I am now officially 2 days into my off season. Actually, I have no idea yet on just how long I will take for some R+R and mental recovery. All I know is that it is greatly needed! After 3 major races and 4 weeks on the road I am exhausted! I’m ready to be home, drink coffee’s, see friends and family, relax and dive into some awaiting projects. I think 2011 is going to be a very different year…..
However, I must re-cap my last race in Spain. AR World Championships this year turned into quite the experience. It wasn’t quite the duplication of last year in Portugal but it comes a close second. Here’s why:
I joined up with Team Cyanosis from South Africa. A good crew of guys with similar race goals – we were all gunning for a top 10. The race had promised a more traditional format this year and that appealed to me. Back to how all races used to be as in, the winner would be the fastest team from A to Z. Great I thought, no more of that running/biking around for days not knowing what position you were in, who was still on the regular course, who was short coursed, who had collected more CP’s, who had done bonus loops etc. We could actually race this year with concrete information all the time. Apparently that is not what was to happen.
At the race briefing, we learned that there would be lots of variety to this race. Lots of different legs of varying distance which I thought would keep things moving fast and always changing. However, as the race went on, this turned out to be more complex as it meant teams could opt to start skipping legs hence, you never knew if the team you were side by side with was ranked near you or had already short coursed themselves. Hmmm……..try that for 6 days of racing.
There ended up being so much confusion on the race course including our final ranking. As of today (this is now 4 days post race) we are officially ranked 13th. Better then the 15th that we got on Friday! Lots of time credits were handed out including several to us but you wonder if those ever really got accounted for? At one point we came across one of the guys from Team Orion Health who had fallen off his bike and was unconscious down a hillside. We released the SPOT 911 and waited for 2hrs until he was taken away in the helicopter. Thankfully, he has made a full recovery.
Nic, team captain of Cyanosis, recently wrote this and I think it sums up the race quite well:
The race course went through some incredibly beautiful and mountainous countries to the west of Madrid in the provinces of Avila and Salamanca. Highlights of the course were intense orienteering sections, extremely technical mountain biking for the majority of the distance and massive mountain hikes with large glacial valleys. Spanish history was ever-present, with antique villages, old fortresses and even Roman bridges featuring regularly in the race. The down-side for Team Cyanosis was never really knowing what position they were in the field (we guessed at 15-20th for most of the first 3 days out of a field of approximately 60 teams) due to the race rules allowing for time penalties for teams instead of completing some sections of the course. It was thus impossible to keep an updated leaderboard. Cyanosis were racing well in about 12th place after 4 nights, having moved up the field significantly in the last 24 hours, when the team miscalculated a race cut-off threat and enforced dark-zone ruling on the final river paddling leg, and decided to skip a course loop (taking a time penalty instead) to ensure that the team got to the finish before the final Friday 6pm cut-off. In hindsight, Cyanosis could almost certainly have made the full course distance with some time to spare, with a 9th or 10th position the most likely result.
The timing miscalculation has weighed heavily on the team given the original team goal of finishing with a Top 10 position. The result was thus a disappointment for the team, but the race itself remains a wonderful experience that we will cherish. The race route itself was epic and memorable in many ways with various sections sure to go down as favorite memories for many of the team members. In the end, the team has had to remind itself that it is not good results or podium positions that see the team members coming back to compete in race after race, but the life experiences that one has during these events. Whether it is the beauty of the natural scenery and the whole environment, the metaphor of adventure racing being a full life experience in 5 days, the test to see whether you yourself can overcome the physical, mental and emotional difficulties of one of the toughest sports on planet Earth, or the experience of coping with team dynamics in a high-pressure environment for 126 hours non-stop that fulfils your craving for something different, it is these experiences that answers the question: 'Why do you Adventure Race?
My own race course highlights + memories in quick format:
- Night #1 - 14hrs of pure down pour biking in the rain! Nasty weather, being so thankful that I had on the Salomon minim rain pant - this saved me. Mentally I was just thinking "oh great, we got 5 more days of racing in this weather? not gonna be fun." Thankfully it cleared up!
- Day #2 - Falling asleep on my bike at around 3pm. I awoke just as my bike crashed into a pile of thorn bushes, messing up my hand and sending me hard onto the pavement. Blood and bruises.
- 11km vertical inline skate section thinking how the hell can anyone actually blade up this? Hmmm, should have been training with the nordic athletes in Squamish on this one!
- Passing through some really cool Spanish villages and wishing we had time to stop and visit!
- Every single leg that we did was 100% hilly! Yup, I think we covered all the hills in Spain during this one race!
- One too many nights of sleeping in a bivy bag or space blanket freezing uncontrollably and wondering just why exactly I had brought such discomfort on willingly!
- Lots of laughs on the race course with the team, incredible views from high in the mountains and the enjoyment of seeing some old friends on the race course!
So with that, I have some great memories of my time in Spain and overcoming some of the mental barriers that I personally faced during this race. Can’t thank everyone enough, friends, family, my clients and of course, my sponsors, who have stood beside me through a very unusual, busy and tough year! Thank you for your non-stop support!
Adventure Onwards……..just as I will be doing once I recover J
