My second Open 5 Win at Warcop - 2 weekends of fun in the snow!.

Me and Gus on Mt Famine - KT 2012

 2 Weekends ago I did my favourite January Fell Race, the Kinder Trial. Roughly 12 miles, Andy Howie likes to plan some interesting routes to navigate, pick his favourite landmarks on Kinder and leave at least one route choice decision that often decides the race. I knew I was on for a tough race as I had finished within a minute or so of Kirsty Bryan-Jones last year and the two of us were entered again. The Saturday was beautiful with blue sky and fresh snow on the ground. One of my favourite KTs to date I think! I was right about the race being on, with 2 checkpoints to go I saw Kirsty who started 10mins before me. I had decided to go up Mt Famine before dropping  into Dimpus Clough whereas Kirsty was doing the reverse. It was going to be a tight finish.....well until I navigated myself to the next checkpoint way too low, loosing quite a few mins in the process! Ah well, I made it back 5mins slower than Kirsty and finished in 2nd, winning a chocolate medal!

How to freeze your feet before you begin...don't forget your wellies!

 This weekend was the Open 5 at Warcop, North Pennines. Again the snow arrived the previous day and again, the snow stopped in time for the sun to come out on the Sunday! After getting some chilly feet en route to the start (teach me to forget my wellies) I put my dry bike shoes on and headed off on the MTB! I picked up a good few high pointers low down to start with, having a chat to Adam on the way to the second one, then rejoining him at the 5th one after a group of them had ridden past the control. Adam, Shelf and Andy proved to be good pace makers for the start of the MASSIVE climb! By the time it was hike a bike however I had lost some ground and so took the opportunity to shovel some midget gems into me. By the top the others were dots on the horizon ahead :-).

Shelf riding across the tops

 Over the tops was stunning! Riding (read sliding) down the hill was so much fun and I ended up like the guy in the below photo quite a few times, including that corner!

Crash Corner

At the next control I decided, fun as it had been, that I would be out for the full 5 hours if I continued across the tops so dropped down and picked up my final 4 bike controls back around the army base, pleased that my legs could still pick the pace up after their snow beating! I made it into transition in 3hrs 7mins so just over the planned 3hrs and didn't hang around so I would avoid getting cold. Looking at the run I made a rough plan, to get all the ones to the right of the transition area apart from one 15 pointer (leaving it in reserve for later) before heading up the not quite so massive but still noticeably big climb, traversing across to the hike a bike snow area from before then dropping down to pick up a 20, then 25 pointer and into the finish (with the possibility of picking up the 15 pointer on the way if by some miracle this left me any time). The plan was going very well until the big climb. I forced my legs to keep moving when they really didn't want to and passing a pair on the bike got the comment 'you look as wrecked as I do'.
I shuffled across the top picking up 2x 15pointers. At this point I had 45mins left which made the traverse seem realistic still...Nicola and Adam heading in the opposite direction also said it wasn't too bad going across there so I headed out of the stream intending to complete my planned route. 300m later on the path I decided it wasn't feasible at all! My legs were seriously giving up. I pretty much fell down the hill, then stumbled my way across the tussocks to pick up my reserve 15 pointer before digging deep to get over to the 25 pointer. I had 8minutes to get back from the 25 pointer which should really have been very easy, but in reality I got back with only a minute to spare, phew, it could have gone either way. This was a tough race to get right tactically as you could easily end up stuck on the wrong side of some OOB and running out of time, so glad I dropped below this instead of traversing over it!

By the end I had got all but 4 bike controls and all but 6 run controls, picking up 470 points, enough for my second Open 5 win :-) Clear by 40 points in the end I clearly had looked wrecked for a reason!

Quantocks Open 5 Win

Winning the Open 5 in the Quantocks: A smile of relief running into the finish before the 5hour time limit!

Last Thursday I hit the big red enter button on the Open Adventure website and entered my first Open 5 of the 2011/12 series. I then went for a run with Pennine FR and thought 'What have I done?' The lack of training in Nov/Dec due to gluten challenge and the cold I'd had for a week was not conducive to running around kinder at all!
I sat still for the two days before the O5 and that seems to have done the trick! As we arrived in Crowcombe we passed the transition area and got a preview of the ride to the start....It was 190m of climb in less than a mile! Any illusions of a nice flat Southern area out the window :-).

I decided to bike first as that seemed to work best last year, however I had a plan to reduce my shocking transition/ run plan time. I marked the control points on the map on BOTH sides before heading off. My route choice was a bit rusty to start with and I could potentially have got another 15 pointer if I'd thought it through a bit more, but I got round with the major high pointers and few bonus controls. The riding was tough, with a good layer of mud covering my bike and me nicely! I particularly enjoyed the excitingly steep descents I found! I couldn't have riden for any longer though, after an hour I had got really hungry and had a couple of moments where I really thought I was about to bonk! I ate as much as I normally eat in an entire O5 in just the bike stage! Thankfully, with a bit of pushing of the bike/leaning on the bike for support on the ridiculously gentle last bit of climb, I got back to transition and my food stash.

Having marked the run side of the map I was much more economical with my transition, changing shoes and eating whilst planning. This saved me around 8 minutes I think (I have been truely shocking at this in the past).
I wasn't sure what my legs would do at this point, however they got into the swing of the run no problem and I cruised round the first 4 controls. Then I chose a maveric route choice which involved a big off road climb followed by a descent and a climb again. I could have done this in one climb....but this way was shorter :-P.

Now all was left was a small descent, gentle climb and the finish! Then I glanced at my watch.....I had 40minutes.....which was more than enough time to get my remaining 2 controls. And you never want more than enough time right?

Before I knew it my legs were taking me down the hill to the right, away from my safe last controls, towards another 10 pointer. I got there with 35minutes to go. Just in time for my legs to truely give up. I shuffled through the fields towards the penultimate control and a lot of pain and 15minutes later I arrived. 20minutes to go, and my legs were refusing to move. Thankfully the hill to the last control was not half as bad as I thought and I managed a run until legs stop, walk 10 steps, run again regime, bringing me into the finish in 4hrs58, Phew!

I'd been doing some mental maths on the way round and thought I'd got an alright score, however 480 points is more than I could have hoped for at the moment! It was also enough for my first Open 5 win! Really happy with that!

I'm so glad I've retained some of the fitness I had in October! The effort of getting out of the door when feeling rubbish well worth it! I'm also glad that I seem to be fairly well recovered, apart from the cold but I can deal with that! I'm looking forward to the rest of the series now and hope that next time it might feel a bit less like I was dragging my body around the course!

Not the Ultra Tour de Helvellyn

Ullswater

 

The pictures here are from this last weekend, which I spent up in the Lakes running! Normally nothing out of the ordinary there, but this was the first weekend running I'd done in over a month! It was great!!

Its been quite a gap since the last time I posted, which was pretty much the end of racing for this year. I finished the season off with a third senior lady in Langdale Fell Race where I decided I needed some more speed for next year, and the navigation leg for the Pennine Ladies team at the FRA relays. I ended the FRA relays feeling in excellent shape and planned a couple of weeks off before starting into training for next year.

However, my doctor decided it would be a good idea to work out why I have been unable to eat gluten since May and so I embarked on a gluten challenge instead (trust me, just as difficult as any AR!). Every time I've eaten it by accident this year I 've taken a week or two off training or stuck to low key training to recover, which is fine as long as its only a couple of weeks. This time it was going to be just over 6 weeks before I got to head back to my GF diet, so realistically 9weeks before I was back on form. I knew it was going to be hard, but I didn't want to entirely loose the floaty feeling of being fit from the FRA relays, so made a mental note that I was going to get out and train, in some form, every week regardless of how little I wanted to.

Looking up the Valley from Martindale

 The night before my first sandwich, I headed out on the DPFR run and cruised around 10 miles with Helen Elmore. It was great to still be feeling fit and relatively fast :-). The first few days afterwards I got away without feeling a thing and completed the BUCS hill climb, my first ever race on a road bike... Next time I'm going to use a bike that fits me!!  Still second counter for the Sheffield Uni Women ain't too bad :-). On the fourth day it all went downhill, I went for a gentle run and within a few minutes had stabby stomach pains. By the time the DPFR weekly run came around I was amazed at the difference a week made! I not only had to run slower to lessen the stomach pain but I was dropping off the back of everybody!
Not that that put me off, I just revised the amount of exercise I was going to do and decided to aim for one group run of decent length a week and put up with it, so found myself running up through the parks with the ShUOC girls on a 2hr gentle run the following week. I struggled my way round which wasn't very enjoyable. This was it, I'd managed to keep 'proper training' for 2/6 weeks...
By week 3 I was pretty tired from doing nothing, but going out for some very gentle exercise didn't seem to make this any worse, it was just difficult to get out of the door. I then made a discovery, riding a bike was an easier way to do exercise - I guess it was due to me keeping my HR lower and being able to not pedal on the downhills. I'd like to say I got out on a couple of good rides to make up for the lack of running....however when 2.5hrs of a 5 hour ride is spent in a pub by a fire enjoying lunch you might suggest the pace was potentially junk mile worthy....
I got a bit borerd of junk miles with a HR av not over 135 and so went for it! A HR over 150...for an entire hour of MTB...wow! This wiped me out for 3 days and so I gave in and just did nothing for 2 weeks!

Well the 6.5weeks is up, and obviously the first thing I did was get very excited and go running...a lot! The first attempt was back at DPFR with a very similar result to the last outing with them! This time I got properly dropped and ran a good 5miles back alone, oops. I ran the route 10mins slower than last time with Helen, but my HR was also quite a bit lower, so i don't think all the fitness is lost :-).
I then couldn't resist this:

 By the third run I stopped feeling quite as sick, and enjoyed a headtorch run around Ladybower before heading to the Lakes for the weekend. I had hoped that by some miracle I would be fine to run 38miles in the Ultra Tour de Helvellyn, but was sensible (yes you heard me right) and faced up to the fact that it was highly unlikely I would get round and if I did I probably wouldn't enjoy it. So instead I went for a run with Rhys and Wil from Pooley Bridge, picking up the UTdH route to Martindale. Here we found Mike Robinson looking a little confused, but moving well. What we didn't know is that we'd just missed Kim Collison who was on for a flyer and won by a clear margin in a little over 6 hours...as you can see there was enough snow that it should really have slowed him down!
Running back over the tops I remembered how much harder running in the snow can be!

High Cup Nick

By the end I'd managed 2hrs of pretty comfortable running :-)
On Sunday we headed out again around Dufton (above), running up to High Cup Nick in even more icey snowy conditions. Another 1.5hrs complete, however I was back to feeling pretty rough. So not there quite yet, but only 7 days gf so far. This week has gone better than I hoped and I anticipate that in another 2 weeks I should be able to go out running as much as I like without a problem (well apart from sore and dead legs!).

Next stop Italy, for a bit of Christmas skiing :-)!!!

2nd in the Ian Hodgson Mountain Relays

Angle Tarn - We had weather more like this than the mist that descended for the rest of the legs :-)

Yesterday was the 2011 Ian Hodgson Mountain Relays and Pennine Fell Runners had a title to defend! Last year we had secured a tightly faught victory in the mixed catagory and this year provided just as much of an anxious wait at the finish line, with some hot competition from Bingley and Borrowdale. 

For the last few years the relays have been run in an anticlockwise direction, starting and ending from Sykeside Campsite. With bad weather in the last few weeks there had been some last minute alterations, the relay now starting/ending in Patterdale and being run in a clockwise direction. This meant I was now running the 4.5mile first leg (formally 3rd leg) with Edie Hemstock. The pace up the hill felt easy, however we were in the mix with most of the mixed and ladies teams. A couple of good lines across the top and then came the manic (fun) descent down to the Hartsop Valley. Here we met a track and Edie showed me how to run on something less rough than tussocks! Its always interesting to see the different strengths in relay partnerships, after spurring Edie on up the hill and down to the valley, she then pushed me all the way into the finish!

We thought we were in 2nd place in the mixed cat at this point, however there was one team we'd overlooked, having not seen them since the word GO!The Bingley mixed team with Sharon Taylor and Ali Raw had taken 3.5mins out of us!


Pennine had mixed fortunes on the next leg with our Men's team going for a small wander (by no means the only ones!)...and this left Muir and Paul ahead of them, storming into Kirkstone pass to hand over to Steph and Claire in 1st Place. Claire had a similar experience to the one I did last year, with Steph's enthusiasm exploding into a crazy speed up Red Screes and Claire yelling directions! This proved to work just as well as last year, with the pair running what looks like the fastest womens time for that leg and retaining 1st place!

Adam and Daz set off on the 4th and final leg knowing Bingley would be hot on their heals with Ian Holmes and Andy Peace setting off around 30-60s down! When the guys entered the finishing field we were all waiting to see which coloured vest would appear first. It was blue and white striped....Bingley had the lead however Pennine were right behind them, finishing 7s behind in 2nd place. Borrowdale were the next team in, taking 3rd and completing the 12th,13th and 14th overall places for the first 3 mixed teams! A great race and a great result, it was a fantastic day! Can't wait for the FRA relays now, but first will be a bit more Lakes running with Langdale next weekend!

Elite Mourne Mountain Marathon Win

Day 2 Start

On the 16th Sept I headed to Northern Ireland with Wil for the Mourne Mountain Marathon. Its taken us 3 years since coming 2nd overall (1st MIX) on the B to enter the Elite and this was my first Mountain Marathon in that catagory. After a nights sleep in the car, we had a very leisurley morning of registering and getting ready before heading onto the hills at 9:54am! We caught our first pair going to number 1, then it was off into the mist towards number 2. This should have been a straight forward bearing across a plateau, hit the edge, turn right, down first stream. Sadly hurricane Irene had created about 20 streams in the area of our stream and with no obvious relocation feature the pot luck stream hunting began....25-30minutes later we found the control....and lead 3 more teams into it doh!

We set off to 3 fast, racing Harold Wyber (my OMM partner of the last few years) and Mark Ford. Different route choices meant we didn't see them for the rest of the course, but only lost 10 more mintues to them! At control 6 the Mourne MM has a good section of free choice order of controls. It was difficult to decide on the best route choice, but we settled for one with what we thought was least climb, even though this meant one very steep climb! After this I was informed we only had 3miles to go so set a cracking pace along the first bit of 'path' we'd seen all day :-). As it turned out Wil had failed to spot the final traverse of a hill, so it was slightly further than we thought but we got into the finish in 6hrs 50mins, 1hr and 10 behind the leaders in 6th position. Considering number 2 we were quite happy with this.

A fine meal of smash and fruit cake lightened the bags considerably....then the weather made sure there would be no light bag for day 2. We woke up to the sound of heavy rain and strong wind, I thought I was at the OMM! Eventually we had to get out of the tent or we'd miss the start. The weather forecast posted in the barn suggested cloud base was 2100m, we were camping above 2000m then (see pic).

Day 2 was a mass start and although we didn't know which team was 9 mins behind us, I'm sure they knew who they were chasing pretty quickly! Leg 1 and 2 were long and the leading teams got some time on us! Then 3 and 4 required some fine nav in thick thick mist and OMM conditions. We nailed 3, then Paddy Higgins and Johnny McCloy came hurtling past! We spiked 4 as well, and Paddy and Johnny came flying back past us :-). At control 5 we arrived pretty much the same time as them, to find 3 more teams stood scratching their heads....This was the team in 1st, 2nd and the team 9mins behind us. Control 5 had been stolen and so this bunching up created an effective restart. We raced with the team in 2nd place all the way to number 10 where they started to pull away to the finish. By the end of the day we were only 30 minutes down on the fastest time having finished in 4hrs 39mins (after leg 4-6 was removed to adjust for control hunting time), however this put us in 7th place! Tightly packed! We also finished 7th overall (1.5hrs down on the joint winners) as the team 9minutes down on us had stormed it to take 2nd fastest time on day 2!
  We won the mixed team catagory by a convincing 4hrs and 15minutes! A good end to my first Elite Mountain Marathon :-). Next time I'll be back to make my way up the top 10...

MTBO World Championships and Keilder 53/100

The evolution of biking at the opening ceremony

 3 Weeks after finishing the 6 days of Raid the North Extreme in Canada, I found myself on the start line of the Long Qualifier at the Mountain Bike Orienteering World Championships in Italy. I was a bit nervous that my legs might not make it up the hilly terrain after such a short rest period (filled with some less than restful activities), but an hour and a half later my concerns were put to rest! I qualified for the A final, coming 16th in my heat.

I was really looking forward to the Long Final given my training focus for this year. I started reasonably early which was good in the 38 plus degree heat that developed as the day went on. I set off and felt strong on the climb to the second control. Planning ahead things were going well, until en route to 4 I found some tape across the track I planned to take....this threw me, it really shouldn't have, but I decided I wasn't where I thought I was and lost time (around 5mins).

Rehydrating after riding in 40 degrees!

Back on course, a little flustered, I made it through the drinks station without incident, then onto some good fun singletrack before a small disaster going to 8. The heat was getting to me a bit here and, partly due to a track existing on the ground and not on the map and probably partly due to being too hot I made another mistake. This was a big one, 10mins binned! I didn't let it get to me, I knew the race I wanted was out the window, but I was riding well so got some good racing against Sonja Zinkl (Austria) when she caught me, and finished still feeling good (unlike a fair few people), in 2hrs38mins, 34th Position. This was my best World Championship result to date which I was really happy with, but it also highlights the annoying aspect of Orienteering, I knew I was riding much better than this but with big errors that wasn't reflected. Time to get my head together and eliminate the errors.

Riding through spectator in the Relay

 As I failed spectactularly to get my head together in the Middle Distance I'm going to brush over this and onto the relay. Emily had a stormer bringing us back in 3rd position, Helen handed over in 10th in with a pack of riders. I had a solid but not spectacular ride to bring us back in 9th, our best team result! I was still after that clean nav and fast ride that I felt I had in me and there was one more chance, the sprint distance.

Riding the steps from the spectator control in the relay

 In theory the sprint doesn't suit me, lots of controls in short amount of time and terrain that makes flat out riding possible - plenty of potential for errors! It has been described as 'like putting your head in a blender'. However I think my performance reflects the strength I've gained from riding as part of a team whilst adventure racing this year. I set off and it all went well - apparently i can concentrate for 30minutes!I was dropping the odd second here and there, which in a sprint isn't ideal but I wasn't making major errors! The first 11 controls were around the town so very quick riding (I had pumped my tyres up hard so I could ride faster), then came the hill and the deciding section (control 12-19). I felt the weeks racing heading up the hill to 12, but I think most people did... It was here I got in a race with two other girls who had caught me 1 and 2 minutes (starting just before the seeded riders I was happy with this :-) ).
Control 13 I took the longer road route which probably cost 30s, but control 14,15 and 16 which were packed tightly together on a steep hillside with a very dense path network (head in a blender time) went very smoothly - concentrating head on due to head to head racing I think...Then this happened:

Being patched up after the sprint...

 Head to head racing had it's down sides and the hard tyres on the loose ground down the steep hill resulted in me hitting the floor hard. Hole in my knee and a lesson about not attaching your si card to your handle bars with string when your ski lift pass zipper breaks....dislocated finger. I untangled myself from my bike and string, dusted off my map board, punched the control, noticed my finger was in intense pain then tried to focus on the map. All I remember thinking is 'where on earth is 18? Where is 18? Oh there it is, how do I get there? How do I get there'...eventually I set off without really knowing where I was going, I accidentally stumbled upon the control and then it was off to 19 and the finish.
I finished 35th, so my second best World Champs result to date :-). I will never know for sure where I could have finished and there is little point in guessing, but judging by the splits of the two girls I was racing I was looking at somewhere between 21st and 31st.
I am strangely most happy with my sprint result, it was the race I wanted, clean navigation and fast riding! I plan to concentrate on the nav a little more to bring it up to my new found ability to ride fast...

Mile 38 Kielder 100

Before crashing I had been really looking forward to the Kielder 100 mountain bike race which took place the following Saturday. I debated all week whether I would go, and as I could bend my finger enough to hold a handlebar by Friday I decided it was worth a shot. No 40 degrees this week, instead it was wet, windy and muddy, ah back in Britain! I set off and amazingly my legs were still able to go, even with the wound dressing/bandage/gaffa tape wrapped around my left knee. I learnt pretty quickly about getting up early enough to get a good position on the start line (there was a BIG queue at the first single track as I had been lazy in getting up at 5am). Still, I was on target for around 12hrs for the first 3hrs (good time for a woman in the conditions). I stopped off for a bit of food, bit of a mistake as it meant I got off the bike. When I got going again my knee didn't work quite as well, I didn't panic as I was still moving reasonably well all be it slightly backwards through the field! At 33miles we went through a water stop, again I paused...then came a climb and the start of the end. After stopping I could no longer ride comfortably uphill and when the opportunity came at 38miles I should have called it a day, however I continued to 53miles. After 44 miles I could ride nothing that required power from my left leg (everything excpet the fun singletrack) so it was  a rather slow 2.5hrs from 44miles to the finish.
This was my 3rd ever pure MTB race and I had been dreading the singletrack, expecting to hold up a lot of 'proper' mountain bikers. To my surprise I could keep up on singletrack and left some people behind on the downhills! I also loved it! Time to do a bit more MTB racing I think :-)!

And a note on British weather: my brake pads were gone after about 25miles, I would have needed a LOT more pairs than 2 spares for this race! MTB is expensive here... And when I took the gaffa tape off my knee I found my wound dressing packed with mud, it gets everywhere!!!

Raid the North Extreme World Series AR

The above picture doesn't quite do it justice....this was how my legs looked after 6 days of tough as it comes racing in the West Kootenay wilderness, except believe me they are actually more blue and purple with more scratches than it appears! I had earnt the nickname 'sexy legs' by day 2 of the race....

After the disppointing finish to the APEX race in May, I was on the hunt for a use for all the endurance training I have been doing this year. I had it sorted, a Bob Graham attempt on the last weekend in June should do it!
Then 4 days before this I got an email from Eoin Keith (Irish AR), who I had met at APEX, asking if I would like to race at Raid the North Extreme (RTNX) with him and Thomas Etter (USA). I said yes and joined Eoin, Thomas and Nick Harper (Team Accelerate) in Canada to form Team Breast Cancer Awareness (BRAT)!

This was a bit of an unknown in terms of racing for me. I had done up to 3.5/4days of non stop Adventure Racing (AR) before but this would be slightly different, a true wilderness expedition race..

On Friday 22nd July we were all in Nelson, registering and packing! We got the maps on the Friday evening and immediately set to work. With the aid of some yellow highlighters and google earth we plotted what we thought would be the best route through the thick forests we had to negotiate en route. On Saturday it was time to leave Nelson and head to Kaslo, the pre race base. We were amazingly chilled at this point, boxes packed and handed in, maps and routes plotted, bikes fettled....what do you do the evening before a race without a last minute panic? Eat and sleep!

10am Sunday was start time! The first leg of the race was on bikes and it wasn't a gentle start with over 1500m climb and no descent! 3.5hrs later we had transitioned onto the first trek and this is where I got my first taste of 'bush whacking'. The trek started fast and I felt good, walking fast up the hills and trotting along and down. Nick was suffering a bit with the heat so we needed to make sure he was drinking lots and dipping his cap into every available river. Not long into the off road section we saw a team that Thomas got excited about, aparently they were probably going to do quite well so it was good to be up with them. The first part of the creek had a trail which made things relatively easy going. We caught Team Technu here and now I knew we were going alright!

Then came the bush bashing, we started into this in the daylight (just) at the end of day 1 and emerged from it well and truely in the light....The forest was made up of lots and lots of dense trees, some of them fallen, occassionaly sporting rhododendron type plants as well and where it looked nice going, it was actually covered in devils club, one of the tallest spikey plants I have ever had the pleasure of running through. We moved at less than 500m per hour that night - and that was good going!

Towards dawn we spotted the French team high above us on the slope and being tired figured it was time to climb. A slight nav error, oops, we lost a couple of hours here which possibly made the fight with the undergrowth worse, but eventually we made it out of the woods and onto the snow! Checkpoint 2 in 12th position despite the error!

After a long descent (on which I saw my first sleepmonster, a bus waiting to take us down the hill) and a transition not to be proud of, it was off on the bikes again. Another few hours climbing but this time we got to descend (very fast :-) ) down to a couple of ghost towns, the last sign of civilisation we would see for days! Next, you guessed it, up up up to Idaho Peak. By the top the weather had changed, we were soaked, there was snow on the ground so a few bits of hike a bike and day 2 was over. Early on Tuesday we were 'whizzing' carefully down the single track off Idaho Peak, it was such fun but to one side there appeared to be a bottomless pit, the ground dropped away quite dramatically! You wouldn't want to get a crash wrong up there! Looking at the photos of it in daylight there were some stunning views to be had!

(Idaho Peak descent)

At the next transition we rested for a couple of hours - aparently an alarm went off and a decision was made to leave it an hour so we'd start the fourth stage paddle at dawn...I was oblivious. We started leg 4 at about 4am as it was getting light. Our catamaranned up canoes worked reasonably well, but a couple of teams past us using kayak paddles...if only there had been some wind we could have got the sails out (No joke, some thought had gone into this..).

Transitions were much more slick by now and we left on leg 6 in around 10th position, hot on the tail of 2 teams, the French team from the first trek, and Team Checkpoint Zero. Before leaving we had a bit of banter with Geoff (Race Director) who promised us worse bush whacking in the aptly named Valhalla Provincial Park....I showed him my legs and his eyes nearly popped out :-P

This was the decider! The toughest thing I have ever done! The trek started off with 15-20km on trail up through the woods. We were moving well and caught both teams ahead, I was feeling amazingly good and strong at this point. At Beatrice Lake the decision came, which way round the lake to bushwhack? The French went left while we, along with Checkpoint Zero went right. We found a bear track for a bit which made life pretty good....but eventually it ended. Pete from Checkpoint Zero took the lead, I need to practice my bushwhacking skills! He can move through that stuff almost like it isn't there... If it was fern based, rock based or even thick fight based I could keep up, sadly most of the bush was fallen trees covered in devils club...and it was all I could do to keep up. This meant 8-10hrs of extreme effort with little or no time for food and drink as my hands were needed for climbing over trees! Then we reached THE river, freezing meltwater and a dodgy looking tree to slide over. On the other side the forest became fight, much to my relief as it gave me a bit of time to eat and drink! I wasn't last anymore!

However not long into this and it was time to make camp (10pm day 3) as Paul from checkpoint was hypothermic. A fire was made and I decided to change the plan of leaving my wet trousers on until we were out of the bush as I got pretty cold the minute we stopped...On with the dry fleece leggings!
We spent the next few hours getting thoroughly warm and watching headlights on the oposite side of the lake weave up and down and up and down and stop in a fire....

At around 1:30am we started to make a move - there were some steep climbs interspersed with thick fight to negotiate before, just as it was getting light, we left the forest for another challenge! There was another option around a lake. Right was a steep scree slope or 2 with some more bush to negotiate, ending it what looked like a silly climb without a rope. Left was some even steeper slightly melting snow which ended in the thickest forest to climb through imaginable.....We went right...thankfully the climb wasn't half as bad as it looked, although still a bit of a challenge. At the top we crossed the river and there were the French team who had gone the opposite way around both lakes, not much in it then...

(Valhalla - above the tree line..)

All three of our teams made it over the snowy col together then we took differing routes down the massive hill to Ice Creek Lodge - next checkpoint! Eoin got it spot on, spiked it and we took time out of both of the other teams. In the lodge was excellent! There was soup and a fire and beds, could have stayed there all day, some teams did!....but we limited ourselved to half an hour then it was off again!

This was where Nick started to have trouble. After getting out the bush I was feeling great, ready to tackle the next two massive snowy climbs! However it was soon aparent that we needed to stop again, so around 5mins from the Lodge we kipped for 40mins. After this Nick could move again so it was onwards and upwards, then downwards (weeee shoe skiing!), then up even more, before bumsliding into the next control! It took around 10-12hours to reach the next checkpoint, which was a nice relief after the 25hrs it had taken to get the last one! By now Nick was properly struggling, so we got some food into him and I got the tow out. We left the checkpoint with the French in joint 7th/8th place. 20minutes later and Nick bonked. Survival bag out, sugar and caffiene pumped into him, run tow out and we pushed on down the hill. Nick had been complaining about not getting to see sleepmonsters...well now he did....my shoes were apparently fish and were chatting to him all the way down the hill!

Then came the most bizarre bit of racing I have done. 18km of flat forest track - utterly shattered, Nick was towed by Thomas but it was too fast to keep up, I propped Eoin up as he was falling asleep, but then I was falling asleep....sleepmonsters in every bush! Then we hit a bridge, this woke me up, I knew where we were! I knew how far we had come (7km) and how far to go (11km) doh! I also knew that my feet were trashed. I hoped it was just swelling but it felt like a massive blister all over the bottom of both feet. It got worse and worse as we counted down the kilometers. My arms did most of the work through my poles...
Nick suggested we stop but I wanted more than anything to get to transition as I wasn't sure I'd be able to start on foot again...at least the next section was a bike!
At 3:30am we made it! Tent up, we all collapsed...the deciding leg over, we were out of Valhalla!

A couple of hours later and I had my feet inspected - thank god it was just swelling...although I got another comment or two about the colour of my legs!

I was sorted and ready to go! Nick looked like he was a gonner....he sat looking at the pasta meal in front of him, trying to work out how to eat it....
We were pretty sure this was it! But somehow he worked it out and the pasta made the world of difference! I patched up his blisters, we got him onto the bike and were off, next stop, zip line with bike! As we left checkpoint zero arrived in transition. A wrong turn at the end of the track meant they had bivvyed out.

(Zip wire with your bike)

Then came the, now classic, climb. Nick couldn't get himself and his bike up it, so we adopted new tactics, the guys took 2 bikes each and I got the run tow out and pulled Nick upwards. On the steeper sections I dropped Nick off as it flattened off and ran back to help push the bikes. Amazingly we didn't lose much time to surrounding teams here. 100m from the top Nick crashed big time! Food shovelled in again but it wasn't having an effect. After 15mins I suggested we move, I got yelled at, 5minutes later I attached the tow and we regrouped at the top. A bit more food and a sit and Nick was back on the bike. Down to transition in 8th position, where we discovered no gear boxes....

A logistical nightmare with 2 teams needing rescue from Beatrice lake resulted in 12hrs of sitting in transition without gear bins. A good rest later and we levered Nick into a canoe. We left the catamaran bars behind opting for the 'faster' kayak paddles....mistake...Nick was cooked and Thomas had to paddle them both down the 8-9hr leg...me and Eoin got to look at the pretty sunny views :-).

(I think we could have all done with JD's paddle for the second lake..JD Team SOG)

We lost some time (20-30mins? probably more...) to the other teams on this leg which was disappointing, more disappointing, but not unforeseen, when we got out of the boats Nick's first words were 'I can't carry on'. However it was an amazing effort that he had gone further than the end of Valhalla. We had made his body move for 2 stages further than it was actually capable of, amazing! The three of us then set off on the last leg - a very long bike leg as we were now waaay too late to make the trek cut off.

We flew round this leg, I don't know if I have ever ridden a bike as fast! When we reached the seven summits - the final climb and single track - my stomach gave up and I felt very rough for the rest of the route (6.5hrs). Still the views at dawn on the seven summits route were fantastic! A blast down the forest tracks (after we added in a last bit of extra climb by accident oops) and into Trail for the finish. The best feeling in the world was getting to the end!

It was a bit of a case of so close yet so far, but this race has given me loads of confidence for the longer, tougher races. I found I felt stronger as the race went on, which is good to know, and although there were some very low points, I came through them and got to that finish line.

When I got home I found our new house was pretty much an adventure race, you had to climb over things to get anywhere and sleep on the floor....Now we have a bed so proper recovery can begin...in between building the furniture that is :-). I can't wait for the next adventure!

Pictures courtesy of Raven Eye Photography.