Inspiration
Eight bedraggled, red-faced teens tumbled over one another across the finish line.
Last week, my husband and I had the privilege of accompanying an adventure racing team for a week-long series of challenges. Hubby has been training the team all year and I was the ring-in manager and assistant for the trip.
The Get2Go national finals are like nothing you’ve ever experienced. A maximum of twelve teams of eight students from High Schools across Aotearoa New Zealand, each having won the right to compete at their regional finals earlier in the year.
It’s currently held at Hillary Outdoors in Tongariro National Park, a centre I’m very familiar with as I went there, at age fourteen, with others from my school and I’ve escorted many students there for a week of life-changing activities.
The finals are a series of physical and problem-solving challenges designed to test team spirit and endurance. There’s mountain biking, trail running, orienteering, paddling different watercraft, high ropes, climbing walls, and lots of smaller “games”, from silent communication to passing a ball in a bucket between team members using only their feet.
There are two days of smaller challenges with three in the morning competing against another team and an hour between each for the transition to another site, then an all-in competition in the afternoon when all the teams are racing one another.
The third day was a multi-sport race, which started with paddling on the canal in pairs. Once all eight members had completed the course they ran the next stage while we drove to the transition and set up for the mountain bike stage. Four team members were on the bike course while four stayed in transition to fuel up before switching over when the others completed their circuit.
After all eight complete the biking they head out for the final run stage. They have marked routes and follow the map through rough terrain, ending at their overnight camp, which we set up while they were running.
The fourth day is the longest and the most testing, and it’s worth the most points. It’s a Rogaine challenge, finding marked waypoints on the slopes of Mt Ruapehu. There’s a cut-off time for the teams to return and penalties for every minute over – our team tumbled in a little over time, having raced in appalling weather with limited visibility for seven hours.
There’s another series of challenges on the final day with each team member completing one and all members racing together and selecting the best person for each challenge. We have lunch and prize-giving, then begin the long drive home.
To say it’s a long week is an understatement! I was inspired by the team’s spirit, persistence, and endurance. It reminded me of all I’d learned at the centre so many years ago. My love of the mountains, pushing myself past self-imposed limits and never giving up.
I’m inspired to continue my health journey and return to the mountains. In October of this year, hubby and I were at the same place where the students competed last week. We plan to return next July, in winter, to do a multi-day hike around the mountain and to summit it again. Watching the students, I was reminded of my fortitude and determination to keep rebuilding my strength, fitness, flexibility, and endurance.
Spending time with this amazing group of students in an environment that’s barely changed in the forty years that I’ve been visiting it, I was inspired for the future. These kids are our future leaders and they’ve been touched by the same environment that fostered my deep connection to nature.
For all the ills in the world, there is hope. I see it in all the students who competed last week. They have the strength and endurance, and the connection to nature that will see them reshape our world. Kudos to their parents, congratulations on a job well done.
It was a privilege and an honour to be a tiny part of these young people’s journey, and they’ve inspired me to continue to reshape my own future.