Skandia Team Captains Blog – Lycian Challenge 2014

Thure / 29.04.2014

Ok, so we have entered the finale: the final day before the big race. For us, it has been a quiet week. We opted to arrive late at the start. We touched down in Turkey Monday night and with the start gun going off Wednesday before noon, we have about one day to sort ourselves out.

This can sound like a tight schedule, but it has some advantages I have every bit of kit for the race ready, including food.  My compatriots joke, that we can step out of the plane and jump on our bikes and race – and they are right. And I am much more relaxed fixing kit and buying the last minute stuff in my home supermarket.

Even though we all know each other we can still joke about the biggest obstacle of our work together: The language barrier. Fanny speaks French, Pete Finnish and Peter and myself Danish.

And even though we all have English in common it took us five emails to find the same word for Fins (for swimming. Or flippers. Palms.)

(And right after we all knew what we were talking about, we learned that they are not allowed for the swimming section. I bet you Murphy was an adventure racer :-).

The language challenge biding for the entertainment, we quickly isolated another problem: We have two Petes on the team: Peter Villadsen and Pete Formann.

Solution: Nick names.

Enter the team captain with a quick decision and thus we are racing as Peter ”Pekka” Villadsen, Pete ”Beer Belly” Forsmann, Fanny ”Bonjour” Frechinét and Thure ”Arms&Legs” Fuhrmann.

Myself and Peter are carrying names earned through years of racing: Pekka (a typical Finnish name) because Peter is quiet and strong. Arms&Legs because I am know for being all over the place (Thank you Sessel).

Fanny and Pete are wearing their names for the first time – and irony has it that we now are racing with a real Finn. Well known as a stoic bad ass, I found it fitting that I have brought pink Hello Kitty air mattresses for us for the final swimming section ...

As you probably can tell we have a relaxed atmosphere on our team. This should not be mistaken for not being serious. We are merely enjoying ourselves immensely – and one of the advantages of racing with nothing to lose is that we'll return home happier no matter our result in the race.

But we still count on throwing down  a good race …

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