Anaconda Lorne 2008 by Grant Suckling

The Anaconda race in Lorne was my first ‘adventure race’ late in 2006; it was an incredible experience, literally life changing. Looking back at the athlete that limped across that finish line two years ago and comparing him to me today, it has been an awesome journey. This race will always be important to me, and any improvement in my sport will be judged by my performance when I return here each year.

This year it was all about everything but the swim for me, with the words “your race starts after you get out of the water” ringing in my ears from our coach Simon Knowles, I started the race with a grand total of two swimming sessions under my belt, totalling 1:10 in the water! I came out of the water next to Bruce Dunlop who said “good swim Grant…” as I ran past him on the beach. Looking at my watch I looked back at him in horror, 40 minutes!!! Bloody hell… That’s worse than any numbers I had worked through my head before the race! Over six minutes slower than last year. This equalled a 10 minute deficit to the individual leaders as I started the paddle.

I was to find out later that the swim course was a fair bit longer this year, wish I’d known that out on the course and I wouldn’t have been so hard on myself, it certainly gave my confidence a nice little smack on the chin at the time.

Due to the marginal weather conditions the alternate course was used. This meant paddling in Louttit bay which is a triangle course largely protected from the South Westerlies blowing out at sea, the first turn around buoy near the Lorne Pier was exposed to the wind a bit, but as soon as we turned we had a great tail wind and swell pushing us all the way down the longest side of the triangle to the next buoy. It was here that I had one of my finest dummy spits of all time when a scared and confused competitor stopped in front of me in the middle of the racing line beside the buoy. I dug deep into the water to avoid “t-boning” his boat, and a moment later was hit from the side by a swell that put me in the water. I could count the amount of time it took to get back in the boat by the number of expletives I sent across the water at my fellow competitor if I could remember them all, not my finest moment!

No real harm was done; in fact I should be grateful for the activation of the angry switch. The rest of the paddle went reasonably well, but didn’t feel as fast as I would have liked. It was fast enough though, taking me from 37th to 7th individual in the 3rd fastest individual paddle split for the day only 39 seconds behind the fastest (Richard Ussher).

The heart rate was pretty high for the run up the beach to transition from paddle to run, precious seconds disappeared whilst I wrestled with the tangled race bib in the transition area and headed out 1:04 behind 6th placed Sam Hume. Sam was running well but had much less speed over the rocks, which meant I came up to within 60-70 metres behind him by the time we reached the crossing at St Georges River. I slowly whittled away the gap before overtaking him in the orchard at Allenvale where I ducked under the trees at the corner to sneak a few metres in front of him, he was to run on my heals for most of the back section of the run, briefly overtaking me for about 100 yards climbing up from the last Allenvale road crossing, but I immediately took the lead again on the short downhill section that followed. One thing was obvious to us both, rough technical running was not his strong suit, and me being one of only a handful of competitors who had actually trained on the alternate run course, I was excited about the ripping decent and rough country ahead where I planned to make my move.

In typical Jacoby (race director) style, the run included a gnarly off track section with dense, prickly undergrowth followed by a nice scramble up a ridiculously steep rocky slope that. It was through here that I finally got rid of Sam Hume. The more undulating terrain was nearly over, with only a couple of small sharp climbs left before a steep decent back to St Georges River, I overtook another couple of team runners and continued at good pace. It was at this point that my race was almost shattered. A bad ankle sprain had me rolling head over heels down the hill screaming in pain. Anger and despair raged through my head, more cursing, this time all aimed at myself, how could I not be more careful?!! Was my race over? It was pretty bad… Just keep moving, run like it doesn’t hurt, harden the hell up princess!

The run back to Lorne was excruciating, but I was determined to maintain my position and pushed through the pain without losing a place. Jumping onto my bike I was relieved to know the running was over for now, but as soon as I stood on the pedals to race back onto the course it was immediately obvious that this ride would be done sitting down, the ankle was not okay.

No bother, I had been looking forward to this ride and a little thing like a sore ankle was not going to stop me exorcising last year’s MTB demons. I knew I was better than I had shown and was determined to prove it. The ride went well, despite not being able to stand I reeled in individual competitors John Kent, and last year’s second place getter Glen Kirby. In the end my ride time was the 3rd fastest individual time registered behind 1st and 2nd’s Richard Ussher and Jarrod Kohlar.

Whilst the final beach run was agonising, I was grateful that there were no other competitors in sight, so with no need to flog myself back up the beach I cruised home knowing that I had run a pretty good race. I was to finish in 5th place; Sam Hume had unfortunately short coursed the run by accident and slipped by me without either of our knowledge. A top 5 finish earned me the honour of standing on the podium (not to mention getting into the prize money!), which I was quite chuffed about.

1st place Richard Ussher congratulated me and suggested I come and race in NZ some time, to which I replied “Yeah for sure… I’m actually coming over for Coast to Coast in February”. I never would have dreamed 2 years ago that I would have shared a simple conversation like that with a world champion whilst standing on a podium, what a ride.