Tom and Andy are currently traversing the rockies at the Trans Rockies Run. It was a close run thing even getting them there as Tom has been struggling with his knee since the MXR, but he got the all clear last week so off they went. I guess they’ll be aiming for a top 3, but the altitude might be a problem with very little time for acclimatisation.

We’ll keep you posted and hopefully hear from the boys at some point during the week. Haweeyy the lads.

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Phil re-joined us for this stage; we were all a bit loaded up with climbing gear for the abseil and climb, as well as carrying full platypus’s. It was mercilessly hot by now being near midday, but we were making a good fist of it. We caught Lafuma, followed by the leading team Spyder, but there was a long way to go. Too long or me, as I had drunk most of my water after a couple of hours, and was already feeling ‘dry’. Chris was suffering in the terrific heat-the odd patch in the dunes was unbearable, and the pace was dropping. We ran with the Spyder boys for much of this stage as far as the ropes section, Phil was supporting me as I ailed and moaned under the duress of dehydration and cramp. I lost count of how many rucksacks Phil was carrying at one point. He was operating like a tug, pulling floundering hulks off the sandbanks.

Eventually we reached the ropes-there was some water here, but we rushed on into the abseil, when at the time-out we could have had water and a breather. I was slow down the cliffs, they looked bloody enormous to me, and then climbed up the other side like a crippled spider wheezing and blowing. Nonetheless, we got off from there, and the going was good for a few km, before the fatigue began to bite. Eventually we made it to the end of the stage mainly due to Phil’s belligerence, my stiff upper lip having long since become a husk. In the scheme of things we had lost a little time to team Spyder on the ropes, but the fast Kiwi team Go Lite had taken at least 10 minutes out of us on the run, and moved into 2nd place with a very good performance. I was never so pleased to see John’s bearded mug at the end of the stage, where, as usual, the food and drink was all laid out ready.

After some much-needed rest, Jackie, Chris and Phil set of for the 90km bike, whilst I was fortunate to be able to try and assuage the cramp, and recuperate. The highlight of the bike ride seemed to be the large orb spiders seen on the tracks in the dark. The tracks themselves were a mixture of fast trails with sand traps that stopped you dead, or wicked corrugated sections that shook the life out of the nethers. Jackie came into some awesome form, and was peddling through sand when Phil and Chris were falling off looking for spiders. The team did well finishing about 11.00pm, and we were still in 3rd place after the bike with a new day in front of us. I ate lots of warm pizza; it was unfortunately cold when those guys arrived.

Day 2

Phil, Jackie and me set off down the Blackwood River at 6.15am for a 2 hour canoe. Some rogue Aussie’s came steaming past with a huge guy in the back, he was almost powering the canoe single-handed. Once again Phil kept us going straight, but the leaders were out of sight, and we were unsure how we had done compared to the lead teams. This would have been a very pleasant recreational paddle, sadly it was a race. The mist was rising off the water in the early morning sun, parakeets flew across the woodland edge, and it was probably worth having a line out the back for the big one. Keeping my mind on the monotony of the task was the biggest problem.

The second day run was 24km, but an 8km stretch of it looked like it went straight up the beach. And of course it was now bloody hot again, couldn’t we have done this first? We set off well with Jackie sitting this one out, and hoping to make time on the lead teams under the illusion that we were good runners. Whilst we soon caught GoLite, they then found an extra gear from pure fear, while we again started to languish in the increasing heat. Phil was towing again, and that soft, deep sand was again sapping our strength. We resorted to running in the surf edge to try and get some hard ground. This had mixed results, sometimes proving to be the right choice, and at other times we were wading through porridge.

The end was approaching, and suddenly Lafuma went past us. They had had an amazing leg, and ended up taking some 6 minutes from us. The time gap between us and them in 4th was now alarmingly tight, and with 2 bike legs to come, we were up against it to hold 3rd place. This was compounded by Chris requiring the attentions of an attractive medic at the end of the stage, he looked fine to me.

Two bike legs remaining, the gap between Lafuma and us was down to 6 minutes or so. We had already seen that they were horribly good on the bikes, and pulled all the stops out. Jackie was again making us look like amateurs as she waltzed through the deep sand, particularly annoying when I was eating sand at one point following a ‘stopper’. Chris was back in action for the final fling, and drove the pace throughout the leg, the last few km being on the road into Margaret River. We knew Lafuma would be on our tails, and so it proved. We had barely got our breath back from the frantic ride to the finish when they too were in. Had we done enough? Despite breaking a chain on the first mountain bike leg, we thought they had clinched it with some outstanding riding.

It was a huge relief to finish; I was knackered, and desperate to get out of the heat for the first time in 2 days. Thanks to John and Andrew had kept us all going through the well-organised transitions, as usual getting less rest than we did.

Rumours were circulating that on the website we were 3rd, although our own calculations were implying we had lost out to come 4th. At the presentation we waited for the official results, and were relieved and delighted to come 3rd. Beers were on the agenda back at the bungalow, and the winners team Spyder came over for a barbie. However, the night didn’t last long, as everyone was exhausted and turned in despite the best intentions of consuming the enormous pile of remaining food.

The nest morning it was back up to Perth, and there was little time before we were back on the aircraft. Again the Aussie’s greatly helped us out by taking back the hired truck, and getting us to the airport. Thanks guys, great trip.

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Raid Series

Getting off the plane in Perth on Wednesday 15th March, the 35° heat struck us initially as a welcome relief from the falling snow back home in Blighty. The relief was short-lived, as the awful realisation dawned that we would have to run in this furnace within a few days. Naturally we were all well rested from the flight over, and full up with anti-oxidants after consuming Chris’s huge bag of fruit on the plane. There was no nagging fear that the combination of terrific heat and askew body clock might affect peak performance when the race kicked off in Margaret River on Saturday.

We had loaded up with food, in fact we had so much food that there was scant room left in the truck for us, and there might have been a touch of ‘over ambition’ in the shopping. The Aussie connection had done well, and booked us a great bungalow near the start of the race north of Margaret River. Although rumour had it that the long grass was full of vicious spiders, we saw none, and were only troubled by the tame kangaroo complete with joey. There is nothing cute about a kangaroo, they are like enormous rats, but more troublesome.

As usual, after receiving the maps on Friday evening, a hectic session of route planning followed. We finally got to be about midnight for a few hours sleep before the main event.

Day 1

The race kicked off at 6.30 on the beach, with a breeze blowing more or less south behind the boats. Unfortunately the day looked immediately like being a roaster. Although we had considered setting the sail up at the front of the canoe, we decided that the wind was not sufficient to merit the trouble. This was mistake number 1, as several teams, and in particular Lafuma, raced past us with the sails giving them a significant advantage over the first leg. However, we came in strongly under elbow power alone, with Phil doing the tricky job of keeping the canoe head on in the swell. On the second canoeing leg we got the sail up pronto, Jackie managing the awkward ropes like a veteran of the oceans.

By Simon Stainer

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Andorra Raid Series

Finishing second in any race can be a mixed emotion. When the race covers over 220km and climbs over 9000 metres of ascent, leaving you less than 14 minutes adrift of first place, you can’t help but play the ‘If Only’ game a few times. The Andorra Raid was just such a race for us.

We had already experienced Spanish hospitality once this year with Dani Buyo from Taragona taking complete care of us when we competed in the annual Servidrum Race he organises each Spring (very recommended whatever your level of racing). Dani had just recently been crowned the new 48 hr Indoor Cycle Guinness Book of Records Holder (snappy title, eh!), but his new title didn’t stop him from driving back and forth between Andorra and Barcelona to greet us on arrival and help us in every way possible. It says something very special for Dani, the Catalans and Andorrans that he was first amongst all of us to express his thanks at spending time with us at the end of the race. In 4 days he had driven us over 1000km, cooked, cleaned, directed, translated, bought, hired, shared, encouraged and helped us, never once complaining at our poor Spanish, our special requests for this or that or anything. What a guy! Even before the race had started he was, in our estimation, on that rare pedestal occupied by our trusty support crew, Tim and Jon.

With a Saab Salomon GB team just having won in Greenland, another just having competed in Edinburgh, our runners breaking records in France and winning on Snowdon, the Raid squad for Andorra had a lot to live up to. Whilst we like to enter these races quietly with no trumpets and no pride or arrogance, there was no hiding the fact that our past results on races with lots of altitude climbing meant that there were expectations of us that we could not easily hide from. There was a palpable sense of pressure, for sure. But we were also looking forward to the race, a lot more than had been the case when racing on the flat in Australia or skiing in Sweden.

What a nightmare start! No, not because it ‘all went wrong’ or because we lost any significant time, which we certainly didn’t. But as dark was finally losing its battle with day at 6000ft in the Pyrenees, and the 6am hooter rang out for the start of the first mountain bike section, Saab Salomon was confronted with one of adventure racers nightmare scenarios. The road book appeared to forbid teams from using the main road down to the left, so Jim, Pete and Helen had made the decision to take a ‘special gravel dirt track’ up the climb immediately to the right. Whilst most teams would surely be heading left at the start and then, after some 0.5km, begin to swing round to the right, it was likely that at least a couple of the local teams would be heading immediately right with Saab Salomon. It was a cunning plan and one that we hoped would gain the team valuable minutes over the stage. But as the 58 teams sped off in the adrenaline frenzy that always accompanies the start of these races, not ONE team was heading right. Not Les Arc Quechua, not Ertips, not Mont Blanc. As EVERY team hurtled DOWNHILL to the LEFT, our trio were left wondering whether to swim with the shoal, or singularly take their own route in completely the opposite direction. It had worked before, after all. But as everyone accelerated, and still no one deviated, the split second decision that might win or lose a race within minutes of the start, irrespective of physical ability, had to be made.

The pressure to conform and play safe might seem a little weak for such an experienced team, but there was just too much to lose. Already the hesitation had cost places in the peleton and the team was barely cruising along somewhere near the back. So Saab Salomon ditched its game plan, and just ‘went where everyone else was going.’ And the moral to this introductory story? Barely 250 metres from the start, in the murk of dawn, a police motorbike appeared, joining the Peleton and leading it every inch of the 35 minute climb up the TARMAC switchbacks of the MAIN road to the top of the col. Obviously not forbidden then! Had Saab Salomon gone with the map, their interpretation of the road book, their initiative, their ‘cunning’ , then disaster might so easily have befallen us so early on.

The Raid races tend not to ‘pull tricks’ or very difficult navigation, and sometimes the road book can seem very ambiguous. But to the credit of the team, they were able to weigh up the risks and make what turned out to be the right decision. You see, these races, like the ones you might have done, are often raced on a knife-edge of gut feeling, irrespective of your orienteering or physical ability.

With that close shave and a 1hr 40 min bike ride over with, the team settled down to our bread and butter – not the edible variety of course, but the fell running variety. In fact, 3hrs 45 min of it, a stage that saw us score the quickest time and edge into second place. It was perhaps the furthest ‘off track’ that we had run in any Raid Race this year and the rough terrain must have had many teams tip-toeing their way down through the rocks and uneven ground, whilst Jim, Pete and I found our form.

Schedules get broken, and by Stage 3 of the first day it was obvious that unless our team sped through each transition, we might find ourselves timed out somewhere later. This type of scenario can lead to serious dehydration and lack of adequate eating, particularly in the hot temperatures that we were experiencing. Having reached our support vehicle, our heart rates still very high, it was difficult to eat anything – but this is when it becomes crucial to do just that. So as we tramped up to the next 330metre high via ferrata stage, there was a Hansel and Gretel trail of food that we just couldn’t squeeze into our dry mouths. All credit to Tim and Jon for nagging us to eat and drink.

Via ferratta – 1 hour of climbing and very little traversing. How could we lose 10 minutes on something so straightforward? But lose 10 minutes we did. At the end of the race, factoring in such losses makes sobering reading and helps us pin point where to focus our attention next time. Mind you, we had just completed the fastest time on the last stage so perhaps that might have accounted for some of the 10 minute loss?

Poor ol’ French team Ertips. They’re super talented and when you consider that invariably they ALWAYS have the top 3 or 4 fastest times in every discipline, it’s surprising they’ve not beaten Les Arcs to the number one spot in any race yet. Day one was quite a stormer for them. Then it came to light that one of them had not been clipping in his karabiner properly to the via ferratta and a 30 minute penalty stung them out of the top spots, again. Every time, something seems to go wrong for them, but we all know they are an awesome team – perhaps with the best paddling helmsman in the whole Raid series. One day we hope it all comes together for them – a sentiment we feel ourselves too!

A gruelling 4,500ft climb on our mountain bikes faced us next and despite a ‘measured’ effort (knowing that there was still a long way to go) we had to take our hats off to Les Arcs who took 19 minutes out of us. They must have busted themselves. Just watch their orienteer Rudi climb on his bike….its ugly!

Now, hydro-speeding seems a bit of a gimmick in these races and it was certainly just gorgeous to submerge in some cold water with the air temperature outside etching around the 80 degree mark. But rather than just rest on the floats there’s a definite 30% extra speed to be gained by swimming crawl on the slower bits and by ‘flipping’ with both legs at the same time (dolphin like) rather than kicking alternate legs. Some grade 3 or 4 rapids later, several unfortunate capsizes in the kayak and we were set for the last two stages of the day. Another 4 hour mountain trek with ‘aggressive vegetation and difficult navigation’, followed by a 40km bike. It was already 12 hours after the start of the race and at 6pm, we knew it was going to be a long, long night.

Pete, Jim and I bee-lined it up the first 4000ft climb, with Jim practicing his sherpa technique and performing like an ox. Pete had already put in a hard day’s work and so it was left to Jim and me to tackle the ‘difficult navigation’ as we topped out on a heavily vegetated 20km crest. Well, the nav. couldn’t have been that tough as we managed it pretty much spot on. A gruelling night and hard running saw us finish as night fell. With 56 teams behind us, some of them hours and hours behind, the last section were called off and I can tell you – no-one shed a tear!

I think we were placed third after day one, but there were just minutes between the top five teams. It’s both galling and testament to the level of competition that after 16 hours of racing, with maximum effort, less than 60 seconds can separate two or three teams. You go to bed knowing that the extra effort you made in a climb, the reckless canter downhill or the sound navigational decisions have basically left you on the starting blocks with the tops teams, just like day one. When you get up on day two, as always, it’s like all that effort on day one just didn’t matter as its day two that’s important.

Day Two……2hrs mtb, then 4hrs run, and finally another 1hr 45mtb. Was it going to be enough? We knew that we were going to have to give it everything on the run, as it’s just so hard to pull out any big times on the bikes. A 3,500ft climb on mountain bikes was enough to wake us up, but not before a tricky junction had lost us 5 minutes and sent my blood to boil. Now Helen’s just a machine on a bike. It’s just point and shoot with H. Jim is Mister Cool and it’s just as well, as I tend to make reactionary responses to errors. That is to say, we go wrong, so I beast myself and tow and do anything I can to get back the time. It might sound a good idea, but Mr Cool is thankfully often on hand to remind us that there’s still a long way to go… stay calm… don’t burn yourself up… we’ll get it back.

With the running stage still to go, Les Arcs had an 18 minute lead, and Ertips had spectacularly scrambled back in to second spot (you see, I told you they were good). We were about 1 minute 30 behind them, but Salomon Buff and the hand picked Mont Blanc International were sniffing our heels. Pete had sat out the first leg to catch some extra ‘zzzz’s’, so Jim and I were requesting a top performance from him, map reading and otherwise… and Pete delivered the goods.

Jim had put in the longest day on Day One, and was suffering on the initial climb. By this time we had already climbed over 25,000 ft over the weekend, so any excuses were well reasonable. But crest the hill, face down 1,500ft of Lakeland-like scree (it was just great!) and any suffering that Jim was doing was history. The Saab Salomon Team came into their element and the three teams that lay beyond us were reeled in. By two thirds of the way we had caught up with Les Arcs and Mont Blanc International who were putting in an awesome performance.

The journalists were just lying on the final crest of the run (yes, you Rob Howard), most of them helicoptered up, watching us toil, toil, toil up the last big climb, hands on our knees or pulling ourselves up on rocks. We had reached 3,800 metres and had the chance to look down over Andorra, over to France and Spain along the Pyrenees. But the second we topped out, we were so busy avoiding hazardous tripping rocks, getting our climbing helmets and harnesses out for an imminent abseil that not one of us had even a second to admire what was definitely the most breathtaking scenery we had experienced this year. A helter-skelter descent and we were proud to again pick up the fastest time for the leg… all 4 seconds faster than Les Arsc over a 4hr 20min stage. That’s how close these things are! Ertips had found their Achilles heel – rough descents – so we had gained a full 30 minutes on them… some indication of the real need to excel at the running stages on these races as this is where big margins can sometimes be made.

The final ‘ride’ was most memorable for one thing. On a climb of another 2,500 ft on gravel tracks, perhaps 40% of this was just too steep to ride without tipping backwards or back wheel spin. Not so for Rudi from Les Arcs. He just floated the whole way up. Both Saab Salomon and Les Arcs gave him a big round of applause as we reached the top, having pushed and pushed our bikes up. A rapid descent with Helen adding to her mtb scars and it was a well earned second place behind Les Arcs who must be credited for winning three out of the four races. And Ertips? Well they finished third, some 12 minutes behind us, presumably doing their sums with the 30 minute penalty they had picked up on Day One. Could WE have won? Well, yes, but so could have at least 12 other teams. We like to see our glass as half full, not half empty, so we were well pleased with the performance.

Tim, Jon and Dani had provided flawless support and with seriously warm weather their constant attention and forcing us to drink, drink, drink had paid dividends. We headed back to Dan’s partner’s pad in the middle of Andorra’s small capital where Yzan (his son) and Meriea (his partner) generously had us to stay for another night. Some beer and fags from the Duty Free shopping…….to keep Tim’s builders happy at home of course (NOT for the team!) and we headed home the next day. Job done, or near enough.

Now, I’d just like to say that I’m the only one of the team to have raced in all four Raid Qualifiers this year so I’m going to stick my neck out and say that I’m in the best position to judge who should go to the Final in France. Don’t you agree? Well, Tim’s picked the team for the final and he HAS picked the best team to go. We know we’re fast on our feet, that’s for sure. We know we can navigate with the best of them and we know we can fight a good fight at any discipline. Most of all, we know that there’s a little matter of some unfinished business left over from last year’s final. So I’ll be glued to the web at home and I’m sure Nic and the rest of you will be too when we take on the best of them in the Raid World Final in September. It’ll be a last shot at it for a couple of the team, so let’s hope they can pull it off.

As for Nic and me, we’ll be out on the Lake in Jim’s double kayak getting ourselves ready for the other World Champs in New Zealand in November. More unfinished business, you might just say!

By Phil Davies

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The morning came with courses being given out during registration, giving all teams enough time to mark up the map, a mini A-Z of the city centre. A mass start began the race, and about 200 people dashed out of a relatively empty Piccadilly Gardens at 9am. A sprint then began to the first control – we didn’t want to be in the lead, but knew we needed to be near the front to minimise any queuing we had to do.

The pace was fast a furious, and the lead team got away when the first bottleneck was reached, a checkpoint inside a Landover, going in through the driver’s window, and out the passenger’s window!!We lost about 2-3 minutes here, but we kept on going, with Tom navigating very well through his old University town.

After about 25 minutes we were back at Piccadilly Gardens, and set off on our 2nd lap. This again went well, and we went round very smoothly, coming into the start/finish area in 3rd place, about a minute behind Sleepmonsters, who were in 2nd place. The final lap was slightly longer, and with some good navigation we managed to get passed Sleepmonsters, but after playing Wonderwall on a guitar (Oasis would be jealous if they heard us!!), we got confused at the next checkpoint. The description was of a lifting bridge in Castle Quay. We found what had to be it, but no marshal/control was present! What to do – after getting a 30minute penalty in Edinburgh, we didn’t want to miss the control, so after some frantic searching and asking of locals, we decided to go on, the control wasn’t there, and we were in the right place.

We finished the course in a time of 79 minutes, about 6 minutes down on the lead team in 2nd place, a good result, slowed by the missing checkpoint. It was indeed missing and the 3 lead teams times were changed accordingly. So we had about a 5-minute deficit to make up, and a lead of another 3 minutes over Sleepmonsters behind us.

After a bit of relaxation from the fast morning pace, we got handed the afternoon course. Much confusion followed as mistakes were found in the route book, annoying not just our team, but also many of the top teams struggling to mark up the course before the 1pm start time. Suddenly it was 1pm, and we needed to be on the start line, so in a mad dash we grabbed our kit and got to the line, to then be held for about 10mins while everyone else arrived.

We set off out of the gardens, 200 people plus bikes ‘jogging’ to the start punch, in front of a large crowd, approximately 10,000 people at one stage!! The route took us down to the canal, then we all tried to get through a music festival, which was having none of our route, and bikes, and sent us packing! We found another way to the first control, and managed to get a bit of a lead here, which we just built on through the day.

The course was good, some good cycle path riding with some tricky navigation in places, but with Tom on the map, and me with the route book we flowed smoothly through the entire course. There were some good challenges along the way, the first Kayak stage involved 2 people paddling across a lake, portaging to the river, and crossing that to wait for the runner who had done 2 checkpoints in the meantime. One paddler swapped with the runner and ran the orienteering stage, and the others paddled back along the river. The next challenge was a climbing traverse, along a railway-cutting wall, this was very tricky, and caused some nasty pain to the hands, but with a 10minute penalty for not completing, it had to be done.

Onwards through housing estates and across railways to an aerial photo orienteering stage. We had 2 courses to compete, using nothing but a compass and aerial photo of the park we were in. This was tricky, but a steady pace and careful compass work got us round quickly with out any misses, even telling the planner that one control flag had been stolen!!

We knew then that we had a 15-minute lead at least as no other team had turned up before we left. The course then took us back into the centre of town, through the university campus, and past Piccadilly train station to the central Sorting Office, where we completed a dark lap of the car park, and then an abseil from the top of the building, with views out to the Peak District. From here it was about 1km to the finish, with a nasty hill to race up on the bike, a wee bridge to cross and then a short road to the finish. We crossed the line with a time of 3hrs 49minutes, pretty tired but very happy in the way that we raced, no mistakes and fun all the way.

We had to get back to Piccadilly Gardens then to run through the finish funnel for the spectators, but our time had already stopped, so this was just for the crowds and TV. After submitting our time, getting told we had all the controls (phew!!) and changing we waited for the next team, who didn’t arrive for almost an hour!! But we passed the time by watching the Aerial Assault, an urban climbing race that was going alongside our race, with the country’s top climbers scaling many different buildings all over the city, including a 325ft climb up a building right next to the Gardens, an incredible sight, I think the highest anyone got to was 310ft, a magnificent effort and spectacle to boot A top days racing was polished off with a good party, and prizes of outdoor vouchers and 2 way radios.

The Rat Race series has been fun this year, lots of interesting tasks and special stages, lots of fun with the marshals and fellow competitors. Well done Jim and Gary and team for an excellent series. Let’s see what next year has in store for us.

By Bruce

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Rob led for most of the race in front of a very strong field but had problems on the last descent losing out to Michele Tavernaro who finished first in 2:08:30. Simon also passed Rob for second place completing the race in 2:10:08 followed twelve seconds later by Rob. In the women’s race Sharon Taylor took fifth place. This result extends Rob’s lead in the Skyrunner Championship and Simon moves up to fourth.

Next weekend sees the them move on to the 55km La Plagnerace in France where they will be joined by their team-mate Nick Sharp. See the results here or on www.buffskyrunner.com

By Steve

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