RAID PULSE 18TH OF MAY 2013 - 1st COED TEAM

Race report written by Alexandre Provost:

Team 1: Camp de Base

Racers: Nathalie Long, Jean-Yves Dionne
Category: Coed

Team 2: Icebreaker TouchLab Mtl

Racer: Alexandre Provost
Category: Solo

It was the classic of the classics of adventure racing in Québec on last May 18th. Raid Pulse is a race that has figures on our calendar for years has it is a bold, very challenging and rewarding AR event. Annick and Thierry have been organizing their races with passion for more than 10 years and it is definitely one of our favorite race. For a second year the race was hosted at Base de plein air Air Eau Bois. This area has endless possibilities with the majestic Lac du Poisson Blanc and it's easy to imagine races up to 48h going on over there.

We had decided to race Raid Pulse with two different teams. Nath and JY as a coed duo for Camp de Base and myself as a solo Icebreaker TouchLab Mtl. We had agreed to more or less race together and pool our resources navigation wise but I would not physically help in any way to keep things fair for everyone.

The day was beautiful and sunny, which would later make up for the announced swim...

Gear in action

Osprey Talon 11 + 33

Nuun hydration

Swiftwick compression socks

Suunto Ambit (route/hr tracking)

Suunto M-3 G compass

Julbo Eyewear Dust - Ultra - Pipeline

Icebreaker tops

Unleash compression tights

Dynafit MS Feline Superlight

Thule bike racks

Platypus hydration systems

Course layout

The race started at 10:10 am with a trek for 4 CPs. As it seems I have a tendency for it... we again started quite fast on the run... only to soon realize we had passed our junction point for CP1 shortly later. We bushwacked our way uphill and got to CP1. The rest of the trek proved to be more tricky than anticipated for us... CP2 went relatively well downhill and then we went for a freakin' cold but thank God short swim to CP3 as it was located on a small island and it was the shortest way... At that point there were many teams around, which is always tricky to deal with... at least for me. After again taking unnecessary detour to CP4... we arrived at TA1 a fair amount of time behind the leaders and unhappy about it, but also knowing we still had time to make up for our mistakes.

After a quick TA we hopped on to our bikes on the way to Mont Sainte-Marie mountain bike trails system. First we had to negotiate the dirt road on the way. It went well as we caught a few teams up the road. It felt good to be on the bike and finally feel we were moving with speed... especially on the awesome long descent! 

At CP5 we met with volunteers extraordinaire Tanya and Ray who had designed a fun and technical course in Mt-Ste-Marie trails. We took the extra coordinates for 2 advanced CPs and off we went. The trails were beautiful, quite rolling and dry. A good pace and execution got us out of the loop and back on the dirt road in good time, making our way up in the ranking.

After some times on chemin de la montée à Jean Marc, we had to shift to a trail at CP8. It was an oldlbike/ATV trail was really rough, with a lot of trees that made it hard to handle the bike straight. We gritted our teeth for that last part of riding and push biking with very rough trail conditions... (but isn't it what we signed up for ?) The key with rough race terrain is always to just not stop and keep moving and to remind ourselves that conditions are equal for all teams... Given the circumstances we were doing good... until... oups... flat tire. Up to that point I had not really minded the bugs... but when you have to stop and stand still for a few minutes they happily remind you of their presence... we managed to get over this bump quickly and resumed onto the trail and soon got to the bike drop. CP10 and CP11 were then to be collected 'coasteering' on the side of the lake... but we managed to stay dry and then ran down the the last TA happy to finally get a leg break and to jump into the boats. We were also very happy to take an extra second to refuel ! At that point the volunteers told us we ere in 5th and 6th place... which meant everything is still possible given our paddling skills. 

The paddling at Air Eau Bois is what makes this place so special. The Lac du Poisson Blanc offers fantastic views and endless navigation possibilities. There were 2 mandatory and 4 advanced CPs on this last section. the Mandatory had to be collected in numerical order, but the advanced could be taken in any possible way. This what adventure racing is all about, route choices. After mapping the 4 ACPs on our maps, we went on in our boats and soon collected the 2 mandatory CPs (12-13). 

With enough time remainning on the clock we then attacked the advanced section by heading north to an island, but instead of going around where the CP was, we managed to short cut the boat ride significantly and add just a 50m bushwack. The operation was successful as we passed two teams in the process. We then resumed paddling south west toward the other ACPs with a similar strategy, getting as close as possible on water without any detour, and then bushwacking in/out. 

After collecting all CPs, it was time for me to take advantage of the PRS surf ski a bit so I left my comrades and paddled alone until the beach for the last short trek uphill to the finish line. Nath and JY arrived only  1 minute later.

We were surprised to be congratulated as winner of our respective category, and to be 2nd and 3rd overall ! Not a bad race after all !

Congratulations to Les Gaétan des Bois JF and Yannick for their overall win. Félicitations à tous les participants. Merci aux organisateurs Annick et Thierry ainsi qu'a tous les bénévoles!

Results: http://raidpulse.com/homeFr/presults/index.php

Photos: http://raidpulse.com/photo/indexfr.php

Alex

TEAM RAIDPULSE.COM WINS THE OVERALL AT STORM THE TRENT

Race report written by Alexandre Provost:

Team name: RaidPulse.com

Racers: Nathalie Long, Alex Provost

It was Storm the Trent on May 11 in the hamlet of Warsaw, Ontario. We had that race on the radar for some times so we were looking to it with excitement. Nathalie had done the race last year (2nd coed/5th overall) but it was my first time racing with Storm so I was looking to discover this race series. Perfect racing weather, not too cold, not too warm.

After spending the night in a world class 0.05 star motel... we got there early enough to get all the gear ready... but I managed to get thin on spare time by moving canoes around (changed the 16' for 17') and had to fix a cable housing that somehow got out of his place on my bike. Nath was very ready and was even a bit annoyed by my loose schedule and quite social behavior...;) but we managed to get on the bus with everyone else and were ready to race at GO time.

Gear in action: 

Icebreaker tops

Osprey Talon 33L

Julbo Dust and Ultra

Nuun Hydration + visors

Suunto M-3 G compass 

Suunto Ambit (route tracking allowed)

Swiftwick compression socks + visors

Unleash compression tights

Thule bike rack

Platypus hydration system

The race started with a trekking section where we had to collect 3 CPs in any order. The flooding made it a bit difficult to follow the landmarks and we took a little detour to get the first CP as we overshot the trail we intended to use, but we managed to get back on track relatively quickly and resumed our high running pace to the second CP which was right on (including a few roots bang along the way...). Then again I was a bit scrappy on the way to the last CP of this trekking leg but we did not loose much time, punched that flag and ran back to where the race started to pick up our bikes. Nath wasn't too impressed with my nav at that point... I wasn't either, but most of the race was ahead of us and I felt highly confident about our bike/canoe skills. Back to start/TA1 I had to kick myself to get on the bike quickly as my speedy teammate was again waiting for me... Oh well!

 

Once on paved road we shifted to overdrive working as a unit and got to the next CP quickly and we started to ride on ATV trails for a 2 CP any order loop. Trails were nice and Nath was riding very well so we managed to slowly claw our way back with the leaders, catching speedy Barb 'Tree Hugger' Campbell on the way as she had blew us on the first trek... We rode through most of the mud puddles and at the next CP we caught up with a bunch of riders (Chad Spence, Pullin Foot, Tom Martin, Recumbent Tree Hugger and a few others) so I figured we were making good times and it gave us some extra boost. Trails were unexpectedly rolling so we were able to keep a constant and fast pace. Back down the loop we were neck to neck with the leaders and Peter 'Los' Dobos (read his blog) confirmed us there were no one else up front but them so we were definitely back in the game! Again we welcomed the paved road and we punched the afterburner and soon we were dropping the other teams and solo racers on the way. By the end of the paved road we had managed to open a little gap in fist position, not without leaving some energy on the track... 

 

Back on trails (marked this time, blue line on the map) the change of rhythm was really welcomed (at least for me!) and we kept pushing it through some technical trails and then more mud puddles. Pullin Foot were not far behind and caught up at some point and we stayed together a bit of time talking about the CP to come (which was further than we both expected). After the second CP we were again alone and kept going as fast as possible as a unit, now on dirt roads. But Pullin Foot fought their way back and at the very end of the leg we were together again biking into the TA. 

We knew we had to transition as quickly as possible to avoid having them drafting our wave on the river. We had talked about the TA at the end of the bike and it our actions were clear in our mind. I knew Nath would be in the boat in a matter of seconds so my execution had to be bang on. There was a gear check at the TA so we cleared that quickly and in no time we were in the boats head down and paddling. We did not see Pullin Foot as we left the bay so it seemed the transition played to our advantage!

At that point I felt our chances of overall victory were increasing with every paddle stroke as I highly suspected that we were the best paddlers and we were in the lead. Being such a good paddler Nath pulled lots of water at the front and kept a high tempo, and I was paddling hard and steering our 17' canoe in the right direction. Being on water also gave our legs a bit of rest before the last trek. It was about 4,5 km up to the TA so we got there relatively quickly with a tail wind and nice scenery.

TA staff warmly cheered us up when we arrived and again a quick transition got us on foot for the last trekking leg where 4 CPs were to be collected in any order. Sometimes when you jump in the canoe after a big leg effort like we had just did the legs are a bit soft when you come out... and it happened a bit at that point... but luckily without much consequence as we had elected to go counter clock wise, hence not starting with running but bushwacking. So off we went with the first CP a bit off set on that short bushwack. Starting with the bush bought us a bit of break before trail running so it felt like the right thing to do. The way in went well and we got to the flag after crossing some water... Then for some reason we got stuck into thicker bush on the way out... A few swears later we got out and started running on the camping roads. The rest was on trail so we had to put the hammer down and make the right choices. The race started to take a toll on us as I was a bit low on energy and Nath also felt less powerful, so we ate and drink a bit to make sure we could keep our hectic pace until the end. At the end of the loop we could have bushwacked down back to the TA as the trail was passing close but I felt our trail running abilities were still strong enough to get us back to the TA in about the same time so we did a little extra on the trail then stormed back to the TA where race staff was much busier this time with plenty of action around. We did not see Pulling Foot neither many teams on the trails but we knew they were not far behind...

For some reason I then dragged the boat into the water and jumped into it (probably looking to shift to paddle after that fast run I guess!) but then found myself alone in our canoe...(huh?)... no need to say Nath was not planning for vacations on the shore... so I went back quickly to pick her up with a funky smile on my face (oh... there you are teammate...:/). Back in business we turned the boat around and we resumed paddling for the final leg of the race.

As we where hammering it down we crossed lots of teams (Trek and Trek Elite) making their way up to the TA. That kept us awake and alert as got a lot of encouragement from them, which was nice. Trash talks were flying in our boat to keep our motivation high;) Crossing teams allow us to ask them if they saw our pursuer... and it came negative twice so it became more and more clear to us that victory was close!

As its' never over until it's over... as we came to shore jumping out of the water in sight of the finish Nath's paddle accidentally (or maybe not..) hit me on the head which created a big 'hooo' in the crowd... but no harm and we crossed the finish line in 5:52:43 to take the overall win!

Thanks to Sean + organization/volunteers for a great race and atmosphere. Burgers were awesome and felt really good on our belly;)

Alex

---

Sequence: START-CP20-CP22-CP21-CP1-CP2-CP31-CP30-CP2-CP3-CP42-CP43-CP4-CP5-CP53-CP52-CP51-CP50-CP5-FINISH

Results & Pictures
---

ROGAINE DES LAURENTIDES 6H AS RAID PULSE TEAM- 4 MAY 2013- 3RD CO-ED, 6TH OVERALL

Our team captain, Alex Provost, had a nasty mountain bike accident a few days before the race and took the very wise decision of not racing this week end. It will then be JY Dionne and I.

It is getting hot in Quebec. The temperature jumped from pretty cold to fairly hot in a couple of weeks and our bodies are still adjusting but it's nice.

We left early from Ottawa and after a two hours drive got to Morin Heights where the race took place.

It is very hot but I am not too worried, the warm never bothered me too much before (except for the 40 degree heat in California but here it's below the 30 degrees so I should be just fine).

After registration and race briefing we got the maps...we would be number 20 for this race!

 10am, the race begins. They had to change the course a couple of days prior to the race because of too much snow remaining on some of the trails and in the bush so the race would be a lot more running than bush walking which shouldn't be a disadvantage usually for me but we would see...

The first hour went pretty smoothly, JY was navigating very well and I was following pretty ok, lots of running on the streets.

We attempted to shortcut through a little patch of bush that wasn't very pleasant at one stage and decided to keep on the roads and trails as much as we could from there on.

By the end of the second hour I wasn't feeling great anymore. I had finished my water for a while and was feeling super thirsty. I am usually like a camel, so it was not usual for me to bunk like this cause of water, especially since I had drunk about a liter or more already. I am not moving fast at all and feeling heavier and heavier as we move. Thankfully we met some people outside of their house who let us take some water from the hose in the garden. I reckon I drank about a liter straight before i filled my bottle...

About twenty minutes or so after I was back in the game. JY was itching to go faster and was already towing me anytime he could which was pretty awesome.

Little by little we progressed on our course and had to drop some points here, some points there because the time was flying by.

 Towards the end of the race it was becoming necessary to re-assess our route. I thought it would be better to go for a CP that afterall we shouldn't have gone for :/. We should have probably gone for one a little further which worthed more points...My bad :/.
We ended up 3rd CO-ED duo, 6th overall..and since the two first CO-ED team were Masters we officially are 1st CO-ED "open" :)
JY did an awesome job at navigating and towing....looking forward to race with the whole team soon.

All the pictures above were taken by Alex who followed us closely all along the race :).

SHENANDOAH EPIC BY UNTAMED NEW ENGLAND TEAM 20-21st APRIL 2013-5th CO-ED 24h04 OF RACING-7th OVERALL

First AR of the season, a 26h race called Shenandoah epic down in the US in Virginia hold by Rev3 Adventure. It was supposed to be our first race as a team of 4, same as the team going to the world championships but unfortunately JY Dionne got sick a week prior to the race and couldn't come anymore. We got very lucky to find James Galipeau at the last minute, a very strong racer from the Ottawa area who was willing to come and race with us as he had this race in mind for some times. So there we went leaving on the Thursday night from Ottawa driving down the 10h to Virginia.

After stopping on the way we arrived on Friday afternoon with well enough time to get our food and gear settled in time for the race briefing at 7pm. Our fourth team mate Jonathan Dionne met us there and we were a full team just in time to get our race package. We planned the route we were gonna take the next day whilst racing and went to the hotel to finish packing our transition bag. Note to ourselves: next time let's pick an extra star on the hotel... :/

On Saturday morning we went to the main transition area to drop our bikes and bags an hopped on a bus that took us to the start of the race. It was sunny but still cool, good racing weather.

The race started at 10am on canoes. Alex and James in one canoe and Jo and I in the other one. Clearly the guys were a stronger duo than us and we were struggling to keep up with them.

After an hour or so we arrived to the first Trek where a few CPs were to be collected on foot before going back to the boat. We left a little fast for me and I must admit I was in the red already. James was pushing me up the hills running but at least we were keeping up closely to the other lead teams SOG and REV3... The trail to the last CP all the way up the hill was a little steeper and a bit more technical which slowed me down on our way down but I tried to pick up the pace as soon as I could. We bushwhacked a little bit which at the end didn't end up being an advantage as we lost a bit of ground but it was worth trying.

Back to the boats we changed partners and James and I went together which evened out the duos and we were then paddling as unit which was great. On our way down the river we crossed a few little rapids and had some CPs to collect. Jo and Alex managed to sink their boat right in front of the camera which made great pictures :).

We caught back with the leaders at the very end of the canoe section, right on track. Finally arrived to first proper transition (where we had left our bikes and gear) after about 4h on the water/trek. We went right away to the "special challenges", the first one being a "mental one", a kind of puzzle where you have to reconstitute a square with different square triangle and other woody bits. I did that puzzle as a kid but couldn't remember how it was done. After a while we finally got it and went to the "physical challenge" that was pumping a tire tube until it blows out. That one was pretty easy!

We then transitioned to our bikes and off we went for a grueling MTB... Alex towed me most of the rideable uphill, he was on fire. It was our first time on the MTB in the trails of the season since the trails were still full of snow at home and man it was technical which isn't my strength. I hiked my bike a lot and tried a few times things that I wouldn't usually but I also ended up crashing 3 times :/. The worst bit was CP12. OMG I was ready to abandon my bike right there. It took us several hours to reach it hiking our bikes there, Jo had two punctures, one on the way there and one on the way back. At least the way back was a little easier to ride (or was I more confident?). Once out of there we were moving towards transition when we met a team who asked us why we were not going on the road? What? wasn't it out of bound? Our mistake, we thought all the road was out of bound but it turned out there was a small part of it that was ok to use. It cost us a bit of time on the way to CP12 (15min) as we hiked our bikes in a trail instead of taking the road but now it was making sense how team Odyssey got ahead of us since we had not seen them passing us but saw them coming back from CP12 before us :/. 

Oh well, lets keep moving... we transitioned to the Orienteering trekking leg where we got a new map to plot. I think we took a little too long there but in the meantime we had to plot a series of new CPs on the map so it was necessary to make sure the CPs were well plotted, so not a big deal. There was a fire which was nice as I was getting a little cold. It was dark. Off we went running towards our first CP. The first two went super fast and third one should have too but the fatigue and a lack of attention from all of us made us do a mistake and we lost a considerable amount of time (50min) looking for that one. Once we realized we went too far we had to backtrack a bit. The rest of the trek went more or less smoothly with some little mistakes here and then but overall it went ok and we kept a good pace. Once all CPs were collected we went back to transition to take back our bikes and started climbing the massive hill we went down earlier (which I hike most parts). I think it took us about 40min to get to the top. It got cold on the way down but soon the sun was rising and we reached transition in the daylight. Only two legs left, a trek and a bike both in the same area on a different map again.

The trek went super well, Alex was spot on with his navigation. At that point my quads were burning like hell. That's what you get when you don't have a proper training in before a 24h race I guess :/ Jo was towing me on that leg but even then I could feel my quads overly tired. However, the fact that we had to go back on the bike was even less appealing to me than being on foot at this stage so I just ran... Back to transition and off we went for our last bike section. OMG I was dreading that last leg but it ended up being the sweetest leg of the race with very nice fast and smooth single tracks. Once again Alex was spot on for the nav and his route choice was great. We crossed the finish line in 24h04min in 5th place co-ed, 7th overall after clearing the course.

For the first race of the season it wasn't that bad but I do clearly have a lot of training to do with my technique and we as a team will have to be more vigilant to minimize the nav errors. Overall it was a great race with a great team and I am happy I raced with those guys... They rock :) 

Thanks to our main sponsor for this race Untamed New England. Look forward to their 24h race in Sugarloaf ski resort in Maine on June 22nd. Next year the 4+ day expedition race is back and is shaping up to be an epic challenge in true and famous New England wilderness...

Thanks to Nuun hydration who kept us hydrated all along the race, Osprey packs for robust and roomy backpacks, Icebreaker for exceptional merino racing clothes, Unleash compression for race and recovery garments, Platypus for efficient hydration systems, Swiftwick for comfy and blister free socks and arm warmers, Thule for top quality roof racks, The North Face, Julbo Eyewear and Suunto for providing the right navigation tools (altimeter and compasses).