Raid in France
The Sleepmonsters Are Held At Bay
Anne-Marie Dunhill / 05.09.2016
Monday September 5th.
The first 76km trekking section of Raid in France was a long one with considerable altitude gain. Temperatures were warm and the wildlife abundant. Teams trekked through the first night and throughout the day towards CP7 where they would be held in a dark zone until 05:30 on Monday morning.
Early in the evening volunteers cheered loudly when they recognized the first team, 400 Team Naturex, coming down the mountain track arriving at CP7 at 19:17. Nicolas “Colo” Seguin said that his quads were on fire. With a large smile he added in French, “During the race briefing when we heard that there was a dark zone at this point I wasn’t too excited about it but as the section progressed I was longing for it!”
Seagate arrived second at 19:35 and Chris Forne quickly scanned the area and noting that 400 Team was already there, said to his teammates “One team snuck by.” Nathan Fa’avae seemed to dismiss the information with a terse “yeah yeah”; as per usual he is clearly concentrating on their race and paying scant attention to the competition. Stuart Lynch said that the section had been a bit harder than they had expected and that they hadn’t always taken the best route choices but that the sunrise had been beautiful.
Issy Aventure Absolu Raid 1 arrived third at 21:52 and RaidsAventure.fr came in fourth at 22:01. Teams that had completed this first section relatively quickly had ample time for a good meal and a full nights sleep; a maximum of 5 hours was counted here out of the 11 hours total mandatory rest time.
Teams continued to arrive throughout the night and the CP was relatively noisy but between the hours of 03:00 and 04:00 it was calm and the only noises heard was snoring in all directions and various animal calls. At 04:50 Pascal, the race director, was in quiet discussion with the volunteer Monique who had stayed up waiting for teams throughout the night. He was scanning the list of arrival times and commenting on how well some of the teams had progressed.
At 05:23 the 400 Team emerged from where they had been camping further away from the noisy CP and at 05:30 on the dot they started walking towards the rafting section that opened at 07:00. The river was much higher this morning than when we had passed by yesterday on the way to CP7; as planned, EDF had released a considerable amount of water.
The first trek had taken a heavy toll on two of the 28 teams that started in Font Romeu who were forced to withdraw from the race; DSN74-Hoka and Raid Nature 46. Raid Nature 46 arrived at CP7 at 05:49, transported by the race doctor. Hélène Garnier had started the race injured and state of her knee prevented her from continuing. She was in floods of tears arriving at CP7 and her teammates expressed frustration at being “out of the race before it started.” They headed a ways out of the CP with their gear to sleep and figure out a plan to return to Font Romeu.
As Seagate was heading out of CP7, Nathan remarked that it was like being on holiday, “We’ve had a sleep and now got to go rafting.” The rafting started right before the entrance to the Saint-Georges gorge on the Aude river at 07:00 and teams took to the river in 5 minute intervals; their times dictated by their arrival times at CP7. We have been informed that the rapids will be class IV.
400 Team finished the rafting section at 08:38, followed by Seagate at 08:39. On the water Seagate closed the gap with the lead team by 9 minutes. Team 17, RaidsAventure.fr/Team2Raid was next, finishing at 08:48, followed by IssyAventure Absolu Raid 1 at 09:00.
After the first rafting section teams will transition to a 91 km mountain biking section that will take them past several historical Cathar chateaux and the racing will begin in earnest. This area that Raid in France is currently traversing is steeped in the history of the Cathars; this persecuted religion was very active here from the 12th to the 14th century.
Raid in France 2016 live tracking: http://live.raidinfrance.com
SleepMonsters
