GODZone
Merrell Didn't Come Here To Die
Press Release / 06.03.2018
"Jane, did you say the P word!?" Grant’s voice rose to a pitch.
She did.
Talk had inevitably got around to what they wanted to eat in two days time, and the guys all concurred.
“Yes. Pizza for starter. Then chicken pasta. And a steak.” Said Stefan going off in a trance. “I’m going to be borrowing clothes from my kids when we get back, I’ve lot so much weight.”
(It’s all there, just slipped down to his cankles.)
Since yesterday they had been rationing themselves to a bite of something every 90 minutes and had been given a stash of bars by a Pursuit team who were on a shorter course. These they ate all at once. Probably the best advert for the friendliness of Kiwis was the woman standing outside a hut by one of the rivers who handed them mugs of fresh deer soup which her husband had hunted (a racer never tells).
On arrival in TA all teams were given packs of Back Country meals. After 150km leg that took 3,5days these were devoured. Despite the team being sponsored by Back Country Cuisine and so having already enjoyed many varieties of their flavours since the Start, this particular one tasted better than any pizza.
The whitewater rapids on the Whairaurahiri river were spectacularly fun. The person who had fallen out of his packraft previously, did it again, taking Stefan with him. Twice.
Remember when he had made someone else take the spare set of maps in case he went off a cliff?
That’s good captaincy. Because the set they were using went whitewater sinking.
The section up from CP16 was just horrible through the thick forest. Like many other teams once they got CP17 they decided to come back down and take the longer coastal route and go back up to CP18 rather than try and do the ridge up in the dark. It was Grant who was doing most of the nav on this section, and well done to him. The front teams with the best navigators in the sport had all commented on it, loving the challenge of such difficult terrain – no attack points to use and bluffs everywhere.
I asked Jane if she was ever worried about losing the rest of the team and being left with no way out. “Yes. But sometimes I want to.” She laughed. I have my sleeping bag and warm stuff and I could just curl up.”
“Damn you, you heavy pack” Grant said, but quite fondly, as he finally got to chuck it down on arrival in TA at 20h15. The discussion then was whether to curl up then or continue and find a spot later on. In order to continue on the Full Course they must leave by 1am or be short cut and unranked. Its so difficult to arrive at night and not curl up and in their sleepy, less-than-coherent manner they spent a good 20 minutes talking about this before they agreed to sleep until midnight.
First, they also agreed, they must have their bikes assembled and everything ready to get up and go. “Get stuff together, Sleep and Go. No pressing the Snooze button.” Jane instructed.
And then the faffed around.
Always crazy to watch how many trips someone very tired can make between their open bike box and their bag and the food box and how many times they can look at the list of things they need to pack for the next leg. And how long it takes to get a shirt off. And how many times they say the same things to each other.
As Mama Duck I told Stef to see the medic, which he waved away saying “I want to do my bike” and I said “I don’t want you to die.” To which he and Grant turned to each other and chorused “I didn’t come here to die. I come here yes-ter-die.”
So yes, for all of you wondering, the sense of humour is still here amongst them. They are all in much better spirits, having settled into the norm of continuous movement and are all comparatively healthy.
All four had a visit with the doctors, who’ve been run off their own feet treating rather revolting ones as they stumble in after more than three days ‘out there’.
The wet forest was brutal, unwelcoming, terrain, clutching and grabbing the invaders and the ‘flat, easy coastal track’ is now a 61km bog of knee-deep mud after 100 people have trudged through it. So amongst all the teams trench foot abounds and arms are scratched. Jane had a blister attended to and was slathered all over with orange betadine, so left the room looking far worse than she entered while Grant sat chatting with his toes in the medical corner - “Where did you come from, you little fungal?”
Stefan was handed a course of antibiotics for his fat legs and was horrified to hear the medics discussing his cellulitis – until they explained that’s a skin thing.
Tweet’s feet, however (which were so bad in the Pantanal the doctors refused to let him leave the TA and had him on an antibiotic drip) were absolutely fine. Until he ripped his big toenail almost off moving his bike box.
Then HE said the P word.
SleepMonsters
