Well, Tri-Adventure has just the answer! 

Our action packed 2012 calendar moves into summer

 with the hugely popular Tri-Experience and Tri-Challenge!

Tri-Experience – £35.00 online

Test your stamina with this off road adventure. Navigate trails and hills on foot and bike collecting as many check points as you can in 3.5 hours. A perfect step up from the Sprint event.

17 June 2012

Swinley forest (Collingwood College, Camberley, GU15 4AE)

Registration opens at 08:30am, event starts at 10am

Tri-Challenge – £40.00 online

A true test of endurance, an adventure race over 5hours incorporating off road running, mountain biking and navigation. Perfect of those who want to step up from the 3.5hour Experience event, ideal training opportunity for experienced adventure racers doing expedition events and great for those who want a real challenge.

8 July 2012

Thorney Hill Community Centre, (Burley Road, Bransgore, Hampshire, BH23 8DR)

Registration opens at 08:30am, event starts at 10am

Special offer, enter both events for a £10.00 saving

Enter online today – www.triadventure.co.uk 

Top prizes up for grabs, a great community EXPO with fantastic offers from our sponsor Thrive and plenty of team spirit!

For bike hire, please see our “New to AR” page for links to hire companies.

 Join our Tri-Adventure!

Registration was a buzzing with excitement, a fantastic mix of the experienced and complete newcomers to adventure racing coming together to plan their race strategies, free tea, coffee and biscuits helping in the process!  Our Tri-Adventure experts were on hand to offer expert tips and advice to anyone who needed it.

At the sound of the klaxon the competitors took off on the run, some choosing to head into the Surrey Hills while other chose to head towards the picturesque village of Mickleham – strategies differing from racer to racer.

The transition onto the bike stage was fast paced and furious, most grabbing a free hydration drink supplied by Thrive-active before jumping onto their bikes.  Our winners were well deserved, each winning Thrive-active vouchers and lots of Tri-Adventure goodies:

Sprint

Male: 1st: Nick Gracie, 2nd: Adam Marcinowicz, 3rd: Ben Turner

Female: 1st: Sabrina Verjee, 2nd: Victoria Starr, 3rd: Karen Jones

Trail

Male: 1st: Martin Fitchie, 2nd: Roger Powell, 3rd: Hugh Lacroix

Female: 1st: Bronwen Fisher, 2nd: Carolyn Wharton, 3rd: Catherine Gadd

Spring Series winners: Michael Krajewski and Julie Jefferies

After the event our Tri-Adventure EXPO was in full flow, with free tea/coffee and cakes for a much needed sugar rush before the important prizegiving! Thrive were on hand with fantastic offers on sports nutrition products and there was the opportunity to give some spare change to our chosen charity – Rainbow Trust.

Our next event is the famous Tri-Experience, a 3.5hr adventure race in the beautiful Swinley Forest in Surrey , the perfect step up from the sprint on the 17th June, we can’t wait and would love to see you there too!

Join our Tri-Adventure!

(W) www.triadventure.co.uk

(FB) www.facebook.com/Triadventure

(Twitter) Tri_adventure

Exciting adventure racing company Tri-Adventure who host popular adventure races in the south east are exhibiting at the Triathlon show on the 2-4 March 2012.

Visit Tri-Adventure on stand: N9

Jonathan and Samanth Mayne, owners of Tri-Adventure said; “The TCR show is an exciting opportunity for us to engage with triathletes and multi sports enthusiasts to offer a new & exhilarating challenge – adventure racing! We’ll have fantastic discounts, not to be missed competitions and host of experts from the adventure racing circuit to offer advice and helpful tips.”

17^th June & 8^th July 2012 – Swinley Forest

Test your strategy, navigation, and mountain biking with Tri-Adventure’s Mountain Bike Orienteering event.  Navigate the trails and bridleways collecting as many check points as you can in 3 hours.

Tri-Experience – £35.00 – TCR Visitors save £5

17^th June 2012 – Swinley Forest

Test your stamina with this off road adventure. Navigate trails and hills on foot and bike collecting as many check points as you can in 3.5 hours.

Tri-Challenge – £40.00 – TCR Visitors save £5

8^th July 2012 – Hampshire

A true test of endurance, an adventure race over 5 hours incorporating off road running, mountain biking and navigation. An ideal training opportunity for experienced adventure racers doing expedition events and great for those who want a real challenge.

Join our Tri-Adventure! For more information and to book visit www.triadventure.co.uk and find as at Facebook/Triadventure and Twitter – @Tri-adventure

Bruce has recently set a record with Anthony Emmet doing the Epic Tri and raised £25k for cancer research.  Part of team Addidas Terrex Bruce is highly regarded in the adventure racing community and has been a big fan of Tri-Adventure races, even setting the courses for the upcoming Tri-Adventure Spring Series.

Let’s hear from Bruce…

How and when did you get into Adventure Racing?

I started back in 1994, at the first ever Rat Race, but before then I was in the national foot and then mountain bike orienteering teams. I landed on my feet, at the right place at the right time, and raced for the Saab Salomon Team for a few years, it was a great start to my AR career.

Tell us about your recent record with Antony Emmet at the Epic Triathlon..

 Haha, yeah, that was a big week out!  It seemed like a great idea at the time, and I am very glad that I did it, all 3 challenges were ones that I wanted to do, and it was brilliant to do it with my good friend Ant.  To do something that has never been done before is pretty special, and the Epic Tri itself was amazing, the support we got along it really made us feel very lucky people.

Tell us about your involvement with Tri-Adventure

Johnny Mayne got in touch in the summer to ask if i’d like to plan the Autumn season of races and I’m really excited to be back to plan the Spring Series in Mickleham, Surrey.  I really enjoy planning courses for other people, and felt I could give a good course to everyone who entered. I loved working with the Tri-Adventure team and running around the North Downs , its a great area that I don’t know very well at all.  I’m used to the hills of the Lakes, which are usually long sustained climbs, but the downs are very steep and much harder than I though they would be.  I loved it.

What are your hopes for 2012?

This year i am focusing more on competitive racing, I am off to Ecuador in february for a race with a Danish team, and then quite a few domestic races, the adidasTERREX races this year look great, and the race Tom Gibbs is planning will be a great blast from the past.

Sum up adventure racing in three words…

Dynamic, Adventurous, Exciting,

For more information on Bruce check out http://bruceduncan.wordpress.com or @brucejduncan

Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity provides emotional and practical support to families who have a child with a life threatening or terminal illness.  The partnership with Tri-Adventure will allow Rainbow Trust to broaden their fundraising reach into the adventure racing community. 

Tri-Adventure will whole heartedly support Rainbow Trust by offering race entrants the chance to give a voluntary donation at the point of purchase as well as helping their fundraising activities through their rapidly growing event EXPO’s and social media platforms throughout the season.

Jonathan and Samantha Mayne, owners of Tri-Adventure said; “We are thrilled to be working with such a wonderful charity as Rainbow Trust, we have always supported charities and are pleased Tri-Adventure can continue this support on an official footing. We look forward to helping Rainbow Trust meet their fundraising goals during 2012.”

Mark Dewey, Sports and Challenge events manager for Rainbow Trust said; “We are absolutely delighted to be working with Tri-Adventure throughout their 2012 race season. We are aiming to support 1,500 families this year and as 95% of our income comes from voluntary donations we are constantly looking for new and exciting fundraising events.”

For more information about Rainbow Trust visit www.rainbowtrust.org.uk. 

The deal, which brings Thrive into the heart of the Tri-Adventure community will deliver the Thrive Hydration Station to all events along with a wealth of support in terms of sports nutrition for before, during and post events. Thrive will give all Tri-Adventure members an exclusive discount on products available on their website www.u-thrive.com.

Jonathan Mayne, co-owner of Tri-Adventure along with his wife Samantha said; “We are thrilled to have Thrive on board as our title sponsor, we share a passion for endurance sports along with a mutual target audience of elite athletes through to weekend enthusiasts. Our Tri-Adventure racers will benefit greatly from the nutritional expertise Thrive bring to the table and we warmly welcome them into our adventure racing community.”

Tri-Adventure will provide expert content for Thrive’s new Adventure Racing category within the Thrive Advice area of u-thrive.com due to launch March 2012. The new category will provide both experienced adventure racers and those new to the sport with training plans for beginners through to elites, expert advice, top tips and much more.

Tony Gay, Director at Thrive said; “At Thrive, we are delighted to partner up with Tri-Adventure. Being Adventure Racing and endurance enthusiast ourselves, we are really behind what Tri-Adventure are doing to introduce more people to this amazing growing sport. We also recognise that Adventure Racing, like all sports, can benefit greatly from good nutrition and nutritional products before, during and after training and events. We look forward to the 2012 Tri-Adventure race season including their great new MTBO event.” 

Join our Tri-Adventure!

For more information and to book visit www.triadventure.co.uk and find as at Facebook/Triadventure and Twitter – @Tri-adventure

Last week I had my coldest cycle to the station since moving to Cambridge earlier in the year. Finally we’ve got some proper weather, and just in time for Christmas too. There’s frost on the Fens and winter has arrived! Even Bruce was tweeting about playing in the snow. It will certainly make the Quantocks Open 5 interesting at the beginning of January!

That will be the first event of next year and I’ll be racing under the Tri-Adventure banner. Johnny and Sam at Tri-Adventure have added so much to this season with their races and support. 2012 is taking that up a level again. There are five of us racing for Tri-Adventure and, together with the guys and girls at Camracers and some other fast friends we’ve got a pair of entries organised for the expedition length Adidas Terrex Sting race and its little brother the 48 hour Swift next summer.

In the meantime I’ll be focussing on conditioning myself for long hours on foot, in saddle and canoe. And there’s the first of the team training weekends to organise too. The ‘Planning a Beasting’ and ‘Training for an Exped’ posts on my own blog, www.GNJoutside.wordpress.com, have warmed up this topic, and I’ll try here to paint the story.

The whole idea of the weekend is to get out on the ground together. It will be the first time the twelve of us have trained as a group and picking a weekend in January guarantees tough conditions. That’s not solely what we’re aiming for though. We need to understand how we all work, particularly on little sleep and long exercise.

First of all, and always most important, are the people. We have eight racers in two entries and four others who are hoping to put in a team for one of the big races at least. The idea is that whatever happens we’ll have two teams on the start line of the Sting and really I think we’d all like to see three there. This twelve will be the nexus of a training group as we move through the season. Clearly it’s vital to start early and get to know each other and typically it’s next to impossible to find a date that works for us all. The who dictates the when, which is why we’re training in the darks of winter!

Next question then is where. At any other time of year the next question might be what, but when most of the country are sleeping off the mid-winter booze and there’s ice on the ground, a lot of the traditional training areas are frozen off limits. Knowing that the water-bourne weapon of choice for the Sting will be a canoe, it’s important to get some relevant boat time into the plan too. So we need comparative warmth and flat water and hills, of course. Purbeck, Poole Harbour and the hospitality of Brenscombe Outdoors Centre. The where is sorted.

So onto the what. The all important what. Clearly we will have to train up all the races disciplines over time, from rope-work to subterranean nav, but at this first stage, and bearing in mind how unpleasant it could be to stand on a belay in the snow, we’ll be sticking to the hardcore. Trekking, mountain-biking and canoeing, come hell or high water.

Someone, I think it was Russ, suggested we start as soon as we arrive on the Friday night “when we’re tired, like in the race.” This is a cracking plan in a mad sort of way. We’re training for a five day, non-stop event so why not start knackered? So that’s the plan. We arrive Brenscombe on Friday evening, kit up and head out hiking. Four or so hours later, at the witching hour of 2am, we’ll pit-stop back at base to switch to the bikes. Then, as dawn and high tide make their timely appearance, we’ll be into the boats and off round Poole Harbour mixing in some orienteering on the way. An easy 15 hours of work before the Centre’s finest unleash us on their team building challenges. And then finally, 18 hours in, we’ll be done and it’ll be twelve hungry racers who gently defrost for dinner chez Brenscombe.

Question is though will this be enough to light a fire under our training? For me, yes. There is no doubt it will hurt and every certainty I will be happy to finish. Above that though will be the enjoyment of tearing around with a bunch of friends and pushing each other to the limit. I am hopeful too that the plan will be challenging enough, but not too much. Time will tell!

George Neville-Jones

December 2011

Tri-Adventure, Camracers and friends are training in January, nominally at Brenscombe Outdoors Centre in Dorset, but mainly in the surrounding countryside, as is the way with this sort of thing.

Watch this space for updates or follow @GNJoutside on Twitter for irregular comment from the ground.

I find these shorter races are a chance to practice important skills such as navigation, planning and time management while not straying too far from base. If I could give some advice to anyone considering entering an adventure race for the first time it would be to just bite the bullet and enter! Remember that there are always plenty of friendly faces around to talk to on the day. The marshals and other competitors will always help a newbie out and it’s a great way to meet other friendly like-minded people.

My top three tips

1. Read the race details and kit list before you go to make sure you are prepared and know what to expect.
2. Look at the map and plan out a rough route before you start bearing in mind your level of fitness. Be realistic!
3. Keep an eye on the time. Being late back is a great way to lose loads of your hard-earned points!

I always aim for a top ten place and usually find myself there or thereabouts! My best result so far is 9^th out of 40 competitors in the 5 hour Tri-Adventure ‘Challenge’ event held in July 2011. The longest events I have entered so far include the Open 12 held in June 2010 in the Yorkshire Dales and the Open 24 in the Lake District this year. Moving on to a 24 hour non-stop event felt like quite an undertaking and although I am very fit it did occur to me – how DO you train for 24 hours of non-stop physical activity?! If I ever come up with the answer I’ll let you know! The Open 24 was a fantastic exhilarating experience and has only made me hungry to try a longer race! My goals for the 2012 season include regularly being in the top ten at Tri-Adventure races and to enter the Adidas Terrex Swift race which is a 48 hour non-stop adventure race to be held in the Yorkshire Dales in June 2012.

Name:                                                  Steve Morris

Twitter:                                                @smilersteve

About me:                                          Adventure racer, runner, mountain biker, general outdoor-type, father, husband, coffee lover. Get out there – life’s too short!

Age:                                                       39

Other sporting activities:              Trail running, orienteering, mountain biking

Best result so far:                             Tri-Adventure Challenge 2011, 9^th out of 40

If you are interested in writing about your experiences, please feel free to pop an email over to sam@triadventure.co.uk

We are delighted to have had Campbell Walsh in attendance at two of our ‘Sprint’ adventure races this past Autumn.  Campbell who has an impressive track record in the canoe slalom area (World Cup Champion, European Champion, twice a World Championship bronze medalist and an Olympic silver medalist) shows that the transition from other outdoor sports to the adventure racing circuit is a logical, fun and addictive move…

Campbell tells us about his adventure racing experiences to take along with some tips for others thinking of taking the leap into the sport:

When did you take part in your first adventure race?

“Other than a vague awareness of expedition length races, I only found out Adventure Racing on a smaller scale existed when I went to the Selection weekend for the G4 Landrover Challenge at the end of 2008.  I was having a few of months off serious training following the Beijing Olympics, and applied knowing absolutely nothing about it – I thought it might be interesting!   It turned out to be a fantastic 3 days of tasks and challenges, I seemed to do surprisingly ok, and I met loads of cool people who introduced me to the fact there were a wide variety of navigation based adventure races out there.

It’s quite likely I’ll retire from slalom racing at the end of 2012, so expect to see me at lots more adventure racing events after that.”

What do you a) like most about adventure racing and b) find the most challenging about it?

“The thing I like the most is the fact you have to use your brain to work out your strategy, route choice and navigate.  It’s much more interesting than following a marked out course.  Plus the fact it is off-road.

The thing that challenges me the most is the length of a lot the events on the circuit.  I spend all my time training for a 90second canoe slalom race, so 5hr or longer races are a little daunting.  Tri-Adventure offer a ‘Sprint’ 2hr adventure race for beginners which is perfect for me, I’ve completed two of these recently and plan to work my way up to the 3.5hr ‘Experience’ event in June 12.  Hydration and fueling become an important issue for me to avoid cramps or bonking!”

What did you think of the Tri-Adventure race experience and are you planning to enter more events?

“The Tri-Adventure races are perfect for me. At 2hours, they are not too long so a) I can handle them and b) they don’t tire me out too much for proper training the following week!  Also they are reasonably close to where I currently live in North London, and at the right time of year for me to be able to do them. The courses were great with lots of options in strategy and route choice.”

What would be your top 3 tips for someone thinking of entering an adventure race for the first time?

1) Make a map board for your bike…. cycling off-road, holding a map and reading a map are not easy to do at the same time – you will either fall off or get lost!

2) Start slowly and build in to it. Mistakes are often made when going to the first checkpoint by rushing. (Learnt from experience)

3) Make sure you drink enough fluids and take onboard some food or gels during the event.

Can you sum up adventure racing in 5 words or less?

Multisport,Off-road ,Strategy, Navigation, Challenging.

If like Campbell you have friends who want to try something new for 2012 forward this blog to them and ask them to visit www.triadventure.co.uk. They’ll find lots of advice and tips for newcomers to the sport along with event calendars sure to offer something to suit everyone.

• Trail run.  10 minute warm up. 3 sets of 7 minutes with heart rate at 160 beats per minute.  2 minute recovery between each set.  10 minute warm down.
• Mountain/ road/ spinning bike or turbo. 10 minute warm up and 4 sets of 5 minutes at heart rate of 145 to 150. 2 minute interval recovery between each set.  10 minute warm down.
• Orienteering trail or urban run.  Grab a map, mark up a series of checkpoints, navigate to as many of the checkpoints as you can in an hour.  This can be done on the trails or in a city, in the day or at night with a head torch.  Focus on going as fast as you can without getting lost.
• Mountain bike orienteering.  As above but on a bike!

Week 2: Fitness and Navigation Skills

• Trail run.  10 minute warm up. 3 sets of 8 minutes with heart rate at 160 beats per minute.  2 minute recovery between each set.  10 minute warm down.
• Mountain/ road/ spinning bike or turbo. 10 minute warm up and 4 sets of 6 minutes at heart rate of 145 to 150. 2 minute interval recovery between each set.  10 minute warm down.
• Orienteering trail or urban run.  Grab a map, mark up a series of checkpoints, navigate to as many of the checkpoints as you can in an hour.  This can be done on the trails or in a city, in the day or at night with a head torch.  Focus on going as fast as you can without getting lost.
• Mountain bike orienteering.  As above but this should last for 70 minutes.

Week 3: Fitness and Navigation Skills

• Trail run.  10 minute warm up. 3 sets of 9 minutes with heart rate at 160 beats per minute.  2 minute recovery between each set.  10 minute warm down.
• Mountain/ road/ spinning bike or turbo. 10 minute warm up and 4 sets of 7 minutes at heart rate of 145 to 150. 2 minute interval recovery between each set.  10 minute warm down.
• Orienteering trail or urban run.  Grab a map, mark up a series of checkpoints, navigate to as many of the checkpoints as you can in an hour.  This can be done on the trails or in a city, in the day or at night with a head torch.  Focus on going as fast as you can without getting lost.
• Mountain bike orienteering.  As above but this should last for 80 minutes.

Week 4: Fitness and Navigation Skills

• Trail run.  10 minute warm up. 3 sets of 10 minutes with heart rate at 160 beats per minute.  2 minute recovery between each set.  10 minute warm down.
• Mountain/ road/ spinning bike or turbo. 10 minute warm up and 4 sets of 8 minutes at heart rate of 145 to 150. 2 minute interval recovery between each set.  10 minute warm down.
• Orienteering trail or urban run.  Grab a map, mark up a series of checkpoints, navigate to as many of the checkpoints as you can in an hour.  This can be done on the trails or in a city, in the day or at night with a head torch.  Focus on going as fast as you can without getting lost.
• Mountain bike orienteering.  As above but this should last for 90 minutes.

Week 5:  Speed and Race Preparation.

• Trail run.  10 minute warm up. 7 sets of 2 minutes at max heart rate (170+).  30 second recovery between each set.  10 minute warm down.
• Mountain/ road/ spinning bike or turbo. 10 minute warm up and 5 sets of 3 minutes at heart rate of 160 to 170. 1 minute interval recovery between each set.  10 minute warm down.
• Orienteering trail or urban run & Mountain Bike Orienteering.  Grab a map, mark up a series of checkpoints, navigate to as many of the checkpoints as you can in 90 minutes on foot and bike.  This can be done on the trails or in a city, in the day or at night with a head torch.  Focus on going as fast as you can without getting lost.
• Recovery run or mountain bike.  Gently run and/ or bike for 40 minutes, with plenty of stretching, warming up and down.

Week 6:  Speed and Race Preparation

• Trail run.  10 minute warm up. 8 sets of 2 minutes at max heart rate (170+).  30 second recovery between each set.  10 minute warm down.
• Mountain/ road/ spinning bike or turbo. 10 minute warm up and 6 sets of 3 minutes at heart rate of 160 to 170. 1 minute interval recovery between each set.  10 minute warm down.
• Orienteering trail or urban run & Mountain Bike Orienteering.  Grab a map, mark up a series of checkpoints, navigate to as many of the checkpoints as you can in 100 minutes on foot and bike.  This can be done on the trails or in a city, in the day or at night with a head torch.  Focus on going as fast as you can without getting lost.
• Recovery run or mountain bike.  Gently run and/ or bike for 40 minutes, with plenty of stretching, warming up and down.

Week 7: Speed and Race Preparation

• Trail run.  10 minute warm up. 9 sets of 2 minutes at max heart rate (170+).  30 second recovery between each set.  10 minute warm down.
• Mountain/ road/ spinning bike or turbo. 10 minute warm up and 7 sets of 3 minutes at heart rate of 160 to 170. 1 minute interval recovery between each set.  10 minute warm down.
• Orienteering trail or urban run & Mountain Bike Orienteering.  Grab a map, mark up a series of checkpoints, navigate to as many of the checkpoints as you can in 110 minutes on foot and bike.  This can be done on the trails or in a city, in the day or at night with a head torch.  Focus on going as fast as you can without getting lost.
• Recovery run or mountain bike.  Gently run and/ or bike for 40 minutes, with plenty of stretching, warming up and down.

Week 8: Speed and Race Preparation

• Trail run.  10 minute warm up. 10 sets of 2 minutes at max heart rate (170+).  30 second recovery between each set.  10 minute warm down.
• Mountain/ road/ spinning bike or turbo. 10 minute warm up and 8 sets of 3 minutes at heart rate of 160 to 170. 1 minute interval recovery between each set.  10 minute warm down.
• Orienteering trail or urban run & Mountain Bike Orienteering.  Grab a map, mark up a series of checkpoints, navigate to as many of the checkpoints as you can in 2 hours on foot and bike.  This can be done on the trails or in a city, in the day or at night with a head torch.  Focus on going as fast as you can without getting lost.
• Recovery run or mountain bike.  Gently run and/ or bike for 40 minutes, with plenty of stretching, warming up and down.