ITERA

The Leaders Race Away and ITERA Lite Joins In

Rob Howard / 12.08.2025

On day three of ITERA the leaders continued to race ahead, leaving most of the expedition race field far behind, and the ITERA Lite race began.

Overnight the majority of teams on the expedition course slept at the transition at Foyers, needing to rest and recover after a tough day two and the cold canyon descent.  For some the race was over.  Bonaly Racers decided to retire and Chris Caulfield of Moxie Racers was ill and could not continue, though the rest of team carried on.

By mid morning all of the teams had set off on the stage 7 ride over the Monadhliath hills, and for the first time on the race it was a bright sunny morning, and not windy.  Sunshine and summer arrived on day 3.  Some teams took a shorter route on this stage, while others made the big climb up to the Eagle of Glendoe.

One team taking the easier choice was the Cymru team who arrived at transition 7 at Laggan Village Hall tired, but in good spirits.  For a group who did not know each other before the race they seem to have formed a strong team, with a determination to keep going and enjoy themselves.  Lowri Morgan said, “We know we are not a fast team, and we can’t win, so realised we should enjoy ourselves as much as we could and not worry too much if we missed some checkpoints.” 

Leaving Laggan it was time for the last of the 3 paddles, or for Lite racers the first and only paddle. The Lite race started just above Laggan at the Wolf Trax MTB centre at 14.00 and from there the competing pairs ran to Laggan and joined the expedition teams paddling on the river Spey.

The Lite route will be exactly the same as the final part of the Expedition race, and is a course with a very different character to the anything racers have experienced so far on the long course.  For the next couple of days teams will be on a route with much less elevation, travelling north to the coastline of the Moray Firth and back to Bagaduish.  It is less mountainous and more varied than teams migh have expected, and includes visits to the Glenlivet Distillery, Gordonstoun School and the old RAF Kinloss airbase. 

There are technical foot and mountain bike orienteering stages, an innovative paddle to reach a castle on an island and a rope stage.  Terrains include forest, moorland and coastal sand dunes and the long final bike ride features several special stages.  There is a lot packed into the ITERA lite course and the final stages of ITERA!

Moving into the third night of the race Team Leaping Fish are maintaining a lead over Endurancelife but it is still a close race, which may deliver some surprising twists and turns.  The technical coastal orienteering stage is one which course planner Tom Gibbs feels could prove crucial. 

In the ITERA Lite race the early leaders were team Gary and Cranny, which is Gary Davies and Mark Chryssanthou, two very experienced UK racers.