Been Challenged..

Another post starting with another “it’s been a while” sentence… so now that’s out of the way.

Last week was spent running around the hills near Stirling, Scotland as part of the 4 day ‘Intelligent Sport’ event, Challenger. Here’s a nifty little link to the site.. http://www.challengerworld.com/. Basically, it’s a mixture of running, mountain biking, navigation, strategy, puzzle solving and contraption building, almost non-stop for 4 days. This year it was made up of 120 or so corporate teams battling it out for 9 places in the World Championships later this year. The location was glorious, perfect, a considerable improvement on the previous year in Sheffield. Each different event was in some outstanding areas, all off road, making the pain and strain all the more worth it.

So how did I/we do. Well, I was there as part of one of the ASE Consulting teams, where we unfortunately handicapped as our captain had to leave the event on the first night due to a family matter. Just to start with this put things into perspective, and so we had to continue in the event with a more determination and no substitute. I also took over the captaincy for the rest of the event.

Every other team had 2 subs, as each event had 4 people involved. So all of us had to do the whole Challenger, absolutely exhausted by the end but entirely satisfied. After what was a gargantuous effort, we came 11th overall, just missing out on the World Championships by 2 places and 30 minutes (in Challenger that’s extremely close…). I worked it out and we must have run near 40 miles over the 4 days cycled nearly as much and had to use our brains to get the best strategy to make up for our growing fatigue as the days went on.

It was just great fun. Really enjoyed it this year, unlike the previous one, and am looking forward to next years in the Cambrian Mountains in Wales.

On a positive note, I was able to run and run and run and there was little pain in the shins, so I’m hoping that’s now been put to bed. Now I have to start the long distance training for the Medoc Marathon in September, the first step to the super long distance training for the Sahara.

Masochism

Living today in a nice ‘post-race’ high.

Yesterday did the Open 5 Adventure Racing race in Pately Bridge, N. Yorkshire, http://www.openadventure.com/open5/9_Pateley.htm. Very good day out, the storm held back, although it did get windy and rainy on and off during the 5 hour event. It was full of some seriously steep climbs and mud and challenging map reading skills. The race consists of 5 hours of running and mountain biking, visiting as many points as you can as long as you get at least one point in both disciplines.

Started out on the bike, as usual. I always think getting out on the bike is best, mainly becuase these events always tend to favour biking. All the big ticket points values are on the bike part of the race. e.g. the highest bike points was 45 at three different points, whereas the run only had 25 points as the highest you could get at 3 points. So, seeing that at the start, makes you realise it’s best to get the higher points on the bike before your legs give in after running.

So, the bike was tough. Some serious serious climbs, to the point on the last climb where my legs just cramped up and I had to push the bike up in that pathetic “hunched over the bike pushing for mercy” position. The last climb took me over 45 minutes to get to the top but the downhill bit only took 7 minutes. Go figure… Anyway ended up with a good number of points, lots of mud, horrible cramp and blood pouring from a skin scrape on my hand. Very “action man”…

The run wasn’t any easier, but after the bike, I would say the run was more like a hobbling shufty run instead of a confident 7:30 min/mile pace! The run really puts your map reading skills to the test as you find yourself in a wood, with no visible paths and a lot of boulders. Somehow, my luck held up and I found all the areas I wanted to. I got back to the finish line with 20 minutes to go. Looking back on it, I could have got another few points at the end, but my body was crying out for rest at that point.

All in all, great day, came 13th out of 55 in the male solo category, so a good outing. See the bike course on this page: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5134599 and the run on this page: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5134600.