Beast of Ballyhoura - BEAST MODE ON!

Text Sanne Elidsbo Hansen -

Team Adventure Explorers - Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ARExplorers
Photos from Sleepmonters.com, Beast of Ballyhoura and our own camera

BEAST MODE ON!

This weekend we attended the Adventure Race Beast of Ballyhoura, which is part of the European Adventure Race Cup. The length of the race was a total of 40 hours alternating between the disciplines of MTB, running, kayaking, canyonning and rappling.

Totally confusion prior to the race.
What happened in the days prior to the race was so confusing that we still haven´t fully understood the impact of it :) Our former team - Team Merrell Denmark disintegrated! So there we were… Rasmus and me all alone in the world  - starting up a brand new team less than 2 week before the beast was set loose in Ireland.  But hey - less than one day after we had Mikkel Frese and Lasse Hulgaard join the team!

Now our team consisted of Rasmus S. Hviid, Lasse Hulgaard, Mikkel Frese and me, Sanne E. Hansen. Rasmus and I are used to race together and have several long adventure race under our belts both ARES and ARWS. Lasse came with a background as an ox and cross-country skier ,who earlier this year was very close to be a part of the Olympics. Mikkel is a climber and is training for Copenhagen Challenge so he´s in great shape at the moment. So why not just take a 40 hours of training leading up to the Copenhagen Challenge?! AWESOME we were ready now.

At 16.00 Friday, August 1st, we were in Ireland, at the Blackwater Castle Castletown Roche, Cork. The trip until then had consisted of geeky cross-country ski/adventure race talk and we had paid a visit to the self service pass control - WTF?

TURN ON THE BEAST MODE!

The misty mountain stage 1 orienteering 13 km (if you can find the CP’s)

At 2 AM we started the 1 stage and what a delicious goody Ivan (race organizer) had found for us! The most frustrating orienteering run I've ever tried!

We started in a good pace up a mountain, where all teams pushed the pace. It wasn´t until M2, all teams were completely dispersed. The fog made ​​it incredibly difficult to see anything, at the same time it was like running around in a big marsh.

We had made an agreement on the team, to take all CP from the start. We quickly  had to reassess our tactics after running around in circles after B3 together with many other teams. We chose to run back to the last safe point M2 and continue towards B5. It was now the real adventure began! What a trip we got down through a river/canyon. Me and Rasmus knew that it was now we just had to push on and not stopping. Some funny yields came from the back a few times and after 1 hour of hiking, we finally saw a path! The happiest yield came both from Lasse and Mikkel, who never had tried a go hard stage! Rasmus said afterwards that he had leeches on the map along the way.

What now ?! We had no idea, where we were on the map, and if we were near B5. We pushed on, however, and ended up where we had started the race! Hmm a quick decision. We agreed that these points would cost us too much time compared to what they were worth. So we proceeded to the M11 and down to the start of the swim stage.

The swim – swim guys! swim J 300M

We arrived, at the same time as the women's team, Mind For Adventure, and the boys jumped quickly into the water and swam the 300m, as small dolphins. I had to carry all our equipment and made ​​it ready for the boys as they came up from the water.

Kayak – Lough Derg 13 km (shortest route) - WOW Mind For Adventures (Swedish female team) they are fast in a kayak

Off in kayaks and out on Ireland's second-largest lake. In the horizon, shadows of the the women's team, and a number of other teams appeared. Beast mode on –We wanted to eat them!

We powered up and overtook several teams before B15. But what happened there ?! The Swedish women's team. The paddled like crazy! The boys were quite disappointed as we could not get past them and it was only at B15, where the girls chose to have a small break we overtook them. It was well paddled! Inside the TA1 (M16) the puzzle started. We had to draw new CP´s on the maps, laminating new maps and assembling bicycles. It was relatively painless and Lasse got himself a nice little nap ,in the corner of the room, while the rest of the team took care of the remaining tasks. It is also the beauty of adventure race that people help each other all the time.

Bike - up and down… and up and down 35 km (shortest route)

We had a great start… well – NOT! We actually started biking the wrong way and could not find the right track :) But all of a sudden Rasmus woke up and off we went over the hills and peaks - up and down! There was nothing that could stop us now- not even the heavy rain! It was so cold, but nothing could stop us :)

Canyoning – AWESOME jump. Sanne jumped! disciplin 4 km

We were feeling cold, when we arrived, at the start of the canyon. I had a big lump in my throat. I wasn´t crazy about having to jump into water with stones – but the boys seemed to be quite excited about it. But at the outset was the world's happiest Irish lady. She cheered/instructing me so I felt safe. I turned around, and looked into the eyes of the boys, and knew that there was no way back. Off we go! Shit, that's great - more of it and how fun it was to fill down the steam on our stomach! It was an awesome stage!

Bike from dust to dawn 35 km (shortest route)

More biking to come and it was like all the CP’s were on the top of the hills.

Our tactics were constantly reviewed and we went straight after the bonus CP’s that wasn´t too far away. Right from the start we had made ​​a time schedule and if we began to exceed – we skipped the bonus CP’s- or else we would not be able to reach the finishline in time.

Hmmm – special task – airsoft gun.

The gun wasn´t working correctly when we arrived at the task, but we didn´t know. So we got two CP’s in penalty and some time to go find them. We tried to keep our spirits high and continue at a high pace. But when we came back, to the special task, and saw that the teams that came just were allowed to continue without finding extra CP´s, we were a little disappointed, because we had spent some time looking for the extra CP´s.

And more bike stage – coldest bike section I’ve ever tried 28 km  (shortest route)

Right now we were in the middle of a huge bunch of other racers and tried to figure out what we wanted to do. Everyone was tired - ok 20 minutes of sleep on a PUB. We turned into the first PUB and who was there - Team Delta - the second Danish team. We just said a quick “hello” and fell asleep right away. We woke up after 40 minutes. Rasmus had snozed the alarm! It was time to move on. The boys wasn´t t happy about it, but they got on their bikes and we continued! We passed a beautiful castle ruin before we ended up in the TA and were ready to start kayaking.

Kayak – wee WTF some large weirs! 20 km

It was cold as hell as we started the kayak stage. But we had a good flow on the river and we paddled fairly quickly, although we took turns in having sleep crises. The first weir - full power on and both kayaks came nicely out of it. The second - the same tactic, but ups we got stuck in the middle of weir - so what? We passed - but in the water! Wow it was cold! The courage began to fall as there were more and more weirs and suddenly Lasse hung in a tree :) The only thing I can remember is, when I saw Lasse, hung in the tree, and then I woke up further down the river. What a good teammate I was there. At the end of the kayak stage, the two largest weirs came and they were just meant for people getting into the water.  We were wet and cold and ready for the trekking stage.

Trekking from hero to zero 25 km (Shortest route)

Space man and 3 drones on tour! That's what we looked like. Lasse had a silver blanket around him, and the rest of us looked as 3 drones and slept on shifts! We collapsed completely on a bridge where there was a bit of sun. I woke up to an Irish voice saying my name. It was Ivan and he laughed of us. He just wanted to know what we were doing on a motorway bridge :) Up again and now we were warm again! Yes, now we were ready to conquer the hills and mountains- we got it! Almost all CP’s were on summits, but Rasmus was sharp on the map and we nipped them one by one! By B50 to M53 (we skipped the B51 and B52), we could not find the way and ended up going into a farm – asking for permission to trespass their lands- we do not really know if she was friendly because we did not understand half of what she said: ) but off we went, into her field. Down to TA3 we came after crossing some dense bushes.

Robin Hood - Special tasks: rappelling and Bow and arrow

By TA3 we got the news that it would take us 2 hours to complete the special tasks! WHAT! We did not have time for that at all. We only had 3 hours to reach the finishline, so we had to use max 1 hour. So we gambled everything and ran down to the special task, but luckily we were sharp at archery and abseiling. It was cool because now we only had to go home on the bikes!

 

Bike - Turn on the Danish dynamite 30 km

Oh yeah! Last stage :) And the great Danish engine was on and Lasse raced so fast as never before. I had to use the tow system of Mikkel just to be able to keep up. It was great! Overall a 6th place and a super well organized race. Thanks to Ivan and crew!