Ultra Fiord
The Start Of The 100 Mile Race
Anne-Marie Dunhill / 12.04.2017
The 100miles race was to begin at 00:00 and runners were bused out to the race start from the main town square in Puerto Natales. It was a cold, clear night as the press van left the city lights behind. As we headed out on the bumpy road, an owl swooped low and followed us for a few special seconds.
Arriving at new starting line before the runners, we sheltered in the relative warmth of the van until the last possible moment. The runners arrived and headlights quickly dispersed into the brush surrounding the start line as nervous racers relieved themselves one last time before the start.
Gaby, a member of the race staff who was in charge of giving the start, shouted instructions quickly in Spanish and the impatient runners where finally off. The months of training, long international flights to the end of the world, gear checks, briefings etc etc were finally behind them as they set out to answer the call of this particular race in this wild place.
The press followed by road up to the first assistance point at Mirador Lago Grey. The moon reflected over Lago Grey as we scanned the horizon for tell tale headlights. The view was gripping.
Emmanuel Acuna was the first runner through at about 00:50. He’d race mano a mano with Jeff Browning on the first edition in 2015 and only a knee injury towards the end of that race had stopped his impressive progression. Hot on his tail were Manel Satué and the Polish adventure racer, Piotr Hercog. Tessa Roorda was the third person through this point. Racers stopped briefly to fill up on water, grab a quick banana and have their numbers noted and passport signed. Armand Du Plessis said of the views, “I stopped a minute to look behind me and enjoy the reflection of the moonlight on the water.”
As the lead runners headed out again into the pitch black Patagonia night, the press headed to the next check point in Hotel Del Paine, blissfuly unaware of the nascent drama unfolding behind us.
At 02:10 Emmanuel Acuna and Piotr Hercog were the first runner in and they transitioned quickly, stopping only to have their passport signed. Emmanuel said in Spanish that they’d lost 10 minutes because of the course markings and had gone to Hotel Rio Serrano instead. The race staff was extremely reactive and immediately went out to place more markings on that troublesome portion.
Tessa Roorda came in at 02:14 and left at 02:18; she stopped only to have her passport signed and took one gulp of an energy drink from her dropbag. When Argentinian runner Rafa Lim (two time finisher of Ultra Fiord) arrived, he muttered that he’d already broken one of his poles and hoped to be able to fix it at Balmaceda. Junko Kazukawa (Japan)joked that she was a rock star as the press crouched down to take her picture as she went through her dropbag on the floor.
The Hotel Del Paine assistance area and first access to dropbags was a warmly lit room with hot food and fires in two wood burning stoves. Racers had to force themselves not to linger and head out again into the freezing night. As we waited for more runners on the 100miles to arrive, at around 03:30 I curled up on the floor in a corner and slept.
The press plan was to walk over to nearby Hotel Rio Serrano to catch the 70km start at 08:00 and then continue by zodiac to the start of the 100km at 11:00 located at Hosteria Balmaceda.
At around 05:50 there was a sudden commotion as a group of runners came in; Marlene Flores, Jaime Hume, Ronald Christinic and Vincent Gaudin. Soon afterwards, a raging bull arrived; last years winner Thomas Ernst.
In the early hours it had become clear to the race staff that something was amiss when many of the lead runners had not arrived and the 06:00 time cut-off was nearing. A furious Thomas Ernst ranted in German that he’d been lost alone for 6 hours and other runners were lost as well.
We were anticipating and braced for stories from further ahead in the race and things had gone pear shaped for nearly a third of the runners on the 100miles during the first kilometer of the race.
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