Tales from TA4

Anne-Marie Dunhill / 12.11.2014

Teams further back in the pack had had to push hard to make it into TA 4 in time for the 17:00 cut-off. As I wrote yesterday, team France-Vaucluse Adventures Lafuma were the last ones to make it in before it was announced that the time cut-off had been extended.

Some of the best stories and emotions emerge at these crucial moments in racing and TA 4 was no exception. Journalists were continually checking their watches and when 17:00 rolled around we went back into the room that was serving as the transition area. Beginning to write an article sitting on the floor in the corner, I heard a woman’s shout and quickly ran outside to se what was going on, thinking something was wrong.

Two teams had come in together eight minutes past the initially announced cut-off, Irish AR and UK-Peaklife Sport. The shouting was Avril Copeland’s reaction to the good news and as the two teams crowded around the race official the looks of pure relief and joy gave me goose bumps.

In the transition room Avril said “You wouldn’t believe what happened to us out there,” and then went off to tend to Eoghan (pronounced Owen) who was obviously doing poorly; pale and unstable on his feet as he stood by his bike. Richard Nunan finished the conversation that Avril had started as she went off to fetch chicken noodle soup from the street vendor out front.

Richard said that they had had a comfortable three hour margin on the time cut-off and had even stopped off in a small town to eat. Then Eoghan got violently ill with the runs and as he was navigating, things went badly pear-shaped from this point on. Richard said that there were tense discussions as his map reading ability went temporarily south with the contents of his intestines. When asked if it was something Eoghan had eaten, Richard said, “We all ate the same thing, I wish it was because then it just be out of his system soon, but I think he just “bonked” hard, and that means it could happen again.The team finished eating and looking after their sick teammate and then rolled themselves up in their sleeping bags for some much needed sleep.

Team Brazil Kalash Brou Adventures had mistakenly believed that the cut-off was at 14:00 so they had pushed themselves to the limit to make it in time and sat crumpled in a heap on the ground as a wandering dog took advantage of the situation and ate from one of the team members plate as he slept with his plate of chicken, rice and potatoes perched on his knees.

Another Brazilian team, Advogado Aventureiro, captained by Euder Melo De Almeida, were also at this transition as the cut-off time approached. Their race bibs were as sparking white as when they were first distributed and that sparked my curiosity. Wladimir Togumi very kindly translated for me and their story was hilarious. They had gotten lost coming in to TA 2 in El Chacon: as reported earlier, they were the last team to leave this TA. The organizers sent them a message via their Yellow Brick tracker asking if they wanted to withdraw and their captain very comically mimed for me his reaction in pressing the “No” button.

They were told that they needed to make their way to TA4 in order to continue the race so at first they tried to get a taxi but it was too expensive so they spent over twenty-four hours traveling by buses to get into the transition in time to be able to continue racing (hence the pristine white race bibs).

Once in the transition they had a lengthy discussion with the organizers to be allowed to continue racing but were told that their boxes had already been transported back to Quito so now they are travelling to Quito to pick up their boxes and continue the race at some point. It is impossible to adequately convey this team’s excellent sense of humor and laid back attitude towards what is turning into more of a road trip then an adventure race, but their laughter was infectious.

Teams in the middle to the back of the pack will have been trekking overnight to reach TA5 where they will be sitting out their 4 hour penalty. We are making our way there now. 

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