Adventure Junkie Sprint Series - Anglesea 21st October

Paul Gruber / 26.10.2018

There is definitely a tendency among adventure racers to bring their kids to the Victorian Sprint Series events and share their experience and knowledge to the next generation. Dynamite Adventure Racing is an experienced and successful Australian team led by Paul Gruber.  Paul gives an insight into how he raced the Classic (longer) course in the team with his son Harry.

"The Adventure Junkie Sprint Series has been around for a number of years in Melbourne and until now it has stayed within Melbourne. It is probably part of the attraction to many that this sprint length AR is so close and accessible to Melbourne suburbs. But last weekend Serge and Maria (the duo behind AJ) put on what I think could have been one of their best sprint series events ever in the surf coast town of Anglesea. With HQ located beside the Anglesea River it gave the team the opportunity to make use of the beach and river but also gave them easy access to the extensive Eumeralla trail network.

I had enlisted my 14 year old son to race with me again, but we decided that we were keen to do the longer classic course this time around. With not much time spent to survey the maps pre-race, we quickly found ourselves toeing the start line with 13 novice and 25 classic teams. Pretty soon we were headed out to the beach to get CP1 near the surf club, before running back along the beach and heading in towards the trails beside the caravan park. I had Harry on the navigation but reminded him we had a fair distance to go and he needed to think about if the pace we were doing was ok. "Fine" is all he said as he pushed off ahead in search of more CP flags. After some fence climbing and sneaky short cuts through the scrub we quickly found ourselves at the Alcoa Oval and were still nipping at the heels of the leaders.

A quick changeover to get on the bike and we had found ourselves straight into single track to find CP4 before heading upwards to gain some elevation through a short but sharp hike-a-bike section.  There was a great amount of variety of terrain on the mountain bike section, with lots of fun sweeping single track, fire trails and also some good technical hill climbs to conquer. It was close racing with numerous teams around us throughout the course as we looped back to the transition area. On arrival, we found most of them still there, studying the newly provided maps for the "advanced leg". While a quick glance revealed we were were doing about the same distance again, we quickly set off again to try to get a bit of a jump on the others.

The advanced course was the most interesting section in my opinion, as we were able to choose the order of CPs and there were many route options that could be taken. We opted for minimising hills where possible, but our pace definitely began to slow towards the end of the leg.

Another short run took us back to the beach for some rock hopping near the base of the stunning beachside cliffs before transitioning to the kayaks. The kayaking was also a highlight, with the opportunity to explore the local wetland area. There were lots of locals and tourists also out paddling, and we enjoyed the encouragement and enquiries about what we were up to.

Just when Harry felt done for, we noticed Elliot and Chloe were hot on our tails. While a sprint finish was not what either of us were keen to do, both teams couldn't resist. Harry and I were overtaken with a few hundred metres to go, but managed to hold onto their wake to enable us to transition up the bank and out of the water and get back in front to hold them off by just 3 seconds! A fun (but slightly tiring) way to finish.

With two courses to choose from the Sprint Series gives the opportunity for beginners to test their Adventure Racing legs in the Novice category, but also for more experienced competitors to go further and with more speed and technical navigation. While still accessible from Melbourne to be able to make it a day trip, the sea side town of Anglesea is so inviting it would be a shame not to make a weekend of it and bring the whole family. I'm putting this one on the to-do list for next year."