Adventure Junkie

We were lucky to have a chat with SOLO winners of Grampians Challenge 2016 Lisa Dominguez and Stewart Bennet about their nutrition and gear strategies. Learn how champions do it and who they are.

Q: We all know you are well developed through all three disciplines, but what is you strongest discipline, and which one is least? What is your sport background?

Lisa: The bike is my strongest leg and I am least experienced in paddling. 

I did athletics as a kid and then moved into field hockey and swimming in high school, then triathlon. I did my first adventure race in 2016.

The Adventure Junkie X-Marathon adventure race is scheduled for Australia Day weekend 25-28th of January in 2018. The coastal village of Marlo in eastern Victoria will host the seventh edition of the event.

Once again teams of fours are invited to explore East Gippsland wilderness in a fully supported, professionally organised expedition style adventure race.  The race organisers supply kayaking equipment and full logistics support, making this event perfectly suited for interstate and international teams.

Trekking, mountain biking and kayaking legs will be the main stages of the course with some additional disciplines to spice up the challenge.  The course will be almost linear with a remote start location and finish at the race HQ.

One of the oldest, hardest and most famous Australian multisport events – Upper Murray Challenge  is on again. 4th of November 2017 is the date and registration is open on uppermurraychallenge.com.au 

Being held since 2003 Upper Murray Challenge race is one of the most competitive and spectacular events in Australia. Nested in the foothills of Mt Kosciousko race course offers stunning mountain views and tough challenging course. The race had been cancelled for two years and now Adventure Junkie with a lot of help of local community are reincarnating it into World class event how it used to be.

Grampians Challenge multisport and trail run registration is open

Once again 17^th of September you are invited to experience magic of Grampians in the multisport and trail running events. The course is set in one of the most dramatic Victorian landscapes- Wartook valley of the Northern Grampians. 

Classic multisport course consisted of 9 km running along spectacular Mackenzie falls walking trail, 10 km of paddling in pristine Wartook lake and 35 km of mountain bike riding along Mt Difficult range would not leave disappointed athletes of all abilities from weekend warriors to super fast guns.

Hail, rain, crazy wind and other 99 teams did not stop Jarad Kohlar and Lisa Dominguez from taking out Sprint Series Adventure race last Sunday.  Kim Willock and Dave Cole were chasing them all the way but small navigational mistake did not let them to beat Jarad and Lisa.

The course was set up in spectacular Lysterfield park, the iconic Melbourne adventure playground with pristine lake,  dedicated mountain bike trails, detailed orienteering map and few hills to negotiate. The weather added few challenges switching on Melbourne classic winter conditions: showers followed by gusts and some sun in between.

After 24,5  hours of  tight racing  team Thunderbolt AR  first crossed  the finish line  in coastal village Metung East Gippsland, Victoria Australia.

This year I was lucky to win a free entry to Kathmandu Coast to Coast World Multisport Championship, the race every multisport/adventure racer should do at least once.  This put me and all our family under a little bit of a pressure, as this race is known to be a hard one in terms of logistics and cut offs. However, despite all challenges I, Serge and our 1,5 year old Alexander made it to Christchurch one week prior the race. I did not manage to put enough hours of training into it, but it is, first of all, about having fun and second, about a result, right? 

Good day and welcome! Here is a long awaited information pack with some details on trekking, mtb, packrafting and white water kayaking stages. We had extended standard entry for another 10 days to give those expecting this info pack to digest and enter the race before 10th of Feb, 23:59 cut off time.

X-Marathon Adventure Race, 3,5 months to go

THE RACE HQ

The 2017 edition HQ is a coastal village Metung located 3 hours drive from Melbourne, 5 hours from Canberra and 8 hours from Sydney. The closest international airport is Melbourne Tullamarine. Metung is located on a narrow peninsula of land separating Bandroft Bay and Lake King. Situated in East Gippsland and ideally place with the surrounding protected waters of the Gippsland lakes. 

For accommodation visit http://www.metungtourism.com.au/accommodation

#1  IGNORE CONTOUR INTERVALS.

Seems like an obvious thing, but quite often we take a map and focus on route planning without paying enough attention to the legend of the  map. Mountainous areas might have 20 (even 50) meter contour intervals which makes it a whole different story, as steep climbing as well as steep descending slows you down dramatically and ultimately leads to a different route choice strategy.

Well it was actually a relatively relaxed pre race having had the logistics planner for the past week or so. Really just meant we spent a lot of extra time packing and repacking and analyzing packing choices.

The prologue and opening ceremony on Tuesday evening was a great chance to mingle with some other teams and partake in some classic Aussie style fun – a handball competition, vegemite sandwich eating competition, beach esky and thong relay and surf life saving flag race. Bit of a laugh before the opening ceremony welcome, complete with Tim Tams and steak sangas.

We had sorted and packed all our gear into tubs and after registering and going through mandatory competencies Wednesday morning, we dropped our tubs and bike boxes off Wednesday evening. Quite civilized really.

Grampians Challenge  2016 updates: new date is announced 

 Previously postponed Grampians Challenge race has finally got a new date. 27^th of November is now confirmed with Parks Victoria. All previous entries are  transferred to the new date and registration is open again for those who could not make a previous date but interested to take part 27^th of November. 

Originally scheduled for 16^th of September  classic multisport race Grampians Challenge was cancelled due to extreme floods in the Northern Grampians. 

Finished first place in 24hrs 27min 15sec (a new record time for Geoquest apparently)

This was the team’s first hit out since Godzone and we had finally recovered from that epic expedition and were excited and ready to race together again.

• Hugh Stodart – team captain and chief navigator
• Serge Kurov – second navigator on foot
• Josh Street – backup bike navigator, team welfare captain and general packhorse/strongman/fix-it-guy
• Bernadette Dornom – “token chick” (and primary author in case you were wondering)

"It looked pretty straight forward on the maps, but reality proved different with lots of fresh and old unmarked logging roads etc keeping everyone guessing.  Even the MTB park map was incomplete." - enjoy team AdventureJunkie.com.au story, epic jorney through New Zealand wilderness in 4.5 days, prepared by Bern Dornom and Hugh Stodard!

The X-Marathon adventure race, which was held in the Victorian High Country over the last four years, is moving to the Gippsland area and changing its format from 24 hour event to 36 hour fully supported expedition event.

The event is suitable for experienced adventure racers from across Australia and New Zealand and is expected to be accessible for intermediate races and beginners who wish to get a taste of real adventure racing with all its highs and lows.

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Ok, it is time to reveal our secret training weaponry! There were lots of questions on schedule and the details, here we go - schedule is firmed up and is available at official Advanced Training Page. 

We stick to beautiful country accommodation, Assess Ears Lodge, as our base for those two intensely charged days. On Fri everyone is expected to arrive any time after 7 pm  and get ready for Saturday, that's all. We will meet you at cosy dinning lodge with wood fireplace.

Next day adventure begins.

Brief facts about a race - Wengzhou Adventure Challenge, one of the most prestigious adventure races in China, 4-day stage event, with daily distances around 70-90km. Prize money $150000, distributed among first 12 teams of four. 30 teams, about 22-23 foreign ones and quite strong local Chinese teams is the rest.
Some facts about the team Adventure Junkie - Serge Kurov & Maria Plyshechko, Adventure Junkie full-time crew from Melbourne, VIC; Alex Hunt from Hobart, TAS; Sam Stedman from Townsville, QLD. We have been racing together before for a few times, we working great as a team and our mind is set on the result. It is easy, when goals are clear and the same for everyone in the team.

It’s 07:00 on a cold and wet Sunday morning in November 2013 and I found myself sitting in my car at Brimbank Park in Keilor, a north western suburb of Melbourne. I am feeling overwhelmed and nervous thinking, as I take in my surroundings, that I am in way over my head, that I am out of my depth, I am outclassed, out equipped and I’m about to be exposed as the fraud and pretender that I really am.

I am fighting that voice inside my head that is screaming at me that I don’t belong, that I’m not good enough, don’t know what I am doing and that I don’t have the right or what it takes to be a part of that which lies before me this day.

Adventure Racing, in particular Mark Burnett’s Eco Challenge is the reason I run today.

When I first saw Eco Challenge Australia on TV sometime in the late 90′s or early 2000s, something stirred within me, something raw and natural came to life, emotions were awakened and life seemed to take on new meaning, it’s purpose made clear.

Adventure!  Life was to be an adventure, it was to be lived, enjoyed, explored and conquered!

Australian Multisport Championships
The idea to race the Freycinet Lodge Challenge has been with me probably from the first time heard about it: two days of racing in one of the most spectacular regions of Australia sounded absolutely fantastic.
Most of our fellow adventure racers were there, bringing back great memories and stories, so the Australian Multisport Champs was on the must do list for a long time. Race headquarters was located at the Freycinet Lodge at Coles bay Tasmania, a place of exceptional beauty with stunning views of the granite peaks of The Hazards, white sand and blue sea including Wineglass Bay (voted by several travel authorities as one of the world’s ten best beaches). 

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