Firstly a bit of background about this race and my team.
The GSAR is a two day race around the Albany area. Disciplines are running, mountain biking and paddling. We were required to provide our own boats suitable for ocean and river use. We chose to use plastic surf skis. Teams are made up of 4 people with only 3 people on the course at any one time. We needed to provide our own support crew and vehicle. Best of all, we were promised some sleep in a bed on Saturday night.
The secret to a good team is bonding. People who know each other like family who will pull together through thick and thin. I first came across my team mates 4 weeks earlier at the Albany training weekend; they couldn’t paddle, had just lost a man to a broken wrist and I didn’t have a team. A few emails later and Rhys convinced me to join up. The guys hired a paddle coach and I promised to do some running. We managed to meet up for one group paddle and that was our bonding.
And so to race weekend. Due to work commitments I didn’t even manage to travel down with them but we were soon unpacking in the rain in Albany.
Friday night was the race briefing. There was lots of guff about sponsors, environmental issues and thanking all the right people as we impatiently waited for our map book. We knew the course set by man mountain Tom Smithergale would be tough but the general consensus amongst the competitors was that is was impossible. The first cut off was at 1600 and by our best estimation we were going to miss it by 2 hours. Ah well, everyone was in the same boat.
So after picking up kebabs we spent an evening back out our digs frantically marking up and waterproofing maps, trying to understand the rules and packing kit. Eventually just after midnight I ordered everyone to bed. We had to be up at 5am and we needed some sleep, however fitful, before the huge weekend ahead.
Race day dawned and the miserable weather we had arrived in seemed to have cleared up. Best of all the ocean looked pretty amenable as we dropped the boats off at Middleton Beach ready for Leg 2. It was then round to the high street for the massed start.
The first Leg was a massed scramble over Mount Clarence to answer a series of local history questions. Teams were allowed one mountain biker and 2 runners on this stage and unusually for adventure racers we had 3 maps and were allowed to split up.
As we formed our strategy the one public toilet and one disabled toilet groaned under the use of lots of nervous, over excited, over hydrated adventure racers. At 7am we were off and running. Will was our cyclist and he had the furthest away points so he shot off. Rhys and I were running and we spotted a couple of local teams to follow for a short cut through some back alleys up to Mount Clarence. Rhys is a thoroughbred-running-whippet so I let him go on the steep climb knowing that he had a bit further to go to get the questions allocated to him.
My questions were all straight forward apart from having to search the dozens of plaques on the commemorative trees on Apex Drive. I was one of the first to arrive here and searched for ages in vain. Eventually as more competitors arrived it became pretty obvious where the answers were to be found. It is very hard to hide your excitement when you do finally find what you’re looking for.
A nice gentle run down to Middleton Beach ended my efforts for a while. With the conditions looking benign I let the other 3 guys paddle this first leg. I thought that it would be nice for them to paddle together after their superb efforts in training and my supposedly superior paddling skills would be required later in the race.
Having waved them off I headed back to the house with our fantastic support team Kate and Sarah to collect the remaining mountain bikes and a nice cup of tea.
As we drove down Nanarup Rd to the end of the paddle we were shocked to see the lead two teams leaving on foot. Those guys must‘ve flown.
Arriving on the beach and we were greeted by 3m of crashing surf and a carnage of boats, paddles and people being washed up, rarely connected. Fortunately our brave boys picked a great landing spot and a small set of waves to come in on and we were hugely relieved when made it safely to shore. During a frantic transition they excitedly told us of the whales they had seen and who had had the most swims.
Now my day started properly and we were off running. Thankfully the navigation proved straightforward and the terrain easy going so we were able to travel at a gentle jog for much of the time. One slight map reading mistake saw us lose a couple of minutes on the train of 9 teams that we were travelling around with but it was no big deal.
Back in transition our support crew excitedly told us that only a handful of teams had been through. We didn’t really believe them but were encouraged as we climbed on our bikes, the definite strength of our team. Some early supposed short cuts may not have been as beneficial as we hoped as we ended up overtaking the same team three times and I got a nasty jolt climbing over an electric fence. However we really ripped up the ks and continued to pass more and more teams. These guys could really ride so I was happy.
Despite our super speedy efforts on the bikes we were still going to be really tight for the first cut off, even though it had been put back an hour. With shoes quickly swapped we set off and we were soon looking disbelievingly up at an insanely steep and overgrown path that went right over the Porongurups. Surely this wasn’t our trail? It was and we slogged our way over it as fast as tired legs would take us with no chance to stop and catch our breath.
At the boot wash station on other side we decided to skip the next two check points, incurring a 4 hour time penalty, but ensuring that we would reach the cut off and a guaranteed finish above teams who did not make it. Despite our huge short cut we still had to run pretty hard the last 2km to make sure we made it.
With the time pressure off for the time being we scrambled up the hill to Castle Rock and enjoyed the views and great fun abseil off the top. It was a shame that more teams didn’t make it here as this was by far the highlight of the race.
I then had a well earned rest after getting the guys set up on their bikes and sending them off on a 60km ride back the long way around the Porongurups. Only minutes after waving them off I realised that we had made a monumental mistake. The only way that we would hit the next cut off was to ride directly down the out of bounds Chester Pass Rd missing all the check points and picking up hours of penalties. However under these race rules cut offs were everything.
As we drove down in the cars we passed literally dozens of teams taking the short cut. Fortunately many of these had missed the cut off at Castle Rock but it was gutting to know that we had just blown 2 or 3 places after working so hard all day.
The next transition was at the Kalgan Bridge where teams were meant to paddle to the overnight camp at Quaranup. By now it was dark, there was no phone reception and confusion was rife. No-one knew exactly where their team was, what course they had done and when they were going arrive. Boats were unloaded and loaded again, teams arrived and left and the 8pm cut off drew ever nearer. At 2 minutes to 8 we witnessed farcical scenes as a team arrived dragged their boats to the river and got changed on the water to make the cut off.
Unsurprisingly our boys were nowhere to be seen. They had 60km of mud, hills and checkpoints to navigate. The teams that zoomed 15km down the highway were struggling.
Eventually they arrived and I gave them the bad news. They weren’t too upset as I don’t think anyone really fancied the night paddle. So I swapped out for Will and we cycled 25km to Emu Point to finish the day.
It was midnight when we arrived at Camp Quaranup. We scoffed some food, heard a few horror stories from the night paddle and some took a shower; I opted for 10 more minutes valuable sleep.
No sooner had heads hit the pillow than alarms were going off and it was time for the 4am briefing. Another pile of maps, more complicated logistics and our support crew on the other side of Albany. We just about made it down to the beach in time for the start of Day 2 but it was only when we launched that I realised I hadn’t had any breakfast. A quick rummage in my PFD revealed one energy gel. I couldn’t even manage to untangle my drinking hose to wash the vile sludge down with some water.
After cruising along to the surreal site of 150 kayaks and skis each with their own faint glow stick in the pre-dawn gloom we rounded Vancouver Penninsula to the site of a fast advancing squall of wind and rain. It was every man for himself now as we crawled around Frenchmans Bay into the fierce winds and steepening waves as huge rains drops were painfully blown into our faces. I could see people struggling around me but there was little I could do. Stopping paddling or deviating from my course for one moment would see me lose ground that I had spent huge amounts of energy gaining.
It is such conditions that are sent to test us and I wouldn’t have signed up for this race if I thought it was going to be easy. Eventually we crawled into shore and hauled the boats out the water after what was one of the toughest and most satisfying paddles of my life.
A super slow transition followed as we peeled off cold wet clothes and reluctantly changed into cycling gear. Here we made our second major tactical error of the day. Like the first Leg yesterday we were allowed to split up to collect check points but we somehow left with only 2 of the 3 maps and one climbing harness (required for this stage) between us. Motivation was at an all time low so we stuck together and battled the head winds and rain together.
I finally managed to get some breakfast; a packet of snakes, as Rhys was doing the flying fox over the Gap. Rather him than me in those weather conditions.
Transition 10 was on top of a massive hill at the wind farm. A warm mug of soup, some fantastic homemade Rocky Road and another set of dry clothes got us moving on the coastal run along the Bibbulmun Track safe in the knowledge that the final paddle leg had been cancelled due to the raging storm.
We jogged much of this leg and the weather actually picked up a bit. The final check points had been moved away from the cliffs and offshore island that we had originally been meant to swim to but we still couldn’t find them so just took the time penalty.
We were nearly finished now and I took my first rest of the day as the team cycled back into town before we ran the final 5km all together around the headland and over the finish line at Middleton Beach.
Our huge efforts, both from the other guys in training, and over this weekend were rewarded with 3rd place in the male category. Best of all was our enormous sense of achievement in finishing this extremely tough course over some beautiful but harsh terrain in, at times, terrible weather.
We’ll definitely be back next year going even harder. The organisers have promised an easier course, although a large part of us hopes that it isn’t too easy…