International Raid Temiscamingue
The fast and the mildly furious at Raid Temiscamingue
Carrick Armer / 09.09.2023
Day Two of the Raid Temiscamingue started out cold, foggy and - of course, for a stage race - fast.
The first morning light saw teams, assistants, supporters and crew huddles near the fire at the overnight camp in Moffet for any semblance of warmth. While some racers were shivering in their race gear first thing, others were still swaddled in blankets. Coffee and hot breakfast were definitely the first order of the day. Of course, once under starters orders the blankets and down jackets came off and the teams lined up for their first day of serious racing.
The course opened with a short bike/hike leg to a checkpoint on a fallen tree on the shore, then passed back through the start area, so a great opportunity to see who would go out hard and who was pacing themselves more steadily for the day. Quebec natives Team Def Leoppard pushed from the start and were the first back to camp, with Uruguay Ultra Sports and Finland's Northern Adventure Team hot on their heels as they rolled out onto misty roads towards their first transition.
As they neared the first transition, they were cheered on by two of the youth racers from the Youth Prologue, still dressed in their Raid Temiscamingue t-shirts. They'd come to support the racers again, and were proudly displaying their medals as they ran alongside the teams towards TA1 - hopefully two future full Raid competitors who've caught the bug.
Stage two was a canoe leg with a coasteering section in the middle of it, out across the Ottowa River, with checkpoints on some small islands, then over a kilometre of portaging their canoes up an overgrown track to the next transition area. Portages are difficult enough for those with experience but Melissa Lambert from Mexico's La Ruta Madre rated this as her least favourite part of the day. Melissa and teammate Javier Barreda reckoned they'd had arguments, sore shoulders and, strangely, cramp in Javier's middle finger bad enough that he couldn't straighten it at all.
After the portage, as the day heated up, teams had a short running leg, with a four checkpoints to be taken in any order, on the promontary where the Youth Prologue zipline had been. At CP11 the teams reached a beautiful shelter overlooking the zipline location, proudly marshalled by the man who'd built that as well the trails the racers had run there along. He was happy to see so many people using the area and the facilities he'd sculpted in his decade of being in charge of the area.
Dan Mallory paused to enjoy the scenery at the lookout but was swiftly ushered away by his son and teammate Adam. "What's he trying to do, win?" was the elder Mallory's retort, though having started conservatively and being near the back of the pack on the first leg, they were working their way through the field ("Passing people is fun" was Dan's considered comment) to end the day in ninth, which would have been higher had it not been for a nav error on the last biking section.
For the next sections, biking on wide gravel roads linked a series of more technical sections. The first was the day's ropes section, a short abseil from the top of a more prominant wooded hill. The race area doesn't have a lot in the way of altitude, but this lump of old lichen on even older rock held a perfect curved face for the racers to quickly rappel down once they'd punched the CP at the top.
After more riding, the next technical section was a short run along narrow, twisting, riverside singletrack to two watery checkpoints; the first a wade/swim across the river to punch in on the far shore before swimming back; the second a pick-your-way-through to a rocky island above the Chute a Ovide waterfall.
Beyond these once back on the bikes, there was a third cool-down treat of a swim out to a checkpoint on a buoy in the middle of a small lake, before a long section of snowmobile track to take the teams to the final canoe leg, where a small crowd were cheering as the racers passed the campsite dock where they were sitting - although another local suggested they may have been drinking a little. Later teams certainly didn't get as rousing a cheer as the happy spectators headed off to the bingo.
And as the racers finally arrived to the overnight camp, Def Leoppard had held their lead, coming in 6:13 for the first day of racing. Both Uruguay Ultra Sports and Northern Adventure Team had slipped off the podium, the latter due to a small nav mistake near the ropes section, allowing the Brazilians of Brou Aventuras to take silver, on Thiago Elias's return to racing eight months after a motorbike accident and a severely broken leg.
Canadian team Les 2 De Piques took the third step overall, with Team Puke ("It stands for 'People Using Kinetic Energy'", they were quick to point out) taking first Mixed Pair, Les Pauloises first Female team, and Team G, another female pair being the final team to make it through the cutoff to close the full course. All the racers need now is a good night's sleep before they get up and do it all again tomorrow!
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