Tecnu Adventure Racing South Africa ARWS Race Report 2014

Expedition Africa is gaining a reputation as one of the premier ARWS events. This year Tecnu
joined other top ranked teams Seagate and Silva and 15 other international teams to fill the
roster at 40 total teams. Experienced South African teams including Merrell and Painted Wolf
were bound to be the toughest competitors out of the local squad. Even Donovan Simms, who
was sidelined at last years world champs after being diagnosed with cancer, was there to
represent his homeland. Thats another inspirational story that needs to be told, especially
after Merrells gutsy performance.
Tecnu had our work cut out for us this year and we were excited to experiment with our recent
speedy and strong additions including Mari Chandler and Rob Preston from Australia. Last
years teammate Bob Miller is taking at least a year off to get married, and Karen Lundgren has
been racing around the world with Peak Performance.
Stephan Muller, the race director sounded a vuvuzela and 160 people hurled themselves at one
of the toughest beach breaks in Port Edward. Kyle and I got out to a ripping start powering
through the oncoming swell. The teams that were left in our wake suffered a brutal onslaught
of waves, reminiscent of the chaos and carnage of an ancient roman battle. Some teams made
it through, others retreated to the beach for a second go.

As we paddled down the coast through the heaving swell, we knew we were going to be
making a beach landing. As we approached our take out several miles down the coast, we
looked for a small wave to ride in, but a large roller was behind us. Our priority here was not to
lose our lightweight carbon fiber Epic paddles, we would need those throughout the race. A
giant wave picked Kyle and I up, pushed us from the rear and pitched us into the surf. We then
had a 5 minute swim to capture our boat, remount and paddle in to our nimble teammates who
managed to ride a wave in.
We promptly carried our boats to a lagoon, where we would resume our kayak after grabbing
our packs. We took off quickly near the front of the kayak pack and had a quick debate on
where the GPS tracker pickup was. Was it at the actual TA or was it near the backpack pickup?
After a quick discussion with another team, we turned around and headed back to grab the
tracker. We set ourselves 30 minutes back here by paddling off without it. We knew the race
was neither won nor lost from this error, and we pressed on and made it to the first trekking
section. As we crested a 1,000 feet canyon wall a baboon larger than me howled at us. We
began our game of catch up and didnt want to be one of the teams caught in a line at the
rappelling section in a couple hours.
After slipping into about the 15-20
th
spot, we crept back up to 5
th
place by the end of the kayak,
trek, and kayak leg. We prepared ourselves for an 80 km trek that would include an abseil
(rappel) and take us through the night and into the next morning. As we ran beaches and
traversed gorges, civilization was waning and wilderness was creeping in. We didnt see the big
game animals, but remoteness was evident and only small villages speaking their native
languages were present. We arrived at the abseil, the same location in the movie Blood
Diamond where Leo crested up out of the gorge. This section was rather precarious, loose rock
and poorly managed ropes meant we would have to be very alert.

Teams in front of us had boulders whizzing by their heads. I found myself caught in a tangled
mess of ropes that went over a tree and I had to unclip and re-clip back in after freeing myself
from some trees. I think the later teams had a better go of it after the first 5 or 6 teams cleaned
the abseil descent up for them. I surveyed the team as I finally arrived at the abseil floor and
saw that everyone had blood coating some part of the body, it was sure to happen at one point
or another in the race.
After several hours of adventuring through small remote villages, along beaches, and through
gorges, night was setting in. Robs navigating and everyones persistence brought us within
sight of two other teams. We had caught Silva and Merrell. They looked pretty exhausted and
were heading off into the wrong direction, unfortunately they saw us, and Rob served as the
lead navigator for all teams for a bit. As Rob held up at a junction, both Silva and Merrell
pressed on. Rob looked at his map and couldnt find out why both teams were not turning with
us. We let them walk off a bit and then headed off the other direction at a quick pace. Their
lights came back and they were following Robs lead again, but we took pressed the pace and
lost them.
That night we reached a rather difficult section, there was a canyon with cliffs on the side and
we decided to take a very direct route. We also saw the headlamps of a team below, Painted
Wolf, and we assumed they took a similar approach. We all followed Rob by hanging on trees,
dangling from vines, and using our hands as wedges in the rock cracks. Before we knew it we
were about a third of the way down, with no way of getting back up. Oh sh*t, we were cliffed
out! After I said my prayers, we put on our helmets and climbing harnesses and then hooked all
8 of our prussics together into a ladder to descend off part of a cliff. On another section we
had to tie off to trees so we could move laterally across a cliff face and not risk the 40 foot fall
beneath us.


We made it out alive after an hour and a half and were happy to be on stable ground again.
After taking a couple more dizzying trails our spirits rose with the light and we descended
through tea fields down to a canyoneering section. We were all excited to be moving forward at
a good pace and we could see Seagates footprints in the mud. We were in second place
heading into the canyon and it would be boulder hopping all the way down. Unfortunately,
everyones shoes were fairly unstable on the mossy rocks but Kyle might as well have put
butter on the bottom of his. The technique of moving quickly and with an occasional fall or a
slip wasnt even possible, every step was a hard fall. On top of this, when the canyon got too
steep we would have to go high around the waterfalls and battle through thorns and vines that
grabbed at your legs and throat. Two weeks later Im still healing up from cuts on this section.
The poor shoes took their toll and beat up Kyle pretty good.

Photo courtesy of Bruce Viaene

Painted Wolf sailed through the canyon and passed us to put us in third and Silva made up
some time on us and they were nipping at our heels. It took us around 5-6 hours, fast teams
around 4, and even slower teams up to 11 hours to get down the canyon. Eventually, all teams
would reach the coastal resort and the TA, but only after some broken bones and a lot of blood.
We transitioned quickly and were happy to get off our feet; we built up our bikes and were out
of the TA starting our first 150 km bike leg. The bike took us back into the uplands along old
logging roads and through villages. Kids swarmed around us and parents cackled at our spandex
Champion Systems shorts as we rode through other small villages. No one knew we were
coming and the locals were more than a little surprised.

After avoiding some tar roads and riding through the night, Silva eventually caught us. We had
interpreted the rules as not being allowed to travel on roads, when apparently there were
sections that you could travel on. This helped Silva catch back up to us, and we enjoyed some
competition riding dusty fire roads together with a few nav options. We got a taste of some
good technical single track here and there, and luckily our Light & Motion Seca and Stellas lit up
the trail for some great and fun descents. Mari, on her new Turner 29er, looked like her
technical skills exploded through the roof and she was riding things she wasnt even attempting
a couple weeks before. This ride wasnt easy by any means as we put on over 12,000 feet of
climbing on this leg.
As we dismounted the bikes at the next TA, we walked our kayaks down to one of the larger
rivers that head out to the wild coast. We passed Silva in the TA as they were catching a snooze.
The water level was low and we were navigating sandbars along the river. As the sun came up,
we still couldnt see much with the mist and dense fog sitting on the water. We had to jump out
of our boats and push the kayaks out of the sand more than 10 times. Luckily, the paddle was
shortened due to the water levels and we were out of the water after about 2 to 3 hours of
paddling.
Next, we transitioned to a trek, one of my favorite sections. This trek was not incredibly long
but took us high above the river valley and then along the coast for some of the most scenic
vistas of the race.

It was beautiful except for the sections where we saw Silva behind us stripping down and
running in their underwear after fording the rivers. When you wear that small of underwear,
you might as well wear a thong maybe its a Swedish thing. Those images would haunt our
team keeping us awake over the next night.

Regardless, Silva kept the pressure on and they only trailed us by 5 to 30 minutes for much of
this section of the race. There was some tricky nav getting to our next TA, and most teams were
using some of the locals to guide us to the next path and point us to the coast. They didnt mind
and seemed quite fascinated with the race. The difficult part was explaining to the non-English
speaking locals that we wanted to head to the beach. We made swimming and surfing motions,
wave and beach sounds and nothing seemed to work. Eventually we connected when the local
made a gesture and noise for a crashing wave. Everyone was laughing and the entire 20
villagers and our team were playing this game of charades. They helped put us on the right path
and we arrived at the TA after a couple hours of some additional trekking.


We caught Seagate in the TA and Silva wasnt far behind us. Our strategy was to sleep an hour
and then race the last 240 km bike section hard. I had been pretty sleepy going into this as a
result of having a little trouble throughout the race getting calories in and drinking enough. We
were very happy with our position considering the bike is our teams strongest discipline.
When we woke up, Seagate and Silva werent far in front of us. After jumping on the bikes we
were immediately riding along the hard beach sand at low tide and then hiking our bikes up
ridges. We powered through the rest of the night and were making decent progress. Around
the morning I started running into some problems and it was extremely difficult to eat and
drink. This wasnt an immediate onset, but rather something that had been building throughout
the race. I was dehydrated and deficient on calorie intake. This was going to be a battle over
the next 20 hours it would take to finish the bike.

We made our way through big rolling hills, ascending and descending into canyons, hike-a-bikes
and we were ticking of kilometers. Unfortunately, as we kept track, these kilometers werent
going as fast as we wanted them to. I was going dreadfully slow on some climbs. Kyle had to put
me on tow and Mari had to take some of my pack weight. The dehydration and bouts of
vomiting had sapped almost all my energy and I was going into a hole that would be impossible
for me to recover from. At one point I became so dizzy, shaky and depleted of energy I couldnt
ride to the next store 2 km away. Kyle and the team were more than a little concerned. I knew I
needed some medical attention but that wasnt going to be an option until we crossed the
finish line. We still had well over a 120 km to finish on the course, which is very daunting when
you cant do 2 km. The team helped me rest in two spots, I pounded an Endurox R4 and fell
asleep at a police station. We then got up and rode to a store; here we hung out for about 2 or
more hours as I tried to get some calories in me. My team waited for a sign that I was ready to
go, but I would try and get up and my stomach would sit me back down. It was also affecting
my breathing as I couldnt get a full breath of air in.
I dont know if Rob and Mari thought I could finish, but Kyle and I both knew I would suffer until
I crossed that line or was forcibly taken from the course. I told Kyle, I just want to cross the
finish line so I can get an IV drip.
After a little bit of rest, we started on the remainder of the mountain bike. We were riding
through more rolling hills for a while and still hitting some big climbs here and there. It wasnt
terribly exciting, and the air quality was horrible for parts of it since the villages were clearing
and burning their grass fields.

As we rode throughout the day, we got into the night which was even harder to stay awake
with no energy in your system and a 20 hour bonk.

The team really pulled together and we went as fast as possible, we hadnt seen Silva in some
time and I was hoping that someone on their team was struggling as much as me. As we battled
through the rest of the night Mari put her headphones in and sang Nicki Minaj songs to help
keep us awake. Kyle and I requested her to sing about 20 times and she never disappointed.
She really nailed the single verse she knew. I started dozing off on the bike and landed myself in
a rut that hurled me into the ground. I was a mess. I dusted myself off and was too tired and
delirious to know if I actually hurt myself.

After that long, long night we found ourselves at the finish line at 3:00AM with Heidi and Ian
from the race organization waiting with a bottle of champagne.

We found out we locked in third place. We were happy with our placement considering that my
sickness probably slowed us down by about 8 hours or so over the 240 km ride. The
competition was the hardest out of all the World Series races thus far. We are really looking
forward to the World Championships in Ecuador and seeing how this team can do running on
full cylinders. We now know what we need to tweak to have a good run there.
A huge thanks to Tecnu for getting us out there, and Adventure Medical Kits for bandaging us
up throughout the race course. PHL, makers of Endurox R4 and Recovery bars were essential in
helping us get back on our feet and moving forward. ProBars organic and tasty bars fueled us
throughout the race. Light & Motion lit up the night and Kinesis sunscreen kept us protected
during the day, and Epic for the carbon small mid-wing paddles that were instrumental in us
paddling fast in the challenging conditions. Darn Tough kept our feet relatively blister free and
in better shape than most teams who suffered in the trekking legs. Out There for Mike Klosers
killer versatile AS1 and AS2 packs, and Headsweats for protecting our noggins from the
elements, as well as Julbo USA. If you havent used their Pipeline and Trail sunnies you are
missing out on an amazingly versatile and durable pair of sunglasses. Skins compression gear
for helping us recover and reach the podium and for making VERY durable compression gear
that held up under tough, tough conditions. To Champion Systems for making us look good in
our racing kits. A big thanks to Leki as well; we used their lightweight carbon trekking poles for
those monster treks. Up next, defending our title in July at the Cowboy Tough 4 day Expedition
in Wyoming. Thanks to all of you for your amazing support of the team. We love you guys!