Sweatshop Adventure Race - Minley Mayhem

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Camberley Cramp-a-thon

Gary Vallance / 06.07.2005

We’d looked forward to this event for some time, being held in our team’s “old stomping ground� of Hawley Woods, and with no navigating to foul up. We secretly hoped for our first top 10% finish in our debut year.

The first surprise of the day was the snake of bike-racked cars at the entrance to the Gibraltar Barracks race site, for some reason, we’d dismissed “popular event� & “ideal for novices� as promotional puff, and expected something, well, smaller. Perhaps the two hundred and fifty other competitors had thought the same.

Checked in, instructions indicated the racing order as 25k MTB, 5k run, 2k kayak and 5k run home, preceded by two anti-bottleneck challenges: “The Puzzle� and “Ski Sunday�, and a couple of “fun� exercises en-route.

Shoulder to shoulder at the starting ribbon nearly ninety teams of all shapes and sizes amassed, like a column of troops ready to charge. In front of us sat an envelope, containing the first, mysterious challenge.

On the Starter’s signal envelopes were rent asunder to reveal wooden puzzles. The instructions were simple, the puzzle wasn’t. A few teams solved it instantly (grrrr) and raced off, others ran a bit before stopping to scratch their heads. We opted for a “casual stroll�, hoping inspiration would appear by the time we reached the check-point. Gladly it did, and we donned our team “skis� for the amusing 100yd “shuffling and falling over� exercise.

Beech Nuts

We entered transition behind about a quarter of the field, picking up a couple of places on the early tarmac dash. The day’s entertaining introduction was concluded by a footbridge, before diving into the woods for the proper stuff. Committed overtaking on the predominantly narrow trails left us in our own company after about six miles, before team-mates Tom & Beany took over up-front.

I’d pushed hard early to reach some clearer track, but it was apparent that my fitter team-mates were happy to maintain the pace – I groaned inwardly. We assumed that we had reached a gap between elite teams and rookies, and set about crossing it.See All Event Posts