Brutal, tough, crazy... maybe, but I think Challenge is a little bit of an understatement for The Kokoda Challenge (Official). A seriously tough course made a little more difficult by the last minute reverse of direction to make it an out & back course starting at the finish line due to bush fires close to the start but the organisers did an incredible job to even get the event on. We set off well but unfortunately 10km into the run missed a turn that hadnt been remarked clearly which saw us run an extra 7km & drop from 8th place at CP2 to 40th place at CP3... whoops! We werent the only ones that missed the turn though with many others going the wrong way at the same point including the event leaders at the time. This rattled us a little but we got our heads together as there was nothing that could be done about it apart from keep on running - the course was now over 100km in length & going to be not only my biggest elevation climbing course but also my furthest run... Taking the long option for sure! ;) Unfortunately as we were pushing our nutrition got a little forgotten & Kerno (aka the Brisbane Trail Runner) started cramping around the 15km mark. This got serious about the 20k point when he nearly fell off the mountain almost dragging me with him, just lucky there was a large tree to stop him & me, the cramps set in bad and the big fella almost shed a tear! From then on Steve put in a seriously gutsy effort, I have a new found respect for how tough this fella is pushing through several pain barriers that would have stopped the vast majority of people. We kept pushing onwards, walking quite a bit and running short stints where we could & made it through to the 40k checkpoint where we stopped for some seriously amazing chicken soup & took the time for Kerno to get a massage & taped up. Onwards we pushed now in the dark still holding 40th position & continuing the walk/run method to sustain movement, at the halfway point we paused again for Kerno to get massaged by an ex-boxer with no teeth & mid massage walked away from the table to show me how to stretch like an animal rather than doing static stretches leaving Kerno just laying there! We hit the trails again now heading in the original direction of the course so all the trail markers were facing the right way. We got through to the 60km checkpoint and Kerno made the agonising decision to withdraw, it was tough for all of us but the right thing to do as didnt want him to risk injury. At the same time we met up with Brett from another team who had all withdrawn due to injury/sickness to he joined up with our team to maintain a team of four. Brett had been part of a team that had planned to walk the entire length of the course but was happy to walk the hill & give running the flats & downhills where possible. The distance to the next CP was only 5k but it was a huge hill, coming down was a constant stream of walkers & the row of headlamps was very impress as this was the only way to get a grasp of the grade of the hill, we hiked up without stopping once which was quite an achievement with about 70ks in our legs, at the top we jogged up through the cow paddocks and suddenly Dale went down hard, hed rolled his ankle badly and was hurting badly, luckily we werent far from the CP but Im sure for Dale it felt like a hell of distance trying to get there using his poles to protect the ankle from further damage. At the CP it was clear Dale had to withdraw, it was heartbreaking to have to leave another team mate behind but he was in significant amounts of pain. Chris, Brett & I continued on & kept on running with a long gentle decline out of the CP which was nice to pick up a bit of time but also tested the quads out, before we knew it we were at the next CP & out of there again quickly, we were all moving well and still in high spirits chatting along the way. We found out from Brett that hed only ever done a 30km run previously so this was a huge step up, as hed managed to follow the right course he was on for 97.6km - not a bad step up in distance, hed planned to walk the whole way & now found himself running! We kept going strongly through to the next crew CP where we stocked up with fuel & fluids again before leaving quickly, we had one intention now & that was get to the finish, in one piece as a combined team of three. As we were running we were passing teams that were walking, a number of them the school teams that had started from the halfway point to complete a 48km trek, seriously impressive for the young kids & what an experience to share with their teachers, such a great initiative. Coming down into the finish we stripped off our high-vis vests & headlamps to get a good finishing pic then leaped across the finish line - wed been through a seriously tough challenge but ended up finishing a total distance of 108km (my Garmin ran out of battery just after the 2km to go sign) finishing in 16th position overall in a time of 19hrs 36mins & 30secs. Such a rewarding event to be a part of, massive shame that we lost Kerno & Dale along the way but there was so much attrition through the day & night amongst a lot of teams... and now as I write this is 34.5hrs after the start time and there are still teams out on the course, seriously impressive to keep going for that length of time! Many thanks also to our super crew of Mallani, Kendall & Geoff who kept us fed, watered & warm through the day/night whilst enduring freezing conditions in the CPs waiting for us to come through - you guys were simply awesome! Many thanks also to Brett for joining our team, it was a pleasure to spend time on the course with you & seriously impressive performance mate! Check out the course profile (and little detour) on the Garmin link: connect.garmin/modern/activity/545195089
Posted on: Sun, 20 Jul 2014 08:37:28 +0000
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