Raid in France
A Rocky Ride Of Emotions In TA4
Anne-Marie Dunhill / 06.09.2016
Tuesday September 6
As expected, lead teams finished the trek section early on Tuesday. Seagate arrived at 10:02 and left the transition area at 10:14. Today is Isla Smith’s 22nd birthday and after the team had left the transition zone and were studying the new set of maps that they had received at this point, volunteers brought over a plate of candy with a candle in the middle and sang her Happy Birthday in French (Joyeux Anniversaire.) It was quite a unique way to celebrate for the young woman.
The second team to arrive was 400 Team Naturex. They had grabbed some sleep as planned in the refuge overnight and ‘Colo’ had perked up. Volunteer Isabelle Plane read him his trail mail messages from his wife and he seemed to be doing much better. They arrived at 11:15 and left at 11:39.
The first time cut-off on the race was at 09:15 this morning for teams that were coming off the long mountain biking stage. The original time of 09:00 was moved forward to take into consideration the late start on the rafting section yesterday. Although the lead teams had already completed the trek and were on their way by bike to the next section, teams further back had to make a strategic decision; push hard for the time cut-off and risk not being able to complete the rest of the sections due to the difficult sections leading up to the cut-off or ease up and rest at the transition area.
Team Intersport chose the latter option and they were the first team to arrive at the transition after the cut-off. Christophe Aubonnet explained, “We all agreed to miss the cut-off and enjoy the rest of the race. We wanted to give ourselves the best chance of finishing and during the night, since we knew that we wouldn’t make the cut-off, we decided to sleep at CP10. We rolled out our sleeping bags, looked up at the stars, commented on how beautiful the sky was and promptly fell asleep. You know, moments like that are also why we do adventure racing. I’ve been racing since the Raid Gauloise days and it’s a sport like no other; I keep coming back no matter what other sport I try.” (Ed: Christophe Aubonnet is one of the founders of Hoka shoes.)
Temperatures were over 30° today and several teams struggled with the heat, including the third full course team #17, RaidsAventure.fr. Rudy Gouy led the team off the trek and into transition. He forcibly called out “You guys, put yourselves in the river now or we’ll all get heatstroke!” The Caraca river flowing from the gorge above the transition area was welcomed relief from the heat for all teams. Fanny Frechinet’s father Francis is following his daughter on this race and he proudly snapped pictures as the team transitioned. Fanny said “I’m doing better than last night. I’ve had the same stomach issues I had in Ecuador and having been throwing up black (sic).”
15 teams made the cut-off and are on the full course. Teams arriving after the cut-off were not allowed to start the trekking section and they had to wait in the transition area until 19:00 before being allowed to continue on to the next mountain biking section. Official permission from the park services had been refused so the race director had to insert a road liaison during which the clock is stopped for all teams. They have 2.5 hours to reach the next section. Several back teams, arriving to the transition area after the technical MTB section they’d just completed, stated that they weren’t keen to do the road liaison at night and are likely to wait until dawn tomorrow before getting back on their bikes. Three teams left immediately after 19:00 and will be attempting to finish before night falls. The yellow high visibility vests that are mandatory when biking on French roads are masking the race bibs for this short section.
The heat got the best of one of the racers on the Finnish team #23, Woodman. They called for help and the race director and doctor picked up the racer in a 4x4. Nico Toimela was suffering from exhaustion and was initially stabilized by the race doctors, arriving at the transition zone at 16:38. He was then transported to a local hospital for further checks. Raid in France has a solid medical team of 5; three doctors and 2 nurses specializing in re-animation.
The Dutch team #20, Vertical Dissidents, were in good spirits although they had missed the cut-off. They sat discussing strategy in the transition area and joked saying, “We’ve had a broken bike and a broken body, so we’re probably not going to win this year.” One of their team members had dealt with intestinal issues on the first day and another one’s back wheel had broken. They said that the tool they needed to fix it was back in the car in Font Romeu. They were laughing and bantering so much that it was hard to believe that they’d only had two 20 minute sleeps since the race started.
Night is now falling in this canyon where TA4/CP13 is located, that has been so oppressively hot all day and teams are still trickling in from the first mountain biking section. Raid in France is living up to its reputation of a hard but beautiful race.
21:30-Thirteen teams are now on the full course.
SleepMonsters
