The 2007 Adventure Race World Championship
Race Briefing - The Secret\'s Out
Robyn Ferrar / 25.05.2007
This morning’s race briefing revealed all of the closely-guarded secrets that have kept many teams speculating for the last few months. The best kept secret of all – and one few would ever have guessed – is that the race prologue and start will be on the Isle of Rum, one of the Inner Hebrides, or ‘Small Isles’ about 20kms off the west coast of Scotland. This information has already caused a bit of a stir. With a history dating back to the mesolithic era, the island is still one of the largest protected areas in the UK. Until recently it was known mysteriously as ‘the forbidden island’.
To Rum to Run
At 5am tomorrow morning, the teams will board a bus bound for the port town of Mallaig, from where they’ll be ferried across to this wild and mystical place. At 10am they will be set loose on the island for the prologue, after which they will camp out for the night and be up early, ready to start the race in earnest early the next day.
To start the briefing, Gary wanted to give the teams a feel for Scotland and what was to come. For the benefit of those who had never been to Scotland before, he said that Scotland may be small but that “in Scotland it is really big�, he gave friendly warnings, like “the terrain will laugh at your gore-tex socks� and “the only time your feet will be dry is in the kayaks�.
Talking about some of the open route choices in the race (sections where racers will have to choose from several options) he said, “open route choices can save hours over just 5kms – it’s complicated mountaineering�.
As for the overview of the race itself, Gary hinted at some pretty exciting stuff. Starting with a paddle to the mainland, the second stage will be a trek across the remote area of Knoydart, “the last wilderness of Scotland�, where the trails were made by horses carrying out the culled deer meat.See All Event Posts
