---

The Cafe Race - WA

Hageby's Heroes / 04.09.2008

Some of us call it the Café race. Others call it the Coffee. Even others the Decaf. Formally, to the rest of you, The Espresso, run by Caffeinated Adventure Racing, was held for the second time in the area around Bridgetown and Greenbushes in South West WA last weekend. And it was awesome!!!

What did we do?? Run about 40 km, mountain bike ride about 60, paddle about 30 km That’s what the advert said. Just a big day out, really. No real drama. Oh, and it goes overnight, so you see the sunrise. Teams of 4. You know, the usual stuff. Mixed, men’s or women’s teams. Great people, awesome athletes, loads of fun.

Last April entries opened. I entered my team, Hageby’s Heroes in the race. Hageby is my dog. I only had one other confirmed team-mate, Rob Jessop, but it was a great race last year and I was sure I’d fill the team in no time. The little princes I raced with last year, Sean and Ben, didn’t want to race again, cause they didn’t think we could win two years running. Not without doing some training anyway. Paah!

So I needed two team-mates, a.s.a.p. Well, I thought, it’s a really good idea to know your team mates well before you race with them. If you train together, you laugh together, you hurt together, you know their strengths and weaknesses, you bond. You can surmount any challenge. Or so they say. So, like I said, I wanted some team-mates a.s.a.p. I wanted to race with close friends.

Well the months raced by and I eventually found a Canadian, Andy, as a third team-mate. Yippee! Andy was born on a mountain bike and clearly wasn’t going to get off it before race day. But we all know Canadians can paddle (all those lakes), so I wasn’t particularly worried about it. Stuff team training, it’ll work out., I said.

See All Stories On This Race