2006 Sees The Microsoft Challenge Visit Ayrshire And The Isle of Arran
For some strange reason, 18th place in the 2005 Microsoft UK Challenge was seen in a favourable light and LogicaCMG Financial Services has asked me to captain the team again for the 2006 Microsoft UK Challenge.
I'll share some of the planning, team building and preparation on this page along with the post-event reviews.
More details of the 2006 Microsoft UK Challenge can be found on the ChallengerWorld website.
| Team Building 1 (08-11-2005) |
Stage 1 of team building, communicate and get people interested. So far it's been a bit of an uphill struggle, communication has been fine with email notification going to all memebers of the division and notices going out on the intranet. So far, 3 people have expressed interest which is good although Ideally I would like a core team of 6 formed up by the end of the year. Once I have more interest in the event then I can start arranging the meetings and planning the training weekends.
Plans for training are afoot with a number of team-building events similar to the Questars races planned for early 2006.
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| Team Building 2 (23-11-2005) |
As the month draws to a close, the communication plan to all of the FS staff has been successful. With 12 potential team members including a full-ironman competitor!!
Next weekend sees Channel 4 showing coverage of the 2005 event so I will video this and bring the tape along to the first team meeting. I think I will schedule a "getting to know each other" meeting this side of Christmas just to get the ball rolling. It's important this year that we have a coordinated approach to both training as we had in 2005 and sponsorship which was unfortunately treated as more of an afterthought in 2005. Anyway, with 12 potential members I am feeling a lot more upbeat about the event.
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| Team Building 3 (10-01-2006) |
Back for the new year and I've been very bad about keeping this page updated! The first team meeting was held at the end of 2005 and was a success with a number of people attending and pledging commitment.
Most importantly we have the backing of the directors who have also taken on board our commitment to the NSPCC. We will raise £5000 this year for the NSPCC, this will be our pledge which the team believes is a realistic target.
The next steps will be to ascertain the availability of the team members for the training weekends and make some bookings and source some equipment.
On a personal note, I'm working off the excesses of Christmas by running a minimum of 20km a week AND I have finally bought myself a mountain bike! I need to spend the next few weekends getting used to using cleats!!
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| Planning and Booking (25-01-2006) |
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With a team of 8 we now have some leeway! We've planned to take pare in two training weekends run by Quest. Quest provided our training in 2005 and were excellent with both locations and the content of their activities. In addition to this, we will organse our own training runs and as the event closes in we will ramp these up to help with the team bonding.
I'm working on a general adventure racers shopping list. Watch out for this in the next update of this page - lots of toys to buy!
My personal training plan is coming along nicely, 20km a week is quite easy and I've included some off-road biking at the weekend as well as weights sessions. The trick is not to overdo it and to keep a balanced workout although I don't want to put too much muscle on mu upper body as I have to lug it all around with me when I run!!
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| An adventure racer's shopping list (27-02-2006) |
I've gone and done it again and left it too long for an update! things have moved on a pace since the last update with a few changes in the team including people dropping out and new people joining.
With 5 of the team taking part in our first training weekend in a couple of weeks time I expect team morale to rise as we get fired up by the competitive nature of the weekend.
Anyway, now is the time to start thinking about what to take on an adventure race and it all boils down to what disciplines will be involved?
General Clothing:
- Base layer/t-shirt
- Shorts
- Socks (anti-blister)
- Running trainers
- Waterproof smock
- Hat/Buff
- Gloves
General Gear:
- Water bottle/Camelback/Platypus
- Mars Bars/Bannana/Energy Gel/Cereal Bars/Flapjack
- Bumbag
- First aid kit
- Compass
- CD marker pens
Additional Night Stage Gear:
- Head torch
- New set of batteries for each night stage
Additional Bike Stage Gear:
- Mountain bike
- SPD trainers (experienced bikers)
- Puncture repair kit
- Spare inner tube
- Pump
- Multi-tool/allen keys
- Spare chain links
After Race Gear:
- Towel x2
- Dry change of clothes for after the race
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| Keping a Balance (25-03-2006) |
Juggling the organisation with a regular job is an absolute nightmare. In addition to this there is the fund raising that takes up even more time. The key is keeping it all balanced with a juggling act.
Having already been through the ringer as it were last year I knew a little more of what to expect and with an experienced team who are willing to take on parts of the organisation it makes the whole experience a lot easier, much less stressful and a whole lot more enjoyable.
So far we have completed our first training weekend coming first out of the teams taking part. The team captains briefing at Microsoft has given us a few clues as to possible locations of stages as well as what some of the puzzles may include. Our logistics planning for the event is in full flow and the team has a very high morale. We must be careful that we don't peak too soon, the next major event is in early May with a full-on competitive training weekend with some 30 teams including all the LogicaCMG teams taking part!
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The 2006 Microsoft UK Challenge (MUKC):
| Stage 1 : Water Wheel |
This year's challenge was a lot less fraught in travel than 2005 with the lovely people at BA taking the strain as we flwe up to Glasgow and picked up our bikes and minibus. This should have been an omen for the tough challenges that were ahead of us!
Water Wheel was a two hour fixed-time construction stage where the the team was given wood, tarpaulin, nails, hammer and an axle with which to build a water wheel. The wheel would then be useed to drag a bottle attached to rope across an out of bounds area. You can train to run, you can train to bike but construction is one of those things that teams often neglect as was our case with us having to abandon the stage at 01:45, incurring a 2 hour penalty for not completing the task. This result put us down in 89th position which is not where we wanted to start the event from.
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| Stage 2.1 : World Cup Fever (Part 1) |
With the 2006 World Cup about to start that week, it was apt that a stage took after the cup format. The first part of the stage was a two hour thirty minute fixed-time mountain biking stage around the forest in South Ayrshire. We had been given copies of the map in advance and until 1am we had planned and re-planned our strategy.
The key to the stage was for each pair of cyclists to hit a similar coloured checkpoint within 15 minutes of each other. If this was achieved, 100% of the "skill score" was scored. If this was not achieved then only 50% of the "skill score" was scored. Having spent a few hours the night before determining a critical path and allocating time windows we were ready to take on the stage. We found the going a lot easier than expected and were easily able to achieve our objectives and more importantly hit the CPs within 15 miunutes of each other and consequently finished the stage 10th overall. The recovery had begun!
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| Stage 2.2 : World Cup Fever (Part 2) |
With a budding team with skill points it was now time to aquire some goals - what better place than in a canoe?!? After a brisk 1km jog to the canoes we ran them into the water and promptly capsized. We drained the boat and then proceeded with a little more caution, Gary steering from the read, myself powering away at the front, Pete strategising in the middle and Martin putting in some elbow grease in the middle.
As we progressed the course it became cleear that the stage planners had gone for impact allowing maximum goals to be achieved at a couple of easily accessible CPs. This meant that as a time slot aproached, a flotila of canoes would aproach the CP to take the goals. With another solid performance we finished 23rd on this stage.
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| Stage 2.3 : World Cup Fever (Part 3) |
It was now time for the main event, visit on foot the stadia CPs with the team skill points and goals that enabled a win. This was a two hour thirty minute fastest to finish stage.
We were quick to realise that the terrain was extremely tough with steep hills, bogs and burned gorse to contend with. Each CP was worth a 20 minute bonus but they were taking 30 minutes to reach so consequently we took the 3 easiest CPs and ran for the finish line and were the first back by some 4 minutes. We later discovered that Scania CV AB who were the second team back (and eventual winners) had visited 5 CPs!
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| Stage 3 : Visit Scotland |
Rise and Shine! I am not at my best after a 03.30 start and this was no exception. After collecting a bag of food from the canteen we boarded our vans and drove to Ardrossan to catch the ferry to the Isle of Arran. The 6am ferry was littered with the sleeping bodies of fellow competitors and there was an eerie silence about the boat as we pulled into Brodick.
It was soon clear that this was going to be a hard day and with an already hot sun beating down on us at 09:00 we started a 6 hour fixed-time stage. Two of our hardest runners ran from sea level to a CP almost at the summit of Goat Fell (854m) whilst two of the bikers hit CPs in the south of the Island. At 11:45 the team met up for a compulsory 30 minute break and substitution and after regrouping we set out as 4 bikers to undertake as many tasks as we could. A mix in communications left us missing each other for 15 minutes wwhich effectively scrapped our chances at a 5th task but with 4 tasks completed and some additional bonus for points collected we finished the stage 4th.
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| Stage 4 : Surprise Surprise |
After an exhausting day on Arran, the ferry back to Brodick resembled a ship of war with exhausted bodies littered about the decks. Fortunately we were to get fresh reinforcements in the form of our senior executive for the evening stage - an hour of mental, paper-based puzzles.
Fortunately, two of our strong puzzle solvers had been rested for the afternoon - in part because we expected a mental stage but mainly due to them running most of the way up and down a mountain earlier in the day. Another strong performance by the team saw us finish in 5th position - with the exception of the first stage, this was becoming a bit of a habit!
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| Stage 5 : The Culzean Experience |
On Saturday morning, the grounds of Culzean castle were transformed into a trading floor with the senior executives as traders in a trading pit issuing orders for goods to the pairs of runners who visited CPs around the grounds to purchase goods.
The objective of this stage was to amass as much money as possible by trading the goods over the two hours, thirty minutes stage time. Another hot day saw us running backwards and forwards with the price of goods changing throughout the event just to keep us on our toes. We finished this stage run into the ground but taking 12th place on the stage!
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| Stage 6 : Lowland Fling |
At last, the final stage - a fastest to finish stage with two distinct parts to it. The team were left in the start area, running about the gardens of a stately home solving encoded lines from poems by Robert Burns. Once the team had solved 4 poems they were given a map and route to the finish line.
The rest of the team waited near the finish line for the team and it soon became apparent that the team had modified the paln and gone for an extra couple of bonus points. At the 1:30 mark, the whold team came together and pulled a caber to a throw area where I became a tosser ;-) and tossed the caber (I knew all those press-ups would be worth it!). Finally we crossed the finish line as a team and knocked back the champagne. We later discovered in the eurphoria that we had come second in this stage!!
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| Overall : |
After stage 1 we were down in 89th position but with the other stages we got stronger and stronger as a team, fighting back from the earlier mistake.
Our final position was 12th! - winning the in-house LogicaCMG trophy.
Without the 2 hour penalty from stage 1 we would have been 5th, 30 minutes away from qualifying for the 2006 World Championship in Malta... Better luck next year!
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