Eco-Challenge
Packrafts and Personalities - Inside Eco
Anna McCormack / 13.11.2002
As I got increasingly involved in the world of AR, however, I heard many conflicting stories about the Eco. Although it is well organized and has good safety back ups – probably in part due to the litigious American climate – it is also becoming both tame and increasingly bad value for money. Over the last few years, since the course has been kept open for days after the top teams (bribed with free entry) have finished, the skill and fitness levels required to complete it have been reducing. Hence although the survivor-style TV productions still manage to make it look like the ultimate test of endurance and human spirit, it has been changing into a race for first-timers and unfit corporate teams who want to take part in the myth rather than in a truly difficult race.
So, when asked to race in the Eco this year, I accepted with mixed emotions, hoping that the Fijian course would prove more challenging than the previous year’s one. Little did I realize the extent to which my wishes would come true as Mark Burnett almost too successfully achieved his aim to re-establish the race as ‘one worth doing’. This year, therefore, the poor first time teams spent something like £15,000 without a hope in hell of finishing and many of the top teams raced so hard that they quite literally walked their feet off and had to halt, unable to walk another step. It was a surprise to us all.
So how did we fare in general and as a team? Sleepmonsters did a great job of coming up with likely scenarios about what was happening to us all (the three British and the Irish team), but the reality was obviously quite different a lot of the time.
Within team The North Face, we were four very different characters with very different levels of experience. We were hoping for a top five finish if all things went well and we could function at that level as a team. Pete and I have raced together a lot, and have also had reasonably good international results so we knew we would shoulder quite a lot of the pressure ‘to perform’ and make good tactical decisions. Norman and Keith are also experienced but having never before raced altogether as a team, we were unsure how we would fare.
To give you more insight into the people…..Pete talks A LOT, especially right before a race, but he generally calms down and focuses when we set off. I, by comparison, get stressed by too much talk about theoretical tactics before a race and tend to go into recluse mode, fiddling endlessly with my gear. Hence at that stage we tend to frustrate each other to death and it all looks a horrible mess to outsiders looking in. However, once the start gun goes off, we know each other and our relative strengths and weaknesses well enough to generally slip into a comfortable efficient race mode.
SleepMonsters
