Many thanks to Thermatech

A big thanks to Thermatech for coming on board with some sponsorship for the upcoming season. For the multisport newcomer Thermatech are a quality multisport and outdoor performance brand. They focus on technical apparel for outdoor sports and are even branching out too everyday performance apparel. Check out http://www.thermatech.co.nz/ for more info. You'll be pleasantly surprised at the prices too!

Wulong Quest 2011 - The final wrap

Wednesday 31st August:
After a 6 week build up I felt I was ready.....too bad if I wasn't as now wasn't the time to 2nd guess myself. Meeting Nathan at the airport we headed for Auckland, final destination for the day Hong Kong for an overnight stop over.

Thursday 1st September:

Today Nath and I treated ourselves to an all out buffet breakfast at the Hotel. This would be the last western food to be eaten for almost 2 weeks. Lets hope the Chinese have upped their game in the Hygene department...Later we met Rich and Elina at the airport, flew the 2hrs to Chong qing, and took a bus through kilometers of tunnels to Wulong town and our resort Hotel located at a height of 1800m.

Friday 2nd September:

Nath woke with beginnings of a chest infection. Not ideal but he had stocked up on truckloads of Vit C so all going well it will improve tomorrow. Spent the day putting bikes together, went for an easy ride and getting gear sorted for Saturday's prologue. Unfortunately for Toread, Dougal Allan had to leave the briefing for a vomit. not a great start poor buggers.

Saturday 3rd September:

Up early for breakfast and a 30 minute bus down to hill to a resort town for the Prologue. Looking like it will be 45mins to an hour max. Here are my email notes from the day:

Hi Guys

Just had prologue....all 41 mins of it! Was intense and full of action. Trying to put  blog on but won't let me onto site. Maybe you could put a summary on Facebook for me with the guts of it:

- We won over team 'out there USA' by about 1-2mins. Toread 3rd(Dougal, Marcel, Fleur and Jacob).

- Nath suffering a bit of a chest infection but had a typical blinder and was strong. Elina riding great, very impressive actually.

- Prologue was a 2km up hill run, then a 500m chair carry where we carried Elina on our shoulders...awkward but can't complain as Rich took half weight at front and Nath and I split the back. Then onto a 4km biathlon where Rich and I paired up biking for a km or so before dropping the bikes for Nath & Elina who were running. Then 6km gravel bike with some shifty descents mainly due to wearing runners on clip pedals. Finally a 1.3km run to the finish. Very hot and humid, altitude of 1300m which was much easier than where we were staying at 1800m.

- Some of the carnage so far:

              - Dougal and Jacob of Toread, and Mimi of Thule had bad night with spews and trotts last night.

              - Chinese teams jumped the gun by a few secs this morning and caused Elina and Mimi to hit the deck hard. Elina Ok but Mimi has bad arm and in lots of pain.

              - Louise Mark fell off bike and seriously damaged shoulder. Tears were common place today!

              - Adidas badly tore a 29er tire beyond repair so will prob have to borrow one of ours for remainder of race. AXA also had 2 punctures today!

So all in all nothing to complain about. Prob going to do back country meals for evening meal today...

Anyway, time to chill. Have a great Sunday!

T

Sunday 4th September: Stage 1 of Racing: Here is my email home after day 1......

Really hot today. Thankfully we dropped to 350m before racing started but with height lost comes temperature rise and it got to high 30s this afternoon. We had one hell of a day and are all pretty tired. Managed a win with a 16min lead over the Americans. Its then about another 26 odd minutes back to 3rd (AXA of Sweden)

Summary of day:

- Started with a 10km biathlon. I worked with Rich and Nath worked with Elina again. This was too fast off the blocks in the heat for me and Rich is insanely fit at the moment. I was smoked....and we finished it in 28mins!

- Then onto a a swim of just over a km with shoes and life jacket on. The temp was refreshing but I turned to help Nath who was struggling with his breathing hooked him up on tow then lost my way and couldn't swim straight. Ended up with Nath ahead of me (disconnected) and swimming on my own....ah well.

- Then Rich and I ran up 50m of stairs to collect our remaining 2 bikes (will explain later!), put them on a raft then raft them back to the other side. Not enough room for all of us so we towed Rich swimming.

- Onto the bikes for a mainly uphill 2hour ride. By now it was getting hot. Started hyperventilating from the intensity which I've never had before but nearly had to sit down. Really unco on the first 20mins of bike but came right. Rich by now though was flying and towing Elina faster than Nath and I could handle. We did hang in there but there was a major amount of suffering. Seemed to climb forever (Nath struggling due to breathing, me due to heat, biathlon etc, killer!). Eventually the hill relented and we had a bit of downhill to TA and 15mins rest.

- after rest Nath and I abseiled off a 100+ m bridge while Rich and Elina ran down. Amazing abseil!

- Then into a canyoning section for 70mins. Lots of Rock hopping with a couple of 4-5m jumps into pools and some abseils down waterfalls. Awesome!! Finally got some respite from the heat for a while anyway. As the reservoir we were heading to is low the final km was mud. Mud so deep we couldn't walk in it. We could only move by crawling to increase the surface area on the mud. Exhausting work....

- Then into the kayaks for a 16km paddle. Intense heat and by now we were all knackered. Nath was paddling really well but Rich after 20mins was hitting a wall. We swapped boats so I paddled with Rich and Nath with Elina. My inexperience with paddling rudderless boats showed and not sure I helped his situation. With a few km to paddle Rich was really suffering and we lost some ground although not much to Nathan and Elina.

- Once berthed at the end of the paddle we had a 15min stair climb to a cave then a 15min run through the cave (Tourist cave and lit up). The heat was by now knocking us around a bit. I managed to do some form of extra work and tow Rich up the hill while Nath battled on at the back. Elina was still going strong!

- Out of the cave and over the finish line.....!

So thats day one. All I can say is that I'm extremely humbled by Rich's strength all day. He is one hell of an athlete and If I had a choice I'd race against him than with him any day. Its a lot easier!

On the other front: Dougal spewed all day, but team still 4th...Legends. More people sick. Field now spread far and wide.

Hope to email again tomorrow if I survive...

Monday 5th September: Stage 2

Today the original plan was to put more time on our closest rivals to ease the pressure on stage 3. This changed dramatically at 5:30am with a visit from Rich. Elinba had been up most of the night vomiting and was understandably weak and tired. There and then the plan changed to a much more conservative aim of shadowing "out there USA" currently 2nd and 17 minutes behind.

Starting the day was a short run to the boats followed by a 15km downstream paddle to Wulong town containing the odd grade 1 rapid. With Nath "powerhouse" Fa'avae seated behind Elina and Rich with myself we headed off conservatively downstream. Nath put in a great paddle to keep up with Rich and I who had to button off the pace. Strangely we were not caught (we had a staggered start leaving 30secs before 2nd) and even more surprisingly we put a couple of minutes gap into them! Not a bad start to a day that had nervous expectations.

Next up: a 90minute mountain bike mainly up hill. This would be a test for Elina. Quickly opting for a conservative pace on the climb the wind died and I again began to suffer in the heat. Rich was making solid progress towing Elina and I was able to help out Nath who was battling with his breathing, a further progression of the chest infection. With 30mins of climbing ticked off a breeze picked up aptly named the "Wulong doctor" and things began to improve. Until......half way down the hill we missed a single track to our right and in the process of regathering it 'Out there USA' sneaked past and took the day's lead. A fast tarmac roll into transition left the damage resting at 2 minutes deficit. Bugger!

Section 3 for today - a run/ cave section. By now Thule and several other teams were not far behind motivating a no nonsense approach following a 15minute compulsary stop. Straight into a 300m climb what should have been my strong point for me quickly became a period of suffering at the back. Nath and Rich looked after Elina while I concentrated on keeping up. Into the cave and headlight issues had me using the light of Nath and Elina to guide me. The cave was amazing. Not only was it a welcome drop in temperature but there was plenty of technical rock hopping interspersed with short abseils and swimming. After all the swimming I actually felt cold - Brilliant! And this meant that I was now feeling strong and good to go again. Out of the cave and into an 80m abseil. Nath and I went first and while I felt the descent was quick Nath hit the ground just as I hit half way! The stitching on his harness had popped not only filling his jocks but motivating an insanely quick abseil! Rich and Elina touched down shortly after and we ran the final 10mins to transition hot on the American's heels.

Smoking through transition (choosing not to refill water) Out there USA headed off on the final mountain bike section starting with an honest 25minute climb. Feeling strong, I towed Elina for the initial part of the climb and was able to help Nath with the final part of the climb. Next up was a rather mental single track section along the wall of an irrigation channel. Although close to 2ft wide the consequences on each side were a 2m drop onto concrete or a dirt bank drop. Then onto a 4wd fast gravel descent to the final transition and a 3km run to the finish (Which Nath and I did in bike shoes after forgetting to carry runners...oops!)

It had been a great team day. Everyone had drawn together to minimise the damage leaving us 2nd by only 2 minutes. Elina had shown great strength and we immediately felt more confident going into the 3rd and final stage tomorrow.

Tuesday 6th September: Stage 3

With the results of the first 3 days accounted for we would start today 16mins ahead of 2nd, 'Out there USA'. Mike Kloser hadn't had the best night with a crook gut and we were unsure how Elina would fare up after her rough day yesterday. The plan today...shadow 2nd to ensure we kept the overall lead taking extra care on the bike to avoid unnecessary punctures or mechanicals.

The stage was to be at altitude, starting at Fairy Mountain (1800m). Section 1 would be a vegetable relay. Team members were to sprint 200m, collect a vegetable (cabbage, parsnip etc), sprint back and swap over. I went last and was with no surprises out of breath as we started a roughly 90minute run to the reservior. To our surprise teams ranked 3rd and beyond sprinted past us in the initial kilometers only to be collected as we entered an amazing forested single track, winding it's way up but mainly down to the kayaks. Only 2mins behind a much healthier Toread we made short work of them in the 6km paddle drawing even as transition loomed.

Onto the bikes we went, about a minute behind a quickly transitioned Toread and into a 25minute climb out of the valley. Over the top, down a fast tarmac downhill, some climbing, some carrying then more climbing when suddenly we entered transition. About 4km early but who were we to complain! 90secs back on Toread we set about organising harnesses, food and drink for the final abseil and 20km run section during the heat of the day.

Abseil complete we hit the trails, quickly catching Toread who were still finding a rhythm. Rich then made a decision to button off slightly, get a good steady pace going and not worry specifically about the stage win. For some reason I found this approach harder, I guess because I was knackered and had the thought that if the pace wasn't 100% I should feel much better....the mind plays some silly games sometimes.

Soon enough a 1000m climb loomed overhead slowing the pace to a fast walk/ jog. Once over the top and back in the "Table lands" the impression was that a finish could be close by. WRONG! Another hour went by weaving our way around an array of tracks and roads eventually spiraling us into the finish. To avoid any rushed finish efforts a final challenge was bestowed. Paint ball target shooting. Last to shoot and sceptical of the sight I pointed at the target and fired. Another 4 shots with feedback from Nath ripped off before I hit, narrowly saving myself a 200m penalty run. Then off down the finish chute---->>>> AWESOME!!!!!

We had finished 2 minutes down on Toread for the day but had won the overall race by close to 40minutes. Considering Elina's rough night after stage 1 and Nath's chest infection it had been a great race.

I can't speak enough of my team. Rich was incredibly strong. In fact if it came to a choice I'd rather race against him than with him (This way I can drop off the pace whenever I want!). Elina was super also especially given her rough time with the food. Nath was a wealth of experience and always on the pace despite feeling below par for the entire race.

A Big thanks must go to Champion Systems and Asia Pacific Adventure who without their support racing would have been much more difficult.

And finally continual thanks must go to the sponsors who make my racing possible:

R & R Sport, Rasdex kayak equipment, La Sportiva off road shoes, The Frontrunner and of course migym Nelson!