Adventure Racing World Championship Portugal 2009
Smart, Fast and Angry; Winning the World Championships
Warren Bates - Team Helly Hansen Prunesco / 23.11.2009
Portugal marked my 5th World Championships but things had been going downhill for a while. Newfoundland was fresh, exciting and wild and we were overjoyed at making the top 10 at the first attempt. New Zealand followed a year later but an 11th place finish couldn't lift the spirits as we raced indifferently and the course was depressing, with endless bushwhacking and a near monopoly of trekking. Sweden followed in 2006 which was a triumph of course design, providing the benchmark to which all other races should be measured. A top 5 finish seemed probable until a fridge-sized rock broke Tom's foot and our hearts.
Home advantage in Scotland 2007 was meant to be the year when everything came together but another injury forced the teams retirement and it was at this point that I decided that I could no longer commit so much to a sport that was giving me so little back in return. Why build a years training around something where variables outside of your control could dictate the outcome so heavily? It was time for a much needed break.
It's fair to say that Nick Gracie's enthusiasm has not diminished one jot in the 10 years or so we've been racing together. The man makes Forrest Gump look like a terminal slacker (and a male model, for that matter) and his gentle goading was enough to ensure that I was on the plane to Portugal. Things didn't seem too bad on reflection. The four of us has not raced together as a team before but we had a very strong support crew and we looked tough, experienced and fit, on paper - with 3 of us just completing a 2000km road bike ride over 106 of the highest Alpine cols.
More importantly, however, the organisers were on time at the airport to transport us to the hotel. The accommodation was stunning. There was a cake shop on site. Our last practice rollerblade involved no broken bones and we even looked semi-competent compared to the lone Kiwi out practicing. The organisers, in a moment of far-sighted sanity, had decided to treat World Championship contenders as adults, telling us that gear and skill checks were unnecessary. Woo hoo. No officious chap checking to see if my whistle had a pea in it. No fascist river cop asking me demonstrate how to steer a kayak on a pond - knowing full well in 48 hours I would be paddling the high seas with zero chance of a self rescue.
Such a relaxed and grown up approach to the start of the race was deeply heartening. Our high spirits were to be slightly tempered at the pre-race briefing when the format was outlined and we were handed 64 maps. That's a lot of paper and digesting the route in its entirety was simply not possible. The grand strategy would have to wait until later and we ceremoniously dumped the weighty pile into support-crew-strategist James' lap, winked and said, "Let us know what we're doing in the morning, there's a good chap".
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