Team Endurancelife at the Lycian Challenge

Sabrina Verjee / 06.05.2014

Sun, sand, waves and mountains and one important cut off: to make the finish by 5pm Saturday 3rd May Sun City Hotel in Fethiye, Turkey.

Team Endurancelife raced amongst top class adventure racers including previous world champions Adidas Terrex. The Lycian Challenge was a 13 leg score event taking placed around the Med. It kicked off on Wednesday 30th April at 11am with a mass start tubing event down a city river - weirs and all we were in for a wet ride!

The first cycling leg involved one of many long ascents into the mountains ending with a transition at a school at 890m having started at the coast. Then leg 3 continued into the night on foot to elevations over 1600m with several ups and downs testing the quads.

We arrived back at transition in the early morning for another hilly cycling leg that took us back down to almost sea level for a muddy river control, then back up and over the mountain to again transition at the school in daylight this time.

Leg 5 involved a long hike up into the mountains again for the first rope control, sadly most teams were unable to descend on the ropes as we had all arrived at more or less the same time - a few hours before the control was due to close and it was taking about an hour for each team to descend. We once again lost an incredible amount of altitude to return to the school just before dark.

 At this transition we were allowed to access our gear boxes and so we slept here with the comfort of tents, mats and sleeping bags.

Leg 6 was a shorter cycle leg with mainly descent down to leg 7 – a the river kayak in inflatables. The river was fast flowing and the rapids were short and easy but doing it in the dark with little visibility made it a bit more exciting!

Leg 8 was the longest foot stage of the race but possibly less demanding as a lot of the route was on the road and there was a lot less climb. We dropped 2 controls that were down by the coast which was strategically the right thing to do, but apparently they were in a very beautiful spot.

The next transition was at a mosque where we were back on the bikes for another hilly cycling session - Turkey is not flat! The roads were good and with it being on a tourist trail there were plenty of options to stop for food, we had a delicious 3 course meal with an idyllic view over the valley we had just ascended.
 

At the next transition we had access to our gear boxes once again and we headed out to the sea in kayaks: 2 solos and one tandem. This gave us the opportunity to explore the stunning coastline and this was certainly the highlight of the race for me.  We collected all the checkpoints on this leg the latter half as night fell and there was quite a fun, choppy crossing across one of the bays in the dark.
 

It was again time for a sleep before heading out on foot towards the canyoning section. This little foot stage was quite a fun orienteering style stage with some scrambling over the coastal cliff paths. At the top of the canyon in the heat of the midday sun we donned our wetsuits - which were mandatory. Sadly, the canyon was bone dry so we were roasting but nevertheless it was a fun section of ropes with very dramatic scenery.

We exited the canyon at the waterfalls section where once again there was a bottleneck of teams trying to descend before the checkpoint closed but unfortunately we were at the back of the queue and so had to skip this stage also missing out on 2 bonus checkpoints.
 

A quick descent led us back to the sea kayaks for a rapid 4km along the coast back towards Fethiye for a final choppy, chilly swim and short run to the finish in the Sun city hotel.

All in all a very enjoyable race and Team Endurancelife finished in the top half of a very competitive field. Adidas Terrex won, followed by the Estonian team

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