Bimbache, qualifier for the world championships of adventure racing, 5 days expedition race in Spain, 9-14th of September 2013.
Patrick Lamarre from Issy Aventure, France, contacted me a few months ago to ask me to come over and race Bimbache with his team. I met Patrick a few years ago while traveling in France and we did a couple of training together but never raced together in the past.
I accepted as I really wanted to go back to France for a little bit to see my family but also because the race was taking place in Catalunya near where my grandpa lives.
Close to the date Patrick announced to me that two of the original guys from the teamwouldn't be able to race and that he had found one person, Julien to join the team but we were missing a navigator. After a few weeks and lots of stress I managed to convince Danny from Quebec who I raced with last year at Untamed New England and who is a good navigator.
We all got together on the 8th and drove down to Platja d'Aro in two cars. After a quick check-in we started preparing some of our things and had to wait the next day to have our bike boxes and the race briefing at 6pm.
On the 9th in the morning we were asking for the boxes but they were not there and nobody could reach the race organizer at that point. So we waited pretty much the all day to get our boxes just before 6pm. The boxes weren't what we were expecting and we knew something wasn't right.
At the race briefing Antonio De la Rosa, organizer of the world champs in Costa Rica this year and ex organizer of Bimbache, took the microphone to announce withsadness that the race director had run away with the money and that he was back to try to make this race happen.
He and the volunteers did from then on a WONDERFUL work. If we hadn't known what had happened I'm not even sure we would have noticed.
Antonio with the help of lots of others managed to retrieve the maps and got them printed out by the next day.
The start of the race was supposed to be at 6am but had been pushed to noon and the first coasteering, swim and paddle had been replaced by a 35-38km through the cities instead.
At 11am we got the maps to get to the mid camp and at noon we were off.
It was very warm and the bib material was a kind of plastic non breathable. We ran along the coast a little bit and we overheated pretty quickly.
After a few kms we were running in the street and a storm came by cooling us off fairly quickly.
After a few kms we were running in the street and a storm came by cooling us off fairly quickly.
I found this first leg very tough on the body. I'm not a road runner and it hurts my knees very quickly.
The guys felt it in their body too, knee, feet...not a great start.
The guys felt it in their body too, knee, feet...not a great start.
After 5h or so we got to TA1.
A not so quick transition with Julien having some issues with his bike and off we were for a 160km MTB. According to the paper, the best team should do it in 11h and the worst team in 15 but Antonio had mentioned that the time were wrong....wrong they were. The best team finished that leg in over 24h and I think it took us over 31h to complete it.
A not so quick transition with Julien having some issues with his bike and off we were for a 160km MTB. According to the paper, the best team should do it in 11h and the worst team in 15 but Antonio had mentioned that the time were wrong....wrong they were. The best team finished that leg in over 24h and I think it took us over 31h to complete it.
The first 70km were rolling and fast, loved it. Our friend Julien started to realise what an expedition race was. It was his first race and it wasn't going to be an easy one. After the first 70km the climbing started. We were going to climb over 5000m and there was supposedly 90km left of the ride. The night was well settled when we got to our first section of hike your bike.Julien wasn't feeling great but he pushed through. A little later a little mistake of navigation made us do a little extra loop but Danny ended up finding back the right way.
The first night was over without noticing and we rode, rode and rode going up forhours and hours and down in minutes :/.
The second night came quickly and we were once again pulling and pushing our bikes but this time it was also cold and we couldn't find our trail.
After looking around for a long time our captain had to take a hard decision due to theweather and how our teammate Julien was feeling at. The time, Pat decided that we would turn around and withdraw. Julien was hypothermic or very close to, the food supply was more than low and it was our second night out. When we started walking back we met a Spanish team, adventura experience-rios y canoas, and they said they were sure that we were on the right track and Pat took the decision to continue andthey let us tagged along at that stage. GRACIAS guys because I would have been very sad to not keep on going. After a while we got to the trail and up to the summit to find the cp. We then kept on hiking our bikes and riding with the Spanish till TA2 that we reached eventually. We decided to sleep there for an hour before heading on the high mountain trek that would take us to mid camp.
An hour later we were all dressed up with all the layers we owned cause it was soooo cold and we started hiking up to the first summit. This trek was cold but absolutely wonderful. We got the sunrise as we were hiking on the ridge and it was just great.
The first CP wasn't there and another one later was on the wrong summit which led some teams to get lost. Thanks to the Spanish once again we took the right direction. They had taken a fair bit of distance on us and Pat saw them going right on a mountain while other teams were going left. After looking at the maps a lot closer, Danny and Pat decided to take the route that the Spanish team took ...and it was the right one!!!
The first CP wasn't there and another one later was on the wrong summit which led some teams to get lost. Thanks to the Spanish once again we took the right direction. They had taken a fair bit of distance on us and Pat saw them going right on a mountain while other teams were going left. After looking at the maps a lot closer, Danny and Pat decided to take the route that the Spanish team took ...and it was the right one!!!
A few hours later we were at the SUP station and did our little 500m each before getting into mid camp aka TA3 which was a 4h compulsory stop.
They gave us there the rest of the maps. We ate and then went to sleep. After twohours I woke up to look and mapped the race of the course.I woke up the guys just on time to have a bit of food, showed quickly the maps to our navigator and we were out in 4:08...
After two hours of trekking we got to our next TA and jumped on our bikes again fora 90 km bike ride to the kayak section.
The guys didn't plan their food very well so we had to stop several times in shops along the way for them to restock which made me a little impatient I must admit :).
This bike ride went ok and we reached the kayak transition without too muchproblems. We stopped just before the TA into a bakery and ate I think half of the store...delicious...
The kayak leg went well. There was only 34km total of paddling in the race. Knowingit is my strength I was a little disappointed but after all it is a good thing so I got a lot of good training for Costa Rica on the bike :)
We left the TA on our bikes again direction Girona. A 70km ride that went very well.
As we were climbing one of the "col" we had a dog with a big bell attached to its neck following us all way up. It was pretty cool because the bell kept us awake :).
Once in Girona we realized we wouldn't have time to do the orienteering on foot if wewanted to have. Chance to cross the finish line on time. We were surprised there was no cut off time except for the 6pm at the finish line. After discussion with the volunteers we decided to not do the orienteering and to skip the next two CPs on the bike to get straight to the last TA.
Once again we jumped on the bikes and went to our last TA.
The last leg was a 25km trek with some is ferrata. We did the entire trek but they closed the via ferrata 15min before we got there I think cause of the wind but not too sure on that one.
By then the little bit of my legs that were exposed got badly sunburn and my legsstarted to swell like crazy making my last 5km very hard.
We past the line at 5:30pm on the 14th in I think 10th place.
It was a tough race but I loved every minute of it and I want to thanks Issy Aventure,Pat, Danny and Julien for it but also and main,y thank you Antonio de la Rosa and all the volunteer to not let us down and make that race possible and a success for us.
During that race we saw the most amazing landscapes, met great people, had to deal with massive cows and goats trying to chew on the CP and mostly to deal with ourselves and our sleep deprivation. I fell asleep on my bike and woke up while falling in the ditch, I saw one of my teammate riding straight into the bush because he had fallen asleep too....it was great :)
Nathalie
