The North Face ARS

Wet, wet, wet in Holland

Andy Brees / 10.10.2002

Saturday 5th October

09:15 - Outdoor briefing from Geert van Dijk, race organizer
09:15.01 - Started raining with gusts up to 40 mph.
17.00 - Rain, wind and race stopped.

So much rain fell during this race that the combined force of all Dutch windmills pumping water into the North Sea meant that we had to canoe up class 2 rapids instead of normally peaceful canals. We traveled faster through the water when we took off all our clothes and tied them to an oar to make a sail. There was so much water on the ground that we exchanged our skate wheels for floats. When we had to swim across a pungent disused pool we didn’t even notice that is was wet. And Holland isn’t even green and pleasant.

An excellent short, but spicy race: Bike to the canoes (fight off other competitors at the clip-points), canoe a few laps round some (sometimes so shallow it was quicker to stick the oar in the mud and push like a Venetian Gondola) canals. Back to the bikes, swim or climb along a rope across the above mentioned cesspit-like pool, run through the woods to the skates, skate along the extremely well-marked and smooth loop to the last transition to sprint back the remaining 6 km or so to the screaming fans (see acknowledgements under for their names) at the finish. Then tell the race officials that you didn’t miss any clip-points along the way; they’d blown down or drifted off in a surging torrent.

Highlights:

• Race organization (despite not being able to hear the briefing through the rain drumming on my head)
• Learning to skate on soggy leaves
• Being able to enjoy being wet and knowing that you’d be dry soon.
• Cheery (and wet) race stewards
• Surprise event-the (near) naked swim across by now famous well fertilized pool
• Gave the Gore-Tex top and Ortlieb dry bags a good road test
• Price
• Playing bumper cars in the canoes on a narrow section of the canal.

Lowlights:

• Rusted skates and bike
• Picking Jasper off the floor and trying not to laugh because he did exactly what we were warned about during the briefing and rode into one of the big holes made by the woodland animals (sand-eating squirrels).

Thanks to: M-real Logic, Amsterdam; TCK-Sports, Heerlen; SportCity, Leiden; Falke; Nina and Chris.