One-Tel Hebridean Challenge
The One.Tel Hebridean Challenge – end of day 1 – Barra
Jon Brooke / 06.07.2004
Yesterday the race got off to a fantastic start with glorious sunshine and none of the forecast showers. The teams lined up ready to portage their kayaks across 800 meters of incredibly lumpy Machair, sand dunes covered with a close cropped turf, that looked something like a bowling green that had been dug up and re-laid over a sparsely populated car park. They didn’t go at the task too madly, which was probably sensible considering the five days of mountain running, sea kayaking, swimming and biking to come and the paddlers made an orderly start to the first short section. It was soon clear though that James Block of team Flapjack (now renamed 2x2) and Callum Urquahart of Wild Outdoors were going to be some way ahead of the other paddlers and probably battling it out for the kayaking honours over the week.
Next came a swim for which there were bonus minutes available – 5,4,3,2,1 for the top five teams and the Hitchhikers picked up the top bonus. Team all over the place were impressive on the section too though. Caroline Wallace who swam into second place for them did an amazingly quick transition and set off with three team members on the next run to bag triple points there.
All of the teams did well on the next short running sections making good time, but a couple were stymied by the final free order section where the four land based team members split into two pairs, one of which could use bikes to collect 10 checkpoints spread around the Isle of Barra. Some teams chose to meet at various places to swap biking for running or even to drop a checkpoint and take a time penalty where they thought it was advantageous. Heb virgins the Friends of Ghengis took the biggest battering in the overall timings due to their lack of experience in dealing with race logistics, even though they put in some good riding and running performances.
Elsewhere the kayakers were doing two more paddles one of which included the solos who then had a racing transition before their own free order section. Despite doing the free order section by almost exactly the same route but in opposite directions the Blythe brothers completed it with a time difference of just two minutes. Joe Faulkner made the mistake of using a mountain bike on the section which he regretted afterwards. Although it meant he could get a bit closer to some checkpoints by using tracks it was much slower on the longer connecting road sections.
At the end of the day the scores on the doors were:
Team Day 1 Time
2x2 07:14
Wild Outdoors 07:21
All Over the Place 09:20
Hebridean Hash House Harriers 09:31
Hitchhikers 09:51
One.Tel 11:17
Pyro and the Vets 11:21
Friends of Ghengis 13:39
Solo
Patrick Blythe 05:03
Mark Blythe 05:08
Joe Faulkner 06:11
SleepMonsters
