Step Training

With new team member Dean keen to go  - we tackled a 15 km loop in the upper mountains last Sunday - up and down the cliff line a few times, not a big distance BUT lots of steep steps - affectionately known as "the steeps".  

Dean on Furber Steps

And just to make the day great - Carey joined us for her first training day in 6 months.  

She has weathered chemo and radiotherapy for Breast Cancer and has started her XPD 2013 campaign.  She can't race with us this year but has decided to volunteer so she can still be part of the adventure!  

Carey hopes to be out in some remote checkpoint or on a roping section in the Flinders.

Awesome effort by Carey after suffering 4 months of toxins!

Paddy Pallin 6 Hour Rogaine

Our first event as a Team was the Paddy Pallin Rogaine run on March 3rd in the mountains east of Canberra.  It was to be Dean's introduction to navigation on the run; one of the key components to Adventure Racing.

It was also the first time David and Robbo worked together as co-navigators.

The course appeared to be fast, open scrubland up to 1000m and crested both sides of the Great Dividing Range.  With Robbo's experience we quickly picked a course we reckoned could be done in 6 hrs and set a plan to complete it.

The clocked counted down to 9.30 am and over 150 people charged off in a myriad of directions.  Our plan was to stay cool and not get sucked into the hype of rushing at the start.

We had targeted 21 checkpoints in a course of approximately 22km - in the cool drizzle - we set about methodically ticking them off.

Apart from one slight error early on - we navigated accurately to all our points and remained on track to complete our goal in the time.  Each checkpoint is worth between 40 and 100 points.  If you are late back - each minute penalises the team 10 points - so it pays to manage you distance and time!

Robbo is a very competent navigator, which is a great asset to our new team.

We ended up finishing about 30th out of 150, pleased with our efforts and most importantly we got on great together as Team!

New Name, New Team

At the end of 2012 Team Five Ten changed it's name to Team Rubicon. And we began a search for new members who were crazy enough to enjoy Expedition Racing.  The first to join was Mark Roberts a past graduate of XPD Cairns, great navigator and ultra endurance runner.  Robbo as he prefers to be called, brings a wealth of experience and firepower to the team.

Roll on 2013 and Team Members were slim on the ground - with the GeoQuest looming, the recruitment drive ramped up.  Dean Grasselli and Rajan Thananayagam have recently joined; both are very experienced whitewater paddlers, enthusiastic and raring to go.  

Rajan has completed three full Ironmans and Dean is a great all round athlete.  And better still - we are now a very strong paddling team!  

And if we need to swim - Raj is our man!

Geo and XPD here we come!