Graham K said...

Great effort John !

I have only done the Heb once (it usually clashes with my daughter birthday) and the event was fantastic - most of our team found stopping and returning to "normal" life very difficult. Our van had become like a family member and giving it back to the hire company seemed wrong (as did the smell from inside it).

Totally agree that finishing position doesn't matter ...it is the experience that counts.

Monday 9th July 2007 9.44pm

Davy Broni said...

Yes, as many of you know, I've been competing/marshalling at the Heb and it's predecessor event the WIC since 1998, using the event as a vehicle for introducing runners, cyclists and kayakers to the wonderful world of adventure racing. As John D has hinted, this year was one of the most awe-inspiring and spiritually uplifting ever !

The course was devised this year by Gavin Earons, who has won the event with his local Stornoway based Team on several occasions and contained a large number of parallel Legs which increased the complexity of the logistics even further. Having been the main organiser of two Teams this year, The Rusty Snails and John D's Team, The Laughing Dogs, I was relieved to finally get on the ferry from Oban intact and without suffering any last-minute withdrawals from Team-mates. Having barely recovered from my ankle injury at the Ben Lomond Race, I was very concerned at how the lack of any serious running for six weeks would affect my ability to cope with over a week of some of the most challenging terrain in the UK.

We had agreed to take one of our buses up a couple of days early to help Stef the organiser by putting out a few Checkpoints while at the same time allowing some of our 'Heb virgins' become acclimatised to some of the terrain and navigational challenges they were likely to face. However with 18 CP's to put out within 36 hours covering Benbecula, North & South Uist, Eriskay & Barra, it was a far from relaxing warm up for us and by the Sunday afternoon, we were looking forward to the start of the evening Prologue Legs with a mixture of anticipation and apprehension having perhaps overdone things already.

As it turned out. most of my Team, the Rusty Snails managed to pace themselves reasonably well throughout the week-long event with only one significant casualty, Rowena McConkey. She was struck by a severe bout of the lurgy early in the week and by Wednesday had to be deposited in a tent at lunchtime and left to sleep it off until we finished racing around 8.00pm that evening at Scalpay. While she recovered sufficiently well to complete a couple of cycling Legs on Thursday/Friday the net effect was to force the rest of us, including Ciro, our kayaker from Boston, USA to double up our contribution by running/cycling consecutive Legs for the past few days.

Highlight of a week of highlights for me was the morning of Day 4, when I started by taking a tag from Lizzie our cylist around 6.20am to run a beautiful 14km trail run along some lochs and over a couple of bealachs to then tag myself to begin a 3 hour+ MTB Time Trial through the hills of Harris, which involved some seriously technical ascents and more than a few similarly challenging bone-shuddering descents. I came a cropper on three separate occasions during these desecents - fortunately landing on boggy heather/water/mud each time but still managed to stay ahead of a couple of guys who appeared to be more technically gifted but slightly less kamikaze in riding style.

Unfortunately, as I had overestimated my time for the MTB Leg, I arrived at the next CP to find our vehicle was still away collecting our kayaker some miles away. Luckily, I was able to refill my juice bottles from John D's Laughing Dogs bus and negotiate a few more energy gels before heading out on the next hill running section which started with a 5-7km bike ride leading to a gentle ascent up a moderate hill not disimilar to the Kilpatricks. I soon found myself running alongside Joe Faulkner who organises the Great Lakeland 3-Day event and was competing in a 4-person Team. Fortunately for me, he and his team mate had decided on road bikes for this section and had therefore been unable to take their bikes along the 2km of track leading up part of the hill.

As a result, I made up a few more places and having overtaken a couple of other Teams descending from the summit by means of a mixture of some careful navigation in the low clouds which had now descended and more kamikaze downhill, I met up with our vehicle far from last - which is highly unusual for my Teams !

As you've probably gathered, I'm totally obsessed with this event which tends to be the focus of my training for the entire year. All I can say is speak to anyone who's done the Heb before, check out the pics and think about giving yourself the experience of a lifetime. I promise you'll not regret it and learn a helluva lot about yourself in the process. http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/davy.broni/HebrideanChallenge2007

P.S. I'm already taking expressions of interest for next year's Teams !

Cheers !

Davy B

Wednesday 11th July 2007 2.39am

jd said...

Full report and more photos here

Friday 13th July 2007 11.15pm