We all had our doubts about how we’d manage with lack of sleep, dealing with nutrition and the unrelenting nature of the course, however, we all coped, everyone has it in them to do something extraordinary.”
Alan Affleck
Team: Adventure This
Adventure Racing: (definition) gather your ingredients from orienteering, mountain biking, kayaking and trail running, avoid going to busy places, find scenic & remote places to explore, mix it up, add the difficulty of darkness, a dash of sleep deprivation, remove all GPS devices and share with likeminded teammates.
Allow me to introduce you to “Adventure This” (from left to right)
Richard, I met through The Heb in 2019, a true man of the mountains, who knows Wales incredibly well. He was in the team that came 2nd in Itera 2023 and who would be our lead navigator.
Carol, a triathlete and multiple Scottish Masters swimming champion with some Adventure racing experience whose stamina, mental strength would serve the team well.
Me… hoping to build on the experience of last years event. Started Adventure Racing in 2001 and a host of one and two day Adventure Races under my belt.
John, an incredibly strong all rounder whose stamina, and endurance would be needed in an event like this when things got tough…
I knew that Richard, Carol & John have a teamwork ethic, humour, temperament and a sense of perspective that would be needed for an Adventure Race team racing over 3 days.
Richard & I had learned a lot from the 2023 event in Scotland and with John & Carol’s sporting pedigree, I was sure we would create a good blend.
Richard, Carol & John didn’t know each other before joining the team, so we had several months of calls and training sessions to get to know each other.
We had a big training weekend in Aviemore in April as well as kayaking trips organised through Lochore Meadows Outdoor Education Centre plus several days in the Scottish mountains including an overnight trek in the Cairngorms.
We arrived in Wales on the Wednesday, before the race briefing on the Thursday, with the race starting at Friday midday in a yet unknown location.
We spent a few hours packing and weighing kit before heading to the briefing for the course reveal.
With the course revealed we found out, that early on Friday we’d be bussed to the start at Llandudno before heading south, on a course of around 300km taking in the mountain ranges of North Wales as well as visiting sites of industrial heritage and mountain bike trail centres before finishing in Dolgellau.
After getting our map pack we headed back to our base to get final kit sorted. It took us 3 hours, going through the maps and marking up the course.
Up at 6am on Friday to get ourselves ready to go to the start, load our gear on the trucks and get on the buses for the drive north.
Stage 1 – a 5km hilly trek over Orme Head at Llandudno
There were a lot of baffled looking people around as 3 coach loads of adventure racers fully loaded with trail packs rocked up on the promenade…
Quick final briefing , team hug, and we were off! Time check: Friday midday as we run over the headland then along the coast to the kayaks.
Stage 2 – a 18km km up the River Conwy
Kayaking up a river? The tidal influence helped here as a fast current took us upstream over the mudflats of the Conwy and inland.
The safest place was in the water as getting out for checkpoints or getting the boat out involved climbing up these mudflats…
Richard & Carol had difficulty getting their boat out the river, even with two race crew helping them, turned out their kayak had a leak in it and had half filled with water. So it was even more impressive they’d dealt with the the impact of that as they’d powered up the river.
Stage 3 – 40km mtb into the hills with 1200m of ascent
(Above: in transition- photo credit: Adam Rose)
The joy of being out of the kayak and onto the bike was doused by a brutal hill climb to get from sea level up into the mountains above.
Once we got up there we were rewarded with some fantastic cross country mountain biking. It was a beautiful Friday evening as we descended back to the sea.
Stage 4 – Caneddau & Glyder mountains.
(Above: in transition- photo credit: Adam Rose)
The Queen’s Stage of the event. A monster 35km trek with 2900m of climbing (the height of climbing Ben Nevis, Scafell & Snowden combined x 1.5).
This was a hard enough section as it was, but we did most of it at night.
Terrain was very tough and energy sapping.
Around 4am I was feeling really tired as we walked along the valley floor. The team noticed me missing a couple of steps.
Dawn came, and I was suddenly awake and back to life. Saturday morning around 5am and we still had a long way to go. We headed back up into the mountains up through the Welsh heather onto the next mountain range.
It was tough going and the relief of reaching and walking along the ridge was short lived as we then had to descend on a very rocky descent down to the reservoir checkpoint. More mountains followed.
As we finally came off the last mountain, we were all tiring, I chatted to the team individually as we came down, there were doubts of being able to continue, the fatigue was evident.
Just before we reached transition the Team got together and discussed how we’d completed the toughest stage of the race, and we’d be telling stories of this for years to come, we’d get some food in us then we’ll decide what to do.
After a change of kit, hot food and coffee we got together to discuss strategy. We all felt better, morale was good, we’d carry on and look at options where we could drop off points as we need to a) keep moving b) refuel & recover.
Time check: Saturday afternoon around lunchtime
Stage 5 – Mountain Bike 92km, 3000m ascent
This was another big stage, so we opted to drop off some of the optional mtb trail sections and the orienteering as none of us fancied a 10km run at that time. We would still take several hours to get to the next transition.
This section had us riding along beautiful bridleways before arriving at Penmachno trail centre.
Dusk was coming in as we descended, perhaps trying to hide the huge hike a bike section up the steep ramps of a former slate quarry. An ascent of 300-400m to get to the valley on the other side. For clarity, the photo below is not our team, but shows the terrain we were crossing.
We did this at night, so, for us, it looked like this…
The final section up the winch ramp was a couple hundred metres or so in length, with a gradient of around 30-40deg. Luckily it was dark so we couldn’t see the extent of how far we had to go. Just keep pushing until you don’t have to.
Once at the top we had a traverse along the top of the Efestiniog Quarry, which brought us out to an open area, it was the middle of the night and it was really difficult making out what terrain you were in. Think we lost an hour here before finally finding our way out.
Time check midnight – 1am Sunday
Stage 6 – Trek / Moelwyns. 20km 940m ascent
We decided to cut out some of the high peaks here as we had to keep moving along the course. We gathered together to discuss our next steps, all felt good to keep going.
We headed off for the first hill checkpoint at 3am. I quickly started feeling tired. We couldn’t find the checkpoint, the description was “gate post”. I was convinced I’d been there before, maybe there was a gate in the middle of the field, so went off to look. The team wondered what I was doing, but saw I was in a safe place and probably just grazing.
Enter the Sleepmonsters: I really was feeling pretty tired. We passed an old train station, I looked in the waiting area, it had clearly been used by sheep and it stank, I remember thinking “the bench looks comfy though”.
I thought I heard Richard talk about a train and I asked “Does it stop at Church Stretton?” The Team looked puzzled and concerned. By this time I’d forgotten that I was in an adventure race and was just out for a nice walk with the team.
Carol too had the Sleepmonsters. She asked me if I could see kayaks out at sea.
I couldn’t..but thought I could see landing craft..John and Richard saw nothing.
Carol closed her eyes every time we stopped and swayed around. Micro naps. I looked over, and announced “Carol needs a sleep”, like a drunk insisting someone else is more intoxicated than they are.
We both seemed to recover after we had to crawl under a gorse bush to get to a fence crossing – jaggies do have that effect.
When I stood up I looked over at the pathway that was 3m away, created by the other racers ahead of us and wondered if Richard had done this on purpose…
We continued to transition as the sun rose on Sunday morning.
Time to get up. Rise & Shine.
Time Check 5am Sunday
Stage 7 -Kayak 12km
This was a stunning lake to kayak on, it was a source of water for a former nuclear power station. Sun was out, blue skies – a cracking day for a paddle.
Approaching one checkpoint we could hear the organisers drone above filming us.
The drone was watching us, waiting to film the moment John found the checkpoint… He couldn’t find it.. Richard came on shore, he couldn’t find it and appealed to the drone for assistance….it stayed there for a few minutes, filming the confusion. Then flew off to the North.
Richard then worked out we were in the wrong place. Head North!
We were told later that the drone did help other teams find checkpoints.
In transition I tried a new macaroni cheese expedition food. I took out the pepper sachet before adding the water. Once ready I added the pepper. It was delicious, although, not very peppery. I mentioned this to Richard. He looked at me horrified and said “you mean the moisture removal sachet? You’re not meant to eat that!” ..ah
Time check: Around midday -1pm Sunday
Stage 8 – Mountain Bike
34km 940m ascent.
Back out on the bike as we headed towards Coed y Brenin and the trail centre there.
The route was a mixture of trail centre and natural trails following bridleways. We were now over 50hrs into racing with no sleep.
We had long sections of hike a bike as pushed our way up over the hills.
The good weather helped make the hike a bike sections and boggy parts more bearable.
As we headed towards the final transition you could see the positive effect of 3 days of intense mountain biking on Carol, she was flying!
She was taking great lines and just letting the bike, suspension and tyres do its stuff. She was really enjoying herself!
Transition Stage 8-9
The final section was a Trek over the Southern Rhinogs. 22km with 950m of ascent. 5-6.5hrs estimated time
Richard knew this area well, and had discussed just after the briefing on Thursday how difficult the terrain was, he’d actually been in the area earlier in the week. The only real route was through the bog and over the mountains.
On stage 8 we had discussed options for the next stage.
As we arrived at 6.45pm Sunday evening, the Marshal noted that the cut off time was 7pm we had two choices. Get ready with food, water and kit, for the hills or continue on the track back to Dolgellau and the finish line.
We’d spent a lot of time in really tough terrain by now and knew we’d be out there for several hours, the finish would be closed by the time we’d get there.
The Team call was to continue on the bike along the short course route.
We crossed the finish line, 56 hours after starting around 7pm on Sunday evening, with smiles, hugs and a team bond that had gotten stronger as the race progressed.
The organisers gave us two pizzas and some beers as we crossed the line. Best..finishing bag …ever!
We were delighted with how it went. The Team were all quite rightly very proud of their achievement
It’s a brutally tough course, terrain is such a challenge. This years event was described in one word “unrelenting”.
Of the 50 teams that started only 9 finished the full course. The winners were the Swedish Army Adventure Racing Team in a time of 45hrs.
12 teams were un-ranked (which means they probably missed a mandatory check point).
We finished somewhere in the middle of the table having visited all mandatory checkpoints.
Calorie burn for me was over 18,000.
We learned later that one team had a member slip and cut their hand while trying to get to a checkpoint in the stage 2 kayak. They got it looked at in transition and were advised to go to A&E, so, not wanting to be put out of the race too early, they biked to A&E, got it seen too, then got back onto the course. Kudos!
One team didn’t like the look of the route options for the final stage so made up their own route. The organisers noted the tracker taking an unusual route and asked them about it at the finish, they said they decided to just have “a nice walk instead”, creating an adventure in an adventure race. Genius!
The event is meant to be a challenge. You choose the level of the challenge by doing all, or some of the checkpoints. it’s a host of different activities with routes / duration & terrain that you would never think of putting together for a day out. It’s Itera-Lite, so over 3 days instead of 5 days for the full Itera, but the same level of intensity and decisions to be made.
We all had our doubts about how we’d manage with lack of sleep, dealing with nutrition and the unrelenting nature of the course, however, we all coped, everyone has it in them to do something extraordinary.
People have asked me “what kept you going.?” That’s easy to answer.
Every time I opened my bike box I had a personal reminder why.
“For Sarah” of course. Sarah, along with John Patchett introduced me to adventure racing in 2001 and we raced together as The Boghoppers for several years.
We lost Sarah a few months ago to cancer. I know she’d have loved to have been there.
Thanks to John, Richard & Carol for being such a wonderful team. Thanks also to our families for giving us the gift of time, to train, shop for kit and do the event itself.
See you in 2025 Itera
Alan Affleck. borrowed kindly from his blog The Outdoor Type