Staff Member Joe Morley at the Red Bull Dolomitenmann

Staff member Joe Morley as we know has been turning heads in the kayaking world with his win at the Sickline 2013 race

He was asked to join this years British team at the Red Bull Dolomitenmann, below is what he said……

On the 6th & 7th September I competed in the 27th annual Red Bull Dolomitenmann. This year I competed as part of a British team, made up of Chris Hope and Kim Collison who make up half of the Adventure race World Championship winning team from last year and Jon Chambers who finished 4th last year in the Red Bull X-alps (the most hardcore paragliding race in the world).

The Dolomitenmann is very different to every other race and is defiantly the most physical race on the calendar. Its over twice the length of any other race I compete in and consists of 2 runs, a swim and over 30 slalom gates, some making you paddle back upstream for up to 200 meters!

Its a team race consisting of Running, Cycling, Paragliding and Kayaking. Iv competed in the race twice before but this year was a little different – The order of the race was shuffled making the kayaking the last leg. This made the race even longer and included a 1k run to the start / finish line in the town centre. Individually I finished in 20th place in a time of 38.12,  four minuets behind the race winner. Im happy with my performance given its over a distance that is really out of my comfort zone.

As as team we finished 43rd out of over 120. Because the event is so different this is a pretty good result for a team made up of mostly first timers, most teams in the top half of the table have competed over 5 times.

The highlight of the weekend for me was running the last part of the race, dragging by kayak (which was a Lettmann Alpen 270) through the streets which were lined with cheering spectators!

Find out more about the event at www.redbulldolomitenmann.com