Normandy raid - Sunday (over and out)

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.

Normandy raid - Saturday

After a hesitant start on Friday, our team "Les Genoux Mouxx" got down to action on Saturday and showed the others what we were made of. Well almost ...

After breakfast at 7:00am and following what amounted to just over 5 hours sleep, we were on top form for a full day of events. Not.

First off was mountain biking using a map to guide us over the 12 km course. Anne's chain snapped before we set off, so it was my turn to impress everybody with my cycle repair skills and a new course record of 10 minutes to refit the chain. The MTB course was over fairly quickly thanks to Nick's map reading skills and it was down to the river for the next activity: canoeing.

Laurence and I got in our 2 man canoe following Nick and Anne down the river. We very quickly realised that we wouldn't be finishing first in this event. I sat at the front paddling for all my might and Laurence sat behind with responsibility for steering and keeping the back end in line. This role proved a little too much for Laurence whose boat skills are on a par with my knitting skills. After our fifth time of heading down the river backwards, I'd had enough and was ready for a divorce. Laurence had had enough too. My frantic paddling had sent waves of water over her and her lips had turned blue with the cold. One last stretch of white water and we'd finished the course and just had to drag the canoe out of the water. We'll need to practise our canoeing skills for next year.

It was with much relief that we were handed a map with 3 checkpoints on that had to be found back to the canoe start point. A nice run by all of the team and apart from a minor map reading error by yours truly, we made it back to the start in good time, overtaking another team along the way.

Lunch was a long affair, since we had to wait almost 2 hours before the last 2 teams made it back, having got seriously lost on the way. Back on the bikes again and a 10 km ride through some of the muddiest paths ever encountered. Morale in the team was low now, through lack of sleep and general exhaustion. We arrived at the final checkpoint to be given a list of instructions to find the next 3 checkpoints over a 1 km course.

Here precision was the name of the game: good compass bearings and measurement of the distances meant that the CP's could be found easily. However, after a first false start in our measuring skills, we quickly got the hang of this and posted a good time.

Back on the bikes and a final 7 km ride back to Orbec. We had all had enough by now but Laurence particularly was struggling both up and down the hills. A complaint from her that I wasn't doing enough to help almost provoked the second divorce of the day but our patience had grown thin by then and the outburst was understandable. We struggled down the final hill and checked in, finishing for the day.

The final test was still to come though as when we got back to the campsite, the hot water had run out and we had to take a cold shower.

Normandy raid - Friday night

This weekend will go down in the annals as one of the most tiring that I've experienced in years.

Friday afternoon saw us arrive in Orbec, a small town in the South of Normandy. As we arrived in the area from the motorway, I had a few misgivings since the land was completely flat. However, all of this was quickly forgotten as we descended a 15% slope into the town, nestled in the bottom of the valley, to find the school grounds that were to be our base for the weekend.

We set up our little "2 man" tent up for the first time in 16 years and waited for the rest of the team, Anne and Nick, to arrive for the challenge. 25 teams in total were entered for the 3 day event involving shooting, orienteering, mountain biking, canoeing and running. The winner would be decided on the basis of total points after all the events, with the team scoring the fewest points (1 for first place, 15 for 15th place, etc.) being announced as the overall winner.

First disappointment was that we had initially planned to have an evening meal in a local restaurant before starting the event but were told that we were expected at the shooting for 19:55. So instead, we purchased a few sandwiches which we gulped down and then headed towards the town hall where the event was to take place.

So what did the shooting event involve ? Previous raids had involved archery, pistols, etc. but this year we were handed competition air rifles and told to shoot a target the size of a mug end on from 10 metres. I had been watching the Olympics shooting events and was now an expert on concentrating hard; holding the rifle steady and firing in between 2 successive heart beats - well almost. I picked the rifle up and barely brushed the trigger before the shot rang out, surprising me in the process. The others were experiencing the same phenomena but since it was only the 3 best shots of the 5 we were allowed, we still had time to improve. The rifle is heavy though and hard to keep steady and just when you've aligned the sights with the target, your left arm would tire, the rifle would move and you had to start again. 5 minutes later, it was all over: 16th - slightly disappointing but this was not considered seriously by the other teams who were here for the physical events. The real competition was to start at 9:00pm with some orienteering, in the dark.

We lined up at the town hall kitted out with our running gear, headlamps, camelbaks and safety gear. 3 orienteering courses to be completed: 2 in the town and then out into the forest to complete the third. We got off to a bad start by misinterpreting the aerial photograph immediately. We lost about 15 minutes searching for a control point on a bridge in the completely wrong area of town. Once we figured out how to read the photo correctly we were off running around the town energetically trying to pass all of the control points in the shortest time by planning the routes carefully. 2 routes completed in 44 minutes and just the final route to do. This was over a far larger distance, heading into the forest above the school where we were camping.

The map detailed the control points and we also had a list of clues for each one, such as "South side of ditch" or "63m at a bearing of 25° from path intersection". Easy in theory, but when you're in the pitch black, sliding around on muddy paths, getting cut to pieces by brambles, the whole exercise becomes a lot harder. We spent minutes trying to find control points that had been hidden in holes, and then trying not to advantage other teams by telling them exactly where they were. We finished in 15th place after 2 hours 20 minutes and 15 kilometres of running later. After our initial poor start, we had done very well only to struggle with a couple of control points in the forest that need more precise bearings and measurements. Nick was bleeding from both legs from having been torn to pieces by brambles when we sent him off alone to a control point. We were all exhausted and it was 12:30am. A quick shower in the school gym facilities and then bed ready for the 7:00am start.

I'll post some photos when I download them later.