Those are two points adventure race novice Richie McCaw will be reminded of by his more experienced team-mates in the lead up to next year's 550km Godzone adventure race.
The race, in the Tasman District in April, will be a first for the former All Black captain.
For team-mate Sarah Fairmaid, of Wanaka, it will be her 25th.
She has just returned from Brazil after finishing second in the Adventure Racing World Championships - completing 750km in six days in 40degC temperatures.
Asked yesterday by the Otago Daily Times about bringing a new player into an adventure racing team, Fairmaid said one of the most important things was not to ‘‘tell them horrific stories'' about what can go wrong.
‘‘Mostly what crops up is after a while it's really hard to eat enough and drink enough to sustain your nutrition, and you get tired.''
There was also the danger of a ‘‘pretty substantial crash'' by falling asleep on the mountain biking leg.
‘‘You really want to try and look after yourself as much as you can - nutrition, feet.''
Fairmaid did not expect fitness to be an issue for McCaw, but all members of the Cure Kids team - McCaw, Rob Nicol (team leader), Ben Meyer and Fairmaid - would need to make sure their skills were up to scratch.
‘‘It is a very skill-based sport, so it's really up to the whole team to make sure everyone's up to speed in the skills required.''
The race consists of mountain trekking, running, ice-climbing, rafting, abseiling, kayaking and coasteering.
‘‘Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and at some point you may not even know what they are, and they may change in races,'' Fairmaid said.
Navigation was also a vitally important skill.
It is not unknown for teams to travel considerable extra distances after losing their way in the back-country, and the race can take some teams up to seven days to complete.
While Nicol and Meyer have competed in Godzone events together before, Fairmaid had only ever met them briefly and had never met McCaw.
So far, the Cure Kids team get-togethers had all been achieved via email.
Fairmaid considered that lack of experience as a team would count against them being able to win the Tasman event.
‘‘The more people race together, the more they understand each other, the quicker they can predict when things need [to be] changed.
‘‘You can utilise people's strengths and cover for weaknesses.
‘‘It makes a huge difference.''
Fairmaid considered her experience as an adventure racer would be of value to the team, and she was undaunted about competing alongside world Rugby's No1 celebrity.
‘‘It's just a matter of trying to pool our strengths together ... so we have a good week.''
She believed it was ‘‘huge'' for the profile of adventure racing and for Cure Kids to have McCaw take part.
