Madagui Trophy Jungle Race

So there I am at 5:30 AM running through the Vietnamese jungle in absolute pitch darkness alongside a bunch of French expatriates, while vines and branches smash into my helmet and water sloshes into my mud-covered running shoes. Perhaps a scene from the new Parisian box-office hit, "Le Platoon"? Wrong! It's the 5th annual Madagui Trophy Race about 4 hours away from Ho Chi Minh City, near Cat Tien National Park. Vietadventure is one of my favorite companies in Vietnam. Run and funded by a French juice baron (his company - Le Fruit), they run adventure races in the region and always have an environmental and/or social aspect. Every time I enter one of these things, I wish that I'd prepared better.

This particular race was a team challenge, and included jungle running, mountain biking, and something ominously called simply "downriver." Preparing for a race of unclear distance, that was supposed to take between 4 and 8 hours, was a bit challenging. At the last minute I left my head lamp behind in my bag – big mistake. As the race started across a precariously swaying suspension bridge, I noted that at least three-quarters of the other participants had made a similar decision. Half an hour after the 5:00 AM start, we were all regretting our poor judgment, clustering around those few individuals with enough common sense to bring a light to a pre-dawn race. We trudged up mountains and slipped down gullies, desperately grabbing foliage that we hoped was not covered in spines (I was unlucky a few times on that front) or hiding snakes, scorpions, or worse. It's a wonder that no one broke a leg.

My partner was an amiable American expat named Collin who I had just met through the race organizers when both of our original teammates bailed out at the last minute. We were making good time in the middle of the pack, but ran into some trouble when we finally made it to our mountain bikes as the sun started rising into the sky. Collin's rear brake (and in fact the whole rear wheel) was acting up and giving him trouble, forcing him to disengage it and rely on the front brake alone. This might have been ok on a mostly flat ride, but with hills getting in to the 40 plus degree range, this was not going to be pretty. Miraculously, Collin was able to mostly stay on the seat, passing virtually everyone on the downhills, with only one or two spectacular crashes. We carried our bikes through rivers and up huge hills, trying to remember to take in the stunning scenery.

We lost a little bit of time on the running sections later in the race, making an accidental half mile detour at one point that cost us several places. Luckily we had plenty of water, gels, and powerbars (I finally planned something right!), so we avoided totally bonking. When we reached the river wearing bright orange life jackets supplied by the race organizers, we were instructed to jump in to the opaque brown water and keep an eye out for the exit a little ways down the river. We flopped about in the river, trying unsuccessfully to determine an effective method of locomotion, while slamming knees into submerged rocks and fish traps and cringing in pain every few minutes as our fatigued muscles spasmed and cramped in the cold water. Finally we reached the appropriate river bank, where I promptly tripped on a obscured root and fell on my face. We picked ourselves up and forced our exhausted muscles to carry us back along the river, over the suspension bridge, and to the finish – just under 6 hours in 10th place and the first (albeit only) Americans!

What a blast. After much needed showers, we stumbled over to an outdoor barbeque for pork ribs and beer – doesn't get much better than that after a long effort. We relaxed for a bit, chatting with other race participants, before reluctantly piling in the car to start the 4 hour drive back to Ho Chi Minh City.