Chris, Jeremy, Phil
Chris, Jeremy, Phil
Our preparation for this years 24hr AROC race was less than perfect. Leigh wasn’t available this year and Chris had signed on with a 12 hr team. A quick check of the AROC forum put me in touch with Jeremy, a 21 year old marshal arts instructor from Sydney who had raced the AROC sprints and was keen to see how he fared over 24 hours. A desperate call to Chris a week out from the race resulted in him stepping away from his 12 hour team (thanks Cameron from Lonsdale St) and joining our team. So we had 2 of the 3 from last year, plus some fresh legs and youthful enthusiasm from Sydney.
Instructions, emails and phone calls from Tom and Alina helped us piece together how the race may go. Some novel activities were promised, along with abseiling and a mandatory pizza stop. Gear checked, bike fixed and bags and boxes packed, we are all ready.
Despite the promise of fine warm weather, race day dawned cool and rainy. The bike drop at Sparrow Hill, east of Queanbeyan, was wet and spirits were subdued. Was this to be a repeat of last year, with cold wet weather and strong winds? Into the city, get through registration, gear checks and stacking of gear boxes in the tent. We sit down, spread the maps and start to develop an idea of the race route. It’s not quite what I had guessed, probably harder and longer. We eat as we mark and contact maps, check our gear and, after the usual cheerful and amusing race brief by Tom, we board buses and roll out to Sparrow Hill for the start. Heads buried in maps on the bus ride indicate how serious everyone is taking the race. We just chat and wonder whether Jamie might get lucky… That’s another story, though! At least the weather was clearing and blue skies were out!
Around 1130, Alina got us started on the edge of a large pine forest and we set out on a short rogaine to get the teams warmed up and dispersed. Jeremy is an orienteer, so we are happy for him to take us out into the forest, where our faith in him was rewarded. He quickly takes us through the CPs, with only a slight back-track when we nearly forget one, and emerge at the 1st TA in 12th place. Tom had advised that this leg would take between 1 and 2 hours, so to be out in 48 minutes was fantastic for us. My dodgy achilles tendon (a war wound!) was already sore so I was happy to get onto the MTB asap. Chris is our MTB and Sparrow Hill expert, so he lead us off onto the beautiful single track. I have ridden Sparrow Hill quite a few times but never this quick. We pass 5 teams with mechanical problems, calculating in my head that we are now in 7th place! What the? But my legs are burning with the pace. This is quicker than I usually ride here and I still have 22 hours to go. We break out of the single track and barrel west down fire roads and cross the highway into Kowen Forest. Here we meet long stretches of rolling trails, open and fast on the downhill, too steep on the up! Another 2 hours and we exit Kowen for a short dash to Queanbeyan via a petrol station where I pump up a slow leaking rear tyre and we stock up on carbos. Shane and his team come in with a broken seat bolt. They have phoned ahead and hope for a fix when they reach the TA.
The TA in Queanbeyan is a welcome sight. My legs have lost their powers of recovery and every exertion on the MTB results in cramps and no power to the pedals. So it’s good to see Adrian at the TA, pointing us to a kayak and letting us know that we are still in the top half of the field. We paddle upstream, passing puzzled locals out for a walk along the river. The river soon narrows and is tangled with trees and, as per the map, we are forced to do a portage of about 1 km, looking for the moment where the river opens up again. With a final crash through bull rushes and rocks, we wade out into the open river again and paddle on in beautiful still water with rising banks on both sides. After a few more kms, we reach the kayak drop and are met by the ever enthusiastic Tom and Alina. Their energy is boundless – I wish I could bottle some for later on! We are now down to walking with an occasional run, about 6 hours into the race. Another km up stream on foot brings us to a cliff and abseil. We are about the 4th team in line for the drop, so its time to chat to the teams around us and see how Jamie was faring. I even get a quick phone call to home so my wife knows I am still alive and well. Chris declines the abseil but Jeremy and I enjoy the ropes and we are soon down the cliff, across the river and heading on foot back to the TA in Queanbeyan via a very pretty river path and a few CPs.
Back in Queanbeyan, a few crews ahead of us are at the TA, repairing punctures. We find out that there is a section near the beginning of the MTB leg that runs through a km of Three Corner Jacks, a particularly nasty thorn that easily passes through MTB tyres. Being forewarned, we head off on the bikes tentatively, carrying them across the dangerous sections and wheeling them along at other times. We pass perhaps 6 teams working furiously on punctures and, on exiting the section, find a guy from a bike shop handing out an arm-full of tubes. We decline as we seem to be OK but grind to a halt half a km up the trail with 3 flats! And we carried the bikes OVER the jacks!!
It’s getting dark as we set about repairs. My 2 tubes go to good use with Jeremy and Chris using theirs too. With so many thistles to check, we take a good hour to get on the road again. We cover the first 4 km of this MTB leg in 1 hr 36 mins! But we are finally off again and making up good time on some teams ahead of us. Through Jerrabomberra and down onto the railway track at Hume. This is a long open section that gradually rises to a crest at Chisolm, and then plunges quickly into Tuggeranong Valley. Ahead is the first incentive of the evening, a party in the Wanniassa Hills. After a stop at Erindale for food and fuel (and some air for my slow leak) we roll into the party, passing a team walking their bikes along the way. We feel like heroes in someone’s back yard, cordial and chocolate cake go down as we swap stories and then say good bye to our generous hosts. All of a sudden, we are in a group of 4 teams, 12 hours into the race! We climb through Farrer Ridge and make our way through to Isaacs and O’Malley. Our lights are making easy work of the nav and we pick up a few places and gradually leave the teams behind us. The tunnels under Hindmarsh Drive are hard to find but we get them eventually, but forget to note the code at the entrance, so Chris and Jeremy backtrack and get the details. We race through Garran, over Red Hill and plunge into Manuka as my main light fades away with a flat battery. It had done its job and I knew my LEDs would be good enough for the rest of the night.
After a CP in Manuka, Jeremy stops with another puncture, so we back track to the Shell Station in Manuka and change his tube again. I patch the bad one while I am waiting and pump up my slow leak (again!) It’s now a drag race over the bridge and through the city which, at nearly 1am, was well and truly alive. We must look very odd to these party-goers! We pull up at Debacle at 00:50, ten minutes before close. A stack of pizza boxes awaits so we sit with the Kiwi Chucks and ADFA, and indulge! Many thanks to Debacle for a great CP. Chris’ partner Sam is there to meet us too, which is great. After the mandatory 15 minute stop, we track back to race HQ and leap off the bike. My butt feels like raw meat, after 12 hours of riding, kayaking and riding again in wet shorts. Some dry clothes and warm gloves await us at HQ. We restock our food, rug up against the plummeting temperatures and “race” towards the lake and awaiting kayaks.
Glow sticks cracked and attached and pfds on, we launch onto the lake. Paddling is easy at first and the conditions are perfect – glassy, black water and not a breath of wind. We head east under Commonwealth Ave bridge. Tom emerges from the gloom on the right of our canoe, shouting encouragement and taking some shots. We aim towards swans sleeping on the water, under Kings Ave, past the Boathouse and up the river to the kayak drop. Off to the right, we see lights of teams on the Jerrabomberra Wetlands, knowing we will soon join them with the cow pats. We wake the amazing volunteers at the kayak drop to tell them our race number, gather ourselves and walk across to the wetlands, passing a few teams returning rather more quickly than we were going out. Jeremy again does a great job on the nav, nailing each CP without a miss. We skirt around a few cows that don’t want to move, sloshing around in wet, dewy long grass and fresh cow pats. I had managed to miss most but stepped in a fresh one on the way to the last CP. Argh!
Back to the kayak now, wake our faithful vollies to tell them our number and back onto the lake. It’s here I really start to struggle. I don’t feel exhausted, just sleepy. We get back down the river and onto the lake and it’s all I can do to stay awake. The steady pace of our paddling and the darkness around us at 4am is like a sleeping tablet. I am sitting at the back of the kayak and start to fall asleep without Chris and Jeremy noticing. Whenever I drop off, I fall out of rhythm, so that kind of alerts them to my problem. We talk a little but there are long periods of silence as we all get bleary. I then start to see things in and around the water. The water is boiling under the bridge, and then we are heading for large blocks of concrete sticking out of the water. I even splash some water on my face to keep the monster at bay but with little effect. But we turn for “home” under the bridge and set course for the lights ahead. As we get ashore, Chris and Jeremy repack their bags so I curl up on some dirt and sleep for 2 minutes. My heart rate drops to in that time.
So we leg it back to HQ knowing that we are about to start the final leg, which we remember to be kickbikes. While walking back, Chris tells me that he was falling asleep on the kayak as well, so don’t feel so bad. The kickbikes are FANTASTIC and let us glide through the city, picking up CPs in clubs that are now closed. As we cross the lake to the south, we see more kayaks still on the lake, silhouetted by a sky that is now visibly lighter. My sore achilles makes kicking with my left leg painful so I swap sides regularly and we scoot thru the next few CPs with ease, heading back over the lake and to the old kayak drop up the river again! We wake those poor vollies, for the 3rd time in the past few hours, leave the lovely kickbikes and head back towards HQ on foot. After the CP on Campbell oval, we see a team in front of us head for the shops. It’s close to 8am and I remember there is a bakery and coffee shop there. So we stop and indulge for a few minutes.
After coffee and food, we head down out of Campbell and to the HQ feeling pretty good. We pass teams coming up the hill, smiling but less than chatty. They look like I feel! Despite our fatigue, we start to hatch a strategy that might see us climb the leaderboard a bit later on.
We get back to HQ having finished the course in about 22 hours. I have brief thoughts about curling up in the tent for a few hours sleep but Chris and Jeremy have other ideas. Our thinking, such as it is, is that a number of teams will stop after completing the course, without getting any bonus CPs. So we decide to go out and get a few CPs in the final hours to get us ahead of the pack. The rear tyre needs a mandatory pump-up and we head out in fresh dry shorts. My bum now resembles mince meat so a fresh chamois is something to behold, or at least to sit on. We cruise past Debacle again, but no free pizza this time - just some people having Sunday breakfast, blissfully unaware of what had happened there a few hours before. The first CP is in a backyard at a house in Lyneham and, to my utter amazement, a girl walks out the door and I recognise her as being the volunteer who we woke up three times at the kayak drop. She only had 2 hours sleep but comes out to welcome us anyway Awesome!
Riding out of her driveway we all agree that there are multiple ways to the next CP. So I turn left, Jeremy goes right and Chris goes straight on. We come together in the middle of the street in an awful mess but somehow all stay upright, laughing at our near-miss! We convoy up Macarthur Avenue at a good pace and I notice that my legs have regained their spring. They feel like the day after a long ride, not too bad, and reasonably resilient to hard exertions. So we hammer to the AIS and the next CP, then on to Bruce Ridge and another punch. We now have an hour left and start to wonder of the merits of going further out for more CPs. A mechanical failure or late arrival at HQ will rob us of the bonus points. So we drift back down hills to the City, bums off seats to ease the pain.
Back in the city we have made good time and don’t want to arrive with time to spare. So we cruise to Dobinson’s, a short walk from HQ, and order coffee and food to celebrate our achievements. After this indulgence, we roll to the finish with 15 minutes to spare and a rest from the bike seat! The post race food and festivities are great, and Tom and Alina are wonderful hosts as usual. Many bodies lie asleep on the grass in the mid day sun, us amongst them. I ponder my sore body, including a broken toe, blue and crooked, that I have no recollection of breaking. We all marvel at the arocshop.com.au team and their amazing feat in completing the race and bonuses in 18 hrs! We can only wish to be THAT fast!
In the final wash up, our team came 17th out of 43 teams in the 24hr race. The decision to get 3 bonus CPs puts us ahead of 7 other finishing teams, so it was an effort well worth doing.
Our sincerest thanks to Tom and Alina for a great course and event, and for their friendship and support. Also, special thanks to the volunteers who helped us and encouraged us through the race. I am already looking forward to next year and some more hallucinations!
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