Mainpeak Multisport Race
Ussher's Win Mainpeak Multisport
Richard Ussher / 29.09.2011
Unfortunately Elina was carrying a few injuries from China courtesy of some crashes and was still also in recovery mode from the bout of food poisoning she received there. I was feeling great until a couple of days before we left when I succumbed to the dreaded man flu.
You know something is wrong when you are wearing all your warm clothes but still freezing cold on the plane, but everyone else seems quite happy in T-shirts. By the time we arrived in Perth I was severely worried that I would be just a spectator on race day.
The format for the race was a 7.5km run, followed by a 55 km Road bike, a 24km run, back onto the bike for 33km, then the option of paddling 7.5km of whitewater or running a further 12km and finishing off with two further paddling sections, the first 16km and the last 12km.
The day before the race we got our first look at the whitewater section of the river, which was quite different to most of the rivers in NZ that we paddle in Multisport competitions. The Avon river holds one of Australia’s biggest paddle races each year – The Avon Descent - and the challenge varies wildly depending on the water level. It sounded as though the flow was unusually high for this time of year – not meaning that the water was massive – more just that there was enough water to make paddling the top section feasible.
It was characterized by slow moving water, often through Ti-Tree groves which required some nimble turning skills and then 3 larger rapids which were mainly pour overs with no chance to avoid a bit of rock bashing. We were paddling plastic surf skis for the section meaning the rocks weren’t much of an issue but it was a different mindset to be attacking rapids in plastic compared to the care usually required to get a composite boat through unscathed – which would have been a big ask!
On the largest of the rapids, Bell’s – which has a fearsome reputation Elina had a swim in the main chute and bashed her knee pretty badly. Luckily the pool at the bottom provided a place for her to clamber up on the rocks while Ken our guide and I searched in vain for her paddle. After scouting the pool and several downstream we finally discovered her paddle in a strainer only metres behind her when we walked back up to collect her.
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