A Busy Winter Weekend
Rob Howard / 08.03.2005
The ACE Races XXX explored the area around Windermere and south to the coast on Morcambe Bay, where there was a ropes stage on the appropriately named Humphrey Head! The new ACE Races Malibu Two sit-on-top canoes came into their own on their first outing as conditions on Windermere were windy and rough, and with the old Sevylor inflatables the stage would have been cancelled. There were still some capsizes, but in general everyone was pleased with the performance of new boats.
The race was won convincingly by The North Face (Gary Tompsett, John Houlihan, Ski Sharp and Ruth McKean) who completed over 200km in an impressive 29 hours 30 minutes. Only a couple of the 16 entries dropped out, though others lost one or two team members to fatigue and cold.
Conditions in the High Peak Marathon were the toughest for many years and times were slow, though the competition was close. The race is a 42 mile overnight run around the Derwent Watershed, which is renowned for it’s tough terrain and this year the frozen conditions slowed teams and even forced some withdrawals due to ‘snow blindness’!
The modestly named team, ‘The Incredibles’, included two of last year’s winners, were the first home, and there was a close competition for the Tanky Stokes Mixed Trophy with Team SleepMonsters narrowly defending their title from a team including Tom Gibbs and Astrid Wheatcroft. The veterans cup was won by a team including Sir Ranulph Fiennes.
Further South, in the New Forest, the emphasis was on training and practice at the Dynamic Adventure Training weekend held at the Avon Tyrell Centre. Members of team Saab Salomon were helping out as instructors on a weekend of activities designed by James Thurlow, which culminated in a mini-race to practice skills learnt over the weekend.
We’ll have more details, news and pictures of all these events later this week.
SleepMonsters
