Richard Ussher (Thule Adventure Team) / 29.12.2010
On Mirfa BeachIt’s amazing how fast time goes – already the end of another year and time for the 4th instalment of the Abu Dhabi adventure challenge, now a regular on our December calendar.
This year we were heading back to Abu Dhabi with the same team as last year, Nathan and Marcel, Elina and I, but with the team racing as the Thule Adventure Team.
Travel is almost without exception the worst part of the whole process and so we were relieved not to get too much of a mauling on the excess baggage thanks to a very generous manager at Singapore Airlines. Maybe it was a good omen for the race?
The usual pre race activities ensued over the following two days – a mega food shop, gear checks, and media. It was nice to finally hit the sack the night before the race knowing in the morning we’d be into the racing.
This year the format for the race was quite different than previous editions. Each day had either multiple sections or for the first time outside of the prologue, sections with multiple disciplines. The course had also essentially been reversed with the mammoth Desert and Kayak sections now at the end of the race rather than at the beginning. It was going to be interesting to see how it affected the racing.
<b>Day One: Prologue (morning)</b>
The prologue this year started with a mass Le Man’s start. Fifty teams of four sprinted across the beach on the Abu Dhabi waterfront to their inflatable canoes for a short blast around a short course and back to the beach. It was the first time canoeing had been included in the race and many teams found keeping the boats on course a challenge.
Our team had the largest run to the boats and so we were swamped by the pack as we neared the first buoy. We managed to move through the field steadily though and by the first CP we were well placed as we raced out onto the run. We were quickly into the lead and building a buffer and hit the swim portion with a good gap to second. The swim was our weakest leg as a team but it was my lack of a hair cut that had unexpected ramifications, when on sighting for the next buoy my goggles were covered by my rather long hair (note to self – have a hair cut next time or wear a cap!). We were still leading out of the water and raced back to the canoes for a longer leg in the canoes across to Lulu Island and a short orienteering section. By the time we returned via canoe to the finish there were still teams heading out to the island making it hard to judge who was behind us. Waiting on the beach Team Thule Europe came through in second, over six and a half minutes down, leading a large procession of teams.
The Prologue had again served up some surprises and we’d managed to gain some valuable distance on the completion. This would give us a bit of flexibility in our strategy but more importantly it gave us a buffer for the afternoon run section where we anticipated being under fire from the known runners in the field.
<b>Day One: Bike - Run Section (afternoon)</b>
After a two hour transfer to Al Ain we had some preparation time on the bikes. The main concern though was finding some shade as it was a very hot day.
We decided on the bike section to try and stay near the front but not exert ourselves too much as once the bike was finished we were straight into a six km run over a small Mountain section which promised to be far more challenging than six kilometres sounds on paper.
SleepMonsters
