TerraX finally cracks it

Shane Russell, Team TerraX

We arrived at the start at 6:30am, 50 minutes before race registration, due to Krissi’s determination to be organised before race start for a change. Alina was there when we arrived and told us she and Tom had no sleep at all the night before. That made me feel a bit pathetic walking around yawning all morning. Amazingly the time just slipped away again and before we knew it we where sitting on top a Kayak ready for a mass start, in the midst of a bright yellow 60 boat flotilla.

The first leg was a rogaine style paddle where you needed to collect 3 of 6 check points in the first leg and the remaining 3 in the last leg of the race. Kudo’s to Tom and Alina for coming up with such a nice way to split the field early. There where two obvious paddles routes, one long (3 kms) and one short (2.2kms). We opted for the long paddle first as we decided it would be better to chase teams later in the race than it would be to be pursued. But we soon realised that a very large number of other teams had the same idea. Worried about being caught in a rugby scrum of boats at the first checkpoint we decided to go very hard at the start and break from the pack. To this end we planted our boat right behind Millie figuring they would be the fastest out of the start, hoping to hold onto their wake.

The race started and everything went to plan. Millie got out first and we held their wake long enough for Krissi to get utterly soaked by Toby's paddling and to make a break from the pack. We hit the first checkpoint with a reasonable gap on the pack and got away from it without major incident. A few minutes later I looked over my shoulder and saw the rugby scrum had formed at the buoy which was the first checkpoint. Teams could have literally walked across a dozen boats to clip their card. It was a mess.

We finished the first paddle and hoped onto our bikes for a ride to Mt Taylor. Krissi and I formed up behind our team packhorse, Wayne and we rode hard passing many teams along the way. Our strategy of chasing seemed to be working well. We caught Millie who had to back track for a checkpoint and things all seemed to be going brilliantly.

At Mt Taylor we dumped the bikes and did a short orienteering leg, then jumped onto the bikes for a very short ride to the other side of Mt Taylor. We now had a foot rogaining section to complete. We followed the route I had chosen prior to the start and hit all the checkpoints straight on. But running back to the transition I asked Wayne to double check the control card and he said 22 was missing. Confused I checked the map. I had completely missed it when I marked up the map and realised we had run straight past it. First mistake, a few minute backtrack and we transitioned onto the bike.

After picking up a couple of checkpoints we headed to Kambah down the Mt Taylor firetrail. This was a solid climb up a hill, a wild descent into a saddle, back up the other side and onto checkpoint 30. Fun to ride, but the climbs where tough and the descent a little hairy with the flat pedals we where running. I later discovered there was a really easy flat firetrail to the right of the trail we took. Second mistake. Note to self; take a lot more time in map preparation before the race.

We headed through Kambah and I proceeded to pile on the mistakes, took the wrong underpass under Drakeford Drive, lost time due to a backtrack at the Golf course and took a wrong turn in the hills behind Kambah. Team ADFA caught and passed us due to these errors and team morale was a little stretched. Little did we know that Krissi has been "talking it up" to Team ADFA earlier in the week and pride was now on the line!!

We dropped the bikes and started the last orienteering leg. This was fun as they were not marked on our map but done treasure hunt style, each checkpoint had a map to the next. Seeing the numerous Roos along the way to 33 almost made it feel like we where on a leisurely bush walk rather than a race. At check point 34 we discovered that 35 was on Urambi Hill, a monster climb in the heat. We dragged ourselves up it a little depressed that we had lost site of Team ADFA. But the view at the top of Urambi Hill was sensational. Well worth the effort and seemed to re-energise us. We seemed to fly down to 36 and 37. Heading back to the transition we saw ADFA again. We ran hard into transition and, with ADFA in our sites and Krissi yelling to us "Come on guys have to catch this team" she took off on a mission with us in hot pursuit overtaking them not long after that.

The next leg was a ride to the river behind Tuggeranong. It was very frustrating as there seemed to be a gate every 200 metres so we got a lot of practise throwing our bikes over fences. Down to the river and Mystery leg was revealed, we had to grab 3 car inner tubes and run a km up river and float back. Fantastic. In the heat it was the best feeling. When we finished I asked my teammates if they wanted to do it again. They where tempted but we decided it might be a better idea to finish the race instead.

Back on the bikes for a quick ride back to the start and into the boats for the last leg. Mikey Munro-Mobbs was yelling something like “you could still win this” and we then realised there was only one mixed team in front of us and they where doing the long paddle. We hit the water and paddled hard. We had forgotten to put our drinks bottle on the kayak and where feeling dehydrated but we figured we only had about 20 minutes to go so we would be ok.

In no time we crossed the finish line. The feeling was great. We had hoped to do better than 4th place mixed but to win was a well earned bonus. A quick dip in the water to cool off and we settled down to cheer the rest of the teams over the finish line.

A couple of notable mentions where teams Fitness First and Paper Rock Scissors. Fitness First carried a team mate with a very badly sprained ankle from the bikes to the last paddle, completed the last leg and then carried him from the boat across the finish line. Paper Rock Scissors where suffering badly from the heat when they started the last leg but completed. When they crossed the finish line Peter Evans could hardly walk from cramps and Erin Hunt was suffering so much she threw up just after finishing. My hats off to both teams them they are a really tough bunch.

Thanks heaps to Tom and Alina and the volunteers for putting on such a fantastic event yet again. Everyone I spoke to had a great time. At the race presentation I discovered there was a 13 year old in one team and two 56 year old women also competing. Just goes to show anyone that is prepared to give it a go can do these races.