Four club members made the trip down to Westport last Saturday for the first running of the Sea2Summit adventure race (Conal Sexton, Leo Donlan, Gary Higgins and Brian Sexton) with Gary Higgins taking a well deserved sixth place on the day. The event involved a 4.5k run (hilly!), 8k bike, mountain run, 38k hilly bike and 4k run/obstacle course to wrap it up. Details are on the race website and a short Tv3 magazine piece is up on their website. Thanks to Brian for the race report:“I remember an interview from a few years back where one of the top British cyclists was asked about the number of triathletes taking part in the national races –he dismissed them as ‘a bunch of fitness nutters who happily flog themselves at the front of the bunch all day just to get a workout’. Replace the words front of the bunch with mountain range and that is how I used to view adventure racers, and after last Saturdays race I stand by that opinion. Not to put anyone off doing the event, which was very well run with enthusiastic crowds lining the route and there is a short course option, but it is as tough as I’ve seen.
We headed down on the Friday night and after a runner nerd healthy tea and early to bed in the b&b we were set for the 9am kick off. A word of advice to anyone doing the event next year –stash a spare pair of runners, grub and a jacket at the foot of Croagh Patrick. The first run was steady with Conal, Leo and myself settling into the race in a pack of what looked to be experienced runners –Gary took off and that would be the last we saw of him all day! Adventure racing is draft legal so the first bike section was just a matter of sitting into a group for the spin.
The mountain itself is severe and makes the Warriors run seem easy, the high point was seeing Conal barrel down the thing in a cloud of dust and shingle –all those mountain rescues paid off in skill. The sting of the day was the bike route which was as severe as it gets with a one in four gradient to contend with. The final run and obstacle course seemed easy after this slog but Leo cramped up in the tunnel of tyres (bringing back memories of the first Father Ted episode ‘can we get a nurse to the obstacle course, a man has become lodged in the tunnel of tyres…’). In the end we all managed to finish inside the top half of the field –despite what I’ve written at the start of this report the race is a good way of keeping fitness up during the off season and is definitely unique.”
