Adventure Ireland One Day Race
Time to Tango in the Cooleys
Team Tango & Cash Meets Thelma & Louise / 23.10.2007
Two changes to the "Tango & Cash Meets Thelma & Louise" team line-up were forced by injury, the ginger (but very nice) Davy/Tango (removed rib) replaced by brunette adventure racing veteran Ian, and our intended Lady Sharon (broken right meta-tarsal) replaced by pretty-boy and race virgin Phil J.Race roles were agreed in the car-park:
- Al; navigator and natural born leader
- Ian; strategic advisor and technical consultant
- Phil; marketing department
- Rick; enforcer and team glutton
The lasting memory pre-race was Passing Wind's hilarious, albeit quite ingenious, 2-man bike-towing apparatus, which had "terrible accident on the first hill" written all over it! We wonder how it all panned out! ...
Blazing the Trail
Faffing about as usual, we were the last team to lock the car and leave the car park, and we headed out of town behind the directionally-confident Al. Loads of teams were fumbling around in the town at the traffic lights wondering where to go, and some were glad to hop on behind us in the uphill struggle for checkpoint 1.
From 1, out onto the main road, it was up and out towards the new road to Dublin, and a peel off onto the old Dublin road in the hunt for checkpoint 2. After a futile search on a road-side ruin with some other teams, and a more careful analysis of the co-ordinates and instructions, we finally worked out that the track in the description was not the train track. We were in fact on the wrong side of the railway line - fortunately there was a wee bridge handy that meant we did not have to double back, and we were in the right place in a jiffy.
Searching round the crumbling ruin in vain for 5 minutes or so, we were again fortunate to be there just as another team found it precisely where it was noted to be - on tree (go figure, eh?!), but hidden behind the tree (grrrr), so we happily clipped and moved on. By this time, loads of teams had already given up the hunt and had left the checkpoint empty-handed.See All Event Posts
