Raid Aran

Day Two: Failed "Options" and Changed Time Cut-offs

Anne-Marie Dunhill / 06.07.2015

After the drama of the missed canyoning cut-off, the French team Issy Absolu 1 took a couple of hours to rest and regroup. Viviane Rognant had a problem with a disappearing contact lens in her right eye and the team waited for the medical staff to come off the canyoning section in order to have her eye examined. They eventually left the transition area after 23:00, having decided to skip the following mountain biking section entirely and go directly to the 25km trek that had an 1,280m elevation gain.

As the temperatures cooled at dusk, support crews who had been waiting in the scorching sun all afternoon were able to cool down a bit. Baptiste who is supporting XTTR63 and Laurent Lestarquit who is crewing for Issy Absolu 3 joked together as they consulted the tracking system. Laurent is an excellent navigator who was forced to crew this race due to an injury. He had spotted one of his “options” for which he is well-known on the French adventure racing circuit and earlier in the day he had excitedly explained that he had traced the route for his team that would be the “hold-up of the century” if they were able to find the track.

However, his option didn’t pan out and his team ended up going off the maps and losing a considerable amount of time. Laurent fielded a frantic call from the teams social media manager in France who was dot watching, asking “What in the world are they doing way off the map?!” The team also called Laurent at one point to ask his assistance to navigate them back on course.  Baptiste gleefully teased him, saying, “Looks like your team got busted on their hold-up of the century!”

Teams took their tents and sleeping bags as they bivouacked on this section following the canyoning, before arriving by mountain bikes to the transition area in the town of El Pont de Suert. The French team FMR was the first of the Elite teams to arrive at 09:53.

El Pont de Suert was the starting point for the Open category; a smaller race of 30 hours that enabled teams to get a taste of what adventure racing is like, without racing the 75 hours of the Elite and Adventure categories. The race started at 08:00 and one of the top executives from Trangoworld was racing in the Open category. The bright, fresh faces of the Open category contrasted with the weary teams on the other two categories who had already been racing for over 48 hours in the heat.

In El Pont de Suert the race director Xavier Rodriguez gave his staff instructions to do a surprise gear check and to verify that all had their Goretex’s, waterproof trousers and a polar fleece.  He also insisted that every team write their team number on all of their energy bars (which was good to see) because the race would be going through a national park with very strict litter laws.

The temperatures had finally cooled in the evening and several teams mentioned that they’d been actually cold during the bivouac and had been unable to sleep. However, temperatures soared once again and the support crews faced another boiling hot day waiting in the sun for their teams. Showers were available in the local gym and Maya Castex who was supporting the all-women team Les Belettes said, “You have no idea how impatient I am for the team to transition so that I can finally take a shower!”

There are no longer many adventure races that require support crews but the ambiance on those that do is fantastic. The support crews are clearly such an integral part of the team and their devotion and abnegation to their team members is heartwarming to observe. Lupe Diaz who was crewing for a team from Catalunya took a bad fall as she rushed out of her van to set up transition. She stepped in a hole and badly twisted her left ankle and banged up her right knee. However, her tears were because she felt she was letting her team down on the last twenty-four hours of racing as she could no longer set up the transitions. But as always in these sorts of races the team adjusted to the new variable and went on the finish the race.

Teams left El Pont de Suert on foot to the kayak section.  They had a choice to either use a kayak or a stand-up paddle (SUP). The water here was pristine and lots of fish were clearly visible in the waters that lead to a reservoir.  A chance encounter with one of the race staff, Gemma Arnau, at the entry to the kayak section was a boon. Gemma had been in charge of the rafting section that had been so controversial for the team Issy Aventure 1 and it was good to be able to get the other side of the story in order to understand what exactly had happened at that crucial point in the race. Race photographer Raul Comino graciously translated from Catalan to English for SleepMonsters.

We all looked at Gemma’s notebook from the different sections of the race. It was noted  that Issy Absolu 1  entered the water at 13:13 with team number 7 of Spain.  When asked how long they had had to wait before getting a raft, Gemma said that the wait had been approximately the same for all of the teams to take off on the rafting section; about twenty minutes.  She added that the rafting section had been shortened from 30km to 18km because of the low water levels on the river and that all of the organizers were disappointed that they hadn’t been able to keep the original length as it would have kept the racers off their feet for a while longer. She said that teams had had to wait because each raft took two teams and if two teams weren’t there to fill the raft, there was a wait. This conversation with Gemma confirmed the circumstances that Viviane Rognant had attempted to explain to the race officials when they were informed that they had missed the canyoning cut-off by 3 minutes.

The stage from El Pont de Suert was one that consisted of trekking, kayaking/SUP and climbing. Those teams that were able to complete the climbing section received a four hour bonus, which added to the already complex system of times and points and optional and mandatory checkpoints that the teams and their support crews had been struggling to understand since the start of the race.

The time cut off for the next section was originally set for 22:00. Teams that arrived after this time wouldn’t be able to engage in the high mountain section that required teams to carry and use crampons and ice axes and as such miss the points acquired by the mandatory checkpoints there.

At 15:00 the time cut-off was moved forward to 00:00; a decision announced to teams at the organization table as they left El Pont de Suert. According to the race director, it was to allow more teams to attempt the high mountain route since a reconnaissance by a staff member earlier in the day had shown the levels of snow on the route to be acceptable.

However, teams that did not pass by the table on their way out did not receive this information. That fact had a considerable impact on Elite teams racing for the podium. The French team FMR was the first to transition off the mountain biking stage in a tiny gravel parking lot the entrance of the Vielha tunnel. They had been racing hard against the Catalan team Vall Fosca and were pleased to again arrive first at 21:35. They took a 15 minutes nap scattered in different places and headed out to the next section.

FMR’s support crew, Elodie and Baptiste, explained after they’d left that the team had gone all out in order to make the 22:00 cut-off, doing the mountain biking section in five and a half hours. They went on to say that the team had actually knocked a half hour off their predicted time of arrival at this transition area; exhausting themselves in the heat in the process.

The high mountain trekking section that followed turned out to be more than many of the teams lower down in the ranking had bargained for.