Something for the Weekend Adventure Race Posted by Jo

We arrived at Newcourt Farm campsite, at the foot of the black mountains at 7am Sunday morning feeling unbelievably under prepared. But then again other than fulfilling the kit list and feeling relatively fit there isn't that much prep for the day you can do, as you've no idea what the route will be. The idea is to collect as many points as possible whilst navigating your way around the Black Mountains and The Wye Valley with in a set time. You are given 3 maps all containing checkpoints with different values depending on the difficulty of getting to them. Within the short time of recieving the info and starting the race, the idea is to plan the best route based on the terrain and your individual ability.

Stage one started at 8.10am and involved getting to Glasbury to set off in the kayak within a window of 10.10am and 10.40am (if you missed it you were out) Easy if you just ran the 2 miles to the river...however there were lots of points to be collected on the way. The route we chose took us right the otherside of the Wye Valley and we made it back to the canoes just as the launch time started.

Emma and I were working as a team so we set off in a Canadian canoe (Emma was captain for the day and very good one she made too) We negotiated our way to Hay trying to avoid the stag parties on the way, and safely landed ashore to the bike transition.

After a quick sandwich and re hydration we were off again on our mountain bikes. Having run for 2 hours and then sat down in the canoe for an hour, our legs were decidely stiff and took a while to get going.

We took the decision to go for the big points..this meant cycling up the Hill Raiser route. It was worth it but we then went off road to claim another one and couldn't find it. In our enthusiasm we (I) forgot it had been struck off in the briefing, however we know we had it bag (had it been there).

Cycling up The Gosspel Pass was really hard work as the wind had appeared from no where but we made it to the bike/run transistion and set off for the final run leg. This was a difficult call, the cut off time to finish was 3pm and we had just over an hour. There was a penelty of 10 points for every minute over time, if you ran down the road you'd get there within the time, however you wouldn't pick up any extra points. We took our time deciding and plumped for a direct cross country route which had 2 check points. The route took in part of a run some of us did in the winter so I felt confident with the terrain. Everything was going fine, we had both checkpoints and could see where we needed to go, however we hadn't bargined for barbed wire and electric fencing just where we wanted to go. It took a bit of back tracking and we found ourselves back on the right track but knowing we would be over time.

All part of the experience and having said all that for a first time go we were only 7 minutes over. The organisation was second to non, I can't stress enough how much of a logistical nightmare planning something like this must be. Thanks to Matt and The Might Contain Nuts Team. Bloody Brilliant!

Come on Hotfooters give it a go. The best part was you never felt you were racing because everyone chose different routes, it was hard but gave us a massive sense of achievment. (It's also an opportunity for more kit!)