The start horn blew and there was a star burst as sixteen competitors exploded from the podium; I ran looking at the map but it wasn't until our first waypoint, on a bright orange Landrover, I realised it was at the bottom of the Empire State Building in New York, it began to sink in, I was on an urban orienteering course in New York. I had just set off on the race of a lifetime. The start line: Broadway, the beginning of the Landrover G4 Challenge, ahead lay twenty eight day of a global adventure race.
It was like being in an action movie; running to all the iconic landmarks with a time limit, an urban off-road driving course purpose built on Broadway. My head was spinning as a New York cop held the traffic for me in Times Square.
By the end of the day things were a little different; when we arrived in New York we had spent our first nights in the Plaza Hotel on the corner of Central Park and Fifth. So finding ourselves in a tent in the aptly named Frost Valley in Catskill Mountains, made famous by the writings of John Burroughs, with the temperature down around minus twenty, the ground frozen so hard you couldn't drive a peg in was a bit of a shock, but that was the reality of the race.
Landrover has a history of events to demonstrate their vehicles are not just for show but they 'do what say on the can'. The Camel Trophy did this but the G4 Challenge was not the same this was an adventure race where the vehicle would allow the competitors to access remote locations and compete in challenges and adventures in a bid to win the prize; a Range Rover.
For me making the the start line was a prize; don't misunderstand I was there to win if I could but it had been an adventure getting there: Almost a year before at the National Selections at Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire in England we faced a series of tests which were not just about our physical abilities but also driving ability, working with others and media skills. It was tough and we needed to be thinking all the time. If I hadn't been selected at any stage the experience Landrover had set up would have been reward enough, I would have been disappointed but not disconsolate. A few months later this was followed by the International Selections again at Eastnor, a week where I raced against Byron, the other UK hopeful, for the chance to represent my country.