Rogue 2024 Race Report – Team 33 – Participation Award
This race started for us back in late last year. My partner Luke asked me if I was interested in doing Rogue. I hadn’t done any real racing for about 5 years, and I wasn’t really interested in doing another race that resulted in serious sufferfest and injury. I was interested to see how a ‘Race’ would go if you just participated instead of racing it hard (hence the team name Participation Award), so we signed up and agreed on our goals which were:
- To have Fun (although we don’t use the ‘F’ word out on course 😊)
- To not get injured
- No running
- A couple of decent transition with real food
- No sleeping. We wanted to keep going for the whole event.
- To not overburden ourselves with training
We didn’t care if we came last if we achieved our goals, and started to call it an ‘Event’ not a ‘Race’, just to cement our mindset. I put together a 16 week training plan, which included some rest weeks, and an average of 7 hours training a week. My biggest training week would be 12 hours. Our final big training event was 2 weeks before event start, and it took a lot more out of us than anticipated. Our 6 hour planned mtb/hike combo turned out to be a 10hr mtb/hike combo in D’Aguilar National Park. There were a lot of hills, which were soul destroying, but it did mean that the flatter race was very welcomed, as it was less intense than our big training session. We both arrived at the event with enough training to complete the race, and both injury free, which is always the first hurtle to get over.
When you are doing an ‘Event’, and not a ‘Race’, map planning takes on a much more relaxed pace. There are cups of tea and hot cross buns. There is no super strategizing, points per hour analysis, and looking at contours and attack points. We didn’t even look at the points value of the checkpoints when planning. We just put together some simple loops, planned to paddle with the tides, and did some rough distance and timing checks. Our strategy was to be finished the 2nd kayak before nightfall, and finish the second ride before sunrise. We also scheduled some longer transitions so we could have a decent dinner and breakfast.
When we got the maps, we both sighed a little, as there was a lot of kayaking, and this was what we had trained for the least, with Luke doing none, and me doing a total of 4 hrs in the 16 weeks. We shouldn’t have been surprised by this given the event was at Pumicestone Passage, and Liam loves to always put a decent Kayak in. We made our way down to the first TA with little bother, apart from nearly loosing our shoes in some knee-deep mud around some of the checkpoints. We had allowed 2.5 hours, and it took us a little over that, so we were a bit behind schedule.
After a quick clean out of the shoes at TA-A, we started the beach track. We had a loop planned up the beach and back via the tracks. When we got to CP15, we decided to drop CP18, as we knew the kayak home would take about 3 hours, and we wanted to be home before dark. It was a very strange feeling not jogging on a nice flat beach. The temptation was definingly there to jog, however we stuck to our goals, knowing it would pay off later on.
We started the kayak home around 3pm, and we decided to drop a few more checkpoints to make it back by dark. This was a bit of a grind session for us both, with the only reprieve being a couple of big frights where I was sitting up the front of the kayaks with my legs hanging over trying to help us just make it over some shallow water close to CP 24, and we had a few massive sting rays get a fright and take off from under the boat. My legs came back in after the second scare, as the sting ray was 1m wide, and we were in about 15cm of water. We finished the second kayak at 5:30pm, which was just on dark, so we were happy about that. The kayak portage was made much easier with the straps, so appreciate that gold nugget of advice thanks Liam.
This was our first long transition, and we knew we were going to be out for another 12 hours before seeing the car again, so I cooked up some Lamb, Mint, Pumpkin and Fetta wrap Pizzas for dinner, and also downed a couple of cokes. I was a bit worried about how I would go with so much food in the belly, but figured we would be ok as we were not going at ‘Race’ pace. I also had fresh cloths, socks and shoes to change into each time which was very luxurious, although the dry feet never lasted that long each leg, which I’m sure was intentional by Liam.
The first bike leg was a puss fest, going through lots of muddy, sandy, and flooded tracks. Even though it had only been raining lightly on the day, the main dirt roads were very muddy, which meant there was not going to be any cruisy dirt roads. Even though our planning had us mainly on ‘Major’ tracks, even these required us to push a bit harder than expected, and there was plenty of slipping and sliding down some hills. We spent a bit of time looking for CP32, as the watercourse was wider then expected due to it been flooded. The bike leg heading north on the track parallel to the freeway was a mega slog also, and found us wrestling with many large spiders in the face. We arrived at TA-B in good spirits, however we knew we were going to have to cut back the 2nd bike leg due to the conditions, and the fact that first MTB was planned to take 2 hours, but took 3.
After a hot sausage and cuppa (thanks Trev & Co), Trev asked us if we were having Fun, and we let him know we don’t use that ‘F’ word on the race. The only F word we can use is ‘Found it’. The trek started well, and we injected some elevation by getting CP 45 at the top of Mt Beerburrum. The lure of a good view kept us going up the steep trail, so it was a bit disappointing when we got to the top and could see nothing as we were in rain clouds.
We then started on the Yul-yan-man track. The rocks were really wet and slippery, and we had to take a bit of care on this trail. About half way around to CP44, we were thinking that the lack of trail markers must have been due to it being a Grade 5 track. We kept traversing around and about 20 minutes later we realised we were definitely off the track. Our heading was correct so we through we would push on, hoping to eventually hit some less steep ground, where we could navigate our way back to the track. We went through some pretty sketchy patches, and had a couple of minor falls down the hill, due to the steepness and slipperiness of the rocks. Not long after that we saw some lights further down the hill, and went down to them who were on the track. We had been tracking about 20m of elevation above the track. We were relieved to be back on trail and picked up the next couple of CP’s. Would love to do that trail in the day and dry, and it was pretty specky even at night.
We had planned to down some celebratory cokes at 1am, however when I sat down to drink mine, it had fallen out of my pack at some point, most likely when I fell. That really sucked as I had been talking up that coke for the last few hours. I consoled myself with some salt and vinegar chips instead. After getting CP41, we went to the saddle, and bush bashed northwest down the gully to the track, as our next planned CP was 37. After CP37, we picked up CP42 and headed back to the TA-B. Our 3 hour planned hike took us nearly 5 hours, so we started planning what we would cut on the bike back, as we wanted to be back at the car for sun up. We changed our planned northern loop to be much smaller.
The bike home started well, and the tracks were in much better condition than the southern tracks. We picked up CP59, at which time it started to rain proper. We got to CP68, we decided to abandon our shortened northern loop altogether, as the rain was really constant now. We decided to head back via CP69 and 72. The trip back from 72 to HQ was my low point on the race. That long dirt road back seemed to go forever, especially in the bucketing down rain. That long muddy road was energy sucking, and I kept thinking how wrong it was having to pedal downhill just to keep the bike moving. There were a lot of strange noises coming from the bikes, and they were very muddy even after have a 3 hour rain clean.
We got back to HQ at 5:30am, and had another decent break to refresh for the final kayak and trek legs. We got a couple of CP’s on the kayak on our way out to 82, and then decided to head back as we were not sure of how we would go paddling against the tide. It wasn’t as bad as we through and got back to HQ at 8am. We picked up a couple of CP’s in the trek including CP 84 which saw us both fall over in the creek. This was Liams final parting gift to us. We finished just before 9am.
In the end, the ‘Event’, not ‘Race’ mindset worked for us well. We were both in good sprits at the finish, were tired but not totally wrecked. We got every CP we went for, and achieved all of our goals which was awesome. Now the clean-up starts, and there is a lot to clean. The bike will definitely need some love, and everything is soaked, muddy, sandy and salty. A big thanks to Liam and his crew of volunteers for the awesome race. The volunteers are always happy and cheery, which is awesome to be around when your feeling tired. This was my 5th Rogue, and it was definitely nice to have a flatter Rogue, even if the weather was not perfect. Liam, just putting my order in for another flatter, but dryer race next year 😊.
For the Data people …
MY NUTRITION
Race Food
1 honey sandwich
2 hot cross buns
1 jam wrap
2 mandarins
1 snicker (snack size)
1 packet squirm lollies
1 handful peanuts
1 musali bar
1 bowl muesli
3 packets S&V chips (snack size)
1 packet vegemite shapes (snack size)
1 sausage on bread
1.5 lamb wrap pizza
Drinks (Total 10.8 Litres)
2 cuppa tea
8.5L Water
600ml soda water
600ml coke
600ml milk
10 salt stick tablets
GEAR
4 Pairs Running Shoes
1 Pair MTB Shoes
7 Pairs Socks
2 Pairs Knicks
1 Skins shorts
1 Skins top
3 Shirts
2 Shorts