You’ve probably never heard about this sport and you definitely should! I stayed awake until the wee hours of the morning with volunteers and hard core fans and met the world champions on the last leg of their crazy race – read on.

From the GodZone Media kit ( My pictures are not so good)

It all began when I asked, J who I climbed with in Wanaka, if I could catch a ride with her.
“Sure, I just have to stop on the way to encourage my friend who is racing”. I happily joined just to discover this crazy sport. Adventure racing is a group race of a combination of navigation, trekking, mountain biking, kayaking, canoeing and sometime other disciplines. The participants race across huge distances in a race that last several days, deciding for themselves when and where to rest. As we speak one of New Zealand’s best international adventure races is taking place (although the winning group already finished). On a feminist note, each group has to have at least one female participant and I was pleased to discover that there were groups with a majority of women.

The Godzone adventure race was designed by a close group of friends and family members who enlisted many volunteers to help with the logistics of the race.  The volunteers take their job very seriously and try to take into account every small detail, for instance if the light in the shed where the participants were changing their gear and building the mountain bikes should be left on or off.  They decided to keep it relatively dark as to not destroy the night vision of the participants who were going to have to mountain bike in the darkness.

Volunteers and fans Checking results

The volunteers themselves are usually into some type of outdoor sport and a lot of them have family and friends that are racing.

The volunteers and fans obsessively check the online map which is updated with the GPS coordinates of the participants. I quickly found myself drawn in to the action checking the online map and observing the horizon postulating when the group J was rooting for, who were second place, would arrive to our point. Some of the real hard core fans and the photographers have an adventure race themselves trying to meet up with the participants at as many way points as they can. The fans are not allowed to give the participants any information about the other groups or navigational tips.

Map of results

First the world champions arrived, their head lights appearing at a distance like strange alien beings. Two and a half hours later J’s team got to our point. They went to sleep for the whole of half an hour before continuing on the whole night up to the finish point! You could see how tired and worn out they were after three days of almost no sleep and constant strain yet they were determined to continue.

The world champions building their bikes for the last leg of the race

It’s not only endurance of the body, they also have to stay focused, navigate and build and take apart their mountain bikes. One of the participants even wrote on his arm every step of taking his bike apart because he knew his limits. Tactics and deception are also part of the game. Last year’s winners were closely followed by another group so the leader shouted out let’s put our jackets on and made as if they were slowing down then suddenly all the grouped dashed and ducked into the bush to get rid of their followers.

A team just reaching a previous stage of the race after the winners finished.

This sport is not endorsed by the government in any way and the groups have to find themselves sponsors varying from computer hardware companies to manufactures of oats. The price for entering is quit steep around 6000$ for the group of 4 while the prize money probably won’t even cover all the costs (around 10000$ for the whole group). So what brings these people to push themselves so hard for so long?

Don’t get me wrong I’m all for pushing one’s limits and I would love to go on an adventure race myself, but I would like to do it with a good night rest and some decent food between each leg. Anyway, even though there is a wining team, the race is still going on so check it out.