Raid The North: Deerhurst Resort

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Deerhurst Delay

Doug Doyle / 23.07.2005

RtN Deerhurst is underway.


I’ve heard the midnight race start was delayed until 2:00am due to uncontrollable factors. Race information from HQ should be arriving at any moment to keep Sleepmonsters.ca fans up to date with Raid the North Deerhurst drama and to explain why the race was delayed.

A delay or in fact, a bump up in start time is not an uncommon event in the adventure racing world. Staging any adventure racing event is an endurance test for the race director and staff due to the amount of lead time prior to the start gun being fired, in most cases at least a year prior to the event.

The pre-race work up issues consist of finding race venues that cater to the racers demands for authentic and challenging race courses and also reasonable logistics for transportation to and from the site, easy check point access and adequate transition/staging areas to accommodate the racers and support crews.

Public and private land use permits, volunteer and community support, arranging for emergency medical response, communications coverage in the field and planning for contingencies take time.

Continual review and organization of the event by race staff and volunteers are behind the scenes efforts few racers are aware of; ask Dave Hitchon, course designer, how often he was in the field to ensure the race course would challenge all levels of adventure racers and not be either too easy or difficult to the point where a small percentage of teams can actually finish the regular course.

Factor the unpredictability of weather into the race directors\' equation and you\'re left with a dynamic \'work in progress.\'

So a delay by a couple of hours is not a big deal.

Just in:

While I was preparing this report word from the field indicates that the first team to complete the 8 km trek into CP1 at 4:14am was Temiskaming Trekkers (#16).

By 5:30am, 12 other teams have cleared CP1 and are now in the woods trying to navigate the numerous trails and roads and stay out of the thick bush. The teams will be aided by sunrise and their forward progression should take them to their first transition to change from trek to biking after covering a distance of 18 km in the woods.

An unidentified team has cleared the CP2/TA1.

More results to follow.
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