Canadian National Adventure Racing Championships
Nasty!
Doug Doyle / 30.05.2006
\"A picture is worth a thousand words:\" an attempt to describe the indescribable and usually referring to a thing of beauty - however the descriptive \"heinous\" serves as a single word reference and one does not need to expound beyond this as to what the expedition teams experienced during their trek from the start line over a day and 48km\'s ago. Bob Miller, Race Designer would not likely have referred to this portion of the race in this manner but he knew it would be an epic adventure featuring typical dense northern Ontario backwoods. Surely he would not have thought teams trekking in this portion of the race would endure a bloody, tedious and exhaustive slog testing physical and mental determination and resolve? Surely he would have factored into this trek an \"easy\" way through the brush perceptive navigators would have picked up on? Surely he would not envision that teams and racers would have started to fall back and drop out by CP1 and CP2? Or would he??
I was positioned at CP3/TA1 for the most part of the day as Bob Miller suggested this would be a prime location to view teams coming into transition off the trek after a long hike from the abandoned sawmill to Beauty Lake Road.
What I saw and heard was not for the squeamish. The fastest teams were expected to reach this CP/TA at about 6:30am however the lead team SRS Canda (Simon River Sports) finally arrived at this checkpoint at 11:05am and the CP staff radioed to race HQ they looked in fine shape. Unfortunately, SRS left the transition area before I arrived and I was not able to obtain their opinon about the race this far.
Team Beowulf arrived at 1:17pm to a round of applause from race staff and support crews. They wearily walked to their support area and James stated \"You could get lost forever in there...it\'s unbelievable.\" Sammy quoted that it was \"...a long 25 hours of this nasty bush; when it was raining, it never dried up, it was very cold.\" Each member of the team had different physical woes to address and it was enough for me to imagine the trek they had just completed: they were bedraggled, filthy, covered with forest detritus and their faces and necks were covered in welts with dried, caked blood all around the bites from the incessant black flies.
Bug nets designed to be worn over heads proved ineffective as the blackflies were able to creep under the elastic drawcord and trap themselves inside the netting to feast unfettered. Shirt cuffs, waistbands and socks were no deterrent against the non-stop assault by the blackflies as they sought out blood sources from the only bipedal sentient beings in their area: adventure racers. Bug sprays and bug soaps did nothing to cease the little critters and each racer had choice words for the parasitic creature that on it\'s own would be a minor nuisance to you or a small speck on the windshield of a car, but in swarms, they wreak havoc to humans and animals.
Team Supplierpipeline.com arrived at 1:53pm and Trish stated to me that is was \"Heinous. The blackflies are enough to drive you insane.\" I asked her if this was a good way to spend her birthday and she said yes for the first day, but a resolute no for the bush trek.
Subaru Canada arrived at 2:30pm and Kurt summed it up thusly: \"My brain is melting. A few hours ago you were cold and miserable, but by 10:00am the furnace came on.\" Alex and Jim shared navigation duties with Alex navgating at night and Jim taking over during the day. Jim was happy with the way his team performed in the bush and with the navigational choices.
Team Adidas Canada made their way into the CP next, less one team member (Nigel) who was unable to continue beyond CP2 due to exhaustion and not being able to keep water and food down. Andrew commented that Nigel was struggling to keep up and had absolutely no energy left when they eventually arrived at CP2. Leanne felt it was more of a safety issue for them to leave Nigel at CP2 with the CP staff, who are members of Search and Rescue and could provide medical treatment. Nigel\'s condition was monitored by the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) via radio and even though his condition stabilized with rest and fluids, he would need to be escorted out of the woods by SAR. Leanne summed up her teams feeling abou the trek when she advised: \"I used to like trekking, but I don\'t now.\"
Mike Schaffel with Team Terranauts arrived at 4:15pm and was overheard to say: \"The trek was 40 miles of the worst misery you could ever imagine. The first half was insane and the second half was hell.\" He watched with concern while his team mates\' blood pressure was taken by an EMS tech who was worried about the racers\' heat issues.
John Yip from Team RunningFree.ca made it to CP3/TA1 and was racing as a team of three since the start of stage two, after team mate Denise injured her right hand while falling after being towed on her mountain bike.
John noted he had never seen bush so dense in his racing career. He told me he and his team would likely set a self-imposed dark zone and not continue until tomorrown morning. he was feeling the effects of being hungry since midnight after his food ran out and not having any liquids over the last few hours.
Teams are still out in the field, sharing the misery experienced by the teams ahead of them that have finished the trek, only for these teams who haven\'t reached CP3/TA1 it continues much longer as they attempt to navigate this excrutiating course as darkness approches. At least blackflies will bed down for the night and leave the racers alone. But watch out tomorrow....
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