Middle Pack

Great weather greeted the competitors for the first Open 5 adventure race of the year at Dalby Forest. This course had been designed by Open adventure regular Paul Gomersall and used the forest and surrounding footpaths and bridleways to the maximum.

The running stage was an great mix of muddy fields, fells and fire roads with the odd stream crossing thrown in there for good measure. Some difficult route choices thrown in there for anyone wanting to clear the running stage.

The mountain biking was a tricky stage with the use of slightly outdated maps and many of the roads and trails not marked on the map. This caused at points packs of competitors hunting in the wrong place for checkpoints. CP33 anyone?

Overall a fast course that really was not affected by recent the recent rain apart from the odd boggy field and a great venue for such an event.

The male solo was the tightest class with Andy Conn nearly clearing the course with 570 points followed closely by Phil Scarf, only 5 points behind despite coming back nearly 12 minutes late and Alistair Morris again 5 points behind him. A very competitive start to the series.

The womens solos was won very convincingly by Heather Dawes of Inov-8 with 533 points. She was a full 49 points ahead of her nearest competitor, Julia Barron with 484 points and Emily Brooks came in 3rd with 465. Heather has to be a favorite for the series if she keeps that form up.

Ian Hughes and Andy Shorney from Skinfit won the male pairs convincingly with 570 points. A great result to match the solo winner on points and hold off the two Accelerate teams of Matthew Davis / Eddie Winslow and Adam Haynes / David Spence with 555 and 548 respectively. Female pairs won by Danielle Sheridan and Jessica Weston from Enduroar.com with 405 followed by Jessie Gebhard and Jessica Anstee (367). Third went to Nicky Jaquiery and Jo Foster (365). Mixed pairs was 1st Andy Mitchell / Jill Hume (549), 2nd Andrew Shaw / Nicola Parker (525) and 3rd Andrea Davison / Jonathan Ellis (490)

So where was middle pack? Well 11th in Male solos with 493 points. Unfortunately missing out on a valuable 25 pointer after getting lost on the singletrack trails.

Show on map

The Rat Race Urban Adventure Series are releasing a new format for the 2008 season that will be launched at the Birmingham NEC at the Outdoors adventure show. It is as the title suggests a 9am – 5pm race around Birmingham taking in all the usual Rat Race adventures including running, mountain biking, climbing, and kayaking plus a few surprises along the way.

Hopefully this format will be copied across a few more cities this year?

The rest of the Rat Race series is their traditional two day formats in Bristol, Edinburgh and London on 14/15 June, 19/20 July and 27/28 Sept respectively.

Open Adventure have already got over a years worth of dates lined up for our diaries for the 2008 season. This starts with the Open 5 Series kicking off on 27th January at Dalby Forest, followed by a trip to Pateley Bridge on the 9th March.

The last open 5 is in May in the Lakes. This is also the starter for the Endurance Series. This sees competitiors racing in a 5, 12 and 24hr non-stop races to see who can the win the coveted Endurance Series. Last year saw Team Inov8 pairing of Chris Near and Tim Higginbottom walk away with the Male Pairs prize with Andy Simpson and James Williams of Compass Point not far behind them. In 3rd was another Inov8 team also sponsored by sleepmonsters John Cunningham and Ifor Powell.

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