Lettuce's run-mtb-run nav event

 I had the pleasure of doing a run-mtb-run navigation event yesterday morning, hosted by James 'Lettuce' Stewart at his Royston Farm just past Plettenberg Bay. Two friends, Talita and Otto joined me there, and it was a treat to see other friends like Debbie, Jeannette, Christine and John. 

I'm so glad that Otto and Talita are enjoying navigation activities.

A pre-start photo with Debbie. 15 years ago, in the early 2010s, we did a number of the Kinetic Sprint races together. 

We started with a 1km orienteering activity -  a quick loop around the start area to find a number of checkpoints. We then got ready to bike, copying checkpoint locations from a master map on to the Google Earth images provided.

CPs 1, 2, 3 and 4

I decided to hit CPs 1, 2, 4 and 3 first. Otto and Talita made the same decision and we were together through 1 and 2, splitting before 4. I initially thought I'd get #3 first, because it looked like an out-and-back ride from what I could see on the map. Ideally I would have wanted to connect #3 and #7...

They split off first to go to #4; I split a bit later, deciding to get #4 first in case I could take another route from #3... I wouldn't see Otto and Talita until much later.

All was good. Laving #3, I did look for something to the right - like where I've drawn in the yellow dots. I didn't see anything that looked like a trail so I continued on the good dirt road all the way around.

CPs 9, 8, 7, 6... 

Heading east from #2 and looking ahead at route options, I could see what looked like a trail parallel to the highway. Before getting there, I spotted a trail going into the blue gums off the dirt road, so I took it. It worked out well and popped me out on the dirt track. I then took the trail parallel to the highway.

#9 was easy, just off the road.

Going to #8, I planned to take what looked on the map like a track between forest blocks. This is an old map and according to current growth, it doesn't look like this. I saw Jeannette and her teammate here - they had turned around and she said there was no road down the bottom. I checked and turned around too. I did see a ride* in the forest but not knowing quite where it was, I didn't want to chance taking it.

* A ride is a gap in the forest - probably used when planting and later when felling. It is like a row of missing trees. Good for travel.

I rode around instead and as it turned out, the CP was on what was probably the same ride, so my possible route from the other side would have worked out.

#7 was straightforward.

Then on to #6, which was labeled as a tree on single track. I got the CP and then decided to stay on the single track to see where it went. I knew it would hit the dirt road that I could see at some point. It hit the dirt road before the dog leg - all good, I knew exactly where I was.

This is where the fun starts

The actual map is printed a bit darker. I've bumped the brightness up to see more in these images.

Riding on the open forest road from 6, I spotted a trail off to my left (north), which gave me two route options.

The first was to ride back the way I'd come (green arrows), past #9, on the trail parallel to the highway and then to CPs #10 and #5. This was safe and quick.

I looked at the control description for #5 and it said 'Sneaky path'. To me, this suggested that James was indicating a trail that connected the ridge that #5 was on with the ridge which #6 was on (yellow dotted line is what I hoped for). As I could see a clear trail going down, I figured it would be worth a try.

The trail snaked down and at the bottom - next to a stream, I could go left and right. I chose to go left, which was a clearer, more used and worn trail. Should have gone right. haha haha

The trail was spectacular riding with dozens of bridges to facilitate the trail criss-crossing the stream. I loved the mosses on the trees and logs and rocks, gentle rocky stream, meandering trail, sufficiently wide bridges and interesting rocky cliffs. After about 1km, I did think it would be worth turning back to try the right-hand option, but as the trail was really fabulous, clearly new and that James had mentioned a new trail, I figured it had to turn up at some stage to get out of the valley to return to Royston Farms.

I kept riding and knew I was far down but the trail was awesome. Eventually it started to climb out. 

The pink trail that I've drawn in is my estimate of where I was. I do have a Strava track that I'll capture once I finished writing this. A 'game' that I enjoy post event is to draw in where I think I was...

Thinking that my friends Talita and Otto were probably long at the finish, I sent a whatsapp to Talita to say that I was fine and that I'd taken a trail in the valley but that I was climbing up now.

She replied to say that she thought they had done the same.

Not 100m later, I found them ahead of me! 

Back on the ridge, we cycled to #5 then #10 and to the finish-transition.

I told James that I'd ridden the 'Trail of 100 bridges'. He looked at me quizzically for moment and then laughed, saying I'd now be hiking it from the other direction. Haha haha.

Joined by Otto and Talita, we set off, running and hiking the route we'd done in reverse, this time continuing on the right-hand trail.

Another funny trail

We got the 3rd and final hiking checkpoint #3 and turned around to get back on the trail. I expected a forest boundary and I'd seen a track where I have the dotted yellow line when we'd ridden from #5 to #10. I expected the trail we were on to merge or intersect. I either missed it or it wasn't there and so we followed a very good footpath that meandered. We cut through the forest, hitting the road in front of the finish.

Our final activity was walking across a swinging balance beam, and then to the finish.

James cooked us egg-and-bacon breakfast buns - I just had two expertly fried eggs, and we got a slab of chocolate each - it was Easter Sunday after all.

This is my actual Strava track.

33km logged

The new trail through the valley is an MTO trail - they are doing the trail building. It is superb - I'm really glad that I did ride - and hike - it. 

This was a really super morning out - good fun and wonderful exploration.  

When your children can be your teammates

 When my whatsapp pinged with this image, my heart soared with joy. This is now one of my favourite photographs of all time.

I first met Garry 20-years ago through adventure racing and we also raced together in a team. From adventure racing and with a knack for navigation, Garry got into orienteering and made his mark in the sport as a competitor, mapper, event planner, coach and head of our orienteering federation for many years. More than this, he has been a very dear friend. As a bonus, he has an awesome wife who I am fortunate to have as my friend too.

When I lived in Jo'burg, we lived on opposite sides of Johannesburg but our weekend orienteering activities had us together regularly.

Living in Parys these past five years, I don't see them often, but we do keep in touch.

The years have passed and Connor and Cameron are no longer little boys; at 15 and 14 respectively, they are into their teen years. This past weekend, Garry did a 25km event with both of his sons. (last year he did events with each one, not together)

For me, this photograph is so much about joy; their joy at being there and participating together but joy for me too at seeing my friend racing with his sons. It somehow feels like a circle has been completed. As a joyous aside, they placed 12th out of 92 teams - a hearty cheer and congratulations to them.

Paddling in adventure racing (article)

Yes, I do still write. Actually, I write a lot - just not always articles as I create all of the content for Vagabond Kayaks and my YOLO Compost Tumblers - FB, Instagram, websites and such.

In the new issue of The Paddle Mag, I have written an article on the discipline of paddling in the sport of adventure racing. Paddling is one of the four key disciplines of adventure racing with the other three being trekking, mountain biking and map-and-compass navigation. It felt good to stretch my fingers out.

You can read this piece on pages 66-69. The Paddle Mag is a free digital publication that you can read online or download.

My thanks to my friend Nicholas Mulder from Team Cyanosis Adventure Racing for his insightful comments that I included in the piece.

The first leg of AR World Champs in Reunion is disappointing in design

I really haven't followed many of the Adventure Racing World Series or AR World Championship events every closely for some time. I take a peek at online tracking here and there, read a post or two and wait for the final results. I see this post now of the distance and discipline breakdown for AR World Champs in Reunion and I'm quite disappointed.

The first leg is trekking and it is 106km in distance with a ton of elevation gain and loss. Fastest team estimated to take 38h30. I was at Raid World Champs in the Alps back in the day - I've seen how such massive climbs nailed even the most experienced participants. They weren't smiling. A leg like this is an attrition leg.

No, I'm not getting soft.

Participants travel from all over the world. Some have been doing expedition events like this for over 20 years. Others have less experience (but all of the heart to give it a try). It is a substantial financial investment to get to the start.

They come for the physical challenge of the course as much as the opportunity for exploration and discovery of the location. Add to this the dynamics of adventure racing, dozens of variables and you have all of the elements of this sport that captured my heart 20 years ago and changed the course of my life.

And then I see a course that starts like this (leg 1 and leg 2) and I'm disappointed. Course designing is as much an art as a science. When planning a course you are tasked with creating something that tantalises, stimulates and challenges by using what the terrain and environment offers.

If there is one thing that hasn't changed in the past 20 years that I've been involved in AR (participating, writing, following), it is that any distance on foot is certain to slay many a participant, either knocking them out of the race completely or making the rest of their race less pleasant. And then you throw them in water for a 45km pack rafting leg. Apparently a lot of this will be on foot, not in water. What a blister and soft sole skin fest this will be! Some participants may not even get a chance to ride their bikes!

While these two legs won't too terribly affect the teams going for the win (they have the experience to suck it up - it won't be pleasant though), I feel sad for the other teams who are there for the experience and to finish. They're going to spend at least 2 days (48hrs) on one discipline - trekking - from the start. It is my favourite discipline but this holds little appeal.

Of course, the old Raid Gauloises events had a mega trekking component but, as esteemed adventure racer and course designer Ian Adamson says, they would have up to 400km of "brutal foot travel", split into 3-4 legs over a total course distance of 1,000km. This course distance total in Reunion is around 425km.

A course is not made challenging by just having ultra-long sections of a single discipline. A well-planned course with strategy, clever distance, cunning navigation and good use of terrain over a 400-600km course will separate the best from the rest regardless. Just making something very long is, to me, lazy. I think what disappoints me the most is not as much that the leg is 106km with lots of climb, but that it is the first leg.

Personally, I like to see some punchy legs early on where there is a lot of excitement and interaction with teams and disciplines. Let them warm up and enjoy the race and excitement of being there for a bit. Then throw in some distance with great navigation elements (but not stupid single-discipline slog distance in an AR, which is a multidiscipline sport) and strategy and cunning and then wake them up again with some punchy elements.

(On the bright side, the scenery of Reunion Island should be spectacular)

Considering the duty and responsibility of a course designer reminded me of Andy de Klerk's FEAT talk in 2011 about opening climbing routes "with style". This seven-minute FEAT talk is well worth watching.


FYI

We have 5 (or 6) South African teams competing.

Keep an eye on posts from Rob Howard on SleepMonsters.com as the event unfolds.

From ARWS...

How to watch the action at the AR World Championship 2018

1. Live tracking at: http://live.arworldseries.com/arwc18/ will keep you up to date with exactly where teams are during the race.  The site also has extensive photos, videos, leaderboard and reports. Become a #dotwatcher !!!!
2. Live Streaming Tune in on https://www.facebook.com/arworldseries for the start at 6am Reunion Time (GMT+4) on 8th November and the winners around the 12th November (disclaimer! it is a remote island in the Indian ocean and internet access could be challenging!)  Other live streaming throughout the race so keep checking back.
3. Facebook coverage through https://www.facebook.com/arworldseries and https://www.facebook.com/raidinfranceofficial/ Lend your support and encourage teams on this epic journey.
4. Instagram follow us on instagram https://www.instagram.com/arworldseries/ and https://www.instagram.com/raidinfrance/ Let us know if you love the grit and determination displayed by these world class athletes.
5. News Stories AR World series news stories are released on http://www.arworldseries.com/  and http://www.raidinfrance.com/en/ A Great way to catch up on the overall progress of the race.
6. Hashtags search for interesting news and stories with the following hashtags #arwc2018 and #arworlderies

My AR website has a new owner

Yesterday I officially announced that my adventure racing website, www.AR.co.za has changed hands. My adventure racing friend, Alec Avierinos and his team, will be taking care of my 15+ year old 'baby'. There isn't a better custodian - thank you Alec.

Here's the media release:

AR website changes hands

For the first time in 15 years, South Africa’s adventure racing website, www.AR.co.za, is changing hands. Founder and editor Lisa de Speville is passing the site on to an experienced team that shares her passion for the sport of adventure racing.

 “When I started the site in April 2001 the internet was young, the sport was new in South Africa and there were no websites that brought the community together or provided information written especially to entice people into the sport,” Lisa explains.

She has written most of the more than 120 articles on the site – some in direct response to questions from the public and others re-published from magazine articles and columns that she has written. 

“AR.co.za is just as valid now as it was 15 years ago. It remains a trusted and informative one-stop portal for news, articles, advice and event listings – not only for South African adventure racers, but also for adventure racers around the world,” she says.

 In the past three years Lisa has taken on new projects and feels that the time has come to hand over the site to a team as dedicated and committed to the sport as she has been, but who also have the skills and technology to improve on the website and offer more to the adventure racing community. 

This week Lisa handed over the site to Alec Avierinos and his KeyHealth Nevarest team.

 “I’ve known Alec and his family for a decade. He is passionate about the sport and developing teams. He has provided incredible support to dozens of young athletes over the years. Alec is also a regular participant in events,” Lisa explains.

 Through his business and sport activities, Alec has a team of people who already track adventure racing news. They have web skills and a social media infrastructure to greatly benefit the site content and interface.

 In a sense, it is the end of an era for South Africa’s “Mother of Adventure Racing” as she allows her baby to leave the nest.

 “I’m both sad and relieved to be letting go of the site,” she says. “This is the first time in 15 years and 8 months that I don’t have to think about emails, news, events and calendar updates. I will still contribute content to the site but with the day-to-day running of the site off my hands, I look forward to jumping into new adventures and projects.”

xxx

Teach your kids AR

Can't say it better than this. Well done AdventureRacing Denmark.

Memories in the fabric of race bibs

Last year, before I moved to Parys, I cleaned out a bunch of old and sentimental adventure racing odds, including a pile of race maps, tee shirts and bibs. There were a bunch of goodies that I didn't let go of and I found them on Saturday.

After photographing them, I'm ready to save them here and to toss them all out. With some going back 16 years, here are my old race bibs (and a few other odds) that I've held on to for very many years.

I have three like this. Probably from my first AR, a 250km in the Drakensberg in mid-1999, the 500km in the Cederberg a few months later and a 180km in the Knysna area in about May 2000.

My teammates and race passport from the Cederberg 500km - late 1999

We had these printed to bin on to our backpacks.

An old road running license. These were printed on thicker fabric. I had this license number for many years, when I ran for Bedfordview Athletics. When I started AR Club and its road running section, I got another number.

55 guys, 5 women and a couple of days doing activities, tasks, problem solving, obstacle courses and puzzles. Many adventure racers made the cut and went on to the top 10 and then the final pair of Xavier Scheepers and Wim van Herzeele. This was the last Camel Trophy and would be replaced by the LandRover G4 Challenge.

15 years ago... my first staged ultra. I heard about the race a week before it started and was roped in all because of writing a product review. A direction-changing running experience.

What an experience! Through our months of training and preparation, I learned to raft and read rivers, a skill that has served me well throughout the years. I think this was 2001.

This may have been from the >500km in Northern KZN in 2001

From one of the Drifter series events... I have no idea which one. 2002 / 2003 perhaps.

Another Drifter event... this would have been one that Bradley Weinand organised - 2003 maybe.

Remember the first adventure racing sprint events? This was probably from Zirk Botha's Dirty Weekend Sprint event at Roodeplaat Dam. 2002/2003.

A bib from one of three years at the wonderful Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge (2008, 2009 or 2010)

My first staged ultra overseas where I ran and also wrote for the event. I won the women's category and placed 10th overall. I have no doubt that, with many more years of experience, I would run this race even better now - but probably not as good a placing with so much more competition out there now.

Zirk Botha's race flyer. Yes, this is ALL of the events that there were in 2000. Also, at this time, there wasn't a mountain bike series nor trail runs every weekend. Most of the adventure racing participants where at the three big events - 250km, 500km plus there had been a 180km in the Eshowe area in Jan/Feb too - with fewer (but still the same people) at Zirk's Desert Challenge. Note: no email... fax instead. hahahaha

Great memories.

10 years ago - Swazi Xtreme 2006

One of the events of which I am still most proud was Swazi Xtreme 2006, which I did with Evan Price, Bruce Fordyce and David Vlok - one of a series of events for the Vlok & Fordyce tv programme.

Bets were against us to finish this 250km adventure race through Swaziland -  a notoriously tough one that I'd participated in since it started in 2001 - organised by Darron Raw. But, finish we did. The event wrapped up in 2010 after a decade of annual events.

It's 10 years to the day that we took part in this event and I got to know not only one of the icons in South African sport and running, but also an incredibly kind and warm-hearted man, Bruce Fordyce. It never ceases to amaze me, when I see Bruce at runs, how people gravitate to him. He always has a moment for a photo and a special word for runners - from novices to those that have been running for decades.

At the time I knew Evan from adventure racing. Young and strong, he enthusiastically joined the team and proved to be a fun (and funny) teammate and a superb navigator.

David Vlok was fresh off many years of staring in the tv soap, Egoli. I'd never watched it but from what I know his character was a nasty fellow. In person, David was a bit of a celeb on the outside and could come across as quite ego-y, mucho and even aggressive (he is not unfamiliar with bar brawls). But in reality, David is friendly and with a gentle nature and good humour. Although I see him rarely, I think of him with fondness. I'm not quite sure what he is up to these days; I think he and Bruce still see each other here and there.

Evan has been cycling around the world for just over a year. In December he biked through Syria and Iran. I'm not sure where he currently is. His blog is ontheroadtosomewhere.weebly.com.

Bruce, as you well know, is the father of parkrun in South Africa and still so much a part of Comrades and running culture.

If you're up for a bit of a read, my race report from Swazi Xtreme 2006 is still online. It's in a side directory on my www.AR.co.za website on a sub-site I built for the event.

Team Jungle before the start: David Vlok, Bruce Fordyce, me and Evan Price. 

Team Jungle at the finish: Bruce, Lisa, Evan and David.

Still clowns. As Bruce says, "From Swazi Extreme to parkrunning!" 10 years on. Lisa and Bruce yesterday.

Happy 15th Birthday www.AR.co.za

I was snoozing a bit yesterday so this is a one-day late HAPPY BIRTHDAY to www.AR.co.za. 

www.AR.co.za turned 15 YEARS OLD yesterday!

I started the site back on 11 April 2001 to provide a central avenue for everything AR in South Africa. I started building the site in mid-2000, but only put it live on 11 April 2001.

Back then the site was built in straight HTML with dozens of pages that I hand-coded in notepad! Later, I put the site into CSS style sheets and then later onto the WordPress platform that it currently runs on.

Although the event calendar has been a focus, there’s an abundance of articles (over 100), most of which I’ve written over the years, covering everything from basics, to seconding, medical issues, navigation and teammates. There have also been hundreds of event reports, written by you, from an array of events.

The national ‘advracesa‘ email group list… I set up the email list on 27 June 2001. Oddly, I thought the email group was older… but that’s probably because I was administering a number of others at the tme. There are currently 903 members – some have been on this group for more than a decade!

Looking at the current member list (I cannot account for early adopters who have left over the years), Mark Le Roux was the first to join on 28 June 2001; Darron Raw was second on 29 June 2001. Some other names you’ll recognise may include Francois Oosthuizen and Tim Skeep (2 July 2001), Piers Pirow and Erica Terblanche (20 August 2001) and Nicholas Mulder (14 September 2001). Expedition Africa director Stephan Muller joined the list on 21 May 2002.

tick-tock… the years have been full of adventures and adventure races.

Three cheers for another 15 years!

Lisa (AR’s mom)

Event calendar clash in perspective

There is barely a day in the year where there is not an event on. If you're just a road runner then things are simple. But if you participate regularly in events from more than one discipline like trail running and adventure racing, then there will be clashes.

My photographer friend Bruce Viaene has created a new adventure race in the former Transkei, which is scheduled for late February next year. It's a 150km event for pairs and fours.

I added it to the adventure racing calendar (which is not overloaded with events) and shared on the AR Facebook page.

Photo by Bruce Viaene of scenery from his race location

Within minutes a racer posts, "would love to do it... clashes with addo :-(" (Addo refers to an ultra trail run event - 100 mile, 76km and 44km routes).

I cannot begin to describe how comments like this grate. It was certainly posted casually and not with malice (clearly interested in participating in both events), but it grates nonetheless because it was made without thought for a myriad of factors involved in selecting a date and presenting an event as an organiser.

(This is not the first time I've seen a comment like this - on other events too over the past few years; this time I'm writing about it.)

In fact, if you were planning to run the 100 miler at Addo, any event scheduled a few weeks before or few weeks after would 'clash'.

Would a 60km in Mpumalanga on the same day as a 60km in the Eastern Cape equally be considered a clash?

The clashor vs the clashee also depends on your perspective. Does the adventure race clash with Addo only because the date for Addo was published earlier? If your primary sport is AR then Addo clashes with Bruce's event and not the other way around...

It all comes down to what you really want to do with your weekend: a 150km multidiscipline adventure race or a 100-mile run? Entries for both events are not even open so the choice is really wide open.

If Bruce had to consider every single other event across adventure racing disciplines - run, bike, paddle - and sufficient space between them, he'd never find an 'open' date.

Organisers have to select a date for their event based on optimal conditions, venue availability and their own availability to present the event.

'Clash' is such a negative word... as if Bruce purposefully scheduled his event to coincide with Addo. Considering that less that a handful of Addo participants would even vaguely be interested in entering Bruce's event, I hardly see a clash from Addo's perspective. But, as adventure racers are multisporters, there would be a few who are/were looking at doing Addo. Then again, adventure racers are probably interested in entering most events - depending on time and money.

Even if Bruce's event was a week or two before or later, chances are small that even a fraction of people would or could do both anyway.

Looking at my Forest Run next year, there are a bunch of events in Feb/March/April. My date is determined by:

• My availability
• Venue availability
• Fire season restrictions
• Consideration of likelihood of rain / best weather (not too hot or cold)

I'm always considerate of events with similar dates in the same participant 'catchment'; I certainly can't consider every sporting discipline and every event in other Provinces either. I'd never find a date.

Participants have options and on any given day they can choose what to enter according to the sporting discipline, distance of the course, location of the event and cost of entry.

It's a nice position to be in as a participant; it can be scary for an organiser because your participant base is split not just for a given day but also across events in the weeks and months before and after your event.

The adventure racing team and the dog that followed them

If you haven't yet heard about Team Peak Performance (Sweden) and the stray dog, Arthur, that followed them for the final two stages of the AR World Champs, which has just been held in Ecuador, then you must have had your head under a rock.

The story is big news because the dog adopted the team during the race and they have subsequently adopted him. Arthur flew with the team back to Sweden after the race. This canine adventure racer now has a forever home.

It's an absolutely charming story and the sport of adventure racing has never before received so much media attention from around the World - the story even made online news in South Africa. It's all over Facebook too.

If you haven't heard about this yet, then pull up an online newspaper and take a read. Here's a piece on the Daily Mail. Very, very sweet.

A good week

I have had an absolutely blazing week.

OK, so I haven't been able to run (still resting knee after really bad whack this past Saturday) so I've turned my energies to a bunch of projects that I've needed to get on to for more weeks than I care to mention.

It's always easy to deal with tasks that can be done relatively quickly. Those that I know will take hours and hours - and ideally uninterrupted hours... I put them off.

With an open week, I made good use of blocks of unbroken hours to made some headway.

On Monday afternoon I did some 'cleansing'. The problem I have with organising events is the packing away. I'll pack some stuff away and then I 'dump' other bits. On the floor. Any available space. Crates, maps, droppers, boards, flags... Between this and that I put them away. It can take a few days to get clarity again. On Monday I wrapped up the results from Metrogaine, sent them out and cleared away the bundle of clue sheets and other stuff lying around.

Cleansing is contagious so with that done I got into some cupboards... and other crates... and piles of paper.

A big project on Tuesday was to set up a Facebook page for our AR Gaiters. We receive lovely emails and sometimes photos from people around the World who are using our AR Gaiters, especially the AR Desert Gaiters. But the AR Gaiter page on www.AR.co.za isn't really the best place to store the photos and stories. Facebook, on the other hand, is a fabulous platform.

So, I set up the page, updated the content on AR for the AR Mini, Desert and Adventure Gaiters and had everything up on Wednesday morning.

That afternoon (and finished it at night) I wrote up a media release for K-Way on trail runner Lucky Miya. He's in France to run in the Skyrunning World Champs on Sunday. I met Lucky earlier this year when he came through to some of our AR Club Summer Series events at Delta. He also took part in the April Metrogaine with orienteer Michael Crone, who is currently in Italy for the World Orienteering Champs. They won the Metrogaine and I really hope that they both have superb runs in their respective international events.

Having had such fun with the AR Gaiter Facebook page, I decided to create a Facebook page for my Metrogaine events. Again, Facebook has its merits and it is a great platform to share event info, photos and runner routes. It's content that is Likeable, Shareable and social.

And then on Thursday I jumped into website modifications on the FEAT website. I wanted to tweak images, backgrounds, colours and some structural elements. It isn't rocket science but it just takes time. Inevitably when you change one colour you need to change a dozen others to make it all look nice - like when you buy a new duvet cover and end up repainting your room and putting up new curtains.

There's one piece of code that I just haven't been able to find. I've been through almost every .php page and every .css page to look for it. I spent two hours yesterday chasing this one issue... I bet it is in the two or three .php pages that I haven't searched!

There are a few other tweaks that I want to make... but it is fine for now.

I've done well to get these big chunks done between regular smaller tasks.

I like new. I like change. It has been a satisfying week.

Expedition Africa - abundant adventures and friends

Back from Expedition Africa tonight. As much as the racers need time to digest their experiences, so do I.

Our media team is close knit and, like the teams racing, we spend 24hrs a day together - awake for many of these 24 hours too! We drive around, hike, navigate, spend hours waiting and then even more hours writing and editing and publishing. It's a very intensive time.

Team hunting - my favourite pasttime. We've got maps and spend time planning where to catch teams. And then we go out to hunt for them. Online tracking is awesome too - and when we can't get signal we use friends and family at home and race HQ to tell us where they are. Photo by Bruce Viaene.

And then we part ways. And my heart is very sad. Even after an hour or too away from them I feel a bit lost because a companion from the week is not at my side or sitting next to me working on their computers.

I return from a week of hard work, long hours and little sleep - just the way I like it.

But, more treasured are the renewed friendships, new friendships and most wonderful memories of adventures.

Day 1. After a splash in the river, I sat with Bruce Viaene and Steven Freitag watching teams descending the abseil. Photo by Bruce Viaene.

My posts from the race are all up on www.AR.co.za. I've had a blast writing about the race.

Steven Freitag has been shooting footage for short videos during the race. The one he showed at the post-race dinner was superb and I look forward to watching the full version. Here's Steven's YouTube channel so you can watch the vids already posted (Days 1, 2 and 3) and those to be uploaded.

Definitely check out the photos from the event by Bruce Viaene and Andreas Strand. These guys are the bomb - awesome images in the albums on the KineticGear Facebook page.

I spent much of my week hanging out with Bruce and also Martin Westerstrand, the photographer for teams Cinnober (team member Ida Svensson has a blog - some of Martin's photos are there) and Outnorth Adventure. Their photographs show some of the places that I visited with them.

That's it done. A most wonderful week. I'm blue. The better the time away and the adventures had, the worse the post-race blues. I'm VERY blue.

As the best way to beat post-race blues is to start planning other adventures, after a good night's sleep, that's exactly what I'll do.

Got a gash? Call me.

Earlier this month I did my First Aid Level 1 certification to get in-date again (it has been a while!). While surfing the web for courses, I came across an offering of a suturing course from Pulse Point. I signed up and on Saturday afternoon I attended the two-hour course.

With this run of public holidays and long weekends, it ended up being just me on the course, with my instructor Stephan -  a former paramedic and, as it turns out, a keen cyclist and obstacle-course competitor. Stephan left working on the road two-years ago after their emergency response vehicle was T-boned by a vehicle that went through a red robot. He was seriously injured and his partner was very nearly killed. He is now a very capable trainer; one with clear instructions and techniques.

We went through techniques and steps for suturing three different types of wounds. There's a plain ol' slice, like from a knife. No flesh missing, no jagged edges - just a clean cut. Then there's a wound where a chunk has been taken out - like we'd see from mountain biking falls. And then there's the jagged / serated, uneven wound - also something we'd see from mountain biking injuries.


Stephan first went over how to inject local anaesthetic, which I did to my subject, an orange.

And then I got to work suturing its wounds. My sutures definitely got neater with practice.

I did this course because I figure that suturing is a useful skill to have - for adventure racing and just because. Back at varsity I learned to suture (animals, not people - same thing really) but it has been many years; so nice to feel clued-in again.

The thing about suturing is that there's no rush. You've got plenty of time to get to a doctor to have the wound attended to. Of course the on-site issue would be to stop the bleeding. Sutures come later. But in adventure racing... It could be many many hours before the medics can get to you or you can get to a clinic.

An emergency room visit and a bill for a few thousand Rand... Puh! I've got enough scars from wounds that should have had sutures but didn't. That's where I see this little skill being useful. A gash on the knee or elbow really is not a biggie and I'm definitely not precious about scars. It's a different story if the wound is really serious and involves more than skin (nerves, tendons, muscle) or is on your face - it's not ideal to have a big gash across your forehead sutured by a hobbyist.

So for 'normal' kinda wounds, I'm game.

Ryno and Cobus at AR Club (Tues, 6 May 2014)

Back in 2010, adventure racers Ryno Griesel and Cobus van Zyl set a Drakensberg Grand Traverse record of 60 hours 29 minutes. Later that year, in his talk at FEAT, Cobus predicted the theoretical fastest possible time at around 40 hours. Four years later, Ryno - with trail runner Ryan Sandes - covered the 209-kilometre distance in an incredible, record-setting 41 hours 49 minutes.

 At this special Adventure Racing Club evening, Ryno and Cobus speak about how their years of experience in adventure racing and trail running came together to make this new record possible. Cobus was integrally involved with the scouting, planning and logistics behind this record-setting run. He put in weeks of work to help Ryno and Ryan break a record that he set. They'll tie their experiences at DGT with what adventure racers can take away from this extraordinary adventure.

Join us for an evening of insights and experiences together with visuals of their custom maps, photos from the mountains and video clips.

 Date: Tuesday, 6 May 2014
Time: 18h30 for 19h00
Venue: Kinetic Gear at the Exercise and Nutrition Centre, cnr North and Rivonia Roads, Rivonia.
More: www.arclub.wordpress.com
Enquiries: Lisa - lisa@ar.co.za

Hugs: more than words

At Expedition Africa I gave - and received - so many hugs. I knew many people at the race from old friends, who I've met through AR - going back up to 14 years ago, more recent AR friends, as well as a number of ex-teammates (enough to almost make two teams!) were participating. And an ex-boyfriend.

I gave much thought to all of this hugging as non-verbal communication.

A hug can be a simple "Hello, nice to see you". Many of these before the race start, especially as there were so many people there that I hadn't seen for many years.

As the race lengthened the hugs I gave had much more meaning.

"I'm so glad you've made it to transition safely"

"I know you're tired, but you can do it"

"Here, I'm warm and strong and full of energy - have some of mine to keep you going"

"I feel for you that you're cold and tired and sore - but go out there again and keep going. I'll be waiting for you later"

"I wish I was out there to help you"

"I'm so proud of you"

And the hugs that I received in return were very much saying...

"I'm so glad to see you here waiting for me"

"Thank you"

Expedition Africa article in Do It Now

Writing about a race from inside the race is easy. The content is all around you. Writing about a race after the race, especially when you're written thousands of words about it the week before, is considerably more tricky. In the days after an incredible week there is so much to process - even if you're media, and not racing. But, with a tight deadline, I had to decide what to say, what not to say, and to get the article out.

Here it is, in the May 2013 digital edition of Do It Now's dinFO publication.

Read the magazine-view option online for the best experience, with beautiful images from the race by Bruce Viaene. Low-res images below just to give you a feel for the beautiful imagery.

Expedition Africa - an incredible week at a world-class event

Just back from Expedition Africa and what an incredible week it has been. Media writing for expedition events is something that I so absolutely love and so I rolled from one day to the next with a smile plastered across my face.

New friends, spectacular scenery, brave racers and the most wonderful energy from start to finish.

My writings from the event are all on www.AR.co.za (final wrap-up post here). I was tweeting from @adventurelisa, using the hashtag #expafrica. There are also some photographs in an album on the AR Facebook page. I didn't take that many but there's the odd pic taken here and there.

A really huge congratulations to Heidi and Stephan for presenting a world-class expedition adventure race. They did good. Real good.

Part of Team Media (L-R): Bruce Viaene, Aya Kubota, me, Soren Nielsen and Andreas Strand.

'Adopted' by Merrell Denmark, here I am at the finish with the team. (L-R) Lars, Mikkel, Soren (team photographer), me, Rasmus and Sanne.

Sneaking in some Berg running

Being out in the Drakensberg for Expedition Africa makes my feet itch for running in this wonderful scenery.

Yesterday I headed out in the afternoon taking the 'River Walk' sign I saw when we drove in. It took me down to the river but didn't seem to go anywhere else and I couldn't see any trails running along the river.

Fortunately I met up with a local fellow who said that I could cross the river, running up into the local settlement where the trail meets a road. He directed me to follow the road, which would then loop back to the hotel.

Crossing the Tugela. Crystal clear - and very chilly!

The road back to the hotel.

It turned into a lovely run with excellent conditions and a refreshing breeze.

This afternoon I took off on the mountain bike trail, which runs past the hotel. It's a lovely route in the lower Berg. I asked the security lady at the gate whether it loops back. She spoke to a chap on the radio who said that it was the type of route where I'd have to turn around to get back here.

A lovely, lovely route. Smooth underfoot and with only a few climbs. Very pretty with a big, open, blue sky

Climbing up a rise to take a(nother) photo of the Amphitheatre. The teams are going to ascend it tomorrow morning - I'll be driving around to the Sentinal carpark.

Trail. Bliss.

That's the hotel down below. Heading back in time for Leg 1 briefing.

Love. Baby. Cow.