Questars - New Forest - Novices Race

Questars Starts the Year in the New Forest

Daniel Carrivick (Questars) / 29.03.2012

The first race of the 2012 Questars adventure race series took place in the New Forest at the weekend. Such is the popularity of the New Forest that this event was held over two days with experienced adventure racers competing on Saturday and novice adventure racers taking part on Sunday.

The weather was amazing for the time of year with wall to wall sunshine on both days. The trees in the forest offered some welcome shade for participants and there was a refreshing breeze coming in off the coast which helped prevent those taking part from getting too hot.

In a slight change from normal, rather than being given a specific start time, participants could start anytime within a given time window for their race. This meant teams had even more flexibility than normal as they could choose to start at a time which best suited their race plan. Those kayaking first had to ensure they started sufficiently early enough in order to be able to get to the kayak transition for the beginning of their kayak time slot while those kayaking last needed to make sure they didn’t start too early otherwise they wouldn’t have had enough time left afterwards to get back to the finish without being late.

The kayaking was on the tidal estuary part of the wonderfully scenic Beaulieu River. The combination of high tides and glorious weather meant conditions couldn’t have been more perfect for a kayaking. Fish basking in the warmth of the sun just below the surface of the water often scurried off as participants approached in kayaks momentarily turning the flat calm water into a splashing frenzy.

Participants used only minor roads and permitted cycle routes to cycle to and from the kayak transition, visiting mountain bike checkpoints on the way there and back. Much of the mountain biking was on way marked cycle tracks within the forest. These are all hard packed gravel tracks making it quick and easy to cover the ground so the mountain biking stage for this race was longer than it is for Questars adventure races held in other parts of the UK.

Many people found the Trail Run the most technically demanding out of the three disciplines. Participants were not allowed to cross open heathland (in order to protect sensitive wildlife habitats and ground nesting birds) and therefore had to follow pre-existing paths and tracks. This might not sound too difficult but in practice it was a different story with some paths present on the ground not being marked on the map and other paths that were marked on the map being difficult to find under the blanket of leaves that carpeted the forest floor.

Despite the notable lack of rain in recent weeks, participants were warned that they may encounter ankle deep mud in one or two places - depending on the route they took of course. And judging by the mud splattered legs at the finish it would appear that most people managed to find the muddy bits!