Wulong mountain Quest '09

We were racing with our team of Marcel Hagener, Jacob Roberts and Elina and I as Team Toread Adventure Sport, a Chinese company that helped us get to the race.

For us we knew we had a good team but it was disconcerting to see 5-6 athletes already suffering the effects of food poisoning on the first day of racing at the Prologue.

 Day 1 and Jacob had been sick all night and then to make matters work I had an issue with my derailleur which necessitated turning my bike into a single speed only 5 km into a 35 km ride.  T meaning he result was a loss of almost 20 minutes as with 12 km to go my drive train completely disintegrated turning my bike into a scooter. We fought back strongly for the rest of the day as Jacob recovered miraculously and finished in 4th, less than 8 minutes behind winners Nike

 Day 2 and after a short raft building exercise and  a brutally fast 3 km run we drew away from the rest of the field along with Winter Xtreme5 from France and spent the rest of the day putting some serious hurt on each other. My day was going downhill fast with it being my turn to experience food related issues and I couldn’t even keep water in. A great team effort with Marcel and Jacob towing my carcass along the final portion of the day to edge out WX5 by just 1 minute after almost 8 hours of racing and also into the overall lead by nearly 7 minutes.

 The day had taken its toll though and for the rest of the day and through the night if I wasn’t asleep I was on the toilet. The major issue was not being able to get any food in to replenish the energy stores and so even thought the symptoms were marginally better in the morning it was any ones guess as to what would happen once we went up to race pace and so food or drink hit the stomach.

 It didn’t take long to find out on Day 3 and the combination of no food now for over 24 hours combined with the heat and racing I was going backwards fast. Any drink just came straight back out again as the local area got a liberal fertilizing every couple of kilometres. Marcel, Jacob and Elina all raced superbly to push, pull and tow me through the course in what was along with Day 2 one of the most difficult racing experiences of my life.

 Finishing 3rd overall was a fantastic effort for the team considering the obstacles that had been thrown at us each day, I can say definitively that I would prefer to feel good and tow all day than be dragged round the course as I was on this occasion but I must also express a huge amount of gratitude for the rest of the team who showed what can be achieved when you never accept defeat and do everything you can to help each other through.

 In the end Winter Xtreme5 took out the win with Nike Beaver Creek 2nd, with us 3rd. Full results can be found on www.sportzhub.com

 Thanks to Toread and as always to all our regular sponsors and supporters