Third Again!!!

Matt Koerber - Mirage Sea Kayaks/TerraX

Driving out to the AROC event centre at Rond Terrace on Friday afternoon, I was in awe at the huge clouds that were gathering over the Brindabella’s, about to unleash their fury on Canberra. It wasn’t until I arrived at the event registration area and had started unloading my toys that the mini-tornado struck. Suddenly, Canberra was flying horizontally, seemingly half the trees in the area were pulled from the ground, roots and all, and Steve Dowlan was standing behind me oblivious to the carnage, asking for my allen keys as I cowered behind my car.

After the storm front had passed, the skies put on a spectacular, if not a little daunting, light show, and we noticed that the event centre was now some 50 metres NW of where it was supposed to be. All of the tents were on their side and had suffered terminal damage. The race was subsequently postponed for 23 hours.

Saturday rolled around and the weather was somewhat friendlier, even though a bit chilly for this time of year, and the threat of more rain was ever present. The winds were still quite brisk, but nothing like the reported 108km/h gusts from Friday night.

As was the case with most of the local competitive teams, we opted to change from a male team to a mixed team and have a tilt at winning the $1000 up for grabs for first place, despite the fact that we seem destined to come third in every event that we enter. I had even gone so far as entering our team as “Mirage Sea Kayaks TerraX / 3rd No More” before the race. It was soon clear that our strategy had backfired – Tronk was always going to be hard to beat with no perceived weaknesses, and assuming that the Ultimax Stingers had found themselves a strong running female, we opted for a stronger rider in Annalisa McKay. When the course was revealed, there was one basic loop around Mt. Ainslie on bike, and three significant run legs – bummer!

The first leg had us running around Lake Burley Griffin, in PFD’s, from Rond Terrace to just past the ferry terminal at West Basin, where we collected kayaks and paddled to CP2 at the National Museum. After quick waves and kisses blown to the Netherlands women's hockey team under Commonwealth Avenue bridge, we dumped the kayaks at Regatta Point and had a short run back to the TA2/Start area and it was on to the bikes.

The bike leg saw us in a three way tussle for 2nd place with the Ultimax Stingers and our usual sparring partners, Fugahwe. On a fairly moderate mountain bike leg we kept each other honest and all arrived at TA3 within one minute of each other. By the time Fugahwe and ourselves had arrived at the first orienteering CP, the Stingers were back on our tails and we completed the short orienteering course trying our hardest to stay in touch with them. After a short mountain bike back to the TA5/Start area we entered the water for the second kayak leg still in a three way tie for second.

A short sprint across the lake saw us back on foot, rogaining around the parliamentary triangle. Tom Landon-Smith greeted the three teams for the start of this leg, and wasn’t he in his element seeing this race unfold! Things only got better when 2nd, 3rd and 4th place went screaming past the 1st placed Tronk team, who’d made a catastrophic nav error searching for CP22 (behind the National Gallery). RACE ON!
The Ultimax Stingers switched on the after burners and opened up a small lead, and by the time we reached CP 26 (treasury building), Tronk muscled their way past us, fueled by the agro of their nav stuff-up. TA7 saw us back into the kayaks for a paddle back to the original kayak put in area at West Basin. We fluffed this TA as we picked up random PFD’s (all small) and paddles from all over the place, losing close to a minute and relegating ourselves to 4th place. With the top four placings all on the first half of the final kayak leg, and the light starting to fade, the race was going to come down to whoever could hold their nerve through the final stages under lights.

Finishing the kayak leg, we had a short rogaining section through Commonwealth Park on our way to the finish line. One thing that really stood out about this race was that there was a bonus leg for the top teams after the finish. The first 20 teams across the line were sent out on another leg that consisted of a ride to the top of Mt Pleasant, an orienteering section down through the Russell Offices to West Basin, where teams then kayaked about 1.5km east along the Molonglo river, ran back up Mt Pleasant via a Duntroon checkpoint, and collected bikes for a fast downhill sprint to the finish line.

Despite a few glimpses of the second placed mixed team during the orienteering and kayaking legs, our main objective during this stage was to hold on to the podium finish, relegating the usual Canberra mixed category winners, Fugahwe, to fourth. After some tussling during the initial stages of this leg, Fugahwe made a crucial mistake, returning to the reservoir CP (CP42), adjacent to Mt. Pleasant, after getting CP43 near the bottom of Northcott Drive. This was the break we needed and in the end, we cruised to yet another third placing, our sixth 3rd place in a row.

I’d like to thank Tom and Alina for yet another great race, this time with so much going against them. Not only did they recover from the carnage of Friday night, but they probably put on one of the most enjoyable events that I’ve had the pleasure of racing in….. and having raced in their last 14 races straight, I’ve certainly experienced nearly everything that Tom and Alina could throw at you. Also congratulations to Dufflecoat Supreme for taking out the race overall, and Tronk for another dominant display in coming first and walking away with the cash prize.

And on a final note, I’d like to thank the guy way back in history who decided that third place should get a prize. Without him, TerraX wouldn’t be receiving all of these wonderful goodies come presentation time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------