A sense of adventure in the wild west

Still aching from the weekend's Gaelforce West race, HARRY McGEElooks at the growing popularity of adventure racing, the sport for people who find triathlons too easy

BÍONN AN siúlach scéalach. The one who travels has many stories to tell. Not one story came out of the 65km Gaelforce West adventure race on Saturday, but many. Some 2,100 stories in fact. Everyone who took part had their own story: the forensics of how they endured, or survived, the race.

How they drove their bodies through the course that snaked its way through some of Ireland’s most majestic landscape: from Glassilaun beach in north Connemara; across Killary fjord; up the majestic Doolough valley; through the remote Sheeffry hills, past the hamlet of Drummin; up and down Croagh Patrick and into Westport.

Everybody you met had their scéal about how they managed on each of the six stages in a race involving 16km of running, 44km of cycling, 1km of kayaking and a calf-wrenching climb of the Reek, with its steep summit cone protected by rough scree.

Although only four years in existence, Gaelforce West has become a phenomenon, reflecting the massive growth in the popularity of what can loosely be described as “adventure events” in places unsullied by tarmac or concrete.

The numbers taking part have doubled each year. From 7am on Saturday morning, during a lucky window of clear weather from the rain of the past week, more than 2,000 people set off from the mouth of Killary harbour at half-hour intervals.

The winner, Peter O’Farrell – an amazing athlete with an amazingly unassuming manner – romped home in three hours and 27 minutes. The slowest time was a purgatorial 11.5 hours.

For all of the in-betweens, victory came in other guises: overcoming crises during the race; improving on last year’s time; or merely finishing the race.

“I hung around the finish line for a few hours after I finished,” says O’Farrell. “There were people crossing the line with tears in their eyes, or just ecstatic with delight. For them, just finishing was the big thing. For them it’s less of an adventure race, more of a challenge.”

Adventure racing, in its classic form, involves mountain or trail running, mountain biking and paddling. One-day events are known as sprints while the more extreme endurance events cover hundreds of kilometres of wilderness over a week or 10 days.

Gaelforce West is a halfway house. It doesn’t call for navigation skills. It follows a defined path or a road for the entire route. And there are few objective dangers. The best two-wheeler to use is a racer, not a mountain-bike. And the kayaking section is only a kilometre of relatively sheltered water, across Killary fjord.

The number of events of this nature has increased in Ireland in recent years. There is the 24-hour Beast of Ballyhoura in Co Limerick, the Corrán Tuathail challenge, the Blessington Total Experience Race, the Causeway Coast Adventure Races, and dozens of others.

Next in the calendar is the Achill Roar taking place on the Co Mayo island on September 12th. It is organised by two leading adventure racers, Paul Mahon and Brian Keogh. For Mahon (who finished second in Gaelforce West), the increase in popularity is beyond doubt, but he says those coming into adventure racing look for “entry-level races” that don’t involve too much scary stuff.

What most people find intimidating, says Mahon, is mountain biking on steep, rough trails or paddling in moving waters. Hence, like Gaelforce West, the Achill Roar event will involve mostly road cycling, trail-running and a choice between a swim or an easy paddle on sit-on-top kayaks.

“It’s a bit more accessible,” says Mahon. “We are aiming for about 250 people. There is an entry-level ‘sport’ category, with a 400m swim or 1,300m paddle; an 8km run on flattish off-road; and a 22km bike ride. The ‘expert’ category is roughly double that but over a harder course.”

Adventure racing has been in Ireland for a while, but until recent years was a minority event for diehards. Most came to the sport with backgrounds as kayakers, mountain bikers and mountain runners.

Peter O’Farrell started off as a mountain biker and rock climber. One summer, when it was too wet for climbing, a friend encouraged him to take up hill running. Now an international hill runner, he is also arguably the top one-day adventure racer in the country, among an elite that includes Eoin Keith, Róisín McDonnell, Brian Keogh, Paul Mahon and Avril Copeland.

Both Keith and Copeland this weekend finished the Primal Quest in South Dakota in the US, the world’s leading event that takes nine days non-stop and covers more than 965km. Mahon says that adventure racing “gets people away from the whole PB [personal best] thing. It’s not about breaking two hours and 30 minutes in a triathlon. Every course is different and everything presents a different challenge,” he says.

Bob Boles came to adventure racing more or less cold, having done no competitive racing. Initially, it was an interesting way to keep fit. But he quickly began participating in race series and is now a regular (with his teammates) at international multi-day events.

“I really like the multi-disciplinary aspect to it. It keeps you fresh. You are learning new skills all the time. You need to hone kayaking skills and safety, and do uphill and technical training for mountain biking.

“Running is the core. But I wouldn’t over-stress the extreme nature. For me, the interesting side was once I learned the secret of endurance. If you go long and steady without killing yourself, you get a lot of stamina at a very steady pace.”

And for Boles, what is the satisfaction from the race? “Without doubt there is an extension of the runner’s high.”

Aisling Coppinger would agree with that. She loves every minute of the races, even if it’s a 40-hour mountain marathon through the Alps. Her path is not unusual. She decided to change her lifestyle when she reached her 30s, which meant giving up smoking. She committed herself to doing a marathon and with that done, she quickly moved to ultra-running and then mountain racing and adventure racing.

Coppinger identifies one of the great paradoxes that makes adventure racing so enticing and so frightening at the same time: how you cope with the unknown. “A huge element is getting over a fear of something, At my first ultra marathon, I was nearly crying on the starting line. There is a fear there but it’s all about getting over it.”

She identifies another trait that all the racers point out: the very sociable nature of the events. Traditional adventure racing involves a team, and for many the bond with teammates is really important.

Another relative newcomer, Karen Duggan, who did her first Beast of Ballyhoura this year, agrees. What got her through 34 sleepless hours was the way the team gelled: “I really love the social side as well. You get to meet people who are on the same type of wavelength,” she says.

Jamie and Mary Young from the Killary Adventure Centre came up with the idea for Gaelforce West. The event is run by Detail Event, a company with plenty of experience of running such events in Britain (registering, marshalling and providing electronic tags to more than 2,000 people is a major logistical exercise). The company’s Irish manager Siobhan Bennett explains why the numbers have doubled each year: “Our market research shows it has been word-of-mouth, people returning again, plus a lot of media and TV coverage,” she says.

“My own view is that the recession has also been a factor. Everyone can scrape together enough money for a bike. You can run for free.

“People who were down because they had lost jobs found this was a way of setting a positive goal for themselves,” she says.

Harry’s race:   ‘Why am I doing this?’

This was my second time doing the race and I wanted to improve my time to under five hours. I did, but the race was not without complications and set-backs.

I ran strongly but the cycling stage tested my patience and endurance. My front tyre was flat when I arrived at the transition point (a good few minutes lost) and I suffered excruciating cramps in my calves during the cycle.

The mountain itself is normally my strongest stage but, as I was completely knackered after the cycling, it became a tough slog. Inching my way up to the summit, I asked myself many times the question that I first asked 10 minutes into the race: “Why the hell am I putting my body through this pain?”

But those moments pass. Nothing can match the rush of pure, adrenalised joy that surges through your body at key moments during the race and at the finish. The pain is forgotten, and you are already thinking ahead to the next one.

For details on the forthcoming Achill Roar see www.roar.ie

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