Team ChimpanzeeBar Training Weekend

With 3 weekes to go to the race start there is no time to waste. Everything we do now is helping us "survive" those 120 hrs + in New Zealand widerness.

             Here is an example : sometimes when I wake up in the middle of night and go to loo I also take my headtorch. I go to garage, dissassmeble my Specialized Epic bike put it in my transition box and then go to bed again. In the morning, just before I bike to work I assemmbel the bike again. Another sample is toughening up my feet - our driveway is about 100 m long and it's got sharp little stones on it.It does hurt even just stand on it barefoot! So every time I need to empty the mailbox or take the garbage bin out I walk barefoot. And man it hurts! First walking barefoot toughen up the skin on my feet and secondly it is teaching me the mind over matter trick

Let me introduce our team:

Milan Brodina - pack horse, log home builder, Geraldine
Petr Sykora - motivator, entrepreneur & philanthropist, Czech Republic
Lara Prince - back up navigator, lawyer, CHC
Jim Cotter - team captain, navigator, university teacher, Dunedin

We’re lucky in sharing the same goal; to have an adventure and race somewhere we haven’t experienced. The land looks amazing on a map and even when passing through at 100 kph on the asphalt. So we’re all looking forward to spending most of a week immersed in it, well away from work. We’d be hoping to complete the long course, near the top of the field. But, you never know what lies ahead in yourselves, competitors and the terrain, so come what may. Individually, Jim’s hoping to get fewer than 5 punctures and to finish with his bib and the correct maps this time. Jim forgot his racing bib in one of the transition , so the whole team lost lots of time going back and getting it.  Milan’s hoping that Jim’s hopes are fulfilled. Lara’s hoping that we’re not kidding when we say that an adventure race isn’t any harder than a 24-hour race. Petr’s hoping that Kaikoura is warmer than Prague (-20^oC), and to finish without resembling a beetroot. We work in different fields (academic, lawyer, builder, entrepreneur & philanthropist) and live in different places, so at least we’ll have plenty to natter about, but will also be racing as hard as we can, short of unnecessary risks.

 So with 3 weeks to go to the race we got together in Geraldine for our team training weekend - just the perfect playground. On saturday morning we spent few hours going over our compulsory gear list - who is going to organise what etc. One of the items on the list is a tent - waterproof, 3 season tent to fit the whole team in - we tested it too - it was pretty cosy in there.
 Then we head off to the Rangitata river to test our kayaking skills. We had lots of gear with us , but everything fit nicely into Blairs Transit. Thank you Warren. Once on the river we tried all different combinations of best matches as the boats are two person. It must have been ammusing watching us as we were offten swapping places in boats and going from back to front as we float down the rapids.
 

Once off the river, we drove to Mesopotamia - closer to the hills. We practised the transition onto bikes and in short time we were off.  What a beutifull part of New Zealand - no wonder that Lord Of The Ring location seekers have chosen this area as one of the filming location. After 2 hrs of biking - some of it was very steep and even included carying our bikes we  got to the end of the trail and could not bike any further. So we stashed our bikes in the pine trees and continued on foot. It was a hot day so every river crossing was well welcomed. After few hours of river bashing and admiring the surrounding views we climb out of the river onto small terace and were greeted by Growler But. It was pretty busy day for us, so after dyhadrated vegetarian pasta for dinner we set the alarm for 5am and climbed into sleeping bags.

5 am is pretty early but we all quitly appriciated all the luxury we had tonight - sleeping on beds with mattrasses, dry clothes, warm dinner and full night sleep. During the 5 days of racing our plan is to go without sleep for the first night and then have maximum of 2hrs of sleep each night. Nobody was complaining today about an early start - we still had big day ahead of us. Still in dark, with headlamps on we left the hut and our main navigator - Jim - lead us up through tall grass and motagouri away. Our plan was to find our way up a Growler stream, climb a ridge, over a saddle and down another creek and back to bikes. Around 6 hrs trip, with 900m of climbing.

             It was was a cloudy, misty morning as we were finding our way up in dark. Continuesly crossing the  creek back and forth and helping each other at tricky sections. At one stage we found our self  climbing  on nearly vertical wall high above the creek - the only way to get past a waterfall. We helped each other with packs and one past one managed through this section. After an hour of walking in freezing cold waters we were happy to leave the creek and started to climb up a ridge. It wasn't the warmest morning and we hoped that the cloud will soon burn off. It didn't - instead we found ourself above the cloud and were greeted by the warming sun. We were rewarded with breathtaking views of snow covered peaks poking through the cloud bellow.

             This was surely the hilight of our trip - we even had a wee brake right on top - luxury we will not be able to do during a race. We were keen to practise some scree running/sliding, so on the way down we were choosing our route acording to where the best scree slope was. It was lots of fun. After 6 hrs on foot we arrived at the bikes. Fixed flat tire on Petr's bike and biked back to the transit. This time we chosen different route back - staying on the river flat. It tested our technical skills as we rode amongs big river boulders. Once back at the parked transit we practised transition again - as transitions are important part of the race and last year we were pretty slow.  Great weekend away and a good team building trip to have under the belt before another expedition adventure.