Adventure racing: Run it, paddle it, bike it

Adventure racing is for those who like their sports fast, furious and all at once. Mike Higgins isn't one of those people. But he and his team were up for anything - and in the wilds of Northumberland they got it

On the eve of their debut in the world of adventure racing, the three members of Team IoS SOS had gone quiet. With concentration, yes, with anticipation, certainly – but mostly with fear. Adventure racing's Everest, the two-week Eco Challenge, had taken place in Borneo earlier in the year, and we had seen on TV the trench foot and thousand-yard stares of the competitors.

On the eve of their debut in the world of adventure racing, the three members of Team IoS SOS had gone quiet. With concentration, yes, with anticipation, certainly – but mostly with fear. Adventure racing's Everest, the two-week Eco Challenge, had taken place in Borneo earlier in the year, and we had seen on TV the trench foot and thousand-yard stares of the competitors.

Sitting with us in a Northumberland pub were the members of our rival teams in the Salomon X-Adventure one-day race. One of them – half crag, half man – noticed Team IoS's concern: "As long as you don't hope to get by tomorrow on Mars bars and wearing cotton T-shirts, you'll be OK." We picked up our rucksacks (contents: cotton T-shirts and Mars bars) and left the pub to reconsider radically our approach to the next day's appointment with pain. And to cry.

You would be forgiven for never having heard of adventure racing – it hasn't been around for very many years. Depending on the specific rules of an event, races can last as long as a couple of weeks or be over in a few hours. Out in the sticks you compete alone or in small teams, usually across three disciplines – running, cycling and kayaking being a typical combination, though other surprise activities are introduced. Teams pick up points by navigating between control points along the way and finishing within the allotted time.

The six-hour race that I entered with two friends as Team IoS SOS involved cycling 48 kilometres, running eight and canoeing three to locate 19 control points around Kielder Water in Northumberland. The time limit was six hours, but you could choose the number of controls attempted – and therefore manage the distance and difficulty of your race. Think of it as orienteering with pretensions.

The sport has its origins in the extreme, multiple-activity expedition races that emerged in the late Seventies and Eighties, gruelling events such as the Eco Challenge, the Raid Gauloises and the Southern Traverse. In Britain, the weekend-warrior versions of those endurance events have been attracting only a few thousand racers over recent years – but, foot and mouth permitting, one- or two-day series such as Salomon X-Adventure, Ace Races and Blue Eskimo, and the longer one-offs, Hebridean Challenge and Adrenalin Rush, kept the regulars busy most weekends this summer. This season has yet to finish, and now is a good time to get in training for next season. Still, why would anyone pay to run, bike and paddle themselves into the ground?

"Adventure racing gives you lots of activities in one day," says Nigel Shepherd, course organiser for the Salomon X-Adventure races. "To put together a day like that for yourself would be difficult to do. So a lot of people come along for the experience of the different disciplines and not for the competition."

In designing the courses, Shepherd has to be careful to keep a wide range of competitors happy. "My biggest concern is that the course is challenging enough for the super-athletes and that it's enjoyable for everyone else taking part. Generally, though, I plan a day out that I'd really like to do."

And Shepherd was as good as his word in the wilds of Northumberland. Actually, the most intimidating sight of the day was the top teams unloading what looked like enough equipment for a moonshot before the 8.30am start. By then we had made a concession to the "kit freaks" and, thanks to the organisers, replaced our cotton shirts and chocolate bars with synthetic "technical" T-shirts and energy bars. The course itself, circling and briefly traversing the striking Kielder Water, was as demanding as we – an averagely fit trio – wanted it to be. (Good map and compass skills are a real help during the race and before it, in working out which control points to omit if you don't think you're up to them all.) Still, when Team IoS SOS were living up to their name, there was usually a helpful official or friendly competitor to point us in the right direction.

Elsewhere, meanwhile, another first-time team were going about the business of beating some experienced adventure-racing outfits to first place. A trio of grim-faced obsessives in pursuit of victory at all costs, surely... "Not at all – we did it for a laugh," says Jonathan Whittaker, the 37-year-old forensic scientist and team leader of Three's a Crowd. "It's just having a good time and doing something constructive with your weekend. We're out there enjoying each other's company – winning's a bonus." What counts as "a laugh" for Three's a Crowd is up for debate – one of their team represents Wales at fell-running. And, following his debut race in July, Jonathan finished sixth with another team in the five-day Adrenalin Rush race in Scotland – in which, like many of the longer events, competitors must be equipped to race night and day. That result earned him a free place in the inaugural adventure-racing world championship in Switzerland a few weeks ago.

In illustration of the sport's dangers, Whittaker and his team withdrew from the championship when a fellow competitor was seriously injured. Nevertheless, few could hope to clamber from the lowest rung of a sport to its highest in a couple of months. "That's only because I'm sad and that's how I spend my holidays!" laughs Whittaker. But how does a six-hour jaunt compare to a five-day expedition race? "To compete, you need to be competent in a number of sports, not just a master of one. The five-dayer was more about staying awake. You've just got to keep a pace and not get lost."

It's at these big races that the best teams – often having paid thousands of pounds to enter and with thousands more in prize money at stake – like to prove themselves against each other. Inevitably, camaraderie is occasionally sacrificed for that extra yard. Peter James, leader of Team 9feet.com and one of the country's leading adventure racers, was also at the world championship. "Two top teams came across a confusing part in the course. One figured out which way to go and called back to the other team – who then charged past them without even saying 'Thank you'," he remembers. "That surprised me – the sport is getting more serious, and that's the worst manifestation of that."

Back at the grass roots, though, adventure racing holds more pleasant surprises, according to James. "When triathlon came along it was new and exciting – anything went. But since it became an Olympic sport it's become much more of a formula. Adventure racing, for the time being, is about different combinations of those sports, about novelty and the unexpected."

The novelties in our race turned out to be abseiling and archery. More unexpected was Team IoS's completion of the course within the six-hour limit (if only by 30 seconds and omitting a dozen controls). Where did we finish? Last. But last with big grins. And let's just say Team IoS approached this frenetic, thrilling sport as it should be – more as adventure than a race.