The Wilderness Arc Race Pictures
The 5 p's
Proper planning prevents poor performance.
All the planning and preparation came to a head 2 days into the race. We had been wet for 24 hours straight, and out of
food for hours and still had a 10 hour bike ahead of us. We had packed and planned for years to get ready for this a 5 day
expedition adventure race. Our planning was almost perfect our performance as expected the one variable we underestimated T
HE WEATHER was abusing us. When I say weather I mean relentless weather, we are used to rain but this didn't stop and coupled
with fierce wind we were barely dragging along too cold to stop.
All and all it was an adventure worthy of traveling ½ way across the world. Phil the race director was perfect is not only taking
care of us but putting together a logistically perfect race. We enjoyed the country immensely and had the opportunity to spend 3
days in the historic city of Edinburgh. 
The course was brutal with over 45,000 feet of climbing over varied terrain. The miles were
not going to be easy. The first paddle we did was against the wind for the first part and then against the tide for the second part.
The first ridge scramble was 2 ½ hours of hand scrambling in the gorgeous valley of Glencoealong terrain as rugged as I have seem anywhere.
Then we proceeded up a historic nighttime canyoneering section through a swollen river up a waterfall, and a whole series of smaller
waterfalls and canyons. 
A couple more roped ascents and then we proceeded to put our head further and further into the lions mouth.
Every step we took the weather deteiorted even more, the wind got stronger the rain even more steady. Our pace was quickly slowing as t
he tough terrain and even tougher conditions took their toll. We faced a point where we still had 10-15 hours of additional biking, and
going into the nighttime where the storm was only projected to get worse, and were out of food.
We independently made the decision to pull out and unknown to us were the last team to pull out which in itself was as amazing as the fact
that 20 of the 29 teams had been forced from the race. The surviving teams were Irish, Scotish and British and seemed much more apt at
dealing with the weather and the terrain. It was a big disappointment considering all we had invested both financially and physically to
get ready for this battle. Simply put there is very little terrain in the states that represented what we encountered over there, breaking
it down even more we had prepared but not for what we encountered.
We did reenter the race and completed a dry scenic bike ride to an incredible castle, and a great paddle to a panoramic finish that served
as part of the Harry Potter movie. We had little to prove in the end just 4 americans out there to experience the country of Scotland.
We plan to seek redemption sometime in the future, but for now we were content to return home and re-claim our lives, our friendships,
and most important, no planning. No planning of trips, trainings, strategy's, logistics, and gear selection. Simple planning of our regular
day to day lives.
Thanks to all of our friends and family who offered encouraging words along the way and acceptance of what we had set out to accomplish.
Your friend in adventure,
Nic