Upper Murray Challenge.

... or perhaps better titled "how I bullshitted my way through an offroad multisport race off zero mtb/kayak training..."

Still pretty satisfying though!

The Upper Murray Challenge ( website ) is a multisport race in the foothills of the western Snowy Mountains- starting in Khancoban and finishing in Corryong. It commences with a 38K mountain bike ride before transitioning to kayaks for a 26K paddle down the Swampy Plain and Murray Rivers to the hamlet of Towong, then donning the running shoes for a 600m of vertical to the summit of Mt Elliott and descending to finish at Corryong College.

As regulars might note, training of late has consisted of bugger all cycling and definitely no mountain biking (not that I ever had any mtb skills to begin with) and one weekend of whitewater paddling at Penrith, otherwise no paddling.

So why try this event? I liked the look of the video on the website and wanted an excuse to get down to the High Country again.

So Mel and I drove down Friday 5th October with the race starting 9am the following morning, with my old Learsport mtb and a hired kayak strapped to the roof of the car. After a 5.5 hour drive we arrived in Corryong for dinner and registration before driving 20 minutes to our digs in Khancoban. From most of the Khancoban area you can see the snow capped Main Range soaring into the distant sky. Closer at hand, I studied all the bikes and kayaks atop vehicles in both towns and concluded that I had just about the crappiest equipment of anyone in the event! I quite expected to be last off the bike and close to last out of the kayak, then to pass a few people in the run.

38K MTB
9am Saturday morning I was at the tail of the bunch as we rode out of Khancoban- according to the start sheet 85 solo competitors and 23 teams. We started climbing on a steep firetrail right away and I found myself passing people on the uphills, then they'd all come past as I inched down the other side- this course had a lot of steep downhill. Shaped more or less like a dumbbell, the course described a loop through the hills behind the town on a mix of firetrail and singletrack before descending past the kayak transition area and then into the farm "Khancoban Station" and riding through paddocks to another hill loop, returning to the transition and hitting the kayaks.

A long downhill early on gave me the heebie jeebies- I had the brakes half on to slow my descent and the wheels locked, however I was going too quickly to put my foot down. In a triumph of arse over class I managed to "ski" the bike to the bottom and went on my way. After that, though, I did the "hike-a-bike" thing on the big downhills. I found myself regularly swapping positions with a collection of Army guys- I'd pass on the uphills and they'd pass on the downs.

One minor routefinding error after being directed down the wrong track by a marshall, otherwise the course was thoroughly well marked and interesting and I got off the bike right near the back of the pack but with a couple still behind me. It was just after midday.

26K KAYAK
Spray skirt, vest and helmet on and into the kayak, a few hundred metres downstream from Khancoban Dam. We'd been told the night before that the water level of the Swampy Plain River was too low for safe paddling, so Snowy Hydro (main sponsor) was releasing extra water down the spillway to raise the river's level for the race.

The river did not have difficult rapids, but there were regular "gravel races" where the river bed was shallow enough to scrape the kayak and the surface was choppy and turbulent. More tricky though was the velocity of the water, emphasised several times in the race literature. There were always currents cutting across the river from one side to another which did require good river-reading skills, and my kayak got rolled twice early on before I got used to the patterns of the flow. The first time the kayak was caught between the regular river flow and the swirl of an eddy on the bank and flipped- and being snowmelt, the water was definitely cold. I dragged the kayak to the bank, tipped out the water and resumed. About half an hour later I came to a near u turn in the river, took it too sharply and a current turned the kayak sideways and over again, but I was underway reasonably soon.

I passed a couple of competitors on this leg, folks who had gotten into trouble with the currents or just had the wrong equipment, such as the Army guy who had a tiny whitewater kayak which was almost impossible to control. Physically it wasn't taxing, just mentally demanding from concentrating on the river's currents and I could have easily gone over four or five more times but saw the problem in time and corrected.

There were the occasional marshalls on the river banks, but for the most part my only company were the willows that entangled either side of the water- another potential risk if you didn't pay attention. Funnily enough I never noticed where the mighty Murray River joined the Swampy Plain River I had been paddling down; later I was told that the Murray was more or less a trickling creek at this point and was hard to spot from the water. Interesting.

I was aware that there was a cutoff at 3.30pm, 6K into the run leg. For that I figured I needed to be off the kayak around 2.30-2.45 just in case, so when at 1.45pm I passed under the Murray Valley Highway bridge with Mel and a marshal standing on it and they told me I was but halfway, the swearing started in earnest. The minutes ticking over on my watch assumed new importance, and when I steered the kayak into the transition at Towong Bridge it was 3pm and I was most unimpressed. Vest, helmet and spray skirt off, running shoes and hydration pack on and I was running up a dirt road with sweeping views of the Snowy Mountains in front of me and a cutoff looming.

25K RUN
Felt pretty good in the run and quickly passed an Army guy named Aaron. The view was fucking awesome and it helped inspire me in a fast start- the first couple of kilometres were 4.40s. However, the dirt road started to climb from there and I was losing time against the cutoff.

Mel drove past a few hundred metres before the cutoff checkpoint with Aaron in the passenger seat (DNF) and bike and kayak on the roof. I muttered something about arguing with the marshal if they tried to pull me out- my watch had ticked over to 3.32 and I was cursing the wrong turn I had been sent down on the mtb leg. However, they happily waved me on and I crossed into a farm paddock and started climbing across a grassy slope. Mel met me at the next marshal's location about a mile further on with an Up&Go (I had been subsisting on bananas and Up&Go drink all day) and informed me two fellows had just left the checkpoint, walking pretty slowly.

I ran until the course went up a narrow gully in amongst trees; above me I could see the two competitors nearing the top of the gully. Walking strongly after them I emerged onto a rough 4WD track which arched skyward towards the summit ridge of Mt Elliott, 600m above the river and 930m above sea level.

I quickly left the two dudes behind and, mixing the walking and running, emerged at the top of Mt Elliott where antennas maintained a vigil over the Khancoban and Corryong valleys. The track followed the Elliott Ridge, gradually descending but with enough uphill to keep you honest. Eventually I was dropping steeply through bush then farm paddocks towards the hamlet of Thowgla, negotiating a herd of dozens of cows as I did so.

Mel was waiting at Thowgla Hall. I took another Up&Go, dropped my hydration pack and set off for the last six kilomtres of road running into Corryong, chasing the three competitors I could just make out down the road. Although I made up plenty of ground, I didn't have enough room to haul them in and they finished a minute or two ahead as I ran into Corryong, pumped a fist, then under the finish banner in 8 hours 58 minutes.

Piece of cake. (-:

Fantastic, fun even which tests all the skills of an athlete in a wonderfully impressive setting. Support crew is essential and they have to be resourceful, as there is no aid of any kind on the course, even at transitions, which makes this somewhat unexpected finish Mel's as much as it is mine.

With a little skills work on the mtb and kayak and some better equipment I could easily take 90 minutes off my time next year....