Tough Like Jelly

Not quite this dumb!

2011-12-04T00:11:00.001+13:00

With Rach only being 2 weeks post major abdominal surgery, and sherlock still being a little small for racing (easy to tow you say?) I had to look outside the family for team mates.

Oh sod it, this report has taken too long to write as usual, so suffice it to say that Barryn and I enetered the Big Bang Adventure Race near Otaki and managed to lead it from about 90 secs in all the way to the end, building up a comfortable margin throughout the cycle, run/ bush trek and river tubing event.

This was BB's first race and it went off very well, getting coverage in the local rag the week after, and attracting well over 150 people.

Thanks to Barryn for coming out to play and to Stephen and Belinda for coming out to crew, thankfully the weather was pleasant for hanging around Otaki Forks.

And when I got back to the hospital to go and see the fandamily, someone had parked a car in the hospital - maybe they should have paid more attention to the signs!

Grumble!

2011-10-15T15:24:00.000+13:00

Half an hour behind the leader yesterday was tempered somewhat by the fact
that he'd run on the same map the week before, but today's mispunch robbed
me of 3rd in the sprint race which was all my own dumb fault ;-(

Relay this afternoon just for fun, and then we'll see how the long course
goes tomorrow.

Holding the baby

2011-10-11T20:31:00.000+13:00

While Rach stays in Wellington cooking Sherlock (2 months to go <gulp>) I'm
taking a well earned break(!) in aussie, hanging out by Lake Hume with
about 30 kiwis here for the Oceania MTBO champs.

For the foot-o champs last week they had GPS trackers on the competitors so
that you could see all their silly mistakes from your desk, check out
http://www.oceaniamtbo.com/ to see if they're doing the same for us on
friday, saturday and sunday.

FART II?

2011-08-08T05:17:00.001+12:00

The great american RV migration north seems to be happening at the moment, and we are seeing some magnificent (ridiculous?) Examples, maybe something like this would pass muster as our next race vehicle?

Honeymoon time

2011-07-29T17:19:00.001+12:00

It turns out that hixy was right, he said that I wouldn't let a little thing like a cracked rib stop me from riding whistler :-)

Whistler bike co. supplied me with a giant DH glory and I got 6 runs in in 4 and a bit hours. The best riding was very much like welly track, but scaled up to need the glory's 8" of travel, and my only crash was on snow on the very top run.

Rach took an anthem out for a spin round some of the xc trails and had dinner waiting on my return, so a pretty good afternoon all up :-)

Who said wind energy was clean?

2011-07-18T11:01:00.001+12:00

Returning from the superb john randal/ simon kennett planned 2 hour score MTBO event at Meridian Energy's West Wind wind farm, it was pretty obvious which one of us had stuck to the controls on the roads, and which had taken on all the cross country clippers.

Despite her condition having kept her off a mountain bike for a few months now, Rach couldn't turn down the opportunity to get out onto this private land for this event, a view obviously shared by many as the turnout of over 90 showed. She therefore teamed up with her friend Jude to introduce Jude to MTBO, while I attempted to maintain a position near the top of the men's open field.

With my 2 main competitors running the event, and with round 1's winner Tim Wilding not here, it was going to be a straight fight with vet Ian Paintin. We both headed South along the ridge and collected the first 2 controls within sight of each other, before Ian headed down to pick up a control (33) that I had decided not to get.

4 controls later and I was regretting my game plan - less than a 1/4 of the time used up and over a 1/4 of the controls passed, and with only 1 big climb in the route, I realised it was going to be possible to clear this course! I altered my route to include all of the other controls that I had previously discounted, and other than wasting about 3 minutes looking for 37 - it was in the right place, but was the only control that wasn't immediately visible - was being pretty efficient, and had put a small lead on Ian.

There was an 'allowable route' that took us down to the sea, that was great fun, and now I know where it goes will be worth going back to see if it is 100% rideable. About here I saw Rach and Jude about to walk up the bit I had run down, so I warned them about 37.

A number of controls were laid out along a slushy valley floor, and the out and back nature of this section meant I got to see that I'd put about 6 minutes into Ian, but I was confident he would still clear the course and it would take me more than 6 minutes to get out to 33 and back!

After doing the loop at the very north of the map I figured I would head out to 33 if I had 10 minutes left, and as I came back towards the finish that was exactly what I had, so I screamed through the S/F area where people were already finishing ( sorry guys! ), cocked up leaving, and then got my head down.

Unfortunately 33 turned out to be 12 minutes away, so I got back 2 minutes late, and later on realised I had been so focussed on 33 that I had omitted an easy 11.

Ian missed the 20 pointer near the start in order to get back with 5 seconds to spare, so neither of us quite cleared the course, and he ended up taking the win by 10 points - I reckon I would have cleared it with about 4 mins to spare if I'd got 33 in the first place, so hopefully lesson learned - if you're going to be anywhere near clearing, pick everything up early and drop later ones!

Rachel and Jude were waiting for me at the finish and Rach was Buzzing, she'd had a great time back on 'Petal', and they'd cleared about 2/3rds of the course, having plenty of fun and finishing in the top half of the field ( they actually got 620 )

Results at http://www.mapsport.co.nz/hvoc/hvoc.html, commentary at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=236295939728164, and doubtless there will soon be an article at http://sifter-writes-bikes.blogspot.com/.

Thanks John, Simon, Michael etc for a great course, and Meridian for the access!

West coast fun

2011-05-30T07:58:00.001+12:00

Not really tlj related, but mark hearfield and I were part of a group of 21 mainly wellingtonians that headed down to the south island to ride the heaphy track.

We managed to get a weekend of great weather which is always a surprise on the west coast, and great fun was had by all. The track was pretty boggy and a lot harder work than expected but well worth the effort, with a group heading in the opposite direction getting caught out, and having to spend the night in the hut we had fully booked out.

Recommended for the fit, or for people willing to take 3 or more days over it.

Burglars?

2011-05-15T22:10:00.001+12:00

Rachel and I have recently had to gives back our 2 biggest trophies-the women's crazy man individual which is now with Elina Ussher, and the national rogaine champs which is now Emma and Guy de Lacey.

As we've been doing very little other than getting married this year, we decided to enter the annual city safari rogaine in the 3 hour category, and after making good use of the real time system and rach's smart phone, we cleared karori and tinakori to win by a healthy margin.

The 'alternative' ak attack

2011-01-31T10:49:00.001+13:00

http://www.mountainbike.co.nz/clubs/hvmbc/mtbo_ak-attack.htm

This year the ak attack moved out of it's traditional home in the akatarawas, to a new, secret location that turned out to be the majority of the hutt valley.

Starting at the dry creek entrance of belmont regional park, Michael Wood and the organising team had negotiated access to private land that linked all the way north through st pat's forest, and the map also covered the eastern hills beloved of crazyman riders, and of course belmont park itself.

St pat's offered lots of points in a short but steep area, and this is where we headed along with favourites john randal & simon kennett, and definite contenders ian paintin & ant bradshaw.

Long story will be on elsidee.com at some point, but short version is that this was obviously a good strategy, as john & simon took the win on 1770, rach & I got 2nd overall on 1620, and ant & ian took out vet men and 3rd overall with 1540.

Thanks to the organisers, the weather, the private landowners, and to Burkes for the bikes and Osprey for the packs that helped us through!

Another month, another world champs

2010-11-20T08:44:00.000+13:00

New Zealand has obviously shown up on the radar of international sports organisations all of a sudden - the world rowing and single speed champs last month, rogaine worlds this month and the small matter of the rugby world cup within the next 12 months.
So having survived rotorua and the single speed worlds, Rach and I are now on for the significantly more painful (24h in Cheviot) Rogaine worlds.

This is what it's all about ...

2010-10-23T20:50:00.000+13:00

World single speed champs in Rotorua.
I single speeded Rach' Flash 29er and she rode her Kona Unit.
We both did 2 laps and drank 4 beers (the maximum allowed).
Given they only record the top 5, and neither of us were in that, that's about all the results I can give you.
And now, after the winners (Garth Weinberg and Heather Logie) have had their 'World Champion 2010' tattoos done, it's time for the real point of the weekend - the after party!

Just rewards

2010-10-09T01:21:00.000+13:00

Half past midnight on saturday morning, a Wild Bean cafe in Lower Hutt, and plenty of freaks annd weirdoes are about.
The gaggle of taxi drivers with the biggest coffees they can find, the bedraggled woman in white tights and black stilletoes trying to borrow the phone to make a _really_ important call, a couple of Hutt chicks taking a sip from their takeaway coffees before heading out into the rain storm, and a couple of Adventure Racers looking for pies to reward themselves for a 6.5 hour training tramp to start the weekend.

Ho Hum

2010-08-26T13:35:00.000+12:00

Well the first 20 or so hours of Geoquest went absolutely spot on according
to plan.

We hit or beat our time estimates for the first 4 legs, and were going
strongly, swapping the lead back and forth with the Mexicans. We spent most
of the 5th and 6th legs - the long tramp - with the Mexicans, and got onto
the bikes for stage 7 in the lead, at about 2230.

Unfortunately the temperature plummeted to around -2 overnight, and Peri
ended her race lying between Luke and I under emergency blankets at about
04:00 as she succumbed to hypothermia ;-(

Obviously a real shame, as we were racing strongly and looking for agood
win, but at least she's fine now and we're all fit to race again ;-)

Geoquest

2010-08-17T22:04:00.001+12:00

This weekend I'm racing Geoquest as a part of team CBD cycles with 3 australians - Luke Haines, Andrew Connolly and Peri Gray.

We start at 0800 Saturday, east coast aussie time, and you can follow us live via the website.

Magic beer!

2010-08-15T17:37:00.000+12:00

After a very long and frustrating amble around karori - I can't really call it a run when my GPS only recorded 14.6K in 4:28:53 - we got home to find a couple of very nice looking bottles of beer waiting for us, and no note explaining why!
So last year Rachel and I did the Rogaine option at the <a href="http://www.winterclassic.co.nz/">Winter Classic</a> orienteering event, and this year we decided to take on the open mens and open womens events respectively. This is hard out orienteering, and I only came 4th because most of the rest of the competitors dropped out - I was less than 2 minutes inside the cut off, and over 2 hours behind the winner!
Rachel was similarly 4th, and similarly far behind the winner, and similarly pleased with her performance as my winner was only an Oceania champion whereas hers was an ex world champ ;-)
Anyway, we should do that more often if we come home to free beer!

O for the Prince of Wales

2010-08-08T17:47:00.000+12:00

Apparently we are better at MTBO than foot orienteering!

Participating in WOC's Prince of Wales park event today, the GPS measured
my distance as 4.73 K, 18.25% more than the 4 K optimal, so that doesn't
explain why I was 27.1% slower than the winner ;-(

Another great event run by a local club, with much better attendance than
yesterday's, it's just a shame that the logistics required mean they are
invariably in the middle of the day.

MTBO junkies

2010-08-07T22:51:00.000+12:00

Well this is the 3rd weekend out of the last 4 that we've been out MTBOing, and they keep getting closer to home.
Despite the appalling weather in Wellington, the Hutt was actually quite pleasant, warm enough, pretty windy but only the odd spit of rain.
The course took us down some pretty steep tracks that might as well have been teflon coated given the clay substrate and the continuous rain over recent weeks ... Wicked fun ;-)
Unfortunately the weather in town obviously put plenty of people off, allowing Rach and I to take out open men's and open womens ... I guess we'd better turn up to the final round now!

A long report from a long race

2010-06-11T23:51:00.001+12:00

I still stick by my initial 1 word report of 'Brutal', but if you want
a few more details, then grab a long drink and load this whopper up :

http://elsidee.com/_Sport/_Adventure_Racing/index.php?fname=20100519-9-XPDCairns

*

All over!

2010-06-01T13:17:00.000+12:00

Well rachel and I are at Cairns airport waiting for NZ172, mark and mike
are already back in NZ.

A fun couple of days relaxing in port douglas and then going round a
crocodile farm (rachel was pleased she did this AFTER she'd spent her time
in the bush) have started the recovery process off, so hopefully we'll be
capable of work tomorrow ... If the temperature shock of going from 27 to 7
deg. C doesn't get us!

Thanks for watching, report should be up in a couple of days.

Sufferage

2010-05-28T16:56:00.000+12:00

Well the first night's sleep in a proper bed was interrupted by rowdy
germans and their (often naked) drinking games. Luckily for the one that
wandered into our room at 3am he was light on his feet, as my temper was
shall we say 'short' ;-)

We all woke up and felt massively beaten up - that last 20K of mainly
bitumen walking was equivalent to taking a baseball bat to our feet, a real
shame that the race ended that way and it will take a few days before we
are walking properly, though at least the hobbling is getting better with
practise.

Having just had THE BEST feed at Lilly something cafe, Rach is off to bed
annd Mark and I will try and finish organising stuff, making sure we
haven't lost anything etc. So a slow day leading into the drinks tonight!

BRUTAL!

2010-05-28T09:24:00.001+12:00

That's my 1 word report on XPD 5th edition, Cairns. Rachel, Mark and I
hobbled across the finish line at about 12:30 am, apparently in about
11th place!

Almost on the way..

2010-05-18T22:00:00.000+12:00

> So prep's all done, boxes in, just got to try and sleep tonight and
> we're on our way at 6am tomorrow ( on the bus!)
>
> Days 1&2 look good, bit of snorkeling and paddling to start, big bike,
> raft and trek, then another big bike to midcamp where we have to stop
> for 6h. After that it gets tough.. 20h or so of remote paddling, a
> nasty 30h or so trek again remote then a mere 130k bike, 15k paddle
> and 47 or so trek to finish...
>
> I'm pretty nervous now, nothing specific just the enormity of it
> all.. Hope i've put everything in the right boxes etc... Hope the
> body (& mind) hold up ;-)

> Look forward to letting you know I'm done!

Learning how to use the spot tracker

2010-05-18T10:19:00.000+12:00

Mark & Liam listening intently to instructions.. Spot device on table..

Next up... Maps!

1 day to go

2010-05-17T22:49:00.000+12:00

Mon night in cairns... Today was spent meeting the teams, signing in,
competency checking and getting a safety briefing, mixed in with more
packing and sorting..

We're pretty well under control now, and it's time for the nerves to
start kicking in.. Safety briefing didn't help on that front.. Know
how Aussie has all these horrible creatures that want to kill you..
Well sounds like we're likely to find them all.. And to top it off
they also have trees that poison you as well.. At least 10% of us will
come in contact with those apparently...

Wonder how I'm going to sleep now???

Competent!

2010-05-17T17:25:00.000+12:00

Well we're starting to get moving now, we've had the race bibs handed out,
had a bit of a yarn to the rest of the kiwi teams and some acquaintances
from previous races on this side of the ditch. We've been introduced to the
"kayaks" (very definitely in inverted commas) that we'll be paddling, swum
a couple of lengths of the pool, and been deemed competent in first aid and
navigation.

Hah!

Hopefully we won't get to prove the truth in the first aid department.

The smack talk has already started between Orion and BlackHeart. Let's hope
the kiwis come out with the world champs slot at the end of the day!

It's overcast today, but still shorts only weather, here's hoping it stays
reasonably civilised!

Hopefully no-one wants to play table tennis today ... Or tomorrow, when
this table will spend most of the day covered in maps.

Home from home

2010-05-17T09:29:00.000+12:00

We organised our accommodation a bit late, after the Rydges (race HQ) had
run out of apartments, so rather than cram into their rooms, we booked in
at <a href="http://www.jjsbackpackers.com/">JJ's backpackers</a>.

Tracy and Simon have been awesome, sourcing the boxes we need for the race,
helping out with transport and ideas, and letting us use all sorts of
extras like their freezer and cool bags.

A definite highly recommended from the Tough Like Jelly crew!

And that's a team!

2010-05-16T21:55:00.000+12:00

Mark flew in this evening, the food is all bagged, and we've hit the
Woolshed pub to show off the team shirts, eat, and get reminded of where we
used to hang out all the time as students ... Including beer in plastics!

Nice Halo!

2010-05-16T14:22:00.000+12:00

I got to mount up and check out the new nitelights.co.nz on my helmet last
night, and i have to say I'm really impressed by the light so far - a nice
tight beam for decent penetration and a wide halo for decent near field
vision, and most importantly for me, to throw a nice usable level of light
on the map, rather than wash it out and blind me!

And then there were 3

2010-05-16T14:17:00.000+12:00

After a morning getting out for a spin on the local trails, and tracking
down Danielle and a box full of Liam's gear that has been living in
Australia for a couple of years now, we headed into town in search of food,
fins and tick removal tools.

We found food, fins, tea tree oil to spray on the ticks that apparently
encourages them to vacate, and our 3rd team member Mike (and his cairns
based mate Matt). Mike flew in last night, and we managed to run into him
just before he doubled up on a couple of things we'd bought and forgotten
to tell him about.

OK, back to the hostel now to bag up a load of food and then maybe another
swim to test out the fins!

The temperature reached 29 yesterday, and is supposed to do the same today,
so we'd better spend a bit of time by the pool getting used to the humidity
;-)

Shopping

2010-05-15T12:55:00.000+12:00

One of the biggest logistical issues of these races is sorting out the
food, so after a couple of hours walking round coles laughing at the coon
cheese, and trying to find all the highest calorie food we could, this is
the resulting pile - feeding a family of four for a week for the bargain
price of 645.71 aussie.

Now to begin the labourious process of splitting it all up into 3 hour
portions.

Acclimatising

2010-05-14T18:41:00.000+12:00

Well we made it!

All the bikes got loaded, we got upgraded to business class - our last bit
of luxury for a couple of weeks - the plane didn't crash and air NZ didn't
manage to lose any of our gear.

We checked into JJ's backpackers, the bikes have been put together and seem
to work fine, and we've done our first lap of Cairns (it didn't take long
and we've met our first drunks) and located the site of race HQ (a 5 min
walk from JJs) and a gelateria ;-)

Will they make it?

2010-05-14T09:05:00.000+12:00

Bike boxes awaiting loading, apparently the luggage hold is already a bit
full!

NZ adventure racers slumming it

2010-05-14T08:50:00.000+12:00

Thankfully the 3 Wellington teams have got enough frequent flyers between
us that we're getting to celebrate mr rudge's 50th in auckland koru lounge
before heading off on a 5 hr trip to some serious heat and humidity!

Osprey Packs/nitelights.co.nz

2010-05-12T23:02:00.000+12:00

we're proud to announce that not only will be using fantastic packs from Osprey, world leaders in pack technology, but we'll also be using the awesome 900 Lumen dimmable bike lights from nitelights.co.nz. Not to be confused with Nightlightning from Christchurch, these high quality, low cost no nonsense LED lights are a new product shipping out of Auckland, and we'll be spearheading their first major foray into Australia, the home of Ay-Ups.

New Name? New Logo!

2010-05-09T20:17:00.000+12:00

XPD is being raced as (Osprey packs/???) Tough Like Jelly, and as
we've invested in the logo, 'One Night Stand' may be retired in favour
of 'Tough Like Jelly'.

Boxes done!

2010-05-09T18:16:00.000+12:00

Apparently it takes 2 people about 4 hours to cover 2 boxes in Duraseal,
strengthen the handles, number/ name them, and hopefully make them
distinctive enough to stand out in transitions.

Shame they'll probably only last 1 race ;-(

Thankyou Osprey packs!

2010-05-03T11:09:00.000+12:00

we're currently going into XPD as Osprey packs/ tough like jelly (though
we're hoping to announce a joint naming sponsor very soon), and were very
pleased to take delivery of a box of very nice Osprey Talon packs from New
Zealand distributor southernapproach.co.nz today. With tow rope loops and
shoulder holsters already built in, these could be the first packs I've
been able to take straight out of the box and race with!

The insect repellent, gaiters and potable aqua water purifying tablets will
hopefully keep us pretty safe in the harsh environment that we'll be racing
in.

Well apparently it's not too bad

2010-05-03T10:57:00.000+12:00

Despite trying to ruin XPD 2 weeks out by having a reasonably big off at
the crazyman on saturday, my wonderful physio reckons that keeping up with
the compression and a bit of gentle massage should see it right by the time
we head off to Cairns in less than 2 weeks time!

Another trophy for the collection ;-)

2010-05-01T15:50:00.000+12:00

Despite serious pre-race jitters, and the horrible weather forecast, the
hutt valley turned on a stunning morning, with the weather deteriorating
while 'local adventure racing standout' rachel demolished the women's field
to bring another trophy home.

I think I might have been part of the winning mixed team with a mana
paddler called Kayla setting jamie stewart up for the run, before I limped
home on the bike.

home again ;-)

2010-04-18T21:37:00.000+12:00

A year after we had to hand the trophy back, she's been returned to us
after we managed to make less mistakes than all the other mixed teams at
the moonshine24, the 2010 silva national rogaine championships.

That's right, One Night Stand are 2010 NZ champions, after 24 hours where
Rachel showed that her XPD training is really paying off, and Liam showed
that a cold and a few hard sessions in the week leading up to an event of
this size can leave you feeling a touch flat!

Oh dear

2010-02-10T12:48:00.000+13:00

Well i have a history of annoying little injuries just before coast, so
this little disaster ahould comme as no surprise .... Not the crocs, but
the burn from where i managed to drop solder on my foot!

Oh well, nearly 3 days for it to heal, so here's hoping!

Traditional first post

2009-10-27T13:19:00.000+13:00

Hello World ;-)