Oh what a season – the Paddy Pallin Adventure Race Series stepped up in 2007-08 to attract never-seen-before crowds!
This past season has been truly amazing for the Paddy Pallin Adventure Race Series!
First of all, the Novice Course option was introduced for those new to adventure racing, building up their fitness level, recovering from an injury or wanting to try a condensed version of the Classic Course. Covering roughly half the distance of the Classic Course, the Novice Course still gave teams the opportunity to experience all the same disciplines while finishing in a more reasonable time frame! Ideally suited for beginners, this format attracted 375 participants over the season, culminating in 47 Novice teams taking part in the last race of the season on the NSW Central Coast! Some newcomers decided to go all in though and leapt right into the Classic Course for the full experience!
In terms of numbers, the four races of the Series attracted an unprecedented 629 teams, close to 1,900 participants! This is great news for Adventure Racing in Australia as it means a lot more people catching the “bug” after getting exposed to it, as Owen Jones from team FIGJAM exemplifies when he reported: “It was an awesome experience. It may have been our first race and we may have come in 152nd but team FIGJAM are up for more.”, or the all-girls team Double Vision, Adrianne, Louise & Jo, stating: “We had an absolute blast on the weekend. This was our first adventure race and we will be back.”
The Series spanned over the November 2007-April 2008 period and included 2 races in each of the Canberra and Sydney regions.
- Race 1 of the Series, part of the week-long Brindabella Challenge cycling festival in Canberra, took place on the evening of Friday 30 November 2007 and saw teams battling with heavy rain and lightning on top of the planned night-time racing! Both prior editions of this event had already been plagued with some wet weather, leaving organizers and racers alike wondering if this date wasn’t indeed cursed! Starting from separate locations in the south of Canberra, Novice and Classic teams made their way to Yarralumla and then onto the finish at Commonwealth Park. As the skies opened up with a spectacular lightning show and rain started falling hard, it soon became a true adventure racers' playground. Some competitors missed the kayak leg and took on another biking leg to finish on the altered course, while some still got to listen in on Elton John’s concert as it bellowed across Lake Burley Griffin! No link between the extremely wet weather and Elton’s singing had been established at the time of printing.
- The beautiful area of Avoca Beach, NSW hosted the second largest line up for the Series on 15 December 2007 with 170 teams. Ten teams made of Bulldogs Rugby League players were back for the second year in a row giving adventure racing a go. The boys, all pumped from their pre-season training could barely fit in their bibs and gave it their best shot in sunny but rather hot conditions. The hills in the area made for some interesting mountain biking legs which turned into “hike-a-bike” exercises for most riders! A particular section of the course in a vine-covered little jungle gave participants a serious workout and will for sure remain a topic for conversation for quite some time. To top it off, some lucky teams – and the fastest on the field – got to go on the Advanced Course and experience course-setter Tom Landon-Smith’s favorite discipline: coasteering with necessary dodging of the massive waves crashing on the rocky shores of Avoca!
- It was back to Canberra for race 3 on 23 February 2008, and a great sunny day was guaranteed to make up for the washout of race 1. So with the sun shining and the stars lined up, the largest Canberra AROC adventure race got under way with 148 teams of 3 taking part. This time, competitors sampled the magic of Stromlo, home to a number of 24 hour mountain biking events, including the Scott Australian 24hr MTB Championships and the UCI World Championships coming up in August. Offering superb single track and awesome downhill, Stromlo delivered world-class riding and left very few walking away without a smile and a sense of sheer achievement.
- The last race in the Series and Season Finale was held on 19 April 2008 at East Lake Macquarie on the NSW Central Coast, hosted once again between the beautiful Stockland's Murrays Beach and Rafferty's Resort. And what could have turned out to be another wet day, ended up a perfect one with the rain holding off for most of the event. Competitors however did not escape the result of heavy rainfalls in the weeks preceding the race, with many tracks turned into creeks, plenty of knee-high puddles, and a real mud fest for racers and bikes alike. If the orienteering crossword puzzle took some by surprise at the start of the race, it was challenging navigation in a maze of tracks that got some teams wandering in the bush a little longer than expected! With 222 teams entered (over 650 participants, the largest AROC event to date), one team stood out with team Hurry Up Dad!! made up of Bianca (9 years old) and Natalie (11 years old) racing together with their dad and AROC regular, Alan Yeung. At the end of the day they finished with big smiles on their faces, having collected every checkpoint in the Novice Course and having managed to hand out lollies to volunteers along the way: nice going Girls!
For the triathletes out there interested in going off-road and mixing up their training routine, for the runners wondering how they would go on a bike or a kayak, for the orienteers looking to use that navigation edge in other disciplines, for the gym rats who’ve been delaying heading in the bush, or simply for anyone keen to have a good time with some mates, adventure racing beckons! The atmosphere is great, the courses are always unique and speccy, and you’ll be exercising without even realizing it, so engrossed will you be in your team, your navigation and the sheer beauty of the landscapes around you! Don’t delay, get started and discover why everyone raves about adventure racing once they’ve experienced it once!
Preliminary dates have been set for the 2008-09 Paddy Pallin Adventure Race Series:
- 30 November 2008 – Canberra (part of the Brindabella Challenge)
- 13 December 2008 – Sydney
- 14 February 2009 – Canberra
- 18 April 2009 – Central Coast
