First across the line at the Red Bull Northern Exposure event in
the Cairngorms were Team Parrot, featuring the extraordinary Davies
siblings, but despite finishing first, they were unranked due to the
retirement of team member Jon Lowther.
Parrot finished in 43 hours 57 minutes almost axactly five hours
before the winners Team Gore-Tex Golite, who were handicapped when
three of their four team members were stricken with 'violent
sickness' thought to be due to drinking contaminated water.
Right now, according to sleepmonsters.com, which has been carrying
live reports from the event, just four ranked teams have finished the
course.
The usual adventure racing disciplines of mountain running, biking
and paddling were supplemented with surprise activities including
paddling a lilo 100 metres across a freezing loch to retrieve a
packet of Mars Bars and, erm, clay pigeon shooting.
For full coverage of the race including pictures, see the
sleepmonsters
web site.
Adventure racing is, as ever, monstrously hard...
