International Raid Temiscamingue

No Substitute for Youth at Raid Temiscamingue

Carrick Armer / 08.09.2023

The Youth Prologue has long been a fixture of Endurance Adventure’s events, and it seems a great way to encourage young students into Adventure Racing. Students from a number of schools in the region get paired up with the local and international racers and take part in a short day race with all the standard disciplines and skills needed for any good adventure racer.

Raid Temiscamingue started just the same, with the Raid teams meeting their young proteges at registration, taking them through the maps and route books, and working with them through the Prologue race. For some of the racers, this parental duty (of sorts) might be a common reality; for some it might be a taster of things to come (or not); for Dan and Adam Mallory of team Adrenaline Rush, it was a tri-generational thing, since they're already a father and son pair, with Dan the 'most mature' in the race at 71.

As the defending champions, they've a weight to bear, but Dan's attitude is very much that "We had fun last time, we're aiming to have fun this time".

One risk for the students paired with the international teams is often the language barrier, especially in a predominantly French speaking region with teams coming from all over the globe and speaking a variety of other languages, but everyone seemed to get through well without any major miscommunication.

The students paired with Northern Adventure Team had one thing easy, though - with both team members called Lauri, at least they only had to remember one name. Some students were faster finding their 'Pros' than others, though the later ones probably weren't helped by some racers seemingly not realising they needed to make themselves and their race vest numbers visible so that their students could find them.

First order of the race was a section of classic eastern Canada gravel road, and while this part of Temiscamingue is rolling rather than mountainous, there were still a few climbs to test the legs of the riders. The gravel gave way to much tighter woodland single-track toward Pointe-aux-Roches and the main thrill ride for the day, a long zipline out into the water, with the checkpoint at the end of it.

There were a few nervous faces climbing the ladder up to clip onto the zipline, but fortunately the water they were splashing down into and wading back ashore through was relatively mild. The climb back from the lake shore caused some problems, though, with both the ascent and technicality of the trail making a few people walk. At least once back on the gravel road, there was space to get a push from a teammate if needed, and a few riders did. 

Once back to the main start/finish/transition area at the Ecole de Carrefour, the bikes could be dropped and the team’s headed via a short trail run to the canoe section, with one ‘grown up’ (though some of them might admit they use the term loosely) in a boat with their pair of students for a quick paddle around the edge of town. There was still some navigation and awareness needed, though, with a couple of checkpoints to be collected on docks and piers on the way.

With those collected and the canoes and paddlers back on dry land, there was just a short run back to the school for the youth racers to bang the finishers gong, custom made for the race by a steel fabricator in the finish town, and collect a well-deserved medal. There were some very tired faces, but also a lot of smiles, hugs, fist bumps and high fives, and hopefully the short prologue might have sparked something for the Youth racers.

For the Raid racers, there's the small matter of 2 days and 160km of racing to come. They'll be getting tucked into their beds at Moffet for a good night's sleep before tomorrow's 8am start - though since their support crews have to drop their canoe off at the first transition between 6 and 7am, they better make it an early one tonight!