GODzone Adventure - Chapter 4

Godzone – The Course in Outline

Rob Howard / 26.02.2015

At 8am this morning teams were either emailed the Godzone Chapter 4 logistics planner or arrived at Race HQ to collect it.  They won’t be given any maps or route books until just before the race start at 08.00 on Saturday morning, so this information is to enable them to plan and pack their gear boxes, which need to be delivered to race HQ tonight between 17.00 and 22.00.

So now we know the stages of the race and the teams are busy sorting out their gear for the checks at race HQ this morning.  The course looks as follows;

Stage 1 – Mountaineering (22km)

Stage 2 – Whitewater Canoe (22km)

Stage 3 – Alpine Trek (56km)

Stage 4 – Canoe and Coasteering (34km and 7km)

Stage 5 – Mountain Bike (137km)

Stage 6 – Kayak (28km)

Stage 7 – Trekking (47km)

Stage 8 – Mountain Bike and Orienteering (152km)

Stage 9 – Kayak (52km)

(You can see the logistics planner on our Facebook page.)

We do know a little more than the bare bones above. Teams will get the first set of maps on arrival at the start location, which they leave for at 4am in the morning. They’ve been told to take all their map prep gear with them and they’ll have some time to work on the maps before the start at 08.00. The second set of maps will be given out for stage 5.

The logistics planner shows a predicted time as ‘Ian’s time’.  This is Ian Edmond, who is an elite racer and he did the routes ‘on sight’ but rested, so they are going to be on the quick side.  

The coasteering includes some swims up to 400m, which teams will have to take their gear on (with the exception of the kayaks of course), and the orienteering course is set by top Kiwi orienteer Bruce McLeod and is going to be hard. It will held during the mountain biking stage, includ 17 checkpoints using 1;12500 maps and 5m contours and this must have been what Warren Bates was speaking of last night when he said one stage was new to Godzone and might trip some teams up.

There is only one short course, which will be implemented at TA6 at 2am on Weds. and no planned Dark Zones, though teams are warned the weather could force this. If it happens on the first two canoe and kayak stages there will be no time credits. If it should happen on the final stage there will be time credits applied at TA8.

So, now you know what the teams know, and they won’t know any more until the early hours of tomorrow, just ahead of the start.

You can follow the live race coverage on http://godzoneadventure.com/

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