Lythgoes Adrenalin Rush

The Route – Sitting Down Most of the way

Rob / 25.05.2002

After a largely trouble free days skills testing 7.00 pm was the time to collect the route books for the course – followed by a frantic 3 hours map marking and then a long question and answer session. It’s a complex business giving detailed instructions for such a long race, and this race has it’s own unique way of doing things. One of these is the ‘Diechings’, unmanned control points with orienteering punches which teams have to clip along the route between the main PC’s. They were demonstrated by the course planner, D. (Derek) King.

At first glance it’s the extended open water kayaking sessions which stand out. The race starts in kayaks on Upper Lough Erne, finishes in them on lower Lough Erne, and in the middle is a monstrous 75km sea kayak right round Donegal Bay – 172 km of paddling altogether. Keith Byrne of The North Face was smiling. “We’ve got 2 top class paddlers and they’re happy boys tonight� he said, “but I think I’ll have tendonitis all next week.� For the first time in an Adrenalin Rush there is a dark zone here, for obvious reason teams have to come off the water to a PC before dark.

There is more mountain biking on the course than anything else (208 km), but a fair bit is on country roads, to move teams around the area, to get to the most spectacular parts of the country. The route book uses the Tulip system of navigation, borrowed from motor rallying and though straightforward it’s symbols and notations are new to many here. Where the bikes are taken off-road it’s going to be hard, very hard. The countryside is sodden and there will be a lot of pushing and carrying.

Not everyone was focusing on the paddling though, the 3 trekking stages were getting some careful attention too. The state of the ground, the lack of trails and likely low cloud will make the climbs and navigation hard. The first stage in the Blue Stack mountains includes a rope section. The 2nd climbs above some impressive cliffs and here the teams got a warning about the maps. The route crosses the border between N. and S. Ireland so maps from 2 different agencies are used, and those in the republic don’t mark the crags and cliffs so well – not at all in fact!