Irish Adventure Racing Championships
The North Face Crowned Irish Champions
Geordie Canavan / 06.08.2003
The Lakeland Forum in Enniskillen was the location of Race HQ and the start/finish of the 2 stages. Favourites, The North Face, including two of the winners of the 2003 Adrenalin Rush (Chris McSweeney and Nicola MacLeod), had travelled over from England, as had Thomas Cook and Team One, so local team “U4EA� would be hard pushed to make an impact given the vast experience of the competition. The pair’s category was all locals and included Teams BC, Surf Mountain Riversdale and Tornado.
The race briefing began at 0800 hrs with teams being informed that the only equipment check would be climbing gear with the responsibility of ensuring all other required mandatory gear lay with the competitors. Severe time penalties would be imposed on any team who were found out on the course with missing mandatory equipment, and they would be requested to produce a selected item at each manned passage controls.
Stage 1. Start 0930 Cut Off 2350
Conditions on Lower Lough Erne (the northernmost of the two loughs) could not have been better as the competitors made a start to the finals in a kayak section. It was here that the only real hiccup of the race occurred (there is always at least one). The transport bringing the bikes to the pick-up had inadvertently made a wrong turn and became “geographically misplaced�, arriving in a small village in the Irish Republic.
They realised that no water meant they were in the wrong place, so the mistake was quickly rectified. The Teams who had waited patiently for around 20 minutes were able to get on their way on the first mountain bike leg to the viewpoint on the Cliffs of Magho via minor roads and forest tracks. At the viewpoint PC the position of the Teams set the picture for the rest of the day. The North Face led followed closely by Thomas Cook and Team One, Tornado, U4EA, Surf Mountain, BC and Riversdale.
Although there was little sun the cloud cover ensured that the trek through Lough Navar Forest would be warm. This included a short paddle in a dinghy to a control point in the middle of a forest lake before returning to the viewpoint and down the cliff to the shores of Erne and the second of the day’s paddles. The average time of the trek was just over 1 hour although some of the pairs teams decided to miss out this leg and accept a time penalty.
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