Black Beauty Rogaine Report

By Slippery Mullets delegated report writer, Chris White

It is 3am.
The cloud cover that has hidden the partially eclipsed full moon most of the night is now bringing a chilly drizzle to our stationery team. Progress has ground to an unscheduled halt halfway down the Western side of Bell Hill. Despite my shivering, Brett Wilson lies beside me drenched in sweat. His stomach contents (two cold sausages, a rum and coke and a cupful of salt amongst many other rogaine snacks) are raging an intense nausea-creating battle inside him, yet stubbornly refuse Brett’s repeated, vocal and apparently painful efforts to expel them.
The first eight hours of our event had gone great. A ride out to the Western Gate on Quaid Road allowed us to work steadily back to the Hash House picking up many high scoring CP’s with only a brief misorientation prior to CP65. We had made the old mistake of counting watercourses (and including those unmarked) rather than keeping an eye on distance. The out and back nature of CP101 beyond 65 allowed us to relocate on the South / North Spur, collect 101 and pick up 65 on the way back to the bikes at CP95. The strange white arrows near CP81 inspired some creative explanations. A misplaced compass, a failure (just after dark) to use the mapped vegetation boundary leading to CP78 and the moonless darkness – which made the drop off the road here into the gully appear like a bottomless and impenetrably vegetated abyss – all combined to bring us back to Hash an hour or so later than planned at 8:30pm.
A quick and very tasty hot meal following a replenishment of supplies had us back on the road and full of misplaced confidence shortly after 9:00pm. The plan included an anticlockwise loop of the entire Northern section of the course starting with a nocturnal East Black Mountain ride and a dawn return to the Hash for a Black Mountain Summit sunrise – exciting stuff! As so often happens through the dark hours of a rogaine however, things didn’t quite go to plan. Before reaching CP11 at the start of East Black Mountain Road, Brett realised his headlamp (which had performed perfectly throughout the entire XPD) was going to be uncooperative. The main issue seemed to be the batteries which repeatedly curled up and died after less than 2 hours but a loose and frayed wire also caused some confusion. As a result we were forced to share light by riding parallel where possible (very infrequently on East Black Mountain Road) while on climbs, downhills and narrow sections Brett had little more than my flashing rear red light to guide him – often straight into wayward waitawhile and washed out watercourses.
An untested bike map board then left its precious cargo about halfway along East Black Mountain Road shortly before Brett grew unusually quiet. I hadn’t competed with Brett previously but from talking with those who had and from crossing paths often during events I was aware of two things – Brett occasionally got himself into some situations of serious physical discomfort and he liked a chat. The fact he no longer seemed keen to do the latter warned me he may be about to experience the former. While we raided the contents of the Cookie Jar (CP55) Brett revealed he was in fact feeling awful and if it wasn’t for the presence of the only leeches on the entire course we probably would have stopped there much longer.
As it was we pushed on (Out and Back on West Black Mountain to CP88 and then to the Bump Track) to the outermost points of the course. With Brett crook, mapless and without light and the Slippery Mullets relying solely on my rapidly fatiguing brain for navigation it was probably unsurprising we overshot CP80 and found ourselves shivering (me) and sweating (Brett) halfway down the wrong side of a large hill. We reluctantly agreed that 80 points would make the climb back up Bell Hill worthwhile at 3am (fatigue can do strange things to the decision making process) and after a lie down headed back uphill. The double climb and short break didn’t help Brett’s physical state as he deteriorated into a condition that would see most competitors withdraw and would no doubt hospitalise many. His barely lit headlamp revealed a face of overwhelming pain caused by powerful nausea and a high body temperature resulted in a drenching sweat. When he revealed it was the worst he had ever felt in an event, the worst rogaining night he had had and the longest he had suffered from any condition I knew it was time to look at some alternative options. My now completely fatigued mind decided we didn’t really have any and instead instructed my body to sleep while Brett dry retched beside me (He did show more compassion and consideration than I did however and crawled or stumbled a good few metres away first).
Brett though, had other ideas. Where most would have lain ill for the rest of the night, Brett courageously and stubbornly pushed on through the dark on the return trip to the Hash House like a mullet swimming against a powerful tide. Apart from regular stops to again attempt the dislodgement of the offending stomach articles, we continued homewards with inspiration from the promise of a proper lie down and a raid on the medication in a first aid kit far better stocked then ours.
Paul Kelly did tell us however that ‘the darkest hour is right before the dawn’ and around 7:30am (9 or so hours after Brett first revealed he was unwell) something remarkable happened. Brett started having a chat again and predicted this was a sure sign that soon he would be feeling better. True to his word our pace picked up and Brett provided an insight into just how tough he is by suggesting and for a while seriously entertaining the idea of returning to our original plan of climbing the imposing Black Mountain.
Some quick maths revealed however that there was almost as many points up for grabs down Quaid Raid but a far better chance of returning to the Hash House before midday. At 9am another quick pit stop was had before the gravity assisted sprint rocketed us towards Wangetti. We collected CPs 21, 70, 104 and 84 without incident and left ourselves 40 minutes to get home. As it was, 30 was enough and we checked in feeling relieved to have finished competitively after the string of overnight incidents and I personally was in awe of Brett’s willpower in continuing after being seriously ill and recovering enough to take on challenges like climbing up Quaid – a ride that can leave one pretty knocked up when fresh and healthy.
Massive thanks to Dave and Mel for taking on the enormous task of organising the 24hr event and not just revealing some great rides that many of us probably had no idea existed but also arranging to have a couple of them graded in the week leading up to the event (it’s not what you know), to Mike for his continuous and enthusiastic administering and also Rod, Terry and Brett who willingly split up their team of three to create two teams of two and allow me to compete despite no doubt being keen to do an event with each other.
In particular thanks to Brett, this report hopefully shows just how tough the guy is rather than embarrasses him, shows that when asked to write a winners report one should quietly accept the role rather than passing it onto a team mate who will describe in detail their most vulnerable and lowest moments – Cheers Brett.
For what it’s worth our tortuous route went like this – 12, 85, 76, 95, 101, 65, 94, 81, 99, 97, (sunset) 68, 78, 11, 57, 79, 55, 80, 82, (sunrise) 77, 51, 35, 21, 70, 104, 84.