Over the Easter break, Fleur and I (Damon) travelled over to Borneo for a bit of a holiday and to compete in the Sabah Adventure Challenge, a 3 day adventure race. Arriving at Kota Kinabalu, we were picked up from the airport and taken to race registration at a nearby hotel and then transported over the Crocker Range to the town of Tambunan, the event centre located in the middle of the island. There were a few Aussie teams joining us and it seemed like a bit of an AR couples convention as we were joined by the Farebrothers, Meryments, Koerbers, Tsalina and Luke as well as Hanny Allston and her partner Graham from Tassie.
Day 1 started with a 35km jungle run. It was supposed to be significantly shorter, but landslides had closed some roads forcing the relocation of the transition areas. Heading straight up the nearby mountains on a fire trail, it was sweaty work, with the heat and humidity hitting us pretty hard. Reaching the top, we had the option of taking some shortcuts along walking tracks but opted to stick with the recommended route rather than potentially getting lost in a maze of local village tracks in the jungle. The main route soon narrowed into a singletrack, following local rubber tapping tracks, and descended steeply down a muddy, slippery slope to cross a bamboo bridge before climbing again. Luckily the trail was still in reasonable condition for us as we were close to the front, as more people passed, it trail would steadily deteriorate making it a nightmare for those later on who ended up sliding down on their backsides. More jungle, hills and bamboo bridges followed until we hit a dirt road at about 30km, which we would follow into the next transition. We staggered the last few km’s as it was now in the heat of the day and no longer had the protection of the jungle canopy. I readily accepted the offer of a wet sponge over my head from an enthusiastic local in the TA, not realizing he had soaked it with icy water and I suffered the worst ice cream headache ever as a result. Now we got to hop on our bikes for a short lived ride to the next hill. The course restructure meant we had to get the next CP via an out and back climb up a massive hill. We were soon pushing our bikes and managed to pass a couple of teams who were suffering in the heat. Numerous teams passed us coming back down and we counted the mixed teams to find we were 3rd by the time we made the top. I was disappointed to see the clouds coming over as we started the descent, thinking all the teams behind were going to get it easy as it cooled down. We passed all the other Aussies on the way down (noting that a smiling Megan was riding a loooong way ahead of an unusually quiet Gary). It wasn’t far back to town and the next TA, where we dumped our bikes and grabbed some inflated car tyre tubes for a 6km tube down the river, through some fun corners and standing waves. I need to work on my technique a little as I got thrown off a couple of times. It had started to rain while we were on the water and I was relieved to reach the end and then run the final 6km back to the finish in Tambunan. We were the 3rd mixed team for the day, and 7th overall. The rains turned the trails to mud and trashed all the bikes behind us, with big Mike being one casualty when he had to bail off his bike into the bushes during the descent after losing his brakes!
Restarting on Day 2 on our bikes, we headed out down the river for 10km’s before a push up a hill to the first CP. I haven’t ridden my bike much recently and realized the day before I still had not replaced the chainrings on my bike from before xmas and was forced to run all of the hills as my chain kept slipping (amazing how these things don’t fix themselves). We headed across to a small river for a fun bike carry downstream following the creek and small trails on the banks. We were surprisingly overtaken by the polite leaders from day 1 and some not so polite followers as they had made a wrong turn somewhere. The maps were generally pretty good, supplied already laminated at about 1:50,000 with 100m contours – therefore not recommended for orienteers who need to see every rock, blade of grass and 1m contour detailed, although Hanny was probably the first orienteer I have met who didn’t whine about maps in an adventure race! Crossing a suspension bridge we had another bike push to the next CP where we had to drop a bike and could only use 1 bike over a 12km loop, with towing and dinking not allowed. I opted to let F ride the whole way while I ran. We then only had to ride back to Tambunan and the finish. But first we had to climb Hamburger Hill, a massive bike push up the steepest and slipperiest hill I have ever done. It was still in OK condition when we were there and I felt sorry for those who came after as it only got muddier and slipperier. We finished the day in 3rd place again, 6th overall and felt pretty good. We had kept ourselves well fuelled throughout the day, thanks to Shotz, and it was interesting to see a competitor sponsored by a rival sports nutrition company had passed out halfway through the day, and was now on a drip, totally Hammered...
The final day was only short, with a fun run up a small creek into the nearby hills before coming back to town and jumping on our bikes for some mountain bike orienteering around town. We started just after 8am and you had to get 12 CP’s before a midday cut off. This was one of the highlights for me, riding the trails around town and seeing the locals. The CP’s were plastic bottles hanging on a post with a code inside. We struggled to find one and assumed it was missing so had to get a 13th (others later found it so lucky we got another). We made it back well before the cutoff and found we were the first home. The lead bunch must have had too much rice wine at their homestays the night before and made another nav error on the run and came in half an hour later. The Farebrothers had a great ride and came in 2 minutes later in 2nd for the day.
The all male team of Team Salomon Bonaqua Racing was 1st overall. Mixed teams took the next 3 places. Team of Paris – Lafuma was 1st mixed, with “Find your Feet” consisting of Hanny Allston and Graham Hammond 2nd. We managed to make a fair bit of time up on the last day but still finished 3rd in the mixed, 4th overall. We also both successfully completed another 1 jersey race, however we did change shorts on the third day. All the Aussie couple teams had good races and finished with good results, and as far as we know there have been no files for divorce after the race, just don’t ask Gary about his bike glove.
