Lymington Sea Water baths was the setting for “Lake Fear 3 - Revenge” and returned there for “Lake Fear 4 - Avenge” on 21st February 2015. As a bit of background: The baths in Lymington are the “oldest open air sea water baths in the UK, dating back to 1833 the baths have historically gained national interest for their health giving waters and natural mud minerals. Today, young and old still swim in the waters and enjoy the stunning location with views over to the Isle of Wight.”
Which is, of course, why Mel and the Lake Fear team returned to the site. That, and of course because the water is “Frickin’ freezing” outside normal swim season! (to borrow a phrase from Dr Evil). When I swam in the Lymington sea water baths as a child - once, briefly, in the summer - I had no way of knowing that some 30 years later I would be back to run an obstacle course race there clad in much neoprene.
Preventing Hypothermia
In the run up to Tough Guy there was much discussion about clothing and kit with regard to pre-venting hypothermia while still being able to run. Bodyfat helps. I have less than some and more than others, but for wet winter racing the blue whale has more of an advantage than the gazelle! In addition to natural attributes, I followed Phil Harris’ (of Mudstacle) tips which saw him through Tough Guy - with a couple of amendments:
• Merino long-sleeved top (Icebreaker)
• 2.5mm Neoprene vest (Tribord)
• Neoprene swim hat (Speedo)
• 2.5mm Neoprene gloves (Tribord)
• Skins half tights
• X-Racewear shorts
• CEP calf sleeves
• X-Socks
• X-Talon 212s
Short version - this worked! Following my own advice re:keeping the core warm I was only cold when I stopped at the end. In true OCR style, Phil, Chris Trott (Team Brutal), Jayne Raby (Obsta-cle Kit Race Team) and I were all discussing the pros and cons of our neoprene choices at the startline - Phil, Chris and I were similarly clad while Jayne had opted for the full wetsuit.
Lake Fear attracted a hard core of racers - registration was efficient and the bare necessities were there at the poolside (bag drop, hot drinks, warm showers, hot drinks, spectator area (with hot drinks). I was concerned that I was being a bit of a wuss with the neoprene, but a disproportionate proportion of those who dropped out of the race were without neoprene - it truly was cold!
Deciding that we didn’t want to have got dressed up for nothing, the 4 of us discussing our neo-prene fashion items decided to run the 3 laps together and after our start-line warm-up we set off in groups of 4 to tackled the first obstacle - a first for me in an OCR, a climbing wall!
I was chuffed to zip up this, keeping pace with qualified climbing instructor and fellow-racer Kerrie, before we stripped off the harnesses and headed off for the run section along the path to the mari-na, through the marina then out onto the local dog-walking circuit before looping back along the same route to the pool.
South Coast’s Wettest Extreme Race” - they could le-gitimately claim that they put on the coldest one too
Blowing my own trumpet - I had noticed that the monkey bars were the first obstacle after the run, before we entered the water, so hands were dry! With the gloves stashed in the race number pocket of the X Racewear shorts I jumped up and swung across the bars (using the “c” grip technique) and even did a cheeky pull-up at the end before dropping into the water.
This water was cold, there is no denying it - but with gloves and hat now on we moved to the next obstacle which was comfortingly entitled “Brainfreeze” - a series of 3 dips under floats. I managed to keep my hat for all of these and found them refreshing, but Chris’ came off and he vouched for the appropriateness of the obstacle’s name when this happened.
Swimming/wading to the next obstacle we hauled ourselves onto a pontoon then trotted along a walkway before jumping back into the water and swimming to “The Wall”.This involved dragging yourself out, back in under a Camo net then up a floating wall before jump-ing off. The Neoprene Quartet waited to jump of this together, which we did with the grace of salm-on leaping upstream. Picture proves it!
Once we surfaced we swam/waded to another pontoon and onto a series of floats which it may have been possible to walk over, but which I decided to leopard-crawl over. Having seen my son’s GoPro footage of this I can confirm that this was not a flattering obstacle - I thought he had filmed a giant sea slug which had crawled out of the water, only to spot the Muddy Race logo on its back…
After swimming under a walkway we picked up a water-filled plastic jerry-can each and waded to what looked like a water volleyball net support without the net - duck under the perimeter, throw the jerry can over - then out of the pool and off for lap 2! Luckily I remembered to take the gloves and hat off for each of the run sections so my hands were dry and I didn’t overheat - so I conquered the monkey bars three times!
I stopped once to re-tie a shoelace on the second lap and the restoration of blood flow to the skin stung - a lot! - but when in the water the neoprene choices worked out well. Many people decided one lap was enough, several people came off the course due to mild hypo-thermia - these were combinations of racer’s decisions (one collapsed) and the t-shirt-and-shorts-clad Lifeguard’s decisions. With hot drinks and care from the Lake Fear medic they were swiftly on the mend and no-one needed hospital rewarming. Foz Sug and Fran Waterman were the only people to complete 1 lap, then 2 more, then 3 more laps - a total of nearly 18km - and I’m pretty sure Foz’s “Dirty Dozen” t-shirt was not concealing any neoprene.
This was a great fun event - not too demanding in terms of distance or obstacles, but definitely tough in terms of managing the cold. Race prep of cold water acclimatisation and buying the right neoprene kit saved the day, as well as the heating oil delivery being delayed so having no central heating for the week leading up to the race! (My 212s have also never looked so clean since they first came out of the box.)
Lake Fear’s next event is at Matchams Race Park on Saturday 8th August - possibly the 9th too as there are rumours of a weekend race with an Underground Ultra night race being thrown in. Lake Fear’s tag line is that they put on the “South Coast’s Wettest Extreme Race” - they could le-gitimately claim that they put on the coldest one too.”
Thanks for the images Mark Lovett
