We had an awesome race last weekend up on the Central Coast for the start of the adventure racing season, even if we did make a major mistake at the start line.

The race started out tough with a long beach run from Shelley Beach to the Entrance. We made the mistake of heading to the streets to avoid the first section of sand. This unfortunately put us behind the pack and we ended up at the first transition area in 106th place out of 153 teams. Oh well, that is what it is all about, making the correct navigational decisions.

We then had to swim across the channel at the entrance, which was short and intense with an extreme current running through the mouth of the river.

The next leg was a kayak from The Entrance to Wyong. Kayaking is always our least favourite leg and this was an extremely long kayak, seeing us completing this leg in 1hr flat.

After a quick swim across the Wyong river in the freezing cold water, pushing aside the masses of jelly fish that floated in our paths, we emerged dripping wet and with a mild case of hypothermia. (well it felt like it for 10 mins anyway)

We got onto our bikes and headed to Ourimbah State Forest. Sweet! I love those trails. Unfortunately, we were stuck behind so many poeple and it’s all single track, so hard to make a break for it. The upside is that I saw some scenery I have never seen there before as I have never been along the tracks so slowly before.

The next leg was running and navigation. We had a great run, no mistakes on the navigation and managed to make up some ground on this leg.

Back to the bikes and the dash for the finish. When I say dash, I mean 1hr 5mins intense uphill and single track mountian biking. Awesome fun! For those of you who know Ourimbah, we had to get back to the top of the Roller Coaster before heading back to Wyong.

Then it happened… I got a flat tyre! Luckily we are somewhat fast at changing flats, so we were done in around 7 mins. Unfortunately, this put us back about 8 places.

We finished up the race in 52nd position. not our best result, but we thoroughly enjoyed the race! (other than the kayak)

Our direct competition was Jack Peacock’s team – “The Calamari Brothers”. Jack was my team mate in April at Lake MacQuarie. We beat his team by 6mins and 10 places.

Our other competition was Mark Smith’s team – “Giant Gonzalez”. Mark was my team mate in last October’s Cattai National Park race. We beat them by 41mins and 51 places.

The next race is on the 28th November, let’s get a few teams together and have some fun!

For the second year running, Fitta Bodies had a team of 4 people enter and complete the Oxfam 100km walk for charity. There was a change of team members this year with myself and Frank dropping out to make way for Rachel Newman and Matt Smith to join last year’s walkers Gwen and Mark Jenkins.

It was a gruelling walk as usual, but made all the worse for Rachel by her feet being covered in blisters by the half way mark. Add to this a tight ITB and cramping calves and you can see she was a champion for pushing through where many would have quit. Gwen also had her share of pain with her knees still undergoing physio weeks after the walk was over. Mark pushed through like a trooper making sure he tracked the whole event on his GPS watch and Matt was the wild card, only being added to the team a week before the event and not having completed any of the training walks. 

Special mention has to go to Rachel’s dad Bob and sister Katie who did the majority of the support crew. They took on checkpoints 2 & 3 on Friday and 7 & 8 on Saturday. Legend! Darrin Penola offered his good humour and support at checkpoint 7 aswell. Myself, Matt and Shikha helped out on checkpoints 5 & 6 through the night, first greeting the guys at 2am for some food and stretches and then again at 8am for some more food and stretches.

Not only did they do an awesome job with the walk, but they also raised over $5000. A huge part of this money was raised by team mate Tom Carmody who had to drop out at the last minute due to a tonsil infection, but he deserves a massive wrap for his fund raising abilities!!!

I have included a few photos at the checkpoints I was at and here is a link to a couple of professional photos taken out on the trail,
The happy walkers
Smile for the camera

If you are interested in entering the Oxfam 100km walk in 2010, please let me know and we can get started on the next Team Fitta Bodies:)

Hey Guys,

Thanks for everyone who came along on Saturday, I had a blast and I am sure you all did to!

Here is a few photos from the day.

Hopefully we can do it agin in a month or two…

Team Fitta Bodies

Fitta Bodies entered 2 teams in the latest AROC adventure race on Saturday 18th April at Lake Macquarie.

What a race it was, orienteering around beautiful Lake Macquarie, running, mountain biking, kayaking and swimming. Taking in beach, lake, rocky ocean outcrops, dense bushland and suburbia, we covered it all.

My team – Fitta Bodies 1 came in in 34th position out of 199 entrants in 4 hours 14 minutes. We are happy with that result, putting us at 17% from the top of the field.

Team Fitta Bodies 2 came in in 141st place in a time of 5 hours and 28 minutes. Well done to Gwen, Rachel and Tom, they did really well.

Our goal of beating Jeff from Addventure Training didn’t come to fruition on this occassion with his team coming in in 19th place in a time of 3 hours and 52 minutes.

The race started with a dip into Lake Macquarie to bring back items from 3 buoys. Once we handed in our collections, we were given a map of the nearby development with 22 checkpoints to find. When we handed in our completed checkcard, we were on our bikes and the race officially began.

The mountain biking was tough on this leg with very steep rutted trails which everybody had to walk their bikes down. We had 3 checkmarks to collect on our way.

The next leg was coasteering. Running along the rocky coastline, jumping in and out of the ocean as required in order to collect 5 checkmarks and then it was back up to the bikes.

We rode to Caves Beach to crawl into a very small cave to retreive a checkmark, then into suburbia to park up our bikes and run approximately 1.5km along soft sand to the next checkmark.

We ran through the suburbs collecting 2 checkmarks on our way to the kayaks and paddled our way along the lake to 2 more checkmarks. 

The paddle back was not so pleasant as the rain and howling winds picked up. It also didn’t help the run back to the bikes as we collected 1 more check mark on the way.

Back on the bikes, it was the dash to the finish. We had 3 more checkmarks to collect and we went for it. I had 2 crashes on my bikes, but no injuries. We completed this leg 16th fastest out of the whole field. We passed 5 teams on the 2km single track from the final checkmark to the finish line. Not an easy feat when it is single track!

This was one of my favourite races so far. What an adventure, I can’t wait for the next one!

Yours in Fitness

Troy Shipsey

Your Group Training Specialist Come see me in Centennial Park

Firstly, Thank you to everyone who sponsored us. Your generosity helps us to raise over $2500.

I’ll give you a brief run down on what your donation bought from the Fitta Bodies Team.

As a lot of you know, I had a severe case of food poisoning 4 days before the event which saw me taken to hospital by ambulance, so the the week leading up to the event wasn’t optimal for me, as I couldn’t eat anything more than toast and crackers. I did eat some fruit and protein the day before the event though! The night before the event, I weighted 3.4kg’s less than I weighed just before the food poisoning.

We kicked off at 8:30am Friday morning. We were in great spirits…

The terrain is tough, but interesting and beautiful.

At 5pm we reached our support crew for dinner. Spaghetti bolognaise, mmm…did somebody forget to tell the support crew what I had thrown up last week (spaghetti bolognaise).  

Tom and Mary did an awesome job at making sure were were fed and then we were back out on the track by 6pm. This time with headlamps to guide the way. By 6:30pm, my spaghetti is back in my throat. It appears all the vomiting I did has damaged the sphincter at the base of my oesophagus! The night walk is tough, staring at the ground for 12 hours was never going to be easy, but we got through it. We kept each other awake with lots of mind games, generally involving old TV trivia. I spent the early hours of the morning with stomach cramps and reflux. Neither of which I have ever had in my life before. 

At 5am, we met our support crew Danny and Lisa, who had hot soup awaiting. I only wish I could have eaten it. I managed to squeeze in a half bowl and by 6:30am, we were on our way again. This was definitely the toughest check point to leave, especially for me. I was nearly physically done at this point, but my team mates kept me going. Everybody else is tired at this point, but physically ok.

The sunrise helped to lift spirits more than you could imagine. We seemed to have a new found energy.

Porridge at 11am was great fuel to keep us going for the next few hours, thanks Danny and Lisa!

It was around this time that Mark’s hamstring decided to blow. His knee is giving him a lot of grief and our walking pace slows down to accommodate. Thankfully there is a physio at the next checkpoint to help out a little with it. Nurofen is being taken by all of us except Frank now.

Lorena and Shikha had chicken and salad awaiting. Once again, I wish I could have enjoyed it, but my stomach is still turning circles. We push on to the next checkpoint and don our headlamps as the night sets in once again. We are now heading to the final checkpoint before the finish.

We arrive at the checkpoint to find Lorena and Shikha with hot chocolates and sandwiches. Shikha is so kind to give Frank and myself a calf massage and Lorena did the same for Gwen and Mark. True commitment that is! They also have some Zantac for my reflux. Thank goodness for that, after 23 hours of reflux, I finally start to feel better. I wish I had known about it before! Mark also manages to get some more physio treatment at this checkpoint, which seems to be helping a little.

We kick off the home stretch. We have 3km of bush tracks then 9km through the streets of Seaforth and Balmoral. We knock over the bush section easily, as spirits are high at the moment, knowing loved ones and a bed are only hours away. When we hit the streets, disaster struck. Frank’s knee has packed up completely…We walk the next 9km’s at snail pace. Frank is an absolute trooper, I think anybody else would have quit at this point, but he hobbled the final 9km’s using his walking pole for support. It started to spit rain at 6pm and it got somewhat heavier around 10pm, but nothing too bad.

We finally crossed the line around midnight Saturday night.

What an adventure! Please don’t anybody ever ask me to do it again. Ever!