The Coastal Challenge
Time to Recover
Lisa de Speville (Photo: Sergio Pucci) / 25.01.2005
Unlike Stages 1 to 3, Stage 4 started with our departure from the ferry in late-morning. I was feeling queasy and we were also all ravenous as we hadn’t had breakfast. Leaving the port we boarded buses and headed for a restaurant about 15-minutes away. They’d been briefed to expect us and had iced lemonade and chicken burgers with fries prepared. They went down well and I went outside to lie down again in the shade.
Sometime after 13h30 we left again on buses for a point a few kilometers before our overnight stop at Playa Ventanas (Window Beach). This is actually where our post-event party will be held on Saturday evening.
We were given the option of walking along the beach for 9km to the end, or boarding the bus for the overnight camp. It was around 5pm so I took the option of riding on the bus so that I’d get through to the camp in daylight. In essence, because of all the delays in the last 24hrs, stage 4 had been cancelled and in fact was the perfect opportunity to rest up and recover from the ferry and bus rides, which were more exhausting than stage 2’s >50km run!
Here I must comment on the event organization. Transporting competitors during an event is a bad idea. It’s distracting and unfocusing, even though it presents the opportunity to move the event into a different environment. The logistics of this exercise was initially difficult and the weather made things impossible.
What did impress me was that in the past 24-hrs the organisers have pulled buses, brunch and other feasible alternatives out of their hats without causing too much additional delay. And, even though we ‘skipped’ stage 4, the rest was welcomed by all competitors after the first 3 tough stages. See All Event Posts
