How to start??!!! I flew to Calgary on the 20st of July to meet up with the team. It all started pretty bad with a 7h delay on one of my flight :/ When I finally got there my team mates Michel, Bruno and Cyril picked me up and off we went to do our race food shopping. I didn't know the guys very well. I only met Cyril for two days for a bit of training in France and had only met Bruno, our team captain, through skype. the first couple of days before the race were pretty much allocated to race prep and driving down to Nelson with the rental van...8 bloody hours all cramped up in the back of the car...great...On friday night we got given the maps and instructions and on Saturday we got moved to Kaslo. On Sunday morning we got into a bus and off we went to race start where our bikes were waiting for us. At 10am the race started. The first bike leg was pretty short but pretty much up hill all way. Michel came to help me out towing me a little but he ended up taking my bag and I rode on my own which was way easier. After a while I took back my bag when I got yelled at cause I was going up too fast :/ Should have gone super slow, dammit!!! Start of the trek that followed went well until we started bush bashing. I am not such a good bush basher and for having had a look at the maps while plotting our routes I knew we could have avoided this bit but anyway the decision was made and I just tried to follow. My pace wasn't very fast which didn't please the boys, especially when we had to cross lots of time the river on bloody trunks more or less safe. Me and my fear of height took a massive slap in the face. We got to a river crossing in the dark, i hesitated cause i was scared and within 2 min realised my team mates had crossed and they were gone. After a wave of panick hit me I managed my way accross. I think the anger i rescented towards them at that moment actually made me do it...not such a bad thing afterall. Once we finally managed to get out of the bush, after ripping our hands on the fabulous devil's club bush, we ended up climbing up towards a snowy peak to get to CP2. I was finally moving but the atmosphere was tense. Our dear team captain mentionning that I was pretty slow in this section and that cause of me we had lost a phenomenal amount of time. I can't deny I was slow bush bashing but I did my best on the moment and when we got to CP2 we were 11th going through in the same time than the 10th team. I started feeling a little better knowing that. If I was that bad I think we would have been a lot behind that, no?? Anyway the rest of the trek went smoothly. Right after CP2 we had to go down snowy slope and I discovered I love walking/skiing without ski/bum slidding down the mountain in the snow :). At transition just before jumping on the bikes we had a 2h sleep (actually the guys had, I wasn't tired and was just getting organised for the next leg). And off we went on the bike. After a few sweet up and down and a little stack for me (I went back so quickly on my bike due to "I am gonna kill you look on one of my team mate's face"). We went through Cody and Sandon where we had a little stop at a store near an old bus where I got my picture taken driving it hehe... and then we started to climb up and up and up again to the summit. Our navigator got a rough time going up on that one and Michel went to help him a little. This guy is so strong on the bike. I think he could have towed the 3 of us. The downhill was a single tracks in switchback along the cliffside and I got a little scared but I managed to keep the guys pace even if i was running next to my bike sometimes. Once on the bottom the weather started going wild with massive showers etc and the night was there too. I only took a small headlamp and not my riding one to save weight....bloody mistake... and I struggled a fair bit to go down the last bit till transition. We got there totally soaked by 10pm ish and it was out of question to get into the boats. It was dark, foggy and raining which would have made the canoe section a bloody nightmare. We decided to sleep a little in a little bathroom/toilet hut with 4 rooms in TA but I didn't sleep much more than 3 hours. Other teams were coming in which to me was totally normal since there wasn't any other place around to stay dry if you didn't have a tent. And I must admit I was a bit worried for not seeing some of my friend's team not coming to transition. First thing when the sun was up we jump in the boats and paddled our way to the next trek. I was paddling with Cyril which was good. He is so calm and nice that it couldn't go wrong. The first 20km of the trek went super quick as there were on a track but then we spent about 5 hours to make our way through what is 1.5km max in a straight line. Problem was we couldn't go in a bloody straight line due to cliff faces stopping us all the time. We ended up going up and down so many times the mountain it was a nightmare. We were as you can guess bushbashing in the prickly devil's club again and quite thick bush. Going up and down was hard to me as we were quite often exposed and were quite often in unsafe positions. Once we finally reached lake Beatrice we made a fire and had an hour sleep. We were all freezing and soaked. Once dried and pseudo rested we continued our way to the next CP. We climbed a waterfall on the left side and half way through we saw on the other side a guy gesturing, waving to other people and to us screaming something that sounded like help...what do you want to do in this case??? My first reaction was to say let's crack the radio and try to call the organisation so they could look around and see if their teams were all ok but before doing that I needed the approuval of the team and another argument was born. Our dear team captain not wanting to waste anytime. Having one of the boys on my side we ended up doing it. As we were trying to get a radio contact we managed to get the other guy on sight and with signs realised he was ok. Ok my bad, I did stress for nothing. However I prefer to have cracked the radio for nothing than letting someone in troubles in such conditions..no? We finally got to the CP, little hut where awesome people were waiting for us with cup of soup etc...We managed to not stay long and made our way to the next part of the trek. Before we left the hut we asked if we could buy food there as we didn't have much left (we misjudged how long this trek would be) and a very nice girl, Lucy Harris came to me with some trail mix and a cliff bar...Thank you so much. As soon as we were out of ears I got reminded by our team captain that this was to share within the team...who do you think I am dude???? Of course I will share with the team !!! The rest of the walk went very well for me. We were in the snow and I liked that. It was a little scary when it was steep and the only thing that could have stopped our fall would have been rocks or frozen lake but the views and the experience was just magical. After 40min walk or so, another team reached us calling me saying they heard we were low on food and gave us heaps of food. I think it was team 4 but not too sure of the number. Anyway a big thank you to them. It was generous and very kind of them. After a few descent slidding on my bum for the whole way we got to the bottom of a single track and on the dirt road....A bloody long dirt road 15 to 17km of flatish walking that destroyed my feet. At that stage our navigator was struggling but still moving and our team captain started sleep walking. Michel was making sure he was staying on track and I had proudly the map with me. For the last 3-4km I took Mich's backpack on..Except from my feet I was feeling good. Once at transition, around 3am we decided to have a 2h sleep before jumping on the bikes. When we woke up we didn't move very fast. My hands were all swollen due to devil's club prickles stuck in my skin making infections all around. I got told to take anti histamins which I did. That morning we rode smoothly to the zip line that we did with our bikes and then rode up and up and up again (recurrent feature in this race) and then pushed and pushed and pushed our bikes up. I can recall Mich saying something like "surely it can't climb much more than that", about 1hour before we stopped going up. It was hard work. Mich helped me a couple of times pushing my bikes while on feet with the towing device. crazy crazy crazy uphills. One of the picture from RTNX is a keeper, it is my feet, too sore to stay in the bike shoes whilst pushing my bike uphill hahaha...The downhill went better than expected with me making more and more progress and only stacking once (someone is looking after me up there cause I did look like a headless chook on my bike at some stage not controlling much of what was happening underneath my wheels). At the end of the bike we put our bikes in the canoes and off we went paddling with a head wind pretty bad. Paddling is usually my strength but this time it has been a nightmare. I was litterally falling asleep as we were paddling. I apparently can immitate a sort of paddling stroke whilst deeply asleep but i am not sure i am actually touching any water when i do so. After what seemed to be 5 min to me Cyril told me we were stopping on the side for 30min to wait for the wind to hopefully drop a little. I understood a little later that we have been going for over an hour and I didn't see any of the 5 or 6 km we had travelled...damn me sleeping all that way. I do blame the anti histamin I had taken that day though. I haven't been tired for the whole race and here I was unable to stay awake. The whole paddle was a nightmare especially for Cyril since I was falling asleep so often and we were both scared to tip over with bikes not strapped to the boat etc... :/ By 3am we finally got to the last CP before transition that was less than a km away fro the end of the paddle. We were supposed to see our gear boxes there...supposed did i say??? We spent a 13hours at that CP waiting for our gears (and food) to get there. Fortunately there were two awesome volunteers there who gave us food, a bit of warmth with a fire and even some dry clothes. Thank you so so much guys. After a 3hours sleep we were all awake waiting for our gears that were supposed to arrive at any minute...Bad points: the wait made my legs just go crazy and they started swelling up. I had to cut my compression pants with a knife cause i couldn't fit in them and my feet were pretty damn big too, bearly fitting in my wetsuit booties. Good point: we met two awesome teams: SOG and Dancing Pandas on that shore and their company made the wait worthwhile :). at 4pm we finally got our gears anf off we went on the canoes again, across the lake and on our bikes. The first bike leg went fine and then because of the wait we missed the next trek leg so we had to bike to the next bike leg. That bit, going down the bulldog mountain was so so cool with a 15km or so downhill giving us wonderfull sceneries. We got to the last transition before the finish, CP18 I think at 10.25pm and the cut off was 10.30pm so we were the last team to go through that point without beeing short coursed again. We left transition and 2 hours after stopped for 2h sleep. We finally reached the start of the seven summit trail at around 3am if i am right. We got to the top of it by 5ish am just on time for the sunrise. once on the top we had to wait a little for two of the guys to come up and I was freezing as, all wrapped up in my survival blanket. Once we started moving again and the sun came out we were on the fabulous single track. As I was whinging pushing my bike up the single track all way up the bloody mountain I was wondering what all the fuss was about on this trail but once on the top, riding this smooth, little challenging but awesome single track along the ridge I understood. It was so beautiful, I had a blast. My team mates commented to me later that I had improved so much technically and that they were sure I was going to kill myself when they saw me going down there :) Yeah for me :). We finished riding down and then to Trail with the Dancing Pandas which was a cool way of finishing the race and passed the line at around 9am on Saturday. We finished 6th overall (however results are going to be revised we won't be below 8th place I reckon) and I am super stoked with this result. I might not have been as good as my team captain wanted me to be but I think I did well and for my second expedition race ever I am just happy with the results. Now time to find a team for XPD to go and kick some ass in Tasmania in november :). I am well and truely addicted!!
N.L.
http://www.raidthenorth.com/RTNx/2011/livecoverage.php
One of the world's oldest and most-recognized expedition adventure races, Atmosphere Raid the North Extreme returns with it's eighth edition in 2011. The West Kootenay will provide an inspiring and challenging race course in true Atmosphere Raid the North Extreme style - Real Wilderness, Real Navigation, Real Adventure.
Over 6 days, four-person co-ed teams will navigate a 500km+ expedition over an unmarked route by paddling, trekking, trail running, mountain biking, and using fixed ropes through the wild and historic West Kootenay of British Columbia.
Live Race Coverage:http://www.raidthenorth.com/RTNx/2011/livecoverage.php
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