WAAT 4 Challenge

The WAAT 4 Challenge was described as a 40k navigation course through a series of checkpoints around the Brecon Beacons National Park, all proceeds going to the Wales Air Ambulance. The inaugural event which was held on the 20th June attracted 54 teams.

The start was staggered with two teams starting every two minutes, tackling the looped course in opposite directions. Following the team draw on Friday evening at Brecon Castle Hotel we would be starting at 06:14, racing in an anti-clockwise direction.

The Brecon Multisport team members were Martin Buck, Matt Morris, Steven Epstein and I. As we gathered at the start a little before 06:00 we attracted a few funny looks and comments due I guess to the excessive lycra, there was a real mix of teams as you would expect at a charity challenge however with a healthy forces entry and silverware and prizes for the fastest team there was no doubting that this was a race for many, including ourselves, but our ambitions did not stretch to being deluded and like many I felt it was a question of which one of the two Gurkha teams entered would come home first.

Before long 06:14 came round and after a quick pose for photos we were off, within 200 meters we were confronted by a wall having taken a short cut across town but showing assault course skills the Gurkhas would have been proud of we made short work of this and settled in to a decent pace heading out of Brecon towards Homebase. We then started the first prolonged climb up to the common.

After approx. 40 mins and 3/4 of the way up we were not surprised to see the first of the Gurkha teams closing in on us and then eventually passing us, however it quickly became apparent that things were about to take a twist, it would appear in their eagerness to catch us that at least one of the team had been pushing himself beyond his comfort zone and he was visibly suffering and slowing, we were maintaining a steady but decent pace we felt we could maintain for the whole 40k and to our surprise they started to come back to us, as we reached the top of the climb we had retaken them and they started to track us.

The next hour or so we played cat and mouse, we slowed a couple of times to try and encourage them to come passed but they were happy to sit behind us and let us do all the map reading, the danger to us is that we would pull them round only to be out sprinted at the end.

We discussed tactics as we approached Pen y Fan, the summit of which represented approx. the half way point and decided it would be here we would try and break free one way or another. The previous evening Matt had suggested an alternative route off Pen y Fan and having checked with the organiers that this was within the rules decided that this was a better option being we believed a more runnable route. Our plan was to review how close they where to us at the 3/4 point of the climb up Pen y Fan. If they were still tracking us we would slow to a stop if necessary to make them come passed, this may seem crazy but we felt we could not just let them continue to track us and follow us off Pen y Fan, the other scenario was if we had managed to build a gap, we would then get our heads down and try and get through the Check Point, off the summit and out of sight preventing them from following.

As it transpired and again much to our surprised as we started to climb a gap slowly started to form. This was all the encouragement we needed and as we approached the summit things got better as we entered cloud cover. We reached the summit CP when the fatal flaw in our plan was cruelly exposed, as a Gurkha popped his head out of the CP tent! Not only had they entered two teams to compete they were also supporting the event by manning this CP! They would surely motivate their team to greater efforts and inform them which way we had gone, but if we needed any further evidence that fate was on our side the cold conditions on top limited the CP’s interest to checking our team number and that all 4 of us were together, having achieved this he retreated back to his sleeping bag, leaving us with big smiles on our faces as we quickly dropped off the summit and on to the ridge, I think we knew at this point that as long as we held it together we had this team beat, although there were other teams who started later who could still catch us.

Using this as motivation we pushed on to the last CP and was relieved to confirm that our plan had paid off, being the first team to check in. Of course this still did not confirm anything, so we pushed on again, eventually reaching the canal which we would follow in to Brecon, it was a great feeling as we slowly ramped up the pace to finish strongly, back at the Police Station. We hung around for 40 mins or so with no other team coming in, although the organiers would not confirm anything at this point there was a rumor that the only team close to us was a Gurkha team but was it the one we had dropped? We would have to wait until 18:00 o’clock at the official prize giving being held again at the Brecon Castle hotel.

All four of us gathered for the prize giving and it was great to see better half’s and dustbin lids in tow, the prize giving was a grand affair with free beer tokens and a hog roast on offer. Various important looking people gave speeches which suggested there was a sweep stake for longest of the night, to be fair the event had been very well organised and had received a lot of local support which the speeches were recognising. Gary Philpot a policeman at Brecon and the main organiser announced that over 10k had been raised which was a decent amount and then it was time for the results, only the first two places were given with the Gurkhas in second place, finishing in 4 hours and 48 mins and Brecon Multisport in first in 3 hours and 45 mins.

Whilst we were trying our best not to count our chickens we were pretty confident we had won prior to the results being annouced, however the gap to the second place team was a real shock to me and I think surprised us all, in summary it was a great team performance, racing as a club made it so much more rewarding, hopefully we can enter at least two teams next year as defending champions, I’m sure the Gurkhas will be back to try and gain some revenge!

PS. I had a call from the organisers today to tell me the event and the club as winners would feature in the Western Mail.