This time a week ago, I was sitting in a pub in Ireland tucking into a plate of delicious chicken and rice and basking in a post-race glow. Since then I have been away on holiday with my family and have been gradually recovering from my epic adventure.
The adventure started on Thursday 30 July when we climbed into our fully loaded vw bus and drove all the way from Surrey to Black Water Castle in Ireland. With pauses for food and the wait to get on the ferry, it took us 14 hours. The highlight of the journey was a stop for a fantastic meal that Andy treated us to, in a pub called the Horse and Jockey. We had the most fantastic t bone steaks, the size of my head!
We arrived really late at the race venue. We were met by Ivan Park, the race organiser and also by the owner of the castle. We had a lovely chat and then had to pitch our tent and try and get some sleep. Sleep is something that had eluded me for the week prior to the race due to a potent mix of excitement and terror. Fortunately I managed to get about 6 hours in.
Friday was swallowed up in race preparations. We had to sort the race food into bags to pick up whenever we had access to our race box during the race. Once we had registered for the race, we also had to make up 4 bike boxes using duct tape, bag up our wetsuits and tie our kayak seats and pfds/personal floatation devices (life jackets) up into bundles using cable ties. I have discovered there is very little that can't be done if you have cable ties, duct tape and a pocket knife. (MacGyver and Bear Grylls have nothing on us!) Although William found there is a downside to this mix since he almost performed an amputation on himself with the pocket knife just hours before the race....slicing a great chunk out of his thumb. Pressure dressings, prayer and panic ensued as he realised that he was going to be starting the race with an injury. (Not to mention Ross shouting at Will for messing around! He wasn't though, the knife stuck in the duct tape and then slipped....nasty)
We also posed for our pre-race team photo and the photographer asked me if I was William's sister which really made my day! (Nobody would be making that mistake after the race, believe me.) Mind you, this mistaking me for a 22 year old was more than made up for during the race by all the various people who greeted the four of us with "All right lads?" as we whizzed passed them on our bikes. Lad??? Lad??? I must have looked awful! Or perhaps it was disbelief that any sane woman would be putting herself through this.
Anyway back to the pre-race prep.
At just after 6 we popped up to the communal hall for the race briefing. The organisers had asked the local priest to pray for all of the teams and the race which went down particularly well with my team as we are a church team. Actually, I think it went down well with all the participants because he got a round of applause! The race briefing was both comforting and terrifying. We got a google/bird's eye view of the route which was quite comforting because it made it seem achievable. The terrifying bit came when Ivan showed us a video of some folk kayaking over grade 5 rapids and showed huge waterfalls explaining that this was the bit we would need our wetsuits for. He said all this with a twinkle in his eye though. I was sitting there worrying that I didn't have the qualifications or experience to do white water kayaking.....That was when Ivan said 'comfortingly', "Don't worry, you won't be kayaking down the river.....you will be going down the river on foot. There are some waterfalls you have to jump off." (So this was the coasteering/caving thing they had mentioned. This is also known as canyoonering or gorging. Basically you wade along, swim and clamber over rocks and rapids and then oh joy! leap off waterfalls....)
This is when panic made my eyes glazed over and my ears stopped working and I heard muffled words such as 10 foot, 12 foot and 15 foot. Then Ivan posed a question, "Is anyone scared of jumping off the top of the waterfalls?"
That was when I came to and promptly put up my hand! Scared....not scared no, more like terrified.... What's not to be scared off? Leaping off the top of a waterfall into the roiling white water below.....
I can't remember much more about the race briefing after that, nor the walk back to the tent. I just felt a increasing sense of disbelief.
We inhaled our pasta rich dinner. I cooked nearly a kilo of pasta and a kilo of mince plus veg. It all went! Ross had no idea it had all gone and kept saying it was a waste how much would be left over until I showed him the empty pan. I don't think, until that point, he realised how much we were all packing away the food! After that, we lugged the bike boxes and race box up to the collection area and then changed into our race kit. It was 10 p.m. by this time. We decided to catch a bit of shuteye before assembling for the start of the race. Fully dressed in race kit and unbelievably tired I crawled into my sleeping bag.....
(part 2 coming up soon)
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