5 days and 15 hours Blackheart.com.au cross the line in first place at Thredbo

04:55 Blackheart.com have crossed the line taking out the 2008 XPD in the Australian High Country.

The team raced a total of 5 days 15 hours (135hours) hours since the start of the race, and have not slept since the restart at mid-camp on Sunday.

This XPD has been the hilliest of any XPD, with teams gaining a total of 16,675 metres in elevation throughout the race.

“It has been a long night, there is a lot of snow up on the last trek, it was pretty quiet up on Kosciusko as we haven’t seen a team in ages”. Said Rob Preston from Blackheart.com.au.

The team was greeted with Champagne and Pizza, which didn’t last long as they quickly consumed the only non-race food that they have eaten since the race began nearly one week ago.

Eight mixed teams and five all male teams are still completing the course as a ranked teams.

“The course this year was different, and much harder than last year. Last year we had Orion Health to push us all of the way. On every leg of this race, at least one of us had a moment of pain, at some stages it was all 4 of us were in pain”. Said Damon Goerke.

Blackheart.com.au's racing experience paid off many times along the course, “booking the caravan at the mid-camp dark zone was a good strategy that paid off for us, we knew that we would get there with enough time for a good sleep so we wanted to have a comfortable night”, said Preston.

"The race for us didn’t really start until the 210km mountain bike so we wanted to look after ourselves on the 85 km hike to make the most of the longer bike leg”, he said.

The first kayak leg rated as the teams best leg of the race. The trek through the spectacular high country did not reap the rewards of the views that it could of because of the bad weather.

"The start of the second part of the race from mid camp was really fun, there was a great vibe at the start line at Tintaldra Pub everyone was amped it was great”, said Preston.

This is Preston’s second race in a space of a month, backing up from the recent world championships in Brazil. “I was pretty aware that I would need to sleep so we slept on the first night, which we would not normally do”.

As the winners of the qualifying event for the AR World Championships, Blackheart.com.au will now be off to race in Portugal in 2009. However the focus of the team over the next few days will be “having a sleep and some food, and then we are looking forward to hanging out in Thredbo over the next few days and cheering the other teams in”, said Josh Street.