The adidas Terrex Adventure Race
Team SleepMonsters in The adidas Terrex
Team SleepMonsters / 06.09.2010
<b>Morecombe Sands: (Ian)</b>
Wow – what a start. Morecombe bay sands, where the tide comes in faster than a horse can run and the way across changes on a daily basis. The start was on and the faster teams sped off across the sands in front of us while we set in for a nice steady jog to the first check point. As we came around a head land, there was Rob from SleepMonsters, ready to take our photo – thanks Rob!!
We noticed that some teams then headed inland, either to miss the check point on the Island or to finally get off the sands. We continued along the sands, bagged the island check point and headed to transition to serve out our 51 minute prologue penalty. A change of socks and some food, and of course a few cups of tea. Good idea to have a penalty like this so early on, plus the sun was out. Great!
<b>MTB to Orienteering: (Ian)</b>
It is all a bit of a blur now, but there were certainly some big hills and some fast road descents. We managed to stay feet dry all day until we got to a lake (2 check points from the Orienteering) and then we hit the boggy lakeside looking for check points amongst the cairns.
We were running late on time and had to drop two of the check points from the first part of the MTB leg and make it as quick as possible to the Orienteering. We were one of the last teams to get to this point.
<b>Orienteering: (Chris)</b>
To do or not to do? That was the question here. One look at the terrain and height gain needed to get onto the course would tell any team that this wasn’t going to be a 15 minute jog around the countryside. I’m sure plenty of teams took one look at it and decided that a “20 minutes per check point penalty� was worth canning the stage. We also guessed that most teams would either do the orienteer or the special stage at Church Beck. So our decision was “stay dry and warm� or “get “cold and wet�. We went for the dry and warm option!
The climb up to the high ground was steady and fairly easy to nav, especially with some teams coming back down the same route. The first couple of checkpoints were reached relatively quickly and there was an easy option to pick up 2 more and then head back, whereas the full course was another km to pick up 2 more checkpoints.
Considering we’d gained the height to get there, we thought it worthwhile to bag all the checkpoints. The last consideration for us, was the dimming light, but we upped the pace and dibbed the last checkpoint just in time. We jogged off the course looking down on the fires spread around the Fisherground campsite below.
SleepMonsters
