Kinetic Adventure

reports260909_1Team Gijima | This race started at the outskirts of the city and after a quick view at Google maps we realized that it will take us more on gravel roads than the previous race. Our game plan was clear, and we decided beforehand to do the long run first, thereafter the long bike and lastly our weak point: Navigation!

At race briefing we realised that our predeinfed game plan contained no long run leg like the previous race, but a Virgin Active challenge instead. We adapted, there and then, and decided to do the run orienteering first, which ended up being a rogaine. Now the first rule of rogaining is: Sit down and plan your route! We disobeyed this important rule early in the race when all teams were running around. The pressure was on! We made terrible mistakes by not planning our route beforehand and lost a couple of minutes.

Again we intended to do the bike rally first and thereafter the navigation leg, but somehow we got the navigation map and started off fast, maybe too fast. The first checkpoint is always the hardest to find. After ten minutes of building confidence that we were on the correct road, besides the lack of street names, we rushed through the course with no problem and caught up with many teams.

The bike rally was fast and easy and we managed to overtake the first mixed pair easily. Some teams in front miss-navigated on this leg and it was very satisfying on our way to each checkpoint with confidence.

The Virgin Active challenge was indeed a test of our fitness levels, which we passed with flying colours with Landie’s 3:30 min/km run and Christiaan’s 3:35 rowing. If we only knew this was a challenge we would have pushed it to our mac. In future, do not cycle on level 12!

With no expectations, after a couple of navigation errors, we still managed to finish as the first mixed pair.

Thank you for your professional way of race organising. Thanks to all the sponsors who made this fun day possible and a big thank you to LTS who sponsored one of the Gijima teams. We are looking forward to the next Kinetic Urban race in November!