All too soon the race was upon us, and as usually happens there is a last minute problem, one of the crew was out mountain biking, and fell off his bike damaging his collar bone, and as such being unable to make the race.  So on Thursday Nick and myself were wondering around Keswick getting last minute kit and maps and asking anyone we knew if they could sail and fancied a weekend away.

Cheryl Frost, one of our team mates, was organising the Keswick Mountain Festival, but she took a few minutes out of her hectic schedule to find us an awesome replacement, who duly got a call from us, and (after he checked the weather forecast!) He said yes, so we were on.

We headed up to Oban for Thursday night, getting there just in time for a stunning sunset.  We loaded all our kit onto the free ferry across to the wee marina on the isle of Kerrera along with a group of other racers, all ready to finally meet our crew.  We chatted with all our friends on the ferry over, some who have done the race before, others who were first timers like Nick and myself, and we tried to get as much info about the event as we could.

Sunset in Oban - Looking over to Kerrera

We stepped onto the pontoon and were met by our crew, Mike and Carl, 2 school friends of our good friend Andy Wilson.  Mike and Carl were pretty experienced having taking part in many yacht races including the 3 Peaks Yacht race a couple of times, so we knew we were in good company.

Introductions were made and we were shown around the boat, a new experience for me having only ever sailed a wee dinghy around on a wee lake!  We slept well on the boat and in the morning we headed over for the briefing and kit check, then got the boat and all our kit ready for the first run, a short 6km around Oban. This was in order to spread the boats out as they headed out the narrow entrance to the Oban harbour.

The wind was in our favour heading to Mull, and we shot across the Firth of Lorn into the Sound of Mull, the sail was hectic at the start to get out of the harbour, I wasn’t sure what I was doing, I just tried to pull the correct rope at the correct time, we came though unscathed, so I think it was all ok!

Pulling into Salen after a 3 ½ hr sail Nick and myself had to get our land legs back, as as Carl rowed us ashore we got ready to run.  The first section of the Ben More run was along a long flat road, which seemed to go on forever, but soon we were heading up into the hills.  A gradual climb pulled us up out of the valley and above us towered huge peaks, they were relatively cloud free which gave us stunning 360° views.  The climb to the top was steep and scrambly in places, but we were soon on the top and we had been over taking teams all the way, we overtook our 12^th team on the summit.  The descent was on a great scree slope and with our newly acquired downhill running skills we shot down from the top.  The run back to the boat was long and tough, I really started to struggle in the last 5km and Nick took my bag from me as he was feeling really strong.  We finally got back to the boat after a 4hr 17min run and had climbed up 13 places to 10^th overall, which we were really pleased about.

The run on Mull up Ben More - 37km 1400m climb - 4hrs 17mins

Back on the boat we were beating into the wind, so a lot of tacking was needed to get us back to the Firth of Lorn and south to the Isle of Jura.  Nick and I were below decks after we had eaten our food in the open air to limit queasiness.  We rested well and grabbed some sleep; this was tricky to start with as the boat was jibing from side to side so you had to wedge yourself in tight.

I woke at night and took a look out on deck, and it was a stunning sight, navigation lights from a number of boats, eerie looking mountains and the odd star, what a place we were in.  More food was eaten, which is not easy when the boat is listing over at almost 45°, and I tried to get all my kit ready for the run up the Paps of Jura.

At 6am we sailed into Craighouse bay, and jumped onto the wee dingy to be rowed to shore.  My legs at this time were really tight and did all they could to refuse my pleas to ask them to run, but after a 3km run along the road they started to come back.  I had taken trekking poles for this leg, and they proved to be worth their weight in gold, I felt much stronger a few hours in, and with the clouds being down to about 350m the navigation was tricky, which suited us as I am a good navigator.

The Paps are tough hills, not as high as Ben More, but as there are 3 of them they take their toll on the legs, the ground is also very tricky with scree of varying sizes from tiny rocks to big boulders made very slippery with the wet weather.  We raced most of the Paps with some friends from Aberdeen racing as the Cosmic Hillbashers, and we changed position a few times depending on route choice.

At the mid checkpoint on the coll between 2 Paps there was a TV camera, as the race was being filmed for the BBC Scotland program The Adventure Show, it was a very strange sight to come across in such a remote location.

The final descent from Beinn Shiantaidh was steep with a lot of scree, I knew there was a team ahead of us, but thought they had contoured more, so wasn’t too worried about all the rocks I sent flying down the hill, but as we came out of the clouds I could see them directly below us, still running though, so all was ok, they said they saw a few rocks flying past them!

The run on Jura, 24km 1600m climb, 4hrs 45mins

The run back to the boat was tough, a long run out to the road, then a 5km run back along the road, with the boats in view the whole time, they just never seemed to get closer.  We finished in a time of 4hrs 45mins, a really tough run made harder by the tricky underfoot conditions and the low cloud.  It was a shame we didn’t get a great view from the tops, but as we set sail for Arran the cloud lifted and we were granted an amazing view of the hills from the sea.

We were both really tired after the run, and heartily wolfed down the food that had been prepared for us by our crew, sitting on deck in the sunshine.  Soon after we headed to our cabins to get some rest, we didn’t know it, but we wouldn’t come back on deck for almost 10 hours.

As we sailed south we were being tossed around more and more, it was a mission to reach the toilet, and the best place to be was horizontal in the cabin.  The sea conditions were clearly worsening, and our crew told us that many boats had tacked off course and were no longer visible, whether they had changed to a different course, or had headed for shelter we didn’t know.

Rough seas near the Mull of Kintyre

David at the helm in the biggest seas he'd ever been in

Huge seas throwing us all over the place

At about 6.30pm Mike stuck his head through into the cabin and a wee council of war was had, what were we to do, continue or retire.  It was Mike’s view that the sea was worsening and we were in for a very tough 12hours of big waves, unfavourable tides and strengthening winds.  Nick and I have very limited experience of sailing, and listened to what Mike and Carl had to say.  We then took the group decision that the race would be there next year, and we didn’t want to do anything stupid to get us into trouble, so we turned and headed north to escape the forecast force 8 that was blowing through.

It was a very tough call, we all wanted to finish the race, we were going well, possibly in 8^th place when we left Jura, but we had no idea what lay ahead.  Looking back now it would have been a true battle to have carried on, and I think we took the right decision.  Many teams had already abandoned we found out later, teams on bigger boats with experienced crews had already sought shelter, knowing this we felt a bit better about how we had got on.  I spoke to a friend on a boat that hadn’t left Craighouse Bay, and he told me that a number of boats stayed there for the night, and many had retired before they finished the run.  My friends from Aberdeen bailed 10miles shy of the Mull of Kintyre to head for the Crinan Canal.

The Sailing route, we got to just above the tip of the Mull

We had managed to get close to the point of the Mull, at one point we were closer to Ireland than Scotland, and we would have had to have put in a lot of tacks to get round the point, so we had done well, and been beaten back by the sea.

The cruise back to Ardfern was much more relaxed once we were out of race mode, David, our stand in crewman took a well earned rest having done a superb job helping Mike and Carl, and without him we would have had to turn back much earlier.  He later said that that was the biggest sea he had ever been in.  We arrived into Ardfern at 2am, under a clearing sky, and we all got our heads down for a good sleep.

In the morning we woke to glorious sunshine and stunning scenery, what a special place the West coast is.  After a tidy up on the boat we headed home, tired, battered and bruised from an amazing adventure that I’m sure none of us will forget any time soon.

Ardfern Harbour Sunday morning

At the moment we have no idea what happened with the race, officially you can finish whenever you want, Troon marina is manned by the race till 1800hrs on Monday, and it is only midday on Monday as I write this.  There is nothing online about where people got to, so hopefully over the next few days stories will trickle out of the woodwork.  One story that I have found is by the fastest runners in the race, the SaabSalomon boys, read their report here. – http://www.saabsalomonoutdoorteam.com/2009/05/an-abandoned-assault-on-the-scottish-islands-peaks-record/

I’d like to thank Mike and Carl and David for being a superb crew and taking us as far as we could, looking after us incredibly well, and also being great company.  The boat Highland Spirit certainly lived up to the name and we battled as hard as we could.

Highland Spirit - Our fantastic boat, (note the battered race number on the bow, it should read 48)

Nick and I are really keen to come back next year to try again, we will hopefully take some time off our runs now we have had a bit of a recce, and we know what to expect.

Nick relaxing in the sunshine in Ardfern

Thanks must also go to our sponsors for helping us out.    For Goodness Shakes for aiding our reccovery, Paramo for keeping us warm and dry, OMM for carrying our kit, Leki for taking the strain off our legs, and Helly Hansen for keeping us warm on the run, and of course Nuun for keeping us hydrated and free of cramps.

Bruce

Full race report will follow shortly.
Just a quick thank you to our awesome crew, Mike, Carl and Dave, who did a fantastic job sailing us around and looking after us so well.

Bruce

If things work well there should be a feed on the right hand side of this page as well.

The teams assembled at 7.30am on Saturday morning having arrived the previous night and camping or arriving in the morning after early starts. Trailplus impresario, Paul Magner, gave the initial briefing, explaining that teams would be put in groups for the first five stages for which the results would be a closely guarded secret, to be revealed after the fifth event. Four more events would happen in the afternoon and new groups, based on overall position would be formed.

Most of the teams knew each other, so there was some good banter as we walked to our first challenge, the Climbing Wall Traverse, but as soon as we were in and given our instructions it was into ‘race mode’. The challenge was to traverse a wall as far as possible in 3 minutes. As we got around the wall, however, the height got lower and lower and holds smaller, making it harder to go just that little bit further. We worked well together and once the results were published we got a credible 2nd place for our efforts.

The challenge was short, so we were quickly back at base chatting again while we waited to head off to the Adventure Biathlon. Thoughts of rifles and skis were dashed as this activity turned out to be a short running loop followed by an Archery shoot. The run was enough to really get us out of breath, especially as we only had 5 mins to get round 3 times and shoot 3 arrows on each lap. We were solid on this one, with Tom starting out with a bullseye, sadly not some thing he’d repeat, but it did momentarily scare the other teams! Another 2nd place here and we were off to a good start.

The assault course then beckoned. As with the other challenges the details were kept secret so we had no idea what lay ahead, and as usual, being the first team off in our group we had no advantage of being able to see what others did, not that you could see much. We set off fast, knowing that we needed to make no mistakes, and working as a team we quickly polished off the wobbly bridge, bosons chair, high wall and balance beam to post a solid time, which later turned out to be only one second behind the fastest team, and two seconds ahead of the third place team. These short events with secret results were proving to be very close run things and it was great to have the exaggerated banter with other teams about each others achievements.

The mystery discipline was up next… This involved involved a bit of a mental challenge to get as much water around a course of 3 large water pipes in 10 minutes. We had 3 small cups and all team members had to get all the way round the circuit. Tom and Nick worked well here as they had a size advantage (being …er. ‘average’ size), but me, being a ‘wee’ bit bigger, struggled through the pipes, which slowed us down a little. Our strategy wasn’t the best either, and being the first team to go off, we had no advantage of seeing what anyone else tried, this turned out to be our worst stage of the race.

The final morning activity was a mountain bike time trial. This was a fast 2 laps of a course around the grounds of YMCA lakeside. The course had been ridden by lots of people in the morning, so was a bit broken up making it a little slower, and sections were faster to run than to ride. The course was hard work, with steep ups and downs, and  so I was instantly in oxygen debt. All 3 of us rode well and completed the course with no injuries or mechanical issues and finished in second place yet again.

In the afternoon we were all regrouped depending on the morning’s results; thankfully we had done well enough to be leading and so were in the top group with 3 other all male teams. The afternoon comprised four more events, and so, before long we were stood on the start line of the fell race; a short and fast 4km run up and down the steep hill out the back of the YMCA. It was a very fast race, and with us all running our lungs out, Nick almost literally, we managed to complete the course in a combined time of 52:54, a little over a minute behind the first team, and only 20 seconds ahead of the 3rd team.

Our legs were hurting after the short fast hill run, so we were glad of the rest we were to get when we took to the open canoes. We had to race twice round the shortened course due to strong winds outside of the bay. The course was pretty fast and again teams were very close together at the end, meaning that there was no room for error, something that Gripped and Sorted didn’t quite get, managing to capsize 3 times while trying to set off!

We had a longer rest after the canoe and then it was onto orienteering.  We were looking forward to this event, as we knew we had the skills for this one and hoped we could bag some crucial points. All of us are good navigators and it was a huge advantage over many of the other teams. The course was relatively simple, but at the pace we were running it was easy to make a mistake which could be costly. Tom navigated well around the course taking a smooth route to all controls, bringing us back in first place, and crucially some of our closest rivals struggled with their lack of navigation skills, enabling us to get more of a cushion for the later events where we knew we’d struggle against their faster speed.

The day had been dogged by high winds, which meant that the sailing section was replaced with a kayak stage. All three of us were quite happy with this choice, being novice sailors, but some teams had really been looking forward to getting a high score against some of the faster teams here.

The kayaks were quite cosy for some, and after a full day of on off racing, legs were starting to cramp up, not something you want when paddling a boat on cold water! It was a frantic wee time trial around the buoys, and some teams who had not expected to have to kayak really struggled. Joe from, VO2.co.uk, one of our closest rivals, is a great kayaker, but his teammate Elliot, did his best to scupper his team’s chances by ramming his teammates then padding such a meandering course that he later said he could honestly have swum faster!

At the end of Saturday, we were very happy and slightly surprised to be sitting in first place, 100 points ahead of Accelerate in 2nd, and 155 points clear of VO2 in 3rd. We then did the maths and worked out what we had to do for Sunday. The main thing was to finish, but keep an eye on the other teams and not get carried away.

Saturday night was spent having a social meal with many of the other teams, which was a really good chance to chat about the day and talk about other events in the future, and to catch up on what everyone had been up to over the winter.

Sunday dawned crystal clear but very cold. Soon however the sun had melted away the frost, and teams were milling around getting ready for the 10am start. Unlike Saturday, there was 270 teams racing in the final multisport adventure challenge. The 19 teams taking part in the full Adventure X race were set off 1 minute clear of the rest of the race, but we would be doing the same course, and would see many of them out on the course.

The first run was tough, straight up to the top of the hill we ran up the previous day, but then extended to take in more of the hill, and to spread out the 270 teams behind us. There was not a cloud in the sky and the views were stunning from the top, but sadly we had no time to stop and take them all in.

As soon as we were at the top of the hill, we were back down again, and jumping onto our Marin bikes for a 90 minute ride through Graythwaite and Grizedale. This is where our race started to fall apart. I had a major problem with my custom cranks,  when the pedal came and stripping the crank thread and as such we couldn’t get it back on and so we were resigned to race the rest of the 30+km with just one pedal on my bike.

I had to run all the uphill sections, though Tom and Nick did a fantastic job pushing and towing me along the flatter sections, as I pedalling as much as I could to keep the speed up. At one steep hill the tow slipped out of my hand and the karabiner shot at full speed into the back of Tom’s head, which hurt a lot I think he said! After this little incident Nick then snapped his chain! Everything that could go wrong was doing so, as our bikes which are usually so reliable were playing up.

We managed to push on as fast as we could, well aware that we had to finish the race to be in with a chance of taking the £2500 first prize, however, luckily for us at least, our nearest rivals, Team Accelerate, were behind us. We were only overtaken by 1 team on the bike, which was testament to Tom and Nick’s towing and pushing power and the quality of the Marin bikes, to which I was very grateful.

Back into transition we threw our life jackets on and had a quick loop to complete in open canoes. The sun was beating down from the sky and it would have been a great day to leisurely paddle up the lake, but we were still in full race mode, so as soon as were back on land, it was straight off for a short fast run to the finish.

Because of the pedal issues, I had really worked my right leg, which tried to cramp up on the final run, so we had to slow the pace slightly. Soon the run was over and just the skis (2 planks of wood that you all stand on, and have to walk in unison), cargo net and slippery wall stood in our way.

Once over the wall, we finished in 6th place, a pretty commendable effort considering the issues we’d had on the bike. A great weekend was then rounded off by being presented with medals and most importantly a giant cheque for £2500 !

We must say a huge thank you to all our sponsors – Marin, Helly Hansen, Paramo, Nuun, OMMand For Goodness Shakes for helping us out this weekend enabling us to compete at such a high level. Also a huge thank you to John Laughlin who came along and managed us all weekend making sure we were always set and ready for every event.

Bruce Duncan

Team Aberdeen in the HH Adventure X

The first ever Helly Hansen Adventure X took place at the weekend at Lakeside YMCA on Windermere in the Lake District. It was the first race of the season for the Aberdeen team and the team of Bruce, Nick and Tom, supported by John, were really up for the event with the incentive of a £2500 cash prize for first place. Well after two hard days of racing over 10 events the boys emerged victorious and were delighted to pick up the winner’s comedy cheque for first place. A full race report will follow.

Everyone is justifiably pleased and particularly proud of Bruce’s performances which set him out as one of the very best adventure athletes in the World. He had written a report of the team’s Melbourne Rat Race experience here. Plans for 2009 are beginning to be formed but rest assured AAM will be back to make sure they retain their title for yet another year!

Many thanks to Detail Events for the prize of the Melbourne trip and to all the team’s sponsors who make racing at the highest level that much more possible.