prAna: Sustainable Clothing

In case you hadn’t heard the YogaSlackers (actually just Sam) is competing in the Perak Amanjaya Eco Race 2009.

A new international Race is taking place this coming week in the state of Perak in Malaysia. It is organised for TV by ESPN STAR Sport Event Management and called the Perak Amanjaya Eco Race 2009. The whole project seems to have been pulled together at the last minute, but despite the lack of publicity and the clash with the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge, it sounds as though the race has a lot going for it.

There are some strong pairs entered from established teams and this inaugural race is intended to establish an annual event. What’s more it will be screened across Asia on ESPN to 26 countries and a billion households and there are reports of US$40,000 of prize money on offer.

Teams are coming from Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macao, Thailand, Singapore, USA, S. Africa and Sweden. and the full entry list is given below. Among the better known racers are two teams from McCain Adventure of S.Africa, Asia Pacific Adventure, Team Worldofmultisport.com from Sweden and the US teams YogaSlackers and TECNU Extreme/Asolo Adventure Racing. Teams are a mix of male and co-ed pairs.

YogaSlackersUpdate

Day 1: Andy here: Day one is complete of their race! I was dismayed at the thought of having to hear it all second hand an not getting to root for them throughout, but have discovered that SleepMonsters is covering the event with daily blogs! You can follow their progress here. Team Yogaslackers are currently in 9th, sitting just behind Team Tecnu Extreme/Asolo (another strong US team comprised of Kyle Peter and Mari Chandler from Dart adventure racing). They’re about 12-13 minutes off the lead. The field seems to have broken apart a bit after the first day however, as the gap between 11th and 12th place is around 20 minutes. This bodes well for the boys chances of making finishing in the top 10 which would be pretty awesome, considering it’s Neville’s first race and Sam’s lack of training beyond his ordinary active lifestyle. Tomorrow they’ll get a rest day (probably Yogaslacker style – with lots of acroyoga and slacklining thrown in) as they move to a new location. Keep up the good work guys!

Day 2: Sam Here  Neville and I had a great second day. Despite me Pushing him on the roller blade for 6 out of the 8k. (making up for the 10k he pulled me on the run and bike the day before). We came off the blades in about 10th place then it was into a 1.3 k upstream river trek/boulder hoping/swimming we over took 3 teams due in part to Nev’s strong swimming and helping hand then it was a short up hill on road and into the jungle… for 5k up and down hill trek.

The first Km of the Trek was going great we figured the lead teams were way a head by this time… so we Just locked in a good pace and started going we quickly drank up the last of our water but were not too worried an hour in we started to hear voices we figured it was the rappel site which meant water and a change of pace biking… but as we got closer to the voice all we found was a team we passed them and then another and another and another and then we ran into the France/Austrian we followed them on singly machete trail threw dense spiky rattan trees, they made a wrong turn and Nev quickly passed them… with in 10 min we were right behind the 1st and 2nd place team.

Now for the down hill threw the jungle the most exciting part for me I love downhill…. This was amazing it was like skiing running jumping flying and swinging like Tarzan…we were in and out of the river sliding down natural rock waterslides, swimming trough clear cool water in the 30c degree air it was so refreshing then back to 3-4 meter jumps down clay hill sides (Inov-8 212‘s rock best shoe ever) again so much fun. then the corse turned up hill again… I went on like this for 3 hours it was suppose to take 1hr 15min…

Nev here now.. We made it to the rappel in 1st place less then 20 mins to food we thought… After 1 more km we came to our bikes and No aid station, we were both hanging out for food so not really concious and pissed off about the aid station that was meant to be there. we left the bike transition in first place with spirits high. We both needed food. So about 5km into the bike we stoped at a dairy shop for some much needed food, with the camera crew and police surrounding us Sam goes into this store and grabs two ice chocolate iceblocks, two chocolate bars and a bag of chips. So we basically stoll food and ate it on the bike. Over the next 20km we experienced some hot rolling under the sun and a few cheers from the locals.

The end off the bike came down at the edge of the mangrove after eptying the food and water out of the box we finally left in 3rd place out around the local fishing villages. During the paddle we basically lost 3 min over the swiss and malaysian teams we ran the final 1km in socks this winding around a bit before it opened out to the finish. We finished 3rd for the day with two teams not finishing due to a time cut off at the absailing.

Day 3: Update coming…