I Spent a Weekend in the Arc’teryx X Capital Brewing Athlete House for ‘Research Purposes’

Sweaty athletes, hoppy beers, and some of Australia’s best mountains. Tim dove into the cauldron at one of the best trail running events in the country.

‘Euuurghhaaahhh!’ Jonny screams. He’s flat on the floor, sweat beading on his forehead as his face flushes red. He rocks back and forth, writhing in pain with every movement. In 12 hours we’ll be running the 42km Buffalo Stampede Sky Marathon, and I’ve just introduced him to foam rolling.

Jonny’s the Head of Marketing of Capital Brewing, a salty surfer and true dirtbag trail runner, more likely to throw you a shaka than a carb gel, and he’s the brain behind our weekend.

Around me, whilst Jonny discovers the most painful way to self massage, lithe runners adorned in striking Arc’teryx fits pack running vests, attach race bibs, and measure out their race nutrition like they should be wearing lab coats. Others, those who’ve already run, sprawl on couches around the house, brews from Capital Brewing Co. clutched in hand.

The collab between Arc’teryx and Capital Brewing happened organically, thanks to their special shared mix of outdoor interests, environmentally-friendly goals, and soon, federal location – Arc’teryx is opening their Canberra store in the Canberra Centre in mid-July.

Check out the rapid reel of the weekend!

Getting (Agri)Cultured

Trail runners and gorpy approach shoes are piled into a corner and traded for steel-capped boots and hi-vis vests as we make our way into the factory. 

We’re in Myrtleford at Hop Products Australia, a farm and factory setup that supplies tonnes of hops to Capital Brewing Co. each year. A bloke with a beautiful brush-like moustache gives us a rundown on safety and we’re off, deep into the bowels of the cleanest production line I’ve ever seen.

I’ve done brewery tours a bunch of times and enjoyed hazy afternoons looking up at the huge metal tanks that make delicious bubbly brews. But what I didn’t know is that after growing on long, thick vines, hop flowers have to be stripped, cooked, and processed through dozens of machines to become the pellets that head out to the breweries.

Factory tour done, we stomp out to the fields where hops drape from a massive four-metre tall trellis. Capital Brewing’s Co-Founder Laurence Kain plucks a hop straight off the vine, crushes it in his hands and takes a huge whiff. If you’ve ever had a hoppy IPA you’d be shocked at how similar it smells.

‘Malt, hops, yeast, and water, that’s it’, Laurence says to me as he and Jonny pass out hop flowers to the Arc’teryx crew. They’re choosing a hop for a collaboration beer named Ridge Ripper. It’s an amber lager that I’m sure will be as at home on high mountain passes as it is in a trendy Melbourne laneway.

Laurence takes a hoppy whiff with his trained shnozz

The chosen hop is a unique breed from HPA called Eclipse. It takes a special approach to breeding that results in seedless plants that are higher in quality and yield, and therefore more environmentally friendly to grow. Having seen the effort that goes into growing and processing these little guys, I can understand how small changes scale up to big impact – for flavour and the planet.

Buffalo Soldiers

In Bright, we high-five our accommodation and nab some beds before I drop my mate Sam at the start of the 10km race. Not just any 10k race though, Buffalo Stampede calls this one the Twilight Sky Sprint. ‘Sky running’ has a bunch of definitions, but essentially it means ‘as much vert as possible’.

Luckily, that’s not too much of a problem in Bright, where Mystic Mountain Bike Park butts up against the town, and Clear Spot lookout towers 700 metres above the valley floor, and a full kilometre above sea level. Sam’s ‘run’ climbs 525m in a single push, and it’s all downhill from the 4th kilometre. It’s brutal stuff, and a hint of what’s to come.

Back at the house a huge crew has assembled next to a mountain of pizza boxes. In between bites I chat to Samantha Gash, who’s part of two relay teams tackling the 100km course, Hugh and Rowan who are toeing the line for the 100k solo (4930m of climbing, no biggie) and a bunch of legends giving the 20k a burn the next morning.

But as the sun sets on the balcony and barely-legal amount of carbs becomes stored glycogen in everyone’s thighs, all I feel is warmth. We share yarns about everything; previous races, adventures on the calendar, whether we’ve been here before or were about to have a red hot ‘new trail day’.

I climb the stairs to my room still glowing. Turns out that it doesn’t matter how good at trail running you are – you still like being in the mountains, running some sweet single track (with a healthy dose of suffering), and having a yarn about it afterward.

In fact, I was so happy that I wasn’t even too mad when I realised someone had stolen my bloody mattress.

Let’s Actually Ascend

The next 24 hours pass in a blur. 100k runners leave before dawn, running from Bright to the granite tors of Mt Buffalo and back again. At 7:30am a tangle of limbs, poles, and packs sprint down the chute, ready to climb the same fire trail of death from the night before, but run twice as far. The Arc’teryx X Capital Brewing crew are easy to spot in their bright blue kit; we’re unofficially Team Smurf.

The team returns, spent, and Jonny’s at the finish line with some Trail Pale Ales to celebrate. ‘Seemed like the appropriate brew’ he said to me as he loaded the esky earlier. Seconds pass and I’m off to Eurobin Aid station, which marks both 26.7km, and 75km on the return of the 100k race.

Given my race isn’t until tomorrow, I’ve signed up as a volunteer to help for a few hours, but I didn’t realise quite how crucial our shift was. The runners that do come through are hobbling. It’s sticky and weirdly humid, and it’s taken them all morning to get here. We prep two minute noodles, fill hydration bladders, unload cans of Coke from a truck, and refill the generator to keep the timing mats operational. It’s fulfilling work.

The sweepers arrive and clear the track, no more runners until the leaders come back through, surely that’ll be hours right? Dear reader, I’m not sure that it is even one. Michael Dunstan steams through, his crew cooling, feeding, and resupplying him like an F1 car. Next is Eszter Csillag, an international runner who’s leading the women’s race, whilst coming second overall. I’m witnessing greatness, mere metres away.

Time passes, cementing the dominance of the leaders, before suddenly Elise Marcianti rounds the corner, head to toe in Arc’teryx. She’s a part of Samantha Gash’s Her Trails team and they’re in the lead! She shrugs off her pack to Melissa Duncan and collapses to the ground, it’s been a hard day.

Mel shoots off, unsurprising given she represents Australia for 1500m, 5k and cross country, but then someone turns to me.

‘She’s never done a trail race before.’

I smile, I don’t reckon it’ll be her last.

Knackered, we shoot through for a carb-loaded dinner, reluctant shake out runs, and an early night for tomorrow’s runners.

 Out in the dark, Hugh and Rowan are still running.

Time To Put Myself To Work

When I creep into the kitchen at 4:30am, a forlorn figure is already there. It’s Hugh, staring blankly at his phone whilst he eats beans directly from the can. He finished at 1am.

I prep coffee as he tells me about the race, and shares photos from ice climbing in Canada mere weeks ago. Like running 100km wasn’t enough!

Michaela comes in. She’s spent the night supporting Rowan and Hugh at aid stations and the finish line, and ferrying runners back and forth. Now she’s driving Jonny and I up to the start line on Mt Buffalo itself.

This might be why I love race weekends so much, running long distances in the bush is a team sport. From the volunteers at the aid stations to your mates who carry you through endless long runs in training, race day is as much a celebration of everything you’ve done together to get to this point.

Not much left but to do the thing then right?

I’m not going to turn this into a race report, but I will say this: the vibes were electric. SingleTrack Events puts on a hell of a race weekend and the energy was contagious. Even as I ran the longest downhill stretch I’ve ever seen, or climbed a fire trail that may as well have had climbing holds, I was smiling. Runners encouraged each other, our Arc’teryx X Capital support crew hollered from the aid stations. Heck, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want the race to end, but it was close.

With 400 metres to go I round the corner to Pioneer Park and see the crew. I’m not an Arc’teryx athlete, nor am I on the Capital Brewing team, but they were waiting for me all the same. As I pour out the last of my legs onto the tarmac, they’re running right there beside me.

How was the marathon Kelsey? | Photo by Will Guy

Just like us?

What surprised me most from my weekend in the athlete house wasn’t how different it was, but how much was the same.

Sure, Hugh could knock out a 100km run with almost no training, Michaela DNF’d when an existing injury flared up (tactical DNFs are the true mark of an athlete) and Ji Sheng, Kelsey Dubar, and Mark Reid shrugged off their top 20 finishes with practiced humility.

But despite that, we were all there to run in the mountains, hurt a lot, lift each other up, and appreciate some of the best trails in the country. It reminded me that whether you’re a pro, mid-pack, or wagging the tail, if you’re at a race weekend like Buffalo Stampede to run trails, or even walk them, you’re in the right place, with the right people.

Ridge Ripper, the Arc’teryx X Capital Brewing Co. collab amber lager will launch at the new Arc’teryx Canberra store. It opens in the Canberra Centre in mid July.

You’ll also find Ridge Ripper at on-premises licensed venues that stock Capital brews, and other Arc’teryx events.