The Beast
Beauty in the Beast
Thure Kjaer / 23.08.2017
Danish adventure racer Thure Kjaer was a guest on the Columbia Ireland Adventure Racing team recently in Donegal. This is his account of the race.
(Setting: Early Sunday morning, in a damp lake near Letterkenny)
We found the check point dangling from an old stone bridge. There was no way we could reach it sitting in our kayaks. Knowing the type of boat we were in very well I knew they are stable as a ferry so I tried standing up in the kayak and reaching for the box. No luck. There was no way around it: we had to get out of the kayaks, onto the bridge and haul the small electronical checkpoint box up to clear the post.
It was no surprise to any of us that we had to crawl over a barbed wire fence and trot through burning nettles to get onto the bridge. Neither did any of us take any notice of the soaking wet feet and shoes we got getting out of the boats.
One thing only was on our minds: clearing the checkpoint (CPs we call them) and getting back into the boats so we could move on.
There were four of us in the team. Three of them had raced together on numerous occasions – I was the guest. Richard and Eoin sat together in one kayak. Taryn and myself sat in the other. In a double kayak it makes most sense to let the strongest paddler sit in the back. The front paddler acts as the engine while the rear can both thrust the boat forward and do the steering. It takes more energy so it makes sense to make the stronger person work harder.
Back in the boats I could again settle my eyes on Taryn's continuous paddle stroke and concentrate on guiding the heavy plastic boat through the many turns in the narrow river.
My mind went back about five years. I was sat in a hotel room in South Africa – together with my team mates from France and Switzerland. We had dropped out of the Expedition Africa when our oldest team member Jan got a nasty twisted ankle and could not go on.
Jan sat with swollen, crimson red ankle elevated and he was scribbling notes in a small worn out notebook.
“What are you writing,” I asked.
“I write a list of ze things I can do better in ze next race,” my Swiss team mate replied.
Jan is one of the worlds most experienced racers. He had been at the top of the game in the 90's, had raced and won some of the biggest races around. The same races I had watched on TV and thought: I want that. I want to be like those guys.
That day in Africa he looked a tad over his hay day. Still a magician with a map this time an injury had stopped his body from moving on.
Yet still he was making notes to remember what he could do better the next time. I was even more in awe of him after that.
Fast forward five years this time I am still in the race. Back in dark Irish night our team was heading back through the canal. We had reached the bottom, turned the boats after clearing the hanging CP and were on our way back. I thought of Africa and Jan because I had one thing to put on my list of things I could do better the next race: Remember to bring my watch.
I normally race with an ancient small Casio wrist watch but it was out of batteries and I had not gotten around to changing them.
Not that I cared what time is was. But I cared to see how many minutes would pass before we had a team coming against us in the canal.
After the kayak, we had only a 19 kilometer ride on our mountain bikes to go until the finish of the 2017 Beast of Donegal Adventure Race.
It was early sunday morning. Since the race start in Lettekenny Friday night we had battled our way through a short prologue on foot. Ridden a monster bike stage along the coastline, kayaked, run in the sand and hills around Murder Hole Beach, then biked some more. We'd run, swam, taken on two trekking stages - and taken the lead of the race in the process.
Now only three stages were left. We were nearly back in Letterkenny where it all started. We had been in the lead for some time now, but adventure racing is a cruel mistress. She will let you think you got it. But you should never celebrate too soon. Anything can happen. You have not won until you cross the line first. The moment you ease up and think you've won – that is the moment you will get passed by the team chasing you.
Without my own watch to look at I counted the minutes in my head. The team on our tail had to get the CP on the bridge also if they wanted to beat us. And the time since we cleared the bridge checkpoint was our lead – times two. As the followers would have to paddle back also.
I knew that if 15 minutes passed before the chasing team showed up – that 30 minute lead could hold us to the finish line. I tried calling out to Eoin and Richard in the boat behind us:
“You got the time from when we left the CP?”
“YES,” they promptly replied.
I waited. And waited a little longer.
“Can you tell me the time?” I then tried.
To protect the innocent I cannot recount the exact words in Eoin's reply. That is convenient because being Danish I do not know every Irish swear word in the book.
Heated exchange of words are common in adventure racing – but I knew that Eoin had a good reason to snap at me. His watch was on his hand. And in his hand was also his paddle.
And like the rest of us his focus was all on making ground. He could not – and should not – disrupt his stroke to tell me the time.
Not that it mattered too much. I knew that the 15 minutes had to be up soon – and a short while after Richards voice said: “25 minutes since the bridge.”
That meant that we had a solid lead. And that the the team behind us must have had trouble finding the entry to the small canal in the dark. So the four of us could get on with business: paddle, bike, finish, beer.
Soon after we found the third and last CP of the paddle and headed back to the last transition area to change from kayaking and back onto our bikes for the last time – and for the run in to the finish.
Our concentration wandered a bit. Maybe we got comfortable. Maybe it was just the hunger, the sleep deprivation or the fact that the organizers had arranged for us to change indoors in a heated boat house. Whatever it was it caused us to spend a little more time than usual in the transition area.
But that did not matter did it? We had a solid lead.
It was Richard who brought us back on our toes.
His first vomit was quiet. A bit like when you flush a toilet: Push the button and swoosh – it’s over.
And that was fine. We had just jumped back on our bikes and still needed to finish the last bike leg. We did not have that much time.
But Richard's stomach was not finished. His body wanted more. The sound he let out trying to empty himself was impressive. He sounded like a love crazed sea lion alerting every female in the surrounding area that he was open for business.
Expect no one in the forest that night was there to answer. The giggles I could not suppress when standing next to him waiting for the show to finish was the only answer his many mating calls got.
Since the race began we had endured a string of obstacles. The reason we got over all of them and worked our way to the front of the pack had nothing to do with magic. It was due to experience in taking care of each other.
Adventure racing is a team sport. As frustrating as it sometimes can be you depend on your team mates to finish the race. Over the past 34 hours we had cared for each other – and now we kindly waited for our teammate to finish his stomach bout so we could get on with the race.
One sign of being in an experienced team is the calmness in despair.
We all knew that there was nothing we could do for Richard or his stomach. So we simply waited for him to finish and pedaled on – starting out easy to make sure we were together.
Richards concert (impressive as it was) died down soon after and before we knew it we stood at the SAS Hotel in Letterkenny with a bottle of cold beer in our hands – celebrating our win.
We had endured a little over 35 hours of prime adventure racing in the breathtaking, vicious, gnarly terrain in the Donegal region. We had biked, run, swum, kayaked and puked our way through the course. We had done it together – and we had enjoyed every single moment of it.
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Thure is a Danish adventureracer and writer. You can follow him in English on his Instagram account: instagram.com/thurekj - and on his Facebookpage: https://www.facebook.com/ultrathure/ The latter is Danish only.
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