Race Report - Help and the Sly Pig

My partner (Simon Borrill) & I only started adventure racing this year with our first event being the Blue Mountains race last January. Since then I have completed another two races (aside from this race) and am very close to converting to "the dark side" full time (both Simon & I are triathletes and started this as an enjoyable distraction to the normal training routine).

As to the race well.... our day was progressing fairly well until just after check point 11 when a stick flicked up from the trail and ripped the rear derailer off my bike. With 5km of mountain biking left and then the 8km road section back to the lake it is fair to say that I thought our day was over. Simon however was not convinced and came up with some interesting suggestions on how to get us back to the lake.

The first step in this was to get out of the Watagun Mountains & back to the road. Even if we were to pull out of the race we needed to get to a place where we could be collected by someone. Luckily for us this was mainly downhill.

Whilst we rigged a system on the bike to get the derailer & chain out of the way (consisting of strapping the derailer with leukoplast to the bottom chainstay) several teams passed us but could offer little in the way of help.

Once we had the bike rolling again (and rolling is the operative word as it was now impossible to pedal) we made our way out of the mountains & to the road at checkpoint 12.

It was at this stage that Simon suggested that he tow me back to the lake, so with him holding one end of a spare tube & me the other we commenced the 8km ride/tow. Thankfully the road was in the most part gently downhill and we also had a prevailing tailwind to help us. But needless to say the effort required to be put in by Simon to tow me was exceptional. I might add here that I was cramping by this stage & was therefore unable to help by taking a turn at the front.

In any event several more teams passed us on the way back to the Dora Creek boat ramp and gave us some pretty funny looks (I am sure that they were unaware of the issue with my bike & simply thought that I was getting a free ride however their puzzlement probably came from the fact that I wasn't pedalling at all).

We finally made it back to the lake where Simon had a quick recovery (read that as passed out on the ground in near exhaustion), and we started the last leg of the race around the foreshore and our attempt to make up some lost time.

To have completed the race at all under the above conditions was nothing short of exceptional but to have finished in 6th place overall just blew us away.

I mentioned above my potential conversion to "the dark side" of adventure racing & it is the teamwork & ability to continue through these adversities that makes the day such an adventure and all the more enjoyable.

See you at the next race!!!!