The Nutrient Rescue Adventure Racing Team

Ready for GODZone

For the last four years, Nutrient Rescue has been actively supporting a group of keen adventure racers in their quest to tackle the annual New Zealand GODZone adventure race. GODZone is an expedition adventure race where mixed teams of four navigate their way through backcountry terrain to reach a series of checkpoints, by either trekking, kayaking, pack rafting, or mountain biking.

Widely considered the toughest adventure race in the world, the GODZone has built a reputation for humbling some of the best athletes, where just completing the full course is a huge part of the challenge. Testament to this is just 16 of 66 teams completed the most recent chapter of GODZone. To add to the challenge the event is non-stop, so racing through the night and sleeping only when you must is all part of it. For example, the Nutrient Rescue team slept for about 16 hours in total across 7 days of racing in the last GODZone in March 2022. While the general area of where the race will be staged is revealed early, the maps and checkpoints of the course are only released to the teams the night before the start, adding to the adventure.

Meet the team

Nutrient Rescue is excited to be supporting this group again for the 2023 edition of GODZone, which also doubles as the Expedition Racing World Championships to be held in Fiordland in February 2023. Aptly named Nutrient Rescue Adventure Racing, the competing team is made up of Dave “DQ” Quested, Darron “Daz” Jones, Cheryl “Roo” Young, and Dave “Divvy” Keen. These four have raced in the past two GODZone races in Rotorua in 2021 (6th place) and traversing over 700km across the South Island in 2022 (8th place). All are fired up for another crack at the next event in Fiordland in February 2023. The Double Shots have played a big part in meeting their nutritional needs while training for, and competing in, the GODZone. As Divvy says, “After a few days of next to no sleep and on the move in some tough terrain your body starts craving nutrients. Nutrient Rescue is such a fast and efficient way of getting that hit of nutrients.”

The four of them all live in the beautiful Nelson/Tasman region, a terrific place to train for an event like GODZone. They see themselves as everyday folk who just love to go outdoors, enjoying a bit more suffering than most. Adventure racing is a hobby for them, and the challenge of fitting the training and competing in amongst their busy lives, is all part of what gets them out of bed at 5 am for a paddle or run before hustling kids off to school and getting into a day’s work. The team race philosophy is simple: race the course, look after each other and have fun.

Daz will be lining up for GODZone number 5 in 2023. A surveyor by day he has two young boys to keep him on his toes. Able to make the most of living in Nelson you will often find Daz running on the local trails with his dog Scooter. Running is where adventure racing started for him. After having run several marathons around the world he got into trail running with like-minded people and hasn’t looked back. Orienteering and rogaining soon followed, and Daz is now one-half of the navigation engine of team Nutrient Rescue. He has many regional and national competition podium finishes in the New Zealand orienteering and rogaining scene. His all-round athleticism and versatility saw him take out 3rd placed veteran in the Coast to Coast a couple of years back in his first attempt at the event. 

The second part of the Nutrient Rescue navigation unit is DQ, himself also a regional and
national rogaining winner. Daz and DQ usually team up for events. DQ is originally from
the small village of Little Milton in England, but moved to New Zealand with his wife
Clare back in 2003. His introduction to New Zealand was to walk the length of it, where he and Clare covered the Te Araroa trail over 5 months. An epic adventure that to this day he ranks as right up there. DQ’s initial love for the outdoors was based around mountaineering and hiking, along with the navigation for it. After proving his metal as a navigator in rogaining events, he was asked to join a GODZone team back in 2016 and has gone on to do three more all under the Nutrient Rescue banner.

Roo lives in Mapua with Divvy and their three teenage boys and currently works part-time for Nelson’s SASH, a support service for sexual assault victims, as well as studying toward her master’s in counseling. She has the most GODZone events under her belt in the team with 2023 lining up to be her sixth. Growing up in Wellington playing each sport, Roo was in her early 20’s looking for a challenge in the netball off-season, where she was in the region’s senior representative team. The Coast to Coast seemed like the obvious thing to do, which is where her passion for multisport and then adventure racing began. She has taken part in several ultra-distance trail races in New Zealand and overseas, as getting to run on the trails is a huge passion of hers. Roo has the distinction in the team of not having yet fallen out in the rapids in the pack raft, clearly something the rest of the team will be factoring in when picking training rivers.

Divvy rounds out the team of four and will be heading to his third GODZone in 2023, having competed in the last two events in the Nutrient Rescue team. An accountant by trade, Divvy is the CFO for a family office investment fund and was previously the CFO for outdoor company Macpac for 9 years. Roo and Divvy met on the mountain trails over 20 years ago and still share the same passion today, in between raising three teenage boys. Divvy has always been into running, competing in trail races up to 100 miles in length, as well as taking part in lots of multisport races and 24-hour events before getting the chance to take on GODZone. Having a built-in training buddy at home with Roo is a great motivation to get going when that 5 am alarm goes off.

Results from GODZone chapter 11

Nutrient Rescue Adventure Racing placed an incredible 6th finishing up in 5 days 2 hours and 36 minutes. For an in-depth racing report, click here.