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Open 5 – Askham (Lake District)
Pre-race preparation was perfect, with a café stop, a wander round an outdoor shop, a photography exhibition (tweed making in the Hebrides) and a pub dinner. Shame about the early start, but we successfully navigated round all the closed bridges and got a space in the village not too far from registration.
Whilst waiting for Lucy to arrive I got chatting with a few people about the routes. The bike looked fairly straightforward – with the main decision being two controls stuck up on a fell. The advantage of them was that they were on the Roman road (High Street), so visiting them would make my dad happy.
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- Now, which pen to use?
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- Yaaawn! Let’s just go!
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- Oh, go on then, give me the highlighter.
When Lucy appeared we got ready remarkably quickly and headed up to the start. But then some last minute gear fettling threatened to eat up all that spare time we had. Luckily the right screw was twiddled in the right direction first time, and we were ready to go!
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- Bike fettling
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- Wait for meeee!
Run first as usual, and we set off at pace, soon hitting a long road stretch. My shins were complaining but I just ignored them. We had to leave an out and back fairly early on – as it turned out that might have been our best chance at more points but it just didn’t seem worth it at this stage. We were soon enough heading up onto the hill and I was enjoying the softer ground, even if we had to leap over tussocky stuff.
There was a choice to be made between a straight off-track line to the furthest out controls, or a route on tracks that we decided would be faster. We also got to check out a section of bridleway we’d potentially be riding up later. Even better, we got there with a mountain biker and were able to see that a) he was riding but b) only a little bit faster than we were running.
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- Still got time to check the map again
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- No avoiding going that way!
Descending a steep bank I was left behind (as expected) but generally I was feeling good. Lucy had raced the day before as well and was only just back from the tooth infection that had done for her last month. I was keeping up without dying, which only tempted me to look at the map, which wasn’t too helpful. We stopped at a control, ‘ignored’ it, ran downstream, then back up. A mistake from a combination of the paths on ground looking a bit different to the map (which fooled me) and me distracting Lucy (who wouldn’t otherwise have been fooled by that).
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- Fresh from a trip in the bog
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- But Lucy shows how to run properly!
She was getting a bit tetchy as we were running out of time. I hadn’t noticed, but she was right. 1h55mins gone already, and there was no way we’d be back in 5 minutes! Nothing for it though but to stick at it. I looked at the bike map to check our route still made sense in the light of reduced time and to make some comparisons between different point collections.
We flew down into the finish. The longest run time-wise in a while and I think our longest distance Open 5 run ever! Close to 20km. Off on the bikes and it was an ‘easy’ road loop to start with. The sun came out and the lanes were pretty even if they went up a hill. We feared this would be a repeat of the Forest of Bowland, where the optimal points route was short run and long bike.
Not the ‘Cat Stane’ (which is at Edinburgh airport!) but the ‘Cop Stone’
However, as I pondered I wasn’t so sure. I still thought we could get round all but two controls, and maybe even out and back to one more. It was tempting as it was the one on the Roman road. We calculated 30 minutes to get 15 points, an hour to get 55. As we rode we debated and thought it would be close for the 15 pointer. We thought about other combinations – would cutting it short on another loop on the way back be worth the offset? Sadly, no, we decided it would be nuts to try and we should play it safe. Then I think we relaxed slightly, alarmed at the prospect of getting back 20 minutes early.
Debating strategy!
Realising what was happening, we changed gear again and hurried up a bit. Lucy led the way down a fun, fast rocky descent towards the shoreline of Ullswater. It was impossible to read the map at that speed with those bumps, but we pulled up just before the bridge with the control. The furthest one out was up a sharp little kick to a church. We tackled it off road, deciding it was shorter and better graded than the road – and we were right.
Typically, having gone from thinking we had loads of time we now realised we had to get a proper move on. We estimated 14km and we had 40 minutes.
Pushing the pace along the lakeside I wondered if Lucy would need a tow, but she was safely tucked in my slipstream and that was enough. Good thing too, as I didn’t have it in me to go any faster and felt slightly queasy! It wasn’t until we turned up the final hill some time later that I gave a short helping hand. There was No Way we could get back late on this one after all our earlier debates!
Glorious Ullswater
I didn’t dare think we were safe until we hit the final bit of bridleway, screeched down the hill, faffed with a gate and hammered into the finish. 5 minutes early! Brilliant.
We decided it hadn’t been so crazy to do a long run today after all, even if it had been slightly unintentional. It had been a race with much thinking and strategizing on the move. After so many previous events where high scores had been the norm all round, we hoped that our high score this time would be a little more out of the ordinary.
At prize giving when the scores were read out, we were mentally counting the number of people ahead of us. Gargh, missed top 10 by one place – 11th! But we had much improved and won our category, so we were happy. Results here. One more go at it this season!
Thanks to Open Adventure (event), James Kirby (official photos), Andy Kirkland (personal photos) and everyone who made the event possible.
SMBO Falkirk Day / Night
Falkirk Canal Tunnel
© Copyright Rob Burke and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
A couple of weekends ago, it was the first SMBO (Scottish Mountain Bike Orienteering) event of the year. I wasn’t sure about entering because of my dodgy knee. It was complaining about cycling so racing didn’t seem too wise. However, I then persuaded Iain (14) and, more importantly his dad, that this would be an ideal event for him to come and do with me.
And so it was that I turned up at Iain’s house 5 minutes late, and we scuttled off to get the train to Falkirk. Pedalling to the venue from the station was more uphill than down, but we arrived in one piece. Lots of people I knew were there, including Jon, bearing a spare map board for us to borrow.
The twist in this event was that it was a day / night. Clue in the name. The total race time was 3 hours, but it was split into two. 1.5h to ride in the day time, then all the control values changed and we had 1.5h to ride again once it got dark!
Iain is great on a bike, but he doesn’t get much practice. He is also more than competent with a map, so we set off on the day stage with him navigating and setting the pace. There were two versions of the map – an OS one (which Iain had) and an openstreetmap one (which I had). This was handy as sometimes one had better information than the other. We wound round some fun singletrack and blasted down a hill to the canal. We were moving fast! A detour into some woods, where there were some grumbles about a ‘hill’, then back onto the canal and to the long tunnel that looked a bit dark and spooky!
We went another way, aiming for a ‘fast’ route on some tarmac, missing the turning, riding across some grass and getting tangled up in the Scottish Cross County Championships. That part might have been my fault. Iain did spot a bit of the Antonine Wall on the way though. Then off to a mausoleum. We were looking for the gate and were at the perimeter wall, when we realised we had gone the wrong way round. “Shall we backtrack on the path, or just go straight up through the woods?”, I mused. Up we went, and then down, which was a bit of a laugh, as when we got to the gate we’d gone round about two thirds instead of one third, which Iain was only too quick to point out to me.
1.5h doesn’t last very long and suddenly, when we were as far away as it was possible to be from the finish, we found we had only 24 minutes left. Unfortunately, this was also the point that the trail got really technical, then disappeared under a pile of felled trees and branches. We had to bash through to the main path then escape onto a road. Time to race to the finish! Hey, but maybe we can get that control on the other end of the canal tunnel? We started off to it, before realising it was in a deep cutaway and it was a long way round if weren’t prepared for a vertical jump.
We had already started off to it but turned around and pedalled like crazy for home. It was a good time to teach Iain the adventure racing art of being towed. His lesson took 5 seconds: ‘hold this with your hand, let go straight away if anything goes wrong, pay attention to what I’m doing!’ and off we went! Turns out he was a master at it.
We got back over 7 minutes late, which was disappointing as it meant we lost 20 points. Luckily, we still had 155 left! This is another thing I like to teach; you should always get best value for money by riding longer than you really should. ‘Oooo, my legs are all wobbly’ Iain said, as we queued to download!
It got cold quickly as darkness fell. We ate soup and cake. And a bit more cake. And maybe another piece. With our lights all set up I asked Iain if he had ever ridden at night before. No. Well, a race is as good a time as any to learn! We still had the map from earlier, but no control values. We had a guess at where the good scoring ones might be as we knew they would swap around from the day stage. We also planned two possible loops that were a bit more conservative than our first attempt! I measured them, counting as I moved my finger along the route. ‘What distance is each thing?’ ‘A thingy’ ‘What’s a thingy?’ ‘It doesn’t matter! This afternoon we rode 25 thingies, and this loop is only 22 of them!’ 🙂
Off we went, pedalling hard to warm up. Back down to the canal again the direct way, and we moved as fast as we had in the day on the first part, which was a repeat. Iain remarked that this time, his legs didn’t feel like they had only just started, and his bum was sore! The ‘hill’ in the woods put in another appearance, to more groans.
Then we approached the tunnel again. Now, at night, the inside looked less spooky than the outside! We rode along it, admiring how it is hewn out of the rock, dodging the big drips of water and trying to concentrate enough not to fall in.
We were now on unfamiliar territory but were following Iain’s dad’s signs for the John Muir Way. Round an estate and across a pond, up a hill with views out to the lights of Falkirk. The ground was getting frosty and we rode through a few Slush Puppy puddles. I was doing more navigation this time, with Iain keeping an eye on things. Once I told him to go ahead and get the control so I wasn’t ‘taking over’ all the fun bits, and he rode straight past it!
We used the tow a little bit, but Iain was feeling good again. We got back near the start and were on a road when I heard a clatter behind me, then silence! Alarmed, I stopped, expecting to see Iain in a heap, but in fact he was still riding along. ‘What happened?!’ I asked. ‘Oh’, he said, ‘I was just looking at Orion, swerved to the side a bit and hit this plastic thing in the road!’ … panic over.
We actually had a few minutes left, so although we were almost back, we popped into the woods to get two more controls we had saved up. They were tricky to get in and out of, as there was a little maze of forest tracks and mountain bike trails. We debated a bit which way to go to get out, but ultimately the answer was ‘towards all those lights!’.
We got back just 38 secs late, which was much better than stage one. In fact, our night performance was better all round, as we scored 224 points!
We were cheered by the tales from other people – who had got back as late as we had in the day, or gone the wrong way, or got lost. It just goes to show it can happen to the best, even my Itera team mates! 😀
Points tallied, and we finished 3rd generation pair (adult with an under 18). Excellent work. This category was the second biggest on the day, with 10 entrants! Great to see so many families out. We missed out on the lights prize for being back closest to time on the night stage by 37 seconds … Never mind. Results are all here.
Time to cruise back down the hill and catch a train. At that time on a Saturday the passengers tend to be quite merry, and it turns out there were already bikes in both bike carriages. We comically ran along the platform twice before choosing our spot, jumping on, and wriggling into two spare seats.
By the time we got back to Edinburgh it was 21:30 and we were pretty peckish. Luckily Papa John’s was perfect as we could wheel our bikes right inside and sit in the warm to wait for our order. The only deficiency was that their pizza sizes were measured in slices (‘since when has a slice between a unit of measurement?’). We ran up the hill giggling, with hot smells wafting out of our boxes. Before long, we were camped in the living room, telling our tales, eating pizza and swigging coke (despite parental disapproval)!
I can’t ride the next event in April, because I’m organising it. But Iain already wants to come, so his dad will have to do the honours instead!
Many thanks to Marc and his team of helpers (young and old-er!) for putting on such a fun and accessible event.
No Fuss Events – Runduro
I was searching the events calendar for a trail race of about 20km. I liked the look of one at Glentress, but it sold out before I entered, as had everything else! So my eye alighted and rested on the No Fuss Events ‘runduro’. This is a running version of a bike ‘enduro’ race. The format is that there are a number of timed stages in the race, with linking stages in between where you can relax and recover. It sounded fun, and we decided it was worth the trip up to Fort William. I tried to get a big gang together, but was happy enough with Izzy and Glen! I knew a few other people who would be there too.
The drive up took longer than expected. We finally made it to the youth hostel about 22:30. Compared to the week before, our room was spacious and the beds less creaky, so I slept fairly well. Next morning, looking out the window it was just a bit wild, with the snowline in sight but higher than we’d be going.
I was Number 11
Off into town and we registered and picked up our dibbers. The wind was gusty and chilly, and just as we got ready to start the rain came on. We huddled under the roof of the public amenities, putting off the moment, with Andy urging us to ‘just get on with it!’. So eventually, off we went. There was no obvious ‘start line’ as the first timed stage began up the hill somewhere. We touched the flag instead, and set off.
King O’ The Hill
0.99km / 180m ascent / no descent / 10:05
Not a great warm up, as my heart was thumping just walking up the steep slope! In no time at all, we were looking at the dibber post and conferring with a few other people about the route. ‘Straight up to the radio mast there’, they said. Off we went, running at first but soon slowing to a speed walk as the path got steeper, rougher and then boggier. My feet were now wet and very cold, as I splashed through the flat top section and found the finish dib, obscured by another competitor just standing around!
I thought I should get the camera out to capture Izzy and Glen finishing, but suddenly I felt very sick and was struggling to keep my breakfast down! It was pretty chilly up there, so as soon as we all regrouped, we set off at a jog to the next stage.
Diiib!
The Descender
1.92km / no ascent / 214m descent / 8:40
My stomach settled back down and I peered at the route guide. There were some instructions about a rough track to cut the corner, but the marshal was non-plussed. ‘Just follow the main path!’ she said. So we did. Izzy and Glen ran away and I wished, not for the last time this day, that I could run downhill better.
They both beat me, but waited for me to finish 🙂 . As we jogged to the third stage, the sight of the marshal came far too early. We all groaned, stopped running and started walking. And we weren’t even halfway through yet! I was thinking that perhaps some interval training might have been good prep for this race.
Izzy dibs at end of stage 3
Smash It
1.81km / 103m ascent / 78m descent / 10:33
The printed guide and the marshal agreed this time: 1.1km, uphill then down. I was dubious about the stated 103 vertical km of descent though.
Off we went and I was pushing hard. 500m came and went. Then 700m … it was well over 1km before we turned downhill! At least I’d had far enough to get a nice cushion on the others and was able to cheer / take some snaps of them arriving.
One of the nice things about this race was how sociable it was. People would appear from behind, run with us, then leave, and vice versa. Here we met Rachel, former Edinburgh resident, who chatted with us to the feed station and the next, ominously named, stage.
Stage 3, Izzy on her way, with Rachel flying in front
To Hell and Back
1.78km / 136m ascent / 117m descent / 14:37
I was really thirsty by this point, but the best I could get was a juicy orange. It had started raining but we had to come out of the little shelter and face the hill in front of us. It was steep and rocky, and Rachel easily pulled away. I don’t know how she kept on running.
At the top, we turned onto the main Ben Nevis tourist path and headed back downhill. I had caught another girl, who was now leading the way, showing me how to skip from rock to rock! I began to trust my shoes and as it got easier, we sped up. She nearly came to grief sliding on the grass, and we had a chuckle as we flew into the end of the stage. Along with The Descender, this was the stage I lost most time on. Darned downhills!
I said hello to Jac from work, who I found at the finish dib and was just leaving whilst I waited for the others.
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- Izzy on stage 4 descent
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- Does it look like she’s been to hell and back?
Up, Up and Away!
2.61km / 183m ascent / no descent / 16:30
Off we jogged again, rummaging in our pockets / bags / belts for snacks. The next stage would be the longest and was uphill all the way. Perfect! I needed to take a trip into the bushes but Izzy and Glen weren’t waiting for me to finish and gave themselves a headstart 😀 . Just as I emerged a lady appeared in a van with water. I think it was for her friends / relations who were with the girl I’d ran with earlier. I was so relieved to get a drink and downed two cups before starting the climb.
It was a tough one, as first I passed Jac, then Izzy, then another friend, Fiona. She spoke to me but all I could do was grunt back! As I looked ahead I thought I could see Glen’s red rucksack as a target. I could feel the blood pounding in my head and despite telling myself ‘it’s just half a parkrun’ I was wondering if I had set off too hard. There was no turning back now though! On and on, popping out of the trees and seeing the end sooner than I expected. Glen just got there before me, but as I dibbed I could hardly breathe, let alone speak!
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- Glen is going too fast for my camera
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- Descending the Nevis path
Short and Sweet
1.03km / no ascent / 90m descent / 4:09
We regrouped and head up the hill for the last 3 ‘easy’ stages. First, a downhill, but on a big wide track. I tried to keep up with Glen; failing, but minimising my losses. The lady with the water appeared again, and said I was cheating the system getting some twice! I was gasping though and eyeing up the muddy puddle. If I’d known there was no water en route I’d have carried a bottle.
Keep Trucking!
0.97km / no ascent / 48m descent / 3:44
A big group formed here and we all walked to the start of the next stage. I was chatting with Fiona, an adventure racing friend, about race plans for the rest of the year. The 7th timed stage was undulating with a downhill finish. Again, I chased Glen. My legs were burning though, and my right quad was hurting! Izzy had been mostly taking the race ‘not seriously’, but even she found her competitive edge as she jostled for position 🙂 .
Stage 4, here comes Glen (in red)
Sprinter
0.72km / 17m ascent / 18m descent / 2:56
We decided to jog to the final stage, as we’d all got a bit chilly walking. Suddenly the others disappeared and it was just us three, negotiating the streets of Fort William and the Morrisons car park. The final sprint was the pavement along the shore, into a headwind. My gps stats are definitely a bit weird here, as there was no ascent or descent that I could see.
As I debated what order we should go in, Glen dibbed and ran off! I gave chase, catching him quickly. But every time I came alongside with the intention of overtaking, I felt the brunt of the wind, changed my mind and dropped back behind. He took a funny route, squeezing between the benches and the wall. I had to copy him, which Izzy found most amusing! He put on a final spurt and I couldn’t match it.
Our happy trio, all still smiling
Finally, we limped back to Cotswold Outdoor to download and get our result slips. Comparing times, Glen and I had a dead heat on the final stage! My printout said ‘currently 3rd’, so I was in for a long wait until prize giving to see if anyone else had come in faster behind me.
After free soup and warming up in the pub, bumping into more people we knew (hello Julia!), scones and hot drinks in a café and a pleasant half hour browsing the outdoor shop merchandise, it was time for prizes. I was super pleased to have held onto 3rd senior woman, even if I was only 4th woman overall (with a vet sneaking in in front of me!). Even more pleasing was that my time was quite competitive – 28secs behind 2nd (Rachel, who we’d met on the course) and 1min54s behind 1st.
Medal!!
I always surprise myself if I do well in running races. I’m not a runner?! Am I runner?! I’ve had a few (probably) bike-related problems with my knee since Christmas, which is frustrating. After such a strong set of training and racing last year, it can be difficult to deal with niggly setbacks. So it was nice boost to do well.
Off we went, this time taking the scenic route back through Glen Coe, snapping snowy scenes and getting to the Green Welly Stop just in time for macaroni cheese and cake.
What you need to eat after a race like this
Many thanks to No Fuss Events for putting on a great race and making sure the weather wasn’t as bad as it might have been. Also to all the marshals who probably thought the weather was quite bad enough, and to the lady who saved me with her water supplies!
All stage stats come from my gps logging and I do not claim any accuracy, but they are probably as close to the truth as the route guide 😉
Post race report: owwwww the sore muscles that lasted 6 days! Maybe I really should have done some intervals / downhill efforts in preparation. If you plan to enter this race (or any like it), be prepared that it is harder than it sounds, especially if you’re someone who specialises in starting off at one pace and sticking to it 😀 .
Open 5 – Blanchland (North Pennines)
It was time to head down for another Open 5, and this month I was going with Glen, another newbie who I’d convinced this would be a good idea! Due to snowy conditions, we headed for the coastal route. Numerous signs announced the presence of coffee chops, but it took a couple of detours and a double stop at a level crossing to find one open and willing to serve us. We continued the theme once we arrived in the Pennines, as we visited three pubs before getting to one that a) could serve us and b) had something I wanted to eat.
Snowy hills greeted us in the morning
Lucy had texted me halfway down to say she wouldn’t be able to make it 😦 . It was not entirely unexpected as she had warned me of a bad tooth infection and was somewhat drug-addled and exhausted. She often gives me warnings about things, but this is the first time I’ve known something to actually stop her, so it must have been really bad.
After a noisy night in the youth hostel (why did the beds creak with every turn?!), it was a rush in the morning as time slipped away. Solos have to be away earlier than pairs, but our plans to set off promptly were scuppered as we had to defrost the car enough to open the doors and scrape all the frozen snow off the windows.
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- Trying to work out what to do with the run map on my own!
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- Jon calming me down with some map chat
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- Last minute comparisons!
I haven’t done an Open 5 solo since April 2012, so it was almost a novelty and I was a little anxious. I felt under pressure as I looked at the map and tried to figure out something sensible. Bike looked OK, but that’s the one I’m used to planning for! I kept staring blankly at the run map waiting for inspiration to hit. Jon (Itera team mate) appeared and I felt better after we chatted a bit. He sort of offered to team up as a mixed pair – but by that time I had psyched myself up for solo and registered and … but on reflection, I think I’d say yes if there was a next time!
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- Er, ready to go !
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- Marking up the map
I headed out with Glen after making sure he was all sorted and was remonstrated with for letting him pin his number on sideways. But we both set off at almost the same time, with the snowy whiteness and bright sunshine making my map highlighting stand out brilliantly. Makes a change from rain washing it all straight off again 🙂
I had decided to run first, since that’s what I normally do. It would also mean I got the part I was less confident about done, and I hoped that the sun and traffic would clear some of the roads by the time I got to biking.
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- Nerves not settled yet, but look at the scenery!
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- Running, I hope this is the right way?!
In actual fact, most of the run went OK. My only strategic error was at the start, as I did a long wiggle to get a 10-pointer. For the same extra distance I could have got 20 points later on instead. Luckily, I didn’t realise this at the time, so it wasn’t on my mind! Instead, I was enjoying being the first person to make tracks in some of the deep snow. Even the cross-country romp across heathery moorland was fun.
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- First run control
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- Trickier coming down
Off the hill and down to a river crossing, searching for a control on a tree 2m downstream. I followed footprints but could not find it anywhere. Super fast Tom Gibbs arrived looking in the same place me, and then someone else I had previously overtaken joined us. All 3 of us milling around … Just as Tom said, “maybe they meant upstream”, Glen appeared from the other (upstream) direction and we spotted it behind him!
The engine house
On the move again, and I was pretty pleased with how it went. I didn’t panic in the woods following one lone set of old footprints through the snow (it would have been impossible to find the path without them) and managed to eat a whole chia charge flapjack on a run down a road. Crossing the river and heading up a steep hill, a car came past me before skidding to a halt and sliding down again backwards. I kept out of the way and headed for a final small loop via an old engine house which I’d like to have explored a bit!
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- Views of hills
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- … and trees
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- … and ice!
15.5km done in 2h4 mins, dropping 4 controls worth 50 points. I did wonder how much I was missing the ‘Lucy effect’ though. Normally she navigates as fast as I can run, and pushes the pace in between as well. This time I was having to keep an eye on the map, and mentally kept asking myself ‘if Lucy were here, would I be running faster now?’.
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- Quick transition
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- Ready to ride!
I did a quick transition and was back out on the bike, up a road I had checked was clear of ice as I had run in. Two easy controls on the long climb up to the woods. Here I was very careful to stay on the rights of way (byways), though there were faster routes on the fire roads. Clearly there had been some frozen puddles earlier in the day, which were now pools of water filled with shards of broken ice. I just went through the middle of most of them, getting a shock when they were deeper than expected!
Controls peeking out from the snow
There was a muddy slog up a hill. I was with another team and a solo, who stopped to check our direction. I said: “If anything we’re heading east instead of southeast, which would take us directly to the control”. I continued on and came out at a junction with a big track in front of me that I wasn’t expecting. ‘Hmm, funny’, I thought, ‘but this is the byway’, so I turned left for an out and back. Suddenly it occurred to me – was that the junction with the control? That I had been heading for? That was where a big track led off? I shouted to the others to ask if they had checked – they said no, it definitely wasn’t there. We rode the distance I expected, but the trees were now too close, and there was no control on the posts. Darn! Now I was convinced it was back where we had come from. Yes, the map was wrong, but if I had engaged my brain and not got distracted I probably wouldn’t have made the mistake!
It had cost me about 9 minutes, and I was determined to make up time by pushing on. Fortunately, the riding here was amazing. In contrast to the roads of last month, this time we were up on the moors. What might normally have been straightforward wide tracks were made fun by snow. I even had a chance to notice some of the amazing views, briefly! There followed a twisting, winding bridleway, where I was relieved that others had marked the way before me – I wouldn’t have wanted to be the first, trying to work out where it went.
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- So to get lots of pictures, I just need to leave early?
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- Riding off towards some lovely singletrack
As I popped out near the start, I allowed myself a minute or two to work out where to go on a second loop. I could definitely get all but one remote control on the moor. But as I calculated things, I realised I would definitely be back about 15 minutes early if I did that. I hedged my bets, going round the controls in such a way as to leave the decision to the end. Yes, it turned out I had to go out and back to the trig point hidden on a hill in the clouds. Tom went past me again, and gave some words of encouragement. It was actually a nice section to finish with, even if I did fall off on my way back down!
Happy days
As I hit the road, I was short of time. There were a final 15 points on offer on a route that was no further but was off road. I simply didn’t have time. I shot off down the tarmac, just as a hailstorm whipped up and combined with a headwind. It pelted my face and felt like hundreds of stinging needles. I shielded my face with my arm, and peered out from one slitted eyelid, hoping nothing would come the other way … Finally, I got back to the finish, narrowly avoiding a car which turned without indicating. What a stressful end! I dibbed, 1 second over 3 minutes late – ouch! 8 penalty points, not too bad.
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- Finishing – late – and with a very sore face!
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- Argh – just into my 4th minute!
I got changed rapidly as the descent and hail had chilled me. It was a strange experience having to queue to download and not having to queue for food. That’s what leaving half an hour earlier does! I had got a high score but, like last month, realised so had many other people.
Podium
When results were announced, I had won the female solos, but it was close. Overall I was just outside the top 20. Despite having done some amazing fun running and biking, I felt a little flat. I know there were a couple of minor changes I’d make, but no race is ever perfect. Maybe I am out of practice, or maybe pairs suit me better, but I definitely missed having someone to push me on, to chat to on the way round and to share the ups and downs with! At least next time I’d know to say yes to Jon. And get better soon Lucy! 😀
Snowstorm!
Glen had a good time too, didn’t get too lost, and finished in time. I think he’ll be back 🙂 . It only remained for us to drive home by the scenic route, watching a beautiful sunset over the snowy moors, before descending into darkness and more falling snow.
Thanks to Open Adventure for putting on the race, Joe and friends at Nav4 for food, and James Kirby for photos.
Still looking at the map …
Open 5 Slaidburn – Take 2
I last went to Slaidburn 5 years ago and it was memorable for several reasons. I stayed for a long weekend. Andy came with me, and finally got back in the pool after years out. We got wet and cold more than once and had an ‘interesting’ ride in and out from the nearest (not very near) railway station. Meanwhile, at the Open 5, I did my first ever event as an anxious solo competitor. My pedal fell off halfway round the bike. My write up reports that I had “been working hard on my running over the summer” … some things never change!
Moody skies
This time round, I got a lift down with swimming pal Jim again. The road over the moors was rather too exciting at night in driving rain, but we arrived in one piece, just in time for dinner at the pub and a little walk around in the pouring rain to explore the village. It is small, so didn’t take long!
The next morning dawned … DRY! This was a surprise as the forecast 24 hours earlier had been for heavy rain all day. Registration / breakfast logistics were slightly complicated but I ended up studying the map quietly over my cereal with plenty of time to think clearly.
Registering
Someone was betting Lucy and I would start at 09:59 and 59 seconds. We were getting chivvied along a lot, both at registration and up at the remote start area. We confounded everyone’s expectations by starting at 09:55. Ha!
We chose to run first, as usual. Due to weather and ground conditions, the bike course was more ‘road’ than usual and had lots of exit options. What I didn’t notice when we started and I marked up the bike control values was that there were high value points on both main loops and that made it committing in a different way.
We set off running happily. I had a slightly dodgy tummy, but both of us had legs that were feeling good at the same time for once! Despite some wet and muddy conditions, we were mostly on paths and moving fast. We caught up male pair James and Chris. Lucy chatted tactics briefly before pulling away. They kept getting closer on the downhills (my fault) but we were faster on the ups and flats. Great motivation. Unfortunately, we then ran straight past a control and had to double back, costing us a couple of minutes. Darn! They ran by laughing!
We ran round the reservoir
Lucy was on a mission to catch them up as we hammered down a fast track. I was at my limit, hanging on for dear life, but up for it! Up onto a grassy hill and we reeled them in again, joking. Final stretch and we found ourselves in a wood peering at the map. Uh-huh, we’d taken the wrong footpath. We re-emerged, seeing Chris and James ahead in the distance. One final push and we caught them again on the final hill.
As Lucy said, we proved our point and they proved theirs. What an effort! It was one of our longest Open 5 runs together so far, we only missed one control and we came in spot ‘on time’ at 2 hours. This is usually a good split of time to aim for in one of these events.
Snowy hills
Out on the bike and we decided to go up and down a hill for the first 30 points. Then we headed across a field of mud and onto the bridleway over the moor. We knew the top and far side was ‘boggy’ enough to be marked as such as on the map, though we hoped that we wouldn’t be hampered too much by choosing to approach it downhill.
But first we had to get up and it wasn’t the rideable track we were hoping for. Instead we had to push and push and carry and haul our bikes up what had turned into a rocky streambed complete with icy cold water. James and Chris were just in front, carrying their bikes on their backs (an art I have not yet mastered).
Suddenly, up at the top, Lucy took a step into some soft green stuff and disappeared up to her thighs! Luckily, her bike did not 😀 . I stayed on firmer ground, grabbing both bikes and offering a shoulder for her to haul herself out on. We both were glad we weren’t crossing this alone. We might have sunk without trace!
Planning to ride through the bog of doom
Finally we came down the far side, half running, half stumbling until we reached a track we could ride. Then we hit the roads. I had had some woozy moments at the start of the ‘ride’ due to lack of food and the effort we’d put in on the run. I managed to eat some more and was now feeling good. Where we had long flat or uphill stretches we joined up with the tow to stay together and make efficient progress.
A couple of out and backs were nice and quick – no more nasty surprises. But the moor hike and taken an age and we were running out of time. After concluding we could not do the final loop and would have to drop 65 points as a result, I was peering at the map and starting sentences with ‘maybe if we just … ‘ – which were quickly quashed!
Nice bike …
At least the weather was still being kind. The occasional hail shower, a nippy wind and, remarkably, enough sun at one point for me to see my shadow cast onto the hedge at the side of the road.
One final long out and back and we were smashing it up the final hill. We overtook one of the tandem teams, people Jim and I had whiled away the time with the previous night. They joked and shouted at us, then laughed even harder as they flew past on a slight downhill! We repeated this a couple of times before we finally overhauled them on the run in to the finish.
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- The final effort
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- Lucy’s grimace / grin?!
Well, it was a novelty to get in under 5 hours for once … this might almost be a first for us. We thought our score was pretty good and we had raced really hard. But once back at download we could hear everyone else’s chat and knew scores were high all round.
Whilst in the queue for a cup of tea we had another look at the map and realised that one small strategy mistake had cost us a lot of points. This was the day when we should have cut the run short, come in after 1.5h and saved the extra time to get more bike controls. Swapping 30 points on the run for 65 or possibly even 75 on the bike would have shuttled us back up near the top of the leaderboard. At least the post mortem was quick and straightforward 😀 .
Podium
As it was we only finished 22nd overall. We held on to 1st female pair but it was a tight race as we were only 10 points ahead of Jill and Sharon, snapping at our heels! However, we both agreed that we had put in the sort of effort that we haven’t managed for a while. Now we just need to combine that speed with the right tactics to see what we can achieve. Three more chances in this series!
As usual, thanks to all involved; Open Adventure, course planners and photographs from James Kirby.
Open 5 North Wales
The trip down to Wales was quite eventful. I was travelling with Jim, a friend from the Wild Ones (Edinburgh’s outdoor swimming group). As we approached the summit of Shap on the motorway it was snowing hard and we were driving slowly, trying not to become one more of the various cars and vans strewn around the carriageway. Jim remarked he was anxious as it was 40 years since he did his ice driving training and some time since he’d practised in a car park. I was thinking I probably couldn’t have picked my driver much better …
We arrived at our accommodation safely, a cheerful pub with a spacious room and extensive menu. As we settled down in the bar we chatted to some guys who were racing for the first time. Their ‘main man’, an Ironman veteran, had bailed at the last minute. I joked that maybe it was because there wouldn’t be enough sun or perhaps he was worried about his shorts getting muddy … In any case, after I’d given Jim his detailed tutorial, I passed on a few more tips and we left them still cheerfully partaking of beer when we went to bed! 😀
Misty moisty Welsh mountainside = time for a good day out
We were so close to the registration area that we shouldn’t have needed to rush in the morning. But what with a slightly more leisurely breakfast than planned, helping Jim with route ideas, needing to get to a remote transition and the new, earlier start times, Lucy and I were almost last to start for the second month in a row.
We dithered about what to wear as it was cold standing around and forecast for rain. We started straight up a hill and Lucy’s running legs had obviously returned. I had to concentrate hard to keep up and felt a bit queasy from eating so much dinner and breakfast. I was also soon boiling and wriggled out of my waterproof as we walked a steep bit.
The hills were shrouded in cloud. As we approached a high point, I spotted a couple of Santas emerging from the mists. Then another, and another! We ran for a while mingled in with all these people in another race, before we struck out to go ‘off piste’.
Anyone seen Santa round here somewhere?
The map had looked daunting with lots of tightly packed contours. But I was having a surprisingly good time, despite the fact I still didn’t have enough breath to chat. What?! Quite a change from last month! Following Lucy downhill is hard enough at the best of times. The hillside was covered in heather and bracken and her movement reminded me of startled deer bounding away at high speed. I lumbered behind, feeling my ankles go a few times before deciding to take it a ‘bit more slowly’.
Making the picture all soft and blurry at the edges doesn’t make the contours disappear…
We were moving well but kept debating where to go to next. Out of two controls on Lucy’s ‘optional’ list, we went for one and left the other. At the time it seemed a good decision and we came back to transition after just over 2 hours. The route was interesting and I was happy that I had been pushed hard but still had fun!
Here we come
After a change of tops, still anticipating rain, we set off biking. As soon as we were up on the hill proper, the going got more difficult, with variously mud, rocks and bits steep enough to have us off and walking! Over the top we went and as we flew down the other side I wondered if I should have checked the contours more carefully when I was planning. Maybe the ‘shortest’ route wasn’t the best? We also had a decision to make about control ‘number 9’ – worth plenty of points but a bit stuck out on a limb. After changing our minds twice, we went for it, out along a fast road round the bottom of the hill.
Nabbing a bike control
Tom and Chris (eventual winners) flew past us, so we thought it wasn’t a bad choice. Lucy had told me about her extreme lack of sleep in the last few days. As we bowled along there were mutterings of tiredness and we might have passed a coffee place, but we only had £1 on us!
Lucy
As we turned off road, the mud got stickier and deeper than anything we’d encountered so far, but we were still pedalling. It was not the same story after the control though. My wheels stopped turning as they jammed up. We were pushing heavy reluctant bikes through a mud bath of doom!
We stopped to poke the mud out with a stick and I swiped vainly at my map board to try and see through the smears. I decided we ought to have turned back, lost height and gone by the road. But hindsight is a wonderful thing and now we were committed. I kept hoping it would be better just round the next corner … A kilometre later we finally got to something rideable. Never have puddles been approached with such intention – we needed big splashes to clean some mud off!
Having a good time! (pre mud fest)
Our route choice kept changing as we bumped down a rocky track and then decided to go the long way round via another control and a road climb, rather than retracing our wheel tracks back up the difficult way. And now we were concerned about time. With several high value controls left up on the hill, we had to go up and get them.
See ya!
I was very relieved to find ourselves on a rideable track, gaining height at speed. We were tempted, so tempted, to go and do an out and back to some more high points on the ridge line. But Lucy’s sane brain got the better of the situation and we pointed our wheels down a wet grassy track, onto some more slidey stuff and eventually out onto a hard packed track we’d run earlier in the day.
The last control wasn’t straightforward to ride in and out of (or to dib without standing in a river), and suddenly we seemed to be very short of time. We hooked up the tow for the last km dash back to the finish and managed to arrive 2.5 minutes late.
Not too bad, but on reflection we could definitely have been slightly smarter in our route choices … one less run control and two more bike controls in a different order perhaps. But it’s a sign of good course planning that the ‘best’ route for us wasn’t immediately obvious. At least we didn’t have any disasters! Plus, the heavy rain never did materialise.
Si (course planner) looking pensive before the start. Don’t worry: it was great!
We were good enough to win female pairs, and 10th overall. I was also pleased about how well we were moving … still some challenges to set ourselves if we can combine both smart racing and high speed at the same time 🙂
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- Guys from the pub – pre mud?!
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- Definitely still happy here …
My pal Jim did brill to finish well inside the top two thirds, with a big smile on his face as well. And this from someone who still finds mountain biking scary and proudly has ’60+’ next to his name! Our friends from the pub seemed to have a harder time of it; looks like they had some ‘issues’ on the bike and only just squeezed in one run control. But if you’re reading this, I hope you still enjoyed yourselves?!
Many thanks to James and all at Open Adventure for putting on the event, James Kirby for photos and Si Enderby for course planning. Time to go and run around in the hills in between eating mince pies 😀
Open 5 Muker (Yorkshire Dales)
It’s November already, which means it is time for Open 5s!
Following the last of the summer’s antics, I spent 4 weeks feeling endlessly tired. Then ‘ping!’, like a switch had been flicked, two weeks before this race my energy came back. I felt all bouncy, even if my running legs had taken a short sabbatical. So I was looking forward to the start of the Open 5 winter series.
Did I mention it was wet?
Lucy had warned me of various potential impediments to our performance, the most serious of which was a sore wrist. Any little niggles I had paled into insignificance next to how I felt at the first race last year (injured). So we planned to bike first, with lots of options to bail out early if it was too bumpy and Lucy couldn’t hold on any more! We were both happy to try and run as far as we needed to.
Catching up with Terrex teammates
It was a scramble to get ready on time as James had ‘put the clocks forward’ half an hour and we only had until 10am to faff! It had already started raining before we set off. So we donned our waterproofs and started almost, but not quite, last. First challenge: writing control values onto wet maps. I tested out the free all-weather pen I got at Ötillö and it did the job! We did have to adjust all our routes though, because the controls we had planned to miss were high scoring 🙂 .
Straight up a hill and I was very hot, glad I hadn’t put on a warmer jersey. About an hour later on top of a wild and windswept hill, I really wished I had. We were soaked and the rain was pelting into our faces, stinging our skin as we squinted ahead. At the very top of a hill we had to search for a control ‘on a rock’ … We must have examined 20 rocks and gone back and forth a few times with two other racers without finding it. Just as we were about to fish out the phone for a photograph to prove we’d been there, the little flutter of red and white tape caught my eye. Got it!
Time to descend… slowly for Lucy’s wrist. Slowly for me it turned out too, as my front brake decided to fail. Later it came back, just as my rear brake got all sticky. Trip to the bike shop in order.
Both descending carefully!
We got colder and colder as we descended to a raging stream and old mining buildings for another control. Eating had seemed too much of a hassle with wet gloves in the cold, but we both paused to get something before turning to ride back up the hill and wait for some warmth to return.
Soon we were off the hill and could hear our voices above the wind again. This was important as we hadn’t seen each other for 6 months and had some serious chat to catch up on. Lucy kept telling me we had definitely ridden up this road or track together before – apparently in the first race we ever did together! But it all looked new to me 😀 .
Think we cycled up here, but this track was nice and wide for easy chatting, so I wasn’t paying full attention …
We completed the second circle on our figure of eight route, picking up all the higher scoring bike controls and coming into transition after 3h:20. This was actually longer than we’d normally plan for. Luckily Lucy’s wrist had held up well enough and we were happy with our route choice. We also found the benefit of having multiple watches and knowing the ‘real time’ we had set off. One of them had claimed we had gone into a time warp and had given us several extra minutes!
After we had worked out how much time we really had left and done some transition teamwork (me tying Lucy’s shoelaces whilst she ate and checked the map), we were off again. Still raining, so we kept our coats on. I wasn’t paying attention to the route but very quickly we arrived at the river we had been warned ‘might’ be difficult to cross. After a summer of swim-running a bit of water didn’t faze me, but we linked arms for extra safety and waded over. I just about escaped with a dry crotch…
Fording the river (hi Eddie!)
We joined up with Lucy’s friend Angus, who just wanted some chat as we hauled ourselves up a near-vertical hillside. No problems providing that! I took the opportunity of the slower pace to wolf down a chia charge flapjack – always taste good. Every time I put my hands down for support, I hit a prickly baby thistle. My calves and back were burning. But then we were up, on a rocky technical path. Lucy flew ahead whilst I did my best to minimise the size of the gap. Down to a spectacular waterfall (TAKE CARE warned the control descriptions, and we certainly did), then turning to cross the hill we had previously biked over. Ideally, the return route on the other side of the river was the one to take, with higher control values, but it was also longer and we didn’t have time.
TAKE CARE!
We battled a headwind before cresting the hill and flying down the other side. My big toe (which I hurt in my last race) started complaining again, but by now it didn’t matter. We could see the finish down below us and just had to zigzag down and do a couple of wiggles and we’d be there. I was up for a sprint finish, but remarkably we didn’t need one. I slowed back down and we cruised in more than 2 minutes early! We must have been feeling off colour 😉 .
Lucy’s new yellow van was right by us, so we got the boot up and hid from the rain whilst we rapidly changed. One of the advantages of running second in bad weather is that you can finish all nicely warmed up. Before long it was back to the hall for a cup of tea, some veggie chilli and prize giving. We were delighted to have won. We had a fairly low score, but so did most other people too.
I love an exciting waterfall
It felt like we had ridden within ourselves on the bike, but we could definitely feel our legs on the run, so perhaps that wasn’t a bad thing. I thoroughly enjoyed myself getting out in the wild and catching up with Lucy. Looking forward to the rest of the series. Many thanks to the organisers, Open Adventure, all the marshals, Nav4 for the food and Mandy for giving me a lift and braving the insane weather conditions on the way home 🙂 .
Prizegiving. Still wearing *that* jumper
Loch Gu Loch
Loch Ness. Photo Andy Kirkland
Less than 3 weeks after finishing Ötillö, we were on the start line for Loch Gu Loch, a Scottish Highlands version of the same race. Why? Because we wanted to do at least one of the new UK races this year and this is the only one we could make. Plus, it was run by the same people behind Celtman, so we knew it would be a good event. It’s always nice to be at the first edition of a race that could become iconic 🙂
Our accommodation and race HQ was at the stunning Highland Club, an old monastery at the southern end of Loch Ness. Sadly, we had to leave our cosy beds far too early in the morning to make our way blearily to the boat that would take us to the start, leaving at 5:30 am. Our table top doubled up as a full ‘info board’ and another time I’d have pored over it. Sadly, we couldn’t see anything outside because it was dark, and I was too preoccupied eating last minute snacks (BeetIt bar), queueing for the toilet and smearing myself with chamois cream.
See if you can find us! Orange socks, towards the right. Photo Steve Ashworth.
Urquhart Castle was the majestic setting for the start. Now it was just about light and we could admire it perched on an outcrop overlooking the loch. Once bags were dropped and photo shoots were done, we got into the allegedly very cold water. I was ready to go, but there seemed to be a long gap between getting in and the starting horn …
The general route of the race is to cross Loch Ness, climb the hill on the other side, then work back to the start, covering various smaller lochs before a final uphill sting, a trip via the many small islands of Loch Tarff and a descent back to cross Loch Ness to the finish. Total stated distance about 8km swimming and 47km running (we measured it 7.5km / 50km).
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- Swim start. Photo Steve Ashworth.
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- Acoss the loch – aim for the white splodge?! Photo Steve Ashworth.
I found the first leg particularly stressful. Unlike Ötillö, there had been no run to spread us out. I tried to follow the feet of Dechlan and Lyndsey (who were sharing our apartment), but they were just a touch too fast. Not to worry, they had bright green wetsuit arms and were perfect to sight off. I know Dechlan and trusted he would go the right way.
Later I tried to draft a guy with big blue paddles, but almost got whacked in the face. Izzy had been tapping my feet, which is normal. But then suddenly it seemed as if crowds of people had swarmed up and were about to overtake us. I was panicking, thinking I was swimming like a snail, and tried to speed up. I was swallowing water and felt a bit sick. As we came in to land, Izzy swam up beside me. Turns out she was caught up in the excitement and trying to beat some people next to us!
Water levels have risen a bit. Is that why this swim was 150m longer than we were led to believe? 😉 Photo Andy Kirkland
We were on dry land and Paul (one of the organisers) shouted a well done at us. We were off up the hill. Now I had terrible stomach cramps, one ear was full of water so I couldn’t hear properly, and my feet were so cold I couldn’t feel the ground. Izzy was great, running alongside and encouraging me along. One by one my problems subsided. I shook my head a few times and managed to unblock my ear. My feet gradually came back to life. And Izzy demonstrated how to do magnificent burps, so that my own eventually eased my stomach distress!
Towards the end of the first run, a few teams were catching us. We swam a small loch and got a cheer from my coach, Scott, who was on kayak duty. Next run, a few more teams came past. It seems we had been faster swimmers and now the good runners were making their mark.
Ready? Go! Photo Andy Kirkland
As we approached the first swim across Loch Mhor, we were ready to go. Our exits from the water still need a bit of polishing, but our entries are slick! We passed several teams milling about zipping their wetsuits up and getting kit sorted. We were straight in and swimming. We passed a couple more teams at the next aid station as we did our usual: drink a couple of cups and grab some food to eat on the way out. The piper appeared here, signalling our approach. Loved him, he kept popping up all over the place round the course!
Next up we reached Andy, marshalling a swim entrance. I knew this was the half way point. He told us what was going on at the front of the field, confirmed that we were first female pair and said we were about 8th overall. We were enjoying the swims and the terrain, which were very similar to what we’d trained on – unlike the trials of the slippery Ötillö rocks!
Action shot. Photo Steve Ashworth.
I think the pressure of knowing we were up front was stressing Izzy a bit. As we got to the next swim a marshal said cheerfully “first female pair!”. “Not any more!”, she blurted, as a mixed pair caught us up, with the chap having long hair! She apologised profusely … 😀
Another run and swim, and we started the longest run of the day: 16km of mixed off- and on- road, with a significant climb in the second half. Logic was telling me that our position was probably fairly secure. No other girls had caught us by the halfway point, the other people we’d left behind weren’t making ground – and if any other female pair were going to catch up, they’d have to be storming through the field to get to us. Our slick transitions and feed stops had given us an advantage, and now our endurance was kicking in.
Baaa! Photo Steve Ashworth.
Still, you can’t bank on anything in racing. We stayed alert to all the course markings. Some teams went wrong at a few places, but we didn’t have any difficulties following the course. Not only were we eagle eyed at every junction for potential arrows, I had also spent a lot of time memorising the map. It wasn’t a precise ‘photograph’, but I knew all the section lengths, major turns, terrain type, elevation profile and general direction.
As we climbed gradually on a section that pretended to be flat, we could see the scar of a road cresting a pass up ahead. I pointed, saying “I bet that’s where we’re going” … and so we were. We approached from a fire road and a nice path that zig-zagged up towards the viewpoint before continuing up and over the high point of the race. I’d been noting our pace and splitting the run into 5km chunks. I thought it was good news when I announced we probably only had 20-25 minutes to go to the swim. “25 minutes?!” shouted an exasperated Izzy, almost stamping her foot … Er, oops, sorry, that was meant to be encouraging!
There were beautiful views, but I was mindful of my footing. I wanted to let loose on the descent, but Izzy was more wary and was having a sugar slump. Luckily, we could see Loch Tarff below us and knew the feed station was right there.
Nearly finished the long run. Photo Steve Ashworth.
We were both tired now. A kayaker shouted at us – “head for the green arrow!”. But it was a small arrow, and I couldn’t see it! Still, we got there and fought through heather and bracken to get over and into the next bit. We clearly had some supporters here, with one guy singing ‘here come the giii-rls!’ and shouting our names – we don’t know who you were, but thanks!! Also Scott and Judyta were here again. Scott said we looked strong – I said we felt wasted! Later he said, if you felt like that, you should have seen how the people behind looked …
Coach! Photo Andy Kirkland
We finished the penultimate swim through a dark swampy, reedy mass, emerging to face the final 6km run.
6km, doesn’t sound like much, does it? But we were soon moving only slowly round the loch across trackless heather. We saw one of the big blue arrows on a white board up ahead pointing left, then could pick out a string of red arrows dancing straight up the hill. A team in front (the ones with the big blue paddles from the first swim!) went straight on, but they were out of earshot as we shouted out to them. As we started going up, they reappeared, having realised their mistake and corrected.
Now I was using my hands and could really feel our cord pulling. Suddenly Izzy had a mini meltdown. There were threats to unclip the cord (“what good would that do?”, I say), I got shouted at when I tried to push, and offers of food were useless as she felt sick and dizzy. We slowed and I just went at her pace. So long as we kept moving, I was happy. It wasn’t far to go. I think we both kept thinking, who might suddenly appear behind us?
The view of the finish line. All downhill from here! Photo Steve Ashworth.
We got to the top and the panoramic vista laid out below us was amazing. We could see the finish, and emotion welled up in me! A suggestion to start jogging this downhill bit was met with a positive response, as was a soggy packet of Honey Stingers. We were back on it!
A couple of teams had overtaken, but as we got to the fire road, we ate and drank again, then passed them. We even drew close to blue-paddles team again as they hesitated about the right way to go. We had our doubts too, as we went through someone’s gateway and across what looked like a fancy drive. Just as we started to wonder what to do, we saw a bit of tape in a tree. Phew! Down and down we went, this run was turning out to be longer than the stated 6km. 7.1km according our gps – cheeky!
Piper. Photo Steve Ashworth.
My big toe joint was killing me, but I ignored it. We jumped into the final swim just behind team 45, aka blue paddles, Jan and Matus Kriska. They were heading off at a funny angle, so I double-checked where we had to aim. We were told: just left of the abbey, the red flag. Well, red was pretty hard to see … but left of the grey towers of the abbey I could just about deal with. “So, not where they’re going?” I asked. No. So, off we went. My calf kept threatening to cramp, and I had to stop pointing my toes. Not very streamlined, but necessary!
Let’s swim again. Photo Andy Kirkland
Eventually we drew close. And then we grounded. Argh! We stood up and waded a bit, before I decided it was deep enough to swim again (i.e. knee deep). Then we swam to shore. I looked around for the dibber but was told, no not here – run for the finish! Andy was taking pictures. We took our hat and goggles off and organised ourselves for a side by side run up the steps and across the lawn.
Look at that! A tape! I’ve never got to break a finishing tape before! What excitement.
Finishing Line! Photo John Whittaker
We were soon wrapped up in foil blankets, drinking hot drinks. I was feeling all emotional again, but had to laugh at Andy wearing fine moss hair under his cap. We were astonished to find we were 5th overall. In the end, it was worth almost more than the win in our class, which turned out to be emphatic. Full results here. Short film here – see if you can spot us wading at the end!
Great support from the marshals and people we knew on course. Also to other competitors we made friends with or chatted to along the way. I couldn’t get over how many people thanked me or remarked on our top tips and videos – it’s great to know people found them useful, though I apologise for not remembering or knowing who you all were! 🙂
Silver blankets are de rigeur. Photo Andy Kirkland
Quite a few people have asked us how this race compares to Ötillö. I’d say it’s easier. This race is shorter and the swims are less difficult and dangerous. The terrain is more forgiving (providing, perhaps, you’re used to heather and bracken!). For comparison, we finished over 4h quicker despite ‘backing up’ with Ötillö, and our average speeds were higher. There are fewer transitions, so it’s easier to get into a rhythm. Having said all that, Loch Gu Loch has lots more hills, the swims are cold and it still counts as ‘tough’ in my book. I’ve heard it might be in the summer next year, which could make it a perfect preparation race if you happen to be doing Ötillö! It’s also a fine challenge in its own right.
Many thanks to Head / sportextreme.com, Gococo socks, BeetIt and Chia Charge (who also provided feed station snacks this time!). Also to the organisers for putting on a great event.
Time now to let my sore toe get better, wait for the tiredness go away and dust down my mountain bike 🙂
Ötillö – Swimrun World Championship 2015
At the finish line! The only picture of us actually racing …
After months of preparation we were on the start line for Ötillö at 6am in the gloom of early morning light. We’d already had two nights of ‘feels like we hardly slept at all’, experiencing an almighty thunderstorm back in Stockholm and an early start and nerves on Sandhamn. In our 3 days in Stockholm we had eaten enough to sink two battleships, had a delightful costume-only swim in a lake, kicked back in a sauna, gone for a 5km jog, contorted ourselves on a portable foam roller and met up with friends who popped over from Finland. We had left strange piles of empty beetroot juice bottles by the bins and scribbled all over my hand paddles. We were ready.
As several mixed couples had a pre-start kiss I felt left out … so I got a cheek-to-cheek and air kiss from Izzy! Then we were off. After running in silence for a minute or two Izzy said: “Thanks for doing this with me. I thought I should say it now in case I feel differently later”. I was equally grateful to be racing with her and couldn’t believe our moment was finally here.
The first swim at sunrise
As we got to the beach we looked across the expanse of sea to the next island. 1.7km, just over a mile. There was a strobe light, but as soon as we got in, I lost sight of it and just aimed for a suitable looking bit of land. We had plenty of other racers around us and were overtaking those who had set off fast. I got disorientated part way over, seeing rocks on the seabed below us. How was it so shallow in the middle?! The first time I got a taste of the water I was pleasantly surprised. It was almost like a salty sports hydration drink, and did not induce the sort of sounds that we get from North Sea mouthfuls (think; cat with a fur ball in its throat).
As soon as we got out we were in for a shock. It doesn’t matter how many photos you look at, how many videos you watch or how many people you speak to who have been there before. You can’t know how the terrain really is until you experience it. Slabs of wet, slippery rock and boulders. I am not the most sure-footed and Izzy felt worse. Our practice attempts at uneven get-ins and outs were no match for this!
Team after team streamed past us. I tried to stay calm and kept moving until the next short swim, when I slipped forwards. I could feel myself going and did a ‘superman’ move to distribute the impact, bashing my knee hard and scuffing my palms. Someone helped me up and we jumped right in the water. I felt a bit shaky and my knee was sore. I imagined I had cracked my knee cap, until I realised that was probably ridiculous and I had better just get on with the job in hand.
The golden source of information all day
Some time later we had just 4.5km run to get to the first checkpoint. I checked the scribbles: we were well off our target pace. But, hang on! I suddenly realised we were cutting it fine to even make the cut-off, something I had not anticipated at all. We had 35 minutes, no problem for a normal run, but we had no idea what the terrain would be like and we had already been on the move for 2.5 hours. There was no way we could allow ourselves to go out of this race, let alone at 9am.
Soon we were breathing heavily and finding it hard to talk. When I asked Izzy to check our pace on her gps watch we were under 5 minutes / km. Panic spurred us on and we fell into transition with 14 minutes to spare. Little did we know it, but we were almost at the back of the field, with only about 15 teams behind.
From that point on I kept an eagle eye on the time cut offs. I knew we had to build more of a buffer. The effort had taken a lot out of us and we were using the tow. I was worried because I knew I couldn’t pull for the long 20km run to come. Izzy later said she had been feeling low as well, demoralised by our difficulties on the rocks.
Difficult sea conditions
Although the first swim had felt fairly tame, things were going to get more interesting. Several of the crossings had strong crosswinds, currents and waves. I am sure if I had been on holiday and stood on the rocks looking out to sea I’d have decided it wasn’t possible (or safe) to swim. But here we were, clambering in and setting off towards another elusive strobe light.
We already knew that small-looking waves on land can seem huge when you’re in them with just your head above water. But these appeared quite big to start with! A few times I’d turn to breathe and almost roll over, getting a wave right over my mouth and missing a breath.
We also had to aim to the right of where we actually wanted to go. This was quite fun, as you could physically feel the angle of the wind and currents against you, and by keeping this angle constant go in a straight line. It almost reduced the need for sighting! Which was useful, since half the time all I saw when I lifted my head up was water …
It felt dangerous and it felt exhilarating. Most of the time we were strong and effective and knew we were passing or leaving teams behind on each swim.
Some interesting places to get out
I did have one aiming glitch, when we came the wrong way round a rocky outcrop and got grounded in shallow water. After one swim I felt tired, so we swapped the lead for the next – and I apologise to Izzy for my inability to follow properly!
The second cut off came and went and now we started making good time, moving at the pace we had hoped to go at from the start. We still only had 31 minutes in hand though. We tried to be efficient in feed stations, stopping to drink two or three cups of water or energy drink and picking up food to eat whilst we walked out and kept moving.
The infamous ‘pig swim’ loomed large. I almost wished no-one had told us anything about this difficult swim! But in the briefing we were informed some people might take an hour over it. Really? For 1400m? At any rate, I was determined this would not be us and set my stop watch as we got in.
We emerged smiling and triumphant on the other side after 29 minutes of swimming. My swimming mojo had returned 🙂 . We had spectators here, cheering and handing us a Twix bar. Izzy asked me something but I could only say “I’m trying to climb up these rocks, eat a Twix and do a wee all at the same time … but I will answer when at least one of those things is finished with!” We passed through the third cut off with 61 minutes to spare.
Tricky terrain in the woods
The next section of the race is a bit of a haze. I am not sure what happened, but we slowed down somewhat. My knee was sore from both the fall and the slight injury I was carrying from an adventure race in Ireland 5 weeks earlier. We were tiring of the hard conditions underfoot. We were also moving inexorably closer towards the 20km run section, which I was more afraid of than the pig swim.
Finally we were there, 55 minutes before the cut off. I was doing a lot of mental calculations about how fast we needed to move to make the final time cut. I knew it should be OK but also knew we were both tired. Our legs were sore and quads were burning. I burbled out loud to Izzy who pretended to sound interested, in much the same way as she had when I tried to describe our swims against the wind in terms of vectors of the forces acting against us relative to our direction of intended travel …
Physics in action
The result was that we had to run each km in at least 8 minutes. I decided to set my stopwatch and ask for a distance check every 8 minutes. All very well in theory, though by the time we were getting to 12 x 8 and beyond, the maths was making my head hurt. Not to worry; it was a great distraction.
After 8 minutes we’d done 1.3km. After 16, 2.5km. Then a tricky section where we only covered 1km in the time slot. Soon we were back on wide tracks and asphalt roads. The km ticked by and we gained 200-300m every 8 minutes.
We rewarded ourselves with a pack of Honey Stingers (pomegranate) halfway to the first feed station. We passed through someone’s back garden and a lady with a team list shouted “Go Rosemary! Rule Britannia!” – now that’s dedicated supporting! Small children sat on the verges shouting “Heja! Heja!” and our feet fell into the rhythm of their chants.
As we stuck to our own pace, we steadily passed teams. 10 of them, in fact. I’m sure I saw a snake as we tripped along, but Izzy was beyond caring (unless it ate her, in which case, she stated, she’d be pleased it had ended the run). Enthusiasm was dipping somewhat but we pushed on, maintaining an average speed of 6:09/km, which I was pretty pleased with considering we were already nearly 50km in to this race at the start of it! To Izzy’s displeasure I insisted we wriggled back into our wetsuits before the start of the next swim, on a section that had us walking anyway. And soon we were back at the sea, the final cut off, 39 minutes to spare.
After a moment where I celebrated and Izzy greeted a playful dog, we just had the final section to go. We were going to do this thing. A bit of running, a bit of swimming.
The trouble was that we no longer trusted our legs. They were wobbly on the uneven stones and refused to work as we hauled ourselves out of each swim. The transitions we’d practised so often were getting slower and more fiddly and no sooner had we got our legs working on the ‘runs’ (walks?) it was time to swim again. Finding the route, watching for the colourful marker strips in the trees that had shown the way like a dance all day. Sometimes we couldn’t see them even as they were right in front of our eyes. Our pace had dropped again. Perhaps without the focus of the cut offs our minds were less strong to will our tired bodies on.
Try doing this when you’re tired
At last we started the final 3.2km run. We forced ourselves to ignore our screaming muscles and run properly. As we looked up ahead I remarked “oh, a phalanx of teams”. We drew closer and saw that Pippa Middleton (celebrity sister of Kate Middleton, royal, in case you’re not up with these things … ) was amongst them. Our friends had urged us to make sure we beat her, and I admit we were surprised she had still been in front of us! We might have sped up somewhat as we gunned for the line. 1.5km more and we were faced with a cruel uphill finish. Then we were there.
We celebrated, we moved forwards, I collapsed onto a bench and started crying from all the emotion. We had actually made it! We had (as is my wont) under-estimated the difficulty of the undertaking. We had our highs and lows, times when we felt weary and wondered how we’d ever finish in time, and times when we were high on the craziness of what we were doing. Now we had done it. We had finished a World Championship race and we were proud.
I won’t lie. The week after has been tough … talk about post-race blues! The body and joints are tired and achey, my knee hurts and my emotional state is unpredictable at best 😉 . The thoughts of ‘we could have done better’ are creeping in, and we have moved from ‘not next year’ to ‘maybe next year, if we could get in again’. We both want to conquer those slippery rocks that drained us of so much physical and mental energy and time at the start!
Izzy is emphatic that it is the toughest thing she has ever done (despite several Ironmans and Celtman under her belt). I probably agree: multi-day adventure races are a test of sleep deprivation and endurance but the intensity is much lower.
I still keep reminding myself that only 1 in 4 people who want to do this race are selected to start. We swam 10km and ran 65km in one day. Two things I have never achieved before. I will hold onto those facts, even though they seem unreal 🙂 .
Many thanks to our sponsors and supporters for this race: Head (wetsuit and goggles) Gococo socks (blister free compression heaven) and BeetIt (nitrate power). It has been pointed out I should thank my long-suffering colleagues, friends, family and boyfriend for putting up with almost a year of Ötillö chat, trials and tribulations. Also my coach, Scott, for his sage advice. And finally, my straight-talking physio Graham, who has endless patience, a cheeky sense of humour and without whom I might not have even made it to the start line.
Now all we need to do is recover enough to do it all over again at Loch Gu Loch – a Scottish equivalent based around Loch Ness, but slightly shorter. Then I can get my bike back out and slide gracefully into winter racing.
Pentland Solstice Triathlon
For a few years I’ve had the Solstice Triathlon on my radar, but the day or date have never been suitable until this year. Opening of entries was delayed due to issues with landowner permission. But Twitter told me it was suddenly available and I jumped in – it was sold out within a day or two. The race didn’t have anything to do with my swimrun or other racing plans, but I knew it would be fun!
This is an off-road triathlon in the Pentland Hills, just outside Edinburgh, where I train a lot. The week before, a group of us went up to ride the course, led by Andreas who is also in my club. We got a good look at some of the best lines and I went home satisfied I had done some prep. Next week we got an email saying the bike route had changed! Oops. Oh well, at least I had made sure everything was working on my mountain bike 🙂
Jo Thom has won this race since it started and I was looking forward to a close battle with her. Sadly, with an on-the-mend injury she had to make the decision to play it safe and withdraw. I think resisting the urge to join in and defend her trophy was the harder thing to do.
Getting ready. Plenty of people to chat to
I got a lift up from work with Andreas. I could tell there was some tension – this was his first triathlon for 6.5 years! It was colder than I expected and there was a strong wind. We shuttled back and forth between the car and registration, with Andreas picking up a puncture from a massive thorn! Better then than before the race, though now I was paranoid about my own rear tyre which had been slowly deflating in previous days. I hoped the extra slug of sealant the night before would keep it up.
The briefing. Feeling pretty chilly for standing around
Before the briefing I got right into my wetsuit, jumped up and down and swung my arms around to keep warm. It felt weird to be in a full length swimming wetsuit again. We got into the water and people were oohing and ahhing about how cold it was. ‘I think it’s about 10 degrees!’ someone exclaimed. I said ‘nah, about 13’ … who knows for sure, but it was definitely warmer than 10 😉 .
I must be somewhere near the front-ish
Off we went, heading towards an invisible buoy. I started off trying to sight but soon gave up and followed everyone else. I did my usual and got into no-man’s land in a gap between two groups. As we neared the finish I just about caught up with the lead group, but really I should have been trying to draft them all the way. Another lap and I’d have been right past 😀 . These 750m swims seem short these days.
How do I get this thing off?
My transition felt slow but I was methodical. I was soon off on my mountain bike with the wind at my tail, racing off to the first hill. Andreas passed me here, powering past and away. My glasses had steamed up which was extremely irritating. I had lenses in, so considering stuffing them into my trisuit pocket, but wasn’t sure they’d be secure. Down the other side and I still couldn’t see; not ideal! The next turn was a sharp hairpin straight into the next hill. My calf almost cramped so I eased off for a minute or two. Up this side I was glad it had been very dry recently, as it is rutted and would be hard going when wet. As it was, I still picked the wrong line once or twice and had to jump off. At least I could see again now.
Heading out
A fast descent on a deep loose stony surface followed. A couple of guys flew past, but I wasn’t taking any risks. I don’t need an injury now! I also slowed for the water bars to make sure I didn’t hit them too hard or at the wrong angle. I think a few people punctured coming down here, but I was soon through and firing on again.
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- Heading up the last rocky hill
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- Feeling good now!
Compared to the old course, this route was more technical and harder going. The climbing isn’t over after the first two hills. There are couple more ‘stings in the tail’ to come. I actually started feeling really good on the last one, which was fortunate as then we turned into the headwind towards transition. I was in a little world of my own, as there were very few other riders about. As I rounded the corner, I was met by loud cheers and clapping and the hustle and bustle of transition. I was a bit taken aback!
Into the headwind now, final leg
Bike times on the new course were 10-15 minutes slower than last year. The run had been shortened to make sure everyone could get home in time for bed. So it was just a 3.5km blast round Harlaw reservoir to finish. This route is really familiar to me as I’ve trained here many times with Izzy, ‘finely honing’ (ahem) our swimrun technique. I felt pretty good. I ran not knowing how close the next lady might be and soon was over the finish line and sat in a little heap.
Favourite running photo ever so far!
Final results were that I had won and was 6.5 minutes clear of 2nd place. I was 9th overall. Andreas had smashed it round the bike course 2 minutes faster than anyone else and held on to win the men’s race. An Edinburgh RC win-win! It was suggested we drive home shaking our splendid trophies out of the window and shouting …
A great wee race, well organised and complete with free transition towel, banana, hot food, water and waffle. I’ll keep an eye out for it again next year!
Many thanks to Pentland Triathletes for organising the race, Andreas for giving me lifts, Bob Marshall and Hamish MacDonald for the photos (the labelled and unlabelled ones respectively) and to everyone who cheered, held open gates and helped make it a great event.
Now, back to swimrunning and other endurance adventures …
ps rear tyre has stayed more inflated than it has been for months!
Planet Byde 