Zest Girls Flying the Flag for Females in Adventure Racing with Tri-Adventure!

News Release / 07.12.2012

A beautiful if slightly muddy Sunday morning dawned in Cranleigh, Surrey and the last Sprint of the Tri-Adventure 2012 season was underway.  Entrants were definitely getting into the Christmas spirit with festive outfits, tinseled bikes and elaborate helmet decoration, well we had promised mulled wine and mince pies if everyone made the effort!

Emerging out of the distance we saw four new faces, or should we say four beautifully attired ‘Santaettes’.  Amanda, Katie, Caroline and Susan had read about our events in a magazine feature and decided to come along and see what adventure racing is all about.  We’re proud that our participation figures show females make up 48% of our numbers, at this rate the girls will overtake the boys!

Let’s hear from the girls and see what they thought of their Tri-Adventure:

Is this your first adventure race and what prompted you to give it a go?

Katie: I found a your feature in a fitness magazine and thought it looked fun and something different.  It is our first adventure race, 3 of us have previously run marathons and the other does triathlons. We have got a little bored with straight forward running and wanted to give something a go which involved running with a bit of a twist, the Tri-Adventure sprint seemed a perfect solution.

Caroline: It was Kate’s idea as she had seen an advert for your event in a mag feature and we thought “What the hell, we can’t get too lost in 2 hours”

Amanda: This was our first adventure race. We are all regular runners and always on the lookout for different events. I think Kate spotted an advert and we decided to give it a try all working together as a team.

What did you like about your first Tri-Adventure Sprint?

Katie: EVERYTHING we all though it was fantastic and have not stopped raving about it to all our running friends.  It is the thrill of finding a checkpoint and also being pleased with yourself when you actually manage to read the map correctly.

Caroline: I really enjoyed it, thought the other competitors where “Normal” and very friendly and happy to offer there tips.

Amanda: I loved it, the real challenge was the orienteering. Because I was not good at that it would be great to get better and then you could put in a lot more effort into the running and cycling. The thing I liked best was the relative freedom of choosing your own route and not having to follow everyone else. You could set your own challenge.

What did you find the most challenging about adventure racing?

Katie: For me the most challenging was the training leading up to the event on riding a mountain bike off road, which I had never done before…

Caroline: The most challenging bit was trying to run and cycle whilst map reading, then finding that you had gone past the footpath.