Adventure Junkie

The field was extremely competitive with the winner in the Classic course determined during the final advanced mountain bike leg, with 7 teams racing head to head going into the last leg. 

Greg Ley and Adrian McGregor of team Marshans showed off their outstanding riding abilities and came in first to the finish line.  Family team, Rob and Felix Davis - Tandoori Chickens, dominated in the Novice category. Full results available here>> 

Race HQ greeted teams with ideal racing conditions, with a temperature of 15 degrees and blue skies over scenic Lysterfield Park.

The first Adventure Cup winners are officially Maria Plyashechko and James Pretto in female and male ranking accordingly. They both managed to accumulate the biggest amount of points based on results in three brutal multisport events:  Upper Murray Challenge, East Gippsland Challenge, and Grampians Challenge. 

The full ranking is here>> and we would like to congratulate all participants that took part in the inaugural edition of this unique Series. We hope you have achieved your goals whether it was to finish one leg of a single event, beat your best mate or get on the podium of all three challenges.

PacKraft is proud to have had a relationship with the AR community over the last 2 years. With experience providing lightweight and durable packrafts for adventure races such as X-Marathon, and GODZone, the team at PacKraft have continued re-designing and refining their packraft range based on feedback from members of the AR community.

The newest version of the Duo ADV2 (2-person model) includes a range of improvements over previous models and designs.

The latest ‘Superlight’ material provides stronger and lighter packrafts.  This means you carry less weight, and the packraft also takes up less space due to the more flexible material, while providing a higher tear strength than ever before.

Sorcha had a great season of racing establishing herself as one of the strongest Australian multisport and adventure racing female athletes with convincing victory in the Grampians Challenge.  This is what she said after her race: 

“I have found myself going to the Grampians quite frequently for training because it’s close to where I’m living at the moment, it’s a beautiful place to go to on my days off and has the only hills of any degree I can get to within 2 hrs drive! So I was pretty excited when I found out AJ host a race there. 

The race started with the run and I looked around at the start line and thought, “it’s going to be a hard day!” The field was strong. My vague race intention was to try to get a bit of a gap in the run, try not to lose too much time in the paddle and then go all out in the bike, as it’s my strength. 

Alpine Avengers were undoubtedly in a class of their own at Alpine Quest earlier this year, tackling the monster terrain like a finely tuned machine and taking out the inaugural title. Adventure Junkie recently touched base with the team to quiz them about their preparation, tips and see what they’ve been up to.

What attracted you to Alpine Quest?

Liz: I love the Falls Creek area and it is a favorite destination for good quality training in summer (although I must admit I have never been there in winter). I also know that adventure junkie always put on quality races and so this race was certainly on my radar as soon as it was announced.

2019 marks the 8^thedition of X-Marathon so we decided to look back into the remarkable history of this event. 

At the start of 2011, Serge and Maria, fresh immigrants from Russia, searched adventure racing calendars in Victoria and found there was a gap in the State’s Adventure Racing schedule, actually, there were almost no races scheduled at all.

They thought everyone needs to experience a real adventure, and so Adventure Junkie was born.