Raid Gallaecia - Heaven and Hell

Carrick Armer / 12.05.2017

Winston Churchill is claimed to have said "When you are going through hell, keep going", and while the attribution may not be entirely correct, the sentiment certainly is when it comes to expedition racing. Dante Alighieri wrote of the nine circles of hell, where all sinners are sorted, filed and punished appropriately. Following our first maxim, there is little point stopping in the middle, that's for certain. Connecting that to our classics, as racers we do as Dante and his guide Virgil did: pause, see those suffering around us, and continue as swiftly as possible. Raid Gallaecia has been a race of many stages for the teams, not just of the run-bike-kayak type, and to stretch a metaphor somewhat, the physical stages and the experiences the racers have gone through are their own circles of hell. While not unique to this race, these are circles that some teams have passed through during the past 5 days, and that all teams will likely pass through at some point in their careers. If they're lucky, it may only be one per race; if they're unlucky, it might well be all of them at the same time, like a giant Venn diagram. 

Our outer circles are all linked by the themes of 'error', whether that be navigational embarassments, equipment issues, disorganisation. Navigational errors have had the biggest impact, as we've already reported. Sweco, Blackhill OpavaNet and Omjakon never recovered fully from their early mistake on the kayak leg, though only the Czech team went on to complete the course. Had they been able to stay in the front pack for longer, maybe the podium would have looked different. Even the top two teams, Naturex and FMR, exchanged minor misplacements in the final throes, making the result even more exciting. Equipment issues came next, from the minor to the major. A number of teams snapped wheels off portage trolleys during the first kayak stages: minor perhaps, but when you need to move two 25kg sit-on-top kayaks any distance at pace, a difficult thing to manage without. More major, Estonian Ace Adventure's forgotten harnesses. While not at great time cost during the abseil itself, an error that earned them four hours in the sin bin in the middle of a shopping centre. The incessant mall muzak could possibly class this place as a circle of hell all of its own, and the holding time there as a cruel and unusual punishment. Maybe purgatory is a more appropriate comparison for that one.

The middle circles are linked by the climatic conditions. The opening day of the race was full of sun; the second, more cloud cover but still dry; from the second night onwards a complex of torrential downpours interspersed with blazing sunshine, from burning to soaking in a matter of minutes, clothing choice variable in the same, and time lost in stripping and re-donning layers continually. Do you stay in the waterproofs and boil when the sun is out, or stay without them and end up drenched during the next cloudburst? The variability has seen issues of dehydration creeping in, two racers received IV fluids, hundreds of bottles of water consumed in transitions, the regular plink-plink-fizz of electrolyte tablet in water bottle. And at the other end, the cold: racers with their legs wrapped in foil blankets on the later kayak stage, to fend off the wind and the rain; cafe stops in small villages, to get some warmth back in after yet another thunderstorm; careful consideration of the altitude gain of chosen routes, as lightning crashed into the hilltops in the early hours of the morning.

Closely following, inwards and downwards, the next circles are linked by bodily problems. Both Omjakon and 24 Hour Meals retiring from the race due to sickness of a team member; many of you will have seen Anne-Marie's image of Stefan Silfver racer getting a somewhat painful injection in the behind, though we're still trying to work out what he was getting shot up with; we've had racers withdrawing due to heart palpitations, the issues of high caffeine intake to stay awake; there was a race-ending suspected torn hamstring for Marie Nilsson after a slip in the canyoning stage and skipped treks and canyons due to ankle issues for Chaos Machine. Even today, Budinoraid arrived at the kayak start, one of their three male racers waddling down the road slightly gingerly, looking concerned, with their female teammate bouncing along beside them, smiling. The core of their problem, to be slightly indelicate, constipation.

And overarching all of these, as our virtual Dante and Virgil peruse the whole, would be the theme of fatigue. By its very nature, an expedition event is a recipe for tiring yourself out, but the variable conditions have made sleeping out on the course hard, and the noise and movement always make sleeping in transition a race discipline of its own. We know of Desert Dogs heading to a B&B and TrackTheRace finding a church hall, but we've no doubt others have taken their forty winks out on the course while the sun shone, if only for a brief moment. And we've also no doubt that many of the other issues will have been compounded by, if not directly caused by, fatigue. An incautious foot or tyre placement; a moment of inattention while map reading; forgetting to listen to those little voices telling you that you really should drink something round about now. Even now, at close to midnight on Friday, there are still seven teams out on the course, either finishing the penultimate trek leg back to Naron and the shopping mall, or high-tailing it back to As Pontes on their bikes. No doubt, for them this final night will be the most testing of all, and for those of us watching the dots, the tracker map still also shows other team's indicators, where a tracker was turned off as a team withdrew. Those who stopped, and those who kept going, both their own kinds of hell.

But, on the flip side, Alighieri also wrote of being guided by Beatrice through the spheres of heaven, and this race has not been without those divine moments to counter the low privations of the race. The racers have crossed beautiful landscapes and taken in some amazing scenery, across a massively wide variety of terrains: High plateau to deep river valley; open forest, dense scrubland, beaches, dunes, high cliffs and coastal forest; tarmac, urban streets, gravel roads, goat track and narrow wooded path; aside from high rocky peaks, the course has visited just about everything. There have been some historic and notable CP locations, from ancient monastery to 1990s lighthouse, via industrial revolutions, civil wars and everything in between. There has been a definite spark of creativity from the organisers, from showing AR to the public by putting a transition in a busy shopping mall (though with a private side room for the racers to change and sleep - the average racer switching shorts and attending to their foot issues would put anyone off the hunt for bargains, if not their lunch), via the ingenious use of recycled coffee sacks as additional kayak gear storage, to the provision of well made local food specialities to the racers and visitors alike. These have been small details well executed, and large details well planned; from the level of information available to racers, press and supporters to the care and attention of the race staff.

In our role as the metaphorical Dante, observing and reporting back others punishments and suffering, elevation and joy, we pass alongside what the racers pass through, so whether this race classes as heaven or hell is for those racers to decide for themselves. Each competitor and each team will have their own very personal experience of the event, and the validation of that experience will be in whether they come back again, maybe seeking further heavenly elation. Then again, they could also just be gluttons for punishment...

See All Stories On This Race