ITERA - Presented by Open Adventure
Awaiting The Big Storm
Thure Fuhrmann (Skandia Adventure Team) / 09.08.2014
Part one of three blogs from Danish adventureracer Thure Fuhrmann Kjaer about his teams endeavors taking part in the Itera adventurerace in Wales. Sitting on the plane, he details some of the thoughts going through an adventureracers head shortly before the race starts.
Airborne. At last. We are on the plane heading towards Cardiff and the Itera race.
Like all ways leading up to a long race the past week has been an adventurerace on its own:
Finishing stuff around the house (”Did you put up that shelf you promised?”), being a dad (”When are you home, dad?”), a husband (”You comming to bed?”) and trying to get enough work finished to pull the plug for a week (”I'll look at it when I'm back next week, ok?”).
All that atop of packing for a week long adventurerace (”Who's got a blizzard bag?” ”What the heck is a bothy anyway?” and ”One set of water proof pants or two?”). To name a few.
It makes me think of a pre-Tour de France interview a few years ago with legendary German hard man Jens Voigt. He was asked if he thought the race would be hard.
”I have six children and a wife,” He replied. ”'This is holiday.”
I thought of that last night in bed, talking to my wife.
”Stop whining, you are going on a holiday for a week,” was her reply to my hardships packing crisps and socks.
And right she is: I do adventureraces because it's fun.
And adventureracing does its best to make me forget that. Maybe that is why I enjoy it so much.
Because going to these week long ARs is like entering a bubble. Our own parallel world where iPhones, internet and your job does not matter.
What matters is which types of kit you put in your bag. How much food you put in which of many different bags and how much rest you and your team mates manage to get trying to juggle all of the above.
Tomorrow morning (today, ed.) we will be given the maps and in the evening, the prologue will take place in Cardiff.
So far we've been given the race break down. 11 stages. 143 kilometers of running. 405 kilometers mountainbiking. 110 km paddling. This adds up to a total of 658 kilometers (Did I mention the total 17.800 meters of ascent?).
And being the veterans that we are (minus our crash replacement Allan who is blissfully ignorant of the chaos that is to ensue), we know that any real planning at this early stage is as useless.
The wind, the cold, the rain and the mountains and the sleepless nights will change any cunning plan we made up looking at a spread sheet.
All we know is that we are in for one heck of a ride in Wales. And come monday morning, we will be ready for what ever awaits us.
I'll get back to you all on Sunday after the prologue ...
SleepMonsters
