Helly Hansen X-Challenge/Commotion in Cumbria

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Commotion in Cumbria at the Helly Hansen Adventure-X

Marty Lee - Team Top Bananas / 01.04.2009

With a forecast of rain, high winds and possible snow flurries, the inaugural \'Trailplus Helly Hansen Adventure X\' race in the Southern Lake District was going to challenge minds, bodies and clothing. For 19 teams though, the lure of over £4000 in prizes was enough to get some really close racing, set in some superb scenery.

The format of the 2 day Adventure-X was akin to a decathlon; 10 stages or activities that would combine to produce an overall winning team. Unlike the more regular athletic decathlon, some of the Adventure-X stages would involve multiple disciplines.

Those disciplines turned out to be:

* Rock Climbing
* Adventure Biathlon (sprint + archery)
* Canoeing
* Assault Course
* Mountain Bike Challenge
* Fell Race
* Sailing
* \'Mystery Challenge\'
* Orienteering

For the numerically astute, there are only 9 items listed; the 10th and final \'stage\' was to complete the Helly Hansen Adventure Challenge on the Sunday - a full blown race in itself.
With a decent prize pot on offer, the usual suspects from the AR community were lined up ready to get dirty. These includied Aberdeen Asset Management, Inov8, Helly Hansen, VO2, For Goodness Shakes and a \'gaggle\' of Accelerate teams.

Based in the YMCA at Lakeside, the majority of the 9 events on the Saturday were held within the grounds. From a logistics point of view, this was delivered with almost military precision. Events would start at hourly intervals and depending on how quickly the team completed them, determined how much time they had to prepare for the next one (or sleep, walk the dogs, drink, eat, things like that).

The grounds at Lakeside are fairly extensive (as we found out) and include a number of small hills, ditches, deer fences, streams, blue plastic drainage tubes and rope based obstacle courses. Paul Magner and his team managed to utilise this to maximum potential, but without too much of a feeling that you were in an enclosed area or repeatedly retracing your steps.

Lakeside is rather unsurprisingly, well positioned for some water based activities too, and it was the \'Sailing\' event that caught our attention. With a team comprising two sailing instructors and all three of us with dinghy racing experience, could this be our \'joker\' event? I suspect that many of the other top AR teams are also able sailors - it just sort of fits the profile of the outdoor sports nut. Chances are that Aberdeen are all olympic standard dinghy sailors who just don\'t like to brag - such quiet and unassuming individuals that they are!See All Event Posts