So Rose & meself took part in CCAR Rd.3 in Derry on Saturday.
The usual bit of running, biking & kayaking in and around the city and it's numerous parks, cycle ways, etc.
Started off with a short orienteering event on foot around the grounds of the place hosting the event, took about 30 mins including a task where we had to burst balloons.
Onto the bikes then to visit a number of locations around the east side of the city, had to build a polystyrene plane and fly it, easy peasy!
We had a couple of teams close to us at this stage so we had to push hard to try and catch some while dropping others.
More controls, we had 3 or 4 teams on top of us at this stage and ended up taking a slightly longer route than we should have, but the others followed us so at least they didn't get ahead.
After that we met a marshall and were given a running task of counting the number of canons on the town walls, 20 in total for those interested, varying answers given by teams, one team got 7 and another got 24, not sure how?
After this we were onto a bike time trial, out and back in 16 mins or less, if we didn't make it our TT time would be doubled, we made it in 13.
Not everyone was so lucky, one team managed to get two punctures, poor chaps, cost them a lot of time.
We did have one team pass us on it doing the whole draughting thing, but we managed to get past them again on the next stage to the kayaks.
Strong flow on the river, tide was on it's way out too, so of course we flew down to the control point but had a hard push on the way back against it.
We kept in close to bank to avoid the worst of it, took 30mins, which was a good time, flow took a few teams by surprise with one team managing to fall out, definitely felt sorry for them!
3rd run section up next, orienteering map in hand we headed up hill, managed to go a little off track after the first control costing us a minute or two, but got back on course and flew around the rest.
Back onto bikes for an optional bike section, easy spin out on road, then a good push up a long hill, then into the best bit of off road of the day, but it wasn't long lived and we were back into town and on our way to the next CP.
Another secret task, this time a traverse around an indoor climbing wall, then onto an optional run section of 5 CPs around another park, got it finished in double quick time.
Then onto the bikes and pushing hard again to ensure the teams that had been on our tails didn't catch us on our way to the last CP and finish.
We had been battling with a couple of teams in particular all day so we were glad not to see them.
3 teams had finished before us in the end, but only 2 had completed the course, leaving us 3rd overall for the day and 1st mixed pair.
Finish time was 4hrs 30ish (official times not up yet), a good 30mins off 1st place, but hopefully a bit of training between now and the next event will help us close the gap!
CCAR RD. 4, Castleward, Co. Down, 5th March.
