James and I participated in the Adventure race at falls creek 19th and 20th February with Cara and debbie in tow as our support crew . Saturday started with a short mountain bike down to the lake . Unfortunately the support crew got lost on the way to T1 at the lake and a mishap with our kayak meant we were paddling rather chunky kayaks for the next leg . We’d dropped from 4th to last after our rather slow kayak leg. the next leg was a “moutainbike/trek” of Around 25km . Basically you rode your bike till you got somewhere near a checkpoint then trekked off into the bush to find it. we wasted considerable time hiking carrying our bike looking for one of the optional checkpoints which we never found . the trek to the next compulsory point was a trek up a steep hill through thick bush. the rest of the checkpoints on the rest of the leg were much easier to find . next leg was meant to be a surfboard paddle but with strong winds blowing and a lack of surfboards it became a short run/swim . we then took a short break to eat some food . the next leg was a doozy , another moutainbike/trek that would end eventually at bogong after around 50 km . the start of it was open enough though up very steep terrain . it then became a narrow hiking track often interspersed with fallen logs and wet areas . it was just a little to technical for me to ride a lot of it but jJames seems to be able to ride is bike over just about anything . the eventual descent was steep and a lot of it on bumpy fire road . we eventually had to make a decision to go past 2 checkpoints to get to bogong before another deadline of 5 pm to be able to start the next leg . coming into bogong our path was blocked by a locked gate and we had to scale down a steep wooded hill to the road. the next 3km was an orienteering leg around bogong interspersed by a ropes course . to our later detriment we didn’t take this leg too seriously. the final leg of the day was a short paddle round the lake at bogong and stopping and finding the checkpoints on of which was idden on a bridge a long walk from navigable water. 10 hours and 34 minutes out in the elements but when we found out our race time it was 34 hours ! 24 hours of time penalties , 3hours each penalty and six of them were in the 3km leg at bogong.

sunday started with a kayak leg . this time no kayak mishap . Our support crew however , who thought we would be much slower than the 1 hour quoted for the leg ,  decided to walk from the lake back to Falls Creek and did not arrive back before we finished the kayak leg 53 minutes later ! The next leg was a bike on the mountain bike trails at Falls . The early trails I could handle but soon for me it was too technical and James spent considerable time waiting ! next leg was a run/hike with most of the checkpoints off the track somewhere in the bush . we were able to find all the checkpoints though was almost 50 minutes finding the second one . The distance for the leg was quoted between 10-16km , but it was actually 20 km! We were unable to make the deadline of 2 pm for the leg which meant we had to skip  the next leg – and take a 12 hour time penalty – and  bike back to the falls village to the finish. A bit more specific training and we will be dangerous .