Wulong Mountain Quest
Back to Wulong For a Podium Position
Richard Ussher / 01.09.2014
We had the same team as earlier in the year at Wenzhou with Stu Lynch and Trevor Voyce joining us.
The race this year was a lot earlier and so the temperatures were expected to be a lot hotter, but that hope looked to be dashed when we showed up to cooler temperatures and rain.
The Prologue
This section has been the same for a few years now so we all knew what to expect. The initial pace was crazy and we settled into our own rhythm in the middle of the pack, within 500m with the road tilting upwards the front group was already coming back to us.
We hit the transition to the chair carry in about 7th but jumped several teams in the transition and headed out in 4th behind Team NZ and Peak Adventure and Toread. We all bunched up here and so it was very close as we headed out on the Biathlon.
We were all on different strategies and by the bike leg the positions were still very close. We finally got past Peak adventure and then were back and forwards with Toread to the finish where they just got the better of us with Team NZ taking out the win.
The positions were still very close with only seconds separating a lot of the teams.
Day 1
The start was right underneath the natural arches at an area we often do a huge abseil off but this time it was down in an elevator. It is one of the coolest locations at the race and was a slight shame we wouldn’t be seeing it again.
From the start we again we settled in to a comfortable pace, the trail quickly turned rough and narrow with it very slippery from a lot of rain.
I had a nasty fall when I stood in a puddle only to find there was nothing but a very deep hole there and knocked my left leg badly, it was a massive shock too – I went from cruising along feeling comfortable to struggling quite badly.
Luckily it was a short run and the twisting trail meant a lot of hold ups for the leading teams so we didn’t lose too much time.
Onto the kayak and we made great time up with Elina and I riding Stu and Trev’s wash past several teams and by the bike it was the same 3 teams of Team NZ, Toread and us with a break on the field.
The first part of the MTB was up a steep climb and just after the top Toread had some sort of issue as we passed them fixing a bike. It was a quick descent and then we had to pop a balloon using a blow dart, we didn’t have much of an idea about what this would look like but Stu found out how sharp the darts were while trying to get them out of the packet – ouch!
Onto the final section of the ride and a lot of it was quite fast undulating riding on freshly concreted roads. There was a bit of a sting in the tail though with some very muddy climbs and when the course turned out to be a fair number of Km’s longer than listed it became hard to know how much energy we might need to keep in reserve.
We finally hit a road we all knew and blasted down to the transition and off for the final leg – a run with an abseil in the middle of it.
It was getting hot and the steep climb was tough on tired legs but once we were at the top we knew it would be mainly downhill to the finish.
It was good to have all of us finished on the abseil before Toread got started but they were still close behind, we ran the last couple of kilometers to the finish for a good 2nd place finish behind Team NZ with Toread in 3rd.
Day 2
The start on this day was pretty novel with 2-team members abseiling off a bridge in to the water and then swimming to the transition 300m away to meet their teammates. Stu and I abseiled and swam and arrived in 2nd place behind Team NZ.
Off on the MTB’s and it was a slightly scary moment to see Marcel from Toread disappear over the side of a bank after he tried to give their girl a push and touched bikes sending him and his bike off the edge of the road.
We settled into a good pace with another NZ team, Black Dirt, helping push the pace with Team NZ only slightly up the road. Toread caught us just before the end of the ride and we headed out on the canyoneering section in 3rd place. We just managed to stay ahead of Black Dirt as we headed in to the technical part of the canyon where we were treated to some great rock jumps, small abseils and lots of rock scrambling. It was physically quite draining being in and out of the water but refreshing on an increasingly hot day.
When we reached the end of the canyon we were still neck and neck with Black Dirt with Toread and Team NZ up in the distance. We gave chase in the kayaks right to the end and put some good distance on the teams behind, but the top 3 teams all had paddle times within a few seconds of each other. Despite us all being widely separated which just went to show there is certainly a maximum speed at which the boats will cruise at, negating any advantage for the better paddlers.
We didn’t really have any issues but Toread had done enough to slip past us into 2nd overall. We had 15 minutes back to 4th so the plan was to give 2nd a crack on the final day with a bailout option if needed to protect the podium spot.
Day 3
The final day and I’d woken up with a sore throat, at least it wasn’t a sore stomach like usual – we started in Wulong town and it was the hottest day yet.
A quick run down to the kayaks and we were off, the lead 3 teams again all slipped away from the rest of the competition in the boats and we all started the final ride within a minute of each other.
My energy hadn’t been great in the boat and so I was resigned to just trying to hang on in the biking section. Toread again had bike issues and we passed them briefly before they once again slowly rolled past us.
The climb had been listed as 700 vertical meters but turned out to be a monster 1700 vertical meters – the only bonus was that it was significantly cooler at the top than in the valley. By the top my energy had really taken a downward turn and Trev was able to give me a bit of a tow and we arrived at the transition still in 3rd but with a number of teams hot on our heels.
24km of running wasn’t sounding too appealing for me at this stage and we made the call to focus on protecting 3rd place rather than worrying about what was going on up ahead.
Not long after the start one of the Chinese teams came flying through and they would go on to the best ever result by a Chinese team at the race with a 2nd for the day, just 20 seconds shy of taking a win.
Black Dirt, Peak Adventure and the Swedish Team of Silva who were currently in fourth were all close behind but with Stu and Trev giving me plenty of help we somehow stayed in contact with them as the kilometers slowly counted down.
It was an area we hadn’t been to before at the race and it was a really stunning run, not that I was enjoying it at this stage.
The highlight was going through one tiny village and the locals had cut up some huge watermelons and were handing them out as we ran by. The trail was definitely pointing down by this stage and the final part of the descent was steep, long and a leg wrecker.
Haglofs Silva had managed to get away on this part but we had dropped the other 2 teams in the process. When we reached the bottom we had to cross a small river where we all managed to cool off momentarily before heading off on the final 6km along the road to the finish.
Thankfully we could see Haglofs Silva not far ahead so we knew 3rd was going to be safe and thanks to a slightly speedier final abseil we piped them to the line for 4th on the day
Overall we didn’t really have too many issues during the race except for my meltdown on the final day but we never had a day or two where everyone was really on fire either.
We kept our Wulong streak alive of being on the podium every year we’ve been there also.
A big thanks to Red Bull China who are supporting us in the races there this year, and to our fantastic NZ sponsors.
[https://www.facebook.com/AdventureSportNZRichardandElinaUssher or follow me at Twitter https://twitter.com/richussher and now follow Elina at Twitter https://twitter.com/TheTreeThrower]
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