Chase the Yeti Adventure Race

Hold on to your hats, I won something waaooooo

I’m not even going to apologise for the blatant self promotion because this is literally the ONLY time in my life that I am going to win a race. I’m not being self deprecating, just realistic. I love sports and being outside but I don’t want to be a pro, and I don’t really care about winning, I just want to have a go and do my best and that’s enough to make me one happy lady!

This particular occasion was pretty random to say the least!

I had been asked to come on down and lead the warm ups for the adventure race event, for anyone who is interested check out more about the event. Me and my old colleague Kieron Ford happily agreed to get involved and were given free entries for our services!

The day of the adventure race dawned and a hurricane came to town! The weather was literally insane, we got out of the car and were blown over! I think the turnout for the event was still mega despite such hard core conditions.

It made our job as ‘warm-er-uppers’ pretty damn tough, NO ONE could hear us with the wind howling and the rain smashing down! We were trying to warm people up on a boggy lawn, frankly they didn’t want to be out there, they were more concerned about preserving the temperature of their feet than doing some star jumps. But all in all, we did our best and got the races started off!

Side bar // the race is named for the yeti that turns up and taunts the competitors, and the yeti gets to set of 2mins before the other runners and the first runner to catch him gets a special prize. On this day, the winds were SO strong, and they were setting the races off AGAINST the wind! So we all got treated to the yeti struggling against the gale force wind as he started his race, it looked like some sort of bizarre baywatch running scene without all the shaved tanned lifeguards! Well I thought it looked funny!

Kieron, hardcore as ever, set off with the 20km runners, I stayed behind with the 5km-ers to do their warm up and then I intended to give the 10km a crack (I had EVERY intention of doing 10km I promise – no one seems to believe me!)

Anyhow, we got set off and despite actually getting lost on the course, I think a few marshals had bailed on the event due to the rubbish weather, I was having a blast! The terrain was pretty tough and boggy in places, and just very slick in others. Some of the obstacles were a bit treacherous too – huge descents with no grip, but it all played into my sense of adventure.

I am not known to be terribly observant, especially when I’m running, drift off into my own little world I do! But somehow I managed to miss the turning point for the 10km. Whether there was no marshal stationed there, or the sign had blown away with the weather, or more likely than not I just bumbled on past without looking! So unbeknownst to me I was now a 5km-er. Once I’d realised my mistake I shrugged it off, I was doing this for a bit of fun and it had been tough and such a blast, I didn’t really mind cutting it 5km short, especially with the weather!

I finished and handed my timing chip in and struggled to get warm in the open air tent. They ran out of hot chocolate, damn! Kieron finished some time later and we went home thinking, ‘we are crazy but we love it’ and I thought nothing more of it! Another race in the bag, a bit more experience of running on a bog, tick it off the list!

Until a few days later I get tagged in a facebook post from my good friend Steve Pascale-Jones who is exclaiming that I’d won the race, but here is the most embarrassing part. Because I was registered as a 10km-er I was listed as winning that race by about 25mins! WHOOPS

Once I’d managed to clarify with the race organisers that I hadn’t in fact smashed the field apart, I was re-listed under the 5km times and I did actually WIN the 5km!

So there you have it, probably the only time you’ll see #1 next to my name when it comes to running races!

Not only did I get the pride and glory of having my name on the results, I also got a shiny trophy and a free pair of skechers!

So here’s the lesson for you all, just keep running and one day you might accidentally win a race!