Reflections on The Turas, World Series Adventure Race

Day 1, The Prologue
In a series of blog articles, members of the team will share their experiences of each day of The Turas race. We each had our highs and lows and enjoyed different aspects of the race. We wanted to share some of our thoughts and experiences with you and would really welcome any questions or comments you have. Here is Mick's experience of Day 1. The prologue that started in Dingle upto the night before the start.

Mick Kenyon: -So before the race begins we have a prologue, not quite...

...Tour De France style where they blast round the street for half an hour. No this prologue is an 8+ hours adventure race (longer than most UK races) combining the 4 main disciplines. It was to start with Mountain Biking, followed by Run/Trek and finished with a sea Kayak all of course that need to be navigated.
The night before the prologue we had been given the route book after dinner so we had stayed up into the early hours marking up the map with the chequepoints for the entire race. 04:50am and the alarm went off to get up and grab breakfast, we needed to get to the Harbour in Dingle for 05:40 to be given the tracking device (a 1kg yellow “brick”) that would allow the race organisers to see just where we were on the course it also has a switch on it that once flicked raises the alarm that you need help quick and the rescue teams are sent out to recover you.

was feeling quite relaxed about the race ahead, my personal aim was to finish the race and I was predicting we would finish in about 17th place due to the very strong competition that had come to this race from all over the World. The morning weather was fantastic, calm, blue skies; this race will be awesome in these conditions (if only they had lasted!!!). So at 6am we were all on the start line and Geoff Hunt (The World Adventure Race Series Director) raised a shotgun into the air and fired the starting shot narrowly missing the helicopter flying overhead filming the start. 19 teams of 4 riders were now all blasting down the road on their mountain bikes behind the local Garda pace car, a couple of laps of Dingle and then head off into the hills for a long climb. I had been given the map to navigate this 1st stage and not worried as I thought it would be a matter of follow the leader, it was including when the leader went wrong and all 19 teams followed over a field with a couple of barbed wire fences strung across them. The hill then kicked up and for the first time I had a taste of what level Fred was at with MTB endurance. I had raced with Gill and Paul before so knew what to expect from them. This was the first time I had raced with Fred. She was strong and using small gear to spin up the long climb, I was quietly impressed. The track deteriorated further up the hill and became a moor. After a stream crossing the 1st mistake of the race, we followed the track presuming it would take us to the CP (check Point), I had noted that we should be contouring but chose to ignore this fact as we dropped down the hill. We realised something wasn’t quite right and quickly got back on course by taking a right and hiker biking up the hill (carrying bike onb shoulder). Once we had bagged the CP we continued over the mountain tops before an awesome downhill ride to a road for a quick sprint back to the transition area.

At the transition we had to strip the bikes to get them into the bike bags before starting on the foot section. This took a couple of minutes and went relatively smoothly.
We started out on the trek and followed a track out of the village, ahead we could see the Brandon Mountain we would be climbing over, before we could start our ascent we had to cross over a gorge. We got distracted by a team in front of us and B lined for where they were heading, we soon hit thick undergrowth with an impassable gorge and had to re-trace our route until we found a path leading us across a passing point further downstream. We lost 15 mins on the team in front. The path up the Brandon Mountain was well defined and had a great surprise instore for us. We turned a corner in the path and the Mountain suddenly looked like a typical Alpine mountain. It was a fantastic ascent up the path with switchbacks to help take the sting out of it, we all said we would like to return to someday.
Once we summated Brandon Mountain it was a long couple of miles down easy dry grass slopes and tracks. At the bottom was an awaiting coach where the clock was stopped.

We had a 10 minute transfer to a traditional Irish folk pub at Ventry beach where a pasta lunch was provided, we finished the running leg near the back of the field, but we were all feeling good and had no injuries unlike some of the other faster teams. We quickly ate our lunch and got ready for the next leg, a kayak back to Dingle. We had decided for this leg that we would pair me and Gill in Kayak 1 and Paul and Fred in Kayak 2. We got jogged down to the beach to get the boats ready and jogged back to the start before running back to kayaks on the shot of the re-start gun!As we ran down to the Kayaks Gill fell heavily and was now limping, however she is a gritty lass and soon was shouting at us again to get in the boats. We set off on the paddle and within meters could see how inadequate our kayaking speed was compared to the majority of the competition, we soon fell back towards the back of the field but at least the sea was kind with little swell. As we entered the Dingle harbour area the first of the squally showers hit and the temperature dropped. We finished the prologue with a 2hour 50 min penalty….the competition was good!!

Once finished we transferred on coach to the start of the race in Schull, calling in at a restaurant on route for more food kindly donated by the patrons. On arrival at Schull we pitched our tents and headed towards the festival (band playing on quayside) for a late supper (Chinese Takeaway) and the last sleep before the race!

Pictures of Team Cotswoldoutdoor.com from www.sleepmonsters.co.uk