Questars - New Forest - Masters Race
Questars Start the Season with a Sunny Outing in the New Forest
Tom Davies / 30.03.2011
It was a stunning spring day in the New Forest, with the sun shining for almost the whole day. Arriving at the race base in Fordingbridge on the extreme North West edge of the New Forest in good time after a very early start from Kent, I picked up the map and had a first look at the area. Having done a number of races in the New Forest over the last couple of years, it wasn’t a surprise to see that some of the ground was familiar from a previous event. The race base was in the north-west corner of the map, with a remote run/bike/kayak transition at a lake about 7km south. The main race area extended to the east, from Fordingbridge up onto the New Forest plateau, and encompassed a lot of open heathland and a number of large forested inclosures.
The bike route formed a fairly obvious loop, but it was a big loop, measuring nearly 60km in total. I knew from previous experience here that the terrain is fairly flat and that the bike trails are well surfaced and very fast indeed, so I planned a route to clear all the bike points on the way to the transition.
Due to the rules of this particular event stating that all competitors had to start and finish on the bike, and allotting each team a fixed 45 minute timeslot in which to do the kayak leg, the best option for me was to do all the biking first before starting my run, then kayaking last (my allotted kayak slot didn’t start until 4h 45m into my 6 hours of race time), before a quick bike back to the race base.
The run loop involved much more route choice, and much more difficult navigation, with the maze of tracks created by the horses and other animals often confusing the seemingly clear route on the map. With four high scoring controls far to the west on the open plain, I planned a route that included these early on, planning on dropping some of the closer low value checkpoints if I was pushed for time on the way to the kayaking.See All Event Posts
