Race Underway Again

At 7pm last night, teams gathered outside the Tintalga pub for the race restart. The atmosphere was buzzing; everyone was keen to get underway again.

Some course changes have been made. The alpine trek (leg 10) involving sections of cross-country over Tantangara Mountain has had to be cancelled, due to drifting snow up to 1.5 metres in places. This means a longer bike leg from the end of the orienteering section through to the leg 11 kayak on Lake Eucumbene. The kayak is subject to wind conditions on the lake (the weather is much more settled today, but we won’t know until later today whether it’s on). If the kayak is cancelled, the race will finish at the end of the bike. And after that, the last trek (over Kosciusko) has been shortened significantly to bypass some of the more snow-affected areas.

Time bonuses have been allocated to the teams who were stopped on the course beyond CP9. The adjustments were roughly:
- blackheart.com.au +22 hours
- Blackheart / Salomon + 12 hours
- Tangerine + 11 hours
- 4TC + 9 hours
- securify.co.nz + 6 hours
- Nga Rakau + 5.45 hours
- About 6 other teams with bonuses between 2 and 3 hours

It could be argued that the bonuses were not quite sufficient to compensate the teams for the up to 15 extra hours they spent getting to CP9A, but no system was ever going to be perfect, and the main issue is still getting to the finish line with the team intact.

Teams headed off from the pub in order of their current placings, at 30 second intervals to avoid a big bunch ride down the road. The adrenalin was flowing and the pace when we saw them come through the town of Tooma was pretty hot.

The black clouds were still hanging over the hills, but although it is still really cold, I think there was only patches of drizzle on the bike. We headed up to the bike transition, which was also the transition for the 25km orienteering loop, sliding our way down a clay track in the 4WD to the campsite. (Don’t know how the truck made it down here, but once he was out he wasn’t coming back in again, so the competitors now have to carry their transition bin with them 300m back up to the road when they leave).

Blackheart.com.au were first into CP14 at 23:16, with Blackheart / Salomon clinging to their wheels, then ..

Blackheart.com.au 23:16
Blackheart / Salomon 23:16
Austrelaps 23:40
Nga Rakau 00:13
Tangerine 00:13
Outdoor Australia 00:18
Yogi Bears 00:18
Securify.co.nz 00:23
Cyclepath 00:35
Gurus 00:36
Bull of Africa 00:47
Caffeinated 00:58
Muppets 00:57
Girls on Top 00:59
Bigfish 01:01
Starfactor 01:04
+11 others

The rogaine / orienteering section requires teams to collect 6 of 7 CPs. Stu headed off on foot before the first team arrived (to make sure Craig had put the controls in the right place he said!)

First back were the two Blackheart teams, the second Blackheart team having put themselves in a position to possible being able to take advantage of Rob Preston’s famed orienteering skills. Next were Nga Rakau, (Tim’s navigation has always been good, but last year he and Mark had a bit of a ‘mare on the rogaine leg, … this time Tim nailed it.) Tangerine were next – they also have a couple of team members with reputations as top orienteers / rogainers.

So, at this stage (9:20am), into CP14 were

Blackheart.com.au in 05:24 out 05:46
Blackheart / Salomon in 05:24 out 05:46
Nga Rakau in 07:38 out 07:58
Tangerine in 07:57 out 08:17
Mawson in 09:04
Sutmap Bean in 09:09