By Another weekend, another Coxless Crew adventure! This time we headed to the Brecon Beacons with 6 of our lovely applicants to test our teamwork, resilience and sense of humour. I’m pleased to say that all three remained intact and we had a fab weekend.
Briefing
We headed down to the Brecons on Friday afternoon where we were briefed by the brilliant Matt and Ali from Fieri who were organising the weekend. A quick navigation lesson and some packing followed before grabbing a couple of hours sleep. The day started at 3am when we got up, breakfasted and headed off on the first leg of our adventure. Our super support team of Matt and Ali, Keith our super performance psychologist and our favourite Coxless Crew supporter Ella waved us off and we headed out into the dark with our map, compass and enthusiasm. Each checkpoint revealed a task which required us to function as a team and work together to solve a problem.
Task 1
4am and we’re off!
Navigating
As we progressed through the day we bonded as a team and learned a lot about how to work together and this translated into much improved performance and success in the tasks. Everyone had the chance to lead the group while walking and during a task learning from each other’s mistakes and highlighting each other’s strengths within the team. It also allowed us plenty of walking time to let us get to know each other better. Stories were told, laughs were had and songs were sung while we climbed hills, crept through magical Narnia like woods and waded through bogs. Feet took a bit of a beating with blisters and slight trenchfoot needing patching up between legs. However everyone remained smiling and supporting each other in a top team effort.
Approaching a checkpoint
18 hours and over 50km in and we’re all still smiling!
After 23 hours we reached our final checkpoint following some interesting night navigation and summoned up the last of our energy for the final task. This involved running up and down a hill with barrels, planks and wooden pallets (thanks Ella!). An awesome sense of achievement and post exercise high was quickly followed extreme tiredness. Reviews were written (probably fairly incoherently) and then we grabbed a couple of hours sleep.
Task requiring logical thinking after 21 hours of hiking
Sunday morning saw some hilarious attempts to get down the stairs to breakfast. We then reviewed our performance with Matt, Ali and Keith going over everything that we had learned and things we need to work on. A great end to a really great weekend. I have no idea how we are going to choose the team as everyone really embraced the experience and contributed to the success of the exercise.
Still smiling on Sunday
Posing!
Massive thanks need to go to Fieri, Matt and Ali for organising the weekend and sharing their knowledge with us, Keith Goddard for his input, assessment and general awesomeness and Ella for her support, camera work and banter. Finally to the six lovely ladies who joined us thanks for making it such a success, you are all awesome and part of the Coxless Crew team.
No Comments