Adventures Abroad – Part One

Rob / 19.09.2002

At the final ACE Race of the year SleepMonsters.com caught up with a couple of racers who had been competing internationally – with some success. Nicola MacLeod was just back from winning the pairs class at the 4 Winds USA Supreme race with Richard Picton (both from Team Avengers). It’s billed as longest established expedition length race in the U.S.

“Apparently it’s one of the bigger races in the States”, she said, “but with Raid The North Extreme on and the recent Primal Quest there were only around 30 teams – though they included some experienced people - former Eco-Challenge teams like ARGear.com. I think they were a bit surprised at the result”

“We won by a big margin, despite making an 11 hour mistake on the last day! The race was about 7 days and towards the end we had 24 hours in hand then set of bushwhacking for hours on end, only to end up back where we’d started. It was on that detour that we met the bear …. and going around that slowed us up by another hour or so.”

“There was loads of bushwhacking across Utah and some great biking. We’re not really bikers and didn’t expect to do so well but the Americans slept too much, they all stopped the first night and we just kept going. It was hot in the day so we slept then and moved on during the night, you needed a different strategy.”

Richard and Nicola certainly impressed their hosts, who had this to say: “Seven days after the previous Saturday\'s start Team T& T Avengers, (named after their helpful sponsor from Sandy, Utah) tirelessly pummelled the course through the wilds of Utah near Salt Lake, with elevation gains of forty-some thousand feet and weather variables of blistering heat to freezing nights. They graciously pursued the winners\' spot, seemingly effortlessly, drawing farther ahead of the competing teams day after day. Always a pleasure to staff across on the course and always with a smile this mixed twosome ran, biked, paddled, swam, horse back rode, climbed and trekked through nearly 350 miles to come in as first place winners. They were excellent ambassadors from the British Isles.”

With the Avengers not competing as a team at the moment Nicola was racing with SWART at the ACE Race and will be at the British Championships with ‘Team McSweeny’. Then in November she joins ‘Team Land Rover’ for a crack at the Southern Traverse in New Zealand, where the competition will be tougher than it was in the States, but there won’t be any bears!