Open5 Adventure Race - Peaks

Finishing an Open5 in the Lakes in May 2008, me & my husband David Lawrance

Sunday was another great day in the Peaks - and yes over Mam Tor again! It was the last in the "Open5 08/09" adventure race series - check out their website (www.openadventure.com) for more info. I have been competing as a mixed pair together with my husband Dave. The race format is that you get 5 hours to get as many points as possible - split between mountain biking and running. We've found it works best for us to bike first - on sunday we biked for 3 hours - then do the running leg. Dave is in charge of the bike route choice and nav whilst i struggle to keep up, and then we reverse for the running leg so makes it pretty fair! It's a great day out and everyone seems to pick different route choices so you pass people in lots of different directions. We had a good race - we felt we did our best and didn't make any stupid mistakes (like running past controls as the scale of the map is so huge!) -- we finished 3rd mixed pair (out of about 30 on the day i think) -- but were a bit disappointed as we missed out on 3rd in ther series by only 0.2%/300%! But they have been great events - we've raced in North Pennies, North Yorkshire Dales, Lakes & Peaks so they cover great bits of the country and a good 5-hour day out. Next for me is proper Vasque series race -- Calderdale in two weekst time.....