Adrenalin Rush 2001 - a report by James Henderson

It was only by chance -- because of problems with problems of Foot and Mouth Disease in Northern Ireland -- that Adrenalin Rush 2001 came to Scotland. But there simply couldn't be a better place for a race like this.

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The Adrenalin Rush is an 'adventure race', a new style of sport which puts multiple 'adventure' sports - mountain biking, sea kayaking, climbing and abseiling, hiking and navigation and even horse-riding -- back to back into a race format. It's a bit like a four-day, off-road triathlon. Most importantly though, adventure racing uses wilderness as an essential part of its course. And wilderness is what Scotland has of course, in spades, among the most beautiful and remote in Europe.

Gary Tomsett, an archaeological surveyor officer at Glasgow University and a course designer in his spare time, was asked to design the Adrenalin Rush just twelve weeks before the event was due to be held:

'You couldn't imagine better terrain for an adventure race. There's everything out there. I was a bit worried that people might think it would just be twee, tartan Scotland, and an easy course. If anything the problem was not making it too hard.'

He nearly succeeded. It was a hard and fast race. I should know. I ran it - well, all but fifteen miles of it - as part of Team reed.co.uk. My feet weren't dry in four days and the rain wore us down. Only about half of the teams finished. But as courses go it was excellent. Over the years I have taken part in adventure races all over the world - Borneo, Morocco, Argentina, Australia - but somehow this one was very special.

In many ways these competitions are more like an expedition than a race. We found ourselves visiting some of the most famous parts of Scotland - Stirling, Loch Lomond, the Cobbler, Buachaille Etive Mor, the West Highland Way and Ben More -- but they were linked by some lovely lesser known parts of the country, like Loch Goil, Loch Awe, the String of Lorne and Loch Voil.

As a race, though, it was run too fast for competitors to enjoy the scenery. No more than a couple of hours ever separated the front of the field. The Adrenalin Rush is probably Europe's toughest adventure race and there were some excellent teams there, including Ukatak from Canada and Finland, Speleo from Poland and Human Link from Sweden. They were beaten, as it happens, by top British-grown racers Team 9feet.com. Last year's winners, Team Parrot, made fourth. Team reed.co.uk were about to be fourth when one of us went down with dehydration and exposure, meaning that we withdrew just before the final kayak leg. Gutting.

Sending 130 people (thirty-two teams of four) off into the wilderness is not without its risks, and so for two days before the race, in the Old Barracks in Stirling, the organisers put us through a series of tests -- climbing, navigation, sea kayaking, medical knowledge - to assure themselves of our skills. It all contributes to the delicious air of nervous apprehension that exists before an adventure race.

The start itself was on Monday 30th July, with an abseil off the Wallace Monument. Then we sped, 130 mountain bikers, west towards Drymen, hopped off and ran and swam through the Devil's Pulpit, a canyon. And after a mad quick change into kayaks we pushed off on the winding Ettrick Water to Loch Lomond, where we spent the first afternoon criss-crossing the loch picking off checkpoints. Seven hours later we made a quick climb and abseil at Rob Roy's Cave, then an ascent of the Cobbler, running back down to the kayaks for a descent of Loch Long and then an ascent of Loch Goil.

The course continued in a similar vein, with regular changes from one discipline to the next, for the next three and a half days. It makes great memories for the racers, but it would become meaningless simply to repeat them in order. Instead consider the fact that this race is non-stop. Teams arrived at the summit of the Cobbler after 12 hours, and at the head of Loch Goil after about 24. At 48 hours they were on a ridge walk over Buachaille Etive Mor in Glencoe and by 72 they were tramping over Ben More, exhausted but with the finish in sight.

When did they rest? Well they barely did. In this sport you sleep as little as you dare. In Team reed.co.uk we slept for three hours in seventy-five (10 minutes on the first night, 45 minutes, one hour, one hour). The 'sleep monster' (the desire to lie down and sleep right where you are) was hovering at our shoulder for the last thirty-six hours. Strangely, as long as you feed and hydrate yourself properly, it is possible to keep physically active on just this amount of sleep.

And to eat? You take anything that you know you will want to eat because the appetite fades - Californian Corn Chips, Tracker Bars, Mum's flapjacks. Water we simply scooped out of the rivers we crossed.

There's no doubt that from the outside this sport looks a little odd. Teams of exhausted people pass struggling along, one every half an hour, barely at a run. They smell. They look possessed. They are often arguing. Or they may not be talking. It's easy to ask the simple question 'why?', or more cuttingly, 'why bother?'

But from the inside these races are intense, fascinating and when they go well, incredibly satisfying. They are the outdoors taken to its logical competitive conclusion. Racers put all their spare time and money, their very heart and soul into them. A race is the culmination of months of training and preparation. Expectations run high. The stresses within the teams are enormous. Sometimes team-members end up hating each other. But like anything that takes human beings to the limits of endeavour these races are extraordinary, the most extraordinary experiences of people's lives.

The organiser of the Adrenalin Rush, Brian Elliott, is a Scot by birth. He was born in Airdrie and lived there for fifteen years before moving to Northern Ireland.

'To hold the race here, around where I spent my childhood, was wonderful. I know the history of Stirling well, so you can imagine how much it meant to march down from the Castle to the Old Barracks in the procession before the race.'

It is pity that there isn't a major adventure race in Scotland every year. With such fantastic terrain, surely there should be one Certainly Gary Tomsett is convinced:

'It was a great opportunity to be told to be as creative as I liked this for this race. The route was an expression of everything that I love about the outdoors in Scotland.'

And there just happens to be another area of Scotland that he has had his eye on for a while.

'Sutherland and Assynt would simply blow people's minds', he says.

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