Feeling the Burn

We are stood here in the middle of nowhere, definitely going nowhere. Reading a map can’t be this hard can it? Maybe the organisers messed up and gave us last years route by mistake? That’s got to be it. No one can be this bad at finding their way around the countryside. It must be that we have the wrong map. If only we could find our way back to Margam and let the race officials know about their mistake.

The offending map

We are currently in the middle of the mountain bike section of the Burn adventure race at Margam Park or maybe that should read orienteering section of the Burn race which just happens to involve tiny sprints of mountain biking in between getting lost and staring at the map again. Of course, we do have the right map, we are just massively incompetent at using it. Apparently adventure racing is not about endurance, fitness and keeping a mountain bike upright, no, it’s all about the map reading and actually working out where you have to go. Why the hell didn't I listen more when I was in the Scouts?

Training had gone well, by well, I mean we had done lots of running, the occasional bit of falling of mountain bikes and absolutely no map reading, but then how hard can it be to find out where you are? People survived in the age before sat navs. My only bit of map reading experience before the race came whist I was out training with my run club. A competitor in an orienteering race ran past us at some speed before clattering straight into a tree. Clearly this was man ruled by the map, if a landmark wasn’t on it then it didn’t exist. The rather sizable lump appearing on his head told this chap that the tree was most definitely real. I made a mental note to not only look at the map but also the real world. That was the extent of my training for the orienteering part of the race.

So while we hadn’t bumped into any trees, finding the way home was proving rather elusive. Of course, I lie when I say that adventure racing isn't about endurance and fitness, it really is about that. The map reading should be secondary but as we pull out the now rather dog eared bit of paper yet again, it seems to tell us nothing. Margam Park is just behind this last hill but we are stuck at a crossroads with seemingly all routes a possible way back home. In our exhausted state we have given up on the final check points but we can't work out which trail will actually lead us home. All the lines, dots, squiggles and supposedly helpful markings are telling us bugger all. The whole page has merged into a tangled web of dead ends and wrong turns. We may as well be trying to read Chinese. In the end we pick a route which turns out to be the one leading us in the opposite direction to where we wanted actually wanted to go. Will we ever make it back to the finish and something to eat other than an energy bar?

It had all been going so well at the start of the day. The run had taken us up over some of the hills behind the country estate of Margam, we had managed to keep the leaders in sight for a while and took in the views looking back over the river Severn. Even the Kayaking had gone well. We had generally kept the thing pointing in the right direction, only accidentally cut one corner and at no point felt like we were going to capsize the thing. As we hopped onto the bikes we had dreams of more silverware after our success in the Mini Burn earlier in the year. 

Any excuse to use the photo of Stewart and I after winning the Mini Burn!

Ah the Mini Burn. A 3k run, 1k Kayak and 10k mountain bike on a marked course without a map insight. The weather that day may have been bad enough to have made us think about using the Kayak for the whole race but it had been a fantastic event. Adventure racing was definitely for us. On a high from the success we figured the next step before booking our flights to Patagonia was to enter the full on Burn Race. 3k running turned into 10 and 10k on the bike turned into 40. Maybe we should have thought this through.

Things were looking good though as we pedalled off in to the South Wales hills starting the mountain bike section of the race. We couldn’t see any of our competitors behind us, just a little jaunt out on the bikes and we would be back in time for lunch. Who were we kidding, the race had hardly started.

Still happy after reaching the first couple of check points.

The sign of things to come was at the very first checkpoint where we completely missed the trail taking us down to it. No worries we told ourselves it was down a huge hill anyway and there are plenty more checkpoints out there to get. The next two proved easy to find, this adventure racing thing is a doddle.

It was on the way down to the next check point that alarm bells started ringing. Half way through a joyously long and quick decent we were met by pretty much most of our competitors slogging their way up the hill in the opposite direction. Either they were all going the wrong way or we were, the odds were stacked against us.

The next two hours involved plenty of getting lost, many wrong turns and lots of pushing bikes up paths that were definitely not meant for cycling. Surprisingly we realised that everyone else had been going the right way. We were just riding round in very long circles missing check points that were staring us in the face. We had stopped to have something to eat, practically leaning against one of them without realising.

And so finally after our extended tour of the Welsh countryside we make it to the cross roads, one last four pronged decision and then the short ride back to Margam. Inevitably we decide on the wrong route before turning round and then taking another wrong track, luckily though this one led us in roughly the right direction. All we now have to do is throw the bikes and ourselves over the stone wall that is blocking our path and we are practically home, cancel the search party guys.

Relief after finally making it back to the finish

After one final blast downhill we finally make it back to familiar sights and stagger across the line, sneaking inside the cut off time by a matter of minutes. After the initial elation at our survival, our competitive instinct kicks in when we realise that with just a little bit of preparation we could have done this race so much better.

I admit I had my doubts about the map reading from the start, I am probably the only person ever to get lost in Chessington World of Adventures whilst actually carrying a map. Instead of listening to the lingering doubts I had chosen to employ the ostrich tactic, bury my head in the sand and trust to luck that it'll be ok on the day. I’ve now found out that the organisers run a course in orienteering just for people like us. Even if I don't come back for the race next year I'm definitely going to sign up for it. Who knows, it may help me find my way round next time I visit a theme park.