February 18th, 2009 § § permalink
Last Sunday saw the revival of the Alltrax Newnham Stinger; an off-road duathlon with a run-bike-run format. Competitors set-off at mid-day with a 5KM run followed by a 20KM mountain bike course, and then a final 3KM run. The final run was the real interest of the event for me; it was hard enough hiking up the trail with the camera gear which sent the athletes through rivers and bogs (I personally witnessed one runner lose a shoe, and heard tales of a couple of face-plants later…), over gates and under fallen trees. I loved the format and it would be great to see a longer off-road running only event in this style which has more in common with mountain biking than XC running. Husband and wife Certini team-mates Maddie and Jay Horton (Maddie featured above) won the solo mens’ and womens’ categories, with Amy Tapping and Paul Sole taking the Mixed Pairs win, Carla Haines and Heather Booth for the Female Pairs, and Duncan Baldie and Paul McClymont for the Male Pairs category.
August 22nd, 2008 § § permalink
Also at the Celebrate Start Bay event last weekend was the adventure race organiser Endurance Life with the launch of their new Trail Blaze course which begins and ends at the Sea Breeze Cafe in Torcross; an electronic key is hired from the cafe which is then used at each of the checkpoints at intervals along each of the five way-marked routes which vary from 2 to 24 miles along the coastline between Strete Gate and East Portlemouth. On completion of a route the overall time and split times are automatically uploaded to a leaderboard on the Trail Blaze website and the time and current leaderboard position is sent to the individual’s mobile phone via SMS. The launch was far more low-key than planned due to the heavy storms that hit the Devon coast overnight making it impossible to erect the Endurance Life gantry which the trail runners were to set-off from, but the rain eased to a drizzle for the start at 11AM and the athletes set-off in on the inaugural run which included members of the British Telemark Ski Team who were in South Devon for a Summer training weekend.
Last Sunday saw the revival of the Alltrax Newnham Stinger; an off-road duathlon with a run-bike-run format. Competitors set-off at mid-day with a 5KM run followed by a 20KM mountain bike course, and then a final 3KM run. The final run was the real interest of the event for me; it was hard enough hiking up the trail with the camera gear which sent the athletes through rivers and bogs (I personally witnessed one runner lose a shoe, and heard tales of a couple of face-plants later…), over gates and under fallen trees. I loved the format and it would be great to see a longer off-road running only event in this style which has more in common with mountain biking than XC running. Husband and wife Certini team-mates Maddie and Jay Horton (Maddie featured above) won the solo mens’ and womens’ categories, with Amy Tapping and Paul Sole taking the Mixed Pairs win, Carla Haines and Heather Booth for the Female Pairs, and Duncan Baldie and Paul McClymont for the Male Pairs category.
