Team NCX

Finish line video - with audio now 🙂

GODZone Chapter 8 - Day 6 Night Finishers This is "GODZone Chapter 8 - Day 6 Night Finishers" by 100% PURE Racing on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

Finished! Congratulations team NCX!!!!

Team NCX just left TA6. They are going to try and make it to TA7 by 5pm this evening before the next dark zone, which would mean finishing tonight! It will be tight but they could make it.

We have an update from TA5 thanks to Jana Maclaren. Steve was hypothermic after the packraft but everyone else seemed fine. He was wrapped up in blankets and given warm food and a hot drink. He was pinkish by the time they left for TA6. The team planned to slow down and relax and knew they would be camping river-side tonight so they should be well prepared. Unfortunately they didn’t sleep well the night before because the shuttle to TA4 didn’t depart Lake Heron until 3am. It looks like it didn’t arrive until after the dark zone lifted, at around 8am.

NCX smashed the packraft, tracking along at the fastest predicted time of 6 hours. They were arriving at TA5 at 2pm. The next section is a kayak down the lower Rakaia. The fastest predicted time for this section is also 6 hours. With some extra water in the river and a speedy transition at TA5 they could just scrape through the 8pm dark zone cut off that would have them camping on the rivers edge overnight. It looks like their decision to shuttle to TA4 has also paid off. NCX started climbing the mountains on the original route with teams #14 and #44 before being stopped and offered the amended route or a shuttle. NCX didn’t think they would make it to TA4 by the 2pm cut off on the amended route, so decided to shuttle and enjoy the river sections today. Team #14 also took the shuttle. Unfortunately team #44 took the amended route and won’t make the cut off. They will probably be short coursed and shuttled to TA5.

It looks like NCX have decided not to take the amended route as they have walked all the way back to Lake Heron, 7 hours after departing. They will likely shuttle to TA4.

For those that don’t know, you can send messages of support to the team through the GODZone website. When on the tracking page click on Team NCX in the Teams list on the right side of the page. Scroll down and click on messages. Click submit to send.

The team had already walked for about 9 hours before arriving at Lake Heron and are about to skip across a mountain range including two 2000 meter peaks. In the dark with gale force winds. However it looks like they might have been stopped prior to CP18. We will have to watch and see if they are being sent on an alternate route with the rest of the teams back at Lake Heron.

The team decided to short course themselves because they didn’t think they would make the next cut off time (2pm Thursday at TA4) if they did the full hike. It turns out this team knows what they’re doing! The predicted times for the full 84km hike were 21 hours for the fastest teams and 29 hours for the slowest. In fact, the fastest three teams took between 27 and 30 hours to complete the monster trek. That means that the slower teams could easily take 38 hours + to get through. It looks like about half of the Pure teams didn’t depart TA3 until after 4pm yesterday. These teams will all struggle to meet the cut off and will be short coursed and transported to TA5 if they don’t. The top teams took 16 – 18 hours to do the Lake Heron to TA4 section of the hike that NCX are doing now. That means that slower teams could take around 26 hours to complete the same section. NCX departed Lake Heron at 5:45 pm today …. They are already short coursed so for them the most disappointing part of missing the cut off would be not getting to experience the next packrafting section of the race.

NCX and the other “short” course teams will skip CP16 and 17 and head directly to Lake Heron after CP15. They then have some big mountains to climb, with energy sapping 70km/h Northwest gales predicted over 2000m. The wind is already picking up and I suspect they won’t be regretting their decision to take the shorter hike. The good news is they should have a tail wind to Lake Heron!

The team were in good spirits at TA2 last night despite the late hour. They were debating whether to sleep there or continue, not sure whether they would make the cut off tonight if they stop. They decided to grab a couple of hours sleep and and are now on their way to TA3 at Lake Clearwater. An enormous 160km MTB ride with 1950m of ascent. They must complete the transition at TA3 and depart by 3am tonight or they will be short coursed.

Teams supporting other teams. It has been a long day for team NCX, but they are now out of the caves and on their way to TA2 for a well-deserved feed and maybe some sleep. On the way into the caves team NCX crossed paths with team 44. Team 44s female member, Marika, badly sprained her ankle the night before the race start. She could barely walk and thought her race was over. After being assessed by the GODZone doctor, Lynne, (who happens to be Steve’s wife) Kelly worked her magic and strapped Marikas ankle. Team NCX then shared their ‘last meal’ with Marika because she hadn’t had dinner. Marika walked out with new hope and a full belly, and made it to the start line the next day. Kelly even did some final adjustments at the start line, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she offered to help at the cave entrance too. What an awesome bunch of people!

Some interesting navigation choices to watch as the teams start to move up Broken River hiking with their packrafts. The front teams have taken several different routes. Swordfox ( #17) was coming first but followed a track south of the river and lost a place to Tiki Tour ( #13) who opted to walk along the river bed. The next bunch of teams look to be taking a third option, moving along a track to the north of the river. Which option will be fastest? What route will team NCX choose?

My last post said that teams were being transported to Castle Hill but I had that wrong. They are actually on their way to Castle Hill now by foot and packraft after being dropped at Mt White bridge near Corner K**b, which sits in front of Mt Horrible, which sits in front of Mt Misery. This section is 73km with 950m of ascent and could take up to 20 hours. The team may have had about 3 hours sleep last night at the Chch Adventure Park, but they didn’t have a tent and would have been surrounded by the hustle and bustle of other teams. They were in good spirits when they came in from their final trek for the day and had burgers and chips for dinner, a luxury start to an adventure race! They will probably try and push through to Castle Hill tonight before stopping to sleep again.

Bike boxes waiting for the team at CP3

At the start line! Grey and drizzling but the first stage is coasteering so getting wet is inevitable.