Lythgoes Adrenalin Rush

Wild Horses and Rucksacks on Fire

Rob / 29.05.2002

It’s been an eventful Wednesday, for all sorts of reasons and there have been some remarkable changes to the race order. Most astonishing is the way the leaders in the morning ‘Maybe Xdin’ have lost ground. They began the day with a 3 hour lead, but by midnight were still on the caving section and many hours behind the 2 leading teams. Frustratingly, there is no news on their condition.

They were there with Reebok Adventure, who were having problems of their own. First they left their topo guide behind and had to go back for it, losing at least 25 minutes, then they got lost trying to find the second cave – it was very tricky in the dark. Hellman Moritz were looking stronger and more organised and amazingly The North Face had almost caught them all, after starting the horse riding 12 hours behind. But then they had the advantage of 8 hours sleep the previous night at the Youth Hostel at Killybegs.

The other news of the day was the withdrawal of Nokia Adventure with the recurrence of an injury to Kaisa Varis. This came after they ran across an angry local land owner who bared their way with his landrover, though he had no right to do so. Brian Elliot arrived to sort the issue out but it made no difference as Nokia had decided not to go on.

Just behind them Avengers had an unusual emergency too when a rucksack, being worn at the time, caught fire! Presumably, the result of flares shorting out. Another team to have an emergency situation were Surf Mountain. They had just set off on the horses when 2 of them bolted, throwing their riders, Fraser Crawford and Geraldine Jennings to the road. They were shaken and had sprains and muscle pulls and had to pull out of the race. Nor were they the only ones there were reports throughout the day of teams chasing horses about the countryside trying to catch them.