On the 30th of May my adventure race virginity was broken ! after months of training and preparation the day had finally arrived and I was about to compete in my first  multi discipline race and find out if I really had what it takes.

To put the finishing touches on this momentous occasion the race was being held in Coffs Harbour the town I grew up in for the first time ever - it was meant to be.

For those not aware adventure racing is made up of Run, Paddle, and Mountain Bike legs with some events having a "special" mystery leg thrown in. The teams are not given full details of the event until about 40 minutes before the actual start of the race when maps and checkpoint details are handed out at registration.

Once the race pack is distributed teams then sit down and plan their route around the map to collect all checkpoints adding an orienteering flavour to the race as well.

For Coffs the Bike drop off was at 6:45am at the local surf club with registration starting at 7:15am in front of the iconic Jetty.

More than 50 teams from around the country joined locals for Coffs first ever sprint distance adventure race.

The great part about these races is that even with local knowledge there was really no way of knowing exactly what the actual course would be so no unfair advantages.

We started on the jetty and I realised very quickly that my brand new shoes were not staying clean when the first checkpoint was being held by some volunteers who thought it would be great to stand in the surf and make us all get wet shoes and socks in order to click our card then with shoes dripping we headed off up beacon hill lookout before running to our first transition point via the Coffs Creek boardwalk.

Transition one was either a paddle for the front of the pack or a reverse run for the back of the pack with the front runners paddling up Coffs Creek to the Coffs Harbour Showgrounds, while the other half continued to run in reverse order to the showground via the Coffs Creek Walk on the North side of the creek and then swapping at the second transition area.

Once back to the surf club the 3rd transition was Onto the mountain bikes my favourite leg, it was a challenging ride combining off and on road riding that included many trips off the bike and onto the beach or into bush to find some sneakily placed checkpoints and in this leg spanned Park Beach, Diggers and Macauleys headlands, with a cheeky checkpoint hidden in an underpass that was impossible to find but we managed with the help of a little "yoohoo" from a local then onto the Botanic Gardens.

This was my least favourite stage as by this point I was into bike mode and was not mentally prepared to have to start running again as well as think of the new challenge it presented, we received another map for this stage at the entrance to the Botanic Gardens and were required to identify specific plant species at each checkpoint then write down an answer to a question relating to the plants plus click one checkpoint which a lot of people seemed to miss and from looking at the race results we were not the only ones to be challenged by this stage as a number of teams missed it completely.

Job done and $2 donation given we had the last four checkpoints to go and were still going strong travelling about mid field so we headed off to the kids adventure playground to storm the tower for checkpoint 24 and while I was getting this I had a great time telling the kids who couldn't wait to show us where the clicky thing was hidden what we were doing they all thought it was AWESOME so I can see a few future adventure racers in the making. Not paying attention I climbed back down the tower only to realise at the bottom there was this big shiny slippery dip I could have used...... DOH !

3 more checkpoints to go and still going strong I had only gotten one minor cramp at this stage and it stretched out nicely so we were feeling great  and then a rookie mistake on checkpoint 26 lost us about 20 minutes - we had looked at the map and mistaken a main storm water drain for a track so thought we could  get onto Boambee beach south of checkpoint 27 and then head north back to the finish line without having to backtrack but as we and a few other teams learnt the hard way there was no way through so after much grumbling we cut our losses and headed back as hard as we could making up some ground on some teams that had passed us collecting our final checkpoint after a short bike ride up the beach and heading back to the finish line.

So that was it we had finished and I had completed my first ever adventure race 4hours and 30 mins after I had started - it was a lot longer than I had expected and I was totally exhausted but I couldn't get the smile off my face ! I am now an addict and I can see many more events ahead of me, even though it was a race all the teams were there to have a good time and everyone was always helpful even when we accidentally rode past a checkpoint in our enthusiasm whilst we were frantically pedalling back more than one team was willing to offer us advise on where the missed marker was it was just a great spirit to be involved in and I cant wait for the next one !

For the Race I had my VIO POV 1.5 mounted on the sholder strap of my CamlBak with mixed results - I will place some footage up after I have gone through it all and done a little edit.