What better can you fill your weekend with...then just run through the mud, cycle single tracks in the night, drag tree trunks up a hill, monkey-hang with a heavy backpack, swim in stinky dirty lakes and only have a map and compass to 'turn' the right way.
That is the best description I can give you about what I did last weekend.
It even had a name: LMC, which stands for Limburg (Dutch province) Mountain Challenge.
It's an annual event organised every first weekend of October.
Years ago I volunteered with the organisation KNAV'98 and set out the night part of the race. I found it so much fun that the reminder this year resulted in participating in the race.
for over 20 hours you run, cycle, swim, run and cycle even more trying to become first on every Waypoint. GPS is not allowed, only a strange, vague or incomplete map and your compass.
On the way you try to complete tasks like dragging a tree trunk up a hill as fast as possible, run up hill in the sand to fill a bucket with water, only using little cups, measure the height of a hill, find the name of the pilot that died in a plane crash in the area, find letters and clips that are hidden in the trees/bush, figuring the meaning of names in the local Limburg dialect... and with that you score your next waypoint.
I had a bit a strange group. As the rule is that at least two of every team (team is 3 or 4 p.) have to be from Limburg (I'm not) and I subscribed to it alone...I was put together with two people I didn't knew at all. Rick and Leon.
The amazing thing is that doing such a race is one of the best teambuilding activities you can do, ever! So after 24hours together we really were a team and even decided we wanted to join the race again next year. Together!
Our team name was Dirt Devils, really fitting as we swam in such a dirty lake that we smelled rotten for the next 20hours. Maybe the name should have been Dirty Devils instead... :)
We completed the race (which is not as easy as it sounds, often teams don't complete the race) and ended somewhere on the 5th of 6th place. Luckily not third. As then you have to organise next years race.
The LMC is organised every year by volunteers. It's a hell of a job to plan a race where you cycle over 140km, run I-don't-know-how-many-k's and do all kinds of activities in between. The organisation had been working on it for a year, literary! (Big, big respect to them!)
VAV-Zuyd, from Valkenburg won this years race and 'Van geen wijken weten' has to organise next years race.
Soon a little video about the race. Here already some articles (in Dutch)
(I'm the one in the light green shorts :)
p.s: I LOVE my Tikka headlamp! Without my lovely new Tikka with rechargeable battery that lasts much longer then your average single-use batteries! The compact headlight is even water-resistant, so I could keep it on when swimming in the dirty lake :)
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