Race report by Jack Garnett

Pictures by Andrew Connolly

The idea was simple enough… Get a Policeman, a Fire Fighter and a Paramedic together to race in the premier Australian five-day adventure race to help raise some money so sick kids stuck in the Royal Children's Hospital can enjoy some time in the outdoors with full medical support. With the team coming together only a couple of months out from race start, the pressure was on early to raise funds, promote raffles, prepare equipment, gain sponsorship, choose gear and organize training sessions between three blokes that lived a combined 400km away from each other.

Somewhere along the way we failed to realise we were going to need to navigate in alpine country. More about that in a minute.

The KEEN Alps to Ocean Adventure Race starts in the picturesque Alpine resort of Falls Creek on the Bogong High Plains, and navigates its way through an incredible range of landscapes and wilderness all the way to the Ocean. Racing over mountain summits well above the tree line, down remote mountain rivers, through hidden caves and deep gorges, and along stunning stretches of coastline, the race finishes after over 500kms where the rivers meet the sea at Lakes Entrance in East Gippsland, Victoria, Australia.

Our team name was 'KEEN to Finish for Charity' (KFC) and was made up of Tim Hart (Victoria Police), David Gorman (CFA) and Jack Garnett (Rural Ambulance Victoria) and despite a combination of racing experience, we soon realized that our sum total of true adventure racing experience within the team was none. Zero. Tim's strength was cycling and organising fund raising events within his local community of Wangaratta, Dave was a treasuretrove of orienteering experience, abeit on a smaller scale than the Alps to ocean, and Jack thought himself a bit of an allrounder having pursued distance triathlons and mountain biking for the past decade.

If any readers are questioning our choice to begin our adventure racing careers with what the experienced international Canadian team was to later describe as 'one of the most difficult Adventure Races we have competed in', you are too late - your input would have been highly valued perhaps on the start line.

So there we were at Falls Creek, feet slipping and hearts jumping as we careered down the backside of the Falls creek summit, the starting horn echoeing across the vally's and ridges that form Victorias' High Country - country that we were about to develop a very close relationship with.

Day one had started only hours earlier when we had received our maps and some final check point (CP) GPS co-ordinates from race director John Jacobe. This Stage one Prologue saw teams race from the Summit of Falls Creek to the Rocky Valley Lake and then back up to the Village Bowl for the finish. Winners of stage one in just 2h 48m were Richard Mountstephens and Rob Preston of team SILVA stingers, with race favorites Chris Forne and Gordon Walker of adventuresportnz.com only 2 minutes away at 2h 50m. With a prologue time of 5h 25m,Team KFC failed to see much of the front runners although the camera helicopter off in the distance was about as useful as a belly button warmer when it came to assisting our navigation. This focus on race times, however, is missing the point. We were having fun. We were finding checkpoints. We were hurting. We were adventure racing. Plus I always find that you feel like you are traveling much faster if its dark.

It was well dark by the time we saw the finish chute.

This prolonged enjoyment, however, had a cost. That cost was sleep. We were to have only 16 hours sleep over the five days of racing, with top teams getting close to 10 hours a night except for the overnight stage 3. It's not that hard an equation - if you spend twice as long as everyone to finish the stage, you have half the time to sort and repair gear, eat, dry clothes, charge lights, study maps, plan routes, read race notes, tape blisters, stretch, massage or find an extra tube of Voltaren. Enter the support team. They cook, clean, transport gear, motivate, organize and generally make the whole race possible for the actual athletes. Kath and Helena were the oil in our engine - keeping things lubricated, fueled up and running as smooth as possible. All with the knowledge that when we saw them at each transition, we were going to act like spoilt kids in a Toyworld store with a vocabulary of only two words… 'Me' and 'Gimme'.

Stage two began with a mountain bike that saw racers head away from the relative comfort of Falls Creek village and begin the Alpine adventure in earnest. This was the stage that was to shake the field into action and expose just how well prepared teams were for the race to come. With tragedy striking in the wee hours for the Parks Victoria team with a badly broken leg, and top runner Jarrad Kohler having a head-on collision but averting injury, the pace was showing up the cracks. Team KFC had what can only be described as an enlightening day. Around midday we found ourselves struggling on the trekking section through thick blackberry bushes, sword grass, hidden loose rocks and the odd P. porphyriacus (commonly called the red bellied black snake) after following a wrong spur line off Granny Spur/Horse Ridge whilst trying to get to Cairn Creek Hut. They say that when the going gets tough, the tough get going but I fail to describe our going in this terrain as inspirational.

The hours disappeared in a flurry of ankle twisting, leg scratching and inconsistent navigation and we soon took the logical step to simply head for the Mt Bogong trail and back to our waiting bikes. This challenge, however, was also to set the tone for how we handled ourselves when the going did get tough - we just kept going. Yeah, some check points got missed and we were too late into transition to do the ropes course, but each day we were gaining a greater sense that for us this was a race of attrition - we just wanted that finish line.

After another late finish on the Mount Beauty BMX track at 10.30pm, we returned to falls creek and with only a 3h sleep to repair our tired legs, we were soon downing another Torq energy bar breakfast and back on the start line. Stage three was to make the other stages feel like a simple visit to the proctocologist - hard at the time but over quickly. For team KFC it was a behemoth constituting 11 hours of night into day hiking, a 4-hour night paddle on the Mitta Mitta River, 13 hours of mountain biking and the consumption of more calories than isle 5 of your local Safeway. After 33 hours of racing finishing in Omeo on Friday afternoon, we had conquered the stage… well almost. Getting in a fossil fuel powered vehicle during an adventure race was not part of our original vision, and it certainly constitutes a bypassing of the rules, but when put in context it rolls off the tongue with a little less bite. In fact at 9am after 11 hours of trekking gaining only 3 CPs, and a further 12+ hours of trekking at that pace followed by a 5 hour mountain bike, we needed a DeLorean DMC-12 time machine to fit it in. I know, I know… soft. So a quick fuel powered sojourn up to Anglers Rest and it was back on our bikes and on to the finish line at Omeo. At the pointy end of the field it was apparent that World Individual Adventure Racing Champion Gordon Walker and his partner Chris Forne from adventuresportnz.com were heading into stage four in a commanding lead, and whilst these guys made it look easy, nearly half the field had failed to fully complete stage three and it was amongst this esteemed company that team KFC found our sleeping heads banging against the car windows as we drove to Buchan for the final days racing.

Rubbing the sleep from our eyes was a welcome surprise as we arose to Stage four and a foggy morning of orienteering followed quickly by a ride to Buchan caves that saw teams cracking heads and helmets in amongst the Buchan caves, each team keen not to alert those nearby of their lucky CP find. An 'easy' four to five hour winding fire trail mountain bike saw us get closer to our goal, with several offers of culinary delights being made to the first team member to see the ocean. By this stage the $30,000 prize pool had been fought and won with victory going to adventuresportnz.com followed by the astonishing mixed team of OrionHealth.com (Stuart Lynch & Anna Berthelsen) and SILVA Stingers Rob Preston & Richard Mountstephens rounding out the top three. As our day continued from bike to paddle, from river to ocean, thoughts of blisters and inflamed joints were pushed aside as we realized that the finish line would be ours to savor and that the finish time truly did not matter.

Was it worth it? Ask the kids that will receive over $15,000.00 from our fund raising and get to experience the great outdoors that the rest of us take for granted on a daily basis. A short time in the wild world of nature after a lifetime of hospital lights and four walls is worth fighting for.

Our sincere thanks go to all those who brought this race to life for us and supported the charity, and especially Tim Gaul and the team at KEEN for being the Alps to Ocean Adventure Race major sponsor as well as the driving force behind the charity team concept.

Race Hard or Race Slow… it doesn't really matter… just make sure you know how to navigate and don't stop.