Hot Day At The X-marathon Expedition Adventure Race

Press Release / 11.03.2017

The strongest ever continent of teams lined up Saturday morning for the X-marathon 48 hour expedition adventure race, the first race of Adventure1 series. Most of top  Australian crews joined promised to be spectacular and competitive as never before the 6th edition of X-marathon. 

Teams took an early bus ride to the start at the scenic Mitchell river national park, the iconic East Gippsland destination. They took off just after sunrise with a short Rogaine style trekking leg, which took them 30 to 60 minutes to complete. First back was Team #CBRAR lead by Peter Preston. "Too easy" - made a joke Peter completing the leg. "I am not surprised, he is a good orienteer"- commented his brother Rob Preston, who was collection checkpoins behind teams, recovering after finishing Godzone last weekend. 

The second stage was meant to be the most dramatic leg of the race- Mitchell river paddle with up to grade 3+ Rapids. Low river level made the paddle a serious test of fitness and skills, where teams had to navigate their way with a little water trying to avoid huge boulders and minimize portaging. 

Again not surprisingly Peakadventure team, lead by Jarad Kohlar, one of the AR paddler, came first of the water, followed by race favorites Thunderbolt AR. Few teams took off on a chase together including half New Caledonian Tiger Adventure French connection. 

The third leg of the race was a bike ride with couple of navigational options followed by fast trekking section with few serious bushbashing parts in it. Again 2 front teams remained the same with a tiny gap between them.

Fourth leg was an adventuregaine lwhere teams were given a map just on arrival to the TA with option to split in 2 groups and choose whether to trek or ride to the check points. The section was in technical Mt Taylor state mountain bike park on a specially created for this leg map.

Peakadventure completed the leg about 15 minutes in front of Thunderbolt and quickly took off for the next big ride. "I am cooked", commented Hugh Stodart, and rode off the transition area. 

The next leg is a long night mountain bike leg, mix of motorbike single tracks, 4wd trails will bring them to the bank of Tamboo river, where they will first pack raft and then kayak down to the lake King up to the finish. The expected to finish early Sunday morning while the rest of the field will keep pushing till Monday.