The Xcite team went down to Suncorp on the weekend.  No, it was not to watch the rugby league world cup final like most sensible people.  It was to race the Urban Raid rogaine race on Friday night, which is the last race of the year for us.  The Urban Raid is is a 3hr rogaine race run through the streets of inner Brisbane starting at 6.30PM.  The checkpoints for this race are sign posts, statues, buildings, etc. and you are required to answer a question about each landmark, worth varying values. It’s fun to see the faces of diners and drinkers watching a bunch of nutters in headlamps, maps and backpacks running around in circles through the city.

We have some experience in this race, having run around last year in only our second ever rogaine race.  Over the last 12 months we have made some improvements in course selection and strategy.  Probably helped out by racing a few park orienteering races around town with the Ugly Gully orienteering club (one of their races was in the Botanical Gardens, which helped us out).  This year, we selected a similar route as last year, which was to head south (along with another 60 teams, at least – no points for originality) to the Wildfire Sports Store in Milton (we buy a fair bit of gear from them, great shop; we are like kids in a candy store in there – sponsorship forthcoming?), then over the river to West End/Southbank, back across Goodwill Bridge, through the CBD then northwards, if time permits, then back to the hash house.

We included a “get home quick” route (in case we were struggling) or a “get some more points” route (in case we were powering on).  We planned on reaching the photo CP80 by 9PM.  We actually got there about 30 minutes earlier, which gave us an hour to go north to CP62/42 then to Kelvin Grove area for CP81/41.  These points ended up being vital for our eventual placing.

The lights throughout the city were great, particularly the showering lights at the base of the Goodwill Bridge were really cool.

In the final wash up we scored 1420 points (compared to about 900 last year) and covered about 21 km (last year we did about 17 km).  So big improvement, as was our overall placing of 14th of 110 teams (last year mid-30’s).  Not only that, but we picked up a win in the Mixed Oldies (over 45’s Veterans) category.  That was a very special moment for us as it was our first win as a team.  Congratulations to the overall winners, Rochedale Runners team (who covered around 29km, what an effort, and with a 10pt penalty), and to the placegetters, Disorienteered (with Justin Whitley in their team, a very good runner who was on the Coast for a while – I could never quite catch the little bugger in local races) and Parkrun on Tour.  Plaudits also to our nemesis, team Congo, who got the better of us this race (even with a fall and returning to base early).

Thanks to Liam and the Rogue team and volunteers for a great night out.  This is a real fun and testing race.  We are already looking forward to all the Raid races in 2018.