Stage 3 - ???

For today's post there's not a lot of new information. It appears that I was right that the cut-off of 9pm (8am tomorrow AEDST) is for the end of stage 3. I was wrong however that the organisers might update the leaderboard after stage 2.

No news about Blackheart although the GPS tracker has started working again. I know that they missed the paddle cut-off (dark zone) so had to trek the stage instead which wouldn't have been fun after a couple of days on the legs. The real race for all teams now is the cut-off in 11 hours time.

Blackheart are way-off the MTB course but it looks like they are doing a road ride and trying to drop a couple of CP's (~5) in order to make the cut-off. They have about 30-40k to ride, then 20k to skate then somewhere between 30-54k to paddle depending on the course they take and the number of CP's they get along the way. On the plus side the paddle is downstream so that should make it a bit faster. It's still going to be very close for them depending on how they are feeling. They've got 11.5 hours and I reckon there's at least 10-11 hours of racing distance left with no mistakes and good conditions. Fingers crossed.

Most, if not all the teams will have to drop CP's during the race but the real luck (or good decision making) will come down to which one's are skipped. Some teams dropped 2-3 on the trek whereas our guys are dropping 5-6 on the bike. I assume that all the CP's are of equal value.

Even Twitter has let me down today so it might be time to place a call to the Supercrew Mr and Mrs Preston for a better update. Haven't even found a photo. To make it interesting, we should run a sweep on what place Blackheart will be in when the leaderboard finally get's updated. Leave your comments on the post ... I'm sticking with 10th.