Helly Hansen Adventure Challenge

Well, I entered this a while ago, sounded like a good idea, at the time….I wasn’t really looking forward to this, especially whilst driving to the start in the bitter cold.

I met up with Jules and Marcus in the car park and we made our way to the start…in the middle of the forest…so much for a warm shower afterwards!!!

We met up with the other Turbo’s taking part, 5 teams in total. The biggest discussion before the start was ‘What to wear??’ was it going to warm up or remain cold, decisions decisions. I finally decided on tri shorts and a pair of ¾ leggings over these, and my TTTC running t-shirt, and it was perfect. Not too hot and not too cold.

Marcus, Jules and I decided on a steady-no-stopping pace, which worked well for us. The rule of these team races is that you can only go as fast as your slowest member. In the running department, that was me. So I set the pace on the first run, and Jules and Marcus followed. The first run was supposed to be 3 miles, but I think it was only a little over 2 as we where back in transition after 18 minutes, and there is no way in hell I can run 3 X-country miles in 18 mins. Thankfully the first run wasn’t too punishing. A bit of soft sand a bit of mud, a bit of up hill but all within my limited capabilities.

We changed shoes, grabbed our bikes and headed out on the bike. Jules and I have somewhat limited mountain biking experience, where as Marcus is a seasoned pro. We were counting on him to get us around in one piece. Thankfully, the course was great, not too technical, but enough to make it fun. We didn’t have any major falls or mechanicals so all good. The pace was perfect, not too fast and not too slow. We did start catching the all-men teams who had set off 10 minutes ahead of us. So we must have been going at a good old steady pace.

Near the end there was quite a nice fast technical section. First time through there I followed Jules, she took a nice conservative line and we arrived just fine at the bottom. On the second lap, Marcus lead us through that section, he took a much more aggressive line, and my teeth were chattering at the bottom of that section. And there in lies the difference between seasoned pros and us MTB frauds.

The MTB section took around 2 hours in total, our second lap was faster then our first. We where more then happy with this outcome.

Then it was back into transition to prepare for the second section. This consisted of a run, followed by a kayak, then some more running, then finally an assault course before crossing the finish line.

The second run was agony, what is it about running off the MTB??? Man it hurts! Marcus was suffering with some lower back/bum stiffness, not nice for him, but great for me as it meant I could keep up with them. Jules was gazelle like….bloody Ironman training!!! I’m not sure how far the second run lap was, but it felt really long on tired legs. But after a terrible up down up down section, and a scramble through some brush and a trudge through a marshy riverbed we finally got to the Kayak challenge.
The kayak section involved two of us kayaking to a point along the small lake, the third person had to run to the point and meet us. We then had to swap the runner for one person in the kayak. The new runner had to do a slightly longer run back to the start point while the two in the kayak followed a slightly longer route around the dam and back to the start point.

As Jules was feeling the strongest on the run, she kayaked with me on the first bit while Marcus ran, then Jules and Marcus traded places and Jules did the longer run while Marcus and I paddled back to the start. I think we did a pretty awesome job at this section and got through it in super quick time.

We then set off on our final run back to transition. It was tough, we were making our way along some firebreaks, and it involved some terrible uphill drags. On the steepest of these, Marcus’s back/bum started cramping so we needed to make a short stop for Jules to give Marcus’s bum a pummelling to get the muscles going. We managed to make our way back to the transition, time to face that mare of an assault course.

It wasn’t too bad actually, and thanx to some nifty team work we made it around in good time. First challenge, 3 of us on a pair of wooden skis and we had to make our way around a small mound. Not too bad. Then a short run over some soft sand, then another challenge. One bag, all three of us had to put a leg in, then make our way around another small mound. Then some more soft sand running. Then a crawl under a cargo net that ended in a freezing puddle of water. Then a dash through a big puddle and up and over an A shaped barrier and finally across the finish line in about 3:36 give or take.

The official results aren’t up yet, but we are well chuffed with our time. We also received a great goodie bag thanks to the Helly Hansen folk.

We were pretty knackered to say the least, and now two day’s afterwards and I’m still counting the bruises, of which there are many.

A big thank to Jules and Marcus who made for a great day out. You guys Rock!!