Adventure racing is growing in popularity in Thailand and can be a rewarding experience

Story by SIMON THOMAS

It is quite possible you might find yourself taking an unscheduled dip.

The race includes a stage on a bike although you could have to carry it through the tricky bits.

For those who are familiar with Bangkok, the thought that there might be something more than concrete, traffic noise and pollution within an hour's drive of the city centre might come as quite a shock. It certainly surprised me when I arrived at a large and tranquil lake situated at the Minsiri Resort, Nong Chok, just to the north east of the 'City of Angels' which marked the start of the North Face Bangkok Challenge.

Things seem to be on the up within the adventure racing scene in Thailand, with attendances slowly growing with every event. This event lured some 110 racers of all shapes, sizes and levels of experience to the start line.

There was an air of apprehensive eagerness as various lotions were applied, equipment was adjusted and competitors took the last chance to guzzle some drinks and stock up with whatever fuel they could find before the big event.

The first moment of truth for many came with the pre-race briefing, as race director Serge Henkens quickly dropped into conversation that he expected the average team to finish in around seven hours.

Seven hours! Perhaps we had all misheard through the confusion of conducting a briefing in two languages but no there it was again _ seven hours or so for an 'average' team. I looked up at the sun now fully established in the sky and quickly downed an extra litre of water.

Before we had a chance to feign a plausible injury and extract ourselves to the safety of the medical tent, we were penned in on our bikes for the start, 55 teams of two, with the naive innocence of young children before Christmas.

In a scene reminiscent of the film Mad Max we were off in a cloud of dust with the spectators grabbing a fleeting glimpse of strange machines and bare limbs. True to form the race started at the pace of a much shorter event. Did these people know something we didn't?

Time quickly confirmed that they were in fact as clueless as we were. The course was a fascinating combination of shoe-eating muddy tracks, banks of rivers, rice paddies, planks of wood and a few traffic free roads passing through villages that looked trapped in time. These were scenes of a real rural Thailand, where subsistence farming is still the main way of life, despite being a mere stone's throw from Bangkok. Even with the inevitable couple of slow motion spills on the bike, the scenery and a degree of competitive camaraderie meant the 30K ride was a fairly pleasant experience.

Next onto a run section, after a very short road section, the trail disappeared into the rice paddies and remained firmly on small tracks and paths throughout its 8km duration. The scenery was lovely, the locals friendly and the air was fresh, however the legs were now distinctly unimpressed and the mild autumn temperature that Thailand enjoys was reaching 33 degrees in the shade. We were two hours into the race and still exploring.

The run exited out of the fields next to a klong, where two-man kayaks were waiting for us. I thought what a lovely day for messing around on the river. My partner Chai thought of catching up some time so we set off downstream agreeing to disagree on team tactics. The kayak course kept the rural theme of the event. We scraped under numerous rickety wooden bridges and were cheered on by locals fishing from the banks and young children dive bombing from the side as we battled our way down the 2.5 km course. Being much happier on dry land than water, I was glad to get out and get on with the course. Looking at my watch I registered a sinking feeling, we had been going for more than two hours, perhaps not even halfway yet!

Onto another run _ having lived in Bangkok for a number of years I am used to the hamster wheel that is circuits around a city park. The cross country, multi-terrain muddy trial running that I was experiencing on this race was, dare I say it, really enjoyable. One of the key elements of this sort of adventure race is that you never really know how far it is to the next stage. This lack of facts seems to even the field up as no-one wants to risk racing off to find themselves with many hours still to go and the tank on empty. Slow and steady are the watchwords for every stage.

It was some time well into the third hour of racing when we first mentioned the soon to become immortal words ''are we nearly there yet?'' Time quickly provided the answer to this question and it was a firm no. Thirty-two minutes on this run section felt a lot longer but we found our way back to our long abandoned bikes and, just to be sure that we didn't slow down to admire the scenery, we were told we were now in first place, a mere few minutes in front of the much experienced Team Kalae. Our only hope was that we should now be closer to the finish than the start.

We pushed on with the next mountain biking section and after asking every marshal we passed for some clue on the location of the finish, the wide range of, sometimes amusing, answers that we received lead me to the conclusion that perhaps no one knew where the finish and we were perhaps the victims of some large scale practical joke or scientific experiment! We passed through the fourth hour of racing with the heat, dehydration and length of the exertion starting to take its toll. Chai my team-mate started to suffer legs cramps and my bike started to make some worrying grinding noises.

We were ready to stop exploring now. Just as things couldn't get much worse, we were passed by the chasing Team Kalae. After more than four hours we rode over a hill to find the huge lake that we had left that morning stretching out in front of us, what a sight for sore legs.

With the mind partly recovered we rode hard around the lakeside track and back to the start/finish area, but race director, Serge had another surprise up his sleeve. Dumping the bike among the spectators and support crews we were directed down to the lakeside to don life jackets for a 250 metre swim across the lake to a waiting check point.

The lead that had been so hard fought for on the mountain bikes quickly disappeared as we all splashed and clawed our way across the lake using a variety of styles unfamiliar to those with any experience of swimming. Team Kalae's lead sunk somewhere in the middle of the lake and we exited back into the lead. All that remained was a 2.5km run back to the finish. Those enjoying a quiet stroll by the river were surprised to find two muddy, bedraggled, sunburnt and fatigued individuals weaving down the road towards them on a final lunge towards the finish. Our final time was 4hrs 50mins. Although we often felt like it, we never stopped exploring!

For an update on events organized by Serge Henkens and Active Management Asia see www.active-asia.com and www.riverkwaitrophy.com for more details.