Accelerace Ultra
Triathlon (Swim 4m Bike 181m Run 40M)
Report by Steve
Haywood
Thanks to everybody
for their support. I have only just woke up
after 17hrs sleep! I will post a full report on
my training blog but this event was just
awesome. I thought the Lanzarote bike course
last year was tough but this thing was just
stupid!!
A small tale of a 4 mile swim, 181 mile bike and
a 38 mile run up and over Snowdon........
Of the 8 starters, only 6 confessed that they
were going to attempt the swim, the bike and the
run. We started as a team of 3. Eddie Ette (Enduroman
- the Arch 2 Arc world record holder) and Julian
Crabtree. This is Julian's 3rd year training for
the Arch 2 Arc. In 2005 he had to cancel his
attempt due to a arm injury and in 2006 he was
taken ill with a serious virus so it was awful
to see Julian pull out after around 65 miles on
the bike with an ongoing back problem. We has
stopped for almost 1hr as the medic had given
Julian an injection and would take 40mins for
the pain killing effect to take place. When
Julian asked me to fasten the straps on his bike
shoes for him we had to pull the plug to prevent
him causing serious damage. Hopefully he will
recover before his attempt at the A2A.
Our support crew was Nigel (Hardtop) and Lucy.
Nigel reported to us that a competitor had
stopped next to their vehicle half way up a
hill, and threw his bike and helmet into a ditch
swearing at the mountains!!
The views were nothing short of amazing and we
enjoyed every minute. We took things very casual
stopping for 40mins in T1 for a bacon sandwich,
quick phone call with Skippie and a brew, and we
stopped for 35mins in T2 for a pasta meal.
We rode the last 2hrs in darkness with the
support vehicle behind us providing the light.
As we entered T2 we were told that the leader
had to be pulled out by the medic after being
found delirious half way up Snowdon only 6 miles
from the run start.
Mike Trew was now in first place a couple of
hours ahead of us. The only other racers left in
the race were Eddie and I. We then realised that
this wasn't any "normal" event. As sleep
deprivation became an issue things started to
get a little ugly but we managed to keep our
sense of humour. The same couldn't be said of
the support crew as we got growled at every time
we leap frogged their position and gave the van
window a knock to wake them up.
We were now running (sort of) the straights and
downhills and runnning the uphills. The run
course followed most of the Snowdonia marathon
course but it was the additions to the course to
make up the extra 12 miles that caused the
problems. The run was nothing short of a fell
race and there we parts that Eddie and I went up
on all-fours!!
I'm not sure on the finishing time. It was
around the 27hr mark. The winner finished some
5hrs ahead. We were amazed to see that the
winner and their support crew had waited for
Eddie and I to finish. We were given out bottles
of Champers and the organisers treated everybody
to a fry-up in Pete's Cafe.
On behalf of Eddie and I, we would like to say a
massive thank you to Lucy and Nigel. Without
them we would have not succeeded in our
challenge. This proves yet again how much we
need people in our sport to give up their own
time to help others.
After 181 miles on the bike and few more
running, the soreness around our "bottom areas"
was a little tender to say the least. The
highlight for me came about 25 miles into the
run when we spotted a lake that had overflowed
into a rocky area which created a natural bidet.
After pulling our run shorts to our ankles we
lowered our bums into the lake which resembled a
hot saucepan under a cold tap!! We stayed there
for about 10mins and ate some jelly babies!!
