January 25th to January 28th 2008 – AROC 50 hour Edge of Reality

The AROC 50 hour was one of the hardest races I have ever done because of the terrain on the mountain bike and the hot temperatures.

The highlight for me was the first 4 legs – within 4 hours we ran, coasteered, swam, rode, paddled and jumped off cliffs. It was such a diverse range of activities in such a short amount of time.

The 8 meter cliff jump and the channel swim was definitely the highlight.

The first Trek was really where the challenge started. With the temperature getting warmer and the long distance water was at a premium. The last couple of hours of the trek was done on limited water. A consequence of this was dehydration and heat exhaustion for the next 2 legs (MTB and trek) for me.

Trek number 2 saw us get lost for a few hours at about 2am in the morning. For some reason we kept our cool as a team and found our way to the next TA (even though we missed a checkpoint).

On to the kayaks and I thought it was going to be a nice 2 hour paddle. How I was wrong!!!. With the river low we did more portaging than paddling. Three and a half hours later we finally arrived at the MTB Transition.

Who brought the shot gun? While getting changed Mick’s front tyre exploded because of the hot wether and shit it did scare us.

Decision time!!!! With the weather extremely hot and an eight hour MTB ahead of us, did we want to keep going? A lot of teams have been pulling out but we decided to give it a go in the true sense of adventure racing. I think we did more walking than riding in this leg with ridiculously steep, rocky hills that seemed to go on forever.

Finally we made it to the next TA with the news of we have ran out of time for the next trek. Thank GOD!!! You should have seen the terrain. The bad news is though we were back on our bikes for another 8 hours plus.

This is where the race changed for TKT. At about 12 midnight we were flying down a dirt road at about 40 kmh around a corner and then all of a sudden there was a tree branch across the road. There was only a second to yell jump but it was too late for Mick. He hit the branch head on and went straight over the handle bars and head first into the road. It was one of the worst stacks I have seen and I thought he was dead. Fortunately Micks helmet saved his life, but his shoulder was worst for wear (xray’s confirmed a broken collarbone). It was end of the race for Mick as he was picked up by rescue and taken back to HQ.

Paul and myself headed on as an unranked team. We were racing head to head with Goldfish at this present time with positions swapping constantly. Finally made it to the last TA at about 5.30am (10mins ahead of Goldfish)

The last leg was the paddle which went quick. We saw Goldfish gaining ground every stroke and the race was on. Both teams hit the edge of the lake together and ahead of is was a 500m portage to the finish line with the kayaks. With the adrenalin pumping and the thought of beating Goldfish we chucked our kayak on our shoulders and ran to the finish through the scrub.

After 49 hours of racing we finally finished – 5 mins ahead of GOLDFISH. You bloody beauty!!!!!!

What a race – I was glad to finish and I was glad we did not pull the pin when things got tough. Our teamwork was fantastic and I really enjoyed my time with Mick and Paul out there. Thanks Paul for the tow up the hills! Maybe more training was required to make it easy.

Also thanks to Mel and Shaz for driving us all back to Melbourne while we all slept.

Hope you enjoyed my report, Scotty