Training Log Archive: Georgia

Started this after a cold transition knowing we had to paddle all night to get this done. Stopping was not an option as everything was wet. Anna was spewing again and very cold.

The rapids at the start were pretty exciting running them blind in the dark. A combination of steaming river and bug attack meant it was best to just turn the light off and hope for the best! After that it was just a sufferfest. We did some singing which helped and got it done.

Slept for 90min in transition thinking this ride was going to be much longer than it was! Also took a long time to get going after the sleep. I was sick of transitions by this one.

Pretty uneventful and easy ride except for the fact that my gears were playing up so we walked most of the main climb. Not that much time lost though. We were probably a bit slow on most of the ride due to lack of motivation. I know I was feeling pretty down about how things had played out.

And a run/walk along the beach to finish. Managed to pass two teams - bivouac (now sick again) and Movistar (who seemed to not be able to find the controls).

I was feeling strong by now and Bobby and I spent most of this leg reflecting on how we felt about the race. It had been an odd finish and quite disappointing but it was nice to pass a few teams at the end to make it feel like we were racing again.

C • Congrats 3

I think this time must include the caving too? Or maybe that's not anywhere.

Anyway the caving went OK. We all had sore feet and I made a real mess of trying to find one of the caves but we got it all done with about 15min to spare in the 5hr despite Bobby being pretty sick by now and having to evacuate a pretty tight squeeze rapidly for a spew.

I started to feel awful in transition and tried to convince everyone I needed a nap before we started the packraft but we were all keen to get to the river because we probably had enough time to get a significant way down before the dark zone, have a sleep and then finish by trekking the banks in the dark. This would have worked.

What actually happened was I stopped being able to move very well or think and kind of collapsed a bit. I took a long time to even find the tourist track to the first control. The others decided I had heat stroke so we stopped, thinking in a few hours with some rest and water we could get going. Unfortunately I then started spewing, then Mitch started spewing, Bobby was still shitting and then Anna started spewing. I probably felt better about midnight and Anna started getting sick at about 1am so the stop turned into 15hrs all up and we got going from our camp just outside the caving TA at about 6am.

We maybe should have got going quicker but its hard to know. We had kind of lost our mojo by then anyway. We could have kept going once I got sick but I think we probably would have ended up in a worse situation. We weren't to know anyway. I'm happy we stopped, rested and finished. If we had gone back to TA I think they would have made us pull out of the race.

Once we got moving in the morning progress was pretty painfully slow for the rest of the trek section. I didn't take the route down the slot canyon. It just never crossed my mind as being a feasible option....I guess too much time in NZ bush. The packrafting was OK once we worked out a good technique for dealing with the double hitting the bottom so much (one person just get out and walk). The single boats were much better in river but slower on the lake.

I think this time includes 2hr sleep and probably close to an hour of faff in transition. Once on the bike we made good time again.