I arrived back home from the commercialization workshop at 11 p.m. this last Friday night, only to be getting up early the next morning to drive out to do my first 24-hour rogaine. My research colleague, who was the 2007 national rogaine champion, was one of the people who set the course for the 2008 NSW state championship rogaine. Since he's one of the people who has inspired me to go see more of the bush country here, he easily convinced me to enter this competition. I partnered with Keith again, although it took a bit more effort to convince him to do the 24-hour event over the 6-hour one.
The course was huge compared to the last one I did, but much of it was in a national park and along a really nice stretch of beach. Our goal was to beat our score from the previous rogaine, and to improve our navigation skills.
The day started off adversely. First, when Keith arrived and we were about to load my stuff in his car, he realized he had locked his keys inside. We tried a coat hanger, but were unsuccessful; so Keith called his company's road service number. The dispatch would arrive in an hour, so we went to the local McDonald's for a quick breakfast and coffee. After the key was retrieved, we were off. Then, just an hour from the destination, the car's computer started acting up, reducing the engine performance to safe mode and giving a warning about some traction sensor being out. Keith pulled over and restarted the car a couple of times, and at least got the engine performance back.
By the time we made it to the campsite, checked in for the competition, pitched the tents, and planned our route, we were 30 minutes past the official start time. Since we were planning to take it easy and focus more on the navigation skills than trying to brute force our way through the course, we were not terribly bothered by this. Within the first couple of hours, we had found the first four targets we planned. That lifted our spirits quite a bit, as a great deal of that was navigated off the trail. The next target proved to be tougher. We were going fine most of the way, then we hit dense rain forest and blackberry bushes. After spending a half hour looking for the target, we gave up, thinking we were closer to the next one. As we made our way to a nearby trail, I noticed a small black worm stuck to the lower part of my shirt. We had picked up leeches. Keith found 4-5 fat ones on his ankles, and although I had none feeding on me, there were 4-5 crawling around on my backpack. We spent several minutes ridding ourselves of these pests before looking for our original target in that area. Another half hour later, we decided we were not going to be able to locate the target in a reasonable time and moved on.
Our original plan had us following a long north-bound course, but it was about 4:30 by this time, and would be getting dark soon. So we altered our course to shorten the north part more, which would allow us to hit the beach before the night was too late. We found the next target easily enough. By the time we arrived in the area for the subsequent one, it was dark. With a little careful navigation and attention to detail, we were able to find that target, proving to ourselves that we could navigate an night. The target after that doubled as an all-night cafe stop for weary competitors. When we reached that one, the cooking area was on fire. Someone apparently tripped over something that sparked one of the gas canisters, and the local bush fire department was en route. We took a short break, ate a snack, drank water, and watched the action. Shortly after the fire was put out, we headed on.
Our route took us about 6 kilometers from there to the beach, and was a long walk. Keith had only agreed to do six hours of rogaining the first day, and six the next. We were approaching the eighth hour by this time. The beach portion turned out to be a much longer route than we thought, but we managed to find all the targets along there except one. It was 11:30 p.m. when we finally made it back to the camp to enjoy a six-pack and a hot meal. We felt incredibly tired at this point, having done eleven straight hours of rigorous walking/hiking. It rained heavily that night for an hour or so, and I felt glad we were at least in our tents instead of pulling an all-nighter on the course.
The next morning, we woke up in our own time, had a nice breakfast and coffee, then headed out to get four more targets. We found them all in barely two hours, and felt happy with our overall results. Back at the hash house, we turned in our entries, had a light lunch, packed up camp, changed clothes, and left before the crowds. Our total score was 760, which we felt was respectable given the terrain and the length of the course.
This morning I got to talk more about the event with my research colleague, and he told me the winning team actually got every single target, which meant a total traveling distance of 130 km! That's the equivalent of about 3 marathons (through forest, trails, mountains, sand, and water)! And they had 30 minutes to spare at the end! What an amazing feat. Nevertheless, we feel we did great, too, and vastly improved our capabilities for the next rogaine we decide on.
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