Team Bridgedale point their feet towards the West Coast

Winners of the Southern Traverse held near Dunedin in 2003, Team Bridgedale, have returned from an attempt at the Adventure Racing World Champs in Canada, and are now gearing up for the 2004 Southern Traverse - to be held on the rugged West Coast in November.

The 2003 Southern Traverse was won after 99 hours of exhausting racing, with only 3hr40min worth of sleep, but excellent mental and physical fitness, together with outstanding team dynamics saw them through to the end.

Team members Tim Pearson, Sally Fahey, Quenton Johnston and team captain Murray Thomas have had an extremely successful 12 months. In the latter half of 2003 Sally & Tim won the men's & women's categories of the Goldrush in Alexandra, while Murray took the individual men's category in the same 3-day 375km race. Sally & Tim also took the top spot on the podium for the 24km kayak/cycle/run Ghost to Ghost race in Central Otago with times of 1hr39min11sec and 1hr32min16sec respectively. These successes led to them earning the title of 'Team of the Year' at an awards ceremony in Wanaka.

Their training for this years Southern Traverse has been hampered by an injury sustained by Tim in the World Champs in New Foundland, Canada, early August when he fell asleep on day three whilst cycling downhill at 50km/h. They had started the race promisingly having moved forward from their initial mid-field position to 13th place out of the 42 teams racing.

Said teammate Murray Thomas:

"As we sped down a hill on our mountain bikes at 50kph Tim fell asleep drifting across them oncoming lane over the gravel shoulder and off the side of the road and down a ravine. Tim slammed into the trees cartwheeling over the handlebars and drove his head into the ground with his heavy backpack driving his head even further forward. After realising Tim was no longer with us we turned around fearing the worst. We started searching the road side for him then we heard a noise from the wrong side of the road and saw his headlamp among the scrub."

Luckily the injury turned out to be muscular and not life-threatening, but was still serious enough for his withdrawal from the race. 12 hours later after waiting until race medics had advised of Tim's condition, the rest of the team continued the race for an unranked finish. But this was not to be their race -

Murray began to suffer from a condition brought on from dehydration where he could not physically take on any food or water without his body rejecting it. This is relatively common in adventure racing where the body is put under such demanding conditions for prolonged periods. Symptoms such as vomiting, disorientation and the inability to control the bodies temperature often occur under such conditions.

This forced the team out of the race altogether in the interests of not damaging Murray's body further, and to allow for a prompt return to training for this years Southern Traverse.

This years race on the rugged West Coast of New Zealand will have $40,000 prize money up for grabs, and is to be held from November 15th - 20th covering between 400km and 450km of grueling terrain. The race course, as always, will remain a secret until the night before the race commences, leaving the ability to navigate and plan routes on the spot under sleep deprivation a key factor, as well as the obvious sheer fitness and teamwork required.

Team Bridgedale will be a force to reckon with, and will be trialing the new 'X-Hale' model sock from their sponsor Bridgedale during training. Bridgedale produce a comprehensive range of technical socks specifically targeted at outdoor activities, and Murray has commented that he has yet to get a blister while wearing one of their socks (including during the 2003 Southern Traverse) - and hasn't managed to put a hole in any of his pairs after years of abuse.

As the Southern Traverse motto goes - "Sleep if you dare...move while you can". The West coast - you've been warned!