Wenger Czech Adventure Race
Raising the BAR on the CAR
Adam Rose / 11.09.2015
The Czech AR has a tough reputation. Like all races, it’s as tough as you make it.
11 teams on the starting line. Beacon AR was the only one from the UK. One Russian/Ukranian team, one Danish, the rest Czech with a smattering of Croatian.
Hot summery weather, averaging 30C.
A lot of variety on the course, always appreciated in a shorter race – i.e. not just run and bike and run and bike.
General layout was a clover-leaf design – multiple stages that passed through the race base repeatedly. Very convenient for gear access, for keeping the logistics simple, and allowing access to the team’s chalet – sleeeeeeeepy times!
First stage: a fairly fast, foresty route covering roughly 25km. The well-experienced Russians, who “came to win, not to participate”, disappeared at the 10am start, as did BlackHill/OpavaNet and Salomon/Suuntu. We never saw them again.
We started out midfield. Down from a church with a spectacular view over the race base, into deep pines alternating with open farmland over rolling hills. We lost sight of other teams when we were in 5th place at the first CP. It became hot very quickly, and the heat boiled up off the tarmac. At least the forests offered some respite.
No nav issues, moving fairly efficiently, running when we could, we reached CP3 and the transition to inline skates or scooters. We had chosen to use the latter, not being accomplished skaters.
Almost immediately, it became apparent that Ross was under the weather. He’d suffered from a truly nasty lurgy 3 weeks previously, bad enough that his wife claimed it was the worst state she’d seen him in – despite previous experiences of malaria, dysentery and the like. Whether this was a direct cause for the sorry state he found himself, we couldn’t be sure, but he’d also been rationing water in the real heat of midday.
He stalled. While three of us were whizzing along the flats and down the hills, he was pushing. It was frustrating for all concerned. Pete took Ross’s pack and stuck it on his own scooter handlebars. Unexpectedly, it gave Pete extra oomph down the hills, so he wasn’t complaining.
Ross was 100m behind. We waited, we encouraged, we made sure he was well watered. We came across some awesomely ripe apricot things fresh on the branch and fed them to him. Reassessing our route, we decided to drop the first of many checkpoints, and went straight to transition for the long canoe stage.
45 mins later, at 14:45 we were on the water. A long transition. At least Ross had managed to down some Peronin, and we headed off on the 55km leg.
Very slow going. Not due to Ross, but to recent dry conditions - the river was 20cm BELOW what was officially considered navigable. Push, pull, drag, haul became the name of the game.
A beautiful river in every other sense of the word, there was barely any flow, mostly just stagnant water, and lots of rocks. And weirs. Many, many weirs. Some were shootable, but most were too steep, or ended in a drop that fell into ankle-deep water. We’d seen video of the event from 10 years ago, when that same stage had been done in 6hrs. We’d be lucky to complete it in twice that. At least we’d brought along foam to cushion the butt cheeks - it would have been hell without.
The stage felt friggin’ long. Ross had recovered mostly, and was able to do more than his share of hauling. We dropped all 6 of the mini-orienteering sections in order to make time, our original schedule already a distant memory.
After innumerable weirs and 9hrs, we passed through the town of Tabor (very scenic at midnight) and reached a compulsory stage: climbing and via ferrata. A welcome change from canoeing, we sped up the via ferrata on a crag, and took a bit longer in the quarry. For once, it was proper climbing, a rarity in AR. 9 routes to choose from, and each team member had to complete 2 unique routes – we couldn’t simply repeat the two easiest choices. Ross, Pete and I had an enjoyable time, but Andy didn’t have any experience in going up. This meant a penalty of the entire team running a scrambling hill trail for his failures-to-summit.
Two and a half hours later, we were back on the river, in 7th place or so. No-one had managed to overtake us anywhere on the canoe stage and we maintained that position back to the base. The most scenic stretch according to the race volunteers, we saw very little of it, until the dawn. The tallest pines I’ve ever seen lined the river bank – easily 50m high.
The first mountain biking stage followed. Ross on the tow at various intervals, a CP in an excellent Czech brewery with us sampling the lightest beer (10%!), rolling hills and some sizzling descents.
CP19 was significant in that it was stuck out on the end of a peninsula, after a long downhill, requiring a good 10 min hike off the bikes to dib. Returning uphill didn’t appeal, so we tried to follow the river bank instead. A decent path became a track, became a push, became a proper hike-a-bike. It was kinda dumb, but we didn’t want to turn around, and taking these kinds of ‘shortcuts’ are always more memorable. Pete got stung by two wasps, which was even more amusing. Well, for us at least.
Fortunately, we broke out on to a trail just before mutiny threatened, and then we were back on tarmac. Fresh apples from trees on the road side, thank you very much.
Ross got slower. In the heat, he was wilting again, so we pulled into a village for some water. Being a formerly communist country, it was difficult to find anything resembling a shop – no advertising boards, no signage – where did the locals buy their stuff?
Pete and Andy went looking for a hosepipe, while Ross slumped on the grass, and I had my first snooze in 28hrs – a quick 14 mins that left me smiling and refreshed.
No water was found. We couldn’t continue in the midday heat with Ross dehydrated.
So, a quick prayer. As soon as it was finished, I looked around. Grabbed Ross’s water bottles, walked over to the nearest house and knocked.
Too smooth. An artist working on some pottery opened the door, saw the bottles, smiled and walked straight over to an indoor tap. Sorted! It was pretty funny when he returned and the rest of the team had gathered with all the other bottles. He was a nice smiley man.
We biked back into forest to collect the last 3 bike CPs, with Ross requiring frequent pitstops to dash into the undergrowth for a runny tummy. He looked fairly panic stricken whenever we had to stop.
Back at the race base, it was now already 6pm before we left on another trekking stage. We’d dropped a 35km scootering section from the middle of the MTB stage, but it was no loss. Only two teams actually made the out and back effort.
Moving off into dusk, downstream from where we’d previously canoed, we followed the warmth of the sun. First CP was a 30m abseil, giving an excellent view from a crag. No clue of the location was given – usually races have such stages at easily locatable stations, but the 1:50,000 map meant we just had to keep an eye on every crag until we saw ropes dangling from the cliffs above.
As the light began to fail, we began hunting for the next CP on the opposite river bank, the famous bolscross. Invented by a Mr Bols, it was an obstacle course of sorts, with lots of climbing of knotted ropes, scrambling up and down gullies, swimming across the river, and some tricky cargo nets, one with a 20m drop.
We took ages to find the stage. Like the abseil, it was compulsory, meaning any team that missed it would automatically be ranked behind any team that completed the stage, regardless of accumulated points. We hunted through thick forest, through nettle patches, getting irritated and irritable. Naturally, it was in an obvious location, and if we’d stayed on the ‘wrong’ side of the river, walking down the easy path, we would have found it in a jiffy. Whateverrrr.
All 4 of us did the first half of the bolscross, in the dark. We had to carry our via ferrata kit, which seemed excessive, until we got to that first cargo net. Instead of regular steel cable, you clipped into knotted double rope, then on to the cargo net itself, to prevent plummeting to our deaths. Effective, and definitely unacceptable in the UK’s H&S-obsessed society.
Pete and I did the remainder of the stage, while Ross and Andy retired to the CP, nerves a little worn, and forearms well worked.
We hiked on to more of the trekking CPs, en route to the second via ferrata which traversed a river gorge after an initial descent. Tricky navigation to find, and cold water at the end to get around a slow retracing of steps. Again, hard work on the arms, for while there wasn’t much danger in the height over water, most of the route was overhanging, and the cable extremely thick, which made clipping in a real chore. I slung my carabiners on my belt for most of the route.
We got back to the base as dawn was breaking. A surprisingly slow stage at 14hrs, after all those compulsory sections, and I’d started sleep walking so Ross towed me – he always seemed to recover at night.
We’d never expected to get all CPs, even while back in the UK. We’re not an elite team by any means, and 500km in 54hrs is a tall order, even in relatively easy terrain. What we’d not expected was to have to drop the entire 120km second MTB stage. Strategically it was sound, as the final MTBO and foot orienteering stages had a ton of CPs in close proximity, and losing them in order to grab MTB CPs spaced many miles apart was a no brainer. Still, Pete and I were annoyed to have to drop them all.
It was a wise decision. With Ross back in survival mode in the heat, and many MTB CPs requiring us to push or even drop the bikes, it took us 3hrs to cover the paltry 12 miles of dense forest.
The final orienteering section was a similar experience, slow going albeit accurate navving for the most part, and it was 20 mins before the final whistle that we crossed the finish line. We were happy, glad to have done all the ‘interesting’ stages, although a little frustrated at our overall performance. While Ross had had a tough time, us remaining 3 had not really pushed any boundaries (other than the crazy canoe drag and associated butt ache).
At the prize giving, it was therefore very surprising to have our names called. Since everyone was speaking Czech, we were mystified to be given prizes and have photos taken.
It turned out we’d beaten all the other ‘amateur’ teams, i.e without sponsors. Thanks to strategic choices, we’d nabbed 45 of the 77 possible CPs (all worth 1 point), and the team in 5th place had picked up 65.
So, pretty pleased with that turn of events, it was also apparent that even had Ross been in fine fettle, it was doubtful we would have managed to get any higher on the ladder.
All that remained was the final stage of the race. At around 8pm, all teams assembled in a very cosy and relaxed pub atmosphere in the forest, for the beer relay. A tradition at Czech AR, our team only managed a single round before retiring, while many teams continued to party into the night, doing stage after stage. It WAS rather fine beer, it must be said.
A slick event, an excellent course with lots of variety and strategy, the Czech AR is one I’d easily return to do. Put it on your tick list.
SleepMonsters
