93. Canoe Slalom

Event: Canoe Slalom Women's K1
Date: 2nd November 2014 + 16th April 2016
Location: Lee Valley White Water  
Cost: £50 each
Rules:  In heats each competitor has two runs of the slalom course. The fifteen athletes with the best time qualify for the semi-finals, where they get one run of the course each, with the best ten progressing to the final. The course is a timed-run down a white water course with natural hazards and eddies and between 18 - 25 gates. Red gates must be tackled upstream, green gates downstream. Touching a gate adds two seconds time penalty to the run, and missing a gate completely is a 50 second penalty.

   

The Event:

Result:

Olympic Gold Medal, London 2012: Emilie Fer, France.

Comments:  
Sarah: Over the course of the Challenge we've been lucky enough to work with some amazing clubs and have received the help of some really dedicated, kind individuals who have helped us achieve what, at times, has felt like the impossible. We try to arrange as much as possible ourselves, but for the trickier events we do rely on people being kind enough to help us out. You may notice that there is a small gap of 17 months between the two parts to this event; officially making Canoe Slalom our longest event to complete! We first visited Lee Valley White Water Centre back in November 2014 where we were given the chance to try our hand at the slalom course; the boats are really zippy, and controlling the turns and completing the course was lots of fun. But we wanted more! We wanted to experience the white water for ourselves, which it turns out is incredibly hard to arrange. The club said they would help us out, but unfortunately months and months passed with numerous unreplied emails and no progress, which was all a bit frustrating. We finally accepted defeat, and booked ourselves on to a pretty expensive 'Hotdog' session as a way to get on the white water. I would say it was worth the wait, but in fact it was horrible! We were on the Legacy loop and spent more time in the water than out. The boats were incredibly hard to control, and unfortunately we weren't given much guidance on how to correct the boat when it turned to the side (which resulted in an instant dunking). Falling in to the white water is as scary as it looks; you get pulled around and just have to go with it and rely on the buoyancy aid, but there were repeatedly moments of panic when I went in. I'd definitely had enough halfway through the lesson, and was glad when we made our way back to calmer waters. I'm definitely glad to have this out the way, and look forward to never doing it again!   
         
Ellie: As Sarah says our Canoe Slalom event is in two parts. Our non-white water experience was in sharp contrast to our white water 'hotdog' day. I felt it was hard enough to control the slalom canoes around the legacy course without the hindrance of turbulent conditions - the boats respond to the lightest of touch and even sitting at an angle will send you in a different direction to the one you think you are heading in. Navigating through the hanging gates needs a lot of mental agility as well as physical as you need to think ahead to meet gates at good angles to take you though to the next.
Our time on the white water was through Lee Valley's experience days and people actually do this for fun. Don't get me wrong - I was fascinated by power I could harness during the rare times we were afloat and working with Sarah is always enjoyable but staying in the boat was very hard. Once I'd realised that we wouldn't be able to control ourselves for long I also felt enormous responsibility for the safety of myself and everyone else too... Falling out of a boat in white water is terrifying. I don't think I could explain well enough but I'm still dreaming about it 5 days later. Despite the safety tests and briefing we were given I wasn't able to recall anything when I was being dashed around and submerged for, what felt like, minutes and that caused me so much panic. With 15 minutes of our session left and a particularly fearsome dunking fresh in the memory I was happy to call it an event well and truly ticked off and to never, ever do anything like it again. Good luck to you if you choose to do this with your leisure time!

92. Sailing - Women's 470

Event: Sailing - Women's 470
Date: 7th April 2016
Location: Alton Water Sailing Club 
Cost: £25 each for 3 hour lesson 
Rules:  The Women's 470 is a two-person dinghy and has a spinnaker and a trapeze, making teamwork essential. The competition runs over eleven races, with a 30 minute target-time for medals.

   

The Event:

Result:

Olympic Gold Medal, London 2012: Jo Aleh & Olivia Powrie - New Zealand. 

Comments:  
Sarah: Sailing buffs may notice we're in the same boat as the Elliott 6m for this event. The good old sturdy Bahia is not a 470. 470s are high-performance boats, and only a fool would let us loose in one of them. The Bahia was perfect for us, and we zipped through the water. I started to understand the connection between moving the tiller in different directions and controlling the main sheet depending on the strength of the wind (check out those sailing terms!), and began to feel a bit more comfortable in the boat. I was mainly very happy to sail for three hours and not go in for a swim!  
         
Ellie: In this session I was able to sit up on the side of the boat giving me so much more room. I also tried my best to look where I was steering rather than at the controls in my hands. I dread to think what will happen once we're let loose in boats on our own or when we get to try Wind Surfing but now we have retained some more of the information about the weather and the discipline of Sailing we'll stand a much better chance of not getting (too) wet!

91. Sailing - Women's Elliott 6m

Event: Sailing - Women's Elliott 6m
Date: 7th April 2016
Location: Alton Water Sailing Club 
Cost: £25 each for 3 hour lesson 
Rules:  The Elliott 6m is a three- person boat and the competition runs in a match-race format, consisting of round-robin quarter-, semi-, petit- and final rounds. The top eight crews are seeded in to the quarter final. The target course time is 18 minutes.

   

The Event:

Result:

Olympic Gold Medal, London 2012: Tamara Echegoyan, Angela Pumariega & Sofia Tor - Spain. 

Comments:  
Sarah: We visited Alton Water last October for our first sailing lesson. It was all going swimmingly until I capsized the boat and gave us all a dip in the cold water. As a result, I felt quite nervous returning to the boat and desperately didn't want to tip us all in again. The water was freezing today, so the prospect of going in was even worse. It was much windier than when we last came out, but luckily our instructor Pat knew where to head for some sheltered water. He patiently explained how to spot gusts on the water and talked us through performing a tack (turn) and quickly had us sailing across the lake. There is a lot to remember in the boat, but it eventually started to sink in (hmmm, maybe best not to mention sinking!). During each tack I remained convinced I was going to send us overboard, but I did eventually find myself slightly less nervous than when we started.  
         
Ellie: Sailing is a very odd mix of serenity (when you're not in charge of the boat) and franticness (when you're responsible for keeping everyone dry) and after this lesson I felt that we were slowly moving towards serenity all round! It's really satisfying to be able to read when the wind is coming in and what that means for your boat and sails. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that I retained some information about what bits of the boats were called.... #Boom

90. 4 x 400m Relay

Event: 4 x 400m Relay
Date: 20th March 2016
Location: Colchester Athletics Track 
Cost: Free
Rules:  Four athletes each run 400m to complete a lap of the track. During their individual legs they carry a baton that has to be passed to the next runner within a 20m changeover box, situated 10m before and 10m after each subsequent leg.

   

The Event:

Times:

Olympic Gold Medal, London 2012: 3:16.87 -  USA.

Team Olympics: Ellie, Eliza, Amelia and Sarah: 8:43.75

Splits:

Ellie: 3:31.88

Eliza: 1:34.71

Amalia: 1:35.85

Sarah: 2:03.32

Comments:  
Sarah: One more time of running flat out, or as close to it as possible, for 400m whilst trying not to drop the baton. The team events are always fun, and this was no exception; cheering each other on and trying to run that bit faster for the team time. I was trying to concentrate on making my stride longer and breathing easier, but could feel myself slowing about halfway round, trying to leave a bit in the tank for the final 'sprint'.  
         
Ellie: I am very much ready for the running to be over now. I am definitely not suited to it! So, it's quite nice to have something to do with your hands - i.e. hold on to the baton, don't drop the baton, don't put the baton in your pocket in case you'd be disqualified, make sure the baton is in the right hand to pass on to your team mate. Lots to think about!!!

Huge thanks to Eliza and Amalia for helping us with this one, and for being so quick around the track!

89. Heptathlon

Event: Heptathlon
Date: 13th and 20th March 2016
Location: Colchester Athletics Track 
Cost: Free
Rules: The Heptathlon is a test of strength, skill and endurance with points awarded for the athletes best performance in each event. Day one covers; 100m Hurdles, High Jump, Shot Put and 200m. Day two covers: Long Jump, Javelin and 800m. The scores of each individual event are totalled to give the overall results and leader-board. The men's and women's Heptathlon consist of different events.

   

The Event:

Times:

Olympic Gold Medal, London 2012: Jessica Ennis, UK - 6955 points.

Team Olympics:

100m Hurdles

Sarah: 26.24 - 2 points

Ellie: 45.55 - 0 points

High Jump

Sarah: 0.88 - 58 points

Ellie: 0.76 - 1 point

Shot Put

Sarah: 4.52 - 178 points

Ellie: 4.62 - 185 points

200m

Sarah: 0:50.38 - 0 points

Ellie: - DNS - 0 points

Long Jump

Sarah: 2.10 - 0 points

Ellie: 1.50 - 0 points

Javelin:

Sarah: 9.00 - 88 points 

Ellie: 10.22 - 110 points

800m

Sarah: 4:35.74 - 0 points

Ellie: DNS - 0 points

Total Points

Sarah: 326 points

Ellie: 296 points 

Comments:  
Sarah: I've been looking forward to this one! The chance to return to so many events and give them another go with the added bonus of points up for grabs for your best performance. I really enjoyed the four events on Day One and was so happy to get PBs in each event- beating my times/distances/heights from last time we tried them. Alas I was out of the points on my 200m run, and I could feel my legs get more and more wobbly as I tried to push on. It was all to play for going in to Day Two!

The second day started with Long Jump, but two 'no jumps' left me with just one distance, and that didn't meet the points requirements. A slight technical hitch (not being able to get in to the equipment shed) meant unfortunately we weren't able to do the javelin, so had to use the distances from the last time we did the event all the way back in 2012. It would have been great to give the event another try, and we may try to squeeze another throw in later in the year. So, the final event loomed, and I was going to have to increase my PB by 10 seconds to get in to the points...but my legs didn't get the memo and I was actually slower than last time. Despite a ridiculously low end score, I really enjoyed the Heptathlon; it's been one of my favourites that we've done and I've loved returning to lots of the athletics events. Did someone say 'Decathlon' for a bonus event....?!
         
Ellie:
Day One: I do not recommend trying four of the Heptathlon with what could be whooping cough*! Despite not being at my best; I really enjoyed the events we did today. High Jump is a real joy as it involves tumbling onto a crash mat and the Shot Put is a nice, Ellie-friendly, static event. By the end of the session though I couldn't feel my lungs or my legs so sat out the 200m. All in all though a great start to one of the most heavy duty events that we are taking on. 
Day Two: With the Victorian Ages illness all but gone it was lovely to get back out on to the track in the bright weather and finish off what we started the week before. We had a very sandy start with the long jump and as Sarah says, used our distances from our first Javelin session to gather points. I suspect we'll persuade Chris to let us loose with those at some point over the summer which would be great. Again, for my own sanity, I sat the running out and became last lap bell-ringer for Sarah and our other Heptathletes. My favourite things about these events has been the crowd work - getting everyone clapping - and looking up the scores and seeing how much of an improvement one would need to make to up your scores. It would be lovely to think that in another 4 years we could get together and do this again!

A big thanks to Chris from Colchester Harriers for setting this one up for us, and being an excellent coach and time-keeper! 

*It was probably at worst a chest infection and best low-level flu but I have been in proximity to someone with whooping cough and I'm allowed to use artistic license! 

Bonus Event #5 - Darts

Event: Darts
Date: 10th March 2016
Location: The Greyhound pub, Wivenhoe
Cost: Free
Rules: Players take it turns to throw three darts from the Oche. Each player starts with 501 on the board and must count down to zero, finishing with throwing a double.

Event:

Winner: Ellie

Comments:
Sarah: I'm not sure I've ever played darts sober before; the lack of booze certainly made the maths much more difficult (possibly indicating previous scoring has been approximate rather than accurate). It was a lot of fun, but I have no idea how you're meant to aim. My throws were completely random, scattered around the board, and the prospect of being able to end on a double was laughable. But then up steps Farrow, and lands the double 12 for the win!  

Ellie:  Recently I've gotten into the Let's Play Darts for Sports Relief and so I was really keen to go for a game ourselves. it was a beautiful spring day and we had drinks on the table so this is a event I'd happily repeat! Sarah took a massive early lead and I definitely lucked out by hitting the double 12 considering getting the dart on target up to that point had been practically impossible!

The winning dart

88. 1500m

Event: 1500m
Date: 28th February 2016
Location: Colchester Athletics Track 
Cost: Free
Rules:  Runners race 3 & 3/4 laps around a 400m track. It is the biggest middle-distance track event in athletics. It places high emphasis on aerobic endurance and requires a slightly lower sprint speed than shorter distance events.

The Event: 

 

                     

Times:

Olympic Gold Medal London 2012: 4:10.23, Asli Cakir Alptekin, Turkey.

Sarah: 9:48.22

Ellie: 16:05.02
 

Comments:  
Sarah: With slightly blurry heads after an ale festival yesterday, we weren't especially looking forward to the 1500m! We had some excellent pacemakers who gave us encouragement during the race, and it was very much a case of 'head-down and get on with it'!. My normal mile time is about 11mins (1500m is just shy of 1 mile), and after only recently starting up running training again after two operations on my leg at the end of last year, I was really pleased with my time.  
         
Ellie: I don't enjoy the long 'runs'. I'm not build for any sort of running and I find it quite boring. So today I just tried to think of it as a brisk walk that I made brisker with each lap. I even managed to 'run' the last 100m or so - that's the best result I can hope for!

 

 

Thanks and high-fives to Eliza and Rachel for being our pacemakers and cheering squad!