Wulong, China
30 August - 2 September, 2008
The Wulong challenge in China is a special race for me. It was my first international adventure race when I competed in it three years ago with Wayne Oxenham, Carl Bevins and Sonya Clark. That year we won the event and were blown away by the enthusiasm and support of the Chinese locals. 
This year I returned, racing again as team OrionHealth but the other team mates had changed. Racing with me this time were Brent Edwards, Anna Berthelsen and Mark Leishman. Brent and Anna are now part of the usual team OrionHealth and Mark was drafted in at the last minute to replace Wayne who was recovering from an ankle injury. Another change for this year was the competition. In three years the event had gone from a Chinese race with a few mostly pacific region teams to one of the highlights of the international adventure racing calendar with the best teams in the world showing up to compete for part of a US150,000 dollar prize pool. What hadn't changed was the spirit of the race and the local support. A racers race, the organizing team do a great job of making the event enjoyable for the competitors and all throughout the event the local communities line the race course to cheer on the athletes.
Getting to an event can sometimes be as much of an adventure as the event itself although we didn't strike too much trouble this time. Somehow even with bikes and race gear we managed to squeak though check in without excess charges and after an overnight stop in Hong Kong and a 5 hour bus ride from Chongqing we arrived at Fairy Mountain Hotel in Wulong where we were based for the duration of the event. As this was a stage race we would be returning to the hotel each evening where we could have a good meal and shower and prepare for the next day which makes a nice change from non-stop expedition racing.The race consisted of a short prologue of about 1 hour followed by three days of racing with each day lasting around 7 hours. 
With plenty to do checking gear and getting ourselves organized the day of the prologue came around fairly quickly. A sprint compared to what was to come it was still a good way to compare ourselvesto theother teams and blow out some nervous tension. Afterabout40 minutes of intense racing we approached the end of the rafting section with three other teams,NikeUSA, Lafuma and AdventureSport of New Zealand. Only a 200m runto thefinish remained. Adventure sport were a bit cautious exiting the river which held them up. Nike gota small lead and held on to win the prologue while Lafuma narrowly bet us in a sprint for 2nd.
The few seconds difference in prologue results would have little effect on the overall race however it was nice to get a good start and see we were as fast as any other team there. The real race would start the following day so the next task was to get ready for a long day of racing and try to pick from dinner the Chinese food that would be least disagreeable to race on – often not an easy task.
Day one started with a quick run, then we got two bikes which we could share relay style forabout 12km until we could get our remaining two bikes and get started on a tough mountain bike ride with several killer climbs. We made a solid start and by the end of the bike ride where there was a compulsory 15min stop we were in 5th position, about 8 minutes down onthe leaders, Adventure Sport. The following river run was good technical running which suited our team and we made up two places by the time we reached the last major stage for the day, a two hour kayak on flat water. Although kayaking is usually a strength for our team, wehad not been able to practice with Mark who has more of a swimming than a kayaking back ground. This caused us a few problems at first especially as we were in short plastic kayaks that had a tendency to go any way but straight. We lost a place getting ourselves sorted butwere soon on our way again and made good time through the rest of the kayaking. Anna and Brent were then sent to do an exhilarating flying fox ride over the river while Mark and I met them on the other side and we finished the days racing by running through a disco lightlimestone cave. Not quite the natural look but stunning nonetheless. So day one gave us a solid start, not quite going perfectly but we were still well placed in 4th not far behind the leading teams.
Day two started off with a short kayak on the Wulong river. Although there are not many rapids as such on the river, it is very high volume and fast flowing and boils and eddies tend to spring up all over the place. Picking a good line makes a huge difference although the unpredictable nature of the river means this becomes more of an art than a science. We got through that stage well enough and were then onto a trek with about 1000m elevation gain straight up the valley wall. Some of the Chinese food didn't seem to be agreeing with Brent and consequently our pace slowed a bit up the steeper stuff although we got going again well enough once things started to flatten out. The following bike ride was going well until two punctures just short of the rest stop. A frustrating delay as we fixed one flat and we decided to ride the other into the rest stop as it was still holding some air. Luckily it held outand we were able to replace the tube in our compulsory 15 minute rest time.
Immediately after there stop we had a massive abseil off a natural limestone bridge. Making quick work of that we picked up a place that we had lost when we had our punctures and continued on the bikes. Some challenging downhills through farm tracks and corn fields tested the bike skills and we were going well as we hit sealed road near the end of the ride. As fate would have it our bike woes continued and I picked up a 3 inch nail in my front tyre. Somehow the Stans sealant in the tyre kept just enough pressure in to carry on riding and although it made the last few downhills were a bit sketchy we were able to carry on without having to stop to put in a new tube. All that remained for the day was a short caving/run section. The cool water of the cave was a welcome relief after suffering in the heat all day and to make it an even better finish to the day the final 100m or so of climb we could do in an elevator! Despite a few problems during the day we had held on to our overall 4th place although the gaps to the teams in front was widening and the teams behind were closing in a bit. We needed a solid last day to finish well overall.
The last day started at the top of Fairy mountain where we were staying and finished about 1500metres lower in Wulong town. Even so there were going to be some steep ascents both on foot and on bike. From the top though, the only way is down and almost immediately were were scrambling down a ridiculously steep track which would drop us about 700m in the space of a few kilometers. A short swim across a reservoir had to be completed before we could head back uphill again. Mark was finally in his element although having to swim wearing a life jacket didn't really put his Xterra talent to best use. We were racing well to this point however soon a combination of problems started slowing us down. Brent had apparently not shaken off the ailment that had affected him the day before and Mark was being slowed by a worsening knee injury. To make matters worse another two punctures just before the rest stop dropped us even further behind. With 15 minutes to rest we tried to get Brent recovered as best as possible although as he stopped to throw up in front of the crowd as when we left the rest stop it was still going to be a case of nursing the team through to the finish as best we could. With no more running Marks knee injury was not slowing him and between him and myself we were able to give Brent enough towing assistance to keep us going at a reasonable pace. Anna as always was trucking along well and keeping us motivated to keep pushing to the finish.
After a long fun downhill section we reached the end of the bike stage and started on the final long paddle down the Wulong river to the finish. The very last task before finishing was an abseil come flying fox from a bridge into the Wulong river. I'm not sure whether the organizers had fully tested this but as I sped towards the river at what felt like a good 100km/hr I was a little apprehensive to say the least. I braced for the impact and after a few wild bounces over the surface of the river I came to a halt and was able to drag myself to shore. We all got through mostly unscathed (although I had whiplash for a few days after) and sprinted the final couple of hundred metres to the finish. 
We were over half an hour behind the leaders (and overall winners) Adventure Sport NZ on the day and unfortunately dropped three places down to 7th on overall standings. It was a bit of a frustrating way to finish but that's the way it goes sometimes. Despite not finishing as well as we would have liked it had been a great event to compete in, well organized and fun, hard racing. The usual mad rush to get gear cleaned and packed up followed although we did have one extra day to have a look around Chonqing city before catching our flight home. We had a browse of the local produce shops where you could buy anything from dried bat wings to snake skins although in the end we opted to go for McDonald's and Starbucks for lunch. As bad as we felt about not sampling the local delicacies, after a week of Chinese food it really was just what we were after.
All said and done it had been great trip. The race had been well run and exciting, we had caught up with friends from other teams and met new people, been treated like royalty by our hosts and really made to feel welcome. We also got to see a spectacular small slice of China, and had seen great contrasts in the modern high rises of the cities and dirt poor villages in the country. There were large road building and other infrastructure projects where a lot of the work carried out was done by men and women hauling baskets of rocks. Interesting to visit, but it makes you really appreciate coming home to NZ.
A big thanks to our great sponsors who have made it possible for us do do this and other races throughout the world. Hopefully next year we can get the OrionHealth name a bit further up the leader board - #1 would be nice.