quickly and I ended up not using (I used the 3W LED instead). [I probably tried to charge the batteries for this light set with the wrong charger, which didn't really charge them at all]. The best Adventure Racing light out there is probably the Lupine Wilma 8 but at about $900 they are way too expensive, or the Vicious Arcs.

Fitness
It can always be better. Mentally I could have been tougher.

Marysville 6hr Rogaine

Raced the Marysville 6hr rogaine on the weekend with Martin and Ed. Sophie and I volunteered on Saturday and cooked food for rogainers on that day, then we both raced on Sunday (Sophie and Liz as a team).

Did reasonably well, and came in 2nd overall. Ran most of the 6hrs, and as usual didn't get as far around the course as we had hoped. Reasonably hilly course, and a few tricky checkpoints. But generally a fun day out.

Splish Splash - running in the rain

Went out for my usual Thursday lunchtime run yesterday with Alex, and met my brother Andrew at The Tan. We headed out for Andrew's usual long Thursday run, which does a section of the Tan from the Shrine of Remembrance, then heads out along the Yarra river heading east. Great fun, since it was raining and there was nobody around. We worked pretty hard, got filthy wet and muddy, but had a great workout. Reminded me of running in Vancouver in winter.