Balance Bar New York 24 hour race

Two weeks after Primal Quest and fresh from a week relaxing in the heat of LA it was off to the city that never sleeps for stop two in the Balance Bar 24 hour race series.

On the Friday morning, we headed into the heart of Manhattan for gear check and the afternoon prologue. The prologue took place on and around the USS Intrepid, a World War 2 aircraft carrier that has been turned into a floating museum. The prologue involved racing from the dock up onto the ships runway, racing to the stern where we abseiled off into the Hudson river (not the nicest looking, smelling or tasting water),

From there Haydn had to swim the length of the ship to a waiting barge while Kristina and I swum 100m to a cargo net and climbed back to the second deck. Once aboard it was a quick run down to a zip line for Kristina and a short abseil for me where we both splashed down near the barge. Onto the barge and the three of us raced back around to the finish line. Short and hard and a lot of fun it was just over 7 minutes for us. We had gone hard but were beaten to the line by Montrail and Nike. The first 3 teams recieved time bonuses and we started 2 minutes apart and then the remainder of the field followed two minutes later.

7:15am Saturday and we’re all issued with the first section, 9 miles of orienteering.

19 minutes later; we follow Nike and Montrail out in search of the first control. Things were going reasonably well when team Balance Bar joined us along with Team Revo. While all three of our teams charged through the bush, we benefited from the orienteering experience of Revo’s navigator who barely broke stride while navigating to the controls.

2 hours later we arrived at the end of the section and with a quick transition we made our way onto the bikes with a slim lead and Balance Bar right on our tails.  With H dialling in the course we started to pull away slowly. Balance Bar was still going strong and Nike was starting to charge through the field. With a range of on and off trail riding the biking was great until we reached the bike carry section. The course ran through some walking trails and with no forward travel allowed with the wheels on the ground it was shaping up as a tough section.

Starting 4 minutes up on Nike, we shouldered our bikes and jogged up the trail, deciding not to risk a bush bash we took the easier but longer way around. We were to find out later that Nike lost 40 minutes trying to bash through the bush. With the bike carry going smoothly except for Kristina’s close call with a large bear we exited back onto the road and speed the final few km’s to the transition.

We had created a gap and now all our energies were focused on extending it. We had a good paddle and we were a little baffled as to why we couldn’t see any teams behind us, maybe we had just missed them?

Onto the trek and we kept the pace on, we ran everything we could as we were certain teams must be closer than we thought. With 25 km to the finish, there was still plenty of racing to go. Through the first few check points and we heard a rumour we could be ahead by as much as an hour but no one could confirm anything. With night falling, we crossed back onto the trails close to the start finish line and made our way back to the final TA. The last section was another orienteering section with only one control to find. Off we went and without too much problem we arrived found the control, only a jog down the hill and back to the finish right? Wrong, heading down the hill we hit the track and went to the bottom but things weren’t looking right, somehow we had taken the wrong turn onto the track and gone done the wrong side of the hill. So, back to the top, adrenaline flowing a bit more now and a slightly more hurried return towards the finish.

Crossing the finish line in just under 13 hours, we had managed to hold on for the win by around 20 min from the fast finishing Nike team, and complete a successful trip to the States. With Nike second it means as we head to the final race in LA our two teams are tied for the series lead, and shapes LA up as a great battle between our two teams for the series title.