Episode 1: Nov 17th-18th, 2018. Participants: 46 Fatalities: 0 Injuries: 2 Finishers: 39 Helicopters: 2 Oldest participant: 63 Youngest Participant: 13
A great event involving lots of mud. Only 7 people chose the 'long' course and made the trip to Supper Cove. 5 of them hoped to crack the coveted 24 hour full Dusky mark. No one came close. The other two went just because they were there and, why not? Fine weather (for fiordland) gave way to a blustering southerly and by the second night snow fell heavily on the passes, stranding 7 at Kintail hut and ultimately necessitating a couple of helicopter extractions. It was a swell test of our SMS and other than the difficulty in deciphering Arno's (our sweeper) cryptic inReach messages, the system worked brilliantly once all the participants turned their trackers on. Is 24 hours possible? Quinn Hornblow, the man finishing the full 84 km the fastest (30 hrs 03 min) no longer thinks so. Tim Farrant, who finished the 53 km short course the fastest (a tad under 16 hours), thinks it is. Who is right? We'll just have to wait and find out.
Episode 2: Late Nov, 2019. Participants: 18 Fatalities: 0 Injuries: 0 Finishers: 18 Helicopters: 0
Believe it or not, the mud was still there. Only 6 people chose the 'long' course and made the trip to Supper Cove. Somehow, one of them, Weston Hill, managed to beat last year's fastest time by over 10 hours. Unfortunately he was so fast that he left the finish line hostel before we could have him properly tested. We're pretty sure we don't need to though--the full dusky in under 20 hours? I mean the only options here are either synthetic or involve the use of Crispr and alien DNA, am I right? We had several returnees, all of whom shaved a bit off previous times. Both Trevor Hoyle and Graeme Woolmore tackled the short course for the second year in a row, knocking 11 and nearly 13 hours off of last year's efforts. Adam Keen came back for the full monty again despite last year's beating and suffered more of the same. Good on you Adam. As for the future? Weston made a video of his record setting run in which he appears to be moving at an almost casual speed. Catching up with him afterwords he claims there is still a bit of fat on the ol' dusky bone. Sounds hard to believe, but then after this year I might just believe anything.