adventure racing (aka. mud mud, glorious mud)

An early morning drive out to Wombat State Forest. There, we find Alicia (third team member), and Katya (who is competing with her Mountain Designs team, and who is back in Australia after two years in Canada/USA), and set Shaggy free to go and be event photographer. Bikes are reassembled, and we head to the start area, all systems go. We tie ourselves together for a four legged race, and go collect a plastic donkey from a bin. A slight incident with some slippery mud has as all crashing to the ground, and breaking our ankle ties, but we recover, find the other team with a plastic donkey, and make our way to the official to get checked before grabbing our bikes, and setting off on the rest of the course.

The obstacles are the most amusing part of the race, although mountain biking through the mud is ridiculously fun. Even when you do hit a mud bank in a deep puddle and fall over (drenching yourself completely, except for you left arm). We carry buckets of water through obstacle courses, get a blindfolded team member to worship a monkey god, completele crosswords on pop trivia, and collect a checkpoint hung over the middle of a dam (it’s alright, it was a small dam).

Covered with mud, we cycle through the finish line. We came 22nd of 52. No prizes, not even a lucky door prize. But lots of fun. And mud (did I mention the mud?)