OPEN24 - so was it good training (the open12) for the open24 - yep apart from the weather. Team Haglof's (all four of us) took Friday off and went to north Wales for a few hours sea paddling the day before the race. Mainly to try our boats in some rough water and waves etc - the weather was like being in the med, sun and flat water. We paddled from a sea side cafe near Conwy and saw dolphins (porpoises) and seals, it was like being on holiday and we were all expecting this weather the next day for the start of the race. NO - it was pants weather! The sea kayaking was cancelled and another sea akyak section was added (Menai Straights) but we were bussed off to Anglesea for the prologue of an open water swim and some coasteering....
This was coasteering with jelly fish - loads of them! I had short sleeves and pannicked everytime I touched one - they are worse than seaweed on flesh!
We also got a lift in a large RIB boat through some massive waves to the start - what a roller coaster ride that was at the front of the boat....
The start was changed to a bike ride with a short run in the middle of it. My legs were back and I
felt good. We then got to play in our boats in the Menai Straights, with a battle against tide and wind to start with but then turned round for a supperb surfing paddle all the way to Menai Bridge before a slightly better battle back against the tide to Port Dinorwick for another biking section. Poor Alex wasn't feeling so good (must have been all the sea water he swallowed) so I did quite a bit of the navigating on the bike but we finished with a massive uphill to Ogwen Cottage at the top of Llannberris Pass - just to kill our legs off before the night stage over the Glyders.After not eating and drinking enough on the Open12 I had some new sarnies, a mate had suggested banana and peanut butter, umm these work for me - loved them. My other race favourites were the cheese and home made pickle and parma ham with cheese. I managed to eat and drink really well.
We thought we had picked a good route - untill we saw the path - or should it be a pile of rocks - we wasted alot of time clambering and scrambling and we couldn't find one check point of 15 points. Poor Alex did a big fall at one point and I thought he'd hurt himself badly but luckily there was just a few scrapes - phew - that would have been a major rescue.We must have wasted alot of time on that section and by the time we got back to some better running ground we were exhausted but hooked up with mates Emma and Dave who had done something equally as rubbish as us and we all got back to transision about 9 mins late - loosing 18 points (all because we were looking for a 15 point checkpoint!!!!)
Next was another short bike ride, my legs stopped working here as it was early morning and I kept falling asleep, same on the next run too but got woken up by the time we got to a special stage in a mine - we had to nav down a stream, then we were let loose to look for checkpoints in a whole section of tunnels and caves, then we had to get in an inflatable before more wading to get out - it was excellent....Then we were onto our last biking section (with a special stage of some orienteering in the middle of it). My eyes kept shutting and I kept fa
lling off my bike going up hill as I kept falling asleep. Loads of people overtook us - not fair - am not used to that so much on my bike! We did ok when we got onto singletrack (lots of the checkpoints were on the the Marin trail at Coaed y Brenin - this woke me up and I loved the riding - happy again - but as soon as I hit a fire road uphill again I would fall asleep and loose all power in my legs - eventually i ate some jelly babies and this did it - i was back, we plodded round the short orienteering route and then flew back down to the finish (we should have done the medium course as we had about 10 or 15 mins spare - bu*ger) - we came 5th and were only 15 points behind the team that were 4th - bu*ger!We were extremely pleased though - and I have learn't to eat jelly babies earlier!!! Although as I said earlier the sarnies were wonderfull and as I liked the taste of my food for a change i ate well - just need to sort this falling asleep on boring uphills on bike bit now!!!
