Over the August Bank Holiday weekend, I joined Kim Collison, Neil Hamblin and Rob Little to form the Inov8 team at the Terrex Expedition Race in Keswick. Team Inov8 had representives in a couple of other teams as well, with Chris Near and Tim Higginbottom in the 3rd placed Planetfear Team and Steve Birkinshaw on the Winning Adidas Terrex Team!
The race format was a continuous one, starting near Carnforth early Friday morning and heading across Morcambe Bay, then winding its way across (and back across) the Lake District before ending on Monday in Keswick. 11 transitions split the race into different legs of Running (or trekking), Mountain Biking and Kayaking and there were a couple of special stages thrown in for good measure! If a control was missed a time penalty (of varying size) was given, making tactics critical!
This was a new kind of racing to all 4 of the Inov8 team but we set off with the aim of clearing the course. We ran strongly across the sands and made a good start on the 110km of MTB that followed! About 5hours in, my ITB got inflamed and was making pedalling difficult. This had only happened once before, over a year ago, and was very mild then. I was not expecting this and was a bit suprised that it felt so bad after a relatively 'normal' length of racing!
Obviously carrying on didn't make it improve and as I'd left all painkillers in the transition bag I decided to make getting to Coniston and a kayak my aim! We stopped off and completed the special orienteering stage in Eskdale and I wrapped a bandage around it - this made life a bit easier for the next bit of 'biking' over to Coniston. We took our bikes for a walk over Harter Fell, then up near the Old Man of Coniston.
Coming down into Coniston we weren't going to get to transition in time if we completed both special stages en route, so we tactically decided to miss the Kanyoning special stage and get the MTBO special stage instead as this had a greater time penalty. Just as we got to the MTBO, James drove down the road and told us it had been cancelled. We headed back and did the kanyoning at Church Beck – this was great fun with a bit of ropework and a slide off a rock before plummeting into a pool. A bit chilly as well!
By just after 2am we were in a kayak on Coniston – time for a bit of a rest for the legs! This was to be the first leg we missed a control on, making it to the far end of the lake just too late to get the final control and make transition in time!
The next leg was a run over to Lakeside where Stuart Hale hooked me up with a medic who produced an Ice Pack. 3hours of icing whilst paddling up and down Windermere, coupled with pain killers, improved my cycling ability en route to Langdale where the first big hill running stage started. It started up to Stickle Tarn, then there was a special scramble stage involving ropes going up Pavey Ark.
We then headed across to Angle Tarn and Sprinkling Tarn. Here the weather started to change... By the time we made it up to Scarfell Pike the wind was strong and it was raining heavily. At about 12:30am we reached the abseil special stage just below Scarfell Pike at Dow Crag. By the time we got there only 2 of the team were going to go down. Me and Rob ran around to the bottom and found a rock to try and shelter from the wind and rain. After an hour, 2 of Team Likeys.com turned up and we got under their survival blanket – it was rather chilly again when the rest of their team turned up and they left! After 2 hours Neil and Kim made it down. They had been at the top of the abseil when the second rope was abandoned and had to climb up to come back down.
We set off trying to get a bit warmer, failed to find the next control in the clag and tactically missed the next in order to get to warm dry clothes quicker! I haven’t been that cold for a long time!
Back at Langdale, 49.5hrs into the race, we had 30minutes sleep before setting off on the bike again. The ride took us over to Rydal, then Troutbeck and up onto High Street (what a push!). At this point we were cutting transition fine so we really hammered it down the hill to the cockpit and into Pooley Bridge, having cleared that leg! I was close to bonking at this point so put a lot of sugar in me before we kayaked down Ullswater. I was definitely feeling the lack of sleep too, all the trees were sculpted into different animals, it was very entertaining.
At Patterdale we were in 6th position, a quick 10mins sleep then we were off again, tactically missing the control on The Cape and heading straight for Helvellyn. On the way to Raise I was almost falling asleep whilst walking. Just after Raise we had a 10minute sleep in the Bivvy which made all the difference! I felt much more awake! It had the opposite effect on Rob however....
We made it along the long downhill to the transition at Lucy’s Wood for the final bike stage and set off towards Blencathra at about 4:30am on Monday morning.
We were going well to the Blencathra Centre, Skiddaw House and Bassenthwaite Lake. After here however my ITB stopped functioning all together and I got slower and slower. We had to miss the 3 controls in Whinlatter and one at Little Town. I couldn’t run at the transition and teams were taking quite a long time on the orienteering, so we went straight onto the final leg of canoeing on Derwent Water, getting the majority of controls here before running into the finish at Moot Hall.
We finished in 77hours with penalties taking us to 100hrs 30secs and 8th place. It was a really good race and I enjoyed it loads! I learnt a lot, especially about what I can eat and how good pain killers can be! Looking forward to the next one!
Read More...
Summary only...
Patron of the Festival - Colin Jackson.
