Buff Power Ahead
From dusk on day 2 and through day 3 the Buff Thermcool team have powered ahead of the field, opening up a substantial lead.
They started to make their move approaching the first ropes stage on the Sierra Guerdos using local knowledge to their advantage. Some of the team train regularly in these mountains and team captain Emma Roca explained; “We knew the navigation on the later part of the trek would be hellish in the night so we pushed and pushed and pushed and gained an hour on Silva to reach the ropes first, then kept running to cross the high ridge in the last of the daylight. In that time we gained more than 2 hours in 4 hours of racing as Silva arrived at the difficult section in the dark.�
The section she refers to is primarily rocks and boulder fields, with no path and just the occasional cairn to guide trekkers , so it was no surprise the later teams were reduced to a very slow pace in the dark, but Buff took the path down out of the hills with a lead of around 3 hours 40 minutes, and they were not going to waste it. It was a lead they sustained through the day, which was blisteringly hot after the freezing night, and although they lost some time by taking the wrong route on the bike ride following the second kayaking stage, they were still around 3 hours ahead as they arrived in the town of Bejar in the evening, ready to begin the next trek and skate stage.
After a low level trek out of town they reached the road to the Sierra de Bejar ski slopes for their second skate of the race, and it was a brutal one, climbing ever upwards in switchback after switchback, to reach 1900 metres. Roca lagged at the back, saying between gasping breaths, “No energy!� Yet, when the team reached the top just after nightfall (around 20.30), she was quickly issuing instructions to her team. They made a quick change, pulling on more clothes as already the temperature was dropping sharply and it will be well below freezing on the hills again tonight.
Roca was continually asking about the teams behind, and is always urging her team onwards. There is no stronger competitor in adventure racing and the team are even more highly motivated this year, wanting to win on home soil and claim their first world title. They have been top class racers for almost 10 years and show no sign of slowing down.
Race Director Antonio de la Rosa recalled racing with Roca in the 1999 Eco-Challenge in Argentina where they finished second. “Emma is always saying ‘go faster, go faster’ and she never stops. She is formidable, but sometimes you just want to say; ‘Emma, stop talking!’ He shook his head thinking about how long ago that race was. Since then Roca has become a mother and spoken of retiring from competitive racing, but she just keeps coming back. She now has 3 young children, and her team mates have another 5 between them. Yet the high level training and racing is sustained, and the will to win is as strong as ever, and that is what is driving Buff Thermocool forward and keeping them ahead of the competition going into the third night of the race.
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