An Adventure of a Race: Wilderness Traverse 2024
This weekend we had a team from Defy enter its first 24+ hour Adventure Race. This blog will take you down a little adventure into what happened over the 28 hours we were ‘racing’.
I live by the idea that you should use your fitness outside of the gym to have epic adventures and understand what your body (and mind) are capable of. Using a functional fitness method of training has proved time and time again that this will allow you to reach far and wide when it comes to testing the fitness you have.
This adventure started back in Oct 2018, a little over a month after the doors of Defy had opened. Michelle (my wife) and I were doing a workout that included some Kettlebell farmers carries around the block. An Irish man came into the gym after he saw us, he was dripping in sweat as he was out for a run and was interested in joining the gym. We learned of Patrick’s love for suffering and got him signed up – my kind of people!
Patrick introduced me to the world of Adventure Racing (AR), a sport mixed with biking, trekking and canoeing. His tales of multi day races from the early 2000’s intrigued me at the time and we discussed the possibility of doing a race together at some point – well in January this year we finally made it happen and signed up for the Wilderness Traverse.
Patrick, Michelle, Coach Chris & myself made up a coed team called The Defiants. In adventure racing, the main category is a coed team of four but teams of any combo are allowed with a minimum of 3 people.
Pre Race
Training: we each took care of our own training. We had one meet-up a week prior to the race to practice some canoeing and biking together. Patrick and I did a 6 hour AR race earlier in the month to practice some navigation. The bulk of all of our training is functional fitness style workouts plus some biking and running.
Nutrition: we were blessed to have Michelle on our team who, as a physician and nutrition coach, put hours into researching what we would each need over the different legs of the race. One thing we all experienced was good energy throughout the whole race and a huge part of that was down to consuming enough nutrition, particularly carbs & salts.
Gear: as you can imagine with an event that lasts so long and has very different disciplines, the right gear can help a lot! Certain mandatory items were needed for safety purposes and other items can seriously help (or hinder) your race overall. The gear logistics are a discipline of the race that needs to be spot on (mine wasn’t…) to enable you to perform your best
Race Day:
Each adventure race will be different in its make up. This years Wilderness Traverse was broken into the following:
Single person 2km run
4km Run/Trek – Checkpoints 1, 2, 3
18km MTB – CP 4, 5, 6, 7
34km Canoe/Portage – CP 8, 9, 10, 11
21km Trek – CP 12 & 13
33km MTB – CP 14, 15, 16, 17
17km/3km – Bike/Trek – CP 18, 19, 20
At 7am we got the maps which had all the CPs marked on them and instructions for the race. We had 3 hours to plot out our route, final gear check and get ready to go. Patrick and I got to work on the maps while Michelle and Chris moved our bikes down to the transition area and loaded our gear bins into the wagons to be transported down the course.
The route looked ok but there were a few subtle hints on the maps that let us know it wouldn’t be the case – “this section was hard to navigate during the day” was printed over part of the route. You can see map 1 & map 2
At 10am the race started, I ran the 2km loop. The map for this (different to the ones we had seen already) was placed in front of the start line and we all rushed to grab one to see where we were going. It was a mad frenzy and many of us rushed passed some of the CP and it took longer than it should have!
Now that was done I got back to the team and we set off on the first trek. We decided to take a non-trail route and easy bushwhacked our way to the CP2 from CP1, this played out well for us. After CP2 we moved into CP3 which was also the transition. This was the first gear mistake, I realized if I put on my bike shoes, I wouldn’t have my trail runners at the next transition area – so Patrick and I had to pedal on clipless pedals with regular shoes – not ideal!
To CP4 was an easy ride down the road and onto the trail which would lead to CP5. Finding CP5 however was not simple at all. At the top of the hill was supposed to be a zig zag trail down the side of the rock and over to CP5. A slew of teams were stuck at the top, trying to figure out the way down. After some time, we decided to push on and go down the other side to see what we could see. This probably cost us 2 hours or so while we bike bushwhacked back to the trail – brutal!
The rest of the bike leg went without hiccup and we made it to the 2nd transition to get into the canoes. Going into the race I wasn’t sure how the canoe would go having never done any real distance or portaging but we did really well. We caught and passed a lot of teams, navigation was spot on every time and we made quick work of the portages…
From CP10 to CP11 (which was also the transition) was a monster leg. Paddling through rivers and lakes, many portages and the dark! Around 4km from the end was a 700m portage marked on the map. I’d already spotted this earlier in the day as it looked strange because it was going along the side of the river. We got there around 11pm, we’d been racing for 13 hours and Michelle and I had already tipped the canoe for the first time and had gone swimming, we were cold and just wanted to keep moving…
At this portage, there was steep climb out of the water and it was backed up. This stretch of river had piles of rocks every 50m or so, which made the portage way, a much quicker way down. Frustrated at how slow people were getting out of their canoes, I threw the canoe on my back and walked down the river looking for another exit to the portage trail. All I found was a waterfall and steep cliffs on either side!
Not wanting to be outdone and definitely not wanting to have to go back up the river, I climbed the cliff on my hands and knees with the canoe on my back. I still don’t know how I managed this but adrenaline is a wonderful drug! Now on the trail I powered down to the end and put the canoe on the edge of the water – where was my team?
After about 10 minutes I decided to go back up the trail to find them. I was greeted by a very distressed team who thought I had fell down the waterfall! No way, I thought they were behind me – all that effort to try get ahead seriously back fired and I’d left my team with them not knowing where I’d gone – damn!
Back in the boats, I was done, I wanted to get off the course as quick as possible. Too many mistakes already, wet, tired and very frustrated! Add to the misery, Michelle and I went swimming again after trying to follow Patrick and Chris’ amazing beaver dam fly over on the canoe – we weren’t as smooth and flew right out!
We were very cold at this point and paddling down a never ending winding river. But, we got there in the end. Transition 3 had some hot water, Michelle got dry clothes on and my 2nd gear mistake was revealed. The only dry bottoms I had were bike shorts – so that was my outfit for the next 12 hours trekking and biking!
After a quick Pad Thai meal, spirits were up and we were warmer and moving again on the 21km trek. There were only 2 CPs to hit on the trek and it was long and through the night. We made good time on the trek, passing teams along the way – then we hit the “this was very hard to navigate in the day” section. The woods were a mass of head lights all looking for the same trail which nobody could find. We made a quick decision to head east and hit the railway. This worked out very well for us and we re-joined the trail there. Then the fatal error…
After the railway was a trail that headed mainly east, then North East to hit the South East portion which would take us to the point to cross Nine Mile Lake and hit CP12. Unfortunately we took a perpendicular South east Trail about 2km too early – thinking we were on the right trail, we headed into the bush expecting to hit the lake. But we didn’t!
After much deliberation, I realized our mistake – OK if we head East again we will hit the lake and find our way from there. The map did not look good – many swamps and marshes lay ahead and unbeknown to us, the thickest bush I’ve ever seen. It was brutal! We lost hours getting through it, fell in swamps and got cut up by the thorn bushes – and the lake never came. It didn’t make sense, it was impossible to miss the lake and we’d been pushing so hard. The conversation started of whether or not we needed to call it in, maybe pull out our phone (which was tamper sealed by the event team) and see where we were (which would have disqualified us). But we HAD to hit the lake if we kept going, so we did! And about 20mins later we hit the shore about 100m South of CP12 where after a quick swim across we got some coffee and for the first time in hours, knew exactly where we were!
The sun had come out at this point and if you’ve ever gone through the night, the sun is free energy. Spirits were high again and we blasted into CP13 which was another transition back to the bike. CP14, 15, 16 & 17 went fine with no problems. Speed was good on the bike and we navigated well. Completing up to this point meant you had finished the Explorers Course (the Challenge Course was completed at the end of CP13) to complete the Expedition Course we needed to get the final 3 checkpoints but unfortunately we wouldn’t of had time…
We rode back to the finish after CP17 and got there around 28hrs 20mins after we started. I was proud of the team – we overcame a lot of adversity but deep down I was bummed we didn’t have time to finish the last 3 checkpoints. Prior to the race I hadn’t actually expected we would finish the whole Expedition version of the course as this isn’t done by teams their first time…
But, we were still pretty fresh. I felt strong and if we hadn’t made some key nav errors then we would have shaved 4-6 hours off easily. As the lead navigator, I was responsible. I hadn’t practiced enough. Navigation is a skill and while I was very good at it 10 years ago, skills fade if they don’t get practiced…
This was supposed to be a one and done event for me. Tick the 24+ hour adventure race off the list and move on! But we have something to prove and I’m hooked. The next 12 months will be dedicated to getting my navigation skills back up to the standard required and we will crush WT 2025. I’ve also found some 5-7 day races and they will be on the cards for 2026!
I love nature and I love pushing myself. Adventure Racing brings that all in one – where have you been all my life!
Thanks to my team who where all strong as hell. Michelle nailed our nutrition, Patrick bushwhacked like a mad Irish man and Chris was the “Yellow Blaze” spotter even when his eyes were playing tricks on him. But everyone was strong, no one slowed anyone down and I think this will be a good AR team – Top 10 next year?
Adventure Racing is a wild ride. You can get so many things right and one thing wrong which will cost you big time. This graphic shows some of the top teams and how much the lead switched over the race. The funny thing is, they probably didn’t see each other pass. Such is the nature of AR, the different route selection can be key to the end result!
