FREE entry to Adventure Race Prologue during the Lakes 5 Day

[DanH]

Not sure if many people are aware of this but there is a World Adventure Race Series race starting on Friday 27 August starting in Keswick http://www.adidas-ar.com and as part of this there is a prologue on the Thursday evening which is FREE for anyone to enter.

It's for teams of 4 which need to be mixed if you want to be competitive although single sex teams can compete non-comp. It's a relay format with each competitor doing no more than 4km but with the emphasis on fun so no problem doing it as well as the Lakes 5.

I see there's already one orienteering family entered but would be great if more teams entered.

The main race is around 400km of running, MTB and kayaking non-stop (any sleep you take is time you could be moving forward) all with navigation and will be featuring some regular orienteers Tim Higginbotham, Lucy Harris, Phil Scarf, Paul Pickering, Jo Halliday and me.

[DanH]

Youngsters team of Kris Jones, Mark Macleod, Julia Blomquist and Matt Halliday have entered the prologue, anyone think they can beat them?!

[ba-ba]

Well done to Dan's 'team Accelerate B' team who finished 2nd behind Steve Birkenshaw's Team Terrex. The top 3 teams 'cleaned' the course (won in ~71.5 hours), 26 of the 32 who started completed it with intact teams, whilst all teams had at least one team member finish. (the female member of the 3rd placed planetfear team was drafted into the team on 3 days notice!!)
By the sounds of things they went cocking everywhere in the lakes - and Morcambe Bay!
The total course contained approximately 100 km on foot, 250km on mtb and 65km by paddle - and this doesn't include special stages - which included, Orienteering (forest and sprint, MTBO and canoeO!), Canyoning (down the canyon above Coniston from which I heard much screaming during the 2 rest days in the lakes!) and climbing/abseiling.

good race reports as it happened on sleepmonsters: http://sleepmonsters.com/racereport.php?race_id=8575 (first post at the bottom)
still yet to hear how the housemate got on. I presume she'll be asleep for the next couple of days/weeks.

[DanH]

Cheers, pretty screwed now, going to take a long time to recover.

Highlights were running across Morecambe Sands (of Chinese cockle picker fame!), paddling Coniston at night under the moonlight, coming off the Helvellyn ridge as the sun came down, falling asleep on the bike and getting woken up by swerving into a thorn bush on the side of the road and FINISHING!

Would recommend it to anyone that loves adventure and the outdoors.

[ER]

Watching the race unfold by the GPS tracking last weekend was so enjoyable. Huge respect to anyone who got across Morecambe Bay never mind finished in Keswick. Congratulations to all teams but especially the Halliday contingent and Lucy Harris who came 8th overall with Team Inov.

Watched the prologue on a beautiful evening in Keswick.

The young British orienteers mentioned above came 2nd in the prologue race - shows what brilliant athletes they are; one leg required a swim across Derwent water to an island and back. There was another team in the race the Evans's from NOC, Jenny their daughter and Fi Claxton - they did brilliantly too ( beat loads of the official adventure race teams) and it was a great family and friend collaboration which is what is one of the most special aspects of our sport.