“You start at Midnight�

Rob / 13.04.2002

That was the major announcement at the first team briefing - race start will be midnight Sunday 13th. It was met with near silence. No barracking, no gasps of dismay, just thoughtful silence.

Most of the teams had already worked out it was going to be an early or night start from the timetable for the end of the race, it’s not so hard to count back 72 hours, but maybe they were not expecting midnight. It means they’ll go after a days testing and packing, the final ‘haggis and neeps party’ and the second briefing. There might be time for an hours sleep if they are very organised, but probably not.

The reasoning isn’t just to keep them ‘wrong footed’, but because the course starts with a long, long mtb section and the organisers want to be sure the teams reach the high risk area of the mountains in daylight.

It was always clear sleep strategy in this race would be vital, but with this start time it’s even more critical. This is especially true as the later parts of the course are in the mountains, where there is not shelter. It’s not like you can just lay down at the side of the track to sleep. The question is whether the lead teams can go through the whole race without rest – they won’t be taking the full 72 hours, and may just decide to do that.

However, Pete James of Goretex Golite said; “It depends if the right shelter presents itself. If there is a good place to stop it will probably be worthwhile to take an hour to sleep. We’ll have a tent but there is very little likelihood of us bothering to get it out.� All the marshals have been instructed not to pass on any information to teams arriving at checkpoints regarding who is behind them and how far off they are as this might affect their tactics. If they know the next team is 2 hours away they could decide to rest – but they’ll never know.

James’ team mate Pasi Ikonen also recalled his experience from the Raid Ukatak in Canada where his team led over the snow, setting a clear trail for everyone to follow. As a tactic they got the fittest team member to lay false trails and lead their pursuers round in circles! So, it might be unwise to follow his trail in the snow.

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