Ultra Fiord
A Brutal Wake-up Call
Anne-Marie Dunhill / 19.04.2015
The 100 km and the 70 km races started at 08:30 from the hotel Rio Serrano. After quickly mingling with the racers in the warm lobby to get a feel for the atmosphere the press piled into a van to get to the river before the runners and as such weren’t at the start of these distances. From a media point of view it had been difficult to impossible to get clear information about what to expect at any given point and so it was necessary to simply follow and keep your wits about you.
After a bumpy off road drive we reached what was to be the first of many river crossings. A short time afterwards racers for both distances arrived and after running along the rocks on the river bank they crossed the river using a rope for balance. Xavier Thevenard, a French runner from team Asics who won UTMB was racing the 70 kms and he came flying through first. His team manager, Laurent Ardito, called out in French, “Take it easy Xavier” as Xavier was running like a young thoroughbred race horse. Xavier gleefully answered, “But I love this!” then he was off like a bullet.
The water was waist deep for many of the racers and there was a lot of yelps and squeals as the runners crossed the frigid glacier waters. It was the most brutal of wake up calls at the very start of the race. Some runners stopped to take off their shoes and socks: little did they know at the time that this was to be the first of many river crossings and dry feet would soon became a moot point. One competitor was wearing the running sandals that were made popular through the Copper Canyon Ultra Marathon in Northern Mexico (they are the footwear that the Tarahumara run in).
All three distances were now following the same race route and those on the 100 miles had been racing for nine hours. After the last of the runners had passed through the river the race director, photographers and press ran back to the vans. Five French people were following the Asics team and had been traveling independently in their own van until this point. They were understandably impatient to continue following the race but in the confusion and excitement of the race start they had somehow managed to lock their keys in the van. There was a lot of giggling and every photographer had their camera out to capture the “oups” moment.
Once the lock on their van had been jimmied we were told to grab all of our stuff and we walked a short distance to a jetty where three zodiac boats were waiting. After putting on thick bright red one piece suits that looked like something one would wear skiing, as well as life jackets, we waddled down to the boats. As the rain turned into hail, the journey of covering the 70 km and 100 km races had begun!
SleepMonsters
