Olympic Challenge: The Bermuda Triangle Challenge

I like to have one slightly "crazy" challenge per year.

2012 was the Goofy Challenge at Walt Disney World in Florida where I did a half marathon on the Saturday followed by a full marathon on Sunday.

2013 I did the Polar Night Half Marathon and Tough Mudder (check earlier posts.)

So last weekend was the time for my 2014 "crazy" one.

I entered the Bermuda Triangle Challenge which consists of 3 races in 3 days starting with a 1 mile race on Friday, 10km race on Saturday and a half marathon on Sunday.

Since it was bound to be cold in England in January I thought that a little jaunt to the island would be most welcome weather wise and the event sounded like fun too!

Here's how I did....

1 mile:

The first race was actually on Friday night at 7pm local time (which was 11pm my time since I had only flown in the night before.) The race took place on the main street in the capital Hamilton and there had been a gorgeous sunset as we waited in our pens for the start whistle. I was in wave 3 with each wave setting off 4 minutes apart. Unlike races in the UK in January waiting around was very pleasant in the early evening moderate climate! Talking to a few locals in my wave I wanted to check if the race started at 7pm since I wanted to text Steven to let him know the plan and they responded that "it starts at 7pm but remember we are on island time" i.e. it may be late so relax!

The route took us up the main road and had us turn back on ourselves at "the birdcage" which sadly is not the drag club but a stand in the middle of the road where policemen used to stand to direct traffic pre-traffic lights. We then ran straight down the main road to a statue which we had to circumnavigate before ending up back where we started.

I finished the race in 5 minutes 41 seconds which was good. I enjoyed it and the atmosphere was fun....locals congratulating you from the balcony of bars along the street was nice....I am sure their friendliness was aided by having a few Dark and Stormy's (local cocktail) after work.

Only post race did I find out that anyone able to run under 4 minutes in the race wins $10,000. If I had known that I would have run quicker! Still I can breathe easy now that I know nobody has ever done this primarily due to the difficult turns mentioned before. I guess it's always something I can aim for right?!

10km

The morning of the 10km race appeared quite nice running conditions....a little cloudy but dry. Roll forward and hour or two when we were at the local stadium for the start and it was chucking down with rain.

Whilst it was still warm I can honestly say that I have never run in rain that heavy before. The roads quickly started to resemble rivers and within 1km I felt like I was competing in the steeplechase. My clothes were wet through and my shoes were drenched.

The rain was that heavy that you couldn't really admire the surroundings as there was so much rain you could only just see in front of you.

The crowd were still great as they lined the street. As a runner I experienced a Bridget Jones moment when a car on the other side of the road went through a puddle and completely soaked me. Not so bad since I expected to be wet but lovely that spectators still ran the risk of this in order to come out and cheer us on.

The course was tough and A LOT hillier than I had anticipated. I was making good progress and at certain points thought that I could beat my own record but at the 5 mile mark we were faced with a hill that felt like it was 90 degrees. It went on for an age until we reached the stadium where we had started. Coming onto the track for the final stretch it was nice to hear the commentator mention my name and where I was from.

As I crossed the line I heard him also say that I was the first Triangle Challenge competitor to come in which was exciting for the two seconds before I collected my medal and the volunteer corrected him and said I was actually the second Triangle Challenger to come home! Oh well that still meant I had done well!

I finished in 38 minutes 39 seconds which was nowhere near a best but placed me 19th overall in the race and 2nd in my age category (30-39) which left me with a nice little extra award.

Talking to a local racer afterwards I mentioned the hilly route and she said that tomorrow's half marathon was much easier.....therefore I could relax and go back to the hotel and dry off!

Half Marathon:

The morning of the half marathon was lovely and I could tell it was going to be a nice rain free day.

The race was due to start and end in Hamilton and as per island time the starting area was still being setup when all the runners arrived.

8am rolled around pretty quickly and they were good to go and we set off on time. The route took us out of town over a few hills and round some villages. Overall I felt like it was going really well. As I was fairly near the front of the race I had started to break away and was quite far ahead of the "pack" but not within sight of the elite professionals so it felt like a bit of private race.

At 3 miles the leading female overtook me but I still thought that must be pretty good timing since running was after all her job!

The route was lovely and we ran all along the coast so it was great to see the sea and the colourful houses dotted amongst the hills. It felt like I was running in Bermuda versus the torrential rain of the day before! There was one other runner about 100m ahead of me pretty much the whole way so I used him as my pacer to keep going.

As we came back into Hamilton I knew I was nearly at the finish and only had to go straight onto the finish until the organisers played a cruel trick on us that made us go back on ourselves to make up presumably the last few hundred meters. Mean but actually worked out quite fun as the guy I was pacing myself against high fived me as he went past on the final stretch. A minute or so later I crossed the line.

I finished in 1 hour 22 minutes 36 seconds which placed me 10th overall and 3rd in my age group (30-39) which again lead me to get another extra award at the race ceremony that night.

Overall results:

At the award ceremony that night they announced the results of the Bermuda Triangle Challenge.

It turned out that I came second which I was really pleased with!

My combined time for the three events was 2 hours 6 minutes 56 seconds which is not bad considering the first half marathon I ever did on its own was 2 hours 17 minutes!

Sadly I just missed out on the big prize and cash as they only award that to the winner rather than the top three but nevertheless a really good event and I would recommend it and Bermuda as a place to visit! Maybe I can go back and try and steal the top prize another year?!

Also running in the race was Joan Benoit Samuelson who was the first woman to win Gold at the Olympics for the marathon when the event was introduced to the Games in 1984. It was nice to hear her story as well as meet her at the end of the night.

After the awards we had dinner at the hotel and clearly I had too many drinks to celebrate as by the time I went to bed I was adamant that the following day I was going to look round a house we had seen for sale on the island that cost $45 million.....

Pictures:

The mile race at night: