My experience completing an 18 hour rogaining event

12pm Saturday to 6am Sunday, 14 hour hike, 4 hour bike, 18 hours of rain and 55 km covered in total.

I’ve done quite a few adventure races (modified rogaining) over the years but, I must say, this recent 18 hour rogaining event in Stanthorpe really was something else all together.

In short, it was A LOT of fun, including the lead-up (planning and training phase), during and after the event (recovery and sense of accomplishment).

When people ask me, “How was it?”, the first thing that comes to mind is when a team member 6 hours into the race asks me, “How’s it going? You can cry if you want to”, to which I dropped my head and shed a tear - I’m laughing as I write this.

6 hours in and I was realising there were 12 hours to go…

It was a mental battle like nothing I had ever experienced before.

As a team, we did fairly well - minimal fighting/arguing and only a few tears! Not bad.

The nutrition required careful planning and commitment.

It’s generally recommended that an individual consumes between 30-90g of carbohydrate per hour to sustain optimal energy and therefore endurance.

My experience of this race really confirmed this for me. I probably could/should have followed it all the way through but, eating every hour, and aiming for a significant amount of carbohydrate is EXHAUSTING. I never want to see another Allen’s snake, Lavish bite, oat/protein bar, fava bean snack or banana chip again!

Gels hold a new place in my heart (less chewing = happy).

Despite all of that, being greeted by a camp fire, sausage sizzle and cup of tea at 1:30am at the bike transition point, was like stumbling across an oasis in the dessert. Utter bliss.

Also, considering that we weren’t keen to carry home with us any gut-loving, GI distressing, microbial offenders, I cannot stress enough the need for water purification tablets and electrolytes (for flavour and… electrolytes haha!).

There’s a few nutrition considerations for you if you ever plan on undertaking a rogaining adventure.

I cannot recommended one enough!