ACE Races 1-Day Series - Ashdown Forest

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Ashdown Showdown

Robyn Ferrar - Team The North Face Flight Series. (Photos Kevin Turner.) / 10.05.2005

Aside from the strong, biting wind, there was sunshine a-plenty on the first 1-day Ace Race of the season, and the forecasted rain never really showed itself for long. There was a nervous energy in the field before the race and it was a great turn out - as with the 2-day race a few weeks ago, it was a sell out. Phil told us a little of what to expect from the course at the race briefing, such as we were about to climb the equivalent of Mt Snowden in ascent alone.

His predicted winning time for this race was 3hrs 9mins, but about 50% of the field would not even complete the course in the 5hr time limit. For us a team of 3 was needed from the original North Face Flight Series Team – so Nick Drew stood down to rest prior to an upcoming triathlon.

After the briefing, everyone dispersed for last minute preparations. Seeing the hordes of skittish racers bouncing around the field and the tiny gap they all had to squeeze through under the start banner, we decided to make a beeline for the front.

A short while later hundreds of people were stampeding down the grassy slope. Keeping ahead of it was like trying to escape a landslide – a few bounced passed us but we managed to keep the critical mass at our heels. Once we hit the road, the field was sufficiently spread for the pace to slow a little and we had a chance to take stock and find our pace.

Team Taking The Pith lead the field from the start and we decided to try and keep them in our sights, knowing we had to pace ourselves for a long hard race ahead. Our tactics were to put me (Robyn) straight on tow from word go – the only perk of going into a race with a running injury.

As it turned out, it was the steep downhills that gave me most trouble, but for those my team jumped to the rescue and lifted me under each arm so that I was practically running on air – Mark from the HP teams commented on our interesting “technique�.

Keep Your Feet Dry

Although we never really lost touch with Taking the Pith, by the time we got to the map give-out and the start of the orienteering stage, they had built up a comfortable lead. The rest of the 52-minute trail run was via 1 challenge and 1 control. See All Event Posts