Race Report #7: DAY SIX (22km Kayak, 91km Mountain Bike ((100k)) and the start of the 90km Trek ((60k))

The kayak leg consisted of a 22km downriver paddle. The water wasn't moving fast enough to influence the boat at all, but just being close to land can make you feel like you are moving faster...or slower depending on your mindset! We were able to keep 'Capital Stamina' within sight of us for the first few hours. The paddle was broken up with two portage sections around what were referred to as 'weirs', which were basically a cascading water drop on a small damn structure.

We were still about ten minutes behind C.S. when we started our first portage, but a focused effort on our part allowed us to launch our boats on the opposite side in unison. They were more effective paddlers than us and after a few minutes of pleasantries went back to work and created a gap between us again. There were some really fun sections of shallow water to navigate and for hundreds of meters at a time someone would be hoping out of the kayak to tow it along or help it off of some rocks. Everyone was soaking wet and we were very happy that we did not decide to attempt this section at night. I never had the chance to personally talk to any teams that did, but one story that made its way back to us was of a team actually hitting the second weir and having to back paddle before taking a fifteen foot drop in their kayaks! There were some glow sticks to illuminate the pull out, but I guess some car lights from the side had drowned out the glow sticks and they overshot the take out and came up solid on the top of the weir itself! Talk about an adrenaline rush!

In between the two weirs Mark spotted a swimming snake! I was amazed that this little green guy was so efficient in the water and again I reached for my camera. Nick seemed to think that swimming snakes were incredibly boring and he did not stop paddling long enough for me to snap a shot of it. Damn Aussies!!

By the time we arrived at the second weir team Capital Stamina were again a few minutes ahead of us. We put in yet another focused and efficient portage and managed to actually launch ahead of them on the other side! There was only a few km's of paddling left and we managed to hold them off and hop out of the boats first.

We were docking on the opposite side of the highway to our transition point and basically had a third, short portage to get to our supplies for the next biking leg. With C.S. right on us and a friendly rivalry ensuing we had our best transition of the entire event...in fact we had the fastest transition of any team!! We took just 30min to transport and deflate our boats, refill our food and fluid supplies, assemble our bikes and hit the road. It was five minutes faster than any other team could manage! I was also surprised to see that after a 5hr13min paddle, we had the 6th fastest time on the water! Somehow our paddling time in this race was saving us from our running injuries and biking issues.

After consecutive nights with 4hr's of sleep, everyone was feeling great. We were on the home stretch in terms of the overall event and had managed to get through some soul destroying troubles thus far. We knew that the 91km bike ride was fairly flat and had a lot of road involved. After a twenty minute slower ride to warm up and get the bodies to accept the pain we started to drop a few gears and really open it up with a nice pace line. The kilometers were ticking away nicely and we managed to catch a few teams early on. About half way into the ride my chain started skipping again and just a few kilometers later it snapped. We were fortunate that it happened as we were passing through a small town and a local boy came over to see what was up. He was bouncing his Aussie Rules Football as he approached.

He asked where we were from and what we were doing before Nick had a few questions of his own,

"Hey mate, do you think you could fill up a water bottle for me?"

"Yeah!" He ran off and was back within seconds.

"WOW, that was fast, think you can do another one even faster than that?"

"YEAH!!"

Nick had found us a water boy and kept him busy while I was tending to my chain. I ended up minus four links after the two breaks, and I knew that I would have to keep myself from fully extending my chain within my gears now. We actually felt bad that we had to leave so quickly, as our new friend looked like he needed some footy mates for the day!

In the later half of this bike stage we once again caught up to and quickly passed numerous teams...and as was now to be expected by this point in time, the stage was going to be longer than the listed distance. As we were counting down the kilometers on a very fast ride we realized that there was still a pretty big climb to conquer. The stage ended up being over a 100km in total, but outside of my quick fix with the chain we were without major issue. It was the first time in the entire event that we had been able to bike consistently and uninterrupted as a team, and we clocked the 4th fastest overall time of 5hr37min because of it. The top team on the stage were just 40min faster than us over the 100km and they had a World Cup Mountain Biker on their team!

We arrived at transition with numerous competitors just in front of us. Our stated goal for the last few days had been to stay on top of our sleep and finish the race strong. Even after all of our troubles throughout the race we were right on the cusp of a top ten placing. Now we were heading into what was considered the make or break stage of the race, a 90km trek, having already covering over 600km of terrain, we decided to take our time in transition and make sure we were on top of everything. Megan, Mark and Nick went to work on fixing up their blisters. I have always been fortunate with my feet and wasn't suffering too bad, outside of a small toenail issue. The nail was practically dangling anyways so I sucked it up and ripped the damn thing off. A bit of medical tape over top and I was finished with my feet. (After running the WCT and JDFT and completing XPD I sit here now with but three toenails attached to my feet, total. It's pretty horrible actually and I am embarrassed when I wear sandals now.)

I went about trying to locate a new bike chain. After removing four links from my chain already, it was starting to skip again towards the very end of our ride, and with just 60km of biking remaining, I did not want to take any chances! Amazingly one racer did have a spare (Markus from Caffeinated Adventure Racing, THANKS) and was kind enough to give it to me. I immediately replaced my chain, and then realized that the newly acquired chain was longer than what my bike accepts. I removed it and went about counting and popping out links. It was a timely process but eventually I had a fully functional bike again.

When we had arrived at this transition we were told that the top two teams had taken a full 24 hours to clear this stage, and that the third place team had yet to be heard from! We went about stuffing our bags with two days worth of food and batteries. Any mistake in our packing now could cost us dearly in the end. The packs were so stuffed that everyone was trying to find room in someone else's bag to hide things. If you turned your back for too long your pack would somehow gain five pounds!

Just as we were ready to depart they called all the teams in and said that they had to shorten the course due to how tough the navigation had been on the top teams and how long they anticipated some of the slower teams to be out there for. They dropped a few CP's from the left side of the map, which took about 30km off of the route if I'm not mistaken. We had arrived at this transition right at nightfall, having to turn on our bike lights for the last 2km of the ride. We had discussed pairing up with another team by the name of 'AWREC' (A Wreck), who we had been seeing quite a bit of in the last few days as well. They ended up ready to go about twenty minutes before us so we told them we'd try to catch up.

The trek started off with a simply monstrous climb. We had to turn on and crank up our i-pod tunes to stay awake and after a few hours of climbing we were starting to falter and slow significantly. Out of nowhere a fellow racer blew past us. He wasn't running but held a significant hiking pace, enough so that it scared the hell outta us when he caught up! He was trying to pace his teammates but they were lagging just behind. Megan, Nick, Mark and I realized that this was our saving grace and immediately everyone paired off with another racer. I hiked on ahead to catch their lead guy and to try and slow him down! Eventually everyone settled into a nice steady pace and both teams were travelling faster because of it.

More often than not it's easier for the navigator to have another team around, but from time to time navigators can get to talking and forget to stay focused on the maps. Both teams ended up trekking a few kilometers past a CP that was hidden in the forest and we all had to double back. Along the way we met up with a third team that had just gotten up from a short sleep and between the three of us we managed to locate the CP, albeit about 80 meters deeper into the bush than was described. I was very thankful to have other teams around while searching for this one at 2am!

Up until this point the trek had been all along a prominent 4x4 road. Travel to the next CP was where the real race would begin. From here it consisted of one huge bushwhack, and at midnight everyone was having trouble getting a precise bearing on the maps. If we did not know exactly where we were then it would be next to impossible to shoot an accurate bearing for the next CP. After much fumbling about we all agreed that it would simply make more sense to get some sleep and start our bushwhack at dawn. We lay down for what would be a 2hr nap from 3am-5am.

It was tough going getting up from this short sleep, but if all went well we would be in a hot shower and comfy bed within the next 24 hours! When we finally started our trek again Mark and I agreed that our packs were simply too heavy. We had stuffed them full of food for two days and now that the course was shortened we were anticipating being on the final bike stage by late the next evening. Everyone took out their least favorite food packages and emptied them into the forest. We all managed to drop a few pounds of weight and for at least a few minutes it seemed to have made a difference.

It was not until we came to a high point on the 4x4 road and were able to scramble up to a small vantage point, that we finally nailed down exactly where we were standing. Again we were coming across many smaller features such as rivers and side roads that did not show on our maps and vice versa. Finally just as the sun was rising on us, Mark was able to lock in our position. We were very fortunate that we had decided to sleep on it earlier for we were finding ourselves to be further along than originally thought.

One more to go...I almost feel like I'm racing it all over again...don't get lost on the last trek, don't get lost on the last trek...

GR

Race Report #6: DAY FIVE (30km Trek and 76km ((90k)) Mountain Bike)

Our strategy to sleep in the kitchen to stay warm worked perfectly, but no one mentioned that the kitchen sink was the only place for teams to refill their water before departing! I think I slept through the first fifteen people coming in, but eventually it got a bit ridiculous. Thankfully it wasn't too long before we were scheduled to get up anyways. We had agreed in advance that we would get four hours of sleep immediately following our hot breakfast, and deal with the transition itself once we woke up. We had also been presented with the third and final stage of the course and had our maps to plot. We still had to cover,

- Trek 43km
- Mountain Bike 76km
- Kayak 22km
- Mountain Bike 91km
- Trek 90km
- Mountain Bike 60km

My ass hurt just thinking about all the riding we still had to do...at least Megan's tire hadn't gotten any worse, but would it hold out for another 227km!!

After a solid and focused transition we departed at 11:12am. It was not ideal to have lost almost five hours of daylight already, but our bike issues had thrown our race plan out the window days ago!

The trek was only 30km if I remember correctly and it was on a prominent hiking trail. Very little nav involved, in fact it was so easy I even took the maps! Had we been able to run we would have flown through this stage, at a decent hiking pace we covered it in 4hr08 for the 17th overall trekking time. I thought our transition to the bikes was rather slow taking us a full 45min, but in the end it ranked as the 9th overall transitional time...and a full 60 seconds faster than Dart's time...although they were almost an hour faster than us on the trek itself!

We all let out a groan as our butts tried to find some form of comfort on our bike seats. We started with a decent climb and by the time we hit the downside the pain had seemed tolerable again. The sun seemed to set on us in a matter of minutes and at dusk we all commented on how it felt more like dawn to us. We were heading into pretty much the only technical riding section of the course, at night.

As fast as we felt we were travelling on the downhill sections at night there was no doubt that teams who covered this leg in the day had a serious advantage. The route was pretty unrelenting and with each significant climb there was a serious descent. Most of the route was filled with big rocks, ruts and just generally unfavourable terrain to be navigating on a bike at night.

There was pretty much only one puddle of mud in the entire 800km course...and I found it...all of it. We were on a fairly fast downhill and as usual people were yelling obstacles. I heard the words, "MUD" and started to slow, but I think I was on the front break as I came into the slick and before I knew it my bike had gone left and I was doing a superman impersonation to the right. I could see exactly where I was about to land and remember the disbelief going through my head in that fraction of a second.
"How in God's name am I about to do a face plant into the mud on a course through a section of Australia that has practically been in a drought for years!"

SPLASH

I had mud in my teeth, my ears, my nose, my pants. I mean, I really nailed it straight on, couldn't have hit it more perfect if I had tried. I stood up, soaking wet and dripping from head to toe. It was all my teammates could do not to laugh at me, and I almost laughed at it myself until I immediately started shivering. It was late at night and the temperature had dipped significantly. I only had a few items of spare clothing and worst of all, I could no longer wear my padded bike shorts. I dreaded hitting my bike seat with no extra padding on my butt. Thankfully Mark's backside had been hurting so badly that at transition he put my spare bike shorts on over his own.

"Maarrkkk..."

"Oh c'mon man, can't you go without!"

Shortly after this we came across our first snake of the event. It was fairly small and jet black. I spotted it and thought it would make great footage for our race video so I hopped off the bike and reached for my camera. At about that time Nick rounded the corner.

"MATE! Get back on your bike NOW!"

"Huh?"

"That is the second most deadly snake in the world, let's go!!!"

I hadn't peddled that fast in days!

Meg's was the next to bail, although I did not see it I got the commentary on film. We were on another downhill section and while doing 30-35km an hour she caught her wheel in a rut and immediately landed on her forehead! She was able to laugh it off within a few minutes and we were off again.

Nick had a great slow motion crash as he started to go over the handlebars, paused for a second like he had intended to do it and then landed on his back. Mark was the only one left and he eventually managed to skid out as well. I think the scariest thing that occurred all night was when we were biking along a flat section with a steep drop off to our left. I heard a bike go into the bushes behind me, followed by Megan yelling. Nick had fallen asleep at the handlebars! Had he gone just one foot further I'm sure he would still be eating his foods from a straw and peeing in a bucket. We flicked the music back on a started singing as loud as we could!

Once again the bike leg was long (yes we did confirm with others teams and it wasn't just an uncalibrated bike computer). Even though we had slept 4hr the night before we were all starting to fall victim to the sleepmonsters. We had intended to sleep for about 3hr on the night and instead of doing it in the next transition we started looking for other options en route. When we passed a three sided bus shelter we knew it was nappy time. We hit the dirt and instead of setting an alarm I decided to see just how long we could actually sleep for. At worst the rising sun would wake us in just over five hours.

As it turned out we were all able to sleep for longer than expected, go figure! After 4.5hr of no movement the brightening dawn drew us from our slumber. We had stopped for about 5hr total and the final 10km bike ride to transition served to wake and warm us for our transition to our final kayaking leg. With our sleep, wipe outs and limited speed at night we clocked the 34th overall bike time...but it was our first biking leg without a flat tire!!

Team 'Capital Stamina', who we had met earlier in the event, and then passed at the end of the previous bike stage, had passed us back while we slept. The had then decided to sleep themselves in transition. It took us 1hr15m to pack up the bikes, inflate the boats and get out on the water, which was 13th overall transition time while Dart were out in 53min with the 6th fastest time (at this point in the race Dart were already 18hr ahead of us, and the leaders of the race were just under 24hr ahead of them). We hit the water just ten minutes behind 'Capital Stamina', and one of their racer's by the name of Liam, and I exchanged a friendly glance that said it all...'GAME ON!!'

Short but sweet, there was a lot of sleep in this section due to our 6hr stopover. I'd write more but am liking the idea of sleep myself right now!

GR

Howe Sound Crest Trail 2007 (09-16-07)

Howe Sound Crest Trail 2007, 30km, five runners, 7hr's total time with over 6,000 feet of climbing and 9,000 feet of descent.

Being up in the clouds all day didn't dampen anybodies spirits and even though two runner's had to take an early exit off of the route, everyone enjoyed just being out there and getting wet! Absolutely ZERO views, but oh well, only means I have to go back and run it all again real soon!

Super tough trail, very technical, some scrambly (yeah I made that up!) sections with ropes and chains, lots of roots and rocks, and one very extended quad burning descent to finish it off. GOOD TIMES!!

GR (Back to OZ race report tomorrow, early sleep for this guy tonight!)

Race Report #5: DAY FOUR (Finishing the 35km Orienteering, and 145km ((180km?)) Mtn Bike to Mid-Camp)

As Nick and I started to gain elevation, and the sun cleared the horizon and we were presented with a much clearer picture of the lay of the land. We yelled back to Megan and Mark that we thought we might be right on top of the CP and were going to the top to have a look. They decided to try and triangulate our position on the maps while we did so. Upon reaching the top it did not look good. The last thing any of us wanted to do was to add more elevation to our trek, in fact I must admit I was very impressed with how steep the trekking terrain was throughout the race! Just as my heart was beginning to sink I caught view of that beautiful orange and white square blowing in the wind...

"TIMMIIIEEE!!" (Reference our FMIJ report for that one!)

Mark and Megs had confirmed our position shortly before we grabbed the CP, and already had our next line of travel in sight. With the sun now starting to warm things up we peeled off layers and our bodies started to feel rejuvenated once again, although people's feet were really starting to suffer. Mark and Megan's bodies were holding up well though and there was not a mention of serious pain (well race ending pain at least!). As long as we hiked and did not run I was sure we could make it through the rest of the trekking stages. We knocked down the final two CP's in succession and headed for the transition.

During our trek we realized that by switching Megan's torn tire to the front of the bike it should alleviate some of the pressure from sitting directly above it. This was about all we could effectively do to improve our chances at getting through the rest of the course.

We hit transition after a 22hr21m stage, we were just nineteen minutes slower than Dart's overall trek time I was well impressed with Mark's improved skills on the maps since last year! (It's always tough to get a fair estimate on stages as the race progresses and teams roll out different sleep strategies). We followed this up with one of our slower transitions in the race, but on top of the fact that we had to switch around Megan's tire, we also suffered two flats while we were out trekking! How do you flat when you aren't even riding!! After 1hr29m we departed with the 18th ranked transitional time. To top things off one of our 'presta valve' tubes had snapped at the valve itself while Nick was inflating it. Megan lost a spare tire with the rip to her sidewall in the previous bike stage and we were now down to just two spare tubes. It was not ideal but we were not too worried because we pretty much had enough patches to cover us through a porcupine attack!

We had only ridden a total of 180km to this point in the race, but all of our asses were already feeling it. Biking with a full pack changes things significantly! This was the longest bike leg of the entire race, listed at 145km and as we departed transition it took us a few minutes to get settled into the saddles.

Towards the end of the previous bike stage I was starting to have shifting issues. I tried my best to diagnose and fix the problem but could not seem to work it out. I was stuck with but one working gear, everything else would skip the chain off my cassette. Thankfully it was a mid range gear and I was able to bike most terrain with it, but my top end speed was effectively gone. This, however, would end up being the least of our worries.

As we departed the 4x4 roads and turned onto a paved surface again (for about 40km I think?), my tire flattened once again. We switched out tubes, checked my tire for debris and hit the road again. I think we made it about 5km before I sufferend an exact repeat! There were little thorns everywhere out here and as we checked our bikes we noticed that many of us had punctures that were staying sealed for the moment. Nick pulled out one thorn, heard a hiss and reacted by pushing it back in...and it actually sealed again! He decided to leave it until it needed to be dealt with.

We eventually covered the 10-12km to the first and largest town we would be passing through on the day...population of maybe a few thousand. Nick's thorn finally got the better of his tube as we were entering the town itself and we pulled in to a service station so we could at least get some food and shade while we patched it up. While Megan and Nick looked after that Mark and I biked across the street to a 'Tyre Shop' to see if they sold bike tubes at all?

"Yup."

"Awesome, we'll take four!"

"Love to help ya out but some other group of people wearing spandex already cleaned us out."

"You don't have anything, at all, nothing!!"

"Nope."

"Anywhere else in town sell mountain bike tubes?"

"Nope."

"Don't suppose there would be a bike mechanic in town?"

"Nope."

Alrighty then, thanks for yer help! We returned to the service station to find Nick's tube in his hands, he looked at us and asked if we had found tubes...

"No, what's up?"

"Mate, not good!"

"WHAT??"

He just held up two snapped valve's...

"WHATTTTT!!!!! WE'RE MINUS A TUBE!!! WE HAVE EIGHT WHEELS AND SEVEN TUBES!!!"

There was still at least 130km to go on this bike leg, there were no other towns of any size along our route, and the town we were in did not seem to present us with any options. We grabbed some hot food from the service station and started going over our options. At the same time we would ask every person that came into the shop if they owned a mountain bike. At one point two girls of about eleven years of age walked out and Nick looked at them,

"Excuse me."

"Yeah?"

"Would either of you girls happen to own a mountain bike?"

As the quickened their pace the respond with, "We don't even know what that is!"

What? How do you not know what a mountain bike is! We noticed a few more kids biking past on BMX bikes, and asked them the same question. They said that they did not know a single kid with a mountain bike in this town, "Nothing but BMX around here."

We were completely desperate and hitting up anyone within ear shot. We had to turn down no fewer than three rides to the transition in the back of trucks, but nothing in the way of tubes! We had now been here for over two hours and were getting ready to simply start going door to door. Someone in this damn town had to own a mountain bike!

At about this time another team showed up and stopped at the service station for some food. We immediately started asking for help with our situation but one team member spoke up and said they were not allowed to give us any tubes! I understand how valuable these items had become by now, but this was the first time in any adventure race that I ever had to ask for help and been denied it! We couldn't blame them I guess, but I was still shocked at the response! As that competitor went inside for food one of the other team members walked past us, slid a tube into our hands and simply said, "shhh!"

"THANKSssorry."

We had to wait five minutes for this team to depart before we could utilize it, and when we finally opened it we found that it was a schrader valve tube...as in it was too big for our rims...no problem! I walked into the service station, asked to borrow a drill and ten minutes later Nick's wheel set was large enough to accept schrader valves!!

We popped it in, biked straight to the hardware store and bought a container of super glue. Then we spun our wheels and glued over every damn thorn in there, which upon inspection were quite a few! After just under three hours, and none of it spent sleeping, we were back in the race! We didn't even manage to make it out of town before my chain started skipping in every gear and then, POP, my chain snapped!

I grabbed the 'chain break tool' and had the bike back together in a few minutes. To my absolute amazement my shifting problems had now been solved! I had been suffering from a bent chain link, yet another lesson learned!

"Alright, do you think that might be it for a few hours...or even minutes!!"

We started off slowly, just waiting for something to go wrong and after a few kilometers we got a really nice pace line going and started upping our speed until we were able to average over 30km/hr. We absolutely killed this section of road, something like 35km in just over an hour! We then turned off of the pavement and onto a washboard like 4x4 road. Bumpity, bumpity, bumps.

We played a fun game for the next hour, it went like this. Bike really fast to catch the next team in front of us, then puncture a tire and take five minutes to patch it up. Hop back on the bikes, work our asses off to get 'back on', then pop another tire and repeat, time and time again! The last three flats had been with me and to my rear tire, and even though we had checked the rubber for debris each time we had found nothing. There simply had to be something in there, I hadn't flatted in almost two years before this race and now I couldn't stop! I ripped it off the tire itself, flipped it inside out and was amazed to find it completely clean. It made no sense at all, so I started rubbing my fingers over the inside...I could not believe what I found. There was an absolutely minuscule fraction of a thorn pokeing through the tire and lodged into place. It was black tipped and all but invisible! Megan was the only one who could get her nails on it and after a minute it was out...could that really be our issue solved?

Back on, riding strong, another flat!! We determined this one to be from the previous patch not having sealed properly and decided it to be in our best interest to give it ten minutes. The sun was just started to set on what was yet another incredibly frustrating day of racing, but I really had to admire how the team was handling everything. Not only had we solved everything that had been thrown at us so far, but we'd managed to do most of it with a smile on our faces. Nick was a solid addition to the team. Outside of being a superb athlete he is one of the most level headed and entertaining individuals I have yet to meet. His well timed ridiculous comments served more service than a single tow rope ever could. At one point later in the night he pretended to pull out a cell phone and have a conversation with his Mother! It was so random and convincing that Mark and I actually looked at each other and I was starting to wonder why he was carrying his cell and how he was getting service out here!

Class clown Mark managed to put on quite the display of dance skills, and entertained all of us with his sundown silhouette impersonation of a bike racer, until his leg actually cramped up on him! Meg's and I sat back and enjoyed the show, and although we were dealing with one issue after another I don't think I've ever enjoyed a race more in my life! This night in particular just got ridiculous. I managed to flat one more time before we got it under control, but every time we stopped someone would tell a great story, or we would take the time to look up at what a perfect night sky we were racing under. We all spotted shooting stars, and it was a simply glorious night for star gazing. We were in the middle of nowhere and the sky seemed to have a few more galaxies than I remembered seeing back home. The Southern Cross was right above us and it took us an extra minute to get going again.

Shortly thereafter we crested a small climb and I let loose on the downside. I was truly feeling like we may have 'beaten the beast', I would never verbalize it, but how much else could go wrong out there? We had to catch a break at some point in time...didn't we? These were the thoughts I remember going through my head as I came within less than a foot of smoking a Kangaroo!!!

"ROOOO!!"

Kangaroo's simply freeze solid like a statue in headlights at night, they have no idea what is going on or how to react to it and there were two roo's now standing just off to the side of the road (a racer in XPD actually did collide with a Kangaroo, and I think his race was over after that!) We had seen Wallabies on our first biking leg, but at least they know to scamper off...apparently there were a whole slue of things that could go wrong that I had yet to even envision!

At the end of this bike stage we would reach mid-camp, where every team had a mandatory 6hr stopover. We were trying to fight through the 'sleepmonsters' to make it here as we would get at least a 4hr sleep at that point in time. Megan had purchased a $6.00 I-Pod speaker set up and we were using it to it's maximum capacity out here. Everything from gangsta rap to eighties love songs were playing on random and we sang along as best we could. The reactions from teams we caught were always funny as they had no idea where the music was coming from or what was going on!

Eventually, once we again realized that our 145km bike like was looking more like 160+, we decided that we would need a 30 minute power nap. We dropped our heads but in the cold it was difficult to get to sleep. I simply lay there wishing I could curl up in a nice bed somewhere, or even a bush or some sand, the rocks were putting my hips to sleep and when I tried to stand my entire body let me know that I had now been racing for almost four days straight.

I think the actual distance on this bike leg ended up being closer to 180km but I don't have anyone to confirm that with tonight. I know it was significantly longer than expected because we witnessed team after team drop down for sleep. Even though a 6hr stop was just ahead many could not make it through. The last five kilometers seemed to go on forever and we were starting to wonder if we had somehow overshot the damn thing until the lights illuminated the field where we would be presented with a tent to bunker down in. Bring it on!!

With all of our bike issues we had taken over 17hr to make it in! It was the 23rd ranked biking time. The news got a little worse as they told us that there were no tents available! The good news is that they were giving each team a hot breakfast and we simply devoured the eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns and I think we even dipped into our peanut butter to get some fat and additional calories in!

Our only option at this point was to wait for a tent or to sleep in the adjacent building where the bikes were being stored. It was freezing in that building as the doors were just left open due to how much traffic was passing through, but there was a small kitchen that was not in use and I figured that if we pulled the door to, our body heat should warm it enough to be comfortable. We all dropped down on the wooden floor, pulled our space blankets over us, and I used a shoe as a pillow. I was asleep and dreaming within seconds!

GR

#4: DAY THREE (Finishing the 105 (135km) Mtn Bike and Into The 35km Orienteering Leg)

The sun had just risen and there were so many teams fumbling about on this plateau that it looked like the unofficial third starting line in three days. The one thing I noticed was that there were plenty of teams standing around and looking at maps but very few people were actually moving at all. I saw a great opportunity to jump eight spots in the standings instantly and we quickly started riding to a high point in the hopes of finding a route out or at least pin pointing our position. We were tempted more than once to take a random trail that appeared to maybe end up going in the right direction at some point in time, but thankfully resisted and doubled back. Upon our return ten minutes later not a single thing had changed, every team was still exactly where we left them. We spoke with a few teams and one had been stuck here for almost two hours already!

Finally about thrity minutes from when we first arrive and under consensus, a few teams started back tracking. The only thing that made sense was to double back to the last point of certainty, which was about 2km of climbing behind us. As we headed up I noticed another group of teams proceeded through a field into what appeared to be a dead end. We had seen a team coming up that way when we first arrived and had therefore ignored it. As we climbed in elevation we could now peer out over a clear view of the trails below. Those teams that looked like they were headed for a dead end were now bombing down steep trails to the valley below. Everyone commented successively and a dozen adventure racers were now scrambling to pull a 180 degree turn on a single track trail (the only single track of the entire event, about 200 meters of it!). As we were now pedaling hard through this field it became evident to all other teams on the plateau what was happening and a large peloton of riders ensued.

We hit some water towers and an intersection after a few hundred meters and every team but ourselves and one additional continued to drop. Mark stopped us, looked over the maps, and said that we were in fact now supposed to turn right!

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah!"

"Sweet! Nice work Mark, ya know I've been really impressed with you out here so far in this race. You've gotten better at your transitions, your not falling asleep every two hours, and you have really been on top of the maps from the start. Nice work on not just following every other team in the race!!"

"Thanks man!"

There were tire tracks everywhere in the dirt which helped our confidence in Mark's decision and we started to up our pace. After five minutes we were even able to drop the other team that were following us. We hit a big descent followed by a short but steep climb and as we crested the climb there was another team coming straight for us...this is never a good feeling for more often than not the team approaching is a team that was minutes ahead of you before they realized their mistake.

Their team name was 'Capital Stamina' and unbeknown to us at that point in time, we would be seeing quite a lot of them during the next five days. They explained that there were on the plateau with all the other teams and made the decision to double back to their last known point, at which they found this road that was somehow completely hidden in the dark. All the bike tracks we were seeing were in fact the lead teams who would have nailed the turn from its inception.

We quickly turned and joined them. One of the great joys of adventure racing is when you link up with other teams. When you race 24-7 with your teammates the conversation can falter from time to time...when a new team arrives it completely rejuvenates all involved and it's funny to watch people's energy levels shoot up as the chatter begins.

Me to Mark,

"Hey Mark!"

"Yeah?"

"Remember when I said that I was really impressed that you weren't just following all the other teams out here!!!"

Mark laughed, and once we made it back to the water towers we opened up and started screaming down the trail. As we rounded a corner there were some larger rocks hidden in some grass. We always yell obstacles to our teammates, but when you are travelling that fast the words don't always make it in time.

"ROCKS!"

I thought I heard a yell back but assumed it to be everyone repeating for each other. I hit a dip climbed up the other side and turned to find myself all alone. I thought someone might have bailed and was worried they might have messed themselves up if that were the case. I biked back up with fear coursing through my veins and was amazingly relieved to find that Megan had but flatted. She had indeed hit the hidden rocks in the grass and as I reached to grab her tire she informed me that she had torn her tire's sidewall!

Megan rides a bike with 29 inch wheels verses the standard 26 inch mountain bike wheel, and I knew without even needing to ask around that she would be the only person in the race doing so. These bikes a great and have their purpose, but they only make up a small percentage of mountain bike sales, even smaller still in Australia. I was fully aware of the fact that we could be looking at a situation that if bad enough would effectively end our race right there and then...either that, or someone would have to run with a bike for over 300km!

"How bad is it?"

"Not great."

"Do you have a spare tire in your bike box?"

"Nope." (in fact none of us did and this was a serious oversight on our part...mandatory gear from now on!!)

The most common way to fix a torn sidewall is to tape money to the inside of the tire itself. The money works well at limiting the bulge from the tube as it is inflated. This slash was over an inch long and just about to round the corner of the rubber to the traction side of the wheel...there was virtually no room for it to split further and remain rideable. We did all that we could to prevent it from getting worse and held our breath as we re-inflated the tube. It started to bulge and I thought that the tube would burst through at any second. All we could do now was get back on and hope to make it to the end of this bike stage. We were 90km in, so it only had to make it another fifteen and hopefully we woule find just one other rider who might have a spare twenty nine inch tire!

Honestly, at this point in time I just hit the dumps. I didn't say much at all but I know my body language was terrible. I could not get over the fact that there just did not appear to be any way that Megan's tire would hold up for even a few km's, let alone three hundred of them. Why the hell could we not catch a break in any event that we do! How many more races would I have to travel to before my team managed a fully ranked finish? Did I love this sport or hate it? Were the AR God's looking down on me and telling me to get the hell out their sport?

I promised myself two things at that moment in time,
1) If it came down to it I'd run with that bike until my legs fell off. I was not about to walk away from another expedition adventure race without a ranked finish!
2) If the bike did fail, and we were not able to get to the finish line of the event, I was done. I did not have the finances, apparent luck, or necessary patience to continue on with this sport.

I was counting down the fifteen kms until the trek, I needed to be away from the bikes more than anything and refocus on a discipline that could not shut us down due to a mechanical. As we started to gain confidence in Megan's wheel we again started to catch teams in front of us. Basically the tire was going to hold up or it wasn't. Riding slower wasn't going to solve much so we all tried to forget about it. I know at least I felt a bit better as we caught and passed teams fixing flat tires...I mean I felt bad for those teams...actually no I didn't, it felt great to know that others were suffering like us out there!! We would ask everyone we passed if they happened to be using a twenty nine inch wheel set, but I knew it was a useless pursuit.

As we approached what was supposed to be our total distance for the bike leg we paired up with another team and after looking over the maps the news wasn't good, we had at least antoher 30km to go! Our wrong turn had cost us but a few km at worst, but this is very typical of expedition racing and I have yet to do a bike leg in a race that is anywhere close to the listed distance. The biking wasn't taking it out of us but I was still seriously concerned over Megan's tire. I thought that if we could just get to transition we could at least spend our trek thinking about potential ways to improve our situation.

In the next 30km I know I flatted again and I think Nick may have too? The flats are a blur, all I know is that they never stopped coming. The benefit to the additional 30km of riding is that we were able to put more teams behind us before heading into the trek.

We were expecting to hit transition for sunrise, it was what we planned our sleep strategy around. We finally made it in at 10:10am, after almost 15hr's with the bikes. As mentioned we did sleep for 3hr, but our butts were more than relieved to get off the saddles for a bit. We had put in the 15th fastest bike time and arrived just over an hour behind Dart, who were suffering bike issues of their own. I looked at Dart's transition time of fifty six minutes and told the team we needed to be gone in fifty five! Fifty Seven minutes later (so close!) we departed with the tenth fastest transitional time.

While in transition we were notified that the top teams had yet to return. The estimated times for the 30km orienteering section, which was almost all off trail, were 5-10hr. The lead teams had now been gone now for 11.5hrs!! We then estimated that going into a full night of orienteering we would probably be out there for 24hr and made sure to pack extra food.

We departed transition with another team and after about a km we split from them while attempting to find the same CP. It was a big boost for everyone, especially Mark as this was the first major navigational test, to arrive a few minutes before this team and to pass them on our way back down. We had but six hours of daylight to work with and we were attempting to gather the toughest CP's first. There were thirteen on the orienteering map and you could choose any eleven, in any order. This made for great racing as every team took some form of a different route out there.

We went up the wrong ridge to our second CP but it was a minor detour that only cost us twenty minutes. The travel was tough as it was all off trail in deep spear grass. There were rocks and logs hidden all over the place and we had to switch out the lead trekker numerous times. As we were scrambling down one steeper section we were all over the place and it looked like someone was going to pull or strain something before Nick spoke up and showed us how the locals do it! We had to spin around, face the slope, and use the spear grass to help us. If you grabbed enough of it down low it did not hurt the skin and made for great handholds!

We made decent progress on our CP's in the daylight but made the stark realization as the sun was setting that we had not packed ample batteries to make it through a full night of trekking! When we topped up our food supplies we inadvertently forgot to do the same with our battery fuel supplies...no problem, we just have to start hitting up other teams!

One by one, as we passed teams going in the opposite direction we threw it our there,

"Hey, can we help lighten your packs for you!"

After four teams had each spotted us some form of a battery or two we figured that our lights, if kept on low beam, would all make it through till dawn. One team that helped us out in particular, a bunch of 'Aussie Blokes' who had serious bike troubles, were walking them the final 10km into the transition (for sections of the trek we would come across the back of the pack teams still on their bikes) and they had a teammate drop out on them already! They wanted nothing more than to sit down and chat it up and we were certainly obligated! They were very entertaining, but after ten minutes, and as the sun was sinking below the horizon, I felt that it was time to get back to racing again. We slowly started edging away and eventually they let us go.

As the dark enveloped us we all agreed that it would make sense to pair up with another team if possible. The conversation alone would help keep everyone awake as had now been racing for over sixty hours and had only slept for six. As we struggled to find a CP on top of a small peak in the dark, another team showed up and fulfilled our wishes. We joined forces with 'The Yoga Slackers' and as each team member paired off with someone from the other team everybody's pace quickened noticeably.

We spent the better part of the night with the Yoga Slacker's, named so because they do Yoga on Slacklines...as in Yoga while standing on a rope...a piece of rope dangling from trees or whatever else...kinda like combining Tight Rope Walking and Yoga...of course why didn't I think of that! None the less, they were great conversation and amazing people. It was not until they decided to lay down on top of a rocky outcrop that we decided to go it alone again. We headed back to the valley floor and as everyone started to falter we agreed upon 2hr of sleep, from about 2am till 4am.

Again not great sleep as the night was chilly. Once we got going we spent two and a half hours from 4am until the sun finally crested the mountains at 6:30am unsure of exactly where we were. We were on what should have been the only 4x4 road in the area but it did not travel in the proper direction from time to time. As Megan and Mark were trying to pinpoint our exact location Nick and I headed for higher ground and a better vantage point.

GR

#3: Day Two (45km Paddle, 105km Mtn Bike)

The alarm started buzzing at 6am, but it didn't matter. The temp had dipped significantly overnight and no one really slept that great under our $0.99 space blankets. We arose to notice that but three teams were ready to go for the 6am re-start, which was a relief to all of us.

We had intended to be on the water for 7am and at 7.20am we finally launched our kayaks amongst a group of teams. It was another beautiful day and we lathered ourselves in our KINeSYS sunblock as we left 'Dingo Beach' for the long paddle ahead.

In similar fashion to the first days paddle, this 43km would be broken up with island CP's and snorkeling sections. The first day of kayaking didn't go too bad for us, in terms of keeping our boats straight, but on this day there was more of a cross wind and a bit of a current moving. It did not take long to get frustrated with the fact that I was only paddling with one arm for minutes at a time to keep the boat tracking properly. I know we were all counting down to each island checkpoint to get a break from our purgatory in the boats!

After a few departures from the kayaks to collect lengthy beach trekking CP's we were off on three successive long paddle sections, broken up with but a quick beach run and a short snorkel. As we rounded a point on an island we couldn't help but notice boats out in the distance...way out in the distance, I mean all we could see were silhouettes and they looked like they were 1/2 way to China. We pretty much stopped paddling in succession and stopped to rethink our strategy for the day. This was not a 'rogaine' stage and there would be significant penalties for missed CP's, but the water was ocean was now starting to pick up a bit and the kayaks were getting slower and more frustrating by the minute. After Mark looked over the maps he determined that the boats we were viewing were but 1km away from us, at worst! It didn't make any sense, the illuminated figures looked hours in front of us but somehow they were pretty much just around the corner from us. We confirmed this by finding our next CP to be closer than we thought it would be. The ocean was playing tricks with our tired minds and like anything if your mind has trouble accepting it your body will surely start to falter on you.

After getting our heads straightened out and grabbing the beach CP we were off on our biggest open crossing of the entire race. I believe it was 6km, which is really nothing, but we were in a direct cross wind, neither of the inflatables would track anywhere near straight, and the current was working against us. I believe the only conversation had during the 2hr crossing was,

"How's the right side of your body doing!!?" We were paddling twice as hard and twice as much with our right to keep the boats in line.

"If I had a gun I'd shoot myself right in the eye!!"

We were all relieved to pull into the downwind side of an island for another snorkeling stage...until Mark pointed out the sharks fin in the water!

"Don't worry, it's just a black tip reef shark."

"Does he know that he's supposed to be harmless!!"

Shortly thereafter the four of us were swimming just a few hundred meters from where was had seen the shark. Once again 'fishboy' Nick was our man with the passport and we were back out of the water and into our boats in no time...a bit too quick for my liking!

It was getting late in the day and once again the water was playing tricks with our minds. There was one CP with a snorkel section remaining before the end of the water stage for the day. As we stared off in the distance to the island this was located on we all agreed that there did not appear to be enough daylight remaining for us to grab it, complete the snorkel and get off of the water before nightfall. We made the tough decision to skip out on it and deal with the time penalty once it was assessed to us later in the race. As we aimed our inflatables for the town of 'Bowen' Mark and I spotted a dolphin swimming between our boats...damn dolphins making movement in the water look so damn easy!!

Once again we were off the water at 4:30pm and yet again we realized that we had plenty of time to grab our skipped CP. No one really cared at that point though, we were just glad to be done with those freakin inflatables for another day!

As we checked in with the transition staff we were told that our 90 minute penalty from the previous day would be served here, starting now. This could not have been better, they were having all teams serve out their time penalties while they transitioned...this was lost time anyways, and going from breaking down the inflatables to assembling the bikes was going to take us at least that long anyways!

We hit up the yacht club for some fish, chips n Coke while we took the time to officially plot our course on our maps for the upcoming bikes legs and orienteering section. We only had time to glance over them the night before. The fish n chips cost us almost 50.00 but it was worth every cent!!

After a few hours we reluctantly hit the bikes again...I know I was damn close to getting a beer at that yacht club!

With a fully loaded backpack for the upcoming 105km bike leg through the night our packs weighed upwards of 25 pounds. Just sitting on the bike seat was torture...and we still had almost 500km of biking to go!

We started off into the night and I was having trouble staying on the left side of the road! My biggest fear was that I was going to start to fall asleep and get confused as to what side of the road I should be on and which way the traffic was actually travelling. Thankfully we were off of well travelled roads within an hour. About 45 minutes out we came across another team, and then another, and another, and another, and there were lights off in every direction. We were at an intersection that didn't quite match up to our maps and team after team were coming back from what had appeared to be our natural direction of travel. I know throughout the event the maps were a bit inconsistent with the actual features. Most of the maps were dated and numerous features, such as major intersections, were simply not on there. I remember on at least one bike leg we even had to switch between maps with different scales on them, 1/50,000 to 1/20,000 and back again while you are struggling to stay awake after a few days of racing can be a challenge all by itself!

After a few minutes Mark (who was our primary navigator) decided that we had to continue further along before finding our desired intersection. About 200 meters down the road, that all too familiar sound,

PPFFFFTTTT

"Flat!"

Thankfully we had packed a spare pump in our bike boxes and made sure to grab it after our debacle the previous day. I had the thing changed and was back on in under two minutes!

Eventually we located what looked to be our necessary turn and as a few teams discussed their options we rode right past. The CP description said that we were to look for it just off the banks of a river, and the maps showed a huge river of about three hundred meters in width. We hammered along while looking for a bridge crossing and a raging river to notify us of our hidden CP. (The checkpoints are one foot square boxes that are half orange and half white, generally hanging from trees. Basically you're looking for a shoe box in the forest!) We popped back out onto a paved road and once again had to orientate ourselves. Numerous teams were no peddling past but Mark insisted that it did not make sense. About a 1/2km back we all commented on how the landscape had gone from forested to a wide open track of sand. It was like a big beach in the middle of nowhere...kinda like what a completely dried up river bank might look like! Even with two locals on the team we failed to pick up on the fact that Australia has been in a drought for years, the lack of bridge didn't make it any easier to identify either. We quickly doubled back as four teams passed us...I'm pretty sure I could hear them laughing at the Canadians!

From here we were able to get a good pace line going again and we managed to track down all those teams that had taken advantage of our mistakes in the riverbed. We knocked down about 60-65km of the bike leg before deciding to call it a night at about midnight. There were numerous teams that had decided to do the same and the sleep strategies of an expedition race were now starting to kick in...which teams could bank the most sleep early and finish up strong, which teams would go sleepless the longest and eventually crumble, who would ignore their alarms and sleep in? We found a small depression that would shelter us from the slight winds that were blowing, threw a branch between two trees to hang wet cycling gear, put on every additional layer of clothing in our packs, crawled under our space blankets and set the timer for 3hr's. We were all asleep within seconds.

I don't think anyone managed a full three hours anyways. After a few hours the temps had dipped so much that condensation had formed on our space blankets. This combined with a drop in body temp while sleeping meant that we all spent the last thirty minutes shivering and hoping we could get back to sleep before the alarm soun "BEEP BEEP BEEP"

"CRAP! Time to get up guys."

"Yup. Yeah. Fine."

Taking layers back off before hoping on the bike is next to impossible after waking up at 3am, so we all packed up our gear, biked for about thirty minutes and then began to strip down the layers again. It took awhile to get the blood flowing again, especially to the brain, but eventually we started to up our pace and knock down the km's.


The hour before sunrise is always the coldest time of the entire night and it was damn near freezing from 5-6am. We were happy to see the sunrise, for although our Princeton Tec headlamps had lit the way nicely for us overnight, we had drained a few batteries in the 12hr of darkness and it was nice to have natural light to show us the entire lay of the land. We caught up to an American team and exchanged pleasantries before opening it up on a downhill section...

PFFFTTT

"Are you serious!"

Again a quick change. Quick enough to have not been passed by the team we had just caught, then two minutes later Megan snapped her chain! I got the chain break tool out and was able to remove a link and get it back together just as the other team caught up to us. So far we had taken all of our bike issues in stride, we'd been in much worse situations throughout the 07 race season, but I was silently starting to wonder if the A.R. God's were out to get me and my team. All I wanted was to eventually get across that finish line as a fully ranked team and it just seemed like we could not catch a break or get any consistency into our race at all. Either way we were still racing strong and as we plateaued on our descent we were confronted with no fewer than a half a dozen other teams. Everyone was looking quite confused, people pointing off in random directions, some teams talking with other teams, some teams not talking at all, and everyone just looking more and more frustrated with each additional biker that caught up to them.

That's day two, beddy by time for this blogger

GR

# 2: The First 24hr of XPD (40km Paddle, 30km Trek, 47km Bike)

The first full Stage of XPD would see us paddling for up to 50km, trekking for 30km and biking for 47km. There was a dark zone before the start of the second Stage and no teams would be allowed to begin before 6am the following day. The first day of the race was basically a competition to see who could bank the most sleep before continuing onwards into the second stage.

At 6.30am we were loaded onto buses to take us down the coast to Shute Harbor where the race would officially begin at 8am. The first leg of the race was a kayak rogaine section (collecting check points in whatever order you see fit) through the incredible Whitsunday Islands. It would consist of up to 50km of paddling and was interspersed with island running sections and snorkeling stages throughout the day.

In the race notes it stated that there would be a one hour penalty for a missed C.P. and an additional 30min for each missed C.P. after that. This penalty time would then be served during the second stage of the race, after the second kayak leg. The instructions also stated that it would be to your benefit to utilize as much time as possible on the water, however any boats still caught out at sea after dark (6pm) would suffer an even greater time penalty (TBD later) and would have to be picked up by the safety boats.

We were once again using inflatable kayaks, although these were slightly longer, narrower, and faster than the versions we utilized during 'Raid The North Extreme' in June. To be off the water by 6pm left only ten hours to cover this distance, including two decent trekking stages and two snorkeling stages. After what we had suffered through in RTNX, with these inflatables, we quickly agreed that we would skip the first two checkpoints, thereby taking a 90 minute penalty. We would then assess our progress later in the day with regards to possibly foregoing additional C.P.'s if need be. If these boats were anywhere near as bad as RTNX this was going to be a long and painful day!

There was a short paddle out to an island where the race would begin and already you could see some boats giving teams fits as they zigged and zagged back and forth in the water. XPD had two versions of these inflatables, a newer yellow version which seemed to be quite efficient and even tracked straight without effort, and an older gray version which was pretty much the exact opposite. Each team was dealt one of each to keep things fair...guess which boat I started in.

As the sun crested the islands the gun went off and over a hundred boats were left scrambling for position. It appeared that most people were thinking along the same lines, except for three or four teams who looked like they were going the wrong way.

"Where are they off to?"

"Those are the only teams going for C.P. 'A'!!"

It was a perfect day to be out on the water, twenty eight - thirty degrees, a slight wind, and calm seas. This was in complete contrast to the days leading up to the start as the winds reached 25 knots and we were told to possibly expect a cancellation of the paddling leg altogether. As a team we had secretly hoped for this scenario as kayaking is generally our weakest discipline, but as we glided through the pristine waters around the Whitsunday's on an idyllic day in Australia, I know we were all feeling very lucky to be experiencing such an incredible start to an event.

We arrived at 'South Mole Island' after about an hour of paddling, having skipped CP's 'A and B'. There were a handful of teams in front of us as the majority of the pack decided to only skip CP 'A'. Our thoughts were that an additional 30 min penalty in a race that was going to take us a week or more to finish was completely insignificant. We jumped out of our kayaks and grabbed our CP 'C', then started running to the top of South Mole Island for CP 'D'. We managed to track down each team that had started the trek before us and were the first team to arrive at the CP. From the top of South Mole we were presented with an incredible panoramic view out over the islands below and for a fraction of a second I wished I was not racing on such an beautiful day!

Here is where our strategy really payed dividends...it looked like we were leading the race...I mean we knew we weren't leading and a lot of other teams realized we were not, but just having that illusion around us seemed to change our focus and drive. Our competitive nature kicked in and we went to work on protecting our 'lead' from every other team! On our way down from the top of South Mole we crossed paths with no fewer than a dozen teams including our friends 'Dart-Nuun' and 'Canada Post'.

Back in the kayaks and off to the opposite side of the island as you were not allowed to simply trek over the top to the other CP's. I thought for sure we would be caught on the paddle leg but no other team was in sight when we docked and started running again! Our transitions were solid and after another few CP's we still held our 'lead'. Orion Health, the eventual overall winners, caught us at the peak of this trek and outpaced the team on the downhill, but otherwise we were holding form quite nicely.

From here we headed to our first snorkeling leg of the race. It was pretty amazing to be racing an 800km expedition and to find ourselves snorkeling over coral reefs that were teaming with fish and plant life. Talk about adding local flair to an event! (I forgot to grab my waterproof camera for each of the snorkel stages but did get some good shots after the race)

The 50km kayak leg was proving to be almost enjoyable as we were basically paddling for about an hour at a time before hoping in and out of the boats, and all the trekking was allowing us to keep our position towards the front of the pack.

We paddled back across to the south side of North Mole Island for a CP and then followed the coastline to our second snorkeling area. It was about this time that I started to feel a bit off. A headache was creeping in and even though the water was virtually flat I was feeling as if I had become sea sick. I kept it to myself and said very little as I tried to figure out what was up and how to fix it. By the time we hit the second snorkel section, a lengthy 1.5k swim, I had a splitting headache and thought I would actually puke. My foot also cramped up in my rigid swim fins and I ended up swimming with one fin for the second half of the snorkel. Nick moved like a dolphin through the water and I handed him our passport to collect our underwater CP's. I was shivering when we crawled out of the water, even though I had worn a neoprene top. I popped a few Ibuprofen and hoped for the best as we embarked on our longest paddle section of the day. I tried to draw strength from the fact that we had still managed to stay ahead of the majority of the field and were basically on the home stretch for the water stage.

Over an hour later as we hit CP 'M' I had figured out where I had gone wrong on the day. I had made a completely rookie mistake in the fact that although I was on top of my food and fluids I had neglected to take in any electrolytes! It was about 3pm now, the sun was beating down on us and we had been running, swimming and kayaking since eight in the morning. I quickly dug into my pack and sucked down a few Nuun tablets, hoping that would solve the problem before we headed into our 30km run.

We collected the last few CP's and were pleasantly surprised that we were going to be off the water by 4:30pm. We easily could have collected CP 'B' but still agreed with our decision to forgo it. When we hit the beach there were only six teams ahead of us an at least one of them had skipped out on a significant portion of the rogaine course. There were still some very competitive teams behind us and I was greatly impressed at how the team had kept a solid pace throughout the day. On top of that, my earlier concerns were now solved and I was thankfully feeling 100% again.

Our transition was decent, ranking 20th in terms of overall time at 45 minutes, and tied exactly with our friends 'Dart-Nuun', who came off the water just seven minutes behind us. There was never a doubt that Dart would finish ahead of us at XPD, but that doesn't mean that I couldn't enjoy every second of being ahead of them and of comparing transition times throughout the event.

Later in the race: "OK, Dart were out in 35, let's be gone in 30 guys!!"

We hit the trek feeling fresh and confident to be heading into our strongest discipline, and to be off the water for at least 18 hours! It was a steep climb up to the high point of our hike, 'The Great Whitsunday Walk' and we kept a solid pace until we were able to start running the downhills and flats.

About an hour into our trek Mark confessed to an injury that he was hoping to have had under control by the start of the event.

"I can't keep this pace."

Mark is a solid runner and I simply looked at him, "Huh?"

"I messed up my I.T. band a few weeks ago. I was going to mention it and give you time to find another teammate but I thought I could get over it in time. I don't think I'm going to be able to run man, I'm sorry, I just don't think I'll make it through 800km if we continue to run the trekking sections."

As shocked as I was to hear this from him there was no way that I would have ever considered replacing Mark as a teammate for this event. Mark's been a close friend for six years and that fact that he now lives in Australia was one of the main deciding factors for me to head down for this race. I won't lie, of course my competitive side was dieing at that moment in time, but my only concern was now to ensure that we were able to get through the event.

"So how are you if we hike?"

"I'm good with hiking, it's just the impact from the running that sends a shooting pain up my leg."

"And how do you think you will be on the bike?"

"Should be fine."

"Then no worries, we hike." (this may not have been my exact response, but it's how I like to remember it!)

As teams caught us from behind and ran past I struggled to remember Mark's injury. My teammates were constantly reminding me to relax and slow down. Megan also mentioned that she was having some leg pain and I realized that we would have to concentrate on keeping or making our time on the bikes. Hell, until a few days prior I thought I was the one who was the most battered, now I was somehow the healthiest!
Injuries are a part of the game though and with the season that Helly Hansen-MOMAR just had I'm surprised we all fared as well as we did.

We made it to the end of the 30km trek in 4h45m which was still good enough for the 7th fastest overall trek time, and followed that up with a 31min transition to the bikes (having to assemble them from bike boxes...and four minutes faster than 'Dart' I might add!), which was the 6th fastest transition time, so we were still flying high when we hit the bikes...but that is where the wheels started to fall off...almost literally...

We bombed out of transition feeling great to be on our bikes, as pretty much everyone was pain free for the first time in the race! What lay ahead appeared to be a fast and fairly flat 47km of mountain biking, and that was all that stood between us and a solid night's rest. We got a good pace line going and knocked down the first 35km in no time...then Nick flatted. No big deal, but how? As I showed in our video we had come up with what we thought to be a fool proof system to prevent flats...one problem, the wrap that we used around the tires did not cover 100% of the tube. There was about a one inch gap and this gap was creating a bubble in the tire that was constantly pushing that section of tube against the edges of the insert. We hauled the liner out of Nick's bike and quickly changed his tire. No biggie, we should be back on the road in a matter of minutes. As we tried to pump up his tire we couldn't help but notice that the damn thing wasn't actually putting any air in the tube. No matter how much we played with it the damn thing was garbage. We were stuck out waiting for another team to catch us.

About seven or eight minutes later a team caught up and allowed us to quickly borrow their pump. We inflated our tire, thanked them greatly and went about putting Nick's bike back together to hit the road again. As we started to ride again my bike felt wonky. I looked down and my tire had gone flat while we were fixing Nick's! The team we had borrowed the pump off of were now gone and we were stuck awaiting another team's help!!

We had stopped in front of a farmer's house and there was a dog constantly barking in the background. I guess we had now been there long enough to concern the owner and he made his was out, at about midnight, to see exactly what the hell was going on. Apparently our rear red flashing bike lights combined with us laughing at our situation had lead him to believe that some drunken fool had been arrested while driving! He was very nice and offered to help in every way he could dream up, but our 'presta valve' tubes (different from schrader valves on older bike tubes set-ups and car tires) would not fit anything that he had available. It was at least another ten minutes before a second team caught up and were nice enough to leave their pump with us.

"We have two, we'll get it back from you in the transition."

"THANKS!!"

We had removed both of my tires to take out the insert and after inflating them we were finally back in motion again...for all of about 300 meters...

Megan, "FLAT!!!"

Everyone, "DAMMIT!!"

Our rubber inserts had not only failed but failed successively in less than a KM! We ripped off both of Meg's tires, replaced the one tube, watched two more teams pass us and prayed that we could just get through the last 12km and get some sleep. We had lost an hour while fumbling around with out bikes and instead of being able to get three hours of sleep before the 6am restart we would be down to two or a late departure.

We finally made it to the transition having taken 3hr13m to cover just 47km of pure flat terrain! It was the 35th 'slowest' bike time of the entire event...but that was alright, the real race didn't start until 6am anyways and up until then everyone was still basically tied for first!

We decided that we should still stick with our three hour sleep plan and after breaking down our bikes we looked over the Second Stage of the race and plotted our maps. Up next was:

-43km Kayak

-105km Mountain Bike

-35km Orienteering

-145km Mountain Bike

We put our heads down on the beach for our three hour nap, knowing that we would depart an hour later than the lead teams...

GR

# 1: The Build Up...

Let me just say this right now, if this posting sucks I apologize. I am suffering from a major lack of motivation to write anything lately and I have chained myself to the chair to get through this first report.

The race season is pretty much over for me and Team Helly Hansen-MOMAR (only the Cumberland MOMAR on Sept 29th to go), and I think I have just mentally shut down and started my off season. I'm still getting out there on a daily basis and enjoying stuff, especially since we are getting the best weather of the entire year right now, but after a very long and successful season of racing it is really nice not to have to 'focus' on anything right now.

My right foot was still hurting pretty bad from my 130km run a few weeks prior, and it was all I could handle not to limp my way through a thirty minute trail run the day before I departed for Australia.

As I headed to the airport it was with great concern that I would not be 100% for this race and that I would more than likely end up fighting through serious pain for eight plus days...well additional to the obvious pain associated with racing of this type! I did not doubt that I could withstand the discomfort for the race, but I was left pondering what type of price I would pay for long term damage to my foot. I told myself that this was the last big race of the season and no matter what the cost I would have a few months to get over it in the end.

Flying with a bike box sucks. Airlines used to allow sports gear for free but that all changed a few years back, and now you are pretty much at the mercy of the airline staff member checking you in. I have managed a very impressive year of 'ducking surcharges' however and as I wait in line for each flight I always size up the counter staff and decide upon a different game plan for each individual. So far in 2007 I have talked my way out of three of four potential surcharges, and my only goal for August 16th was to somehow manage to get my bike on that flight for free!

It was not looking promising as I ran into a Vancouver racer who was flying to the same event. She had just checked in for her flight and had to fork out and additional 175.00 for her bike box! One way!!

There were only two people working the Air Canada counter when I headed up and I was not liking my options, lady in her fifties on the left, guy in his late fifties on the right...at least with younger staff I can try to flirt my way through it. They were both noticeably stressed by their lack of assistance during this process and I figured I was counting down to the inevitable.

I happened to get the lady on the left,

"Blah, Blah, Blah, bike box 100.00"

"What! I've never paid for my bike before, are you sure?"

"Yadda, yadda, yadda YUP"

"When did this start?"

"Before you were born mister, how would you like to pay?"

"I wouldn't like to pay!" as I reached for my credit card.

She swiped it a few times but her machine would not work.

"Come with me, I have to process you down here."

She tagged my luggage and I followed her four stalls down to her right, where she was passing me off to the 1st Class check in lady. Everyone was busy and they did not converse, she simply looked at me and said,

"She'll take care of you."

In the next 3/4 of a second I processed a lot of information as my brain was going over my options...these two did not discus what was taking place or even make eye contact for that matter, the lady I was now in front of was too busy to have even noticed me, the staff member that had delivered me was on her way back to her till and would surely be attending to the next person in line before she even reached her computer screen, my luggage was already tagged and ready to go, I had nothing to loose but my hundred bucks that I was about to depart with anyways, move your feet Gary, go, do it, this will work but you have to go NOW, GO, WALK DAMMIT...I grabbed my bags and very confidently strolled past the check in counters and on towards the next line up for the security check. I did not look back and just kept praying that I would not receive a tap on the shoulder and a finger in the face...three minutes later my bags had cleared the security process and I was on my way to Australia, with an additional 100 to spend on post race drinks!

Anyone who has flown to Australia knows what a painful process it can be, anyone who has flown on an Aeropoints booking knows that it can be even worse. My flight was at the mercy of availability and I had over 34 hours of travel ahead of me!

I hardly slept during the day and a half, but I did manage to get drunk in L.A. during my six hour stopover, and they do serve free alcohol on international, so I did enjoy a section of the flights. I arrived in Mackay, Australia completely exhausted but thankful that Megan, Nick and Megan's parent's Ivan and Valerie were there to greet me. We would be staying at their home for a few days before the race began. Mark flew up from Sydney later that day and we had a wonderful dinner compliments of our hosts.

I slept a lot in the days leading up to our departure from Mackay for Airlie Beach, (a two hour drive away) and thankfully my teammates, which included Ivan and Valerie picked up my slack. We spent an extra night at The Rose's to get a proper nights rest and avoid the inevitable race headquarter chaos.

Somehow between the time I departed Vancouver and the actual start of XPD my right foot had healed itself, I mean completely, 100%. I was two days into the race before I even thought about it again. This was easily the most serious injury of the year for me, a shooting pain through the outside of my right mid-foot that had me seriously contemplating x-rays. For fourteen days it plagued and worried me and no matter what I tried I could not get over it, yet somehow after sitting upright for 34 hours the pain was now gone? I wasn't complaining, just seriously confused...still am?

For XPD they had decided to change things up a little. With most expedition adventure races you get your maps and logistical schedule about 24 hours prior to the race start, however for this race they were only going to issue us portions of the race in three stages. We had but access to the information that would take us through the first 130km of this 800km race...and they expected us to pack all of our boxes with our food for 7-10 days and gear including batteries for lights (it was Winter in OZ and we had 12hr of darkness!) and shoes and clothes! This was seriously stressful until we all agreed that every other team was going through the same thing. We were informed that we would see our bike box more than anything else, however there were strict weight restrictions on each box and at 'weigh in' every team member lost some form of food and supplies.

The main benefit to this entire process is that we were done plotting our maps in a matter of minutes versus hours, and I had by far the best pre-expedition sleep of my short racing career!

Kinda like what I'm gonna do right now...

zzzzzzzz
GR

A Second Short Video of The Lead Up To XPD

As a small side note to this video, I meant to say 1/16 of an inch, not 1/4 inch, and our absolutely brilliant idea failed miserably. Not only did it NOT prevent flat tires, it actually caused our first three!!

Also, if you have not already signed up for this Facebook crap, DON'T DO IT MAN. I'm telling you it's some kind of funky new drug and you don't even know you're on it. I think it works on mind control but am kind of unsure as the last 24hr's of my life are nothing but a big Facebook blur.

I am actually fortunate that this race season is pretty much over, because F.B. seems to work on some kind of gravitational pulley system, and it actually sucks you very existence right into your computer screen. I don't know how anyone without internet access at work can make it through their day.

GR

I'm Getting Old!

I didn't write it, but it was too good not to post on here:

TO THE SPOILED UNDER 25 CROWD...

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious
diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with
walking twenty-five miles to school every morning...uphill BOTH ways.
yadda, yadda, yadda. And I remember promising myself that when I grew up,
there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on
kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to
know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in
the card catalog!! There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter...with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to
hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had
to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk
over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and
somebody else called they got a busy signal, THAT'S IT! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your bookie, a collections agent, you just didn't know. You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with
high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "asteroids" and the graphics sucked ass! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder And faster and faster until you died! JUST LIKE LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium
seating! All the seats were the same height. If a tall guy or some old broad with
a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!
Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels
and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a
little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. DO YOU HEAR WHAT I'M SAYING!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had
to use the stove or go build a frigging fire... imagine that! If we wanted
popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the
stove like a frikkin idiot.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too
easy. You're spoiled. You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1981!

Regards,
The over 25 Crowd

Video Success!

Team Helly Hansen-MOMAR in the days leading up to the start of the 800km XPD Expedition Adventure Race.

Struggles Uploading Video

Unfortunately the Google video uploader that worked so flawlessly for my 'West Coast Double' Run does not want to cooperate lately. I have been stuck all week trying to upload the video footage we captured during the event. The files are too big for YouTube so I will have to figure out some other option in the coming days.

Since I am pretty much working every single day for the rest of the year (to pay off this season of racing) the XPD race report may be a little delayed, but I'll be starting in on it shortly. It's always tough after such an incredible vacation to get refocused and centered again, although last night helped as it was a friend's stag party. We normally do a Friday night road ride here in Squamish and all but the aforementioned were aware that this ride would consist of but one large biking pub crawl. Good times!

GR

XPD Slideshow Now Uploaded

P8290276, originally uploaded by garobbins.

'The Finisher's Couch', pizza and ice cream

It's Almost Over...

I did not realize that Mark and I signed up for the Expedition PLUS event...I think I have slept less since the race finished then when we were actually out on the course!

It has been a crazy and amazing week since we finished the 800km XPD, complete with snorkeling, sailing, flying and exploration of numerous watering holes.

Flying out tomorrow, can't wait to get a full nights rest again...

GR

We Made It!!

Holy crap, what a race!

Plenty of stories from this one, but the only one worth telling right now is that we finally finished a FULL expedition length race as a ranked team, what a feeling!!

It was like a wildlife safari out there, we came across five snakes, one, a red belly black snake is one of the deadliest in the world, had a dolphin swim between our kayaks, noticed a black tipped reef shark shortly before we commenced a snorkel section, nearly biked into a kangaroo, not to mention seeing wallabies, a bilby, and a goana.

I think there was more, but am still in a bit of a haze with everything. We have an incredible condo rented out for the next five days and are just preparing a sweet BBQ dinner before hitting up the backpacker town of Airlie Beach. It will be awhile before I get updates and such on here, but we have almost 20 minutes of video of the race as well.

Awesome time so far...it will be hard to return home in a week...if I did not have my dog at home waiting I might have decided to get a bartending job and hang out for a few months!

Almost There...

It just keeps going and going and going and going...I departed Vancouver over 31 hours ago and I am just getting ready to board my last flight, from Brisbane to Mackay, in an hour...make it end!

Although I have but slept a few hours since I left things are going good so far. I have already watched 4 new movies and managed to make it to Australia without having to pay a surcharge for my mountain bike...although technically I could have gotten in some trouble for it. Anyways, stories to come, one flight to go, then some serious zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

GR

Australia Here I Come!

I am having trouble believing that I will back be in Australia in just a few days!

I spent a full year in Australia and New Zealand in 2000 and had some the best experiences of my life...bring on the sand and surf baby!

Oh yeah, but first Team Helly Hansen-MOMAR will be competeing in XPD the Australian Epic Expedition Adventure Race, encompassing 800km of 'rainforest and reef'...there's even a snorkeling stage on The Great Barrier Reef itself!

You should be able to follow along on the XPD website.

Let's just hope that for the first time all year Team Helly Hansen-MOMAR can have a clean race and not get into any issues on the water or have any near death experiences!

As a small side note, I'm pretty sure we are the youngest team in the entire event, as I am somehow now the oldest member on my team...how the hell did that happen?!

GR

Stage Two, The Connector and Juan De Fuca (55km)

So I ended up having to wait twenty minutes for the Gordon River water taxi. During which time I managed to down some vitamin I (Ibuprofen) and stretch my legs for five minutes. By the time I reached the opposite side of the water, and was greeted by Carlos and Roxy I was feeling 100% better than an hour earlier, buoyed onwards by the knowledge that I had at least made my only cut-off for my run. No matter what occurred after this point in time, I was sure I would at least crawl to the 'finish line'.

I had to 'check out' of the West Coast Trail and had a brief conversation with the receptionist. She asked my running time and after telling her it was 12h20m she congratulated me on being the fastest runner to have ever done the trail! I quickly corrected her, for I know at least two people who have completed it in under 10 hours, and assured her I would try to have them contact the trail office to update their information. I then asked about the runner from the previous day,

“I don’t know, maybe you ran past him because we still have not seen the guy here.”

She then went into detail about what a jerk the guy had been, and I immediately went about trying to convince her of what great people runners usually are. The last thing I wanted was for any future runners to be banned from this trail! She was also the very first person, outside of close friends, who I told of my intentions to continue onwards and attempt the Juan De Fuca trail as well.

“Really, wow, well be sure to call us when you are done and let us know how it went!”

“I will, thanks so much, you beautiful lady you, great area here, wonderful people, amazing landscape…did I mention how nice runners usually are?”

With that I was off and running the road connecting the two trails. Carlos would drive ahead a few hundred meters and wait for me to catch up. I initially started running with Roxy. I attached her leash to my backpack and was hoping she would help tow me along, instead she was dead weight, having run for a few hours with Carlos already that day. I ended up tucking her back in the vehicle after just a few minutes…I was 77km in and not even my dog would join me!!

About half way along the eight kilometer stretch of road from Gordon River to Botanical Beach I noticed a convenience store. Carlos was just up ahead and I threw my arms in the air like a crazed maniac in the hopes that he would see me…I wasn’t passing up on this one. I ducked inside and grabbed a half liter of chocolate milk! They also had a microwave which allowed me to heat up some of the quinoa I was packing in my drop bags. It was a beautiful afternoon and I really enjoyed the ten minute break in the sunshine.

Once the food was gone I was back to running the road again. It started to climb a few decent grades and I was forced into a fast hike within minutes. As I was approaching the Botanical Beach Trail Head, where the North end of the Juan De Fuca begins, I was left wondering why Carlos had stopped in my vehicle, in the middle of the road, with the reverse lights on? Less than a minute later my curiosity was answered as I nearly ran smack dab into a black bear!

The bear was very relaxed and hardly took notice of me at all, but I was glad to have a few hundred pounds of steal as a barrier between the bear and I. After a short video, I was into the parking area and my official transition point. Carlos unloaded my bins while I ran to the outhouse to change my clothes and reapply Bodyglide to every square inch of my body!

After topping up my bladder with Carbo-Pro, filling my backpack with food supplies and dropping Nuun tablets into my handheld bottles I was off.

A week out, I had been hoping to make it onto the JDF for 6:30pm. I officially started the trail at 6:27pm and was honestly in shock at how good I was feeling! The break between the trails, the lack of now having a cut off time to make and the social interactions with Carlos and some other people all helped to bring me back into a solid mental state, which immediately transcended into my running. I started at a pace that I had not been able to sustain all day. It lasted for all of a kilometer, until the climbing and descending began.

My goal for the JDF was to knock down as many kms as possible before nightfall, hopefully 20k or more. I had just under three hours to do so and put in as solid an effort as I could. After the first hour or so the adrenaline had worn off and I was once again back to feeling really spent and just trying to tough it out as best I could. My right knee was starting to flare up and it kept me on a steady intake of I.B. for the rest of the run. The soles of my feet were also getting pretty damn tired and letting it be known that they were well past their comfort range. On top of that my stomach was starting to scream at me as it was in desperate need of a full meal. The food that I was carrying would be the bare minimum to get me through the night.

As I was approaching about 15km, I crossed a bridge and had to skirt around a gentleman who was purifying water from the river. He took notice of my small running pack and started asking questions. Before long he had gotten it all out of me, (yeah, I hate talking, it was sooo tough for him to pry it out of me right!) and he looked at me in shock,

“When you pass through the campground, would you do me a favour please?”

“Sure, I think?”

“Would you tell my daughter what you have done so far today?”

“Umm, really? I mean, yeah if you think she would like to know about it, I’ll find her.”

“Thanks, she’s been having a bit of a rough day, I think this might help her out.”

As I passed through the campground I noticed a young girl of about ten and a woman about the same age as the gentleman on the bridge.

“Is that your father down on the bridge?”

“Pardon me?”

“Sorry, your father, is he purifying water? He asked me to come and tell you what I was doing out here today.”

“Yeah, that’s my Dad…”

“Well he just wanted me to tell you that I started running about eighteen hours ago back in Pachena Bay at the start of the West Coast Trail, and I’m trying to make it to the end of this trail in under 24 hours…if I am successful I will be the first person to have done so”

They were obviously in shock and after a second of silence they just erupted in amazement and appreciation for what I was attempting.

The Mother broke out with, “That’s incredible, you deserve a hug!”

All I could say was, “Honestly lady, I would LOVE a hug right now!”

She gave me the most wonderful embrace, followed immediately by her daughter and then again by her. It was such a small thing, to hug someone, a basic human interaction, and yet to me, at that moment in time, nothing else could have meant more, nothing. I will admit, being so exhausted and shattered I was nearly brought to tears…it was just so random and amazingly appreciated. Throughout most of the run I was going it alone, and hardly running into even hikers on the trails. This support from random strangers (we never even exchanged names!) helped to lift me back up to where I needed to be to continue through the night alone.

“Well we won’t keep you from your run any longer, get going, GOOD LUCK!”

I only hope they were able to read on my face how thankful I was to have briefly met them.

By nightfall I had reached 19km, leaving me with 28km to cover in the dark. As mentioned a few of us ran the JDF in the fall of 2006. Our time was 7.5 hours which works out to about 6km an hour…this was all we could manage while running it fresh. I had 28km to go and 5.5 hours to cover it in. That left me with a necessary pace of 5km an hour. Again, this does not sound like much, but the Juan De Fuca Trail has to be experienced to fully understand just how tough it really is. The high point on the JDF isn’t even much more than maybe 1,000 feet about sea level...I’m not sure of the exact height, but looking at this trail on a map you would never guess what it has in store for you. I just wanted to focus on hiking the hills as fast as my body would allow, for I knew this is where I would loose the most time if I did not stay focused.

I was now running through the dark and the only breaks I would get from the solitude of the trails at night were my few mandatory beach 'running' sections. It was the Saturday night of the long weekend and all the accessible beach areas were littered with drunken partiers. Most were very helpful with directing me to the trail heads off of the beach, as the majority of the JDF marking is not reflective and it would often be tough to find the trails that lead away from the ocean. At one point late into the night I stopped to ask the only visible person, if he knew where the trail head was. All he could do was sway back and fourth while he seemingly tried to determine exactly what this reflective figure with a headlamp shining into in his face actually was. I slowly asked again and it became obvious that he was now agitated, but still speechless. As I was about to try one last time I recognized the look in his eyes, he was so confused as to what was going on that his only solution was to try and fight his way out of it! As he was trying to stabilize himself for a confrontation I immediately started backing away and hoping that I could actually outrun him if need be! I was certainly in no shape to be absorbing any additional non self inflicted punishment!

Just after midnight, while struggling to stay on pace for my sub 24hr goal, my stomach basically threw in the towel. I did not puke, but thought for sure that I would. No matter how hard I tried, I simply did not have enough calories on me to get my body back to good. I stuffed down over 500 with a mix of Carbo-Pro, a snickers bar, some Cliff Shots and a gel. It did absolutely zero to relieve the discomfort. My stomach did not even flinch. It was as if it was talking to me, and I could fully understand exactly what it was saying...

"I'll let you have your 24 hours of running, la ti freakin da I really could not care less about all of this right now, but I'll let you have it anyways...however, at 24hr and 1 minute, I OWN YOU!! If your ass is not planted firmly in a chair by that point in time, look out cause you're gonna wish we had never met!"

"Deal"

All I could do was ensure that I stayed on top of my electrolytes. I made sure that I continued to consumed regular doses of my Nuun tablets and it seemed to be enough to at least keep me going in a straight line!

At my last beach crossing everyone was out for the count. I was 2am and all that stood out were the reflective fly sheets on most of the tents. I continued past all the campers and eventually found myself at a rocky headway. The water was slowly lapping into the cliff face and I was left wondering if I had mis-calculated my tides? I waded out into shin deep water and tried to see around the rocks. It took me all of three seconds to determine that if I had to continue along this route it was all but over until day break. Thankfully I had actually remembered to pack my JDF trail stats with me, upon referencing them I realized that I simply had to have gone too far. I should have had five feet of tidal leeway with this beach. As I doubled back I was very fortunate to accidentally spot a somewhat hidden trail head sign. I stopped to try and pry a rock from my shoe and the trail was but ten feet in front of me! Had I not stopped I surely would have returned to the camping area and dropped valuable time in the process. I hopped onto the trail and realized that I could potentially be done with my suffering in 90 minutes, with a bit of luck and an elevated running pace.

Again I was forced to dig deep and I somehow found a reserve of energy that I did not know I possessed. Surely most of it was fueled by the adrenaline rush of a potential end to my misery.

I seemed to remember the JDF trail relenting just a little bit in the last four kilometers...I remember wrong, way wrong! There were no breaks, none, not a single freakin km on that trail is given to you!

At 3:22am I found myself at the 2km to go marker. I had 42 minutes left for my sub 24...it was all but in the bag. I tried to run it in, but there was no point, everything I set out to accomplish was about to unfold in front of me wheter I ran or hiked. I tried to enjoy the final 22 minutes of the Juan De Fuca Trail. As painful an experience as it was, I knew that not a single memory thereafter would retain this information, in fact even now it takes a full on effort to recall exactly how much it did hurt at times. Instead my memories are of setting out to accomplish a lofty goal. One that many, including myself, doubted could be done as an individual. This was just 4km shy of being twice as far in distance as I had ever continuously run before, and over three times longer in time than my previous longest run (the 06 JDF run), yet I never once questioned if I would finish this route. Barring severe injury I was fully confident that I could tough it out...the sub 24 was up in the air and but icing on the cake at this point in time.

I fully realized how fortunate I was on this particular weekend. First and foremost, Carlos Castillo sacrificed his own long weekend to at least give me a shot at this one. The weather worked out perfectly. There was very little rain leading up to my departure and not a single drop throughout the run. Numerous sections of trail would have been significantly increased in difficulty with even the slightest precipitation. The tides, the tides, the tides. I have no idea what would be considered normal for the tidal changes on a typical day over this route, but I could not have asked for any better. The permit...well, as I learned, anyone who sets up on the Warden's doorstep at 7am is virtually guaranteed a day permit.

In less than a day I managed to experience the absolute highs and lows of the human spirit. I had met some great people on the trail, no matter how brief our encounters, and although I did not spot a whale, I did run through no fewer that a million sea gulls, witnessed a few bald eagles, apparently missed a cougar encounted by mere minutes, and came within twenty feet of running into a black bear.

These thoughts and more were flying through my mind as I managed to get my legs to kick and run the final 500 meters to the JDF parking area. I started screaming in joy and Carlos, having agreed to start running towards me had I not hit my sub 24, starting yelling back. I got to run the final 100 meters with Carlos and Roxy and when I hit that parking lot I had but one thought going through my mind...

Why didn't I pack a cooler of beer for myself!!!

I dropped my ass into a chair and every inch of my body screamed out in unison,

"THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!"

My official running time for the Juan De Fuca was 9hr and 17min, and all up I had taken 23hr40 to knock down the 130km. For a fraction of a second I contemplated running an additional 30km on the road to get my first 100 miler, then I smacked myself right in the teeth to snap my ass out of it...I wasn't going to move an inch under my own power for at least a full week!

Thanks to everyone for your pre run support and post run congrats. Australia for an 800km expedition race known as XPD in four days!! (just over a week till the event begins)

Thanks, as always, to Helly Hansen for supplying me with the best gear to tackle these challenges.

P.S. Anyone know of a 200km route that has not been run yet??

GR

Stage One, The 75km West Coast Trail

Let me just start by saying one thing, Carlos Castillo is THE MAN, and none of this would have been possible without him!

The idea was hatched over a few beers in September 2006. A group of us had just run the 47km Juan De Fuca Trail, with times ranging from 7.5-9 hours. We unanimously agreed that the JDFT was a killer...and yet we all discussed what we could do to make it tougher?
How about an out and back? Boring.
What about linking it to another trail?
Then someone mentioned the 75km West Coast Trail, which finished just down the street from the North end of the Juan De Fuca Trail. There was a paved road connecting these two and the total distance added up to 130km.

The West Coast trail is a classic West Coast hike and is internationally known for it's high level of difficulty. There are dozens of hikers rescued off of this trail annually with numerous injuries and ailments, and the one season rescue record topped over 100 people!
With steep ladders, cable car water crossings, deep mud, rocky rooty trails, and lengthy beach sections, the West Coast Trail stood alone as a test of your trail running prowess. To tack on another sole destroying 53km after this...well that sounded like a great idea! We all planned to come back and give it a go in 2007.
After some further research we learned that these trails had never been successfully run end to end before. A few groups had attempted it, but without success.

Fast forward to the B.C. Day long weekend, August 4th-6th 2007. I had somehow managed four days off from work and without a major race in there I found myself without a good 'get out of town' plan. I racked my brain with different options and came up with everything from sky diving to flying to Wisconsin to visit some friends, but this 'West Coast Double' kept popping into my head. I decided to sleep on it but to no avail, when I awoke the next morning and my first thoughts were with the trails I knew it was time to go for it. I hoped that some of my trail running buddies would be able to join me but would quickly learn that all had to pass for different reasons. Each person wished me luck and said they would be thinking of me while enjoying the comforts of their own beds that night.

The WCT sells out months in advance, but I did learn that they issue five additional permits per day on a first come, first serve basis. So as long as I could get myself to Bamfield in time, I should be able to grab one of these for myself. On Thursday August 2nd I worked ten hours at North Shore Athletics, drove an hour to the ferry crossing, caught the 9:30pm ferry for an 11pm arrival in Nanaimo, and cranked up my music as I drove off into the night. I arrived in Bamfield at 2:30am and was forced to sleep in my car, with my dog no less. Just four hours later I awoke with the daylight, grabbed a chair, a book, some food and my dog Roxy and headed for the Warden's office. I knew they did not open until 9am, but I was leaving nothing to chance. All it would take was one group of five hikers to leave me stranded in Bamfield for the day. Roxy and I camped out right in front of their door.

At 9am the Warden arrived and issued me my running permit. All she had to say was,

"Oh. I have never issued a one day permit for the entire trail before!"

The fees for the West Coast Trail, even for just running it in a day, are $160.00, including your two mandatory water taxi crossings. Due to these water crossings there is no possible way to even consider 'poaching' the trail. This was not a thought I had, but for any other runners who might be wanting to run the WCT, know in advance what it will cost you and don't give the park staff any grief over it! There was apparently a runner who left the day before me and he fought tooth and nail not to pay this fee, frustrating everyone involved and potentially jeopardizing future trail running access to the WCT. It will only take a few jerks to push the park staff into banning us from it all together. If you intend to head out there for a run, let it be known that you are a runner and show them how great the running community is. We need to cover our butts from the one's that shouldn't be out there in the first place!

With my permit in hand...firmly in my hands, as I was now afraid to loose it! I headed into Bamfield for a nice cooked breakfast.
At noon my good buddy Carlos Castillo arrived from Victoria. He and Roxy went for a two hour run while I managed a nice one hour nap. We spent the remainder of the day chilling on the beach and swapping war stories. Carlos was great company and I enjoyed the opportunity to get to know him a bit better.

At 9pm I figured it was time to hit the tent. Roxy joined me and she was asleep within minutes. Although I had only slept 4hr the previous night, and I felt completely exhausted, my mind would not stop racing. Anytime I got close to falling asleep, I would all of a sudden get goose bumps as another thought about the following days attempt would somehow creep its way into my mind. It was a long and sleepless night and at 3:20am, without even looking, I was fully aware of the fact that my alarm was about to sound.

3:23am, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP,

“Damn”

As I hit snooze, my second back up alarm sounded. I actually lay there telling myself how much I did not want to get out of my tent and try this stupid run. It was downright freezing out, it was 3:30am, I had hardly slept in two days and I was about to embark on a 130km run, c'mon, who was I kidding, this was insanity, just turn off the alarms, go back to sleep and tell everyone that you couldn't get yourself a permit for the West Coast Trail. At about that time I remembered that Carlos was sleeping in the tent across from me. He had offered to sacrifice his own weekend to come out and be my support crew, had boarded a 6am, six hour bus ride the previous day, and was getting up shortly after I left to drive seven hours to the end of the WCT. Then he would drive to the end of the Juan De Fuca Trail and camp in the parking lot until 4am on Saturday, at which point he intended to start running the trail back towards me in case I had gotten lost or injured. The man was a legend in my books and I would never be able to face him again had I slept in and blown my only chance at this run.

I dragged my sorry ass out of my tent. Shivering and sleep deprived I went about breaking down my campsite and getting my running gear ready to go. I had intended to start the WCT at 4am and I officially made it onto the trail at 4:04am. It was pitch black out and although I was wearing a headlamp it was not my brightest setup. I had sacrificed brightness for lightness, thinking I would not want to carry the heavier lamp for ten plus hours after the sun came up. For the first two hours of the run I was wishing the opposite.

I had hiked the West Coast Trail once before, in 2001. I did it in three days and most people told me I was crazy to attempt this, and that I would not make it through...oh if only those same people knew what the hell I was doing to myself on this day.

The winter of 2006-2007 was a rough one on the west coast. We were battered by wind storm after wind storm and the WCT was forced into a late opening in 2007. The cleanup was massive due to all of the downed trees that had to be moved, cleaned up or just sawed in half to allow the trail to continue. I vividly remembered the first 15km of the WCT as being a 'Golden Brick Road' that you could have run with your eyes closed. I was all of one kilometer into the trail before I hit my first ladder section! The ladders on the WCT are near vertical and in some sections climb over 400 feet! This first ladder was a few hundred feet up and I was left puzzled as to how I had forgotten such an element of the trail. I traversed a short section of route on top of the ladder and then proceeded down a few hundred feet of wood work on the opposite side. It was here that I noticed the old section of the trail that had since been closed. Due to the wind fall from the previous winter I was getting an early taste of what was ahead.

A few km down the trail, another set of ladders, followed by a section of forest that looked as if a bomb had been detonated right in the middle of it. There were dozens of huge trees strewn about in a mess of tangled tree trucks, branches and roots. There was a but a tiny chainsawed route through the middle of this mess, and once again I was left wondering what had happened to my 'highway' through the forest. I was only an hour and a half in and I was already falling off the pace that I figured I needed to sustain to make the 5pm water taxi cut off in Gordon River. This first part of the run was where I had intended to 'bank time' by hammering through it. Instead I was seriously struggling and starting to feel sick.

I don't know if it was the lack of sleep leading up to this run, my nerves getting the better of me, or something I ate the previous day, but I was having serious difficulty with consuming any calories, whether in liquid or solid form. I had to duck off into the bushes numerous times to deal with bowel issues that I had not experienced while running since I had diagnosed my Gluten Allergy nine months previous. Had I somehow consumed gluten while eating in Bamfield the day before? All I knew for sure is that I was suffering way more than I should have been this early into such a big run. I was constantly battling the notion that this was simply not going to be my day to do this. I needed to be at 100% to pull this one off and in my current state the thoughts of still running 115km did not seem possible. I knew I would hurt during this run, just not right from the start of it! I kept telling myself that maybe I was going to be doing the physical stresses backwards. I'd get the suffering out of the way early and then run easy through the rest of the run...although I am not a good lier and was having trouble convincing myself of this one. I put my head down and struggled onward.

I had a spectacular fall before the sun came up. I was running across a log bridge, with the logs having been halved and stuck in place going with the direction of travel. Moss had filled in a gap in the middle of these two pieces of wood and my foot shot right through the bridge. I was on my face and sliding before I even knew what had happened to me. It took me a good ten seconds to crawl back to my feet as I was not really enjoying myself at this point in time anyways. I had hardly eaten anything, was sick from the start, the trail was now tougher due to some newly re-routed sections and the chances of me actually making it through this thing seemed to be fading by the hour. I had a days worth of thoughts go through my mind in ten seconds flat, but the only thing that I heard was,
“Get yer G.D. Ass off the ground and get freakin moving again!”

As the kilometers ticked away I found it increasingly difficult to consume any food. I was in a bad downward spiral, as I could not eat because I was feeling sick and I was feeling sick because I was not eating. I forced down one Cliff Shot Block, about thirty calories and continued running. I was gaining some calories from my Carbo-Pro mix in my water bladder, but it was nowhere near sufficient enough for how much I was expending. I tried to eat a Snickers bar, but nearly spit out my one bite. I forced it down and ambled onwards, wondering what the rest of the day had in store for me.

It took me a full two hours and twenty minutes to cover the first 20km. Not a terrible pace, but still slower than I had intended.

The beaches were taking their toll on me early as well. There was virtually no runnable terrain on the beach sections. From time to time I would find some nice hard sand and make decent time but overall the ocean areas consisted of mainly small loose rocks and not only was I not able to run this stuff, but my left leg seemed to be taking a beating from it. As the 'up slope' leg for the entire day it seemed to be tweaking with each and every step that I took on theses rocks. I told myself that I had to stick to the forest at all costs. Even if the terrain in the forest was considered tougher, I believed I could make better time on it.

A major oversight on my part was forgetting my actual West Coast Trail Map! I was reviewing it while I lay in sleeping bag the night prior and in my hurry to depart I ended up packing up my tent with the map still sitting in a side pouch. I was kinda blind as to what the WCT had in store for me next, maybe a good thing, but it was tough to keep track of exactly where I was in regards to the more demanding and also more beautiful parts of the route. At about km 25 I crossed a bridge and there was a huge strand of flagging tape leading off to the left, although the main trail seemed to head to the right. It appeared to me that the main route would hit the beach and this obvious newly flagged route seemed to be yet another detour due to the winter storms. I followed the bright orange flagging tape, having promised myself that I would avoid the beach at all costs. There was a strip of tape every ten feet, and although it was not a completely definitive route, it was flagged well enough that I followed it with confidence. This section was not even close to runnable, in fact I continually wondered how anyone with an actual hiking backpack would be able to negotiate this terrain. After fifteen minutes I came to a major mud crossing, and was starting to question my chosen route. There was but one set of footprints through the mud. The WCT was completely sold out and there was only ONE set of footprints through this area...it made absolutely no sense whatsoever! I struggled for a minute with what to do and settled on retracing my steps back to the main route. Even if I ended up on the beach I would limit my losses to just thirty minutes, to go any further, in uncertainty, was putting my entire run in jeopardy. I mumbled and grumbled for the full fifteen minutes back out but would eventually learn that had I not made this call I would have ended up at Little Tsusiat Lake, which of course is nowhere near where I needed to be!

As soon as I hit the main trail again, and followed it just a hundred meters around the corner, I realized how silly I had been. The main trail continued onwards and a beach option was presented. Being without my trail map however, meant that I missed out on the most beautiful section of the entire route. Having hiked this trail before I was fully aware of the natural splendor of Tsusiat Falls, and intended to stop here for a quick break and some pics, instead, I ran blindly past on the inland route.

At kilometer 32 there is a water crossing in which you need to access a water taxi. There are two along the WCT and if you have not paid you trail fees you ain't getting across, in fact before the operators will not even say hi to you they have to see your actual WCT permit! I arrived at 8:40am only to discover that the boat operator does not start until 9am and he has been known to not show up until 10 or 11am some days! I decided that if he did not show up by 9:30am, I was going to have to attempt swimming this channel. It would be my only option for making the final 5pm water taxi to get off of the WCT (assuming that guy was there!). The good news was that my half hour detour was not going to cost me any actual time on the route, however, had I known that this boat did not operate before 9am, I probably would have slept (lay in my tent trying to sleep) for an extra hour and ended up with the same finish time for the WCT. I was completely relieved to see the a boat heading for me at exactly 9am!

Safely across and I was finally running into actual hikers. I was over five hours in at this point and had not seen a single person on the trails! However, taking five hours to cover the first 32km left me with little time to spare and all conversations were had in passing. Most looking stunned at what I was obviously doing, but the occasional person would ask,

“What time did you start?”

“4am”

“Good luck!”

The boardwalks through here made for some great running, but I was fully aware of how fortunate I was that it did not rain overnight, for this area would be a death trap with any moisture on it. I was still struggling to take in calories, but was able to make decent time through here, fueled mainly on fears of missing my final water taxi. I snapped a self picture at km 39, just over half way through the West Coat Trail, but I was suffering so badly that I could not even muster up a smile for it. The picture looks like I have just poured water over my head, but it is all hard earned sweat.

I inadvertently ended up back on the beach again from km 43-44 at which point you hike up another steep set up ladders to the Carmanah Lighthouse, which has incredible views out over the ocean. From here you get back onto an inland trail for a short distance before hitting the beach for an unavoidable 5-6km section, which I was dreading! At the very start of this beach run there is a full on vendor set up called 'Moniques'. They sell everything from snacks and pop to beer and cooked food! I had depleted my three liters of water just one km prior and was intending to stop at Moniques to hopefully get on top of my stomach issues. I was 45km in, had taken over six hours reach this point and had consumed virtually none of the food I was carrying. I had counted down the kilometers to the time when I knew I could buy a few Cokes and rest up for a few minutes. Moniques also has free fresh water, so I was able to top up my three liters of capacity while I downed my pop.

It was just after 10am and there were a few groups of hikers enjoying the scenery. The sun was starting to break through the clouds, as it had been a perfect overcast morning for running. All six people sitting here were enjoying an early morning Beer, in the sun, on the beach, while doing one of the most gorgeous hikes in the world...a big part of me wanted to call it right there and join them! I appreciated the short interactions with these people and departed after about fifteen minutes, feeling somewhat better.

There is something magical about Coca Cola for endurance activities. Its mix of sodium, sugars and caffeine just can't be beat and although I knew my body would eventually turn the corner with how I was feeling, the timing with the Coke consumption was almost immediate.

Although my calorie intake had fallen behind from six hours of running on empty, I still felt that I needed to run the beach away from my beer drinking compadres. It didn't seem right to just hike out of there after telling them what I was attempting to do (I never once mentioned the JDF portion to people, they were shocked enough at the WCT run that it did not seem necessary). I made it all of 2km down the beach before my left hamstring completely seized up on me. Once again doubts came rushing through my head. What was I doing? This was ridiculous, it was over, my body would obviously start shutting down on me. I had never run for more than 7.5 hours before...I thought for sure that I had gotten in over my head and was about to pay a hefty price for it.

I tried to calm myself and managed to at least keep walking. It was alright I said, it's not like I had never cramped before, it's not like I thought this would be easy, just concentrate on getting some damn calories into your body, I thought.

As I hiked a few km of sand and rock I did just that. I rifled through my pack and put whatever I got my hands on into my mouth, some cliff shots, the rest of that snickers I could not eat earlier, a few Nuun tablets, some gels, a folding blade knife, a protein bar (the knife didn't taste so good), absolutely anything. Thankfully I was able to hold it all down and eventually I made it off the beach and back onto the trails at km 51 (this was now the furthest I had run in three years). Some quick math told me that my hiking was all but over. To make my 5pm cut off I had to really hammer it through the most technical and challenging sections of the entire route. As mentioned I had intended to bank time on the earlier parts of the trail in anticipation of this, but that plan was out the window. It was go time, this was the big test I knew I would face. I just put my head down, prayed my legs would hold up and started running for my life...my double would all but vanish if I missed the last water taxi of the day and I'd be crawling up under a tree with nothing but a space blanket for the night!

KM 52 – KM 53 took me fifteen minutes...fifteen minutes! I was giving it all I had left in the tank but this section of the trail was just littered with wood work like I had never seen before. It was like stumbling into an Ewok Village! Ladders and wood everywhere, hundreds and hundreds of feet of planks that were completely vertical, and they ended at a cable car crossing. The cable cars are a bit of fun, if you have the time to enjoy them, but hauling a few hundred pounds of twisted steel across a river, only to jump in and shoot to the middle of the line and have to haul yourself the rest of the way across, is physically draining and time consuming to say the least! You are then rewarded for your efforts with a set of ladder work that mimics the life threatening descent you had just accomplished on the opposite bank of the river. (Life threatening due to a freaking heart attack!) Anytime I crested a set of ladders I would inevitably have to hike for a few minutes before my heart rate would even consider allowing me to run again. I could not imagine doing this with the huge backpacks I had witnessed some of the hikers on the trail with. No wonder they have to rescue so many people out here each year, I bet half of them are faking any injury they can dream up just to avoid the ladders and cable cars.

“What's that, it's going to cost $1,000.00 for a boat rescue, deal! I mean, owww, my leg, I think it's broken!”

The very next KM was without a cable car, instead having a suspension bridge, but they decided to up the ante and put in an even larger section of wood work! It still took me a full ten minutes to cover this single kilometer. The trails between these devices of torture known as ladders are punctuated with deep pools of shoe swallowing mud and ankle grabbing tree roots. The game was on, and the next three hours were a fight for every inch of trail out there. I hit the final cable car on the trail, took one look at the water and said scew it, it was only knee deep, so I waded through instead! I was constantly doing the math in my head and eventually by the time I reached KM 67, I had it calculated that I had all but won the battle and was definitely going to make my necessary cut off, but I had destroyed myself in the process.

Sixty seven kilometers was previously the farthest I had ever run, during the 2004 Stormy ultramarathon. I stopped to shoot a video of the official step that pushed me into a completely new realm for distance running. The celebration was short lived however as I quickly reminded myself that I still had a full 63 KM of trail running to go, if I was going to make my entire proposed route.

With seven kilometers to go on the WCT I came across a friendly family of hikers. The daugther was close to my age and was out with her brother and parents on a nice family shared vacation. The girl asked,

“What time did you start?”

“4am.”

“From where?”

“The beginnning.”

“Beginning of what?”

“This trail.”

“WHICH SECTION OF TRAIL?”

“The entire West Coast Trail!”

Right in front of her family she blurted out,

“You're a f$%king nut case!”

“I've heard worse!”

The mother then went about her motherly duties,

“How are you? Do you have enough water? Do you have enough food? How are your feet? Are you OK?”

“Yeah, things are going pretty good so far.”

“You ARE a f$%ing nut case!”

For once, I was speachless.

The very next group of hikers I encounted were an active group of students from Vancouver who were up for a seven day version of the WCT. Our conversation was going very similar to the last, until they said,

“We just saw a cougar.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, about half a km down the trail”

“Excuse me?”

“It should be gone, we scared it off.”

“Excuse me?”

I tried to act tough and experienced with stuff like this and hauled out my three inch folding blade knife.

“Not to worry, I've got this!” I proclaimed

Their response was, “Excuse me?”

So they had scared it off, simple as that, eight hikers would scare off a single cat, but what would a large feline do with one person RUNNING through the forest. Wouldn't I be playing specifically on its primal instincts! I held the three inch knife in my hand and screamed like a F$%king Nut Case, for the next ten minutes!

By the time I reached KM 70, with only five to go, I was utterly shattered. I had nearly killed myself to get to this point, but I had done it and that was all that mattered. I would make the crossing and at least give myself a shot at finishing my entire 130km route. I decided it was best to simply hike the final 5km to the water taxi and try to get my strength back.

With buy one kilometer to go, and while hiking, I managed to whack my knee on a fallen tree. It nearly took me down, but I tried to walk it off. Not 200 meters later my left arm crashed into a rock protrusion and swelled up instantly...and not 300 meters from there I hooked my right foot under a tree root and crashed down onto my handheld water bottles! I actually screamed out loud,

“C'MON! Have I not suffered enough for you today!!”

I decided upon a slow run down the final KM to the water and after 12 hours and 20 minutes of running I had managed to clear the West Coast Trail! My right knee was swollen, my left arm was swollen, I had a headache, my toes were blackened, I had chaffing on my arm pit, back, legs and 'other areas'...but there was only 55km of running to go, things felt like they were finally starting to look up for me!

GR

(It will be another day or two before I am able to finish up my run report and detail the Juan De Fuca section)