Australasian Rogaining Championship race report by Pierre

Francois, Team 100 - No Detour

The story
My first and only one 24hrs rogaine was about two years ago for NSW Championship
in the Howes Valley on the putty road where I ended up badly to the hospital after a
massive foot infection (story and gross pictures still available here). I never gave up
with that though and while last year I was in France for holidays; my aim was to try
again this year.
But with a busy year trying to find a routine with two young kids, my training and
racing schedule has been hopeless so the idea was to be a passenger and finish the
race in one piece. Even though he was a little bit hard to convince at first, Ross
partnered up with me (no no no 24hrs on foot is not brutal )

Pre-race
We had an early drive from Sydney to the Hash House, nested in the Capertee area,
about 4.5hours drive from Sydney. The surroundings cliffs were majestic as usual
with the Blue Mountains (is it still in the Blue Mountains by the way?). While we
drove through the campground to find a spot for the tent (post-race snooze) we
could see the long queue of excited rogainers looking forward to the A2 map. And
we were like them!

While I setup the campground in a strategic location (understand close to the toilet
block to the detriment of the inexistent shade), Ross went to get the map and
timing tags. Lots of points on that maps, and we are quite relieved to see that this
time the organizers put plenty of water drops at strategic locations. Perfect:
whatever would be our plan, we wont have to bother too much about turning
ourselves into camel mode. It is little to say that Ross (the sweat stream!) was more
than happy.
We decided to go serenity and gain in confidence first, and thus tackle the easiest
part of the map, north east with good number of low points, expecting them to be
easier to find on a flattish terrain. Then our route should bring us to the south with
aim to be at the ANC (All Night Caf) as early as we could in the night (understand
here 8pm as a target). The sunset was scheduled to be around 7pm. If legs still
respond by that time, the south-west loop (71-99-104-34-94-76-101-87-92-68-9755) with high points all located at fair distances to the tracks but with lots of
climbing was in our sights. Also a bit unsure about our fitness the plan was to walk
fast but not jog to last longer in the race.

Race
With little time to spare for a last drink, we used the 3 hours of planning, gear
packaging etc wisely and stood up in the front line for the traditional race briefing.
Lots of known faces from the Adventure Racing community around (at least I know
them and they dont know me) but this is quite normal since this is the National
Championship.

At my surprise, no one ran to the first

checkpoint in our group, CP43 for us.
We are in the leading group for teams
which decided to go North. The climb
to CP53 took its toll but had great
views but first mistake was soon about
to happen. While we cruised to CP51,
my attention got caught by a wild pig
running to hell down into the valley
and I unintentionally drifted the team
to the wrong gully, which appears to
be the first one. It took us energy to
realize the mistake and by the time we
had found CP51, we had already lost
half an hour. We have been on course

for just an hour! Chaotic start, by my

fault.

We nailed the next two checkpoints

(32 and 86) but we did our second
mistake. While cruising towards 31, we
underestimated the covered distance
and didnt pay enough attention to the
landscape. We looped around in the
area but were absolutely confused and
unsure about our exact location.
Nothing matched. So we used a safety
exit to the south aiming to hit the road
quickly but unfortunately we hit a
track which was unmapped. Both of us
very confused, we finally found two
other guys lost as well and reached
the water drop after having spent half
an hour in the middle of nowhere.
Upset by our over confidence we
quickly ran in the northern gully to get

We got 41, 45 then 65 without

troubles. And here came our third
mistake towards CP73. Once again we
underestimated the travelled distance

CP31 but once again we didnt pay

enough attention to the compass and
drifted in the wrong gully. What a
mess! I decided to ditch that
checkpoint. We spent almost 1h30 on
a checkpoint worth 30 points only,
disaster.

and went in the wrong gully. We both

started to fear about our ability to
navigate at night and no doubt that
we were both mentally affected by
such a bad start (and we decided to go

North East to gain in confidence

total Fail).

We found CP73 after almost 5 hours on course, way behind our expectations and
the rain had started to fall off. From this time onward we decided to go slower and
pay much more attention to the landscape and compass. I know we should have
proceeded that way from the beginning.
Our first big hundred checkpoint was 106, followed by 85, 75 and then 95. A good
bunch on points punched just before darkness. It was time to put on the Ay-Up.

On the way to 83, Ive made a lucky one by retrieving his Suunto compass, lost
early on. We really paid attention to the terrain and finally nailed 83 then 42 after a
steep descent. Spirits were much better at this stage.
Now on the track near Wallaby creek,
we are pacing up towards 93. Once up
there, we were one of the many teams
looking for the checkpoint. We spent
half an hour out there and finally
found it (not sure that the location was
accurate though).

We were reaching the 10 hours racing mark, time to check feet. Mine were ok but
Ross started to feel about his. He taped his feet and surely kept going towards
CP58. Still on the navigation, I was in a great mood having digested the early start
we had in the race. But here came out fourth mistake. Over confident I didnt pay
too much attention of the gully. Probably because I think that I was expecting to see
obvious gullies and switch to the third one but the reality was that the creek was a
narrow one with lots of small rocks and I completely messed up with the essential:
cross checking map and terrain. At some points Ross interrogated me about the
distance we had travelled and thought that we were way too far south in the creek,
and that we had missed the gullies. Hmmm, I was not convinced but decided it will
be safer for us to turn back and double check the landscape inside that creek. Worth
case scenario would have been to go back to CP93 and eventually ditch our plan to
reach the ANC quicker. We finally had a last attempt and were kind of guided by
another team of Queenslanders, a strong one. Finally we found CP58 before them in
an obvious gully and rushed toward the top of the hill, pretty happy by this lucky
outcome.

Back on the other side of the valley,

we found ourselves with the same
team which had failed to find 58 but
were moving much faster than us.

CP102 was meant to be only one

contour level (10m) above the creek
level, on a knoll. Hmmm we found it
way higher than that, 4 or 5 contours,
a very steep hill.

While 78 was on our list of checkpoints to do, the lack of attack point made us
thinking it was not worth it. We rushed to 47 then 40 on the main steep road. It was
1.20AM, we have been on course for 13hours.

The caf was a welcome pit stop for me with Nutella slices of bread, coffee, a fire,
and amazing volunteers who spent the night up there. You guys rock and the
rogainers are very lucky to have such good people to support them during events!
While I enjoyed the time there, checked my feet etc, Ross seemed to be keen to
rush out the place and ditch our plan in the southern west loop. We still had plenty
of time to do this hilly part of the map but our feet suffered from the storm. We put
dry socks on and decided to shorten the plan, to make everyone happy.

From now on, we slowly started to

mentally give up with the race. Our
pace drastically dropped down even if
we nailed CP71, 67, 80. At this stage,
we were both keen to call it a day and
finished
at
walking
pace
by
33,35,36,50 and finally 30. It was right
on the sunrise which was rewarding.

We reached the Hash House at 6.25am, after 18.5 hours of racing and in one piece.
The bonus of being early finishers was that we could have a two hours snooze and
time to pack up to be back home with our family earlier in the day, which was well
received.

We had a long chat about our race and were really pissed off by the costly mistakes
we did early on and but were quite happy by our night navigation. Weve seen
heaps of kangaroos, a wombat and a wild pig and in the end had a good time.
Overall we covered 59km in 18.5hours, and our total score was 1620pts, an overall
position of 87/143 teams. With a better fitness and ambitions I think we could have
had 1000pts more and be in the first quarter of the finishers but you know
shoulda, coulda, woulda There is always next year!

Thanks to all the volunteers who ran the event. Big up for the course setters
because to me the course had few hiccups and the map was very well used.
http://act.rogaine.asn.au/navlight/NSWRA/AustChamps2015/html/results.html
https://www.strava.com/activities/411264869