Rogue Raid 6, Lake Wivenhoe
Xcite Adventure Racing (i.e. Fiona and I) raced the Rogue Raid 6 hour on Saturday, which is a rogaine race consisting of running/trekking, mountain biking, and kayaking. For 6 hours.
A total of 43 teams took on the 6 hr race, with another 50 teams in the longer 24 hr race put together by the wonderful team from Rogue Adventure and Queensland Rogaine Association.
With Fiona’s knee being a big dicky, and our newfound love relationship with kayaking, we had planned to spend most time on the kayak leg and hopefully some easier areas on the bike, with minimal running. Unfortunately, the schedule consisted on mountain biking first, then run/trek, with kayak the final leg. That is how the dice rolled. Our plan was now the same, but try and leave enough time for the full kayak leg, which we were told could be up to 12 km, guessing giving us at least 2 hours on the water.
Something I have learnt during the short time we have been racing these events is to have a contingency plan ready for anything that may crop up. Such as forgetting to bring socks! Luckily, I was wearing calf compression thingies during the drive out. Turning them upside down and leaving some of the calf bit on my feet works a treat. That tip is for free. Actually felt pretty good as sometimes socks can feel a bit tight on my toes.
First leg was the mountain bike, which took a bitumen start before heading off onto grassy/gravelly tracks, then onto the Wivenhoe Hill multi-use trails. 7 checkpoints in all, with CP1 to 5 in a nice loop, and CP6 and CP7 spaced further out. We decided go for CP1 to CP5 then to the trekking leg. Starting the ride, we noticed most people heading further up along the road before our interned turnoff to CP1. We though more people would have chosen this option, however, we were out there with only a couple of teams. When we reached CP1, I thought it was the wrong location as we got to it so quickly (too used to having numbers on the checkpoints). Fi suggested (TOLD) me that we should check it out. Turns out it was CP1 and we were away. A number of other faster riding teams then caught us up the road a bit, so we were happy we had a nice little nav win.
The remaining CPs on the bike were picked up in good order, although the ride/push up Pine Hill was a bit tough. The downhill was great, with a few jumps giving some air (I probably broke the rule about being close to your teammate as I was having too much fun smashing downhill).
After heading back to HQ and swapping riding backpack for running vests, it was off for the trek. Our plan had us heading out to CP8, then CP13 (100 pointer), back to CP12 and straight to the kayaks. Once onto the trek, I UNwisely decided to change tack and head off to CP9 which looked easy following bitumen and open grassland. Except it was tall grass and very slow “running”. We picked that up and tried to head back to the original plan, however, the distance was now a bit too far, so we sacrificed the big points and headed for CP12 and the kayaks.
Out on the kayak leg, we proceeded to the first of five checkpoints. With about 2hrs to go, we set out to grab the higher points on offer. All was going well until we oveshot the first point and I realised just how tricky kayak navving is. We managed to get to CP18, then head off to CP21. Thanks to a few other kayakers (thanks Azzers) we were able to keep tracking to CP21, which became a bit like Bourke St trying to get to the CP. After a bit of argy bargy and kayak bumping we checked in and headed off (thanks to the Rochedale Runners for a bit of traffic control). After leaving CP21, we headed off to what we thought was CP23, around near the baby pelicans, and checked in. After that we set off for CP22 on the mistaken belief that it was further up the lake (told you about the poor kayak nav skills). After paddling around in circles for a bit, we had about 30 minutes to get back to HQ. Some quickfire paddling into a raging headwind, if I may say so, got us back safely with 8 minutes to spare.
Total distance covered was about 43km, with about 21k on the mtb, 10k trekking, and 12k kayaking.
Lessons learnt:
- Stick to your plan – heading off to CP9 cost us too much time and points. Missing those big running points cost us the category win in the end.
- Learn some kayak navigation skills.
- Listen to wife, again!
Thanks again to Liam and all the volunteers, congratulations to all the category winners, and our admiration goes out to all who tackled the 24 hour version.