Zest girls flying the flag for females in adventure racing with Tri-Adventure

A beautiful if slightly muddy Sunday morning dawned in Cranleigh, Surrey and the last Sprint of the Tri-Adventure 2012 season was underway.  Entrants were definitely getting into the Christmas spirit with festive outfits, tinseled bikes and elaborate helmet decoration, well we had promised mulled wine and mince pies if everyone made the effort!

Emerging out of the distance we saw four new faces, or should we say four beautifully attired ‘Santaettes’.  Amanda, Katie, Caroline and Susan had read about our events in Zest magazine and decide to come along and see what adventure racing is all about.  We’re proud that our participation figures show females make up 48% of our numbers, at this rate the girls will overtake the boys!

Let’s hear from the girls and see what they thought of their Tri-Adventure:

Is this your first adventure race and what prompted you to give it a go?

Katie: I found a your feature in I Zest (I subscribe) and thought it looked fun and something different.  It is our first adventure race, 3 of us have previously run marathons and the other does triathlons. We have got a little bored with straight forward running and wanted to give something a go which involved running with a bit of a twist, the Tri-Adventure sprint seemed a perfect solution.

Caroline:It was Kate’s idea as she had seen an advert for your event in Zest and we thought “What the hell, we can’t get too lost in 2 hours”

Amanda: This was our first adventure race. We are all regular runners and always on the lookout for different events. I think Kate spotted an advert and we decided to give it a try all working together as a team.

What did you like about your first Tri-Adventure Sprint?

Katie: EVERYTHING we all though it was fantastic and have not stopped raving about it to all our running friends.  It is the thrill of finding a checkpoint and also being pleased with yourself when you actually manage to read the map correctly.

Caroline: I really enjoyed it, thought the other competitors where “Normal” and very friendly and happy to offer there tips.

Amanda: I loved it, the real challenge was the orienteering. Because I was not good at that it would be great to get better and then you could put in a lot more effort into the running and cycling. The thing I liked best was the relative freedom of choosing your own route and not having to follow everyone else. You could set your own challenge.

What did you find the most challenging about adventure racing?

Katie: For me the most challenging was the training leading up to the event on riding a mountain bike off road, which I had never done before…

Caroline: The most challenging bit was trying to run and cycle whilst map reading, then finding that you had gone past the footpath.

Was it fun dressing up and buddying up for the event with your friends – did you name your team?

Katie: We didn’t have a team name but we will do next time and dressing up was fun. Really good bonding experience I could imagine great for corporate team building.

Caroline: We like fancy dress, think we have got to that stage now where “we just don’t care “ and we like having fun and of course making our kids, and complete strangers laugh in the process

Amanda: It was great buddying up and dressing the same – we all worked together as a team well, though I’m a natural follower not the leader!! We had a sort of team name of ‘What no wifi’.

Would you recommend Tri-Adventure to your friends?

Katie: Yes and we already have done. We live in Oxted Surrey which is on the downs and we have loads of off road trails so we have even ordered maps to try to get ourselves better equipped with map reading skills.

Caroline: I would definitely recommend it to my friends, we did last night at our running club, and some seemed very interested too. Can’t wait to try another event, we know what we need to practice and why all the other competitors where really studying those maps.

Amanda: Of course I would recommend it to my friends – I did it with them! But I would recommend it to others. We don’t usually cycle do putting in the training for that made a nice change so I round recommend it to friends of mine who cycle for a change.

Sum up adventure racing with Tri-Adventure in 3 words..

Katie: Exciting, Breath-taking, Thrilling

Caroline: Time well spent (with friends)

Amanda: Muddy, Cake-earning, Teamwork!!

If like these girls you fancy giving adventure racing a go come along and see us at the next Tri-Adventure sprint on Sunday 20^th January in Camberley, Surrey.  We’re a friendly bunch and have a great community who’ll be more than happy to offer you some advice over the free tea, coffee and biscuits!

Hope to see you there!