YogaSlackers at CP7

Rob Howard / 19.02.2016

It was a long wait for a second team to arrive at CP7, an 8 hour wait from the time East Wind arrived in fact. The transition is set up in a field behind the tiny town of Rio Primero on the shore of the Fiordo Obstruccion, and is surrounded by mountains and forest, out of which team YogaSlackers finally emerged, still in 2nd place. 

As the moved into the transition at 16.54 it was clear all was not good. Jason Magness was hobbling awkwardly, with Chelsea Magness pushing him, Daniel Staudigel towing him, and Alex Provost carrying his pack. It had clearly been a real team effort to get him to the end of the trek. "We were doing fine until my hip went," Jason said, "and I could really use a new one now." As a result of his problems the team had been much slower then they had hoped, but were still pushing to transition as fast as possible, constantly working, talking and checking with each other. "Let's assume Merrell are right behind us," said Daniel. "We wouldn't have been surprised to be told we were in third or 4th place" he added. Jason said, "You know we won't make the Dark Zone right?" The reply came, "Yes, but we want you to have as much rest as possible ... and anyway its good practice!" When I asked Jason about the injury he said, "It's not new, I've had problems for a long time and been putting off having a replacement operation. I took a cortisone injection about 6 weeks ago but it had worn off by the time we arrived and the hip was painful even in Punta Arenas. Running all of that first stage hurt a lot and the uneven ground doesn't help ... and that's pretty much all of it here! It's not so much the hip that hurts, it puts all my other joints out of position as well." Chelsea chipped in, "Yes, but we're here, we're second and we have 7 good hips between us. That's amazing!" 

The team were clearly not going to let the injury hold them up any more than absolutely necessary and were still racing hard. Daniel said the trek was "all fairly easy" and "just slow" with a little snow on the pass, and the team had taken a lot of sleep, camping out for 9 hours on ridge soon after crossing the Hambruna Pass. They'd been carrying a camera shooting footage for the race video and asked for more batteries for it, only to find they'd dropped it! (They thought it was near the village and the checkpoint staff are out looking for it now.)

The team are now riding along the road to Puerto Natales, before moving on to Estancia Perales where they will stop for the night due to the kayaking Dark Zone until 06.00 tomorrow. [Dark Zones are part of race time. So if the wind has dropped enough for Team East Wind to complete the first paddle they will have a huge lead.] 

This report was submitted by YB Satellite Tracker direct from CP7.

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