The final morning of the raid and 3 more events to determine the winners of this year's edition. How would we do ?
We enjoyed slightly more sleep on Saturday night than the previous night, but as Laurence and I emerged from the tent, it was obvious that we were both suffering from "puffy eye" syndrome !! A clean of the bikes; some oiling of the chains; the replacement of Anne's rear tyre and we were as ready as we ever would be for the first event of the morning: the bike and run. This course started about 5km from Orbec and so all the teams cycled slowly to the start point to listen to the instructions. The teams were set off in reverse order of their overall position in the raid at this point with around 30 seconds intervals between teams and so team n° 105 set off about 8 teams back from the start.
We had decided on a simple strategy for the bike and run: the women would cycle and the blokes would run. We were given a roadbook for the course and told to start. It was a 10 km course over some varied terrain through the woods and fields with some fairly steep uphill and downhill sections. We set off at a good pace (I was running in my cycling shoes which wasn't easy) with Nick reading the instructions while I measured the distances on the Garmin. We set a good time and caught the teams in front of us one by one, despite their head-start. A small mistake in direction at the final corner which we soon rectified and we finished in 53:27. This was no mean feat since we had to push the bikes up the hardest hills too. We realised the 6th best time for this event of the 24 teams still participating (one team having pulled out on the first night following a sprained ankle). Admittedly, the fastest team managed a time of 46:40 over the same course but with a slightly better strategy on the bike management, I'm sure that we could get close to this.
Next event involved memorising a map showing where the next CP was situated. At this checkpoint, another map was present showing the situation of the next CP and so on ...
This was our best event as it involved map reading and running as a team. Apart from an unbelievable mistake where we missed a cardpunch (no idea how this happened), we ran well together and set a good time over the 4.5 km course. In fact, the error cost us 20 minutes as a time penalty, without which we would have been 4th team over this event.
Back on the bikes for the last event and a 9 km ride home, map-reading as we went. Plenty of confusion around the last CP with all of the teams missing a small turning indicated on the map. Lack of communication on my part meant that we lost a few minutes, but some of the other teams attitudes were pretty galling. You can be too competitive sometimes ...
Back to Orbec where we washed the bikes in the river and then a hot shower before lunch and the final results. Officially we finished in 18th position but there was a cock-up in the calculation of the points for the Bike and Run where they give us 15 points instead of the 6 we should have received. So all in all, we finished about half-way down the field, which was good for a first attempt. A brush-up in our map-reading skills and some canoe training and we'll be in the top 10 next year.
The organisation was fantastic. The whole event was exhausting with Saturday's combination of events particularly gruelling. But we all enjoyed it and Laurence and I are already planning next year's holidays around this !!
Over 80 km in 2 and a half days running, cycling and canoeing. Some amazing endurance training.
We enjoyed slightly more sleep on Saturday night than the previous night, but as Laurence and I emerged from the tent, it was obvious that we were both suffering from "puffy eye" syndrome !! A clean of the bikes; some oiling of the chains; the replacement of Anne's rear tyre and we were as ready as we ever would be for the first event of the morning: the bike and run. This course started about 5km from Orbec and so all the teams cycled slowly to the start point to listen to the instructions. The teams were set off in reverse order of their overall position in the raid at this point with around 30 seconds intervals between teams and so team n° 105 set off about 8 teams back from the start.
We had decided on a simple strategy for the bike and run: the women would cycle and the blokes would run. We were given a roadbook for the course and told to start. It was a 10 km course over some varied terrain through the woods and fields with some fairly steep uphill and downhill sections. We set off at a good pace (I was running in my cycling shoes which wasn't easy) with Nick reading the instructions while I measured the distances on the Garmin. We set a good time and caught the teams in front of us one by one, despite their head-start. A small mistake in direction at the final corner which we soon rectified and we finished in 53:27. This was no mean feat since we had to push the bikes up the hardest hills too. We realised the 6th best time for this event of the 24 teams still participating (one team having pulled out on the first night following a sprained ankle). Admittedly, the fastest team managed a time of 46:40 over the same course but with a slightly better strategy on the bike management, I'm sure that we could get close to this.
Next event involved memorising a map showing where the next CP was situated. At this checkpoint, another map was present showing the situation of the next CP and so on ...
This was our best event as it involved map reading and running as a team. Apart from an unbelievable mistake where we missed a cardpunch (no idea how this happened), we ran well together and set a good time over the 4.5 km course. In fact, the error cost us 20 minutes as a time penalty, without which we would have been 4th team over this event.
Back on the bikes for the last event and a 9 km ride home, map-reading as we went. Plenty of confusion around the last CP with all of the teams missing a small turning indicated on the map. Lack of communication on my part meant that we lost a few minutes, but some of the other teams attitudes were pretty galling. You can be too competitive sometimes ...
Back to Orbec where we washed the bikes in the river and then a hot shower before lunch and the final results. Officially we finished in 18th position but there was a cock-up in the calculation of the points for the Bike and Run where they give us 15 points instead of the 6 we should have received. So all in all, we finished about half-way down the field, which was good for a first attempt. A brush-up in our map-reading skills and some canoe training and we'll be in the top 10 next year.
The organisation was fantastic. The whole event was exhausting with Saturday's combination of events particularly gruelling. But we all enjoyed it and Laurence and I are already planning next year's holidays around this !!
Over 80 km in 2 and a half days running, cycling and canoeing. Some amazing endurance training.
3 comments:
I can't believe you've chosen the worst ever photo of me to publish on that blog!
Thanks!!
I see you missed out the Saturday night entertainment, but then again, this is a public website. We did have some amazing luck with our mechanical failure, two chain snaps and a tire splitting, all happening either just before or after events meaning no loss of time.
The run and bike was the best event for me although I quite enjoyed the rapids in the canoeing. The exceptional organisation made the whole weekend most enjoyable.
My favourite was the run and bike too, closely followed by the memory map reading orienteering course.
Good job we weren't attacked by the hornets nest on that one like some of the teams after us!!
Organisation and the rest of our team members made it a brilliant weekend!
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