Adventure Racing - Splash & Dash

Last Sunday I took part in an adventure race in the Lake District run by West Lancashire Scouts. Its run a relay race for younger members with each team supplying a pair to compete in each stage and then pass the baton on to the next pair until the final stage which is a group fell run. There are however a limited number of places available for pair to enter and complete the entire race. I did this a few years ago with Martin Freeman and we did fairly well, only thwarted by a chain malfunction on the bike stage. We decided to give it another go this year and added Stuart Spencer to our ranks to make a trio.


We headed up on Saturday during the heatwave with our support driver Mark Fonze Gilham and got in a few hours cragging at Trowbarrow on the way (Assagai HVS 5a, Sluice HVS 5a & Coral Sea VS 4c) before picking up a curry from Windermere and heading to the briefing.

Myself sea kayaking on Windermere.

The next morning we were the last to set off in the starting placings. The first event was a orienteering course around great tower campsite, followed by a run down to a staging area on the southern banks of Windermere. we did the course fairly quickly and managed to tick all the controls. Next up was the canadian canoeing, up the eastern shores of the lake.

Martin dibbing as we left the Bike section start.

Once we reached the end canoeing section we jumped out of our boats and into sea kayaks, paddling another course which led us to the western shores of the lake. This was the start of the mountain biking course which took us through Grizedale forest, over the top of Lake Coniston ending up at Tilberthwaite. 

Finishing the bike section at Tilberthwaite.

Here we had to complete a mental challenge, which as definitely our week point. From here started the final leg, which was in atrocious weather a run from Tilberthwaite up and over the fells and down in Coniston. We came 2nd in the rankings, and only by a matter of minutes which over a 6 hours race we thought was pretty good. Had it of not been for our downfalling on the mental challenge I think we would of won.

Struggling with anagrams.

It was an excellent day and a big thanks to all those that organised it, I'm sure we'll be back next year.