2018 Cure Kids Great Adventure Race Report

It's the sixth time we've fielded a team in this challenging event, raising more than $93,000 for Cure Kids over the years. This was our year - crossing the finish line first, the team were overall winners as well as taking out the IT cup. Here's team captain Alan Moore's report on the day.

Off the line at the front of the pack, we chose a direct line to the first control.
We jumped a fence, waded a stream and over a hill.

With the first section of the course being open farmland teams were taking different routes rather than the the follow-the-leader that often happens. There were three teams at the front of the race and we were trading the top 3 places at each checkpoint. After a couple of stiff climbs and some tricky navigation it was just us and Fonterra in sight as we ran downhill to the first transition.

Fonterra were heading out of transition as we arrived so it was a quick change of shoes and feed up thanks to our fantastic support crew and we were out on bikes 5 minutes later. First part of the bike was wading across a stream accompanied by a steep bike carry up and down the banks.

Through the farmland again we had to find our way to the top of Mt Vining on farm tracks not marked on the map. At the checkpoint on top of the hill we were amazed to find ourselves in first place! What happened to Fonterra? Unfortunately we also had a puncture on Richard's bike so some great teamwork got it quickly repaired while looking over our shoulders for the next team. Still in first place we biked off in the rain through to Mangatangi Dam to drop the bikes for a 250m climb to Workman Peak. The rain cleared as we reached the summit giving us spectacular views of Coromandel. Running back down the hill we passed teams coming up giving us a good idea of the gap to second.

Another quick transition and we were out on foot again for the final stage. On this short stage we waded up a stream, ran down a bush track and navigated across farmland to the finish. Coming up the final hill to the finish it was surprisingly quiet, no commentary no cheering support crews? Seems we were unexpectedly quick beating our own support crew to the finish!

We ran across the finish line, ecstatic to get a win at this race on our sixth attempt. We were greeted by CureKids ambassador 8 year old Corin who put finishers medals round our necks. Big hugs from our support crew who had arrived at the finish at the same time as us.

Time to eat, drink and celebrate as we welcomed all the other teams including all the teams on the short course that we were also ahead of. At prizegiving we collected trophies for first place and the IT cup. But the best moment was the smile on Corin's face when we presented him with a small version of the support crew T shirt he had designed.

All in all it was a fantastic day, and as Rob said in his email to staff "the win was the icing on the cake at the end of our fundraising. Thanks to all the supporters who helped us raise over $20K." Total fundraising for the race was more than $180K and Theta have now raised $93K over the years we have been involved. It is an amazing achievement to support life-saving research for kids' diseases and conditions.