00:00A pre-dawn boat ride to the starting line before a swim and a paddle through the spectacular
00:07Nitmaluk Gorge.
00:08You walk to this area here and suddenly there's just hundreds of people, so the atmosphere
00:13is fantastic.
00:14One of the most amazing things about this is swimming down the Catherine Gorge as the
00:19sun comes up.
00:20It's a race as tough as it is beautiful.
00:23After the swimming and the canoeing, a 10k run, a 40k road bike ride, an 18k mountain
00:29bike ride and a second 10k run.
00:32It's a very challenging course, it's a challenging swim, super technical trail runs, very remote,
00:39so to get all that across the line takes a lot of work, but I think that's the appeal
00:43of the event.
00:44I've done lots of races all around the world, this is one of our family favourites.
00:49The day made possible by a small army of volunteers.
00:53There's so much energy.
00:54The volunteers are all Catherine locals, so we all know each other.
00:59It's good vibes and it's so great to see people from not Catherine here today as well.
01:04About 300 contestants are taking part this year.
01:07The vast majority are tackling the event as teams, with only about 25 athletes taking
01:13on the entire course.
01:14Among them, Kia King, this year's fastest woman, finishing in 5 hours and 41 minutes.
01:22There's so much that can go wrong.
01:25I saw a buffalo on the side of the road of the road bike and then you're always looking
01:31for snakes and then obviously some little friendly freshies you may see in the water.
01:39Cameron Lockley, today's fastest solo man, says there are some advantages to the remoteness
01:44of the trails.
01:45There's so many rocks, so it's really hard.
01:47Rolling ankles, concentrating, you're tired, you're falling in a bush.
01:52It's pretty, thank God there's not many spectators out there to see you fall over, so it's quite
01:55good.
01:56You'll see you on a demanding race day.
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