DaPope in Godzone Adventure Race

Enduro

For any of you who remember DaPope, a once frequent poster in ART, he is currently embarking on one of the bravest/maddest honeymoons I've ever heard of. His lovely new wife, two Kiwis that they had only comunicated with over the internet, and himself are currently participating in the Godzone Adventure Race in New Zealand.

The race has possibly the best website of any Adventure Race I've seen. The race looks amazing, and the descriptions of the route are superb. The race started an hour or two ago, and the live tracking of the teams seems to be working excellently. DaPope (Finbarr) and Co are team Get No Sleep AR (team 4). So far, they're going really well in the first kayaking stage, taking place in the awesome location of Milford Sound.

It's likely to be one hell of a race at the front of the field between the top Kiwi teams. Seagate vs Subway pits some of the top adventure racers in the world against each other on home turf.

Dunebuggy

http://vimeo.com/40006975 - Day 1 Video - that's Karen in front in Blue of the Kayak where the Dolphin jumps up - she was supposed to be in the back - Finbar (DaPope) is in Green top, kayak behind ..... This is Adventure Racing !! :-)

shotgunmcos

Now that looks like the real deal! Very cool

shotgunmcos

Holy crap Seagate Team :eek:

126km trekking, 279km biking, 117km kayaking and over 12kmeters of ascent getting all 4 of the crew home in under 87hours!!! Flippin' hell :eek:

Enduro

I would have expected nothing less from them . They are utterly superb. Once Subway lost their speed Seagate were unlikely to be caught, particularly since they have such massive experience, and a world class navigator in Chris Forne (so mistakes are far less likely). Their tactics on the first treking leg show how up for it they were, and how close and tactical the racing at the front can be.

Good to see "Get No Sleep" are still on the course and still progressing. It sounds like they're enjoing themselves. It's gonna be great hearing the stories from the frontline when they back. Hopefully we can persuade DaPope to give us a little report!

It's been a great race to watch on the web. The tracking has worked almost perfectly, and combined with great descriptions and some feedback from the course has really given a good feel for how things are going on the ground. It looks like GodZone has established itself as an instant classic. I'd be surprised if they didn't host the world champs within a few years.

One thing this race showed yet again is that what tends to seperate out teams above all else is how they perform on the big trekking sections. The first trek looks like it pretty much decided the finishing order. Treking tends to be where most time is gained and lost, either as a result of bushwacking/pathfinding skills, keeping going without needing to sleep, accurate navigation, sheer bloody-minded forward progress and/or walking speed (Skills that multisports races have zero relevance to ).

jeffontour

Enduro wrote: »

It's gonna be great hearing the stories from the frontline when they back. Hopefully we can persuade DaPope to give us a little report!

I'm sure his missus would love to see him disappear for an hour of the more relaxed part of the honeymoon to tell his internet friends about his adventure.

ocnoc

That looks mental!

Forne is one serious navigator - can walk his way into a World Champs Sprint Final (your looking at a sub 15min 5k!) AND bash with the best over a couple of days.

The terrain looks pretty awesome

Enduro

All done and dusted. Good to see the Irish hanging in there and finish as a ranked team. Well done DaPope!

dapope

Thanks everyone, it really was an amazing race and experience. I will post a link to a race report at some stage.

Nice to see a thread about adventure racing for a change

shotgunmcos

dapope wrote: »

Thanks everyone, it really was an amazing race and experience. I will post a link to a race report at some stage.

Nice to see a thread about adventure racing for a change

Well done to you and your Missus DaPope, that event looked bloody epic and I can't wait to read a report!

dapope

Race report now available here

Enjoy!

Enduro

Really enjoyed reading that. Nice one, and well done again!

shotgunmcos

+1 cool report and well done to you ad the missus. Sounds like you hooked up with a serious AR duo too. I've bookmarked it for another read with a hot chocolate when I hae hetime to play all the clips too. Thanks for sharing that by the way. I'm tracking your adventures now

dapope

shotgunmcos wrote: »

+1 cool report and well done to you ad the missus. Sounds like you hooked up with a serious AR duo too. I've bookmarked it for another read with a hot chocolate when I hae hetime to play all the clips too. Thanks for sharing that by the way. I'm tracking your adventures now

Thanks shotgunmcos. I'm always happy to share some proper Adventure Racing experiences.

ocnoc

Awesome.
Did the team suffer from any of the small injuries that pop up?
Blisters, tweeked ankles, broken bits on bikes etc?

dapope

ocnoc wrote: »

Awesome.
Did the team suffer from any of the small injuries that pop up?
Blisters, tweeked ankles, broken bits on bikes etc?

I had some blisters that were easy to fix. The biggest problem I had was trench foot. We spent a good deal of the second trek following a stream bed and wading through rock pools. My feet became very sore afterwards. Its not the first time its happened me. If I had stopped and dried out my feet on a few occasions this could have been avoided. The temperatures were very low (-3) at times and we did sometimes suffer with the cold. We removed the backrest from our rucksacks on a number of occassions using it as an extra layer of insulation around our core. I know one team fashioned some clothing out of their bivvy bags.

One of our altimeters broke but luckily we carried two. We had no issues with our bikes thankfully. We carried spare drop outs and a spare tyre at all times just in case.