Adventure Junkie

Adventure Junkie 8hr Race @ Nagambie!!!

Karina The countdown is on, 2 weeks to go, perfect timing to have a good hit out in one of Adventure Junkie's fantastic Victorian events, 8hrs of fun adventure in Nagambie!!!

Mike and Angus teamed up together and with Paul away skiing and Phlip out injured, I had a new partner in crime in Sophie. With my weakness being kayaking and Sophie being a gun Kayaker, I was quite excited to hit the start line.

Rogaining World Championships

Serge and Maria finished 10th in Mixed Category in World Rogaining Championships 2013.

We went to our homeland Russia, this year for a month in July not only to visit our families and see friends but we also kept in mind World Rogaining Championships hosted this year in Pskov region. This area is known to be an orienteering mecca for ages, having pretty much 'Scandinavian" - style landscape. I think it was one of the hardest terrains to navigate through, with numerous 5 to 15 meter depressions randomly distributed through the forest without any system except ridgelines and depressions directions; multiple marshes, bogs and impassable water bodies.

Geoquest 2013 by Serge Kurov

It was my second Geoquest and probably around 10th smaller (30-50hours) expedition race. I’ve got a spot in a very good team again with Hugh Stodart, and Sam Stedman and Jenny Roberts from Townsville. It is amazing how team got formed, from different and so remote spots. I’ve raced twice with Hugh both times quite successfully with 10th place finish at 2011 AR World Championships in Tassie and 13th at 2012 Ordos Adventure Quest in China.

Peak Adventure Junkie in China

26-28 of April Team Peak Adventure Junkie is racing in Chinese Baise Leye Outdoor Quest.

Team consists of Jarad Kohlar, Ian Franzke, Serge Kurov and Maria Plyashechko.

It's three days stage race through the mountainous and quite picturesque region of Guahgxi Province.

Course is divided into 3 stages, the total distance is 220 km.

Disciplines include running, mountain biking, kayaking, rope related activities (abseil or zip line), some puzzle solving and Chinese national games.

There is other very competitive Australian team Moxie Gear/ Nuun racing: Deanna Blegg, Darren Clarke, Tim Boote and Alex Hunt.

Besides, overall field looks good: Thule team (France, NZ, Sweden), FJS (competitive and very experienced Swedish team), Latvian team Ebike.lv, French team Merrell VP, traditionally strong Chinese teams.

MSS Lilydale'13 Final instructions and team list

Hope everyone is as excited as Adventure Junkie team about first MSS race in the season at Lilydale coming this Sunday! Heaps of fun, light and fast course is waiting for you out there. A few fresh ideas AJ put together for you - something that never been out is gonna hit the Lilydale tracks this Sunday!

Final event instructions could be downloaded here >>>

Team list looks quite impressive here >>>

Also check out Lilydale race scheme and 'timing' here >>>

Equipment and everything else is pretty standard, though specifically for Lilydale race it is very important to have pe or pencil as apart of your equipment; as well mountain biking course is not technical and could be ridden on commuter bike. Road bikes are not recommended.

There is still a chance to register >>> up until Friday night, do not hesitate - see you out there!!!

Upper Murray Challenge

Well, we’ve just gotten back from UMC – the Upper Murray Challenge. Have you ever done it? It is multisport event with marked course, 38km MTB, 25 km downriver kayaking and 25 km run over the top of mount Elisa.

On Friday at 15:50, we jumped on the bike, rode from the office to the carpark, packed the bike in car with Maria already ready to drive. Going as fast as we could, by 4:05 we were driving out of the city. Every minute counts , so if you are stuck for 5 minutes or more in the city ,the drive afterwardswill take 20 minutes longer as the traffic gets worse and worse!

Ordos Outdoor Challenge began (for me at least) rushing frantically to the airport on a cold Tasmanian afternoon while remembering all the things I had forgotten on the way (a sleeping bag being the number one concern).From here I flew to Melbourne meeting up with Serge and Maria, and after briefly being held up by security for each having far too much hand luggage we began our convoluted journey to Ordos. We took a stop at Guangzhou, a night in Shanghai, where we had a little poke around this extraordinary city and another stop in Zengzhou before finally arriving.

Wild Traverse distance testing report

I’ve been out testing the intended Wild Traverse course last weekend, which resulted in me cutting the distance for the first day and simplification of the course for the second day.

As first day was too much bush-bashing, we will add some roads in the middle to split the course into two parts and make it more enjoyable. Although the original idea is to push people into the wild bush and let them sort out how to get out, it was simply too much. We want you to enjoy it!!

A first issue for me was a heavy backpack. This was partially because I had lots of water and food, unlike you guys who will benefit from water points during the course and BBQ dinner at the Midcamp. We do however recommend that you carry as much water as you can bear and have at least 3 liter blabber, especially if it’s hot. There are creeks later in the course but purification is recommended. Now, the important thing I do need to highlight – it is highly recommended for the event is to have fly repellent!

So, to the distances! Bearing in mind I walked all the way, carried excessive water, what was my average speed, how much elevation, what was the overall time?

Lysterfield Sprint Series'12 summary

Results >>>

Photos >>> (More photos sorted by team number are available from results page - just click team name link)

New Interview with overall race winners team Hammertime Andrew Baker and Brett Jacobi here>>>

More photos are available on our Facebook page >>>

Hope, you all enjoyed the race and we're looking forward to see you again! The next adventure scheduled is Winter Challenge 18th of August, Nagambie, VIC.

Godzone Interview with Hugh Stodart and Brendan Hills

This is cross-interview with Brendan Hills from team Asses Ears Bites Back and Hugh Stodart from team City Bike Depot.

1. Tell us few words about your teams, strong and weak sides, please. There were new members in both teams, and some jumped in literally last week. How did you find each other, was it easy to be on the same page with new people you‘ve never raced before?

Brendan: Our team, AEBB, was Lloyd, Doug, Mary and Brendan. Mary, an Irish girl from Wellington, joined the team fairly late, but with enough time that we were able to set up one trans-Tasman training session. We discussed our team goals a lot before we arrived in Queenstown, so I think we were pretty much on the same page by the time we started. Our ambition was to finish ranked, stay uninjured, and still be friends afterwards. It doesn’t sound like much, but in expedition adventure racing, you can’t take any of those three things for granted.

Hugh: Our team had never raced together before, but we ended up with a reasonable mix of skills and a good match of speed. Given we had come together at the last minute and we all had similar expectations about having a good crack and just seeing how we went, we also ended up with a pretty relaxed attitude which made getting ready and racing good fun.

The opening day of the 3 day stage race in China started with a 80 minute high paced Prologue, followed by a 45 min rest and then Race #1, which lasted 4:50 hours. Temperatures were near 30 C plus and the sun was burning hot. Adventure Junkie had a strong start to there first race overseas in this team and in China with a 6th place in the Prologue and a 9th place in Stage 1 giving them 7th place overall. The day’s highlight was the opportunity to race on the local tricycle.

Lilydale Melbourne Sprint Race report

Results >>>

Photos >>>

31 of March Adventure Junkie brought into life another Series of adventure races around Melbourne. Although the Junkies 2011 races reputation is delivering tough and ultimate challenges, this race series are achievable by inexperienced people who just stepped into adventure racing and even have no experience with orienteering, mountain biking and kayaking at all.

Patagonian Expedition Race 2012

“Absolutely amazing race, impossible to compare with any races which I’ve done before”- Maria Plyashechko, after completing the Patagonian Expedition Race, 2012.

After 6 years of racing, I eventually got there - to the finish line of the Patagonian Expedition Race; the Last Wild Race, the adventure at the end of the World. What else to say…. I have been dreaming about it since the moment when I first heard about adventure races.

The place and course.

All updates are by Chilean time, -14 hours to Melbourne time. Refer to the race overview Map below for CP locations >>>

Sat 25 Feb:

Congratulations to team Red Fox Gore-Tex with successful finish and 9th place in Patagonia Expedition Race 2012!

Maria: "Here we go! One day later than planned cruise boat loaded with finishers reached Punta Arenas. It's really hard to imagine how far we were- travelling from the finish took us nearly two days. Race is absolutely amazing. If you, guys, still do not have plans for the next February strongly recommended! The best race I've ever done! Absolutely exited."

Adventure Junkie X-Marathon adventure race Victoria 17/18 December, 2011 (published on Sleepmonsters.com >>>)

The new kids on the block in Australian adventure race organisation, Victorian-based Adventure Junkie, followed up from their winter one day race with their first 24hr event. Maria Plyashechko and Sergey Kurov are two very experienced adventure racers from Russia who have relocated to Melbourne. Maria also has considerable event planning experience from Europe, and they bring some fresh ideas to the Australian AR scene. For their X-Marathon weekend there was a choice of 4hr Lite course, 12hr Adventure course or 24hr Pro course. The latter attracted a small field but five of the 12 teams had members who were in top 10 teams from the recent World Champs held in Tasmania.

And the winners are...

It was an epic weekend for everyone raced X-Marathon 2011. Course was really challenging even for experienced racers.

Overall Pro course winners are Jarad Kohlar and James Pretto (team PeakAdventure) who absolutely smashed it from the very beginning. They were closely followed by another elite team Blackheart with (Rob Preston and Kathryn Ewels). Thule Adventure team (Jacky Boisset and Myriam Guillot) finished third.

Lite course winners are ladies from Micky's Fitness- Deanna Blegg, one of the strongest Australian adventure racers, and Erica Marr, first time racer.

Team Iggle Piggle and Macca Pacca with Joel Deans and Dean Murray beat everyone in Adventure course category. Well done to all other teams!

Final Results and Splits are available.

Photos are available here>>>

X-Marathon final instructions available

X-Marathon final instructions are now available. There were a few changes in equipment list highlighted below:

- It is mandatory to have for safety reasons to have Mobile phone (Telstra) in waterproof bag with full charge switched on during the race per team

- It is essential to have good waterproof bike computer, for Pro course it is also recommended to have two good bike computers per team for redundancy

- For everyone it is highly recommended to have pencil and ruler for Adventure Rogaine.

FAQ - X-Marathon

Q: What happen if team finished after Cut-off time?

A: Cut-off time is 24, 12, 4 hours for Pro, Adventure and Lite courses respectively. Teams finishing late will be penalised. 4 extra minutes for every started minute after Cut-off. It means that if you doing Lite course for example and you come up to finish 4 minutes 30 seconds later than 4 hours after the race start your result will be 4:24:30. Teams finishing more than thirty minutes late will be disqualified.

Q: Will it be any cut-off times in the middle of the course?

A: Yes, it will be cut-off times for certain stages outlined at the course description distributed along with maps and other race info. These cut-offs mean you will go short course. If short course is not described in Race documents distributed at the start, officials will let you know which check points to skip.

Q: Can one of our team do not paddle or run or ride?

A: No.Team should stay together along the entire course.

Winter Challenge 2011 is over, but this is just a beginning!

Race is over, all teams crossed the finish line. Final results are now published and available here >>>

Photos are available >>> and video is coming very shortly.

Thanks everyone for coming and making this event happened!!!

8-hour Winter Challenge - The Race That Met Expectations...

Rushworth and Waranga Basin was the location of the 8-hour Winter Challenge organised by new Melbourne-based adventure race company “Adventure Junkie” - Maria and Serge. Expectations of the race were set high with promised electronic timing and checkpoints placed in correct positions and………….. YES they delivered.

The maps were accurate and with added touches including pre-lamination of the larger scale map for the kayak stage and two sets of every map per team, competitors enjoyed the navigation as well as the riding/biking/kayaking in a beautiful part of country Victoria.

The pace was quick from the onset with a 12km paddle via three checkpoints for those on the Pro course.

Kayak hire from PeakAdventure is available!

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