Raid Gallacecia Expedition Race
Racing Around the Coast
Rob Howard / 14.05.2015
It has been a day of coastal racing for teams at Raid Gallaecia, trekking, mountain biking and orienteering in sight of the sea almost all of the time.
After leaving the lighthouse at Fisterra teams followed the ‘Way of the Lighthouses’ northward to Muxia, trekking along coastal tracks, narrow cliff side paths and wide and windswept beaches. It was coastal scenery at its best and although it was a long time on their feet, and included a lot of ascent, the teams enjoyed this key stage of the race.
One team who seemed to be making the most of it were Haglofs Silva, who had fallen a couple of hours behind Team Seagate overnight, but made up most of that time on the trek, gradually closing down on their rivals.
Also enjoying the trek were the French team EndorphinMag - Team Nantes Mag'm. “The sun is shining and we are in such a wonderful place!” was their comment as they passed me at CP65 high on the cliffs above Praia de Rostro. Their enthusiasm was hardly surprising, they had just trekked along a magnificent beach, passed a coastal waterfall and were now high on the cliffs above the breaking waves.
During the coastal trek there was one point where teams had a long detour around a narrow river outlet, and the British team, ‘After Work Athletes’, took the chance to swim at low tide to save some time. They may be the only team to do so, and had told me this was their plan at the very start of the race.
After finishing the coastal trek it was time to get back on their bikes once again, for a long mountain bike stage mixed with stops for orienteering. Only the leaders were in time to start this stage in daylight, riding around to the port of Caminares, and by the time they arrived the lead had changed once again.
Team Seagate stopped to sleep near to CP75 just before the town and were passed by Haglofs Silva, who arrived at the Marina Club by the harbor and set off on the urban orienteering run first. They knew they were in the lead and that Seagate had slept and ran off at a good pace to the first orienteering CP which was described as ‘top of cliff’. Luckily it was a small cliff (5m) as they took the direct approach! It was a scratchy scramble to the top and they moved on to another CP by a small water channel and a third just out of town, before returning to collect their bikes 45 minutes later.
Seagate took about the same time and left 35 minutes behind them and captain Nathan Fa’avae said, “We felt it was time for a little sleep and went out of the direct sun as it was so hot, but then the cloud came over and we were cold!” The weather has been like that all day and it gets noticeably colder as the wind picks up in the late evening.
Between the two leading teams the short course team ‘Gallaecia Not Normal Adventure’ arrived at Caminares for the orienteering and I asked how it felt to be racing with Seagate and Silva? “The question is how do they feel about racing with us!” was the cheeky reply. “Really we only cross paths a few times and then they disappear so fast it is impossible to follow them,” they added. Then after a moment said, “It was funny to see their faces when they spotted us! Their eyes widened as they wondered who we were and why we were racing with them!”
By the time the leaders left Caminares darkness was falling so they will race the next orienteering stage on the sand dunes at Trece Beach in the dark.
[Seagate will be held for 10 minutes 53 seconds at the next transition to neutralise the times on the canyon descent yesterday.]
SleepMonsters
