The second race in the Swedish Adventure Race Series took place on the first weekend in June, this time on the coastline north-west of Gothenburg.
We had been rather nervous about the paddling in WCAR … exposed sea in boats provided by the organisers. However, the boats were great, feeling much more stable than our Prijon Barracudas (not to mention surf skis) and we set off in glorious sunshine and calm water.
By the time that changed to wind and driving rain, we were happy with the boats and enjoying the competition with teams around us. We paddled well and were feeling pleased with ourselves at the transition.
Unfortunately we lost some of that hard won time on the next leg, when we discovered all too late that we had left the electronic dibber in a life jacket pocket! Nevermind, we like running – no problem to run back and get it, and at least we could leave our roller skates by the path. It was quite sociable too explaining our mistake to all the perplexed teams we met on the way back.
The roller skating was fantastic. Wendy’s training to and from work paid off, and we made good time, catching up most of the teams who had passed us whilst we ran back to get the dibber.
A long orienteering leg took us into the night. Jo Inge did well with the navigation, saving us some time by wise route choices, using a map that lacked rather essential information about the vegetation (e.g. that the trees were lying horizontally, rather than standing…).
We spent some time on the transition to cycling, getting changed in a house, away from the rain and mosquitos, and then stopping for delicious warm food by the fire. Probably we could have pushed on a bit quicker, but hey, it felt good at the time.
The cycling was the low point of the race. On and off, on and off… Better technical skills would no doubt have helped, but many teams struggled in the wet and muddy conditions. Would it be a proper adventure race without a stretch of bike pushing/carrying? To be fair to the organizers, the stage did also include some of the (literal) high points of the race, as some controls were placed on (hard to reach) hill-tops with fantastic sunrise views!
By this time the weather was lovely again and after a quick banana break at the transition we moved onwards for more paddling, running, paddling, running, swimming, running… This was the longest 24 hour race we have taken part in! We used 31 hours, even falling asleep in our kayaks in full sunshine towards the end – just as well the boats were so stable. But what a great race and so many beautiful places. Since the winners from LGT were absent from WCAR, we all moved up a place and this time came third, pleased to be a bit closer to the teams in front.
English
Norsk 
