November 12th 2006
Marysville Mad Hatters – 6 hour Rogaine – Marysville, VIC

TKT fielded a couple of teams this weekend – myself & Scott (walking) and Glenn & Chris (running), who were also training for the 36 hour Red Yeti coming up at the end of November with Mick and Kerryn. Additionally, Pip set out for sedate stroll with her friends Beck & Fiona and Sara, Felix & Tim were teaming up with Warrick in preparation for the Red Yeti 36 hour in a couple of weeks.

Scott and myself’s strategy was simple – walk the hill sections on the map with 3 objectives

• sharpening up navigating point to point instead of relying on the roads
• starting to gauge distances by pacing accurately
• See if we could maintain a 100 point per hour average. With 6 hours, that equated to 600 points.

Checkpoint 81 – Crossed a farm paddock with Angus cattle. For a drought, this paddock had alot of water. Ankle deep for 500m compounded by a creek crossing meant we were starting out 6 hours of trekking with soggy feet. Not ideal. Rapid, steep ascent through thick scrub – 40m across 300m onto firetrail. Ignore other teams. Where they might be looking, may be the wrong place. As it turned out, we wasted 25 minutes floundering around looking for the first 80 point marker. And all because we thought the other team knew what they were doing. Our campaign had started off abysmally and moral was low. Avoid this by concentrating, measuring our distances and watching topography better. Not chatting would have helped too. Lesson learnt. 500 paces = 700 meters, hence 300 paces = 500 meters. We started concentrating. Found the marker easily, once we backtracked and worked out where we went wrong. 80 points to kick off.

• Checkpoint 60 – Struck a bearing, measured distance, moved along the ridge. Found the marker quickly. Lesson learnt, concentration works. 60 points logged.
• Checkpoint 56 – Referenced the knoll, skirted it 150m via the fire trail to cross check bearing. The added 1min 30 secs made me confident. We ascended the knoll at the exact location to drop down straight onto the marker 200m the other side in thick scrub where I thought it would be. Scott was amazed. 50 points.
• Checkpoint 91 – Started pacing accurately from intersection, in groups of 100 paces, pausing for 30 seconds at 300 paces to have a breather and check bearings. Continued this to ridgeline for total 650 paces. Found marker in 6 minutes. Stoked. 90 points.
• Checkpoint 63 – Collected CP 63 on the way through at intersection, barely paused to get it. 350 points in the first 2.5 hours. Began hunt for 100 point marker. 60 points.
• Checkpoint 100 – Counted paces, cross checking every 100 paces topography and line of sight to TV tower. Confident we were in right location. Spent 45 minutes looking for the 100 point marker. Never found it.
• Checkpoint 73 – Check point on the tower. Easy to get. In Hindsight we should have gone straight to this first than backtracked our steps to cross check distances to make that hunt for the elusive 100 point marker more accurate. I took a short cut down a very steep incline and thick scrub, whilst Scott walked the loop on the road. Took me 1 min 35 seconds. Took Scott 4 mins 20 seconds. Short cuts, even through thick scrub work. 70 points.
• Checkpoint 74 – Blackberries really hurt if you run straight through them. We did, as we only had 22 minutes left to find a marker and get back to the hash house. Scott spied a track that ran above the blackberry patch saving a large amount of pain. 4 long minutes to find the final marker. 70 points.

Home Run – 2km, in 16 minutes. Easily achievable I thought, even with 6kg pack and 5.75 hours and some 30km behind us. Walked the first 2 minutes as the blackberry patch was a hard slog and we needed to catch our breath. Started jogging at 8-9 min/km pace.

Scott, Homeward bound. via steep fire access trail from CP63

Scott – Enjoying the Fern Forest – Initial Search fo CP100

Colin trudging up the hill, after a fruitless search for CP100

I was feeling good, Scott was starting to feel it. Judged a 100 pace walk was prudent after 3 minutes. Sucked in the air, than started to move again. We ran all the way into the finish, 4 mins 53 secs late. That cost us 50 points. We totalled 490 – 50 = 440.

Overall, considering our modest goals at the onset, the only tarnishes for the day were: floundering at the start for the 80 point CP, which cost us 40 minutes and and not getting that 100 point CP, which cost us another 45 minutes. This extra time of 85 minutes would have been crucial for collecting the low altitude markers which totalled some 550 points and were relatively easy to find. I know this, because I went to have a quick look at a few and chatted to Brett, Chris & Glenn who had collected quite alot of them. To put it into perspective, being smart, Brett walked the course with his daughter and finished up with 620 points. Goes to show that if you are in the know, you know where to go.

Chris + Glenn = 1110 points
Sara + Felix + Tim + Warrick = 930 points
Scott + Colin = 490 – 50 points (4 mins, 53 secs late = 50 point penalty) = 440 points
Pip + Beck + Fiona = 320 points

Regards,
Colin -Tali Karng Trackers
‘Stay Strong, stay on target’