Swimming
Take one freezing canal, add obstacles, 250 racers and a guy with a GoPro. Watch what happens next.
There are certain essential ingredients for a cracking adventure race. You should be slightly scared before the start. You should go outside of your comfort zone during the race. And afterwards you should be left with that warm glow of satisfaction you get from simply being alive!
On all these, Red Bull Neptune Steps delivers.
It features hypothermia-inducing cold water (7ºC-8ºC), killer obstacles such as rope climbs and cargo nets, and a challenging swim that even hardcore triathletes would think twice about.
But it's the perfect race if you like a bit of madness.
It felt like I was getting waterboarded.
Those obstacles: sure, they're no big deal if you've just been running around one of those mud runs. But after an exhausting swim? Welcome to a new world of physical misery. “It was like being waterboarded,” one athlete told me afterwards.
You need the swimming skills of a salmon
Arriving at the nets exhausted, you require the swimming skills of a salmon just to stop yourself from going backwards – and then you need the strength of a climber to pull yourself up.
“Red Bull Neptune steps is not like swimming in a pool – swimming in a canal is a completely different story,” says 2016 female winner Shannon Botham.
“Having the water come down on you, having to fight people to get up the climbs – it's a totally different ball game.”
The race takes place on a section of the Forth and Clyde Canal, just north of Glasgow, Scotland where seven locks in close proximity provide the natural setting for a race with a difference.
“Oh shit I lost my GoPro," and more outtakes in the video below.
Competitors swim to a lock, then climb up over cargo nets, ladders and ropes, then swim to the next one. In total there are eight obstacles and a distance of 420m to swim.
Mark Deans killed it in a mind-boggling time of 5m 49s to stand on the podium. It's fair to say we came in a little bit after that. Let's just say we were about three times slower.
Crossing the finish line, I was properly destroyed.
But as they say, it's not the winning that counts, it's the taking part – and Red Bull Neptune Steps packs a ton of fun. Sign me up for next year!
PS: Fancy the latest GoPro HERO5 session? Mine was last seen sinking underneath lock 24 attached to a gnarwhal mount. We would love to recover the footage.