10th Place in New Zealand for Adventure Racing
Posted on May 22, 2019
At the start of Term Two Mr Hey and Mrs Durham took a team of eight students to represent Macleans College in the Hillary Challenge: the national event for secondary schools adventure racing.
To qualify for this event schools needed to finish in the top twelve in the North and South Island qualifying races. The event lasted five days and was extremely physically and mentally demanding.
The team performed very well in the diverse problem solving challenges during the first two days. Battling continuous rain and biting cold they had to work together in challenges that included: bike skills, orienteering, rock climbing, building a kayak bridge, mountain biking, a tough mud challenge while carrying a 50kg concrete block, paddle boarding, a blindfolded team challenge and many others. This prepared the students for the intensity of the activities to follow.
The following two days consisted of a foot expedition style race carrying 25-35 kilogram packs. The first part consisted of 12kms of dense forest, limestone caving systems, rivers and steep terrain. A gruelling day ended with making camp on a cold night with only a pair of tent flies for shelter. The camp was packed up very early the following morning and the team was driven to the Chateau Ruapehu for the second leg of the expedition. The team completed 21kms on foot with packs and improved their overall placing in the competition.
The final day of competition was a 50km multi-sport race. The team had to assemble a raft of two kayaks and a canoe and travel 6kms on the water. The team fell back during this section but recovered during the 10kms first foot leg and were only a minute behind at the transition. On the bike leg a few teams were overtaken and three teams arrived together at the final transition. The team hardly stopped at the transition, determined to keep up with the competition. They pushed hard to the finish, proud of their accomplishment.
The event was followed by an announcement of the results and prize giving. The Macleans College team placed 10th out of the twelve qualifying teams. This is a remarkable effort considering the toughness of the course and the competition.
The focus is now to qualify for the 2020 Hillary Challenge final. The experience gained by the team members this year will stand them in good stead for next year.
The team consisted of Emma Hjorth (Mansfield House), Matthew Wilson (Kupe), Connor McLeay (Snell), Nico Muller (Kupe), Shelley Pfister (Snell), Amelia Winstone (Kupe), Elizabeth Koh (Upham) and Jonathan Li (Snell).
