S.A. Extreme Sport How To's: Adventure Racing

By Jacques Marais You might be brave enough to watch Eco-Challenge on television, but are you ready to take on a multi-sport endurance event yourself? Imagine five (or maybe more) days of non-stop racing, facing extreme temperatures and gruelling terrain on just a couple of hours’ sleep. Only human-powered propulsion is allowed, and your team must get from start to finish by paddling canoes, riding bikes, climbing mountains, abseiling down cliffs or rafting white-water rapids. Still keen? MAIN EVENTS: Adventure racing events range from 2-hour sprint and half-day short course races to week-long expedition events. If you have no AR experience, the best way to get into the sport is by starting off with sprints, thus allowing you to get a feel for the multi-disciplinary nature of the sport. If you’re in the Western Cape, enter the Quantum Adventures Sprint Series. These 2-3 hour races consist of 20km mountainbiking, a 5km trail run and a water discipline (which could be anything from a swim or tube to a kloof scramble). Your next AR step could be a Quantum Adventures Challenge, a short course race covering between 40-60km and taking up to 8hrs to complete. Once you’ve got a few of these under your belt, get ready for one of the Classics (a weekend race of 36 – 60 hours). The Swazi Xtreme is southern Africa’s longest-running adventure race and definitely gets the athletes’ vote as the most popular AR event on the sub-continent. Expect face-offs with Big Five beasties, major cliff jumps, thornveldt treks and scrambles up rugged peaks. DIY AR: Although you could head off on your own multi-sport adventure, this is a sport which lends itself more to a number of teams competing as part of an organised event. Getting a good team together is only half the fun, because now you have to start budgeting for a whole bunch of new toys! For the shorter races, you’ll need a good pair of trail shoes, base-layer shirt, running shorts, rain-proof shell, hydration backpack, hard-tail bike and helmet. Race organisers usually supply paddling and mountaineering gear, or you will be able to rent these for the more technical races. Once you step up to expedition racing level, the list goes ballistic, and soon you’ll need a 4x4 and off-road trailer to transport all the kayaks, PFDs, paddles, carabiners, ice axes, ropes, crampons and tents ...

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Xtreme Adventures