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Showing posts from 2016

Misadventure Racing: Open5 Todmorden

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End of the Open5 series for this winter and we were headed to the steep sides of Calderdale, the land of dark satanic mills, packhorse trails all over the place, and the kookiness that is Hebden Bridge. As usual, I opted to stay fairly near the venue because I know I hate early starts, so first order of the night was to find my accommodation up at the Mankinholes YHA. Easier said than done, because even in a little Skoda Fabia with a fairly decent turning circle, there was at least one junction that required a 3-point turn to get round! No pre-race paddling this time either, but at least that gave me a Saturday free to do semi-domesticated things like servicing my bike, bleeding my brakes and getting some kit washed, so at least I had some clean stuff to race in and brakes that worked properly this time out. Dinner was a nice Korean salmon stir fry, and after some dark chocolate and a beer or two I retired to bed early. I'd booked a private 2-bed room since there was a chance a f...

Misadventure Racing: Open5 Askham

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One more for the monthly Misadventure Racing series, and one more to go after this. Very unusually, there was no pre-race paddling this time round. My sincerest apologies to both my readers, and I promise to get back to normal shonky form for next month. I'd love to say that the latest Open 5 from Askham continued my triumphant (ahem...) re-entry back into the world of Adventure Racing, but knowing the state of my racing, I don't think I'll ever fool anyone into thinking the triumph is on the menu. This minor resurrection has been about the same as my standard racing day; less sudden dramatic fanfare and leap through the curtain, more  slow, sweaty, sweary plod from the back of the auditorium to the stage. Hey ho. I like my planning and logistics, but frankly the planning for this one was a bit shaky. I'd been asked to help out on the Mighty Deerstalker trail run/obstacle course event the night before the Open 5, and had said 'yes' having not checked the da...

Misadventure Racing: Open5 Blanchland

Third race of the Open5 Series , with some things changed, some kept the same, and a faintly interesting end result. The same: I'd been kayaking the day before. Come on, I'm not changing that unless I absolutely have to. We'd had a good day on the Leven, though I took another swim at Backbarrow, which seems to have become an annoyingly bad habit recently. Poor line and a failure to roll, the latter being the more annoying part as I've actually worked on my rolling recently and re-outfitted the boat to help with that, and in the end didn't even try, just panicked and pulled the rip cord. Something to work on anyway. Different: I've been struggling with a calf injury since just after the Slaidburn race, picked up at a parkrun while trying to get some actual training in. I wasn't even pushing hard, heading for a similar 'around 30min' pace when, at the 4km mark, I felt like someone had stabbed me in the back of the leg. So since then it's been ...

Misadventure racing: Open5 Slaidburn

Third race of the Open5 series, but second one of the season for me. I was entered for the North Wales event in December but had been suffering with a horrific cough that I couldn't shift, so decided to save my health and skip it. Kind of glad I did, as I only managed to shake the cough in the last week before Christmas after a fair amount of rest. Anyway, lessons learnt from the first race of the season, I remembered my watch for this one. Not sure I was any better prepared, I threw together some bits of kit the night before, had at least tried to sort some of the mechanical problems I'd had last time out, and hadn't been out on the lash 48hrs before the start. I had been kayaking the day before, because some things never change and kayaking is fun. Kit worked out well again: Buff, bib shorts, 3/4 tights, base layer and a thicker jersey. Waterproof stayed on for the entire day, as a windproof layer more than waterproofing (there were only occasional showers), wool socks ...