Dynamic Adventure Racing Endurance

---

Chase on the Downs

Tom Gibbs / 11.03.2008

The weather forecast all week was for heavy rain on Saturday – just in time for the Dynamic Adventure Endurance race in the Cranborne Chase region of the Wiltshire Downs – so I was pleasantly surprised by the relatively dry drive down to the event centre in Sixpenny Handley.

Having done a Polaris here a few years ago, I knew that the area is a mix of steep-sided downland and chalk stream valleys, potentially very fast if dry, and very muddy and claggy if wet.

Simon greeted all the competitors as in his usual friendly manner as we arrived at the Village Hall. Though Flossie’s kitchen already doing good business, I was saving that for after the race.

As I always do, I choose to run first – easier to cycle on tired legs and the run would allow me to get an idea of how wet it was out there. After getting the pre-marked map from Nicky, I sat down to work out routes for the run then bike. As usual I started by looking at a route round all the controls, then working out the ones that would be a pain to get. For the run there was a bunch of controls in the centre that could be done in a multitude of ways, these options were reduced following Simon’s briefing that the local hunt would be out and sticking to rights-of-way outside of common land was mandatory.

I quickly had a look at the bike route and had a rough plan sorted out – this was driven by two factors – the strong Southwesterly wind and the good drove roads on the top of the downs. I tried to plan a route to get a tailwind along the drove roads and to keep my height as much as possible, even if it meant extra distance.See All Event Posts