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Teamed up with my wife Ali (Team: Doitwithmebaby) to take on the Sunday edition of the Kathmandu adventure race. This would be my 3rd adventure race and Ali's first. Choosing a partner is tricky for these events and partnering your wife probably significantly increases the risk of trouble. Fortunately, apart from a flat tyre, the whole day went perfectly and Ali had the time of her life. She had been sick in the week leading up to the race and had been voicing some serious reservations about racing at all. Luckily Marcie (Al's mum) talked her into at least turning up and seeing how she felt.
We climbed out of bed at 6am and sneaked around the house not wanting to wake the kids or Grandma and Grandpa. With most of the prep work having been done it was simply a matter of eating breaky, loading the bikes and throwing the gear in the car. 6:45 we were on the road.
By 7:30 we were at Audley, having dropped our bikes at the transition area, and then we made our way to check-in. An hour of studying the map, plotting the route, contacting the map and doing some final prep work, we lined up at the start.
The race started and there was some confusion, as the start of the trail wasn't very obvious from the map, and plenty of teams didn't know which way to go. We had seen the trail-head on the way in and had a good idea where it was. The first run was a great warm-up going straight up the mountain to the visitors centre. There was no real thought of running, due to the steepness of the climb and the crowds, so we got into a steady tempo pushing the 1.5k to the top.
We grabbed our bikes, with me having to change into my clip-in cycle shoes and carry my runners, and took off. The ride was mostly fire trail, going upwards to start with, and we were riding with a few other teams at this stage. Checkpoints were clearly marked and the trail was easy enough to follow. After one particularly fun downhill I was pushing up the hill on the other side when I realised I had a flat. I had never had a flat in a mountain bike race before and it was particularly annoying. I flipped my bike and wrestled with the tyre for 7-8 minutes before I even got it off. I had bought a new tube the day before, but I only had the one, so now we just had to pray neither Al nor I had another flat. Another frustrating 7 minutes of getting the tyre back on (I really need to learn the technique) and watching team after team go by, I was on my way. 15 minutes lost so plenty of chasing to do.
We had no trouble getting the checkpoints down to the next transition and got into to the first serious run of the day. The initial K was flat fire trail and then the trail dropped suddenly down a steep technical single-track that required more sliding than walking. At the bottom was a creek and a trail that was no less technical. The next checkpoint seemed to take forever to arrive. I was sure we had gone way too far but the map suggested we had to turn from the river before the marker would be seen. Finally we and 8 other teams found it together and we all breathed a sigh of relief. Another tough steep climb and we push ahead of a few teams and ran back into transition after a tough 7k run that must have taken an hour. Coming into transition Ali grabbed her specially prepared chicken hamburger as she was starting to flag a little. While I changed my shoes yet again ("I am always waiting for you Charlie") she downed her burger. The effect on her energy levels were immediate. Most people run on GUs and Gels, Ali works best on barbecued meats.
The 2ND bike leg was along some nice single track with a few tricky checkpoints. We had some sweet downhills and I could tell Ali was really enjoying herself. "Best day ever" was one classic quote. A super fast race down the road to Audley and we hit the Kayak transition.
Carrying the kayak down to the river was tough and the difficulty of paddling these heavy, slow boats was apparent. Luckily the water was flat and, again, the checkpoints came easily. We paddled fairly steadily and didn't really try and kill ourselves. I guess the kayak was around 3 k but in those boats it felt much longer. We finished the leg only having been overtaken by two men's teams.
The next leg was a surprise due to its difficulty and length. We had to run across the weir, over a bridge and straight up a mountain, probably the steepest of the day. By this time we had been going for close to 4 hours and our reserves were starting to wane. The trail was technical to the top, technical across the top and technical to the bottom. Opportunities to run were limited (but we made the most of them) and the difficulty of locating checkpoints was high. We passed a number of teams on this section and luckily found all the markers. Plenty of teams though lost massive amounts of time missing checkpoints (and wasted huge amounts of time and energy backtracking). In terms of the scenery and beauty of the bush this was certainly the best leg.
The final leg was a, kind of fun, rowing section. We sat in a small row boat with me rowing and Ali directing for about 1.5 k, which again doesn't sound long, but with the narrow creek, my inability to row in a straight line, not to mention a bit of traffic, it was certainly tricky. Rowing technique played a big part here. Having one person row was the key as the teams trying two rowing were just chaos. No coordination and no direction, it made for a slow leg. We overtook at least 5 teams on the river so that made me feel better about my weak left arm that didn't seem to want to control the oar in any way.
The final run was short and sweet. We knew we had done better than we expected, given the circumstances. We had moved well all day, didn't get lost or have any accidents. After the flat tyre we overtook teams consistently. Ali was unbelievably strong and was just gushing about the experience and how much she enjoyed it. We finished in around 4 hours 50 - so much longer than I expected given the race I had done previously. It wasn't because we were slow but because the race was far longer than I imagined.
A hamburger and plenty of liquid and we rode back to the car, tired but elated.
Charlie Dalziell
