Bikedock Belles

Pre-race Prep

The team arrived in Keswick 10pm Wednesday night after a smooth journey down from Cairnryan, with only one refreshment stop..…where a top quality outdoor piece of adventure kit was purchased by Taryn and Andrea in case of any possibility of sleep at transition areas during the race (2 blankets for £5.99 in WH Smith! 1 bright pink, 1 pink polka dot! Bet all the pros race with them!). Then it was up bright and breezy for race registration at 930am Thursday.

The girls woke up laughing with the alarm at 830am! Taryn had warned Andrea the previous night that she would love the alarm on Taryn's phone, and when the "Littlest Hobo" sounded out full volume the girls started the day as they meant to go on!

At this stage we were issued the route book and maps, which immediately showed that this was a much more mammoth course than had been expected. Every single stage (12 stages in all) was immense, brutal and carried its own risks. Now why would there be an easy flat section? The first stage was a run / hike with no gradient, but to compensate for that it was across the dangerous Morecambe Sands – and the route book highlighted the risk of death from quicksand and from tides that move faster than galloping horses!

Ok, so never mind making the finish line…we began to think we may not make it very far at all from the start line!

The rest of Thursday was spent manically preparing kit and food for the race, preparations that you can only do in such a long race once you've seen the route and work out estimated times that you will get access to kit bags along the way.

While Ivan and Steve went about the arduous task of marking up our maps, Taryn and Andrea did what girls do - went shopping! Ok, it wasn't just any old shopping – we were being really useful and it was race related. Food! Scouring the shelves for non perishable goods that could be stored safely for up to 4 days in kit bags, the girls found themselves in the "Baby Products" section and convinced themselves that toddler banana smoothie and infant jars of banoffi pie would be palatable during the race!

For a brief moment they paused in that aisle too by the nappies, pondering the all-important toilet issues during the race!

Food purchased, so time to make up sandwiches for 4 days and then pack a variety of foods into bags for eating during the race – each bag lasting 7-15 hours depending on the stage. While Taryn and Andrea prioritised their food, obviously tasting things as they were packing (just to make sure they were ok! ahem!), the boys continued to mark up the maps. This was a lengthy process, so the girls (domestic goddesses that they are!) also made up race sandwiches for the boys.

Mid afternoon, our kayaks and bikes had to be dropped to HQ, and at 415pm there was the main race briefing in the local cinema. Just to heighten the tension and highlight how brutal the course was, the race director informed us that the elite teams would do the course in 3 and ½ days, but the slowest teams would take 7 and ½ days to do the entire course. So, tactical decisions had to be made as the race progressed as to which checkpoints to purposely miss out and take time penalties for. The vital factor in the race was to make sure that teams made transitions before the stipulated cut-off time for each stage.

After the briefing, it was back for more packing, and then at 7pm we had to be down in Keswick town centre for a briefing for the Prologue, which started at 730pm Thursday. The aim had been to have everything done for the main race by the start of the Prologue, but this wasn't the case, so after racing the prologue the kit bags had to be finalised and dropped to HQ around 10pm.

Prologue

The Prologue was in relay formation over 4 legs. Andrea did the 1^st leg, a 4km hill run, then passed the timing chip onto Ivan, who did a 4km orienteering loop, then to Taryn who did a 4km run and swim loop, and finally Steve who did a 4km run and kayak loop. The amount of minutes slower than the winning team was multiplied by 3, to give a "sin bin" minutes total to be served out at the end of the 1^st stage of the main race.

So our strategy was………come pretty much last to give the other teams a head start!! Ahem!

Prologue over, all that remained was to do last minute kit bag preparations and drop them off at HQ, and then get some food and a bit of sleep before the 4am alarm Friday morning. While Taryn and Andrea lavished themselves with beauty products and doused their pillows in lavender mist, Ivan and Steve continued to mark up maps! Men are from venus, women….love mars!

Main Race

The 4am Friday alarm, which didn't trigger the same laughter as the previous day given the early hour!, signalled the start of the challenge proper.

Stage 1 - Foot

The very accommodating?! B&B had left bacon sandwiches out for breakfast alongside the cereal and fruit, which was most welcome on the 90 minute bus journey from Keswick to Morecambe Bay. The team were a bit worried about eating too much however, making them heavier to sink into the quicksand along their 24km route on foot that was Stage 1.

As if reports of deaths on Morecambe Sands were not enough, when the buses pulled up at the beach there was a half sunken jeep about 100m from the start line. No, it wasn't put there on purpose!

After a briefing at 645am, just before which the Belles had been told to keep the volume down at their hilarity at Ivan and Steve's attempts at being a Belle – eating Babybels was their token effort! - the race hooter went off at 720am and within 2 minutes it was clear that water and leg-ripping sand were the order of the day. Would this take a toll on team spirits at an early stage? Indeed not. There were plenty of cameras around and the Belles focussed on playing to them! A little too much as when running through knee high water they nearly fell over in an attempt to stand out from the crowd and be picked up by the camera! Trailmail messages relayed to the team the following day showed that the mission was successful!

The Morecambe stage provided a tough start to the Terrex but the team made transition within 3 and ½ hours, where they then had to serve an 84 minute penalty for the Prologue. Shame eh? Having to lie around in the sun, with feet in the air, chatting and eating!

Stage 2 – MTB

Around 1225pm the team set off on their bikes, for a 110km brutal MTB stage that seemed to be all uphill and no downhill. Adventure Races defy that saying "what goes up must come down"! After several hours the team happened to pass a pub, just before a serious hike-a-bike section, so decided to stop for hot steaming coffee….and chips! Yes, our bodies are temples!

The half hour stop boosted us for the mountain ahead, but nothing could have prepared us fully for the extremely long and steep push up Walna Scar. The rocky ascent took 90 minutes and the technical descent down the other side took the team to Church Beck just as it became dark.

There was a special task at Church Beck, which involved getting soaked, and there had been discussion as to whether to do this or not as having got soaked, we still had hours of riding and hiking to do before our next transition. In the end we decided to go for it.. . swayed  by the fact we saw a pub closeby and knew we could head there for a hot drink and to dry off under hand driers in the toilets!

Boy are we glad we elected to do this task! As were the marshals that witnessed Taryn and Andrea do the full monty! They decided to take off all their kit, put waterproof tops and bottoms on only for the plunge, in a bid to save lots of kit for the next number of hours!

Having changed, put our climbing harnesses and helmets/headtorches on, we hiked up a canyon where we were told to rope ourselves up for an abseil out over a rock ledge that had a powerful waterflow jetting over it. On reaching the bottom of the abseil, half submerged in a freezing pool, you had to get off the rope and swim 10m to the next part of the task. . . . .sliding down a 2m, almost vertical rock slab and dropping into a deep pool. All very atmospheric in pitch black!

Needless to say we were freezing and quickly headed back to the marshals for a repeat performance of the fully monty!

The pub was bliss, with no need for hand driers as an open fire was lit. Much to the amusement of the locals we grabbed all the stools we could and draped out clothes over them in front of the fire as we drank coffee and tea. After 30 minutes one of the race organisers came into the pub – worried about us because through the GPS tracking system he had seen we hadn’t moved from our position in a while and thought something had gone wrong. How far from the truth that was!

Tearing ourselves away from the pub and back onto the bikes, we headed off into the night and reached transition by the 1am cut off. By this stage it had become clear that the course was more challenging than expected and that the elite teams were not moving as fast as anticipated, so organisers began cutting sections out of all following stages. There were also some cases of drop-outs due to exhaustion and dehydration. A reminder of just how extreme this race was.

Stage 3 – Kayak

After a 45 minute break in transition, the team headed out in the kayaks on Conniston Water at around 2am Saturday morning. This was a truly magical paddle of about 2 hours, that took us back to our kayak starting point for a 5 hour trek through the night to Lakeside.

Stage 4 – Trek

Cooleyraid.com started the trek about 415am, which started with a tough climb and difficult navigation in the hours of darkness. Rain started around sunrise and continued as the team trudged their way to the next transition at a YMCA centre. The last couple of hours of the trek were gruelling, and for the first time in 24 hours the Belles' chat and laughter was non-existent! Apparently Ivan and Steve were glad of the break and went so far as to take their ear plugs out!

At the YMCA transition there were tents set up for sleeping purposes, which the team took advantage of after having refuelled, sorted kit and written a blog as requested by race organisers. Reading it back now, spirits appeared high – in contrast to the mood just 2 hours previously! It sounds fairly coherent too!...or am I still just delirius?!

BLOG read -

“are we nearly there yet?” “are we nearly there yet?”. Such is the childish behavior of Team Cooleyraid.com. Befitting of a team that is surviving on baby food products and playing rock/scissors/paper to make strategic decisions. Oh and of course eating kiddies Haribo. And Ivan and Steve eating Babybels (but this is a cover for wanting to be Belles themselves! Cathy and Julie watch out!)

We are still moving forward….and still smiling – well, that’s a slight exaggeration for the stage 4 Trek. SLOOOOOOGGGG. From the very beginning the course has been brutal. The race is taking its toll on many.

We’ve been on the go for 28 hours and just about to have our 1^st sleep.

Slow, steady, smiling all the way. How can you not enjoy the stunning scenery of the Lake District, by day and by night.

Thinking of all our friends and family back home. Thanks for all your messages too.

Stage 5 - Kayak ; Stage 6 - MTB

After a 90 minute sleep, the team set off in the kayaks on Lake Windermere amid comments about them making a fashion statement – in the same vein as those top quality adventure blankets, waterproof gaiters were made by shoving food bags over socks before putting feet into shoes!

Weather conditions had deteriorated rapidly, but the team had already decided to miss out checkpoints on the kayak and made it to the Bowness/Hawkshead ferry for a foot passenger trip across to pick up their bikes for a relatively short pedal to Langdale.

Morale was still high despite the turn in the weather, with much hilarity found in Steve's comment to Ivan that he didn't feel comfortable with pressure from behind! Taryn and Andrea thought it best that if emergency shelter was to be taken in a bothy, Ivan better not lie behind Steve or he'd be too nervous to sleep!

The chances of emergency shelter looked high as when the team arrived in Langdale about 4pm Saturday, it was extremely wet, seriously windy and dismal. As we looked up into the mountains, we knew a brutal night was ahead on foot…..so we went to the pub! You guessed it, for coffee and chips! This also allowed us time to read the Trailmail that organizers handed us from our supporters back home. Oh how chuffed the team was when it was commented on that we had more messages than anybody else! We could argue that we were in the pub so long because we had so many messages to read, but that would be a lie! After some time the same race organizer came into the pub, noting that we had developed a pub reputation befitting of the Irish!

Further cuts were announced in the mountain stage, and race organisers began openly admitting that they had been overzealous in planning the entire 4-day course!

Stage 7 – Trek

Tactics, particularly in severely adverse weather conditions, became paramount and the team headed off on the mountain trek with a view to collecting only a few of the checkpoints. The entire loop would have taken about 15 hours, crossing many of the famous peaks in the central Lake District including England's highest mountain Scafell Pike. There was also to be a rock scramble early in the stage (but this was cancelled due to extreme weather) and a risky abseil/jumar ascent up Eskdale Buttress.

At 6pm Cooleyraid.com headed up the mountains and within 90 minutes were faced with the most challenging of weather conditions and visibility. When darkness fell, navigation became almost impossible, and the element of risk in just being in the mountains during gale force winds, coldness and driving rain was huge. After collecting just 2 checkpoints, the decision was taken to abort and the team started its long descent out of the mountains with a feeling of having tails between legs. Demoralisation, combined with tiredness, made for a difficult exit.

What was worse, on arriving back in transition there was no lying room under shelter and the team had planned to have a 3 hour sleep – the hope being that the torrential rain would ease during this time. After some hunting around, Steve located a tiny concrete fire escape at the back of the pub, and 3 of us squeezed into it, while 1 of us defected to the shelter as a space was made available!

The alarm was set for 430am, but when it went off the monsoon was still there and the wind still howling, so the snooze was hit for another hour! In such conditions it's difficult to get kit sorted and everything takes so much longer. Much of this is of course down to the psychology of just not wanting to get out there and started!

Stage 8 - MTB

Indeed, we didn't get underway again until 7am Sunday, but there was absolutely no feeling of being rested! The only consolation was that we were still going, a great comfort amid reports of the conditions and brutal course taking its toll on a few racers and resulting in drop outs. Physically, we were still moving forward and mentally, we would always keep moving forward – even with Steve being frequently ill! It began with vomiting, but with nothing left in his body it became retching. However his mental strength overcame the physical – and the lure of the finish line that was only?! 24 hours away kept him going!

Stage 8 took teams north from Langley to Pooley Bridge via the High Street ridge, one of the longest and hardest in the Lakes. It is a mega hard hike-a-bike up extremely steep, rocky bridleway. There was an option to miss out High Street and travel by road, but this meant missing out checkpoints and after the dismal night and harsh penalty points collected for the foot section in the mountains, the team committed itself to crossing the ridge.

Well, 3 of the team did! One felt it was the wrong choice and a few harsh words were exchanged, but that's racing and it was forgotten by the end (which due to the toughness of this stage was quite a long time after the exchange!). Please note that while there was an exchange of words, there weren't too many words. To quote Ivan and Steve, "a punch speaks a thousand words!".

By the time of the ascent, the rain had stopped, but teams faced an unbelievable wind on this section. Particularly over the top and along a ridge to the traverse and then descent. Dangerous cross winds nearly blew Taryn and Andrea off their bikes. Ivan and Steve have a bit more weight to keep them down! The dangerous gusts did not hamper photo opportunities however, with Andrea and Taryn standing precariously at an edge just because it was the best angle!

Stage 9 – Kayak

On arrival at Pooley Bridge there was a very slow transition, with Steve having vomited and retched for much of the day and in no state to continue immediately. The team took 90 minutes before starting the paddle on Ullswater. Taryn and Andrea made themselves really useful while Ivan sorted out maps by…wrapping themselves in their pink fleecy blankets!

To begin with the river was shallow and the kayaks had to be hauled upstream. Then there was another short section of river before paddlers hit the lake proper, where they had to dodge steamers pier and toursists' motorboats. Navigation was easy as there were no checkpoints on the lake, teams just had to paddle from one end to the other!

Only on one occasion did the girls nearly capsize, and it was nothing to do with lake conditions! Rather an elaborate attempt to attract a cameraman in a helicopter by waving paddles vertically above their heads and from side to side!

The girls lagged the boys in the kayak and when pulling the boats out of the water, Ivan placed a snail on the Belles' kayak and told them it was there because of the speed they were going. Ha! But we know the one about the hare and the snail! Oooops, wrong title. (NB this is no indication of parental skills, or lack of them!)

On reaching the far end, teams pulled their kayaks out and walked around to Patterdale school for transition and to write their second mandatory blog before setting off on a trek over the Helvellyn range.

BLOG read -

Where are we? What day is it? Just kayaked the length of Ullswater, arriving about 530pm Sunday...after a mammoth bike leg of about 7 hours including the most challenging hike-a-bike ever. Sorting our kit and food for a night stage in the mountains on foot, which will take us into the final morning of our Terrex challenge.

Since the last blog, posted Saturday morning, we had our first sleep since race start (90 mins in another team’s (stolen!) sleeping bags – nb. the other team members were not in their sleeping bags at the time!), then kayaked on Windermere before taking a passenger ferry across to pick up bikes for a short bike leg to Langdale on Saturday evening.

The weather was atrocious all day, and transition was a soggy and miserable affair – resulting in the need for chips in a local pub before hitting the mountains for the night.

Imagine the worst possible weather conditions – driving rain, gales and limited visibility....and it’s dark! The team’s aim was to pick up several checkpoints along an anticlockwise route taking in Scafell Pike, but after extreme difficulty in finding the first two a tactical decision was made to get off the mountain, take the penalties, and conserve as much energy as possible. After 6 hours in the mountains, with only two checkpoints to show for it, there was a little demoralisation.  The team managed to find a gutter somewhere, with a little shelter from the torrential rain, and nod on and off for 3 hours until the planned start of the bike leg on Sunday morning.  

So, how are we feeling after 4 hours sleep in 3 days, with non-stop extreme exercise and limited diet? Not that we’d like to speak for the boys or anything, but Ivan and Steve are really enjoying the company on their journey!! As for Andrea and Taryn, they are really enjoying the scenery!!

The team was also handed a further number of pages of Trailmail, our only communication with the outside world! One-way at that!

Stage 10 – Trek

At 8pm Sunday night, having been to the pub (again!) for chips and coffee (again!), Team Cooleyraid.com headed into the mountains. The trek course was a high level route over St. Sunday Crag and close to the summit of Helvellyn. Given the baltic conditions and driving winds at the top, and concerns that Steve's retching was not subsiding, the team decided it wasn't worth going for all 4 checkpoints on the route, instead just opting to collect one. This itself involved a 4 and ½ hour trek.

It was an extremely cold night and arriving in transition at almost 1am Monday there were a few cases of mild hypothermia being treated.

However Team Cooleyraid.com were well kitted up, with thermal tights that had been purchased by the other 3 team members on Andrea's advice. A couple of weeks before the race she extolled the virtues of a specific pair of More Mile tights and reflective of that vital team component.....trust....the others rushed out and bought them for the race. However during the event when they asked Andrea about her trying and testing them, they were astounded to find that she had only worn them lying in a sun lounge and funnily enough she found them to be very cosy!

So, tight-clad, the team took a 1 hour nap before heading out on the bikes for the penultimate stage of Terrex.

Stage 11 – MTB

After food and hot drinks the team started biking at 230am Monday, eventually reaching Derwent Water at around 830am after some serious road climbs and amazing singletrack on the MTB. And a glorious sunrise to mark the start of a glorious day and the ever closer finish line.

There was an option to do a foot orienteering section before getting into Canadian Canoes for the final stage, but the team decided the best tactic was to miss the orienteering and try to clear the canoe course before the deadline of midday Monday for the finish line.

Stage 12 – Canadian Canoes

The team took 2 hr 45 mins to paddle these beasts and collect all of the checkpoints. There was no finesse or glass paddles here (apologies instructor Keith!), just brute force and ignorance! The team pulled up on the beach about 11am and then there was a short run to the town centre and finish line.

Cooleyraid.com crossed the line carrying the Ulster flag, as the sole Northern Ireland team in the Terrex, and was greeted by one of the race organizers with words of congratulation and also the question, "Been in any good pubs lately?"!!

The finish was a strange affair, with very little emotion. Maybe we were just too tired?! We all knew what a huge achievement this was. Our aim ahead of the race was simply to finish it. We did that. But not only that, even with leisurely transitions, we posted a top 20 finish.

Ahead of the Terrex, focus had been entirely on the finish line.

On crossing the finish line though, it struck home that really it isn’t about the finish at all....it is about the journey.

Ding Dong !

click on the thumbnails on the right to bring up full images, then use arrows to scroll through the album

Ps thanks so much to all our supporters and the numerous messages (text, Trailmail, Facebook and personal) that we had before, during and after the event. If there was a prize for the best supported team, Cooleyraid.com would win it !

Pps a number of you have commented that tracking us live was just as stressful as doing the race!

Messages and race route can be viewed at

http://www.adidas-ar.com/newsite/profiles.php?racenumber=20

Andrea