The Big Bang Adventure Race is the ‘big’ race of the year. Funny that!
Anyone that has been following me or my blog for a while will know that this year James and I have been doing ‘adventure’ races. After three ‘Dirt Duathlons’ (and the Spirited Women for me) we’re now feeling ready for something a bit bigger or longer.
If you’re new to the blog, or don’t know what an adventure race is, Wikipedia has this to say:
Adventure racing (also called expedition racing) is typically a multidisciplinary team sport involving navigation over an unmarked wilderness course with races extending anywhere from two hours up to two weeks in length. Some races offer solo competitions as well. The principal disciplines in adventure racing include trekking, mountain biking, and paddling although races can incorporate a multitude of other disciplines including climbing, abseiling, horse riding, skiing and white water rafting. Teams generally vary in gender mix and in size from two to five competitors, however, the premier format is considered to be mixed-gender teams of four racers. There is typically no suspension of the clock during races, irrespective of length; elapsed competition time runs concurrently with real-time, and competitors must choose if or when to rest.
Adventure racing. (2023). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_racing
This race had a few legs:
– Orienteering
– Mountain Biking
– Orienteering again
– Tubing
We got off to a good (but slow) start in the first section. It was about 10km and took us 3.5 hours. It was in a heavily wooded area for the most part, and very hilly. The general idea is that you use your map and read it properly and follow your map (and it’s helpful notes) to each checkpoint. This is the traditional orienteering part of the race. We are rubbish at this. I think the thing that always sets us back time wise is that we think we can make better time if we go off the track. We never do. This time was no different.
Making our way back to the next leg, we were given the choice of continuing on (and possibly taking too long and and not completing that leg), or skipping the mountain biking and going straight to the second on-foot leg. We chose to skip because even though we’d get a time penalty, we’d still aim to ‘finish’.
The second (or should that be third) leg was actually really good. We made great time and it was much easier than the first leg because it was point-to-point racing (i think thats what it’s called), where you look for the markers or ribbons round trees or bushes.
As you can see, it was a lovely bright afternoon.
The forest was really dense, and at times it was quite hard to see the markers. I appeared to be fairly good at spotting them though, so we were making really good time compared to the first leg! It was still hard though…but a lot easier to find our way and a lot easier to follow the map.
At various points throughout the day there were ‘detours’.
These are completely random activities that you cannot pass until you have completed. The one that we came across was Blackjack. As you can see in the image, they take it fairly seriously!
We weren’t there for very long, it was quite fun. Once you finish you get sweeties!
We were doing so well…until I stepped down the hill with a bit too much oomph and rolled my right ankle. I wasn’t sure if the cracking noise was my ankle or the twigs underfoot, but it was extremely painful and I wasn’t going anywhere quickly.
At first I thought maybe I could just sit there for a bit and chill and then it might be okay.
It wasn’t.
We asked a few people to ‘speak to a grown up’ when they got to the Hub and after a short while three lovely people from Land, Search and Rescue came to see us.
Initially they asked how long ago I had fallen, I said, “…not long, about 20 minutes”. Then they asked what I taken in terms of pain killers, so I told them, and they asked how long ago, I said, “…oh, about 20 minutes ago…” Then they asked how long i’d been sat there in total, I said, “20 minutes!”
At this point James jumped in and said that we had in fact been sitting here for about an hour, and that it had been about 40 minutes since I took some painkillers…I think I must have been in shock?!
They did a quick survey of the terrain and my foot and decided that the best option for everyone was to pack the ankle up, and then try to get me to a place where we could get a bit more support – physically I mean, we were on a steep hill, so helping me down was a bit risky for everyone else.
I managed to half hobble and half shuffle on my bum down the hill to a flat area, where they called in the troops to assist.
Just incase you’re wondering, it takes 20 volunteers to remove someone from the bush. TWENTY. They strapped me into the body board and wrapped me up in gold foil. Then they sort of made a production line of people and we moved onwards. It’s very clever really. Some of the time, where it was mostly flat or easy to manoeuvre, they had a set group of people carrying me, three or four on each side. But where the terrain was a bit dodgy, they set up a human chain and I was passed along and then the people that had just passed me on moved to the end to carry on the line. Very clever.
It wasn’t the easiest of journeys, but from where I was laying it didn’t feel too bad actually. I did really need a wee by this point but what was I going to do!?
James tells me we were about 1km from the end of the leg (how annoying, that wouldn’t have taken very long to have completed), but that it took a fair few hours to actually get out. Once out they put me into a ute to get the last few metres back to the Hub. We opted to drive ourselves to the Hospital because an ambulance would have taken us to Palmerston North. Driving ourselves we could go home to Lower Hutt and at least James could drop me off and go home and have a shower and feed the dogs etc.
At the hospital I went straight to the reception to fill in all the forms and then wheeled myself (I managed to find a wheelchair) to the waiting area. The triage nurse was fairly quick to see me, but I was mortified when I had to remove my shoe…my foot was gross and covered in mud and river remnants. Anyway, the nurse didn’t seem to care that much and said we’d get x-rays to be sure that nothing was broken.
After a LONG wait, I was eventually seen and thankfully nothing was broken. However, it was sprained and theres not a lot they can do for that. So I was sent off with crutches and a prescription for painkillers.
So, overall an eventful event. Hopefully next year we’ll actually finish…and neither of us will injure ourselves!
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