An Cosantóir

sport | 31 difficult, with punishing climbs spent pushing, pulling, drag- ging and lift- ing our bikes up very steep trails covered in rocks and vegetation in an activ- ity known as hike-a-bike, or more simply 'The Grief'. The rule book required us to stay off all roads so we climbed col after col through the first night and into the second day. These climbs were following by incredible de- scents down to the valley floor on superb single track. We regularly dropped 800m to 1000m in two or three kilometres and reached the bottom with big smiles, arms aching and brakes burning, before starting the slow climb up the next col. We reached the end of this bike stage on the second day, very tired, hot and very dehydrated as most of the streams marked on the map were dry. We were grateful that the transition was beside a river and we soaked our feet for a few minutes while we gulped as much water as we could and refilled our bottles before quickly heading out on a trekking stage. We reached the top of yet another col to start a caving section, which required quite a bit of contortion and kitten crawling to get through. Then, as darkness fell on the second night, we de- scended to complete a canyoning section, which proved to be more dramatic and demanding than we had expected. We checked in with the marshal, put on our wetsuits and climbing gear and headed down the canyon. After negotiat- ing many abseils down gushing waterfalls and leaps into pools, we finally reached the end of the trekking stage at around 0200 on the second night. We were completely exhausted, not having even sat down for five minutes in the last 40 hours, and took the opportunity to sleep for two hours, get a brew of hot food and replenish our food supplies for the remainder of the race, before heading on a short cycle to the next transition area. From here we began a kayak on some exciting white-wa- ter. We finished the kayak towards afternoon on the third day and began another trek into the high mountains. Mo- rale was high as we hit our checkpoints and began climbing upwards, wearing our climbing helmets due to the risk of rock fall from team mates and other teams. As night fell on the third night, we could see thousands of stars above us in the clear sky as we trekked along a ridge at over 1600m. In the darkness, we reached an abseiling section and after making our way along a cliff face with an enormous drop down below us, we reached the 200m abseil which seemed never ending as we slid down the ropes into the dark abyss. Some of us were sweating more from fear than exertion as we reached the bottom and followed a via ferrata of fixed ropes to the next transition! Again we were exhausted and decided to sleep for three hours, however, due to our shivering in the cold night we didn't sleep much and got up still feeling weary to begin another long biking stage, which was to take us another 25hrs. Although the days were very hot, at night the tem- perature dropped to around zero. Dawn of the forth morn- ing broke and we warmed up and started to feel a bit bet- ter as we continued our pattern of slowly climbing up steep mountainous trails, before plunging down the other side. We continued this throughout the day and as darkness fell on the forth night we were delighted to reach a checkpoint in a beautiful walled town where there was a hall where we could get some sleep in the warmth. We brewed up a hot meal and lay down on the floor to sleep for two and a half hours and awoke, tired, but ready to face the last phase of the race. We pushed on through the rest of the night and kept our progress up as the sun rose and the day got hotter. We finally finished the biking leg towards midday on the fifth day with an exhilarating descent down some wonder- ful mountain bike tracks. We were almost too exhausted to enjoy it as we were all feeling the effects of the exhaustion, the heat and the lack of food. We picked up, however, as we realised that all we had left was a final trek down through a gully, across a river and into Buis-Les-Baronnies to finish in the main square! We felt very tired, but very proud of our efforts, and proud to rep- resent the DF as we jogged in and were met by champagne being sprayed to celebrate our finish! We will keep many memories of the race; the stunning terrain, the friendliness of the marshals, and the knowledge that we pushed ourselves to our limits and beyond for five days and four nights of constant racing. We finished 20th in the end, so we were happy that we had achieved our goals of finishing in the top half and proudly representing the De- fence Forces at this level. We look forward to showing what Irish Defence Forces personnel can do at future events on the world series next year! THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE

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