ACE XXX

As we huddled around in our down jackets for the race briefing the bright winter sunshine turned to snow flurries. The surrounding hills were snow capped and the weather forecast for the night was a chilly minus 4oC, but the wind chill would take the temperatures lower. It was going to be a very cold ACE Race XXX Winter Challenge. This was the second running of this 30-hour continuous adventure race, but the first winter version and taking place in the dramatic Lake District on 5th/6th March.

To the uninitiated, adventure racing can be summed up as multisport racing in any environment from the wilds to the city, involving disciplines such as mountain biking, running, canoeing, rock climbing, abseiling, and canyoneering amongst others that organisers can dream up. It has been described as “all the highs and lows of life condensed into a short space of time” as races can last anything from 6 hours to 6 days continuous, and so involve huge amounts of physical and mental stamina, durability, strength, perseverance, and in our experience plenty of good humour under difficult conditions. Most races involve a team of four with at least one female member, and all team members race together through the whole course. My team has changed gradually over the years to the present very competitive roster, with a bit of a Scottish bias, with three of our team being Scottish and the other a wannabe Scot!

The race began with a mass start into a hilly 9km run picking up two checkpoints on our way down to a transition on the edge of Lake Windermere. The next stage of the race was only revealed to our support crew of two as we left the start, so we were unaware that we would be kayaking almost the complete length of Windermere next, but it went well with a stiff Northerly wind blowing us along on the crest of the waves. An hour and a bit later, we stripped off our wetsuits and got straight onto our mountain bikes for our favourite discipline. We were out in front at this point, but a small navigational error brought the elite ‘The North Face’ back riding with us. Unluckily for us they had marked the checkpoints in the wrong place and forgotten their description sheet and so would have been in major trouble if we hadn’t been there for them to follow. We were soon onto one of the ropes sections, which had us scrambling up a cliff, before retrieving a checkpoint in a long dark waist high water filled tunnel. Next up was a 40m abseil over an overhang, which nearly ended our race as our wonder girl Iona came down too quick and crashed onto her pelvis on a sharp boulder. Fortunately she’s made of stern stuff and we headed out onto into an impending snowstorm as we ran up and down the snow and ice covered mountain Wetherlam. Incredibly the snow stopped and we were witness to the most amazing sight of the whole snow dusted Lake District at our feet with the golden red tinge of a winter sunset. By the start of the next 5 hour mountain bike stage it was dark but we were in the lead of the race again ahead of the two experienced sponsored teams The North Face and Kimmlite High 5. The race turned on its head in the night as The North Face showed their experience and incredible navigational skill to get into a good lead by the start of the next stage. Kicking off at around midnight we were off on a 22 mile mountain run where the mental tiredness really began to kick in. We slowed and became cold as we got ourselves lost and spent time searching for any landmarks in the 10m range of our headtorches. A poor 3 hours sleep the night before the race took its toll as we each fell asleep on our feet as we ran on towards the dawn, only waking up when we’d trip over our own feet or wobble off into a ditch. Next time we’ll remember the Pro-Plus!

Back in transition at 5am we grabbed a quick 40 winks before pedalling off into the freezing dawn with ice covering most surfaces that the sun hadn’t reached yet. Still nodding off on the bikes it was becoming an ‘interesting’ experiment in sleep deprivation, especially when cornering on icy roads! We were headed for the beach and a fantastic scramble, abseil and traverse on the nearby cliffs. A Pot Noodle for breakfast and we were off again, back on the bikes, heading home via a two hour ride North to the second kayak stage. Thankfully the stiff wind of Saturday was replaced by a serene calm making the 10km paddle easygoing for all apart from Iona, who was still nursing a sore back from her abseil incident. All that was left to do was a final 9km run to cross the finish line and a greeting from our support crew of sprayed Lambrini and tubes of Smarties! We’d been racing for 29 hours 58 mins and had finished third just behind two very experienced team. We’d made a statement of intent to the other teams that we aim to be winning some big races this year and had all thoroughly enjoyed it in the process.

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