2024 was a great year for the Mountain Designs Wild Women, starting off with our historical win at the ARWS Oceania Legend Expedition Adventure Race .....
https://www.sleepmonsters.com/news.php?rticle_id=7219
..... and later our best result ever at GeoQuest where we entered two teams with one of the Mountain Designs Wild Women teams finishing on the podium - a first for an all-female team.
Jan and Kim then travelled to Canada to race in the Adventure Immersion Lab Raid the Rockies 4 Day Stage Race where we raced as Tri Adventure Aunties and surprised ourselves with a win in the all-female category! We were certainly out of our comfort zones many times but were able to rely on our experience and navigation skills to get through to the finish every day of racing.
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| The Finish of Day 4 - Stage 4 - Raid the Rockies 2024 |
Hells Bells was the next event on the calendar for the Mountain Designs Wild Women - we probably did not have our best result ever, but we had a great time. It was the first Hells Bells for Ashild and a great opportunity to race with Cass and Nicola together in preparation for Ironbound Malaysia later in the year.
The year was not over yet....so here is how the Mountain Deigns Wild Women finished off 2024.
October - Wild Women Adventure Race 2024
Mountain Designs once again were the major sponsors for the
Wild Women Adventure Race, and it just so happened the top three teams were
made up of some of the Mountain Designs Wild Women.
1st Nicola Jelinek and Ashild Kridge
2nd Cass Kimlin & Ali Wright
3rd Katie Booth
Here are some insights from Ashild and Cass following the event.
Ashild Kridge
I still get the biggest smile on my face when thinking back
to this year’s WW race. I had SO much fun thanks to the extremely well-prepared
and organised yet casual-feel vibe of the race, the smoothness in which
everything ran, the awesome volunteers who are always so happy to help, and of
course my awesome and hilarious partner Nicola. We do make a great team on so
many levels 😆
- Strategy- we definitely wanted to clear the course and thought we could do it if we could nail the navigation. As we are both rather inexperienced navigators we tried our best to remember what all the amazing navigators we have raced with over the past years have taught us. Our main strategy was to pick directions of entry to the checkpoints where the maps provided the best guidance, ie have concrete guides on the map. This might mean having to pick a slightly longer route but it paid off (most of the time 😆)
- Navigation - since navigation is our weakest link we decided to take turns to navigate and to make sure we would give each other plenty of time for this task. This failed at the first bike checkpoint when we (with myself in charge!) flew straight past the flag and down the hill on the other side (my contour reading of the map was not up to scratch 😆) we decided Nicola would take over and we worked together to figure out the best way forward. Surprisingly, the on- road bike navigation was where we stuffed up throughout the race as we did not consider the map scales and the short distances between checkpoints in combination with our high bike speed when estimating distances. We nailed that track navigation though by making sure we used our planned strategy from the start.
- The Course - The course was brilliant! I loved the varied terrains, beautiful scenery, and of course, the hills!! Completely up my alley!! My only slightly challenging/scary part was when I got hooked by a fishing hook after paddling under the bridge near the kayaking TA. Two young guys were standing on the bridge fishing and I was centimetres away from getting the hook caught in my chin, just managing to grab it before it touched nicely to the side of my mouth 😳😅
So, to all those newbies out there wondering if AR is
something for you; give it a go, as it will give you so much more than just the
mere beauty of being out there in nature racing.
Thank you, Jan and Kim at Tri Adventure for all you do!
Cass Kimlin
This year I raced with Ali Wright, we both love the Wild
Women AR as it’s so much fun racing in an all female environment and to just
see so many women out there smiling and having fun! Congratulations to Ashild
and Nicola on the win.
- Strategy
on treks - we used a combination of on and off track nav to get around the
trek stages. We had a couple of options during the treks where we
scoped out the vegetation thickness before we committed to going off
track. I'm still scared from that last trek in the 2023 edition where we
decided to bush bash.....
- Navigation - the navigation this year was much harder than the last couple of races and I was very happy with that. Its so much more satisfying finding off track CP's.
- Course - I really liked the course. It was a nice mix of disciplines and flowed really well. My favourite leg was the Mt Ninderry trek. This was only a short leg on paper, but it packed a punch with a lot of sneaky elevation. Even though I've done quite a bit of training in this area, there were lots of places I'd never been before.
- Tips/advice
- Practice your nav - get along to some of the Tri Adventure training
days, Night Nav events or MTBO events. You'll meet some amazing people at
these events too, who are more than willing to answer any questions you
have.
Looking forward to next year already, so we hope to see you
there. If you are in the Maryborough / Hervey Bay area, feel free to get in
touch as it’s always so much fun to share our adventures with friends!
November - Ironbound Malaysia 2024 - Report by Nicola Jelenik
Our team of 4 came together with
Cass; navigator extraordinaire and team captain, Ashild; athletic super women,
Eibhlin; who I had never raced with, however quickly realised she would keep us
(me) inline, and I could listen to her Irish accent all day no matter what she
said. A great team, I was super excited about this race.
Getting to the start line is
often the hardest part of adventure racing; organising gear, families and work
etc. Our flights were booked, a few of us arriving earlier to explore Penang
Island. Then a week before flying we find out that tragically both Cass and
Ashild cannot race. With such
heartbreaking events racing seemed far away and no longer important, however
Eibhlin remained keen, and I decided we should still race. It was unclear if we were able race the 48hr,
or have to do the 12hr option as a team of only 2 up until the day before when
Sham the race director said we could choose.
So, the 48hr it was.
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| Nicola and Eibhlin - ready to race! |
After a couple of days at the race accommodation with the usual preparations of sorting more gear/food, mandatory gear checks, race briefing, and map handout we were feeling nervous but excited to race. Eibhlin had discovered a young youtuber on navigation and was cramming in extra nav practice.
Preparing the 18 maps didn’t
leave much time to sleep that night.
Although we were both worried about the navigation in general, the
course looked fairly straightforward…apart from the 40km paddle predicted to be
at night on a large river with many channels and islands. CP19 looked particularly difficult, and we
had happily crossed it off as being unobtainable, however we kept the map ‘just
in case’. We also planned a portage to shorten and simplify the paddle.
We needed to be at the start line
at midnight for a 1.00am start as ‘dignitaries’ were visiting. The start was
eventful with both Eibhlin and I needing to race back to our rooms, me in the
last minutes realising that I had inadvertently taken off the all-important
control punch with a last-minute change of clothes to something cooler. Even at midnight it was very warm and humid.
The first leg was a 123km bike
and with nerves and adrenalin pumping it was hectic with all 23 teams squeezing
on to a narrow road, with a few people crashing which we managed to avoid. We took our time to navigate correctly but
rode steady and solid which seemed to be our motto for the race. After a quick
83km of bitumen, the track quickly turned into soft clay with long ‘hike-a-bike’
sections. We caught up with a Malaysian team who told us it’s better to travel
in larger numbers if we come across elephants and/or tigers, and there
certainly was a lot of elephant poo around, so we stuck with them. A few quick stops to fill up with fresh
running water, to which we diligently added the electrolytes needed to complete
the predicted 12hr leg with such high humidity.
CPs proved to be quite obvious
with many local ‘marshals’ gathered or camped around the flags. We navigated
half a map each to avoid having to stop so frequently to rearrange our map
boards. Our pedals were completely
jammed with clay, therefore unable to clip in and my shoe was falling to
pieces. It got completely left behind stuck in the mud a few times. Our bikes however held up, only needing to
tighten my head stem and Eibhlin’s map board.
We did give them a wash in the river and re-lubed the chain which felt
wonderful. Just before TA1 we had the
most delicious ‘kalapa muda’ (young coconut) to drink with ice at a roadside
stall. Just what we needed before embarking on the 7km trek and mystery
challenge.
The trek included a very steep
& slippery mountain and a large limestone cave system, both requiring ropes
to prevent us from slipping away. At one point we lost our way in the cave and
I was left dangling in the dark. Eibhlin
came to the rescue with lights showing the way out. The mystery challenge was to de-husk a
coconut which Eibhlin nailed, and we got to drink another – yum!
Back on the bike for a short ride
to the dreaded paddle leg. Amazingly
though, the sun was still high, so it was a quick transition to make the most
of the remaining daylight hours. The
river was wide with a fair flow. There
was also current in the smaller channels, so we changed our route choice to a
shorter way that would be easy to navigate in daylight. We had already decided that we had to go for
CP 19 – there was no question, we had to do it for Cass and Ashild (lucky we
had the maps). We were traveling really well
until darkness hit. We had a convenient
stop under the shelter at CP 19 during a massive rain squall, then paddled back
out the channel through the large lily pads and then got completely
disorientated. We could not find our
bearing, ended up amongst more lily pads, then managed to paddle out but were
still confused. After spotting a light
in the distance we decided to head for it, thinking it was a house, however to
our surprise it was another team. A
Malaysian team who could tell us where we were on the map - phew we didn’t need
to drift around till morning light! It
was an eventful paddle spotting a group of endangered Malaysian Tapirs in the
shallows.
At CP 20 we stuck to our plan of
portaging the kayak 1.4km to avoid getting lost in the river maze again. After a few gut sinking incidents – not being
able to find the track to river and then coming to 10m drop-off above the water,
we found a way down to the river edge and re-launched the kayak. After
collecting the last few kayak CPs it was on to the zip line and 20km trek.
The zipline was across the water was
quite saggy, which meant a very fast descent to a stop with feet dangling in
the water and needing to pull ourselves out gripping the overhead wire until
someone could throw us a rope to pull us up on to the bank. By this time our hands were extremely tender
even with gloves on. The trek was again
up a very steep slippery mountain to a site of old aeroplane wreckage, then
once down we found some energy to pick up the pace to jog for the remaining
CPs.
Almost home – the final leg was
an abseil off a pretty high bridge and then a swim with our packs, harnesses
and PFDs etc. to the finish line. I was
surprised the find the abseil rope ended a few meters above water, so needed to
just drop in. Up the bank on the other
side we ran to the finish line with big smiles.
We’d had a great race – lots of laughs, super friendly locals/event crew
and the best team mate…so much grit and determination!!
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| Winning Female Team (unranked because only 2 and female) |
We placed 1st female and 7th overall, out of 23 teams coming from Malaysia, New Zealand, India, Japan and Australia. Great to see so many young Malaysians racing. This race is held every 2 years in alternating locations. The 2026 edition will be in Langkawi, and yes I’ll be there if able. Thank- you to Mountain Designs for the best race socks and lightweight mandatory rain jacket.
Nicola Jelinek
December - Not Packrafting the Mary!
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| No packrafting today! |
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| Charlie Moreland - Flooded |
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| Hiking through tall trees! |
