Adam Fairmaid: GODZONE race director on the race underway in Marlborough

One of the toughest adventure races is currently underway in Marlborough – the GODZONE event. 

It’s the 12th chapter of the GODZONE race, which began at 5pm Thursday night, and the first racers aren’t expected to reach the finish line until Tuesday. 

Adam Fairmaid is the director of the event, and he joined D'Arcy to get everyone up to speed on what's been happening in the race. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the All Sport Breakfast podcast with Darcy
Waldgrave from News Talk SEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
And it's very good morning to race director of the
God's Own Edition twelve. His name is Adam fair Maid.
He's with us. Now, how are you guys going? What
are a couple of days into this adventure race?

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Now?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Where are we sitting? And welcome.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Thanks Darcy. We're sitting in stage three of the race
of nine and they're on a very big quimrning trek
up into the high mountains in Marlborough. And we've had
two teams, that's actually two teams who are three here
now and there to the next spike crow, but the
bulker teams are still up on the hill just waking

(00:49):
up to beautiful Marlborough morning.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
I was describing this race to my gorgeous lady he
lives over in London, and she said, peak, Ki we madness,
what on earth are you actually doing? Then I thought
there was a nice way of describing what so talk
us through for the beginner who doesn't understand this is
the twelfth edition exactly what God Zone is, what it

(01:13):
involves and why you do it.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
Well, it's a staged race where people go into the wilderness.
They have a true wilderness experience. They don't know where
they're going until just before the race when they get
your maps. It's a combination four person teams, combination of trekking,
mountain biking water. This year they're doing some canyon and

(01:42):
why do they do it. They do it because they
want to challenge themselves in a world that is probably
becoming increasingly structured and regulated.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
I suppose you could say because it's there. I mean
that'd be a drive as well. It must be strange
at being a part of event with a guy like
and Chris Vaughn is still involved. He's won at numerous times.
But Nathan Fatave, who's a superman, he's actually not there
doing it. It seems strange that a bit of furniture
has disappeared. But it's okay because there's another part of
a involved, a teenager at that.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
He has stored a tide is racing And I've got
a team from match Acre where they weren't Watchwacre High School.
They know it's a little bit older than that, but
they're doing incredibly well. Actually, I think last time I
looked there in six or seventh place up on the
up near on the top of the high peaks, just
behind where we are at the moment in our transition area.

(02:34):
But she's she appears to be a real go getter.
But Nathan and Jodi have been taking their children out
on adventures since they could barely walk, and so they're
very experienced in the outdoors.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
I think it's an understatement to say there is a
fair degree of danger involved in this. It's not just
a walk down to the shops. How well is that look, darter?
This has got to be a key part of the
structure of the race, looking after the safety of the competitors,
even though they willingly throw themselves into this. What are
the big fairs shawks here?

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yeah, I think we try to find line between putting
people into situations that are too mallow and about giving
them something that will challenge them. So I think when
we design a course, we like to think of places
that look dramatic, feel dramatic, that have a higher element

(03:32):
of safety than might appear. But yeah, it's quite an
art that you sort of progressively develop over time, designing
these courses and putting them together and trying to link
the whole thing together in a whole lot of memorable
and meaningful stages that they come away and they just go, well,

(03:54):
we've had an adventure.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
How many people try to be involved in this? Because
you've got several teams of four people leach as it
over subscribe, the engines have got to be in reasonably early.
How many people out there put their hand up? I
want to do this, like, how many could you get
out there on the course?

Speaker 3 (04:11):
Well, each course is different. This is sort of a
reincarnation of God's Own, so it's getting it up and
running again. We've got thirty two teams out there at
its peak when God's owned in before I think the
highest number of subscribed teams were about one hundred and twenty,
which would be by far the biggest Adventure race it's

(04:32):
ever been held, but that was stymied by COVID when
all the international teams could arrive. So I think we
raced that race with about ninety teams.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
So reboot. So what was the delay all about? You?
This is version twelve? Yeah, So when was the last
time God's Own happened? And why have you come back?

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Well, God's On operated as a company for a long
for the first eleven races, and I think it's a
pretty taxing thing to do, try and design a new course,
steal with landowners, Steel's Department of Conservation, ealth counsels and
put together at designer course. You know, you might talk

(05:11):
to fifty different people each time you design a course,
and you're trying to do that every year. It's a
pretty onerous task and I think in the end it
just became burnout for the team and a bit of
a hiatus. We've reformed as a charitable trust with a
couple of people you interview on this program reasonably regularly

(05:35):
in other roles, with Rob Nickel as the chairman of
the trust and Richie McCaw's on the trust and at
the moment he's just warming up the helicopter to go
and do a flight. Happen to do some media work
up in the hills.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
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