The best adventure races in Australia

I competed in my second ever X-Tri on the 23rd February this year at the Australian National Championships held in the beautiful surrounds of Lake Crackenback. I was looking forward to a cruisy race where I could just plod along and have fun with no pressure, as it wasn’t my normal sport of on-road triathlon.

We arrived at Lake Crackenback at 7 am when it was a chilly 2 degrees. Luckily it later warmed up to be a beautiful day. After setting up our gear in transition, we headed to a warm spot in the cafe for an early coffee while waiting for the race briefing and the start.

The race started with the seeded “Open” category, followed at two-minute intervals by the “Age Group” category males and then the females. The swim was a nice 20 degrees, with an abundance of pretty weeds on the bottom to look at while swimming. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself exiting the water after the 1.5km swim several minutes ahead of the next female.

Next step, onto the bike. This bit was great fun, 2 x 15km laps of the single track. There were a couple of slightly technical bits near the start but luckily for me, there was a B line - I’m not super confident on a mountain bike yet! About 5km in the first female passed me and I thought “that’s the last I’ll see of her ...” Not long after this I managed to fall off a bridge into a dry creek bed, the grass was nice and soft though! To cut a long story short I happily cruised along tracks letting others pass as they came along, while only catching a single rider myself.

Into transition 2, then it was onto the run. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect here. It was a lot of fun, running up hills, down hills, across bridges, under bridges, along planks of wood and the best bit into a creek and through the water. About 1km from the finish line I happened to spot the first female, the one who had passed me earlier on the bike leg. I steadily gained on her but she beat me home, and I ended up finishing just 4 seconds behind in 2nd place.

I was super to happy to have a finished a race where I had fun and wasn’t totally exhausted after crossing the finish line. I’m already looking forward to next year and making up that 4 second time difference to try and come first!

Originally published at AdventureCup.com.au