Race Report: 2011 Baise Outdoor Quest (China) - Day 3 (4/4)

Day 3.

Start – Dongla

9km Kayak

20km MTB

3km Orienteering

100m Tyrolean traverse

20km MTBO

22km Run

Finish – LeYe Town

Day 3 arrived about three hours too early. The bus trip back to the hotel after day 2 had been a genuine experience with a few athletes vomiting in the bus as we drove flat out along windy mountain roads in the dark. By the time we got back to the hotel we only had about 90 minutes to clean and re-pack our race gear for day 3 before the 2200hrs cut-off. Fortunately, even though I was still adjusting my derailleur at about 2230, they still hadn’t come to take our gear away. By the time we got to bed it was nearly midnight, so a 0530 breakfast and 0600 depart wasn't exactly ideal recovery after two tough days of racing.

Almost expectedly, day 3 began how day 2 ended; on a bus at breakneck speed. I was paranoid about getting bus sick on the way to the start so moved up the front and chatted with the Aussies on the Chiru Endurance team until our bus got lost, and our driver attempted to do a 50 point turn on the side of a mountain. Eventually, he gave up and drove on to a village further up the road but the delayed start made us nervous as the closing ceremony wouldn’t be moved and, as such, we were expecting the cut-off times to be brought forward to account for the delay.

The endless sun through the fog. Start Day 3 (Courtesy Jocelin)

All of the talk at the start was about the final run to the finish, given how brutal the previous two had been, but with the organisers using the word ‘steep’ for the first time today. I was quietly glad that we weren't at the pointy end of the field because there were mini battles going on for 3rd, 5th and 7th places. Peak Adventure and Chiru Endurance were separated by less than a minute for 3rd and the thought of driving hard to the line was pretty tiring in itself (even if its what I enjoy most about racing).

Day 3’s racing started with a 9km mixed flat/white water kayak down the Builu river. This was one of the highlights of the trip for me as we paddled short sections of flat water interspersed with grade 2-3 white water rapids. I didn’t have any of the problems with my flexors that I’d had the previous day and I really enjoyed the challenge of crashing through the rapids, powering the paddle through the water and surfacing upright on the other side. It was also one of the most scenic parts of the trip, paddling through the jungle with ancient pagodas on the waterfront.

Pavel (R) and I enjoying some flowing water down the Builu (Courtesy Jocelin)

The bike leg started up, and stayed that way for about 5km @ ~10%. I was in a comfortable gear and glad we were on probably the best made road we had ridden on for the duration of the race. Today was Maria’s turn to struggle and she was suffering from stomach problems from the start, still feeling unwell from the bus trip the night before. Each of today’s climbs were steep, particularly the final one just before the TA that was only short (~2km) but well over 12-3%.

When we arrived in the TA, the race ahead of us was well and truly on. Peak Adventure and Chiru Endurance were literally shoulder to shoulder, fumbling through transition boxes, desperately trying to get an edge over the other team. Champion System (NZ, Spain, Thai), Thule (Sweden) and Adidas TERREX (UK) were also having a red hot battle just behind them. We grabbed our climbing gear and headed off down the road with Pavel ‘navigating’ to the tyrolean traverse. Unfortunately, for us the nav was pretty much non-existent so we really didn’t benefit from having four highly competent navigators in the team.

The Builu. We paddled under the cave in the arch (bottom right) (Courtesy Jocelin)

I hadn’t done a Tyrolean traverse for a good few years, so it was fun to have a crack at one again. For anyone not familiar, a Tyrolean traverse is like a flying fox, but where the rope is level, and you pull yourself across rather than going with gravity (or alternatively, made famous during the opening scene of Cliffhanger http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKqlwKfH8R4 @6:40). We were only crossing a small river so it wasn't nervy, but my puny runners arms had their work cut out for them once I past halfway and started pulling myself uphill. Then, in true adventure race fashion, we then had to wade back across the river before the run back to the TA, jingle jangling with our climbing gear still on.

Back onto our bikes at the TA for some MTBO that really lacked the O. Pavel was navigating again, but a quick look at the aerial photo showed we basically just had to follow the road along the river through a few towns until we reached the TA. The road was undulating and rough which made for a tough 20kms on the body. I was eternally grateful to be riding a Merida dually as a few days of racing started to catch up with me and the aches set in.

The run was the last stanza of the race. We were well under the cut-off time so headed out into the paddy fields with some local children following us, jai-yo, jai-yo. We followed a stream up a long gully, climbing slowly over some more rough terrain of narrow single trail cutting through the heavily worked farmland that was surprisingly tough going. Eventually, we reached the base of the ‘steep’ hill and began the long trek to the top pushing out a solid tempo. As we climbed through 1100m, we knew we had reached the highest point for the day.

Poor Jamesy. Spent, but in 3rd Place :-D (Courtesy Guy Andrews)

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all down hill from here but we were able to get back on a good run again through the last few villages. We arrived in LeYe, at the opposite end of town and ran with a Police escort all the way back to where the race had started three days and about 25hrs of racing beforehand. The legs were heavy, but that didn’t seem to matter, we were running on pavement for the first time in three days and that was exciting enough!

We were the last team to officially finish in 13th place, but with 7 experienced teams (30% of entrants) withdrawn or retired before the finish that was no disgrace. The main goal of the trip was to gain some valuable international experience and I had certainly done that. You don't take it to the pro's in your first race at this level. We'd had an unlucky race, and everyone had suffered at some point but we'd pulled through and toughed it out. A big thank-you to everyone who has supported me this season, its been a bit of an epic. Merida and MBC Clifton Hill for the best bikes in the business, Melbourne Uni Sport entrusting me in their Elite Athlete Support Program, and Coaches Foz and JK from Fluid Movements and Peak Adventure respectively. Thanks also to the guys at Bogong Equiment in the CBD for their quality service and advice.  Finally, a big 'danka' to my coffee buddies, without you and coffee training wouldn't be much fun.

Rest time!

Guy Andrews' (Peak Adventure) Blog for Day 3

http://www.guyandrews.tv/?p=1246

Dougal Allan's (Chiru Pro) Blog for Day 3

http://www.sportzhub.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12192

Race Report: 2011 Baise Outdoor Quest (China) - Day 2 (3/4).

Day 2.

Start - Luo Sha
3km Run
53km MTB
8km Run
20km Kayak
Finish -  Ya Chang


Well, day 2 was here. I'd spent the night night before stretching out my left side in the hope that the pain would be worth it for the range of movement the next day, and lathered myself in Voltaren gel. I seemed to be OK, and some soluble Panadol worked a treat to take the edge off. We arrived in Luo Sha for the start and didn't have more than about 20 minutes to get ready. One of the locals had opened up their house for use as a toilet, and walking through really reinforced to me how lucky we are in Australia to have the homes we have. Guy [Andrews] fell through a grate on the way out of the TA and as I gave him a hand out we both muttered about the lack of OHS in China.

I love this photo. Guy with one of the locals (courtesy Guy Andrews)

The day started with a 3km run through the paddy fields, and again we found ourselves mid pack along with the Peak Adventure (Jarad et. al.) guys, knowing there was no point busting a lung on a short leg designed to split up the teams before the first bike leg. I didn't feel too great, but my pack was fully loaded for the next 6hrs of racing and I've come to learn that you never seem to feel awesome when you weigh 10% more. Into the TA we were just behind Czech AR and with a number of the Chinese teams.

On the bike we quickly climbed out of town, and after a short descent lobbed onto our first 'Tour de China' climb of about 10km @ 7%. Pavel and I got into a good rythym but the road surface was too rough to put anyone on a tow as you had to often dart from one side of the road to the other. The climb was clearly visible ahead of us as we snaked around the valley and it was really interesting to be able to see the teams in front of and behind us on a different switchback, or up ahead. In many cases you could work out how far away a team was based on how long it took between the locals all cheering Jai-Yo, Jai-Yo for the team in front, and then for us!

Luo Sha town. Start day 2. Hows the fog? (courtesy Jocelin)

After a good battle with a few of the teams around us (including the ever smiling guys from Malaysia FTA), we rolled over the highest point of the day (1600m) and commenced the long, undulating descent down to 400m. The descent was quite fast in parts, and my dual suspension Merida 96 just sailed down, soaking up all of the bumps and allowing me to save a fair bit of energy and have a bit of a smile on my face. We were in tea growing country, and most of the terrain was the typical 'stepped' growing fields that you see in the photos. I couldn't get too carried away admiring the terrain though, because the drop-off to the left of the road was a loooooong way down and there's no such thing as a safety rail in China.

We arrived at TA 2 just in time, as a few of us were bordering on being out of fluid after nearly 4 hours of racing.  I learnt from the previous days disaster and took my undershirt off, and then took the opportunity to pour some water over my head and arms to 'pre-cool' before we headed out on the run.  I opted for straight water for my second bladder so as to avoid stomach problems after taking in nearly 3L of Gatorade on the bike. With my trusty Fluid Movements cap on, we checked out of the TA nervous about what today's run was going to unleash.

Initially, the run wasn't too bad, ranging from undulating to steep. But only about 2km in we realised we had our work cut out for us. The official race book showed about 400m of elevation gain in 3km (13%) however, by the time we got to the top, Sergey's GPS showed we had climbed over 600m. The trail was so dubious I'm sure someone had just hacked it the day before with a machete and laid out a few red tapes. We passed one Chinese team taking a break about a quarter of the way up, and then the highly experienced Kolumb team who informed us they had pressed the 'rescue' button on their GPS tracker. I was at my HR max despite  really only walking fast and Sergey was starting to look pretty shaky on his feet.

As we started to descend down the other side I was hoping for some relief but we really just seemed to be falling in a semi controlled way and we had to be right on our reflexes for most of the way down. Despite moving pretty quickly, one of the lower ranked Chinese teams passed us like we were standing still on the descent, taking all sorts of risks. I've honestly got no idea how they were able to move so fast.

When we arrived at the bottom of the hill Serge was looking pretty uneasy on his feet, and eventually just fell down as we were walking taking in some water. We happened to be right near the medical car that I think must have been brought in for the Kolumb guys and a Chinese doctor came over to see Serge. After a bit of a fuss Serge got given some glucose and that seemed to bring him around. We weren't far from the final TA for the day so once Serge was back on his feet Pavel put him on a tow and we made our way slowly down to the kayak TA.

We arrived into the last TA at about the 6hr mark, and the sun was well and truly high in the sky. I was partly expecting them to pull us out for exceeding the advertised cut-off time and because Serge was in a bad way, but the TA was completely un-manned. So we unpacked our boxes and kitted up for the long paddle. The boxes had been sitting in the sun for hours and my PFD was super hot, so I poured a bottle of water into it to try and cool it down. Our boats were a pretty standard sit on top plastic number not too dissimilar to the fishing style kayaks people buy these days. I'm sure they're not too bad for fishing, but they're a long way from the K1 I've been training in. Maria and I were shared a boat to start with, but I couldn't get the bathtub to steer (without a rudder) so we swapped over and I paddled with Pavel.

Day 2 Paddle-slog-athlon. We seemed to paddle forever (courtesy Jocelin)

Initially, I had a lot of trouble in the boat as our feet were higher than our bums (the opposite to a ski or K1) and that was causing my hip flexors to cramp almost continually. I'm not sure Pavel quite knew what was going on, as I kept having to stop and stretch out every few minutes. I realised Serge's camelback was still in the boat so I tried sitting on that just to lift my bum a few centimetres. It seeemed to make a difference and pretty soon I was able to get into a good stroke rhythm and even had some nice leg drive.

We passed the finish on our way down the dam to the turnaround checkpoint and I was feeling pretty comfortable. Likewise, we then progressively passed each of the teams in front of us going in the opposite direction. We cheered Peak Adventure (Aus) on, as they were locked in a real battle with Chiru Endurance (Aus/NZ/France) for third place behind Chiru Pro (France / NZ) and Vibram LaFuma (France). Seeing the other teams kept our spirits high, but as we turned for home the last 8km was just a slog.

We rounded the final headland of the dam, and headed for the waving flag on the beach. Standing up for the first time in over three hours is always a fun feeling and we really only mustered a trudge up the short hill into the village for the finish in 9:21hrs. I was pretty spent, and really didn't feel like eating at all. I mustered a bottle of coke (because in China we were provided bottled water or coke), some chocolate and a winners bar. Serge and Pavel both tried the Chinese Spam style sausage; I wasn't so brave.

One day to go....

Day 2 Finish TA. LtoR Chiru Endurance (red/black kit), LaFuma (red kit), Chiru Pro (white kit) (Courtesy Guy Andrews)

Guy Andrew's (Peak Adventure) Blog for Day 2

http://www.guyandrews.tv/?p=1239

Dougal Allan's (Chiru Pro) Blog for Day 2

http://www.sportzhub.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12188

Race Report: 2011 Baise Outdoor Quest (China) - Day 1 (2/4).

Day 1.
Start - Leye Town.
43km MTB
22km Run
incl. 140m Abseil
Finish - Shenmu Sinkhole.

Within 20 minutes of the opening ceremony all 80 competitors were lined up behind the start banner, nervous in anticipation of the start. The bike course commenced with two laps of Leye town before heading into the hills to the east. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous, but we were soon under way and I was able to settle into a good position near the front of the group. Coming into the turn at the top of the town however, some riders came down on a wet, off-camber corner, and despite being in a good position, I had no where to go and hit the ground hard on my left side. As I lay on the ground watching the peleton ride away down the road my heart sank and I just hoped my bike was in one piece.  Fortunately, the damage to my bike was confined to a dropped chain and a bent seat, both of which I was able to quickly fix and get going. My left side was pretty sore, but I kept calm and managed to slowly pull back onto the group after about 2km riding.

Rolling under the start banner - Leye town (www.8264.net)

The bike course headed almost immediately upwards out of town and I was quite worried about how much climbing power I was going to be able to generate. The strong teams started to put the hammer down and a split formed in the bunch, we were riding with the mid-pack teams Kolomb, Exustar and Czech AR. Maria was put on Pavel's tow and we were racing. The bike course had two short climbs, and then a long one (12km @ 3-4%). We made good progress and I started to feel quite good on the long climb. Pavel and I took turns towing Maria up the climbs, although Pavel had to take a larger share of the work because I was still lacking power after the crash. We powered downhill into town, with Pavel and Serge driving hard on the front.

The winning teams GPS track log.

The first run section was only 9 km and had a similar profile to the bike with a few short steep climbs and then a long steep one. I was glad to be out on the run, and my nerves settled as I got into a good rythym (albeit a lopsided one). We were about 20 minutes in when the cloud burnt off and the heat hit, HARD, going from low 20's to 35 in only a short space of time. I was focussed on the pain in my leg, and with what the team was doing but I quickly started to feel dizzy, nauseous and quite out of breath. I dropped to the back of the group, ate and drank thinking that usually solves feeling flat. However, I continued to rapidly deteriorate and was quickly unsteady on my feet. Serge told Pavel to put me on a tow.

I was so confused, could my day get any worse? How was it that a strong trail runner was falling apart despite  nailing my nutrition, not working above my limit and having felt great only 20 minutes beforehand? I soon realised however, that I was overheating. I somehow convinced Pavel to stop (under possibly the only tree in China) and I ripped my race top off, along with my undershirt. I immediately felt a little bit better, and we pushed on knowing that the rest TA was only 3-4km along the trail. I was still in a pretty bad way, and Serge more or less dragged me up the last steep hill and into the TA. In the TA I poured bottles of water over my head and inside forearms, smashed a bottle of half coke:water that I'd premixed and took a gel and some chocolate. We didn't have much time and we had to harness up for the abseil, fit our lights for the caving and re-fill our camelbacks for the next 13km run.

After a short run out of the TA we were at the abseil, an overhanging 140m direct drop into the Dacao Sinkhole. We had a wait for a few teams which didn't bother me (especially as it was timed out of the race). Pavel and Maria rapped first, then Serge and I. My day of bad luck was to continue with the sling connecting Sergey and I getting twisted into my running line below my figure 8 completely locking us up. I had the shits well and truly by this stage and let out a massive F-A-R-K which echoed around the sinkhole. I leaned back in my harness and used all of my strength to lift the 100m of double line below us up over my head to untwist the line, which worked a treat, and we quickly dropped to the base of the sinkhole. Finally, something went right.

The climb back out of the sinkhole was steep and I managed to brush my right leg through some stinging nettles. I thought at that point my day really couldn't get any worse. We took our harnesses off at the top, and continued to climb steeply for another km or so before the first downhill relief for the day. I got on a run, and started to get a bit of confidence back, after a km or so the pace was on. We held onto a good pace from here and caught and passed the Chinese team that had passed us while we were locked up on the abseil.

We were now running on some pretty remote trails and at least one of the villages we ran through was still building their first ever house out of bricks. A very humbling thought.  All of the locals would line the streets, or simply look up from their work and call out (what would be pronounced as) 'Jai-Yo, Jai-Yo' which we were told meant good work, go, go, go. This boosted my confidence a bit, and I was now running quite a good tempo on all but the steepest sections of climb.

Soon after the cave appeared in the valley below us, and we were all pretty excited to get out of the heat. I had my Ay-Up lights and went to the front to navigate our way through the cave. The Leye caves are the largest in the world with an area of over 20,000 sq. meters. Moving through the limestone caves was quite hard work with lots of scrambling, at times having to crawl through sections as wide a my shoulders. In all, we must have been in the cave for 30-50 minutes.

As we emerged from the other side, we knew we were on the final stretch for the day but also knew we had lots of climbing still to do. I was getting stronger every minute, and soon found myself at the front trying to push a good tempo. Unfortunately, Pavel was now starting to struggle with stomach problems. The last 6k followed a similar pattern, up, down, up, down, up, down. The finish seemed to take forever, and every time we climbed into a saddle we'd get exited that the finish would be on the opposite side. However, as soon as we saw the final mountain range dotted with traditional pagodas, we knew.

Crossing the finish line. Spent. (Courtesy Jocelyn)

We finished in 7:45hrs which was scaled back to 7:05 after the timed out sections were removed from our time. We were in 14th place, which was a disappointing but, given how much had gone wrong, hardly surprising. The run course had been simply brutal, 22km in about 4.5hrs, if that gives you some perspective. I was pretty disappointed with my day, I'd had more things go wrong in one day than the rest of my racing career combined and my international début had been a veritable disaster.  On the flip side, I was feeling positive that I'd finished strong and tomorrow was another day...

Hopefully, some photos will come through soon.

Guy Andrew's (Peak Adventure) Blog for Day 1
http://www.guyandrews.tv/?p=1212

Dougal Allan's (Chiru Pro) Blog for Day 1
http://www.sportzhub.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12175

Race Report: 2011 Baise Outdoor Quest (China) - Racing in China (1/4).

Well, what an adventure...

As seems to be the norm with Chinese Adventure Races I got an email in mid February asking if I was interested in joining a team competing in the Baise Outdoor Quest to be held in China during late April.  After a reasonable season of racing in Australia I was keen to step up and give an international adventure race a go and opportunities like this just don't come up every day. So what was it all about? Where was the race? Were the people friendly? Read on and find out...

The Place: LeYe, Guangxi, China
The race is based from a large rural town called LeYe (pronounced Loy-Yeah) in the Guangxi Province of southern China.  To give you some impression, I would describe the town to be somewhat similar in size to a town like Colac or Morwell. The city itself is a six hour bus trip (at breakneck speed with lots of horn beeping) from the nearest airport (Nanning) that is itself a hour and a half flight from Guangzhou (Canton), the major city in the south of China.

The main street of LeYe. We would be racing down here the next day.

The region is known for its vast, and STEEP, vegetated areas of limestone karst interspersed with small rural villages and agricultural production.  I would go a step further and say that anything even remotely flat enough was under agriculture, and even some of the steepest slopes imaginable were being logged (by hand). Having grown up in a farming family I was amazed at how intensive the agriculture was; everything was done by hand.

A farming valley on the outskirts of LeYe. Note the rice that is being bundled and dried by hand.

Having arrived in LeYe a few days before the race we had the opportunity to spend time walking the streets and taking in what I like to think was the 'real' China. A friend explained on our return that this particular area of China is rarely visited by even the Chinese, let alone westerners, which partly explained why we were treated almost like celebrities by the locals.  Everyone was very friendly and apart from some kids throwing rocks at us on the first night I felt very safe just wandering the streets.

The team with the local kids, who would stand out the front of shops we were in  and wait for us to come out.

The food involved rice, rice, and more rice usually served with a variety of stir-fried dishes based on chicken, duck, beef or pork. We found in the more rural regions 'meat' usually meant ribs or fat and it was very rare to see actual meat in dishes. This wasn't too much of a problem for carb loading but meant that getting in adequate protein to recover muscles between days was quite difficult.  Next time I'll definitely be taking a box of cereal or oats, if only to break up the rice...

The Race: Baise Outdoor Quest
The Baise Outdoor Quest is now in is 4th year and is organised by the Chinese Mountaineering Association on behalf of the Chinese General Administration for Sport. 20 teams from across the world are invited to compete in the event, that is contested over three days for a prize pool of about $US40,000.

Each year the course changes, but generally takes in many similar legs, particularly for the abseiling etc. This years course was as follows:

Day 1. 43k MTB, 23k Run, Abseil (~6hrs)

Day 2. 53k MTB, 9k Run, 20k Kayak (~9hrs)

Day 3. 9k Kayak, 20k MTB, 3k Orienteering, Ropes, 20k MTBO, 23k Run (~8hrs)

The terrain is insanely steep and each year's course seems to include at least 6000m of climb over the full distance. Where these organisers are concerned ‘run’ legs are known to include things like caves or endless stairs and MTB legs have included 3hr uphill sections etc. In general, they organise events not for the feint hearted.

Part of a run leg at last years BOQ. Can you see the red race bibs? (www.cnoutdoor.com)

The Team: #10 www.adventurejunkie.com.au

I was fortunate enough to have been invited to race with the experienced team previously known as 'Team Russia'. Sergey Kurov is the team captain and between himself and his wife Maria they have competed in many (if not most) of the different expedition and multi-stage adventure races across Europe. Maria has also previously captained the all female team 'Arena' and had high finishes in a number of expedition length races. Pavel is a highly experienced rogainer, having competed at numerous world championships competing more recently in expedition AR races.  I brought sprint AR experience, and bad jokes to the team, but the latter didn't help too much when Pavel and I were paddling together, as he doesn't speak any English.

The team (L to R): Pavel Syseov, Sergey Kurov, Maria Plyashechko, Aaron Dodd (me) and Jocelin.

Each team was also assigned a volunteer interpreter from the nearby Baise University to translate for us and ours was a lovely girl named 'Jocelin' or 'Lee Ching' in Cantonese. Her English was fantastic and she was always very enthusiastic to help us out. Having someone to run around each day and do small things for you makes a huge difference when you're backing up to race day after day and we are very appreciative of Jocelin for her help.

The road west from Leye. We raced through the tops of these hills on day 3.

The Opening Ceremony: Huge.
On the morning of the first day we had a 'grandly opening ceremony' in the main town square. It was at this point that it became apparent how big a deal this race was to the Chinese. I'm talking Chinese dragon dancers, swathes of Chinese media, traditional music, hot dog vans, lots of local dignitaries and the vice president of the Chinese Olympic Committee. It was quite a humbling experience actually and definitely pumped the nerves up a bit.  After a number of official speeches, Mark Thirwall from Chiru Endurance took an oath of fair play on behalf of the athletes and wowed the crowd with his Chinese. With that, the race was officially opened, fireworks launched, and we were straight into transition with 20 minutes to race start.

Us standing at the opening ceremony between Team Chiru Pro and Team Adidas TERREX (www.8264.net).

So, now that the formalities are out of the way, lets race!