Adventure Junkie

Group of four boys and two girls from St Leonards school are getting ready to tackle Snowy Hydro Upper Murray Challenge this year as a team of six. Mark Slykhuis, well known adventure racing and multisport athlete and coach from St Leondards school is leading the team, and promted few questions to them. AJ team is looking forward to support young generation in our events!

Hi Guys, nice to chat to you, what is the reason, why you are doing all this?

'We have been part of the schools adventure racing program for a couple of years now and are keen to take on a tougher challenge where will be required to really test ourselves. The UMC seems like the perfect event with three roughly equally tough legs of mountain-biking, paddling and trail running. Working with our team over the day will require us to support, motivate and encourage each other. Our aim is to complete the event in around 10 hours.'

Led by Jan Leverton Tri Adventure Girls will be one of teams to watch out at the upcoming Alpine Quest Falls Creek event. All girls have different preferences in disciplines but share common vision: to go out, explore, enjoy being outdoors, meet lovely people - this is what makes an amazing team. 

Q: Why do you do adventure races?

Jan: I love the team concept and the opportunity to go into the outdoors and explore places that very few people have been.  

Abbey: Enjoy being out in nature, visiting new places, fitness, the challenge,  meeting others that race as they are genuine and lovely people and good stress relief ☺

We were standing on a shore line as long as we could trying to avoid going into the freezing waters of  Åresjönlake. This is a classic moment when I feel sorry for doing all these races, especially looking into the eyes of my child leaving him with someone else (lucky it was my mom this time). However, there was not much time for reflection, so I jumped into the boat and headed off for a quick warm up.  

Background: Åre Extreme Challenge is Scandinavia's first and oldest multisport adventure race and the Open European Championship in Multisport. It is hold in the stunning ski resort Åre. Tourism there started in 1882 and in 2008 Åre was listed in top 10 world ski resorts. Few MTB races of world level were held there over the years.

While AdventureJunkie team (Serge Kurov and Josh Roy) raced and won the Geoquest-Wildside-Special-Edition-Half course, our friend and known adventurer Tom Chadbourne from Perth was watching online tracking and following social media controversial comments. Tom is the action man, so here are some thoughts which are closely aligned with AJ team thoughts, and already are or will become AdventureJunkie Rules some time soon. We would like to encourage discussion on our FB page, to come up with more defined set of rules and ultimately better events.

A couple of ideas came up after the weekend:

The recently announced Alpine Quest Adventure Race has whipped up a large amount of interest and we are excited to announce that the event which will take place on Australia Day weekend 2019 around the Victorian all season resort of Falls Creek will be the first race of the 2019 Australian A1 Series. 

Registration is open from 1st of June and a Super Early bird price is available for the first 3 days. You need to secure your spot with the deposit and pay the remaining cost during the year.

Tom Chadbourne is one of the most mysterious figures in the contemporary adventure racing circles. Most winning teams consist of people who have been around last 5 years at least with minor exceptions. Vast experience is considered a must have for successful expedition racing when we’re talking about public perception.

When Tom appeared on the podium  of X-Marathon  2017, all what we knew was his WA origin and super fitness. Soon after (in adventure racing terms) he is winning XPD and going to the World Championships this year