Adidas Adventure Race Stirling 2012

dapope

The Adidas Adventure Race in Stirling Scotland starts next Monday. There are four Irish teams competing in this years race: Get No Sleep, Moxie Racers, Irish Army AR and BallyhouraCountry.com

The race will be made up of a broad range of teams from elite containing ex World Champions to novices taking on their first expedition race. The schema for the race was published earlier this week and we got our first glimpse of what lies ahead. We won't recieve the race maps until closer to the event but we now know the structure of the race:

Stage 1: Trail Run 10km
Stage 2: MTB 80km
Stage 3: Canoe 6km
Stage 4: Trek 30km (optional)
Stage 5: Canoe 40km
Stage 6a: MTB 30km, Canyoning
Stage 6b: MTB 90km, Orienteering 10km
Stage 6c: MTB 70km
Stage 7: Trek 105km
Stage 8: MTB 40km
Stage 9: Canoe 60km
Stage 10: MTB 60km

The race looks like a bit of a monster totaling over 630km.

If your in the mood for some arm chair Adventure Racing next week you can track us (live GPS tracking), along with the other Irish Adventure Racing teams over at: http://live.adidas-ar.com

The live website will not be available until closer to the race start on Monday. In the mean time more information is available on the main race website: http://www.adidas-ar.com/2012/terrex/

Don't be afraid to send on the odd message of support during the race!

Get No Sleep

shotgunmcos

Awesome checked it out and its straight on the bucket list! Best of luck Dapope, look forward to tracking you guys n gals after doing likewise for Godzone.

ThisRegard

I think channel 4 might cover this, they showed some of the previous Adidas sponsored adventure races like the terrex ones.

Enduro

Should be a great one to track, with all the Irish teams. The last Terrex was superb (lake district 2010), with the best race rules I've come across in AR making it a notablly enjoyable race to compete in. Hopefully this will be something similar.

Best of luck to all the Irish teams (Especially "Get No Sleep" of course!)

shotgunmcos

The tracker for this is very cool. Moxie doing well and all Irish teams making good progress. Come on "Get no Sleep"

The second trek stage and 210 :eek: km MTB stage look savage on the course flyover!

Also tracking the CamRacers who I had the pleasure of bumping into a few times during the Beast.

Also best of luck to Enduro in the UTMB - a little hilly run in France eh :eek:

Enduro

The race is in full swing now. Live tracking is available on the website and seems to be working a treat!

Its very early days yet. Most of the teams will be buzzing along in the initial adrenalin burst. The race will remain relatively tight for most of today, and everyone will be fully aware of the presence of all the other teams in the vicinity. So it'll feel like any mistakes or slowness will be pounced on. This'll change a lot after 24 hours of racing!

Even at that you can see a few early trends. There is a lead group of about 4 teams containing the top british teams. Moxie racers are going the best of the Irish (as one would expect), and are in the next cluster of teams. Irish Army and Get No Sleep are making steady mid-pack progess. Ballyhoura Country are working away steadily further back.

Will be interesting to see how things go as they leave the roads and head into proper mountain bike territory, and start to have to make decsions about whether to go for optional controls.

Enduro

Great minds think alike

I'll probably create a UTMB thread over in the running forum!

littleredspot

That's a serious race. Best of luck

Enduro

Now there's a clear split between the teams staying on the full course, versus the ones opting to miss the optional controls and take the flatter route around towards the next transition. Now it gets harder to figure out who's in front.

I suspect some of the trackers are acting up already as there are a few unexpected positions showing on the map. Moxie Racers seem to be flying it at the moment though. Get No Sleep also moving at good speed, and seem to be in close proximity to the Irish Army lads.

Enduro

Race is now dividing between the group of teams trying to do the full course, and everyone else tactically choosing where to go next. From reading the route descriptions it looks like they all make a big descision at the end of this morning's canoe section about where they're bike box goes. Getting that wrong would be disastrous.

At this stage it looks like Team Addidas Terrex will win. No big surprise there. Good race going on behind them for the next few positions and to stay with them on the full course. Team Moxie are going well in that group and so far look like they're in with a good chance of staying on the full course.

Mixed fortunes for the other Irish teams. Get No Sleep look to me to be having an excellent tactical race, and choosing their optional controls well. They're very well positioned in the short course teams. If they keep this up they'll get a great result.

The Irish Army looks to have totally mis-timed the lake canoe this morning and missed the timeout to get onto the river section. That'll cost them big time. Get No Sleep and Irish Army looked to be having a great tussle through yesterday. At the moment it looks like GNS's tactics have won out big style.

Ballyhoura country are being nice and cautious with their route choice. Still look to be moving along and hitting all the cut-offs in good time.

There's no doubt that the make or break stage in this race is the big trek. It looks like a monster, with some very tricky sounding controls. It could be the end of a few teams. Will be intersting to see how it goes.

shotgunmcos

Wow Team Adidas storming through the orienteering section of the epic MTB stage. Moxie still hanging in there. Still doing pretty well considering a couple of those UK teams are sponsored, the French and Canadian outfits are no slouches etc...

Are Irish Army back to short course now? Can't see which CP they missed.

Get no Sleep tussling with Camracers it seems.. GWAN D Irish

Really interesting to watch the route choices

The photos and reports are great. Must admit I'm being slowly lured into this world by the simple pics of the teams racing hard but smiling and enjoying themselves. How many pics of tri and road races do you see that?

Enduro

The way the race works there's not really a long and short course. All the optional controls have time penalties which get added on if you miss them. But after adding penalties everyones times will be directly compared for ranking, irrespective of which controls were missed. And that makes it a brilliantly interesting tactical race. Great fun to be out there making judgment calls mid-race.

Its straightforward for the lead few teams.. they just try to get everything, as their speed ensures its worth their while, and they know they can still hit the cut-offs. Likewise their direct competitors know they have to match that or cede unrecoverable time to them.

At the back of the field teams will be skipping loads of optionals simply to ensure that they hit the mandatories before the cut-offs. It's the mid-pack racing where things are at their most tactical.

The mid-cycle orienteering stage is a good example of where the right option for most teams would be to skip it. It's taking teams (even at the front) longer to do it than the sum of the time penalties. And to make matters worse, it loops back to the same transition so you're not progressing towards the next cut-off point.

I'd guess that most teams would be better off taking the shorter option for their bike-box drop-off. We'll see this morning how that pans out.

Irish Army missed the cut-off to get off loch Tay and onto the river, so they had to be pulled off the river and driven to the end of that stage (saftey was standing down). They'll have picked up a huge time penalty for that.

The photos are super. What you probably can't see is how amazing the course looks on the maps (the tracking maps are full OS maps, which is great!). The route just looks awesome. Stunning glacial valleys. And superb mountains to come on the big trek. Have to say I'm very very jealous of the lads out there!

Enduro

As expected the long trek is really sorting the placings out. The number of full course teams is down to 6. Moxie racers are going well and currently keeping their nose in front of FGS superberry for 5th, but it looks like the 2 teams are well matched. It's going to be very tight for both those teams to stay on the full course though. They have to be on the canoe stage by 8am tommorrow, and they still have a lot of treking controls to get.

All the teams behind them seem to have either gone non-competive (probably an injury) or started skipping chunks of the course. Lots of teams went Non-competitive this morning, and there is plenty of racing left to get through!

Addidas Terrex are a total lock in for the win. They're going to get a massive time out before the canoeing. Looks like an extremely comfortable race for them. FGS Nectar have a good gap in second as well. Great tustle going on with the next 2 neck and neck (similar to 5th and 6th)

It's very complex to work out how everyone else is doing due to the variations in missed controls and resultant penalties. Teams that took the long bike and trek option have a 12 hour advantage over the short-cutters, so they look to have the edge overall, once they make the cut-off. That puts Get No Sleep in a pretty good position. Shame their tracker is wandering on and off line.

Irish Army have definitely gotten over their big penalty from the canoeing. They have stormed through the trek and are near the front of the field. Their probably regretting not taking the long course options now. They look to be the fastest of the Irish teams on the ground right now, but they're probably still a long way behind Moxie and GNS in race time.

Ballyhoura Country are doing very well indeed, especially considering 3 of them have never done an expedition AR before. They're also making good steady progress through the trekking, and should hit the cutoffs easily enough.

The photos continue to be brilliant, and the race is still compulsive watching

shotgunmcos

Most of the team in now. Unreal how Team Adidas Terrex completed the whole course and included a leisurely stop with an 8 hour sleep! Super performance from Moxie, really great stuff in class company. That long trek stage really tested teams but was obviously a strong section for the Army. Get no sleep are maybe an hour off the finish thankfully. I thought for a while they had pulled out as their tracker gave up.

Have to say this was riveting to track. I often felt like I was there with some of the teams such was the level of interest generated by the pics and reports. The Canyon section looked cool.

Enduro I'm sure you are jealous indeed but here you have the World Champs of this to look forward to in France you lucky so n so :cool: I googled your teammate too and Camilla especially looks impressive! Look forward to tracking you guys.

Lastly well done to Ivan and the rest of the Ballyhouracounty team, chapeau. How he ever found time to train for this and put together the fantastic race that was the Baest of Ballyhoura is mad. Fair play man!

Looking forward to Dapope's take on this event.

ThisRegard

If there's anyone like myself up early with a kid, this is on Channel 4 at the moment, C4+1 at 8, and probably on the C4 player. Looks great, and Brian from Moxie Racers got his mug in for a couple of interviews and another Irish guy while taking a nap.

Finnt

ThisRegard wrote: »

If there's anyone like myself up early with a kid, this is on Channel 4 at the moment, C4+1 at 8, and probably on the C4 player. Looks great, and Brian from Moxie Racers got his mug in for a couple of interviews and another Irish guy while taking a nap.

Me and the little one watching it too!
It a serious race! Looks like a tough but great race!

Enduro

That was a great programme. Brian from Moxie got tons of coverage, which was great (The post-sleep racer shown being dragged out of a tiny tent was Chris from Moxie). Ivan from CCAR was interviewed right at the end (Northie accent is the giveaway!). And the Irish Army went and made themselves highly televisual by demonstrating how to exit a canoe in rapids

There were a few good quotes in there on the nature of Adventure Racing, especially from Mountain Hardware. (They recovered well from their Terrex experience to be one of the minority of teams to complete the whole course at the world championships)

The course looked fantastic. I was getting the heeby jeebies looking at the canyoning, some spectacularly disintegrated feet, and the midgy clouds :eek::eek:

stevire

Sounds like a good programme! Have it saved for later on the 4oD player. Link to it here:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/triathlon/episode-guide/series-3/episode-10

Brick Session

Extreme Mental

shotgunmcos

Anyone on this board who tracked this race seriously inspired by it?

Hands up who thought "yeah I would give that a go" and then were put off by the swarms of midgies...?

Best race tracking for any race I've tracked online, easily

dapope

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Anyone on this board who tracked this race seriously inspired by it?

Hands up who thought "yeah I would give that a go" and then were put off by the swarms of midgies...?

Best race tracking for any race I've tracked online, easily

Its very easy to be inspired by these races. They are more experiences than races at times. If you want some serious inspiration check out the video's on Youtube from the old Primal Quest races. Terrex was tame in comparison.

Solobally8

Just got round to watching this now. Super race. Would totally love to do it someday but dont think I would ever be able for such an epic challenge. Think I'll stick to the pretend adventure races for now