Race Report – Skandia Island Explorer 2013

Nicki Adams (Team Tri-adventure) / 10.09.2013

Responding to an invite from good friend and Race Director Thure Kjaer, Tom Davies, I and another 3 hardy folk headed to the small island of Bornholm at the end of August for the Skandia Island Explorer 24 hour Adventure Race.

Getting there was surprisingly easy thanks to classically efficient Scandinavian public transport links and we got into Ronne just in time for a quick beer and pizza on Thursday night before retiring to our accommodations kindly provided by the race team.

The race started at 1pm on Friday with a swim/run/bike prologue around Ronne. After a bit of a nightmare on the bike with a split tyre sidewall and a bloody hand, we finished in 10^th place which translated to a frustrating 27 minute penalty at the 6pm race start.

We headed out on the first MTB stage into a warm summer evening complete with new rear tyre and made good time to the first transition. After a short abseil in a quarry we were off into the gathering darkness on a rocky 15km coasteering and running stage. Finishing the coasteering with a long run through a sleepy town and starting to feel a little sleepy ourselves, we quickly transitioned to inline skates.

This was the section I’d been nervous of having purchased my first set of skates only weeks beforehand and with only a handful of practice sessions under my belt, 40km was going to be a long way! With the midnight roads deserted however we had a brilliant time skating through the still-warm night. A brief rain shower added excitement as the tarmac turned ice-slippery for a while, but we were soon out the other side, in trail shoes and running for a while to pick up controls at a waterfall and in a very deep sea cave. Back on the skates for the last 10k, all downhill to the kayak transition and a surreal interview with the local Danish TV station who were covering the whole race.

Kayaking into the dawn light, we enjoyed beautifully smooth seas down the east coast of the island. Rounding the southern tip however, a strong headwind picked up and we were faced with big breaking waves and a scary 5km and 2 hour(!) paddle around them to reach transition and safety.

We found out later that several teams had capsized here, others chose to drag their boats along the beach and teams behind us were pulled off the water by the race crew. Lucky we didn’t know that or we might have done the same!

A little shaky and later than planned but finally off the kayaks and onto the bikes for the last stage. We calculated that we had time to complete the 70km in the route book and still be home for tea before the 5:30pm cutoff. When the mapped route turned out to be more like 110km however we sadly had to turn for home early, but not before a quick dash to the bottom of a quarry and a spot of archery at the local sports field.

Back at the finish line, we weren’t quite done as the Danish TV crew wanted to televise the teams racing a live 1hour orienteering finale including another obligatory chilly swim in the Baltic waters. After the scores were totted up we finished 6th overall, which given our poor start and my lack of training we were pretty pleased with.

Thure and his team were incredibly helpful and hospitable; they put us up all weekend, helped with lifts and transport and were generally brilliant. Definitely one to add to the race calendar for 2014!

Nicki Adams & Tom Davies

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