Jan 23 – 25 MAGNIficent Prep

We woke to rain and grey skies, something that was a welcome change from the intense heat and sun we’d been dealing with. I was seriously getting worried about heat issues for the race during the sunny days, while the nights drop back to the high 40’s! I ended up buying some sun sleeves to wear (Conan, I’m trying to protect your artwork!!) We decided to take a wander into Lumsden and find a spot for breakfast, not a ton of options being so small, but the cafe was open. I think we visited every shop that was open on the strip, supporting small businesses. Steve got a new wide brimmed hat to protect his ears from the Death Star in the sky, a “new” mug from the charity shop, and I found some cute local crafted earrings!

We finally had the whole team together in person so we took the opportunity to do some simple race practice. There are stages where we will be carrying our rafting gear for miles up and down mountains, so we loaded up and went out for a short two mile hike. I swear the 30 lbs felt lighter than what we back packed around Stewart Island! Up next was the less comfy and more challenging to rig, attach our bikes to the backpacks and hike. Our team is not exactly on the tall side but we made it work!

We were emailed a pdf course overview map and spent a couple of hours digesting the size of the course and the different legs. We will get the actual start maps at check in on Saturday!

Friday was spent prepping food and doing some last minute race practice. Steve and I are planning on 150 calories per hr for the race, so trying to find 21,000 calories of things that will taste good and sit well on the tummy by day 4 is a challenge! We are relying on some new things, particularly the freeze dried smoothies and the Real Meals for TA’s.

For the training today, Olga found a bike trail and the river parallel to it for us to practice boats on bikes and bikes on boats. I think it went really well, no one lost a bike and no boats were punctured!