Ace Race 1-day Series
Speed, Endurance and Fun
Rob Howard / 02.05.2007
He’d overcome the usual pre-race organisational glitches and ACE Base was set up at Birches Valley visitor centre, resplendent with Buff flags, sponsor banners, start/finish gantry and the mobile planetfear shop. The course was set and now was the time to put the worried looking newbie ACE Racers at ease ...
“We’ll start with a trail run, but much of it will be off the trail ... there will be brambles and there will be blood!�
He followed that up with. “Now raise your hand if you’ve been at every one day ACE Race but never competed before!� Only Phil Humphreys raised his hand.
The founder of ACE Races was now competing his first one-day race with his 17 year old son Matt, and Emma Cox had joined them to make a competitive team of three with one significant advantage. Having planned so many courses in the area Phil knows just about every trail on the Chase, including those not on the map!
Like everyone else he wasn’t going to see the map until after the trail run and as everyone gathered for the mass start Aberdeen Asset Management, teams A and B, lined up across the front of the pack for the off. A few teams passed them on the run, but it didn’t stay that way for long ...
Different Challenges
The run took teams along trails, through the brambles and undergrowth, and at one stage over a ‘steeplechase’ of fallen logs, and with an 11.00 start it was already hot. It may have been a spring day, but the temperature was more like mid-summer, so taking on plenty of liquids was vital, as was taking care to avoid crashes with the many bike and horse riders and walkers out on the Chase. It was packed with visitors enjoying the day, and enjoying the sight of competitors doing some strange things on some of the challenges lined up for them.
SleepMonsters
