Aveyron Adventure Race

Running the Roc – The Prologue

Rob Howard & Anne-Marie Dunhill / 24.07.2013

The teams at the Aveyron Adventure Race had until 15.00 to relax and prepare their kit today, before returning to the huge stone barn where they had registered earlier in the day for the race briefing.  This is one of many immense stone buildings in Nants, and had the advantage of being cool, even in the heat of the day, which was intense.

Race Director Adrien Seguret ran through the course and the maps were handed out, along with road books for the teams and support crews.  All the maps are 1;25,000, and there are 46 in total, plus a couple of specialist orienteering maps which will be given out along the way. These cover a course of 510km, which is made up of 343km mountain biking, 130km trekking and orienteering and 37km kayaking, so it’s a course to favour strong riders.

There are 14 sections in all and within these there some with optional checkpoints (on the orienteering, canyoning and the final kayak stage), and there are several cut-offs, mainly towards the end of the course, where sections close and time penalties are applied.  It looks like a demanding course and takes teams on wide arc through the whole Aveyron region, to finish at the town of Laguiole, passing through several major valley systems and mountain ranges.

What will make it even more demanding is the heat, as teams found out on the Prologue this evening.  This began at 18.00 in the town centre and was a run-relay, with the teams splitting into pairs for a circular run up to the Roc Nantais, a dolomitic limestone column on an oak forested ridge 400m above the town. It was still blisteringly hot for the climb, which set out across the 14^th century Pont de la Prade and climbed steadily up a farm track and then a rocky single track, before following the ridge line. The descent was much steeper and more technical, and it took the first pairs around 50 minutes for the round trip before they handed over to their team mates to complete the same run.

Quickest were Lafuma Rose, one of the race favourites, followed by Team Chauds Patates, who were delighted to get in ahead of last year’s winners, Raid Quechua. Quechua said, “It’s hot! Now we know what we are in for!”  They were followed by Absolu Raid who commented on how beautiful the trail was, then came the Czech team, Raidlight, X Bionic and Bimbache Raid of Spain. Some of the later runners were distressed by the heat, and one female racer was gasping and in tears as she approached the finish – so the prologue was a timely reminder of the effect of the heat, even on such a short stage.

The finishing positions will determine the start times tomorrow morning. Lafuma Rose will leave first at 08.00, with the rest following at 30 second intervals. (This is to spread them out a little and avoid bottlenecks on a narrow mountain biking trail.)  The race begins with a 32 km MTB stage, followed by orienteering, more mountain biking and then the longest trail run of the race at 43km.

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