After weeks of planning the type of gear we would need, how to read a map and compass, through to the tactics we would use on the various stages, we were in Borneo. We landed late on the Wednesday night into Kota Kinabalu, and checked into the fairly crappy pre-race hotel. After a morning of gear / bike checking and buying of last minute rations, we were on the bus into the wild jungle's of Borneo. Thoughts passed us of the potential wildlife (orangutan's) we might see, to the mud and mountains we would encounter on this race. On the way up to the race sight we got our first experience of Borneo rain, at about 3pm everyday the heavens literally drop onto the jungle, it was an eye popping experience of what might come over the next few days.
We disembarked at the TVRC race site in Tambunan, just east of Mount Kinabalu, where we met our host family, and got the race briefing and maps for the following day! It was relatively late to bed that night as we packed, and triple checked our gear for the following morning. It was going to be a 7am start, which meant we had to be up at 5:15am, to leave the host family's house at 6am, we were both nervous, but excited to get racing.
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| Day 1..nice and clean. |
As we had been told at the race briefing the night before, Day 1 consisted of a 33km mountain run, a 30km MTBike, then a tubing section and then a 7km run for home, (40km's of running on day1...a pretty aggressive start!). Our opening plan went very simply Rule 1. Stay alive. Rule 2. Stay friends. Rule 3. Don't come last!
The gun went off promptly at 7am, 150 adventure racers, another 85 ultra runners into the wilds of Borneo we went! We settled into a fairly easy pace, the aim was to be able to hold a continuous conversation whilst running, that should make sure we didn't get too excited too early.
Our first drama came at about the 10km mark, one of the teams ahead of us, had taken a wrong turn, and as we pulled up behind them to see if it was actually the right way or not (never trust the team in front of you, they might be lost too), we just heard someone shout "Beehive" and then guttural screams of shear panic as one poor lady was getting stung by a swarm of angry bee's....so as you would expect 2 fully grown Adventure racers who push Bloomberg keys for a living, we employed Rule 1 and ran like hell! After we had outrun the screams, we figured we were clear, and returned to our conversational pace and focused on whittling down this 33km mountain run.
The track's we were navigating slowly turned into the jungle proper, and we started to get our first taste of Borneo mud. This isn't mud like you get at the bottom of your garden, that's a bit of a pain, the mud in Borneo, is like ankle snapping slippery, yet manages to have an amazingly disproportionate weight to it, 1 inch ='s about 5kg's! We gingerly made our way down some very steep slopes, trying to make sure we stayed upright, we navigated through a lot of rubber plantations, and just so you know, un-processed rubber smells like fetid toilets...lovely! We made it onto the fire-road to checkpoint 4 (CP4), and were looking forward to picking up our bikes at (CP5). We had been doing well on the run (read better than we thought), we were in 10th place, and we managed to pick off a couple more teams on the fire road, and hot-footed into CP5 in 8th place.....Jeaz we hadn't even got onto our best discipline yet, which was MTBiking, our spirits were high, and we did the one thing that we shouldn't...we started to dream, "if we could do this, and do that, maybe a top 5 was possible, if we nailed the last 7km's maybe a top 3..if...if...if..." We left CP5 on a high, with boundless energy...and a clear lack of attention...which is exactly where it all went wrong!
Our map reading skills going into the race, were not great, ok lets be fair, they were bloody non-existent, our complete amount of map reading preparation, had been to read 1 book, and the compass instructions! No practical experience, and most importantly no appreciation for the speeds you travel at during a race. For the run we kept thinking the distances on the map were wrong, clearly we thought we ran faster than we actually were capable of, an A typical conversation was like this, "ok it looks like about 2km on the map, ok so about 10mins" but the reality (and oh I know reality now) was you are never as fast on a mountain run, as you are on the pavement, so our 10mins was more like 15minutes...but that then was generally followed by"....oh well the map must be wrong..."
As we left CP5 and tore off on our bikes, the amazing feeling of getting off our feet after nearly a marathon of very hilly kilometer's, the sudden feeling of the bike taking the weight of the 3litres of water, plus 1st aid kit, plus tools, plus food rather than my poor back! We were going down a decently inclined fire road, we were hitting 35kmh, the apparent wind was cooling us down...yeah we were ripping and a possible top 5 was all we could dream about!....oh what rookies...we were!!!
Our first turn was about 2km after CP5...and we hooned straight past it, our cursory conversations consisted of "we should hit it soon", kept going 6km's out, 7km's out, 8km's out...a left came up, that must be it, we nailed it and kept on cranking! 12km's out and road's impossibly started to fit the map, another left turn, up a cripplingly steep hill....this didn't start to feel right and the thoughts started to turn over...we must be wrong, but NO we were on the right road...the tussle of not knowing if we were right or wrong, but not wanting to admit if we had gone wrong, as the journey back was a long one was almost too much to bear. We asked a couple of locals, who gave us big grins' and the thumbs up, yeah we must be right...but it still didn't feel right, then we asked another local...and when he pointed to a section of the map a long way away from where we thought we were, the dark and side splitting realisation set in, not only had we screwed up, we had screwed up huge. Our dream's and hope's, thrown into the gutter and stamped on, how could we be so stupid, it was a rookie error par excellence, I can speak for both of us, when I say it was a moment neither of us will ever forget, or wish to repeat.
As we turned around and started the journey back to where we should have gone wrong, the math of how much time we had lost started to suck energy, spirit, concentration, hope from us. God how could we be so stupid, 2+ hours lost, countless places, too much energy to recoup. As we made our way back, we picked up other bikers, who had also missed the left turn, our miss fortune was their good fortune as we corrected them. As we ground our way up to the left we should have taken (remember it was all down hill the other way..now it was all uphill), swearing and facing down the demons of such poor judgement, the heaven's opened. It could have been a scene from a movie...2 intrepid travellers find miss fortune after great excitement, the music changes and the heavens opened...we may as well have been standing under a hose it was so heavy...in retrospect it was comical, but at the time it was agonising.
We made the correct left turn, and started up another impossibly steep hill, this was a Borneo mud hill, that if we had taken dry would have been difficult, but do-able, now it was down right dangerous, and we had to come down it as well. The hill to CP6, was never ending, the mud got deeper, the hill got steeper, I reckon at its peak we were on a 40% incline, pushing all the way. We made the summit, signed in, we had fallen to 34th! We made the descent, through axle high clay mud, we were absolutely covered in it from head to foot.
These 3 pictures accurately show the anguish and torture of the tubing section.
I especially love this one...its the "Oh sh*******t moment...just before it really does hit the fan!"
"hitting the fan...."
We rejoined after the tubing section, and started the wet slog for home, only 7km's, but it felt like it was going to be a long 7km's. We started to chat about the days adventures, of where we had gone wrong and what we had done right, we started to plan for tomorrow and look forward to the rest of the race, our spirits started to lift, the sun came out, and we knew tomorrow would be a very different day, thankful, that we were still alive, still friends, and were not last!
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| End of Day 1...laughter and smiles after a trying day! Day 2. After completing nearly a marathon on day 1, day 2 was all about the bike. It was to be a 3hour bike, 1 1/2 hour duathlon (1 bike between 2) then a 3 hour bike, this was our chance for redemption, the bike is our best discipline, and we were so eager to right the wrongs of yesterday. The race started at 7am again, so after a very early breakfast, a decent amount of time inspecting feet, and prepping gear, we were ready. It was a short run around the TVRC car park, across the river, and onto our bikes. If on day 1 we were a bit lax about the map reading, we were now map nazi's, we had the odometers on the bike dialed. There would be no wrong turns today! We tore off on the bikes, mud splattering, rubber shredding, today we would rule. If Day 1 had been a fairly slow start, Day 2 we were gunning it, from about 3km's in, I was leading the race with a train of riders behind me, we were hammering at 35kmh on flat fire road, that's fast, and hard to keep up for too long. We managed to dial things back, as we were close to making another major mistake, and going out too hard, we had 6~7 hours ahead of us (after 10 hours yesterday)...we had to keep a check our levels of output, as Borneo is hot and humid, and people had troubles yesterday with the heat, and today was a scorcher! Unbelievably we were back on the road, we had gone down incorrectly yesterday, we hit the left turn (after a little indecision) up the cripplingly steep hill, twice in 2 days...arghh this was gonna' hurt. It became clear very quickly our fatigue levels were higher then our competition after yesterdays extra efforts. After any cripplingly steep hill, you have to go down, and at the bottom of this hill was a 500m stream / river we had to navigate through with the bike's. Hauling our bike's over tree's and bamboo strewn across the river up to our chests at time's, we made it into CP3, where someone had already collapsed with heat exhaustion. Out and back on the road, up the next unbelievably steep hill, this time it was tarmac, but was so steep, it was virtually impossible to ride! We pushed and sweated our way to the duathlon section. "Foot management" a fairly unexciting, but nonetheless critical subject when talking about adventure racing. It had been a constant worry going into this race (especially for me, anyone who knows my Maclehose experience, knows of my blister and toenail issue's). It had been a particular worry for this race as I knew we would be running, walking, biking, everything in sodden shoes. Miraculously my feet had stood up very well on Day 1, bar a small blister, they went into day 2, in good shape, however after the stream, and heat of the morning of day 2, by the time we started to run on the duathlon, my feet started to hurt from blisters and general all over bruising. Add to that crushing heat, hills, and pushing a bike through think jungle, it was becoming all a bit too much. At various points over the weekend, there would be times when I was strong, and Neil struggling, and viceversa, this was my time to suffer, I couldn't find a rhythm, I couldn't find the source it was just all too much hard work. And then to add further drama to it, by the time we got back to picking up the spare bike, where I had left my bike shoes and gloves on the spare bike to dry out in the sun, they were literally caked in fly's...it was horrible, not a good hour that one! Back onto the bike for the slog for home, thankfully we had some very fast downhills to give us a rest bite, before we hit the hardest hill of the day. Half way through the duathlon, right when i was at my lowest, I was told the story of 'hamburger hill' and how difficult it was...well it was no lie. It was probably about midday at this point, so the heat of the day, both Neil and I were knackered, and we come across this hamburger hill that is not only impossibly steep, it is pure mud...Borneo mud, ankle snapping mud. There was no other way for it, but to put the bikes on our backs and go for it. A fairly comical situation ensued, there were a few other guys negotiating this hill, and quite frankly everyone was massively struggling. I had managed to find a bit of a rhythm, and by that I mean I was simply able to put about 3 or 4 steps together in sequence before I collapsed in the mud. After a few more efforts there I was in the middle of the mud slide and I had managed to put about 5 steps together, it was such an impressive feet, literally everyone on the slide stopped to watch me, cheers of "go on mate" were thrown out there just in time for me to loose my footing, I had no free hands, as I as holding the handlebars and bike frame on my back, the hill was so steep that my forehead was literally about 10cm's from the ground..(think about that, it was about a 50%gradient), the bloke next to me (Andrew from Aus, aka calfman, for his obscenely large calf muscle's) simply says "fall fore ward mate", falling backwards would have brought broken bones, broken bikes, and quite frankly an airlift out....but "fall fore ward" was all I needed to hear for me to go the 10cm's required and forehead first into the mud, no hands, no balance...laughter all round, and requests for me to do it again whilst people got there camera out..that was about the lowest point of the day. We made it to CP6, and then we made for home, battered, bruised, and needing a rest. The same guys we were tussling with on hamburger hill had for some reason stopped on the fire road for home, blood was in the air, it was our time to take a few places back. We started to drop the hammer as best we could, but just as I struggled earlier in the day, now it was Neil's turn, 2 days worth of expenditure had taken its toll. We had to dial back the heat, it was hard to let them past, but with a 3rd day to go rule 1 and 2 came into effect. We came across the line 14th on the day, hopefully we had pulled back a few more spots, but not quite as good as we had hoped to redeem ourselves.  Day 3  We had the luxury of having an 8am start for our final day, it was going to be a short day, only 4 hours! A 1 hour mountain run, followed by a 3 hour orienteering section on bikes. By the start of the 3rd day, my feet were pretty sore, and running was painful, I had prepared my feet as best I could, and hoped they could hang on for a few more hours. Keeping them dry was the key! Oh no I forgot for a moment this was Borneo, We managed about 7minutes, before we were thigh deep in a river, oh well...only a few hours to go now. It was our turn for a little luck (it was about time), after navigating in the front 1/3 of the pack on the mountain run, somehow the front runners managed to take a wrong turn. We navigated through after them, and managed to hold the correct course, Neil found a turn of speed into the last few km's and was able to pull me through, we legged it into CP2, in 2nd place, just the lead we needed to help us on the orienteering section. Brains not brawn. Arriving in CP 2, we picked up the orienteering maps, we had to find 12 markers out of 25, any 12, it was our choice. I mapped a quick route of what looked to be the most efficient, and with the less hills. We took the time to write down each turn its distance, and any note able landmark's. We trained our attention on the map and the odometers, and started to knock off the marker's. A big moment of relief set in, when after correctly navigating to marker 1, and then 2, number 3, had been removed by the local kids (apparently), but by then we were confident we had our distances and head's straight. After wasting a little time, trying to add another marker to cover for the one we couldn't find, which we ended up abandoning after 20minutes anyway (too long), we knocked off the 12th marker, and headed for home. It was a straight shot of about 6km's from the last marker to TVRC and home. We took turns on the front and became a well oiled freight train of specialized stumpjumpers (our bike's), we hammered out the flats at 40kmh...not bad for MTBikes, and 2 knackered blokes. We crossed the line at 11:55am, any minute after 12:00pm was a penalty (the rules of orienteering). We were done!  We had come 17th. not a bad effort for our first race. Apart from the bee's, fly's and dog's we had seen no other wildlife, the thoughts of seeing an orangutan never materalised, shame as it would have been a very cool experience. We had managed to stick to the plan, and returned alive, great friends and 17th (not last). This will be the first of hopefully, many more successful team adventure races' for Team Shogenai. A few more photo's........    |
Great stuff Adam and great report.
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