The inaugural North Canterbury Adventure Race was held on 29th August with a field of 360 people. The 6-hour and 3-hour competitors cycled along the south bank of the Waimakariri River around to the Brooklands Red Zone, along the edge of the Brooklands Lagoon and through Bottle Lake Forest to New Brighton. At New Brighton, teams continued on foot into the Southshore Spit and Bexley Red Zone, visiting as many checkpoints as possible before finishing back at New Brighton.

We were blessed with a beautiful fine day, and a great team of volunteers from the school community to help run the course and look after food, medical support, start and finish lines etc.

The competitors had a great day, using their navigation skills and their map-reading to find multiple checkpoints along the way, each worth a number of points. Quite a few teams found every checkpoint, completed two tricky mystery activities and completed the course before their allotted time was up.

The 6 hour winning men’s team of Dean Velenski and Martin Peat collected the maximum 800 points and finished the whole course in an amazing time of 4 hours 44 minutes, while the winning women’s team of Belinda McCone, Sarah O’Neill and Elise Johns also collected the maximum points in 5 hours 40. Equally impressive in the 3 hour event were Micah and Nick Pomare who scored the maximum of 420 points and finished in a time of 2 hours 50!

Feedback on the course, race organisation, planning and preparation has been overwhelmingly positive. Our Year 5 & 6 students wrote a thank you card to put in each team’s race pack, letting them know that the race was a fundraiser for our school that would benefit students. The cards were very well received by competitors. Middleton Grange School will benefit by just over $11,000 from this event. We are very grateful to Tim Farrant and Scott Smith for their skilled assistance with planning, mapping and organising the course for us and also to all the volunteers from our school. A number of our students, staff and families took part in the race, and for some it was their first attempt at Adventure Racing.

Hopefully this will be an annual event that Middleton Grange can organise, participate in and run together as a school community. We’re looking forward to the next one!