Trophy hunting down the River Kwai

Kanachanaburi a small town around 3 hours from Bangkok is a part of the world worth visiting for its natural beauty and historical world war II sites..

This is what the travel brochures will tell you and most people wanting to explore this neck of woods usually do so from the comfort of an aircon bus. However this option was not me or the 70 other brave souls that elected to have a go at the inaugural North Face River Kwai Trophy, held at the Pung Wan Resort, Sai Yok. This is the second adventure race to be held in Thailand in the last 6 months and just went to prove that Thailand has some of the best potential for this fast growing sport in Asia.

Teams of two were given the option of either the ‘Adventure’ or man-sized ‘Extreme’ category. I suspect many of the all male teams suffered the testosterone-impaired decision-making influenced by pretty girls on the registration desk and were at this stage, like us, committed to the Extreme category!
An air of naïve, friendly amateurism pervaded over the start line early on Saturday morning as the motley crew of weekend warriors and the odd semi professional assembled to see what Serge and Dave, the organisers had up their sleeves for us.

We did not have long to wait and with a beep of our Champion timing chips we were off on mountain bikes following rural tracks, trails and roads and passing through country villages and farms with not a car in sight. After about 10 km we came to a Jungle clearing and on to the next stage, the Jungle run, its anyone’s guess how long this painful stage was. I know I thought it would never end and our team stumbled out of back to the bike a little worse for wear after almost 2 hours of ‘adventure’, other teams were not so lucky taking over 3 hrs to tackle the hilly, challenging jungle course.
The organisers then enforced a dunk in a paddling pool for all competitors to try and cool down before hopping back on the bikes for another pleasant tour around the countryside eventually ending up at the banks of the famous River Kwai and our next mode of transport – A kayak. Luckily for us, no experience is necessary for this section and we soon grasped the fundamentals of steering and forward propulsion. At last my high school Geography came in handy and we guided ourselves to the fastest part of the river, which thankfully was going along a quite a rate of knots. 5k later we hauled our kayak onto the shore and started a run back along the bank of the river. What would be next? The mystery is a fundamental part of what makes this an adventure race and we were not disappointed when after 7k of pleasant cross-country running, the marker arrows disappeared into the river! Just what the doctor ordered after over 3 hours in the sun, we dived straight in and proceeded to follow the arrows downstream, drifting on the current through the jungle and mountains for a couple of KMs. This experience in itself was worth doing this event for!

It was then a matter of reluctantly climbing out of river and back on the bikes for a 30min ride to the finish over a rather rickety bridge that looked and felt like it had been constructed by blind Cub Scout pack. Final time for team Champion chip Simon and Chai - 5 and a half hours and a third place spot..

What a day – running, biking and swimming through some of the best countryside Thailand has to offer, with the sort of comradeship borne out of tackling common adversity and drinking too much free beer at the end of race feast and awards ceremony. What a great way to spend a weekend..we all look forward to the next one!

Results..

Phuket Marathon and Thai Temple Run results published at http://www.championchip-thailand.com/raceresults.html


Sun 20 August - (Siam City Bank) Mini Marathon- Ministry of Public Health - 10K - 43:28