Team Further Faster Take on The Magnificent Adventure Race! (And get 2nd!)

Holly Weston, 1/4 of the Further Faster Adventure Racing Team gives us her top 10 tips for getting on an Adventure Race World Series Podium!

"We finally made it to an ARWS (Adventure Race World Series) podium, and it had nothing to do with going any faster.

Firstly, a special shoutout to all our teammates we have raced with in the past. We didn’t build this team culture without you. This result was as much yours as it was ours.

We had developed a bit of a reputation for being the fun team. Which is great for sure, it’s a long time to be out there and not enjoy yourself, but after a series of races where we just missed out because of some silly mistake, it started to feel more like a wooden spoon, especially as we watched our friends we trained with all go and fill the steps on the podium.

So, what made this race any different?

Here we give away 10 of our secrets that led to our second-place finish at the Magnificent Adventure Race:

1. We were powered by laughter.

There wasn’t a stage that didn’t involve fits of laughter, jokes being cracked at every angle, sleep-deprived rambles, and jingles yelled at the top of our lungs about a lady and her plums. This race felt like Type One Fun almost the entire time. It might sound ‘woo woo’, but we bottled a lot of vibes and energy, and that powered us through the second half of the course.

2. Everyone took responsibility for the navigation.

We took turns on the maps and always had someone looking ahead. In a race that was so heavy on the nav, set in some very difficult terrain (where every ridge / high top / saddle looked the same), this kept us fresh and accountable. I, to be fair, never touched a map, but the three guys kept rotating, and we all had responsibility for finding the checkpoints, rather than the same person burning out having to do all the heavy lifting.

3. We slept, and we made our sleep count.

This was one of the (many) things that Adrian’s experience added to our team. Where in the past we have been guilty of getting caught up in the race (and trust me, I tried to pull us back into the same trap), we recognised that as a team we needed to have a certain amount of sleep to be able to navigate effectively. It felt wrong powering down for 3+ hours before the big rogaine, while team K2D2 shot off into the night ahead of us, but it paid dividends when we returned just over 24 hours later (having banked another few hours out on the course) in second place.

4. We raced our own race.

That expression is so cheesy, but we tried our best to keep the competition in sight, without our decisions being based on the actions of the other teams around us. We had a rule not to ask about where the other teams were until we got to the second half of the race (I think that rule was broken a few times, but it set the tone for what we were trying to achieve).

5. We chose light gear that still kept us warm.

It’s a bit of a balance and one we have been working on for years, but for the most part, we got it right this time. We were able to sleep out on course because we were warm enough. At the same time, we were chipping away with fairly light packs. A huge thanks to Further Faster for kitting us out and helping us with this.

6. We had a big focus on being well-fuelled.

Some mistakes in the past have led us to take less food in an attempt to go light. With the likes of 4 Hour Fuel and other little mixtures, we managed to get the calories in without adding too much weight in our bags. I have never had so much energy during a race. And this has to have been a big factor.

7. We didn’t second-guess ourselves.

Sometimes the going was so tough it made you think that the grass must be greener somewhere else. This is a trap that lures you into backtracking and second-guessing. We tried to avoid this and committed to our route choice. This probably made us faster in the long run (even if we felt very slow).

8. We trusted each other 100%.

We hadn’t raced with Adrian before, and as we followed him through the thick bush, I did have to initially question if anyone had verified that he actually knew how to navigate. Our trust in him was well placed as his confidence grew throughout the race and showed us why he is such an adventure racing weapon. This led to us later blindly throwing ourselves off cliffs on the coasteering stage into massive waves, trusting his word that it was a good time to jump (I think he found that part a bit strange).

9. We were strict about stops (as strict as you can be during a race of this length).

We tried to minimise our faff and keep moving as much as possible. It is pretty easy to claw back a 5-minute deficit when you aren’t stopping as much, without having to work any harder.

10. We were nice to each other.

We left the individuals at home and became teammates only. No team is perfect, and for sure we had little things crop up, but for most of the race we were operating like a bunch of mother hens, clucking around making sure everyone was going ok and had what we needed.

We also made sure we conducted ourselves well to other teams and to the volunteers. Because how you make people feel during a race follows you into real life when the race is over.

And those are our tips and tricks for how we got to an ARWS podium. As a team, still friends and still the fun team at the end of the race." 

- Holly Weston (Official Images by Guillermo Gutierrez)

If you like Holly’s Magnificent blog, how about this one from Mikey Mitchell (who was part of this team with Holly!) adventure racing in China: Team Further Faster take on Wulong Mountain Quest in China!