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Storming the Castle

Rob Howard / 12.11.2009

At sunrise on Thursday morning the leading teams were 'storming the castle' at Marvao. This was the phrase used by Race Director Alexandre Guedes da Silva, who has a poetic turn of phrase, to describe checkpoint 36C and T11 at the Templar fortified town of Marvoa on the Spanish border.

The transition came at the end of the trek which the teams who beat yesterday's cut-off made during the night and early morning. Again, it was a trek which took longer than expected for most, although many teams will have found a place to sleep during the night, which may account for them being out longer.

Those who elected to leave AS3 last night and paddle across the river to make the jumar ascent had a slow start to the trek. It took time to get across the river, and inevitably there were long queues with everyone setting off together. Of the quicker teams Lundhags were near the front of the queue, but both Nike and Orion had long waits and became extremely cold. One cameraman described George Christison as 'in pieces from the cold'. Buff crossed the river, but didn't like the look of the queues and immediately skipped that CP, setting off on the remainder of the trek.

During the night teams passed over an area of low hills, and a region with prehistoric standing stones and ancient trails, but none we spoke to reported the 'labyrinth' of stone walls they'd been warned of. When Buff set off along the road they were moving significantly faster than the other teams and in the morning they arrived at the Castle hours ahead of teams they have previously been racing with (Helly Hansen, Nike and Orion) - it was a significant move by the Spanish/French team and they clearly have good grasp of the logistical requirements of the stage.

While Emma Roca curled up to sleep by a hedge in the castle keep, her team mates reassessed the maps and possible routes. As others had already worked out the long linear 160km bike section to AP4 was all but impossible to clear before tonight's midnight stage closure and very difficult to shorten, but Buff had several options and were now on 'Plan C' to cut the route. Ertips too were saying it was impossible to get all the checkpoints, but teams who have only just worked that out may have realised too late.

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