The Quest for Tricks and Hats

Nathan Faavae / 19.12.2016

After a couple of months of training we were off to Ulladulla, Australia, the venue for the 2016 AR World Championship. Traveling to race was made significantly easier as the course stages, order and time estimates were announced before we traveled to the event. A few events are starting to do this which I think is a valuable improvement in the sport, breaking away from the historical secrecy AR often has, the novelty of the ‘top secret course’ is nothing more than a bad habit now I reckon. The next step is to provide the teams with a packing list for the gear boxes. The organisers have that information so it may as well be passed onto the teams.

XPD the race which was the ARWC host event for 2016, is renowned for being well organised and a quality adventure. It lived up to its name, credit to Craig, Louise and their staff team. Everyone knows you can’t please all the people all of the time, so we had a few little negatives that I'll mention early and get them out of the way. I want to emphases the word ‘little’, we didn’t have any real issues but in terms of getting an event perfect, these are the things raised. The quality of maps was poor, lacking information and printing quality; the kayaks … world championship event … a 4-person team supplied 2-different craft, a 2-person and 3-person sit on … really? (my mates who are entrenched in the paddling world look at what we paddle in AR and roll about on the floor in laughter); and aspects of the caving could have been better. But the big picture was without a doubt an exceptionally well run event and we’re aware that resources are limited, the perfect world maybe doesn’t exist.

Our team met in Australia on different flights from NZ (thanks Liz for collecting Chris). We were based by the coast in a house over-looking the ocean, occasionally whales swimming by. It was a stunning location and it was a large place that was second home to our mates from Team Yealands. My wife and children traveled to the event, given the close proximity to New Zealand and a golden opportunity to start summer early.

The race was being touted as 630km with a 4-day winning time, which if correct, suggested a fast paced race. 97-teams had invaded town, preparing to explore the Shoalhaven kayaking, mountain biking, caving, trekking and navigating, non-stop day and night.

Pre race media reports were all calling a close contest, due to the nature of the terrain and the field assembled. We had to laugh at some predictions that said it could be a sprint finish, which at the time was a joke, but actually wasn’t far from the truth in some cases, with just minutes separating teams throughout the field.

As defending world champions, we were as confident as you can probably be for an AR, given the things that can happen out on course that soak time, bike mechanical break downs, injuries, poor route selections, bad luck. We were aware that the amount of kayaking on tide effected waters could either reward or punish. Even though people were saying it was the most competitive ARWC field for sometime, we couldn’t really understand why that was, it felt no different to us than previous championship races, in fact, with Silva Hagloffs not racing, the field felt less competitive than other years.

We saw Team Yealands as a team that had the capacity to win the race should things go their way, and the top ranked teams on the ARWS points table are there for a reason, all experienced and competent. We did know it’d be tight racing if it did end up being four days, it’s not a huge amount of time for large gaps to emerge, it’s typically moving into day five where the bombs go off. I wasn’t going to be surprised if it ended up being a ‘tri-nations’ ARWC, equivalent to the rugby contest that includes NZ, Australia and South Africa. Time would tell, results would lay the theories to rest.

I felt good enough going into the race but injuries had forced some changes to my training, I’d mainly trained in the boat and on the bike, with very little running and trekking preparation. I’ve accepted that I’ll never reach the peak fitness I used to have, but 2016 marked the first time in my career where little injuries crept in and caused problems, I’ll be 45 in a few months so it’s a fact of life, the motor is slowing down, rust is creeping in. That all said, I knew I could survive a 4-day race without any real challenge, plus I was surrounded by the best racers in the game, I was excited about getting into it, the race environment and wilderness.

Our race strategy was to keep things simple, get sufficient sleep, move efficiently and not make mistakes, if we did that, we couldn’t perceive how we’d be beaten. The course looked to suit us well enough, a large percentage of kayaking, relatively short stages, multiple transition areas. After the epic course in 2015 that took us 7-days, the possibility of a 4-day race had appeal, Ulladulla had amazing surf beaches, golf course, and ice cream shops so the chance to sneak a holiday after the race was motivating. Our only hope for the course was that it contained some technical navigation.      

We had a few really enjoyable preparation days, pleasantly interrupted by games of pool, wii dancing contests, delicious seasonal fruit filled breakfasts, roof top BBQ’s, in the privacy of the newly named NZ Embassy, often frequented by Team Yealands. But soon enough it was time to get onto business matters, the contest for the most sought after prize in Adventure Racing.

Before I get into the story of the course, I’ll back the truck up a bit to say that our race preparation was made simple and easy, with the course announced before we left home we took only the gear required, and most of our food was supplied from sponsors, GU Energy, Em’s Power Cookies, Absolute Wilderness Freeze Dry meals, Pics Peanut Butter Slugs and Saltstick, we hardly needed anything more to service our caloric demands and please our taste buds for the adventure ahead, mainly just a few packets of peppermints.
 
1. On a hot sunny morning we climbed wearily from the buses and got sorted for the 35km sea kayak around Jervis Bay, we’d played around with the kayaks for a short time days earlier and decided to start with three of us in the three-person boat and one-person in the double, tucked in behind surfing the pressure wave. It worked okay but we later swapped to 2-people in each kayak. The paddle was relatively uneventful, no real surprises to the teams we’d expect to see at the front. When everyone is fresh and hyped up a lead pack tends to form. The scenery was pretty, especially once we got close to shore, rocky sea cliffs, big waves and golden sandy coves. It’s a pity we didn’t do the paddle clockwise around the bay as we would have had a fun downwinder.

We were content to sit among the front teams and let the race unfold as we ventured into the night. We exited the water with half a dozen teams, a quick transition had Yealands, Peak Adventure and us running out on stage two.   

2. Up next was a 14km coastal run, mixing up beaches and headlands. The pace was steady but not fast, the terrain didn’t allow for that, sand running is my least favourite activity with my 90kg of weight sinking deep with each step, I trotted along looking for footprints to take advantage of. Jokes and banter with the other Kiwis, a few kangaroos bounding by and it wasn’t long until we reached stage 3. As we transitioned to the kayaks a few more teams arrived, I suspect there was about 6-teams within 10-minutes of each other, roughly 6-hours into the race.

3. It was back into kayaks for a 13km paddle, largely on a lake. Amidst the melee of the TA, we started paddling and found ourselves clear of the pack, which we hadn’t intended or expected. Still early days into the race, we just paddled at a comfortable speed and were surprised we didn’t get caught. Night started descending upon us. We didn’t know it at the time, but we would lead from that point onward to claim victory.

4. The next stage looked to be interesting. A 95km mountain bike to Florence Head, with a long and steep hike-a-bike. When we got the course earlier in the day we were disappointed that route choices looked minimal and the navigation appeared straight forward. We hoped that what was on the land and what the map showed were different enough to create some navigation problem solving. Chris did a superb job through this stage, we moved smoothly through forests picking up the checkpoints. At one stage we saw lights not far behind us and guessed it was Team Yealands, I was looking forward to them catching us so we could have a few laughs.

The challenging part of the ride was the hike-a-bike section. We were the first team there and the trail, although marked with ribbon, was difficult to follow, almost fighting at times to penetrate the bush to get body and bike through. Craig clearly had no interest in doing any track clearing, rather leaving it up to us, had I known that I would have carried some loppers. I heard from a mid pack team post race there was a highway through there when they arrived. Sometime in the early hours of the morning we arrived at the TA and soon after another team arrived, who we expected to be Yealands, but it was in fact AMK.

5. Next up was 38km of hiking, mainly along the coast again. Daylight wasn’t far away. We made up some hot meals at the TA and started walking and eating, knowing AMK wouldn’t be far behind and would likely catch us, but after a few hours we were still leading. With the sun up and kangaroos out, rounding a headland we spotted AMK scampering around a point about 10-minutes or so back. We’d been moving well until that point but we hadn’t pushed the speed, we decided to up the ante and see what would happen. If they wanted to catch us, they'd need to speed up, we were curious. By the time we reached the end of the stage we felt confident we’d pushed out our lead and departed the TA to kayak with no other teams in sight. I have to admit at that stage of the race, that early on, the fact we could pull away from the field with relative ease, gave us confidence that would be factored into our race strategy throughout the event.  

6. On the 37km kayak up the river we invested quite a bit of time refueling. We’d made up a stack of freeze dried meals at the TA and took breaks from paddling to get some hearty food in the tanks. Stu and I took the big yellow 3-person barge leaving Chris and Jo the comparatively zippy 2-person boat. We had the in coming tide with us predominantly which made it easier, but we had some very shallow water to contend with, having to get out to portage and drag the kayaks some distance when we tried to take a short cut channel inside an island. Overall, it was a nice afternoon on the water.  

7. Out of the kayak and onto assembling our bikes for the 58km stage. With only a few hours of daylight remaining we prepared our lights as well. We felt fine and were moving well but we decided we’d stop for a decent sleep at the end of the ride, that was something to look forward to. As we departed on the ride the road went alongside the river and could see two teams nearing the end of the kayak stage, we guesses it was AMK and Yealands, about an hour behind us. The ride was fairly uneventful, we’d learned by then that forestry roads in Australia don’t contour much, they often just go directly over the terrain, leaving behind some very steep ascents, I was glad I’d done a solid bike training block pre-race. Everyone rode well to complete the stage without issue, with Chris and Stu eye balling the maps ensuring the fastest and cleanest lines. It was a warm night but we could sense a change in the weather as we headed inland from the coast into the mountains.

8. It must have been about midnight when we reached the TA, we quickly transitioned, got ready for the hiking stage and then found a quiet area to sleep. We’d been racing for about 36-hours so a rest was due. The TA staff apologised that there was meant to be tents available for us to sleep in but they hadn’t arrived, we were happy to find a spot under a tree. Despite a few mosquitos buzzing about, we were soon sleeping and logged a 3-hour kip. Upon waking the TA was hustling, in the darkness there was about 5 or 6 teams moving around, the Estonian team was signing out, Thule had already started the trek and added to all that, it was starting to rain, hard. Soon it was torrential rain and very cool as we embarked on the 45km wilderness trek through the rugged Budawangs. I noticed that the Yealands bikes had not been moved which was really weird, later discovering they had withdrawn with a bike mechanical after stage 7, we were gutted they were out of the race.

We felt chipper after our sleep and it wasn’t long into the stage when we decided we were back in the lead, somewhere in the darkness, we’d passed the other teams, likely sleeping somewhere or off route. The sun came up as did the temperature. It was an incredible landscape and awesome to be among it, the rock formations, the bush, hidden caves only just giving away their locations as we crept through the labyrinths, sometimes underneath massive rock over hangs. We were a bit disappointed we didn’t know there were so many camping sights under the rock rooftops as we would have climbed up to them for our sleep instead of at the TA, purely for the experience of sleeping somewhere so unique.

Chris was clearly frustrated with the map and the trail. We were in essence, following a route that was marked intermittently with cairns, but the route wasn’t on the map so it was confusing at times and also added an element of luck, if we lost the cairns or the trail, we had no idea if it was to our right or our left as the map gave no helpful information. It required guesswork. Despite that, we are used to that from travel in parts of New Zealand so it wasn’t creating any major problems, if anything it provided some entertainment.

One control we slipped below and ended up in the Leech capital of Australia, they were really excited we visited. The upside was we stumbled onto an old track (not marked on the map of course) that was heading the direction we needed to go, so it was one of those situations where a small mistake had a silver lining.

Soon after that we had a fairly boring and mundane 20km to complete the stage. It was hot now so we needed to be careful with our water and make sure we topped up when we could. We jogged out and despite having some tender feet, we moved smoothly and hadn’t seen any signs of other teams ahead or behind us.  (If I was honest here, I actually dragged the chain on this run out, the team had to regularly wait for me, my feet were sore and I thought it was a dumb way to end a wickedly awesome stage). We figured we were about halfway through the race at that point, general assessment was we were in a very strong position.

We’d had 3-hours sleep, we were leading and we hadn’t been racing with any intensity, it felt quite strange that we were out front in some ways but whatever we were doing was working so we kept at it. The peace of mind was that if any teams started to apply pressure and challenge us we had the gas in the tank to respond, but no one seemed in the mood to go hard for no reason.

9. It was searing hot when we reached the TA to assemble our bikes. Ahead of us was a 70km road ride, a link stage to the caves and the river. Once we started riding Chris wasn’t feeling the best, suffering in the heat and my bike was having issues, the clutch on the derailleur had ceased and it was causing issues with my chain, even when disengaged. Thankfully Stu was having a strong race and picking up the slack and Jo was doing excellently, contributing and helping out where possible. It was windy! we had about 40km of headwind, 20km of crosswind and finally some tail wind to finish.      

10. We reached the Bungonia Caving area with not much daylight left. Our plan was to complete the caving and then snatch another 3-hour sleep. Pre-race our goal was to get 8-hours sleep and we’d done our best to self impose that. Knowing we had to use 8-hours it made it easy to justify the 3-hour sleeps. If we got another 3-hours after the cave that only left 2-hours which we would use up on the final night. Being the first team to begin the caving the staff didn’t quite have their system set up and the briefing and sorting of maps took us nearly 45-minutes, at that stage we didn’t think time was an issue but as it turned out, the caving took a lot longer than anticipated. I was disappointed how sore my feet were as we hobbled around the caving area, the goal was to visit 5 of the 6-caves, reaching the underground checkpoints.

We enjoyed the caving and had a few laughs, although the map supplied to actually find the cave entrances was incredibly vague, a questionable choice given the stakes of the event. We ended up wasting about an hour when I couldn’t fit through one of the narrow sections of the caves, aptly named 'the flattener', which meant we had to visit all 6-caves. I proposed to the team after that we should just have a 2-hour sleep but everyone was keen for 3. The TA had hot water and glorious hot showers so Jo and I both took the opportunity to wash and clean some grime off. It was bang on timing for me as I was starting to worry my feet were developing the fungal foot rash that can plague adventure racers, so having hot clean soapy water to scrub them felt good, and my feet were back to normal after the sleep.    

Because each team had to spend a minimum 5-hours at the caves, which is designed to discourage teams from racing through the fragile caves, the field concertinaed back together again, there must have been about 10-teams at the TA when we got back from completing our caving and what felt like 20-teams when we woke up. By taking a 3-hour sleep we expected to be chasing teams down, those who opted to forfeit rest to have a nudge at the race lead. So we were surprised that when we departed on stage 11 we were leading again, and even more surprised that no other teams were getting ready to depart, they were all sleeping. I mentioned that to the TA staff when I signed out and they replied “They’re to tired, everyone is exhausted chasing you guys, you’re making it look easy in contrast”. It felt a bit that way too.

11.  We were excited to be on our way to the 44km Pack Rafting leg on the Upper Shoalhaven River, the map suggested this would be an area well worth the visit and it looked the most remote wilderness the course would go through. We boulder-hopped down Slot Canyon as the sun rose and reached the river in good spirits, looking forward to a days paddling, the finish line of the race was starting to feel close. The rafting was really fun, Jo and I went through the rapids section well, with Stu and Chris, uncharacteristically, not quite getting it together, providing the mornings entertainment. My other memory of the stage was my unsatisfiable hunger, I was eating like a wild man, devouring freeze dry meals and washing them down with Em’s Cookies but couldn’t get adequately full. The river was very pretty, bird song and iguanas aplenty. The current and rapids gave way to the lake and flat water, but a welcomed stonking tail wind pushed us along to the change point, where we deflated the Pack Rafts and boarded the plastic fantastics.

12. Joy, back in the plastic kayaks for 56km of river. Stu and I loaded up the yellow freighter and off we went. The river was moving and some technical little rapids to negotiate. Chris by now was clearly sick of paddling and was doing all he could to avoid putting his paddle in the water, so it was a slow trip but the float time was saving us. I have to admit it was all very relaxed, anyone watching us going by wouldn’t have guessed we were leading the race. About sunset we lost the flow of the river and not long after that hit the incoming tide. I said to Stu a few times that the boat was becoming increasingly hard to steer, as we pushed into the tidal stream. When we finally reached the end it took all four of us to lift the boat to the TA. The staff later told us that we had about 40-litres of water inside it.

We’d got really cold on the river so approaching the TA we decided we’d use our remaining 2-hours of sleep owed to us. We still had a 99km mountain bike stage and an 18km run to the finish, about 10-hours of activity, so we figured a rest would serve us well, it’d also mean we wouldn’t have as much night riding. But when we arrived at the TA and told the staff there that we planned to sleep for 2-hours they looked surprised, and asked us if we knew that AMK were about 90-minutes behind us.

“Crap, are they? we’d better just take an hour then”. We could hardly have expected to be any further in front given our saunter down the river, but you always hope you have more buffer. But we were determined to get some rest to ensure we nailed the final stages of the race. We hunkered down for sleep knowing that AMK could in fact take the lead, or be in the TA when we woke. We were confident after a rest we’d be able to fly over the last two stages. Good night.

13. We woke up to see AMK in the TA getting ready. We hopped on our bikes and headed off, starting off at a comfortable speed warming into the ride, we knew we had some big climbs ahead. Then Chris told us he wasn’t feeling well, in fact, he felt really sick. Well that’s a bit concerning. We rallied together to support Chris, and it wasn’t long before he was feeling better. Daylight was approaching, we were moving really quick, riding in a pace line around 35km/ph, on our way to win the ARWC, spirits were high. Then the wombat struck.
I was in front and in a blinding second I caught some movement in my periphery vision. A split second later there was yelling, brakes squealing, a rider and bike sliding down the road and Stu weaving all over trying to gain control. I turned around to see Jo tangled in her bike on the road. This is not good. The wombat had shot our like a torpedo and directly into Jo’s front wheel.

We were unlucky and lucky at the same time, thankfully Jo just had bruising and grazes, her bike was okay, just a few minor adjustments needed. We were back riding but it’d shaken. We had a series of climbs onto a plateau so we kept a steady pace and reached the highest point on sunrise, it was magic riding along high up over looking the ocean and taking in the scenery. Today was a good day. We lost our momentum for a period when we couldn’t find a checkpoint, after about 20-minutes of searching and discussion we decided to move on. It transpired later that the control flag had been stolen. We’re quite used to that, the previous four ARWC events all had missing checkpoints. After some long descents, a hike along a beach with our bikes, we reached the final TA.

14. Beach running on golden sand, a few swims over estuary mouths, blue ocean with surf gently rolling in, sun high in the sky, everything was pleasant and enjoyable. A few hours of that took us to the finish line.  

Mission accomplished. We crossed the line in just under 4-days. We felt great, not just because we’d finished the race and won, we actually felt great physically. We’d had 7-hours sleep in total which is a handy amount and we had been able to race our own pace, move quick when we felt we could, and eased up when we felt we needed to. Chris had navigated brilliantly and Stu had been diligently backing him up the whole way. Jo had cruised through the race without any issues, scoring a well deserved ARWC title. Sophie’s role in the team was never going to be filled in one race, but Jo did superbly and brought other skills and strengths to the team.

For Chris, Stu and I, while it was satisfying to produce a clean race and win, making it three in a row for the team, (actually four in a row for Stu), perhaps the real sense of elation was taking our number of ARWC wins to five, something we’re all proud of, and wouldn’t have done without each other. It was made extra meaningful for me with Jodie my wife and children following the race, they had been able to see us everyday and they'd had a wonderful explore and adventure themselves, having my kids witness our finish was cool and it was nice to share the race with them as Adventure Racing has been such a big part of our lives, both in opportunities but also in sacrifices. 

I’m not sure when and if I’ll do more racing, it’s not my intention to at this stage, but I can’t predict the future with certainty, as history has shown. I do know that racing as part of Team Seagate has been an incredible experience, difficult to put into words. Racing in such a talented and committed team has been a major highlight, allowing us to achieve what we have, a true privilege, with so many special memories from our trips to far-flung corners of the globe. I feel very proud too that as a generation of Kiwi adventure racers, we were given the task of building on the legacy New Zealand has in adventure racing and we delivered.

The original Kiwi racers put NZ as the top nation in the world for the sport and it feels great to have maintained what they established. Adventure Racing in NZ continues to grow and it’s especially pleasing to see the new talent growing.

See All Stories On This Race