Untamed New England
Into the Untamed Wilderness
Mark Bottomley (Team Endurancelife) / 10.08.2009

Announced as the newest addition to the Adventure racing World Series, The Untamed New England race was out to prove to the world that it was worthy of it's new status. A 3 day, non stop, unsupported race across the wilds of New Hampshire, North America.The race could be entered by pairs and teams of three or four, with the winning 3 teams of 4 each receiving an entry into the AR World Champs in Portugal. This ensured that the competition was high, with all teams out to win the ultimate prize of free entry, flights and accommodation.
Team Endurancelife entered a team of two, consisting of myself and Ian Grace. We were to try and take our recent UK success to an International arena, and with almost 10 separate countries being represented in the field of 45 teams, the UntamedNE was going to be a perfect venue!
We arrived a few days in advance, to get ourselves acclimatised and get over the jet lag. A small local trek, with the US equivalent of our OS maps, gave us a bit of a scare. The terrain was like Snowdonia except completely covered in forest, and the maps were so old that the very few trails that did exist did not match the map. It became very clear that this race was to be won on navigation, so we spent an hour or 2 testing the magnetic declination until we were happy it was approximately 250 mils.
Race day was preceded by an evening welcome party in the race HQ, The Balsams Grand Resort, which was a chance for the teams to get introduced in a relaxing environment. There would be no time for this the following morning, as the few hours before kick off were to be spent plotting maps and weighing in kit transition bags. Pre race night in the wonderful hotel and a full buffet breakfast the morning of the race was greatly appreciated.
With kit weighed in and maps as plotted as possible (in the available time), the race got underway just after midday with a 24 mile mtb through boggy trails and forest tracks. This was harder than it sounds, with team completion times ranging from 3.5 to just under 7 hours. We managed to get to the first of the two kayak legs in 4th place but this was all to change over the next 4 hours of paddling.
The canoe put in was just above the biggest rapids in the area. Grade 3 proved a bit too much for over 90% of the teams (us included) and within 2 minutes of getting in the boats, we found ourselves swimming. This was race over for a couple of the teams, but the rest of us continued downstream to the second of many biking legs.See All Event Posts