adidas Terrex Coast to Coast (C2C)
Coast To Coast with Matt Halliday
Matt Halliday / 02.09.2011
The start was at the extremely civilised hour, by adventure racing standards, of 10am in Whitehaven on the West coast. Unlike 2009’s event the clement conditions meant that the paddle around St Bee’s Head would go ahead as the first stage of the race. Dan Halliday and Maria Leijerstam of Team Accelerate would be kayaking this first stage and looking to stay in contention with the other top teams and solos on a tricky section of the race.
Round at St Bee’s it was the Kiwi Stuart Lynch who first appeared into the bay and expertly paddled his surf ski onto the beach a fair way clear; in the team competition Team Adidas Terrex were in the lead and it was a nervous wait for me with the bikes in transition for a sight of the yellow boat of Team Accelerate. It was only a 3 minute deficit as Dan and I set out on the bikes and Dan was as relieved as he had ever been to finish a kayak stage still in the boat!
A fast whip along an old railway track and it was onto the second kayak stage of the race, a tough section which included a portage between Crummock Water and Buttermere. Carrying the double kayak along a rocky and marshy path was ungainly and uncomfortable but Maria and I knew that we were carrying exactly the same boat as James Cracknell and Nicola Macleod ahead of us - so it was just a matter of stumbling on!
It was straight out of the boat and on to the first of the running stages and the steepest but shortest of the ‘King of the Mountains’ legs. The climb up Robinson was a brutal one and this is where the legs really started to burn, with some sections so steep that pulling up with both hands as well as feet was required! Dan and I had James and Bruce in our sights in the early stages of the ascent and passed them about two thirds of the way up to move into the lead for the first time in the race.
A long and tough ridge run then followed with a climb up to the highest point at Dale Head with a steep and rocky descent off the other side. Both Dan and I were experiencing bursts of cramp as we descended the steepest sections and had to do everything we could to ignore the pain and keep the pace high. To make matters worse for our legs there was a swim to tackle at the very bottom of the run.
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