The Long, Long, Trail

Rob / 15.10.2002

How can a race get slower and slower, and yet more exciting by the day? Friends and families must by now have no fingernails left to scratch their nervous itches with, while those with internet access at work will be way behind with the paperwork.

Day 5 has seemed to go even slower than any other on the race though whether it’s that way in reality is hard to tell as there is obviously a long delay before the leaderboard positions are updated. But through simple fatigue the teams must be slowing, and if anything the course is getting hard and the weather worse. Throughout Tuesday there were rain storms, which will have made the big rappel up the waterfalls so much slower, and the trekking and packrafting section beyond is the area Mark Burnett said was the most difficult navigation on the course. Into day 6 only one team, the Spaniards Buff AXN, have reached CP9 from the total of 18.

The front end of the race gets ever more intriguing, and there have been many leaders already. Montrail/Parallax had held the lead for some time and top 3 teams were together at CP7, but by CP8 the Spaniards had pulled out a strong lead and they were out of PC9 before anyone else came in, which will be a huge psychological advantage. CP9 is the bike pick up and transition, where teams will get to their gear boxes again - and many will be desperate to do so.

Few will have expected to take so many days between the 2 bike transitions (though they never knew how many or where they were when they packed the boxes). They must all surely be running low on food and having to think about getting local supplies, and dreaming of a change of clothes and footwear. The North Face Kona packed a wide choice of shoes, hoping to change regularly and protect their feet, but they have been constantly wet for days now and have not had access to the dry footwear they packed. Teams seem to have been in the water much of the time, even when trekking or rappelling, and the weather has been wet too.

Some of the teams pulled off the course have been hypothermic after taking too little clothing with them. They were in the highlands in wet and windy weather so it may not be surprising, but hindsight is a wonderful thing and this is Fiji after all!

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