Discussion: AR Worlds 2014

Okay..just kidding.

you made me look! ;)

ha. HAHAHAAAAA.

:))))

How many posts are we gonna get 1 year ahead?
Wait, don't answer that.

Ok, that was funny. The problem with Ecuador is that it's still the jungle. Besides the 20,000 ft/6000 meter peaks, that is. Wet, hot , Amazon jungle. More power to you guys who thrive there.

Ecaudor will be a crap-shoot for many teams, depending on the course. We already saw what even a short foray above 3000m did to some very fit and strong teams (Tecnu, Bivvy Colts). It is entirely possible that we will see a slew of DNFs due to altitude sickness. I hope the RDs take that into consideration: you can do mountain treks without going much above 3000 metres.

Quick stats from the Ecuador organizers for 2014:
4,000 - 4,500 m 3% of the course
3,000 - 4,000 m 16% of the course
2,000 - 3,000 m 28% of the course
1,000 - 2,000 m 12% of the course
0 - 1,000 m 42% of the course

I've raced in Ecuador twice and both times been WORKED by the elevation. Serious teams might aim to arrive a month in advance to acclimate.

Ha! Made me look too! This one will hit 5,000 posts if we are starting now! 10,000?....

Yeah, I'm not keen to push through the misery of how that elevation will feel. The local team has usually done well there because of this (they usually win) but it will be interesting to see what happens when the best in the world are there to compete. And like Untamed says, the top teams will likely plan to get there early to acclimate.

Ha, I now see that Clean already raised the "how many posts" question :)

For a "forecast" of what to expect, look back at the Raid Gauloises Ecuador in 1998.

CP at 19,000'.

YES!

wonder if it would be a manned CP? :)

You volunteering for that one, Myka?

where do I sign up? :)

Afsheen, that is a great report on the Raid Gauloise in Ecuador. The 1st place team crawled across the finish line ( as a joke).

I was asked by the RDs tonight to apply to go and shoot the race. I really may have to train for it.

Somebody has to restart the thread. I have my tickets and am packing gear. I have a list of about 10 projects to shoot while I am there. BRING IT!!

Which Attackpointers will be racing?

Team Raid International Gaspésie Etc. will be there:
Harps, Phatty, Relentless and Frenchie.

A couple of years ago, the first three team members raced with Leanimal as team Salomon Running Free and were ranked about 15th in the world. Frenchie used to race with team Untamed Canada/Clinique du pied équilibre, which finished ARWC in Costa Rica last year.

Btw Afsheen, that Raid Gauloises link no longer works. If you're able to find it again and update it in your post above, that would be cool!

au contraire. Nathalie is on AP.

Oh! She started logging in June. Thanks, that's great - we like to cheer for all-AP teams. I've fixed it above.

Team Tecnu. We are dead set on improving upon our tied for 3rd place from 2013!

KyleRPeter

jpopilsky

NSW Stinger

Mari Chandler not on AP because her training is secret

Yay! Worlds thread! When does the vortex of suckage into following dots on a computer screen and "back to the...." really begin, um, in other words, when is the start?

This year's ARWC, Huairasinchi, will be Nov. 7-19, with the race starting on Sun. Nov. 9. Be forewarned of an increased load on the AP server, Ken! ;)
http://www.proyectoaventura.com/6_203_home.html

Official team roster
http://proyectoaventura.com/6_2059_official-team-r...

Does Ecuador have a Mangrove swamp? On the bright side, there's no tides at altitude.

Meanwhile... ;)

I see that Canadian APer Slice will be racing on Team Bones from the U.S. That gives me a semi-Canadian team to cheer for, which is good since there is only one Canadian team at the world champs this year. And I'll cheer for Kyle for old time's sake since his team used to be semi-Canadian.

I'm not sure what happened to the website, Bash. But the article, if I remember correctly, reviewed what a challenge it can be to race in the tropics.
Maybe I'm just an old softie, but I'll take the comfort of racing where the plants, animals, and bugs aren't all coordinating their efforts to try and hurt or kill you at every turn.

There are a few nasties in Ecuador, e.g. malaria.
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2014/chapte...

This race will be amazing! So wish I could join the fun! (minus the nasties mentioned above)

Wilberto, we will have both mangroves and tides this year as well. Race finishes with a paddle in the coastal town of Mompiche.

That's on the west side of Esmeraldas province. We are all going to learn some geography!
http://www.geographicguide.net/america/pictures/ec...

Mornpiche is just south of San Francisco so Kyle should feel right at home.
http://w0.fast-meteo.com/locationmaps/Muisne.10.gi...

Ditto re: "Yay, Worlds thread!"
So looking forward to the big race again, following along, cheering for our APers, and speculating with all of the online APers!

Anybody have any idea of other teams that are going down early for acclimatization?(other than 3/4 of Yogaslackers)

Seagate is there. Jari Kirkland is training with her Ecuador team

I put some completely biased rankings together based on my Nav, Experience, Lady formula. Doesn't look like the current roster has a team THULE?


1 NEW ZEALAND Seagate Duh! Only team with perfect score (Nav, Experience, and Lady)

2-4 SPAIN Columbia Vidaraid Full package. Race Proven. They want it.

2-4 SWEDEN Haglöfs Silva Aaron Prince ups Nav skill to this team to the same level as other top 4 teams.

2-4 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Tecnu Adventure Racing Jason is new to expedition racing, but we wouldn't have asked him to join if we didn't think we could win with him. Drops Experience score by 1 point.

5 FRANCE Green Caffte Costa Rica - UPS Adventure - Haute Maurienne/Vanoise Lose a point for Nav w/o Stu and a point for experience with new teammates. The new long new will slow them down too.

6-7 ECUADOR Movistar Only local team that has a shot at top 10. They will come out swinging, and if Jari can breathe at 14k feet like the boys, they will put in a big gap the first 40 hours.

6-7 SWEDEN Team Peak Performance Solid team with all the elements just slightly less than the teams ranked higher than them have. With some good luck they could do better or should I say w/o bad luck they could do better. Is Mikael cursed?

8-9 FRANCE Raidlight Very experienced team. Sebastien makes up for any deficiencies

8-9 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Team Bones GO N.America. Lost a bit by us stealing Mari, but not much with the addition of Liza.

10 GREAT BRITAIN adidas TERREX Lost major points w/o Tom Gibbs the master tactician and navigator

11 SWEDEN Swedish Armed Forces Adventure Team I don't know the lady, but these boys have heaps of experience on the ARWS circuit as part of top teams like SILVA, FJS, PEAK PERFORMANCE…

12 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Yogaslackers GO USA. Longer, crazier the race, the better for these guys. They are looking to crack the top 10 after their first ARWC last year. I think they can do it, but my math puts them just outside.

13-14 FRANCE LSN EndorphinMag I have a crush on Fanny. I am not entirely sure who these french boys are, but I think they could place top 15

13-14 SWITZERLAND  R'ADYS These guys do ARWS races consistently. I think they are going to have their best race yet here.

15 CANADA Raid International Gaspesie/x:act NUTRITION powered by Osprey Go N.America!!!

16 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Odyssey Adventure Racing Go N.America!!!

Love the predictions and analysis Kyle, thanks! Have a great race!

Thanks for your insight Kyle. Doug doesn't agree on at least one of those... ;)
Hope you have an awesome race!

Another North American racer who will be there is Tom Proulx, a SF/California racer (and Loving It) who was recruited to an Ecuadorean team: Ecuador Incalink. I talked with Tom a little while ago and he doesn't think they'll make it past day 2 with the naive and inexperienced teammates he has.

Any of the folks going to Ecuador looking for an altitude tent? A friend is selling one
http://www.kijiji.ca/v-view-details.html?adId=1025...

Lets not discount the Breathe Magazine team. Me and Luis on the ground and Joel doing the hard work.

Don't forget to get all your work done *this* week. :)

Another one!

I am sure by the mid point of the race some teams would be trying to ride the tortoise at the 37 second mark. At minimum using it as a pack animal.

Dang, and I thought riding the tortoise was my idea.

Live coverage site is up!
http://live.huairasinchi.com

Slice is on her way.

So are Relentless, Frenchie and Phatty!

And Kyle and Mari of Tecnu have been in Ecuador for a couple of days.

Here is the Breathe Magazine Live site.http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/category/2014-a...

Here's the race course summary.

There's another page that gives the estimated time for each section but I can't figure out how to post it (not being a techy).

Wow, so much action already! Can't wait for this to kick off.

Here's the info Mrs. Pye was referring to via Earring Doug.



May be useful for discussion later on.

Leg 6 looks like a heavy pack unless they are allowed to put their paddles and PFD in their bike boxes. Otherwise its paddles, PFD, climbing gear and 26-46 hrs of food to carry.

Edit* That's wrong. Chart shows what available at the end of each leg so they won't be carrying paddle gear on leg 6.

Thanks JayXC! That's the one.

JayXC, I just emailed you the correct gear bin schematic. We see kayak bag after leg 9. Super hard for most teams to make weight. A,B,C,D @ 20kgs and bike boxes @ 25kgs. Paddle bag @ 25kgs was easy as we need to carry all of it with us on the paddle legs. We ended up ditching loads of back up items and bike repair things. No room for any liquids or 'TA' style meals.

There is going to be a mandatory 8 hours of sleep for each team taken in the TAs. Not sure when the time starts/stops? AND 2 hours sleep must be taken in the TA prior to Leg 9.

Word from kayak / ropes safety guy is that last 1/3 of race is the most challenging. Ha!! 4,400m is a walk in the park?!?! Mud and snakes for the last 1/3.

Leg 1 has hazardous sharp lava flow deposits to be aware of other than the obvious cold and high altitude.

Leg 3 has 2 river crossings via fixed lines to help us get over old dilapidated bridges.

Leg 5 has no drinking water

Leg 7 has a dark zone from 5:30-18:30. We are to camp along the shore and are not to make forward progress. We are told to minimize time outside of tent to 'reduce danger of snakes and insects'. We are to keep our emergency radio on with the volume on high in a dry bag at all times while we paddle so we an be warned of flash floods.

Leg 9 is going to be hot. The organization loaded a series of waypoints to our GPS units to get us through leg 9. The fast time estimate is 2.5 KPH for that trek!!!! They then sealed the GPS and kept it until the race start. We will kept it sealed during the race. I believe I saw they uploaded tracks for all of the legs to it in case a team needs to get out (with a huge pentalty, I'm sure). But when we get to Leg 9 the officials will check to see that it is sealed and the. Open it for us to use for Leg 9 as there are no maps for the area we will be in.

Leg 10 we are not allowed in the open ocean. Oh and stingrays that bury themselves in the mud at low tide ('so be careful when dragging your kayaks in the mud').

Ok. This goes back to my comments on racing in the tropics. I'll take lions and tigers and bears any day. Yes, I'm a wuss.

Leg 5, 45k, no water? Ouch.

Kyle, good luck to you guys. Race hard and smart. Tara and I will be cheering for you, and for all our Nor-Am friends.

New chart

Great overview Kyle, thanks.

Thanks, Kyle and Jay! Excellent info to help understand the race.

I appreciate that volunteers shouldn't have to lift ridiculously heavy boxes but I'm not a fan of race organizations limiting weight to the point where teams need to make tough choices about keeping warmth layers, food or repair gear.

Team Canada on the TA1 Podcast.
http://adventureraceworld.podomatic.com/entry/2014...

Ahhh normally I don't get very nervous about watching Phatty race from in front of the computer but I have to admit I am a little bit nervous this time. This race is going to require a lot of smarts!

Me too!

Both logistics charts are at one link here. Might be another good tab to keep open in our browsers.
http://www.proyectoaventura.com/frontEnd/images/ob...

The race hasn't even started yet and we're well on our way toward the 2575 posts that set an Attackpoint discussion record last year! :) This will be a shorter race though.

I can ask some of my friends to post if you like....hahaha

:) I don't think Ken will mind if we don't set a new record!

Damn. Looks like there are #toomanycooks

Pictures and video from Opening Ceremonies.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=8888537611269...

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.88882028...

Right, where is everybody? It's go time!

Pity the satellite imagery is so grainy at the start...

the dots! are moving!

From what I can tell so far, there does not seem to be too many route choices in the first three or four legs...fairly straight forward. Anybody see otherwise?

Some fairly micro-route choices on this first leg. Looks like Seagate and Swedish Armed Forces have taken that dead-end descent path as marked on the maps, while France, Movistar, Terrex & Tecnu have taken the recommended route.

Not sure what the terrain is like and whether it makes much of a difference... let's see :)

Yep - seems to have cost Seagate about 10 mins or so (now in 4th). Nothing really in the greater scheme of things.

But it's costing Swedish Armed Forces a lot more - already out of the top 10 and still not back on the recommended route.

the highlight of November!!! Shaping up nicely...

LosDobos is doing a smashing job over at the liveblog (http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/category/2014-a...) but since this thread isn't getting much action so far i'll chime in w a start of night 1 (2300-ish local time) recap:

Seagate, Team France, Haglofs Silva, and Movistar trading the lead or close to it about mid-way thru Stage 3/Trek. Yes it's dark there but the nav doesn't seem too horrendous, mostly "stay low in this gigantic valley and follow Rio Oyacachi".

Columbia, Tecnu, adidas TERREX, and Raidlight about 2k behind them.

then about 3k back to a pack of 14 teams. not going to name them all, but it includes Swedish Armed Forces who have made a great push since suffering in the Stage 1 Trek (high altitude). However they recently veered (uphill?!) off the recommended track so not sure what's going on w them. because I'm partial to the USA racers, I'll cheer for Bones and Yogaslackers who are in this pack.

then another 2k back to a looser pack of 14 teams. Odyssey from USA is near the tale end of this chase-chase-chase pack. i'm sure they're just happy that no one has been impaled yet :).

13 more teams still spread out on the beginning sections of the Stage 3 trek.

3 teams still on Stage 2 bike.

BUT THE BIGGEST NEWS OF ALL is that the live-tracking map (http://live.huairasinchi.com/) now shows the team name and last time tracked when you hover your mouse over their orange marker. i'm pretty sure this is a new thing since i was whining about it before on the Breathe liveblog. whoever made it happen (not saying it was bc of me, timing is just probably coincidental)...THANKS!

other things to discuss..."death time". http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/2014-adventure-...

Thanks, Silkychrome. A lot of Ontario adventure racers were busy at today's DontGetLost Raid The Hammer but we'll be getting back to our screens soon.

For Canadian fans, Team Raid International Gaspésie was in 24th place on the second trek when they appeared on the leaderboard 2 hours ago. At that time, they were almost 4 hours behind the leaders, Seagate.

Here's a quick glimpse of Day 1 - mostly showing the spectacular starting line.

Though the leads are still very much, well,...in the lead, there is a good chase group right behind. It will be exciting to see how the next 24 hrs unfold.

It'll be interesting to see which leg will be the field-splitter. Something like the mangrove swamps last year should do the trick!

I think we will only see big field splitters a little later in the race for the front teams, right now it's just pace and adaption to altitude. So far everyone has been on the same/similar route, will be interesting to see when the first team takes an option not indicated by the tracking map, maybe on the next hike, it seems to be a little more exposed.

Hmmm... France & Movistar managed to gap the rest of the leaders by about an hour in the last 15km of that trek. They must have put the hammer down (uphill, at 3,500m, ouch) as it's unlikely all the other teams would have taken a power-nap this early in the race. Especially with the 8h of transition sleep required.

Or they found a key trail which the others struggled with in the dark? Hopefully some info will filter through from the TA soon.

Looking at the track histories, it seems Seagate, Silva & Tecnu lost about 30 mins to a nav issue at around the 2800m contour (at 01:50 this morning).

That's probably where France & Movistar got a gap and worked to extend it to >1hr by the time they hit the TA.

I think they updated the leader board incorrectly, times have changed... top 7 all within 1hr now at ZT3

I suspect the leader board is on auto-update based on the GPS trackers. With the teams in transition, every time their trackers update, their leader board time changes. Both CaffteUPS & Movistar's trackers were in transition about 2h ago, with the rest of the teams still 5km down the river.

The rankings as I have them:

1 - CaffteUPS/Movistar @ 3:50am
3 - Columbia Vidaraid @ 5:00am
4 - Silva/Seagate @ 5:10am
6 - Tecnu @ 5:25am
7 - Raidlight @ 5:40am
8 - Terrex @ 6:00am

And Tecnu leaves transition in 3rd! Just 20 mins behind Caffte UPS in 1st. All other teams still in transition 30 mins later...

And, most sincerely, thank you all for following these developments! It's great to get the updates here, and sleepmonsters. The last article talked about the crazy altitude sickness at the start...which got me thinking...may make for interesting moves out of altitude, but maybe not? :)

http://www.sleepmonsters.com/v2_races.php?article_...

Also, shout out to Dobos and the Breathe team. And, one thing I can never keep straight is the alignment of the course designers expectations of team progress vs. actual team progress. Any help in this area is greatly appreciated. See you at my lunch break. ;)

Would be interesting to know where the CP's are on the long bike leg 4. it looks like a real monster split into two halves with a town mid way through.

You're in luck :) The yellow icons on the live tracking map show CP locations on the bike leg. The leaders have just passed CP7 now.

Also, Breathe Mag has been posting photos of the race maps.

Losdobos just reported that Silva is out due to an injury to Josefina Vikberg. Tough luck dropping out so early again.

Some nice route choices coming into play on this bike leg:

Caffte UPS taking an alternative route around the hill to CP8. They're going around the south while the recommended route (and Columbia Vidaraid) go around the north.

And Adidas Terrex are taking a route even further north which looks like it may require more elevation loss and gain to cross a river valley.

Aw, same thing for Josefina two years in a row. Last year she injured her elbow in a bike crash; this time it was her wrist. It makes me wonder about towing accidents, which aren't that uncommon. I like drafting better!

Controversy over an out-of-bounds route before TA3 (end of 2nd trek) may explain why Seagate and Haglofs Silva had slowed down compared to some other teams.
http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/2014-adventure-...

Here's the Breathe Mag tracker screen print showing the route choice Stijn mentioned. (Yay, finally, route choices!)
http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/2014-adventure-...

@Bash- I think in both instances she fell on downhills so unlikely she was being towed at the time (at least hopefully not).

I've raced with people who thought I was a wimp for refusing to tow downhill. But you'd hope Silva would know better.

Adidas just made it back to the preferred route after an out and back mistake. Tecnu following same route France is taking. Shorter but includes an additional 2-300m of climbing on a who-knows-what-type of surface.

This is the most recent map posted on the Breathe Mag Flashblog. It shows CP7. It's mostly interesting to give us an idea of the types of information teams are working with.
http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/2014-adventure-...

The move paid off as France takes the lead, Columbia at cp8 in second, Tecnu struggling to finish the France shortcut while Movistar took a wrong turn on a spur heading N and is now perhaps bikewhacking up to cp8 from there.

The Swedish Army decides to take the Adidas out-and-back route down below while Adidas takes the Movistar wrong-spur-bikewhack option. Bike tracks leading in the wrong direction can be so tough to ignore sometimes.

Looks like a ~40 minute lead for France over Columbia, Tecnu and Movistar.

For those who had busy weekends and are just starting to follow ARWC in earnest:

The race started on Sunday morning. Local time in Ecuador is the same as in Toronto and New York.

After a 29 km trek that took teams over 4000 m for the only time in the race, racers switched to bikes to ride 67 km down into the Amazon region. Next up was a more substantial 44 km trek that took them back up above 3000 m. The top 10 teams all did these first three legs in 24 hours or less. Leg 4 is a substantial 144 km ride where teams will ride up to 3800 m in altitude again.

After spectacular bluebird conditions at the start, weather conditions have changed. From Sleepmonsters:
There has been torrential rain through the first night of the race and into day 2 as teams climb back up to high altitude again on the second trek of the race, then get on their bikes once more for another 650m of climb up to 3800m.

Overnight all of the teams were on the trek up from TA2 to TA3 – an ancient trading trail which runs alongside the fast flowing Oyacachi River. It was a steady climb in the dark and during the night the rain began and steadily increased. By early morning it was torrential, flooding the tracks and trails, limiting visibility and raising the river levels even more. Ecuador not only has very changeable weather systems, but whatever the weather at the time it’s always full on. If it rains here it rains hard!

During the trek there were a few unstable and collapsing bridges to cross and the race had set up safety ropes for the teams to use. Barbara Bonfim of Columbia Vidaraid told me she fell, and when I asked if she meant into the river she replied, “No, then I would be dead!” The safety ropes had done their work and kept her safe.

Almost a third of the 50 teams are on the 144 km bike stage now. Because TA3 is one of the places where teams can take some of their mandatory 8 hours of rest, there is a group of teams there. Fortunately, it is a school where teams can warm up and sleep in dry classrooms.

Reporting on the teams with Canadian connections as of noon today (and hoping other people will keep us posted on teams that they're watching more closely):

- Tecnu has recently moved into 3rd behind Caffte (formerly Team France) and Columbia Vidaraid.
- Team Bones is in TA3.
- Team Raid International Gaspésie will be arriving at TA3 this afternoon.

Because teams must rest for a total of 8 hours spread out over 4 designated TAs, it is possible for a team to appear farther ahead than it actually is. For example, Adidas Terrex had a short transition at TA3 whereas Seagate spent several hours there. I'm guessing that Pete Dobos of Breathe Mag will do the best job of keeping track of this! :)

I will also be interested to see if there are any penalties doled out for those that crossed over to the other side of the river when they shouldn't have. It sounds like there was a distinct advantage had there.

I cannot believe the bad luck of Silva. What a huge disappointment for them two years in a row!

This is a good time to remind everyone of the resources we have to follow ARWC. If you have another good one to recommend, please let us know:

Race course chart with distances, disciplines and elevation profile

Live Tracking (The most reliable way to follow the race yourself)

Leaderboard (Not 100% reliable because it is updated using geofencing technology when the team's tracker is recorded in the vicinity of a CP. Thus the times can change if a team tracks multiple times near a CP, and a team may be shown as missing a CP if they didn't track within the required area while passing it.)

Breathe Magazine Live Coverage (Many excellent, detailed updates per day - also some videos by LegendaryRandy)

Sleepmonsters reports (2-3 summary level reports per day)

Huairasinchi Facebook page

Okay so that is why the leaderboard is out of date. Ugh.

All leaderboard results are considered preliminary until some future time when we probably won't care about them anymore. :) Perhaps I'm being too cynical. Maybe volunteers will find time to make some corrections during the event. It would be especially nice to know TA in/out times and the hours logged toward their 8 hours of mandatory rest.

Oh I know. I feel like those are details that we are ENTITLED to as spectators at home. Looks like Phatty et al. should be getting to the TA soon. I am sure a sleep will be in order, especially if it is pouring rain outside.

Seems like quite a maze of tracks on this bike leg and I doubt many of them are on the maps - probably fine during the day, but the teams currently "discharging" at TA3 are going to provide some entertainment...

I so appreciate all the resources that are now available to the fans. A veritable smorgasbord of juicy information tidbits in so many different spots. This is heaven for me as compared to my early days as an AR Mom. They didn't even have trackers then. I once called a race organizer in the middle of the night for an update! No need for that now. Thanks everyone!

Gaspésie is in the school at TA3, sitting around 25th place of 50 teams. It must feel so good to be indoors after a rainy night on the Leg 3 trek! Unfortunately, sunset is at 6 p.m. so if they're feeling OK, they'll want to keep this transition as short as possible.

About 20 teams are still out on the trek, slopping along in the muck.

There is some variety in the weather forecast. For example, tonight is "overcast" with thunderstorms whereas tomorrow is "cloudy" with thunderstorms. :(
http://www.accuweather.com/en/ec/quinche/125097/we...

I read on the host race website on the Social page that Jason Magness of Yogaslackers may have a bad wheel that either needs a repair or he needs a new bike? Anyone hear of details?

And what is up with Bones? Their tracker seems up to date, but their tracking dots seem too close together for biking. Are they walking?

I counted: 7 dots for Tecnu and 12 dots for Bones to get to the same spot on the map, approximately, from the TA. And Yogaslackers got into the ZT3 1 hr after Bones. (or 1 hr after Bones left, not sure what the tracker means. Whether it means they left ZT3 or entered ZT3)

Did Bones take a long discharge time at the TA and then are moving really slow through the downpour?

You can't use the leaderboard times that way because of the geofencing. Looking at their dots, Bones was at TA3 from about 9 am - 12:30. Yogaslackers were there from 8:30-10:30.

Aside from that, it looks like Bones has been passed by a couple of teams since leaving the TA. There was a comment early on that everyone on the team had the runs. Perhaps they took the long TA break to help someone feel better before going to higher altitude again...?

I wasn't using the leaderboard, but I didn't zoom in enough at the TA when looking at the dots on the tracking popup window. But their biking dots are still very close together on the road up and out of TA3 compared to their peers. Something is up.

Ok, now Bones seems to be heading back.

They have definitely gone back. Unless they dropped their tracker and it rolled backwards downhill. :(

:((( They are moving on their own instead of calling for help so they're OK in the big picture but it's not looking good.

Afsheen, the leaderboard shows Bones and Yogaslackers an hour apart at TA3 and that is based on their tracker time picked up by the geofencing at some point while they're at the TA - not necessarily their arrival, departure or any other special time. If you look at the dots at the TA, you may have the same problem the leaderboard did since the tracker is probably indoors. To figure out TA time, it's easiest to look for a dot just before and a dot just after, then do a little fudgification.

We got our hands ona photo of the ta3 in-out times...check it out here:
http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/2014-adventure-...

I knew we could count on you! :)

Damn, I hope the crew on Bones is okay. I'm sure relatively speaking they are but I am interested to hear what is up. Hopefully we will get word soon......as in before I go to bed!

Thanks Bash. Good explanation.

On a happier note, Raid Gaspésie was in and out of TA3 in about 75 minutes so they apparently weren't dealing with any serious problems after all that trekking in rain and mud. Given that they had to assemble their bikes, change their clothes, fill their water and grab a snack, they were moving well.

Here they go! After taking a longer rest at TA3 than most other teams, Seagate has been steadily gaining on the leaders today. Shortly before sunset, they are in 6th place with a big gap behind them, about 2 hours behind 1st place. I wonder what they will accomplish by sunrise...

Looks like Seagate is about to catch Adidas Terrex, who left TA3 almost 90 minutes before they did.

No track from Team Bones for the past 2.5 hours, which is when they arrived back at TA3. Their team includes an emergency physician and a physiotherapist so they're as well equipped as any racers to understand and deal with physical problems. They turned back and headed downhill when they were about to spend some time at 3800 m so maybe a team member was having altitude issues and they wanted to get lower to rest. This seems like a long time to spend repairing a bike problem. :(

Seagate has passed Adidas to move into 5th. As the sun sets, they are 30 minutes behind Tecnu.

Well, regarding Seagate, everyone was wondering when the giant would awake from its slumber.

Movistar (21) is making an interesting route choice between CP11 and TA4. If it works, it could move them closer to the front. But is it even possible? The photo of the map is blurry but there may be a trail going up that steep slope.

This stoooopid 8 hours to discharge at 4 unnamed TAs by TA8 (does that include TA8 or not - dunno) is going to drive me batty. I'm switching from coffee to beer.

Look for my coverage to become wildly inaccurate but much more entertaining.

I blame Luis for the blurry photos. What a crap-ass photographer, eh?
kidding, he's da bomb.
mostly

I see you just noticed the same Movistar move. Your screen capture explains it much better than my words.
http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/2014-adventure-...

Luis *is* da bomb.

Your posts have been great so far. I like the informal style.

It's hard to tell but Pete is wearing a suit and tie.

It looks like Movistar's shortcut is going to work out!

200m to go for Movistar! you can do it!

whoa, looks like Movistar completely bypassed the road i thought they were aiming for on their latest tracker update, but they're still progressing well. looks like they'll rejoin the yellow line just about even w Tecnu (not including discharge time).

i hope they meet at a road junction, approaching from different directions!

According to my count of breadcrumb dots, it does not look like the Movistar shortcut gained much time...about 90 minutes either way. Can anyone confirm my analysis?

escondido, you're right. i count Movistar taking 1:40 on their alternate route choice, where Tecnu and Columbia did the recommended route in 1:20 and 1:30, respectively. and now Movistar is lagging behind Tecnu so maybe the shortcut took a bunch of extra effort.

and hey! Caffte first into TA4! will they discharge?

Columbia about 2k behind them.

Tecnu about 4k behind Columbia.

Movistar about 2.5k behind Tecnu, except they may be veering onto the wrong spur.

and...SEAGATE! charging up through the field in 5th, with more hours discharged than anyone else!

Actually, both Seagate and Movistar discharged 3 hours last time. Also, there are only 4 TAs where teams can discharge, and we don't know yet which ones they are. :(

i should have known better than to try and pull a fast one on LosDobos.

actually i was too lazy to go back and check times from the last TA. my bad.

for reference:
http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/2014-adventure-...

Big penalty handed out to lead teams... according to sleepmonsters

So do we know who took the road and who bushwhacked?

Seagate and Haglofs did not take the road. Not sure but based on arrival times at TA3 all the rest of the top 7 will be penalized.

Also, got some good news about Bones from someone on site who responded to my post.
"Hi Peter,
I was there when they arrived, they are fine, just too tired after the last night and decided to turn back since the following stage was quite long (and most of it at night again). I’ll publish a picture of them before going back to TA3 at Twitter @viajaliviano
No worries, all of them are fine! There is not phone or internet there.
Alex"

Glad they're OK! Surprised they didn't go forward to find rest.

@Escondido, agreed. It just *looked* like a cool route.

On the other hand, it's to Bones' advantage to get credit for their rest time, which wouldn't happen if they went forward.

looks like every team except Seagate and and team Polska will be serving the penalty.

You mean every lead team, right? I wonder if later teams are doing the same thing.

Yet more useful info from LosDobos' Breathe Live Coverage - the TAs where teams can take their mandatory sleep, aka "discharge":

TA3 at the end of the 2nd trek.

TA4 at the end of the second bike

TA6 at the end of the monster bike leg

TA8 after a short 42km bike leg. This TA is an mandatory sleep time discharge point. All teams must stay for 2 hours.

The details about TA8 mean that there is no point discharging more than 6 hours total between the first 3 discharge TAs.

Sleepmonsters Facebook page has some nice photos showing TA3 and the area around it. Team Raid Gaspésie makes an appearance.
https://www.facebook.com/SleepMonsters/posts/81035...

Meanwhile, back on the Leg 3 trek, there are still 6 teams heading toward TA3. Current Lanterne Rouge, Brazilian team 6 Advogado Aventureiro, turned around partway through that leg and returned to the vicinity of TA2, although it appears that they've been down the highway from the TA for the past 5 hours. They're still shown on the leaderboard and it doesn't look like they went back to TA2 to drop out so maybe they've just found some overnight accommodation.

Columbia Vidaraid and Caffte UPS have left TA4 to start the Leg 5 trek. This 45 km stage has no drinking water available, according to the pre-race info. On the bright side, it's mostly rain in the forecast until Friday so I guess they can just wring out their Buffs.
<http://www.accuweather.com/en/ec/san-jose-de-minas...>

Penalty for crossing the river is four hours stop at transition. Think that puts seagate in virtual lead.

Complete turnaround to tasmania where they owed the whole field a penalty

Glad to see someone from SA here! I've been worried about who's going to keep an eye on things overnight for us. ;)

Reminder from Sleepmonsters that it's time to start worrying about cut-offs already:

The harsh reality for those teams bringing up the rear of the field and still struggling to get to Oyacachi even now is that they are unlikely to make the first race cut-off, nicely called a ‘closed door’ by Huairasinchi, which is at 17.00 on Tuesday (tomorrow) at the end of the following mountain bike stage.

It is looking like this door could close on a number of teams as the leaders took over 16 hours for the 144 km ride. Race Planner Rodolfo Peralta said, “This is a very hard ride. There are lots of roads and tracks, so navigation is hard, especially at night.” The route took teams back up to 3800m and then on a long descent down into more populated areas.

This is not great news for friends of Team Bones. They are still resting at TA3 after feeling sick earlier in the race.

Looks like Columbia Vidaraid have taken the on-the-ground lead from Caffte UPS, if by only 200m or so. Columbia "discharged" one hour less at TA4 though, which puts them quite far behind on mandatory transition time, as they did a similar thing through TA3.

Virtually, Seagate is at least 2h ahead as they have taken reasonable amounts of time in transitions (3h at TA3 and 2h at TA4) and don't have that 4h penalty to their names.

I have heard from Slice. Team Bones has withdrawn from the race and are actually back in Quito now. A team member was unwell. I will leave it to the team to fill in the details when they feel up to it. Slice is very disappointed as are they all. I am happy they are safe but feel so badly for them.

Oh no, what a disappointment that Bones is out. So sorry to hear it Slice :((

:(

Hugs. :(

Sorry to hear about Team Bones.

I just messaged with Slice and she is quite disappointed but it sounds like they made the right decision, a team member was just too sick for too long so they had to go back. She felt good but the team is back in Quito getting some rest and will go about trying to find their gear tomorrow. Bummer for sure but as she pointed out, it could have been any of them.

It looks like Tecnu is a having a little difficulty in finding PC13 at 02:40, and still trekking the wrong direction. Movistar has passed them physically.

I hope that future high stakes races will make their course easier to follow. This is so confusing: physically leading; vs virtually leading; vs virtually and physically leading but soon to be virtually behind, while maybe still being physically ahead, maybe not.

I don't have a problem with the discharge/banked sleep being split over four stations. Sure it is a bit harder for us to see "who's in front", but it adds another layer to strategy. I've done it before at a race where it was measured in minutes, and we had to check in check out, quite clever counting it only as whole hours as it's MUUUUUCH easier to follow from there.

the lapsed penalty for the river crossing is also ok at TA5 in my mind, put it at the end and then you deal with a lot more admin as it's almost the whole field which will be spread out for ages by then.

sorry to hear about Team Bones, I like they way they call themselves an 'unsponsored elite team' - you mean to say funding is hard to come by in the land of opportunity?!!

pulling out of an adventure like this prematurely, is almost part of the game. not the first, definitely won't be the last.

but since the western side of the world is asleep, allow me to add some south african flavour to wake you up (song always comes into my head everytime i hear of this team) - AKing - Know your BONES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7MhwHHJWbs

looks like no one has gone the 'suggested route' from TA5 to PC13. this was along a river/valley to the north, but on the sat map it looks like the directly west route goes in farmland (I don't know what they're farming there, slope must be about 10%!!)

Tecnu seems to be heading back up the hill to the transition... that can't be good! It's not clear whether they found CP13 or not, but their current loop back certainly doesn't look like CP-hunting...

Tecnu have not gone back to transition and now appear to be CP hunting.....in the wrong place, after being right on it(four hours ago). Movistar and Adidas Terrex have come past during this time.


It's those hours of the morning, yes those ones where you really test the sense of humour.

Bad luck for Tecnu. The sun has just come up, so hopefully they will right this mistake.

Looks like Tecnu is heading in the right direction again. But they lost a lot of time. Leaders are almost half way done with this trek. Is this the leg where they navigate by GPS?

GPS trek is the last one.

Daylight now. Finish this leg then the next big bike at 19 hours minimum time according to the organisers a 10km trek to the start of the kayak with the dark zone tomorrow so Seagate could get a big break if they could finish the kayak before the dark-zone. The others all have the 4 hour penalty to sit out after this trek I think which will make it very hard.

Comment from Liza/Slice on Breathe:
"Hey guys, Liza here.
Unfortunately, we had to withdraw. Jason had been battling hypotermia for the last 15 or so hours before we decided it was just too unsafe to continue. No matter what we did, we just couldn’t get him feeling well again, and with distant thunder and the threat of the ominous rain clouds overhead, we made the only decision possible to ensure that our team would all arrive safely home. We’re resting in Quito now, but will be off to collect our gear tomorrow (a.k.a headed to the beach!). Thanks for following us along! :)"

Check out the latest posts. Looks like only 3 teams so far have avoided the penalty, and Tecnu has spent 7 hours trying to find cp lucky number 13.

Looking at the actual wording of the instructions in the roadbook, I think the penalty is completely justified.

Tecnu seems to have found the CP and is now heading up that monster ridge. I really feel for them - there's lots of racing left, but their podium chances are pretty much shot.

Seagate, on the other hand, is showing their dominance once again. Their tracker updates are a bit old, but I suspect they'll be 2nd on the ground when they update again, and within spitting distance of Columbia Vidaraid in 1st. Which puts them several hours ahead virtually.

RIG should make the 1st cutoff, but not by very much.

I'd be surprised if the swedish armed forces didn't use the road, but it's obviously hard to see from here.

just looking at bread crumbs for that penalty TA3 entry, and the time it took from the river tributary that joins from the north(i'm guessing the bridge was here)

seagate 3hours dark
gb terrex - 1:40 dark
movistar - 1:30 dark
pol AR - 2:40 daylight
sui radys - 1:50 daylight
Swedish armed forces - 1:40 - daylight

silva - 3hrs, dark

I am posting pics and video on my Facebook page. The internet is to limited to post everywhere. https://www.facebook.com/randy.ericksen#/home.php?...

Dobos,
What are we looking at for the bike. Will it be a quick one on roads or slower on double and singletrack?

Also, can you confirm that the the dark zone is not a time where the racers clock stops, but rather is interpred as a time where teams can use their banked sleep and the race clock continues?

Caffte and Seagate are currently heading S off the preferred route together into a box canyon just before cp16. Parallel error?

Bean!

Sleepmonsters has posted an article about the way things went down at TA4 where the penalty was announced. Good for Tecnu for accepting their penalty with grace. Obviously, most teams thought the rule woudn't be enforced but the instructions were extremely clear so there really isn't an argument. Still, Caffte feels passionate about protesting.
http://www.sleepmonsters.com/v2_races.php?article_...

This article includes the exact wording of the rules and (I assume) a photo of the bridge. Silva was the team that lodged the protest.
http://www.sleepmonsters.com/v2_races.php?article_...

@JayXC, sure looks like a parallel error based on the way Seagate is moving on the east side of the valley. Given that they just passed CP15 a few kms earlier, they must be pretty sleepy to make that error in daylight.

Or their map isn't as good as the Google map that we get to look at from the comfort of home...

What is it with Cp13 and USA teams? Yogaslackers are need to turn around!

There is good satellite imagery at this spot. There is a track down to where they went to but they do need to head right and bush whack a bit to get on track like Columbia did.

Seagate/Caffte got their heads back in the map and are on their way back to the green line.

Yogaslackers might be turning north towards CP13, too soon to tell. hold it together Yogis!!

Our Canadian friends on Team Raid Gaspésie should arrive at TA4 around 14:30, in plenty of time to make the 17:00 short course cut-off. Not enough time for a good sleep, however. They are taking a shortcut now shortly after CP12. I haven't been watching closely enough to see if other teams have cut that hairpin but it's going to work for them.

Lots of teams are going to miss the TA4 cut-off.

Columbia made the same little detour. No one wanted to leave the road for the bushwhack. ;-)

Canadians love bushwhacking. :)

in TA5:
28 Columbia

on stage 5 trek:
36 Caffte
42 Seagate
21 Movistar
44 adidas TERREX
32 Tecnu
35 Raidlight
48 Swedish Army (JayXC i like this abbreviation!)
43 Polska
49 Peak Performance
46 OpavaNet
50 R'ADYS
33 Yogaslackers
41 Montagnat New Caledonia

in TA4:
23 Papacara
26 TerraAventura
16 FEDEME
15 Fairis
18 Guambras

so those teams are thru the first cut-off for sure. 19 of them.

I was referring to the Seagate-Caffte parallel error. Phatty and Harps have been solid on nav so far. Looks like YS are heading in the right direction finally.

Ah. It looked like the Canadians may have done a little bushwhacking for their shortcut too. It worked!

Yay for Canada!

this is a complete guess on my part, but i'm guessing that any team not past the city of "Malchingui" right now will be pushing to make the 1700 cutoff at TA4.

teams on stage 4 bike past "Malchingui"
17 Finalin
11 IDRD Bogota
8 Kailash
14 Seti Traxion 2
9 Raid International Gaspesie
37 Vaucluse
39 Irish AR
12 Karens Summit
45 Peaklife
24 Explorer

teams on stage 4 bike not yet to Malchingui:
40 Freemindteam
2 Sportotal
7 Adgovado Aventuro (i just want to call them the avocados)
1 San Juan
10 Explorer (on illegal route??)
13 Seti Traxion 1
5 Belgium
4 Australia
19 IdealAlambrec
38 Hombres de Maiz
22 Naupak
27 Wari Moderna
29 Odyssey
25 Sinche
3 Team Litoral

teams in TA3:
20 Incalink (lanterne rouge)

Luis Moreira has posted a bunch of great photos on the Breathe Mag Live Coverage, including some pics of teams learning about their penalty. It was nice to see some familiar faces and beautiful scenery.

Columbia, Caffte and Seagate are in TA5. Expect Seagate to be outta there in no time as they can't discharge any time at this TA and won't be serving the 4h penalty.

The top teams are about to start Leg 6, a monster 159 km bike leg estimated to take 19-30 hours. At the end of the bike leg is a whitewater paddling dark zone that runs from 18:30 to 5:30 a.m. That paddle is estimated to take 7-16 hours, which means that many teams will end up camping onshore - even some that start right at sunrise.

Seagate is one of the teams that should be able to do the paddle in 7 hours, meaning that they should miss the dark zone if they start paddling by late morning tomorrow. This means that from their arrival at TA5 (where they are now), they have about 23 hours to move through two TAs, bike 159 km and get their boats in the water. Assuming that they'll want to sleep a little somewhere, this sounds like a tight but workable schedule. Of course, organizer estimates are only approximate (especially when it comes to Seagate) and are weather-dependent too. If they succeed, they'll put a big gap between themselves and the other top teams.

Estimated fastest time for the next bike leg is 19h. If Seagate leaves TA5 at 1ish, that puts them at the start of the paddle at 8am, shortly after the darkzone lifts. They're going to have to take some sleep at some point (perhaps out on the biking leg), but they will almost certainly make it all the way through the paddle (estimated best time of 7h) before the darkzone comes into effect again at 18:30.

Of the other teams serving out the 4h penalty at TA5, I suspect only Columbia & Caffte have a chance of also making it through the entire paddle before dark, but they're going to have to move it if the race director's estimates are accurate!

I like the way you think Bash ;)

:)

Looks like the penalty to the two top teams probably started around 12:15 so they can leave at 16:15. That gives them just over 26 hours to do the 159 km bike (19-30 hrs), the bike/paddle TA and a 69 km whitewater paddle (7-16 hrs). Get ready to press "refresh" a lot starting late afternoon tomorrow! :)

It took about 5 hours but the Yogaslackers are now past the unlucky-if-you're-American CP13.

5:30 to 18:30 is a big window to squeeze in a 7 hour section, to be cutting it fine you need to get going at 11:30 latest

I think there is some wiggle room for seagate to finish the paddle in one go here, I don't think any of the other top teams can make it with the 4 hour stop included.

if seagate go for it and get caught out on the river, there will be a big pack piling up at the TA waiting to pounce

nice job Barb ...I totally copy-pasted you on Breathe. Don't worry, I gave credit and linked back here. Some might call it lazy, I call it efficient: why reinvent the wheel?
Back to the grind...

I copy-paste-credit you all the time, Pete. :)

And they're off! Seagate left TA5 around 13:10, a little over 3 hours before Caffte and Columbia will be allowed to leave.

I guess this means Phatty and the gang will have to serve the penalty too. I haven't gone back far enough to check their cookie crumbs, I suppose I can do that now, but they must have missed that detail because if there is one thing I know about my husband it's that he follows the rules to the letter. This will drive him crazy.

Agreed, that team takes rules very seriously. If you look at Seagate's track before TA3, you can see a place where they crossed the bridge, then retreated to the north side of the river and continued that way to keep the river on their left, as instructed. By the time the Canadians got there, there would have been lots of running shoe tracks heading the wrong way and virtually none heading the right way. The Canadians' track crosses the bridge and stays on the wrong side.

Caffte claimed that the mandatory route was unsafe, and I assume that is the basis of their protest. It must have looked pretty awful and probably most teams assumed there had been a typo, an unannounced change or general agreement that the instruction would be ignored since it is hard to imagine that virtually all teams chose to deliberately break a rule. The green line route on the tracking map does *not* stay on the correct side of the river btw.

such a bummer about the penalty situation. couldn't the RD have put a CP or 2 on the desired side of the river and avoided the whole situation?

I'm pretty sure the "keep the river on your left" rule in the race book was an over-simplification by the race directors. They probably intended for teams to take the road for the last section, but since it was so explicit in the race book, had to enforce the penalty.

Ok that explains why I couldn't really figure it out. Yes, I suppose maybe they were just going a bit on autopilot at that time. It's easy to forget the details but that one is going to bug Pete. I wonder if the instruction to stay on one side of the river was to ensure that they didn't have an issue warning teams in case of a flash flood or something. I did read that that was a possibility but there would be no way to warn teams if something like that was going to happen. Anyway it will force them to sleep at the very least. The rule would be there for a reason you would hope.

water under the bridge. pun intended. meanwhile, back at the race...

the wording was pretty explicit:
http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/2014-adventure-...

Yes, of course. So interesting to see what will happen with Seagate now. If they don't hit the dark zone they will have plenty of time to rest and still maintain a lead but that will be tough to do on no sleep. If they do get stuck at the dark zone then they will have plenty of rest and are absolute animals at the end of a race with plenty of rest. In saying all of that this is AR as we all know and there is a lot between them and the beach. I do hope it works out for them though....they are my faves for this one.

It doesn't get more clear than that!

we welcome your comments:
http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/2014-adventure-...

LosDobos thanks for posting update on Bones...I knew if I looked deep into this forum I would get all the info I need!!!!

my thumbsuck on columbia vidaraid getting into TA5 would be closer to 11:40, so would give seagate about a 2:30 lead. that's their lead on the road - they have also banked an extra 3 hours sleep

Columbia would have got 4 hours rest right there, but it's in the middle of the day.

I must admit, I did get a little bit excited when I switched on yesterday to see Seagate almost impossibly down the leaderboard - here we have a real race on our hands!...didn't take long for normal programming to resume, however. Amazing stuff from the world's top ranked team.

You're obviously right, Shebeen, because Columbia has just finished serving their penalty and headed out on their bikes.

YogaSlackers turn on the burners and caught the teams ahead of them. Go USA.

Tecnu hasn't tracked for almost 90 minutes between CP14 and CP15; they were just ahead of Raidlight in 6th place. Raidlight's tracker also disappeared for a couple of hours in the same area, which features steep, heavily treed slopes. Tecnu's last position was right on track. Hopefully, they'll reappear soon!

Go Raid International Gaspésie!! Go Phatty!!

epic so far to say the least. Da bomb

@all: thanks for the to-the-minute coverage btw.

Raid Gaspésie has been in TA4 for about 1 hr 40 minutes. They have to leave within the next 50 minutes to make the short course cut-off. It looks like they'll be the last team to make it. There are a couple of teams behind them who might arrive before 17:00 but I don't think they'll have time to take their bikes apart and prepare for a long trek.

Tecnu's tracker seems to be moving again. They are about 1k from cp15 now.

They must have known we were worrying about them. ;)

I just can't get over all they are doing. Sounds brutal. I am amazed. Everyone, everyone is doing so well under the circumstances.

Agreed!

If anyone is talking with Slice - or if she joins this discussion after finding all her gear - maybe we could find out what Team Bones thought about that bridge/road/path on the way to TA3. Without checking their breadcrumbs, I assume they probably crossed the bridge too.

I talked to her earlier (this is Leanimal obviously, not Phatty) and she did say they crossed the bridge but she didn't seem to know about the rule or that they were breaking one. I'm fairly certain it wasn't an intentional disregard for the rules though on her team.

TA4 Time in-Time out- Discharge.



From Odyssey FB acct.

Caffte has finished their penalty and headed out to chase Columbia and Seagate.

Movistar (4th) is still waiting at TA5.

Adidas Terrex (5th) made the same parallel valley error that Seagate and Caffte made enroute to TA5. Tecnu is only a few kms behind so if they don't make the wrong turn, this will be a good chance for them to move back into the top five.

What are the Yogaslackers doing? They appear to have followed a trail to the east that is leading them away from CP14.

They heard me. They're returning to the correct route.

People listen to you Bash.

Latest Slice update - she's going swimming in the ocean.

Sounds fun! :) Please ask her to stop in here and say hi.

Phew, Raid Gaspésie left TA4 right around the 17:00 short course cut-off. I was beginning to worry that they had some problem. Now we will see if the CP13 Black Hole is a North American phenomenon or just an American one.

LosDobos has counted 21 teams on the short course. There are 5 teams that have retired from the race, which means 24 teams are continuing.

Although... I'm wondering if Team 14 Seti Traxion 2 has decided to take the short course option. They arrived at TA4 around the same time as Raid Gaspésie so they had lots of time for transition and departure before the cut-off. But their dot hasn't moved at 17:15.

Looking ahead, here are some things Raid Gaspésie will be thinking about:

- They're at the start of the 45 km Leg 6 trek, estimated to take 12-22 hours. Pre-race info said there would be no drinking water on this leg.
- After that, it's the 159 km monster bike leg, estimated to take 19-30 hours.
- After that, there is a paddle dark zone that runs from 18:30 to 5:30 daily.
- Also, there is a cut-off to start the paddle by Friday at 10 a.m.

If organizer estimates are accurate, the Friday cut-off shouldn't be an issue if teams are moving steadily. As the final team on the full course (#14 is still at the TA at 17:30), Gaspésie has 65 hours to start that river paddle.

There is actually more of a crunch for the 3rd time cut-off, which is Saturday at 10 a.m., 24 hours after the 2nd time cut-off:

Teams need to do the 69 km whitewater paddle (7-16 hrs, not including any dark zone stops), a 42 km bike leg (4-8 hrs), and a mandatory 2-hour rest at TA8. Any team that gets caught by Friday night's paddle dark zone will get cut off on Saturday morning. All of these cut-offs so far are just short course cut-offs. Teams will still be ranked but they will be moved ahead on the race course.

Day 3 video

Tecnu also got sucked into the parallel valley where so many of the leaders have gone on their way to TA5. Adidas Terrex is back on course ahead of them. Both teams will serve a 4-hour penalty at TA5. They will serve their penalty in the dark, which is a silver lining.

OK, they heard me too and are heading back on course. ;) They have moved decisively ahead of Raidlight and are catching up with Adidas (5th). Looks like they're feeling good.

Uh oh, Raid Gaspésie has returned to TA4 at 17:45.

Oh dear.

And they are still there at 18:15. :(

As Tecnu approaches TA5, Raidlight has gone down the Magnetic Parallel Valley. That should delay them awhile.

If Raid Gaspésie takes the short course option, they will be transported forward to TA8, the start of the 40 km Leg 9 trek. After that, there is a 59 km paddle to the finish line. These two sections together are estimated to take 25-45 hours. As organizers said, the end of the race is the hardest part.

Given that they appeared to trek a few hundred meters uphill before turning around, it looks like someone isn't feeling 100% but they felt it was worth giving it a try.

It's raining there, and the forecast is calling for more rain and thunderstorms.
http://www.accuweather.com/en/ec/san-jose-de-minas...

Although we haven't heard much about it, I have to think a lot of the racers are struggling with foot problems in these conditions. Also, the trek from TA4 goes back up to 3553 m so if anyone has been having altitude problems, that would be a concern. It's cool enough that teams must be struggling with hypothermia too, as Bones was. For those of us who might worry, the fact that they tried to leave the TA suggests that they are OK, even if a teammate isn't feeling good enough to race.

No! There's a much better explanation! The cut-off has been extended till midnight due to bad weather conditions on the first section!!!! :)))
http://www.sleepmonsters.com/v2_races.php?article_...

Yahoo!

Teams arriving after 17:00 but before midnight will be allowed to continue, as long as they leave by 5:00. They will receive a 2-hour penalty. This doesn't apply to Raid Gaspésie, who arrived before the original cut-off. They may have decided to "discharge". It is possible that the one track that showed them heading uphill from the TA was an error, or maybe they started to climb in the rain, then decided to take advantage of the extra TA time. Either way, phew!

From sleepmonsters at T/A 4 regarding feet....
http://www.sleepmonsters.com/v2_races.php?article_...

"Pete Cameron from team Canada-Gaspésie spent a half hour having his feet tended to by the race medics while he was eating a plate of chicken and rice. He has blisters under both toenails on his big toes and the medic pierced a hole to drain the pus. He spoke of the beauty of this last mountain biking stage, saying that there was a 16-17% grade and when he glanced up quickly to take in the scenery, he was struck by the deep ravines and the sheer drops."

Phatty can always be counted on for a good quote suitable for event promotion - even while having pus drained from under two (!) big toenails. Poor guy. Sounds like he's still having a good time though!

He looks good in the photo too.

Andreas Strand is also there taking photos!
https://www.facebook.com/andreas.strand/media_set?...

Re-posting this from LosDobos' Breathe Flashblog article, just so I can more easily find it later. It's the conversation about mandatory rest stops/hours during expedition racing.

http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/2014-adventure-...

There's a track on the approach to TA5 which is why so many teams have gone up the adjacent valley - intentional not a mistake.

CAN RIG XactNutrition PbOsprey is well on their way again and seem to have found CP 13 nicely

Vidaraid has made a wrong turn, haven't they?

i agree, was just going to post the same thing about Columbia. looks like Caffte is passing them.

Hard to say, the next CP is a ways off and they may be taking a different line. Also their last track is quite old now - almost 1.5 hours old.

oh yes. that is correct - Columbia hasn't tracked since 20:30. here's hoping they have a plan!

Columbia's tracker must have heard us typing, their position is now updated, still ahead of Caffte, along the yellow line. how they got there, we may never know!

Great to see Raid Gaspésie flying along since I last checked! It looks like they left TA4 around 18:30 and made it to the elusive CP13 in less than 2.5 hours in the dark.

Team 14 Seti Traxion 2 and Team 37 Vaucluse Aventures are about a kilometre behind, and teams continue to gather at TA4 where they can stay until 5 a.m. if they wish. It's a very different race from what we were expecting a few hours ago. I hope some effort has been made to notify teams of the change while they're on the bike leg so they can plan their efforts to get to TA4 in time for the new cut-off.

According to Los "Da bomb" Dobos the virtual standings are :
--- NZL Seagate
4.5 h FRA Caffte
1 h ESP Columbia Vidaraid
0.5 h ECU Movistar

It looks like NZL Seagate have a chance to get to TA6 before 4:30am and may be able to discharge at least 1h while they are effectively caught in the dark zone.
That said, it sounds like the ropes section at CP22 will take some time to complete.

http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/2014-adventure-...

Turns out Tecnu appealed the penalty too. Kyle's letter explains their perspective. As expected, they didn't believe they were breaking a rule.
https://www.facebook.com/162254323809953/photos/pc...

Tecnu has "unleashed the beast". ;) They've left TA5 and are nearing CP17 now. The top 6 teams are all on the monster bike leg. Seagate is within an hour of the ropes section. As Jackson5 says, they should reach the river by dawn and may even get a little rest.

This suggests that the monster bike leg may not take as long as organizers estimated so some of the chase pack may get onto the river early as well.

I caught up with Tecnu tonight. Kyle has some insight on why everyone crossed over. Rob talks about there nave error. They are in good spirits and joking about getting 4 hours of sleep. http://youtu.be/TF_9ZR7FEZs?list=UUMVzteMQ5UIBQS2j...

The quality sucks. I have to post low res to be able to upload. After I get home I will post everything in HD

Depending on how long this ropes section takes, I think Seagate, Columbia and Caffte could all clear the river before the darkzone. On the ground, Columbia is just 2h behind Seagate and Caffte is an hour further back.

Columbia will have a lot of sleep to discharge at TA8, but they would then still have a decent gap over the teams that got caught in the dark zone.

Hey, Kyle talks about this Attackpoint discussion in that video!

Day 3 photos from LegendaryRandy, including lots of Tecnu. https://www.facebook.com/randy.ericksen/media_set?...

He talks about you, Bash. He told everyone about your secret identity.

Yes, he did! I suppose when your Attackpoint name is KyleRPeter, you don't *think* about the importance of a secret identity.

Has it been mentioned anywhere how the teams get down to the river? On the map it looks a good 10kms from the TA.

Given I saw something telling teams not to bother with portage wheels I hope they don't have to carry the boats down there. Or maybe they get given a wheelbarrow XPD style.

In the route descriptions it says they kayaks are at the river, but the teams must walk in carrying all their kit. Says the track is rough and slow, and they were worried about the logistics of getting vehicles down there (I guess maybe also if teams are using the same road that wouldn't be so good).
didnt look like there was much of a stop for a ropes section? was it cancelled??

Slow-going at the end of this bike leg, but then again, it is dark, and likely rainy, muddy, sleepmonstery, etc.

Columbia has narrowed the physical gap to Seagate down to 1h45m, depending on whether they make the same little out-and-back error Seagate made earlier. They're at that junction right now.

terrex and then tecnu are going south!

after PC19, they've both gone off course, something non of the previous teams have done.

on the sat map you can see the Y- junction where they must have taken the left turn. Terrex apear to have notice the error and are making their way back towards the correct route, but it looks tough.

I am totally with Kyle on the penalty. If a forbidden road then it should be indicated so. We saw a lot of pink xxxxx on the out of bound roads on their maps. Or better, have a CP located in a way that it will naturally drag racers away from the unintented area.

It is most of the time inconsistency of race design and instructions that pushes teams to act in a certain way, not teams wanting to get somekind of advantage. This is a clear example. When all teams are naturally dragged somewhere then it cannot be all their fault.

Nevermind - Columbia is in fact repeating Seagate's mistake. Let's see if they realise it as quickly.

they are pushing it furter N than NZL Seagate. That seem to be somekind of "main" road

jackson5, this is pure speculation, but I think that road was not intented to be out-of-bounds at all. From all accounts, it sounds very contrived to keep the teams on the right of the river all the way into the TA.

The problem is that they made a mistake by over-simplifying the instructions in the road book. Instead of saying "keep the river on your left until the major road bridge" (which may have been vague), they kept it simple with a "keep the river on your left at all times".

Since the rule was so specific, and Seagate/Haglofs/Polska followed it to the letter, they were forced to apply penalties to the other teams, despite not necessarily intending Seagate/Haglofs/Polska to stay on that side of the river.

FRA Caffte tracker seem to have caught a cold S of CP22/rope site. Only the tracker had issues I think, not them. They are on the ropes now.

@Stijn. I understand, but then it means the road/bridge wasn't forbidden, so Caffte, Columbia, Tecnu and all did not break any rule but ot penalized for doing "the right" thing.

Seagate/Haglofs/Polska interpreted the book in a certain way, a way that should have cost them about 1.5h. That's racing.

the organization changed their own rule during the game and got everyone penalized for their own misjudgement.

back to tecnu/terrex - they have both corrected, terrext are on the road, tecnu almost there. looking at breadcrumbs, took movistar ~1:30 to do that section, Terrex about 2:15 - nothing worse than going downhill in the wrong direction, but very lucky that the ridgeline didn't continue for ever.

Will be interesting to see how many others go this way.

Seagate cleared the MTB leg in 16h30m. If Caffte covers the rest of the leg at the same pace as them, they'll hit the TA at 10:15. Which will make it very tight to transition and cover the 7h of paddling before the darkzone, but I'm sure they'll be motivated.

Movistar will likely reach the TA at 11:30, which puts them out of range and facing an 11h snooze towards the end of the paddle.

edit: they could potentially be faster with daylight on their side.

@jackson5, the rule in the race book is very explicit though, and leaves no room for interpretation. Hence a fair penalty, but the fault is with the organiser.

I can't see enough detail on the map of CP6 to tell how far away the road/bridge was from the TA but I have a feeling it wasn't meant to be out of bounds either. Unfortunately, they had no choice but to stick to the rule to the letter. I agree jackson5 that that would seem contrived to keep them on the right side of the river right to the TA unless there was as safety reason for this which it doesn't seem like there was. Bummer.

looks like seagate are staying at TA6, banking some sleep. colombia are just over an hour away from transition, Caffte a bit over an hour further back.

I think it's safe to say now that barring any major catastrophe, our new world champs can only come from these three. I would consider seagate not making the paddle darkzone from here in that category!



Leg 7 known as Gama TV is a 69km W.hite Water Kayak down the Rio Grande. This leg goes from Independiente to Cole.

Teams begin this leg with a hike to CP 24 which is located on the river. Teams must carry their paddling equipment on this hike. Kayaks will be at CP24. The reason for this is that the road between the two is poor and it would be to difficult for logistics to be able to keep in front of the teams.

Once teams reach the river they will only be allowed to paddle during daylight hours which have been defined as 5:30am to 6:30pm. If a team is on the river at this point, they must stop and camp on the edge of the river overnight.

The River Grande is a beautiful river which has many class two rapids and one class three rapid. Along the shores live a river indigenous community known as the Chachi. The Chachi don’t speak much spanish at all, they use their own language.

Teams kayak through 2 cps before finishing at TA7 / CP 27.

Our 2 leaders are now both in transition together. That still means Columbia is 3h behind virtually due to the extra hours of sleep they still have to discharge.

It seems like Team France are making slow progress on this bike leg, I hope they can keep contact with Columbia / Seagate moving into this next part of the race.

And Seagate leave for the paddle.

did seagate not bank 1 maybe 2 hours sleep at this TA? can they do it here?

Moviestar seem to be making good time on the bike into TA6. They might even catch the French soon?

I think Seagate banked their 6th hour of sleep. The last 2h are compulsory at TA8.

Steve, I think Seagate got 2 hours of down time in. That'd leave them with just the 2 hours of compulsory at the start of the jungle trek to do.

Nic, no use trying to introduce new terminology now - the widely accepted term is "sleep discharge" :-P

wasn't 'death time' the direct translation

Nah, that's when you have a set amount of time to get through a leg - even if you do it faster, you need to wait out the full time at the TA.

ECU Movistar is only 4k behind FRA Caffte. Looks like they will catch them before or at TA6

Looks like NZL Seagate felt condident enough about the paddling to discharge 1h of sleep before leaving, which is a good way to keep that H between them and teams behind.

ESP Columbia Vidaraid are off on the river, no discharge rest

Seagate into TA6 at 5h45/06h00. They were already 3km down the track to the river at 8h00, so it looks like 1 hour of 'sleep discharge' was used up rather than 2.

They only had 1 hour to discharge, as they have discharged 5hrs so far.

So they have 2 left for TA8 which is the least required.

Let's say Columbia (likely) Caffte and Movistar all clear the dark zone, and as outlined in the Route stage 8 MTB is a quick 42km that will be done in the dark, they will have do discharge whatever time they have left during the night as Seagate will start the trek, the most difficult of the race with the GPS, in pitch dark.
Columbia-Caffte-Movistar will be trekking mostly in daylight following Seagate tracks.

Far fetched but still an open race.

Based on post race interviews from last year I wouldn't expect Seagate to drop out with feet issues so easily this year so Columbia and or Caffte will need to do it with speed and nav. Not exactly a Seagate weakness.

There is a nice little mini-race occurring with this dark zone and the top 4 teams. I hope Movistar make it interesting by beating the dark zone.

Looking at the fast bike-paddle-bike turnaround section the leaders are just hitting, I'm going to give a shout out to the racestaff who you know are working hard running their own race. Someone is going to put a lot of miles on shuttling bike boxes from TA6 to TA7 to keep ahead of teams so their bikes meet them at the end of the paddle. Doesn't look like a lot of main roads between those TAs and they'll have to move fast. Makes me appreciate the level of behind the scenes logistics that goes into a race like this.

Good point, Wilberto!

@Leanimal, if you want to see the verboten bridge before TA3, check Seagate's breadcrumbs. It appears that they crossed the bridge, then re-read the instructions and crossed back. It's not super close to the TA.

Looks like Adidas TERREX made a wrong turn. It will be interesting to see what TECNU does.

I should've waited for the update. TECNU is through fine. Not sure what's up with Adidas.

Back into the top 5 for Tecnu but unless organizers' estimates are wrong for the paddle, they'll be spending 11 hours along a riverbank tonight while the top 4 (probably) teams continue on the course. :(

Adidas heading back to the yellow line now.

What kind of boats are they paddling?

Tecnu will be better off if they stay in the TA and burn the remainder of their TA time, unless time on the side of the river counts toward the TA sleep time.

Yes, as Wilberto pointed out, the teams get to see their bike box at every transition (except one maybe?). So rather than being able to leap frog bins A, B, C, D well in advance of teams arriving, there is still a need for gear shuttles to make the journey to every TA once the teams have packed up, and before they get to the next one.

Yep, definitely time for Tecnu to strategize re: how to minimize their losses during forced stops.

The first half of the paddle (especially the 9-11 km section where Caffte is now) will most-likely be quicker than the second.

Why is Columbia almost on top of Seagate right now?

I'm sure most of you have been thinking what I've been thinking: Seagate will win by more than 4 hours and make the whole penalty issue effectively moot (almost everyone else is equally penalized except for Seagate and one or two others). Also, Seagate wasn't even the one who filed the complaint re: other racers taking the different route. They probably figured there was still lots of race left and they would just work to get it back. A classy bunch of folks who just want to race quality races.

Those 20 m uphill paddle sections look ugly though!

@Leanimal- Seagate's tracker hasn't updated since 11:15.

Phew....for some reason my map is not working like it should. I can only click on it and see the times some of the time.

Agree, looks like Tecnu would be best to just "discharge" for 3 official hours at TA6, by which time it will be close to 18:30. So they should get a comfortable sleep, lots of food, blister treatment, socializing time with other teams ;) etc.

Definitely the way to go for Tecnu at this point I think. They will be fully recharged and able to push until the end after that.

Columbia is about 30 minutes behind Seagate right now based on the most-recent tracker update.

Is Terrex really going backwards?

No, looks like they corrected.

Looks like they backtracked to a known position and they're now at the spot where they originally made their wrong turn.

Meanwhile, back on the Leg 5 trek, things have slowed way down. Seagate did that 45 km trek in 12 hours, half of it in the dark. (RD estimate was 12-22 hrs.) Tecnu probably lost their podium chance with an 18.5 hr trek. Times have been getting longer. Raid Gaspésie is in a pack of teams, most of whom were ahead of RIG at TA4, so they are moving well. However, they are still between CP14 and CP15 after more than 18 hours. A couple of teams currently in TA5 took 20-22 hours.

It seems FRA Caffte and ECU Movistar are not going to clear the dark zone on the river.

It took ESP Columbia ~4.5h to cover roughly half of the way and Caffte and Movistar are still quite far from there.

it really looks like they will come short of about 5-10k.

Wow, the race looks awesome! Congrats to all those racing and thanks to all you who are posting. My hectic sched of late has kept me from frittering away countless hours online, but your efforts have allowed my to satisfy the nagging curiosity that can't be stopped.
Just some comments
Mandatory sleep - 'Break it Up' vs one 'Mid-Camp' stop... Don't think it matters to the racers so long as the rules are clear for everyone and as long as it stays in the 4-8 hours (/exped race) range. It's just part of the race course strategy and shouldn't advantage one team over another (except for better strategists?) If it starts creeping up into the 12+ hours range then I think it could provide advantages to certain types of teams/racers.
It does make it harder to follow from home but that's another issue and it should be fixable.

The wrong side of the river penalty... Sux for everyone. Appears to me the race organization wears the shame for this, but I agree that once the mistake has been made then everyone has to live with it to keep it fair (sorry Kyle et al). Maybe the severity of the penalty should reflect the (lack of) intent of the teams and 'fault' of the Organizers. 1-2 hour penalty vs 4?

Lot's of racing left.. lots can happen (good and bad)!!
C'mon Raid Gaspésie!!

@ Jackson 5 .... I'm not in tune enough right now to know if this will provide Tecnu a legitimate shot to podium? Hope so!!!
Sound reasonable?

Mandatory sleep: one down side of 'Break it up' vs 'Mid-camp' style is that teams less incline to decide to snooze on the go. Therefore it has the opposite effect than intended (security I guess) as teams will be tempted to push beyond what they are comfortable with because they have to 'discharge' sleep time somewhere else than at the moment they really need it. Also, dark vs daylight factor, a team would normally avoid 'discharging sleep' in the middle of the day, but then could have not much of a choice at some point.

Mid camp style offers a chance for everyone to regroup, including the organization, media, socialize, have a mandatory interview, etc. Easier to keep track of ranking for sure.

In a race this long every teams would sleep at least 8h anyway so in my mind it adds a layer of complexity/logistics for everyone without offering any benefit.

@FB Unless one of the 3 top teams have some serious troubles it's unlikely that Tecnu can make it to the podium, but this is AR. There is still the last trek where funky things could happen, and maybe tides could play a part in the last paddling leg.

Yes, as a racer, I prefer to manage my sleep on my own schedule, sometimes preferring to sleep in TAs (warm sleeping bag waiting in my bike bin) or sometimes preferring to sleep away from the noise and lights of a TA and sleeping right at the prime moment in the night.

As for the time penalty re: wrong side of the river: I hear you re: race organizers going a little easier on penalized racers because no one was maliciously disregarding the rule, but the organizers also need to at least make up for the extra time and energy spent by the couple of teams that did it "right", plus a minor amount of time on top of that as a penalty.

This same race to the paddle put-in is going to occur tomorrow with an number of teams still on Stage 5 Trek, ie. RIG.

I know, I was just trying to figure out how this could play out for RIG. Having raced on that team for some time I can tell you that we were never very good at managing sleep on our own so this forced 4 hours is going to be good for them. They have navigated well so I don't want to see any big mistakes and a nice sleep might avoid that. Then they would have more energy going into that ride. I think they should be able to make the paddle during the day on Friday and if they had the entire day to do it they should be able to make it in one go non? How long does it look like it will take Seagate?

Tecnu might still elect to keep pushing on after discharging probaly 2h (depending on how many they have left -2 for TA8). They would be able to move for roughly 2h and at least trek down to the river and maybe there is somekind of sheltered place they could crash. It would still worth it depending on what are their needs at this point vs what is available at TA6.

Does anyone know off the top of their head how many hours Columbia, France and Movistar have to discharge. I'm too lazy to go and find it.

Tecnu was at cp15 yesterday at 1630. RIG is almost there now so they are slightly ahead of Tecnu's timing but will have to hammer the upcoming bike after their 4 hr penalty coming up to have chance.

Oh, good point. That's not what I was hoping for. Maybe if I spent a little more time thinking about it I would get to these conclusions on my own but I guess I am just bitter about not being there myself:)

I think Caffte will make the dark zone, Movistar will miss it by 30 minutes. That will suck.

07- FRA Raidlight (35) caught up with 06- GBR adidas (44) Terrex at the ropes.

08- Swedish Armed Forces (48) is detaching from the chase group that includes everyone else on the never ending stage 6 bike leg.

09- SUI R'ADYS (50)
10- SWE Team Peak Performance (49)
11- CZE BLACK HILL / OpavaNet (46)
12- USA Yogaslackers (33)
13- NCL Montagnat New Caledonia (41)

It looks like all these teams will regroup at TA6 for the night at some point, clear their mandatory sleep -2 (for TA8) and restart at 0530 tomorrow morning. With everyone somehow refueled, it should be a close fight for placing 6th to 13th. Second half of top ten is still very open.

Actually no I was thinking that they would for sure get caught by the dark zone on Thursday night but that they would get some rest (a lot hopefully) and be able to get a full day on the water on Friday because if they don't make it off the river by the end of Friday then they will for sure be cut off at the cut off which is Sat.am somewhere. Am I right?

If Tecnu is on the river but then has to stop overnight for the Dark Zone, will teams behind them have a time advantage in that they may continue their progress towards the river? This is confusing me...

Next cut-off for RIG is in stage 6. I assume they are talking about TA5.

"There is a cut off on this leg. Any team that hasn't left this TA by 1000 on Friday the 14th of November will be transported to CP30."

They should be fine for this one. Next one is Saturday 1000 although unclear if it applies to TA7 or TA8.

I whish there was some kind of quality assurance guy on the ARWS side to at least review the documentation of these races. That would avoid a lot of the usual confusion.

My prediction is that the top four teams will all make it off the paddle before the dark zone. Hopefully that keeps it interesting for the podium.

i think tecnu will go for a paddle. if they wanted to spend the night at the TA they probably would have slowed down a while back.

if they wait there, they spend 15/16 hours at the same place and let teams catch up and almost all restart together. you just need to try a different strategy to the chasing pack.

seagate are taking about 6hours for this paddle, puts caffre and movistar right on the bubble, they will surely try push harder(if they can) but Seagate are a traditionally good paddle team so will be hard to match.

Chiming in late but I agree w/ FB. Interpretation was unfortunate but something needs to be done to even things out for the teams that "followed the rules." They certainly shouldn't be penalized. I agree that maybe 2 hours would have been a more appropriate penalty. Looks like it took Seagate 3 hours from the bridge to TA3 and FRA Caffte 1:40. I think this will be a bigger issue for teams that miss getting off the river before the dark zone by less than 2 hours. No penalty might be the difference in them making it. So even if Seagate wins by more than 4 hours (which is very likely if everyone else gets caught in the dark zone) the issue won't be moot.

All that being said if I was in the lead I would have followed the rules. If I was in 5-10 and saw lots of tracks going the illegal way and none going the legal way I would probably go the illegal way. If those tracks all of a sudden stopped though so would I.

Also not sure if anyone commented on it (as I mostly skimmed over the comments above) but the line on the live map actually follows the road and doesn't stay north of the river. Really seems like it wasn't the RDs intention but that's the way the rules were written and from what we have seen it was pretty clear. Interpreting the rules can get you into trouble sometimes. If everyone had taken the road it would have been so much easier. Also I wouldn't give the RD too much flack. Hard to imagine there wouldn't be one mistake in a race this big or long. AR is already a logistical nightmare. Wording is everything and it is sometimes hard to imagine every possible interpretation.

The race looks interesting. Looks like the dark zone will create a significant break in the field but remember how much Tecnu and Adidas caught up to Columbia last year on the last bike leg after getting caught in a pretty serious dark zone. There might be less time left this year to make up the difference but that last trek sounds difficult enough to maybe give teams a chance to catch back up.

The race seems so short comparatively to last year. It sure does seem wet though.

I agree with Tecnu starting paddle. Might as well put the time into the teams behind. 11 hours is already a huge amount of rest time and on the paddle its easy to take some extra comforts along (food, clothing, first aid etc... monopoly board..) without paying any real speed penalty (I'm assuming no real portages?...)

@ Leanimal 'I am just bitter about not being there myself:)' ... it gets a little easier past the age of 45 or 20+ exped. races (not sure which has bigger effect) but it never goes away completely :-) ....at least not yet
... although there were a number of times during Costa Rica that I was sooo glad to be sitting in front on my computer :-)

I haven't seen anything indicating that any of the front teams might be struggling physically (beyond the regular). Feet holding up? Weather/altitude no longer a major factor?

They're about 150m above sea level now. Heat may actually be a problem now based on the FB pics of Columbia at the last bike TA.

Seagate are in TA7. It took them +/- 7.5h. It took them exactly 3h from the actual rough location of Movistar.

Caffte should be able to make aftre all but it will be incredibly close for Movistar.

Good point M22... the time penalty would have a ripple effect re: dark zones, cut offs, etc.
Lots of pressure on race organizers to make sure that everything is easy to understand, clear, consistent re: no-go zones, time cut offs, dark zones, gear requirements.

my last comment on the penalty thing, one way or the other I would like to see the race booklet to have the full context.

It is still unclear I think how much of a "rule" this was meant to be. Interpretation all depends of how the rest of the race booklet is written, and if there was other similar situations before in the race that affects the way racers understand what the RD is actually saying in the booklet.

"Discharge" time @ TA6

NZL Seagate 1h
ESP Columbia Vidaraid 1h
FRA Caffte 0h
ECU Movistar 0h

Tecnu has been in TA6 for about an hour now so it looks like they're following Jackson5's advice although they are in a no win situation. They'll burn up their Discharge time then leave but won't make it onto the water before the dark zone hits at 6:30pm so they will be at the waters edge waiting for it to lift.
Everyone else behind them will do the same thing and be waiting there with them in the am as they can at least travel to the waters edge under the dark zone. Tecnu may as well hang at the TA if its got better facilities and then leave it 2 hours before the Dark Zone lifts tomorrow am.

Good point JayXC, they are really in the tough spot there. Everybody will catch them. They really should discharge every sleep hours -2 and then eventually go down by the river shorlty before 0530. This is what every team will probably do.

It will become a race for 5th with many very talented and rested teams. But technically the actual ranking shouldn't change that much if there is no major issues as it reflects the strenght of these teams. But what a bummer.

be curious to hear Tecnu's logic on this...
Are they assuming everyone in front is going to have no major issues to the end?
Given assumption of front teams being unreachable, they have full confidence in their ability to leave the rest of the pack behind when well rested?
Someone on Tecnu really in need of extra TLC right now?
Given up on podium and don't care about the diff between 4-5-6...?

I expect Kyle will read thread this shortly after crossing the finish... :-)
... I need to know?! :-)

... getting sucked back into the online vortex :-( ... gonna be working all weekend to make up for this

Movistar closed the gap on Caffte a bit but I think they still need about 15-30min extra to be able to pass the gate on time

Heyo. Just logged in for first time in this race. The kayaking is almost down to the minute to avoid the DZ, woohaa! :)

If Seagate win by more than 4hrs, all good. If not, not so cool, for them.

Unless Tecnu could get 2+ hrs down the river it makes sense to empty the Discharge Time here otherwise they'd need to serve it later while everyone else behind them would certainly be empty (assumes Tecnu had 2 hrs to burn).

Caffte (Thule at the time) passed Seagate @ ARWC 2011 in Australia beacause Seagate got a 4h penalty for those who remember...

tracking map update, the short-course teams' dots have now changed colors. except, some are green (20, 47) and some are blue (4, 8, 25, 29). theories?

EDIT: Dobos has got it covered "blue is short course 1, green is unranked, orange is full course :)"

@JayXC yup

ESP Columbia is probably done by now as the tracker has not updated since 1615.

From Tecnu FB page:

"So the team has decided to rather than huddle down the river a couple of hours and sleep on the side of the river that they were going to go ahead and discharge the rest of their sleep and then push through all the way to the finish line. Bit of a gamble but they don't want to have to stop and sleep again."

Tecnu had used 3 of their 8 discharge hours before TA6. They arrived at 14:45 so at 17:45, they will have used up the 3 hours they're allowed to discharge here.

Re the question about the Saturday morning cut-off, I had to read through the info several times to figure it out but I think I got it right in this earlier post.

There is actually more of a crunch for the 3rd time cut-off, which is Saturday at 10 a.m., 24 hours after the 2nd time cut-off:

Teams need to do the 69 km whitewater paddle (7-16 hrs, not including any dark zone stops), a 42 km bike leg (4-8 hrs), and a mandatory 2-hour rest at TA8. Any team that gets caught by Friday night's paddle dark zone will get cut off on Saturday morning. All of these cut-offs so far are just short course cut-offs. Teams will still be ranked but they will be moved ahead on the race course.

Stage 7 - top teams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA1tIt_Vrh0&index=...

Based on Tecnu's breadcrumb history it looks like there could be as many as 9 more teams joining them at the rivers edge tomorrow am depending on each of their Discharge Time status.

The first cut-off was bumped from 1700 to 0000 so by 7h because of the "bad weather", so I guess we can assume all subsequent cut-offs should also be bumped to as the "bad weather" kind of applies all the way after the first time.

The answer to 'what are they paddling' is- 2 person sit-on-tops.

Should the organization apply the penalty in another way than having the middle-back teams sitting for 4h at TA5 ?

Movistar = too far away. Caffte UPS right on the cusp. Literally minutes either way, based on Seagate and Columbia. I want to go to bed, but......

I must be missing something (wouldn't be first time)

If Tecnu has daylight time they could be using to move further ahead of chasing teams but they burn it here to use up the discharge, then wait an additional 11 hours to start the paddle, now all the other teams were able to use up their discharge time during the night when they couldn't move forward anyways.(unless that is not correct and they have to discharge outside of an imposed dark zone time?)

Now it's an even(ish) race to the finish. If Tecnu moves 2 hours ahead on the course, they still get a massive 11 hr break and then get to take another two hours break later (possibly in the dark.. I haven't looked that far ahead) while the chasing teams are working hard to make up that two hour lead. Even if they are caught (equal position again), they are now fresher than the chasing teams and in a better position than starting on equal ground at the start of the paddle... No?
Plus, if I caught it correctly earlier, the teams can clock in on discharge time as soon as they enter the TA... so their TA time will eat up some of the discharge time vs the chasing teams who have used up all of the discharge time and are now TA'ing on the 'race' clock (...although I may have read that everyone has to save 2 hours discharge for the last TA (8?) which would negate the transition time effect but still give Tecnu a nice 4 hour break vs 2 for the chasing teams)
Either way, given that I'd be looking at a huge stop anyways and assuming the team is relatively healthy, I'd rather use my current daylight and force teams to chase me while I'm discharging later and freshening up and if the next discharge period falls in darkness then it's likely a greater advantage.

But as I said... way back before I started to ramble... I may be missing something. :-)

and j5.. I remember that penalty in Taz. :-)

Wow.. you get distracted for a few minutes while writing something and a dozen posts pop up before you get to add your (possibly redundant) comments! :-)

Anyone else think it freaky how closely this mirrors last year's race, in terms of who is beating the DZ, and who will be champing at the bit in the morning? Nuts, but that's only IMHO

:)

looks like Movistar will end up 2km short of the TA when the dark zone rolls around. Mierda.

GBR adidas Terrex punched in at TA6

Video of Columbia @vidaraid biking, kayaking and trekking by @raidaventura https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSQtrJHQDro

FB, I'd been thinking like you. There are advantages of being out of sight of the other teams. However, if Tecnu wanted to discharge the maximum allowable 3 hours at TA6, that would take until 17:45 so they wouldn't have time to get from the TA to the river before 18:30. It takes 1.5-2 hrs to get there, and other teams can do this during the dark zone so it would give Tecnu no advantage. Assuming that the TA is comfortable, they may as well stay there and head to the river in the morning.

@Fuddam, yes, it's a *lot* like last year's race!

For teams camping along the river, here's a comment about this leg from Kyle before the race:

Kyle: We are told to minimize time outside of tent to 'reduce danger of snakes and insects'. We are to keep our emergency radio on with the volume on high in a dry bag at all times while we paddle so we can be warned of flash floods.

Meanwhile, NZL Seagate is flying on the quick stage 8 bike to TA8 where they will discharge their mandatory and last 2h before stage 9 trek in Mache Chindul Ecological Reserve.

"This trek is expected to be one of the hardest in the race."

This is the GPS section. Must be very beautiful.

Not much to be found on youtube about it but I really hope they cross path with this park ranger/singer because he is really something: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1sj7bIShCU

WHoa! Based on Columbia's pace at the end of the paddle, Movistar will make it...but based on Seagate's pace, they won't...yikes! I still stick with my prediction that they make it.

15min to do approx 4k - ECU Movistar will most likely get short.

But what will they do? what should they do?

- stop on the side of the river and get a 11h *defacto penalty anyway and loose contact for good?
- push to the TA and argue the relative safety of the shore at that point and risk a penalty?

A penalty for being 15min extra on the water would most likely be much less than 11h.

If they get at least to the east side of Esmeraldas river then the the next shore is in fact the TA.

With everything at stake, I think they have to consider it an option, at least they try something to keep their chances alive. Very small but there.

No GPS track from Caffte since 18:00, which suggests that they've made it to the TA and have their tracker pointed the wrong way as they get organized for biking...

Interesting, Jackson5. I think the race organization would have to make it an 11-hour penalty. What if a team paddled an extra 3 hours instead of just 15 minutes? It's a bad precedent to encourage breaking rules, given that dark zones are there for safety and liability reasons.

not a fun decision. But I'd want to sit it out at the TA rather than on the river bank. They'll have pushed themselves to exhaustion to make the cutoff. 11hrs in the dry = better.

looks like only 1km short or so. :(

I agree Bash, so then they have nothing to loose. And sleeping in the TA with gear/food access and relative comfort is much more appealing than on the infested river bank.

They clocked @1830 at 1k from Esmeraldas river.

I'm not big on tropical snakes and spiders so I might make a run for the TA too!

Should have made them serve the penalties AFTER the dark zone

While we watch to see if Movistar takes the chance, I've been worrying that Raid Gaspésie is moving slowly. They have been on the Leg 5 trek for 24 hours, twice as long as Seagate, and still have a little farther to go. Although conditions may have changed, most of the teams near them started 5-6 hours after they did. They seem to have navigated well so that isn't the reason.

I really wonder why they try to reinvent racing everytime...

A penalty box at the last TA has never been wrong...

Penalties are not always to be avoided at all costs, they are part of the greater scheme, and sometimes it makes sense race wise to consider benting a rule and risk a penalty when the potential outcome outweigth the penalty itsef.
example: ice hockey

Here is the info LosDobos found on this type of penalty. http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/2014-adventure-...

@Bash. That's what I was missing. If they would only get 45 mins or less of paddling in I'd likely have made the same call. :-( Didn't realize the distance/ time to the put in.
Bummer to lose the advantage they had.

well now that the dark zone drama is over, anyone talking about team Fedeme from Ecuadoor? looks like they had TWO frames break and they did a portion of the stage 4 bike on foot...https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=...

!!

Really gutted for movistar,so close! It's really tough navigating accurately on a river like this, they might not even know how close they are

Poor Team Fedeme! At least one of the bike frames was broken when the rider was hit by a car. There are a couple of amazing photos of team members hiking along with bike pieces strapped to their backpacks.

Raid Gaspésie hasn't tracked since 2.5 hours ago when they were within 3 km of TA5. They probably arrived around 19:30 and started to serve their 4-hour penalty (along with everyone else!) After a strong start on the trek, they've slowed down so I hope they're not having foot problems or other issues. Hopefully a 159 km bike ride will make them feel better!

But wouldn't they be marked as " in" on the leaderboard if they were in the TA?

Raid Gaspesie tracker has finally updated and they are indeed at TA5.

@Dee, the leaderboard is updated automatically when the tracker broadcasts within a certain range of a CP or TA (geofencing). If the tracker doesn't broadcast at the right time, a team can pass a CP without being recorded, which has happened in this race. If the tracker keeps broadcasting while a team is in the TA, the leaderboard time keeps being updated. So the leaderboard times aren't too reliable. I haven't been looking at the leaderboard at all. If I want to know when a team arrived at or departed from a TA, I check the surrounding breadcrumbs.

Poor Movistar. Their dot looks so lonely there on the riverbank surrounded by all those snakes and spiders, so close to the TA.

Seagate is all finished discharging. At 22:00, they left TA8 to start the Leg 9 trek. It's only 40 km long but is estimated to take 16-30 hours. It sounds amazing - howler monkeys, iguanas, hummingbirds, alligators and occasional jaguars. About 10 km of the route is unmapped so teams have been given GPSs loaded with the route.

Discipline :: Trek (40 km)
Ascent :: 800 m
Descent :: 1000 m
Leg 9 known as Powerade is a 40km Trek through the Mache Chindul Ecological Reserve. This leg connects the Y de Cube with Bocana de Tigua.

The Mache Chindul Reserve is one of the last remaining preserved forests in the Ecuadorian Coast line. This trek is expected to be one of the hardest in the race.

Teams are given their GPS’s with the route pre-loaded to assist them with this leg. One of the reasons for this is that about 10kms of the course is not mapped at all. The technical reason for this is that there was cloud cover when they tried mapping it, but in reality, the course organisers think the access was just too hard.

In spite of the GPS, teams will find it hard going as they will be crossing the jungle. There is thick vegetation, a many small trails and river crossings. Once teams get to CP29, they will be able to see the ocean for the first time in the race. In spite of the difficulty, the jungle is said to be beautiful.

In the lower part of the Cotacachi-Cayapas, before reaching to the Mache Chindul Ecological Reserve, you can find the indigenous population called Chachis or Cayapas. Chachis, along with the Tsáchilas and Éperas are the only indigenous nationalities in the Ecuadorean coast.

The Mache Chindul Reserve protects 120,000 hectares of rainforests and dry forests that surround and cover the Mache-Chindul Highland on the Ecuadorian coast. The rainforest belong to the Chocó, a very wet area extending from Panamá to northwestern Ecuador. The Reserve protects the Cube Lake, declared a wetland of international importance for its biodiversity and ecological functions. It is a paradise for orchids and lianas. Among the most common trees are the gutter, mahogany and palms as the pambil and tagua. It is home of new species to science such as the Ecuadorian tree. You can find several species of monkeys: capuchin, howler, spider and brown head, at serious risk of extinction. There are ocelots, “cusumbos”, and there are sporadic records of jaguar spotting. In the rivers you can find otter and crab raccoons. There are many kinds of birds like the hermit hummingbird, the carpenter, the toucan and the dusky legged guan. There are many reptiles like the monkey frog and the devil frog kikí; the breakneck boa, fake corals, white or spectacled alligator, snapping turtle and iguanas.

This must be the first gps legal ar world's champs

So...let me get this straight. Are ESP Columbia and NZL Seagate on equal terms, in terms of rest hours discharged and Columbia's time penalty? I mean that if Columbia passes Seagate now, they are both physically and virtually ahead? Or does Columbia still owe more time to Seagate?

As soon as Columbia and Caffte leave TA8 to start the trek (which they haven't yet), the official time differences are all gone. However, the usual virtual differences will still be in play, i.e. Team A is well-slept whereas Team B must be ready to collapse any minute.

Seagate discharged 2 hours at TA6 before the paddle then after a short bike ride, they spent close to 3 hours at TA8 before the jungle trek. (It's mandatory to spend 2 hours there.) The organizers' fastest estimated time to the finish line from TA8 is 25 hours, and Seagate should be OK for sleep. The teams behind them who rushed to get onto the water may not be as well rested, depending on how much time they are required to spend at TA8.

Pictures from today.https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.89129576...

Thanks Bash. I thought Columbia had left, for some reason. I see that they are still discharging time.
Seagate seems to be moving well on the trek.

Ahhh just having my morning coffee and reading all of this. Sooooo gutted for Movistar! And from what i have heard about Kyle Peter he might rather come in last than spend a night on the side of a river with snakes but it would be a close call. They will be so well rested and have confidence in their speed so they will just have to stay ahead of the rest. Yes, RIG is moving slowly. Likely foot issues. Hopefully a rest and then they will have to squeeze their feet into their bike shoes for the ride. Off to french class so thanks for doing such a great job on the reporting and speculation overnight guys!!!

Well, the last and hardest trek seems to not be an issue for Seagate. They're bang on the suggested route and are making good time in the jungle at night. At least for the first half. We'll see how the second half goes.

So Seagate have left TA8 at about 22h00


Columbia got there at 22h15
Caffree got there at 23h15,

I think Seagate should be able to close this one out from this position, but anything can happen.

they both need to spend a minimum of 2hours there
My guesstimates on the discharges left, mainly from here - los dobos' look at virtual leads - http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/2014-adventure-...

vidaraid. 5 hours to discharge
caffree 4 hours to discharge

so that puts seagate 5 hours ahead of both of them, the race for second place is on

You can now bet your house on movistar getting 4th place.

The mini race for 5th is going to be a hot one.
We can expect teams to start leaving TA6 from about 3/4am, in order to hit the river at the lifting of the darkzone at 5:30am.

that would give Tecnu a minimum of 12hours rest at the TA
now shacked up with them, in order of arrival there are
Raidlight
Swedish armed forces
Terrex
Black hill/opavanet
Sui radys
swe peak performance

Yoga slackers and pol AR should be there soon, not all of these teams will be able to discharge up to their max of 6hours.

We're going to see some of the bubbling under teams join this spotlight now. You'd expect Tecnu to take it from here, but it has allowed a team like Terrex to have a bad leg and get back in.

that's life.

Bummer for Movistar. Not only do they not make it their consolation prize is a night on a creepy river bank. I wouldn't like it but at least it is their home turf. Penalty enforcement after DZ would have been interesting. I imagine the penalty before the DZ will help some teams. You never know if the timing had worked differently where Seagate just missed putting on the water it would have essentially cancelled out the penalty and Seagate could have had a gripe that it should have been served later. Lots of factors. Glad the top 3 made it though. I would imagine their were guidelines in the rulebook about where penalties are served (eg the next TA after the team is made aware of the penalty). I definitely disagree that penalties should be served at the end of a race. Who wants to win passing a team that is sitting next to the finish line. This way also gives them a better feel for where they sit during the race. If Mayor of 32601 were here I think he would agree to serve it on the course so you can have a true race.

I was also thinking more about the penalty length. Obviously in 2012 Seagate didn't purposely leave their tracker. It was a mistake and I am sure if they realized they didn't have it they would have picked it up. And if you wanted to make a fair penalty I would think the effect of the weight saved was much less than 4 hours (I think that is what they got). Obviously that was a safety issue not a fairness issue but luckily the safety wasn't a problem. I always like to think penalties should be equivalent to the benefit gained plus a little. Sometimes I feel by making the mistake you end up serving the penalty like wandering into a forbidden area as a result of getting lost.

Curious to see how the trek goes. Will this be more comparable to the mangroves from last year or the last long bike leg with tired teams having trouble finding CPs. Looks like Seagate is about halfway after only 4 hours. Maybe it will be a breeze for the top teams.

And Columbia departs TA8 just on 4hrs behind Seagate. Waiting to see when France depart.

and terrex departs for the river, now in 5th place alone, but almost three hours till darkzone lifts.

They just want to position their boats ahead of the other guys for a better sprint start on the river...

they all lining up like lemmings now, all strung out like a string of fairy lights.


Caffree still at TA8, i think that Colombia only had 4 hours to discharge, so are effectively one hour ahead.

the time gap ended up being 90 minutes, which is more than I thought - wonder if Le French spent a bit more time in TA? The procession down to the river looks fun - wouldn't you just love to be a fly hovering above the river for the first few rapids' it'll be like dodgems!

Am I right in calculating that the Dark Zone lifts in 15 minutes? If so, looks like only Terrex, Tecnu and maybe maybe Raidlight will be there ready to go immediately as it lifts?

@nmulder - Yip, the trek obviously took longer in the dark than expected for some.


looking back to midtable, looks like maybe only 3 more teams max will be able to squeeze in today without getting caught on the river.

Swedish Armed Forces, Peak Performance, Yogaslackers and Polska are all within 1km with 15 mins to go, so might just make it too for the darkzone restart.

That also means 15 minutes until Movistar can get going again. A miss is as good as a mile in their case here, I really wonder if they know how close they got. Would love to see the look on their faces when they go round the first bend and WHAM there the confluence is staring at them.

This is why we need 24/7 drone coverage for ARWC! :)

But that would cut out all the speculation Stijn...

Looks like it could be a repeat of last year with Terrex and Tecnu battling it out neck and neck over the last few stages!

caffree are going r e a l l y slowly compared to the distance the top2 had done here, all in the dark so no difference on that....... maybe they don't know how to start the GPS?

Caffte GPS hasn't updated in over an hour.

Movistar make it to the transition, 30mins after the darkzone is lifted. ouch.

looks like tecnu and then terrex have stolen the gap on the big chasing pack. exciting paddle for all of them today I guess with ARWS top ten renkings to play for.

@nmulder, i was referring to how close their breadcrumbs are on leaving the TA. but now you're right - it does look like they've stopped.

Big news for me is that it looks like Colombia are closing in, lead looks to be about 2:30 - was 4hrs at start of the trek....race on? edit: no they're not...tracker just hadn't updated. lead still ~4hrs.

The dense canopy foliage in the jungle trek would lead to deteriorating tracking signal.

Caffre tracking has just updated. They made a whole 250m in the last 1.5 hours. Got bogged down and waiting for daylight? I can't imagine they needed urgent sleep again so soon after leaving the last CP?

How much time does Movistar still have to discharge? It's going to be frustrating for them having to sit at TA8 for another 2h+ in broad daylight after having spent the whole night resting just a few hours before.

The other teams will be bearing down on them, but will also have to spend the compulory 2h at TA8, despite having discharged more than enough time at TA6.

Discharge time could be taken at TAs 3, 4, 6 and 8, with a compulsory 2 hours of the full 8 hours to be taken at TA8.

Movistar seem to have done 3 + 2 + 0 = 5 hours so far. That leave 3 hours to be done in TA8. That will happen in the day light as well.

Caffte is really making a meal of the early part of this trek. They're still in the same area, now having left the recommended route slightly to the north...

The rules are clearly silly in this regard for the sleep around dark zones. There was some discussion on it all 50-100 posts back... Don't enforce anything seems the only sensible thing if you have dark zones, the racers will look after themselves. With no dark zones then what they have would not be so stupid.

This is getting very interesting. Love that conga line on the river (although I would hate the stress of it if I was there). A bit embarrassing that i just left team CAN trail mail and got the simple addition question wrong so had to resubmit......and I haven't been racing for 4 days on little sleep. No excuses here.

Out of interest, regarding the Tecnu river / discharge strategy.

Tecnu seem to have done 1 + 2 discharge before the transition at the start of the river. If they had gone straight onto the paddle just before the darkzone, they'd have had to wait out 5 hours at TA8, whilst the chasing teams who would have discharged all remaining time at TA6 and only would have had 2 hours compulsory discharge left at TA8.

Thus Tecnu would have needed more than a 3 hour head start on the river over these teams to effectively be in front of them come TA8. At best, they could only have got down to the river and started paddling by 4.30pm, so it was the right call by Tecnu to stop at TA6. It saved them somewhere in the region of 1-2 hours when the whole discharge thing plays out. Although they started this morning level with Raidlight and Adidas Terrex, at least it wasn't effectively behind them on time. They made the best of a bad situation.

@nmulder that all makes sense, good call by them in the end. Except it goes totally against basic principles that the best option for team is to sit in a TA when it's 3pm, poor design of course setup?

I think they should have counted sleeping out on the river as equivalent of 3 hours discharge.

@shebeen: yes, I don't think this is what the organizers intended. Discharge time was probably envisaged to partly mitigate the effect of waiting in TA for the darkzone to lift, as it did with most of those teams overnight. However, in Tecnu's case it had an opposite and unfair effect.

Allowing discharge time to be used on the river would have been a good option, but then all the teams would have waited till the river to start using it up. They wouldn't have used any in TA3 or 4, just in case they got caught in the darkzone.

few observations from the pictures:

1. TAs looks pretty nice, always covered at least.
2. Jon from ESP Columbia had 2 beers so far. Big ones.

I agree the river dark zone should have been part of the discharge sleep scheme.

1. a minimum of 2h used in TA3 or TA4
2. a maximum of 4h in the dark zone
3. remainder to be taken @ TA8

But it's easy to say now I guess, from the organization point of view it's hard to predict all possible outcomes.

It turns out managing the sleep time at specific places will have played a big role in the race instead of being one element to manage.

But again mid-camp style clearly has much more effect on racers and much less on the outcome of the race.

so it's sort of all happening.....

in the race for first,
colombia have just overtaken seagate's 3.5hour old tracker timestamp. read what you want into that.

in the race for third,
caffre are still doing a wild monkey dance in the forest about 1km from the TA. who knows. Movistar are on their way from TA8 on the bike leg. guessing from breadcrumb timestamps they got in at about 6:15, and must have left about 7:15. Which would mean they only spent about an hour at the TA. That is less than the 2 hours min in the race book, maybe there's a reason for this, but that's not what i was expecting to see since they had 3 hours to discharge here.

in the race for 5th,
Tecnu leads the conga line. raidlight and terrex are yapping at their heels. there are five teams dicing for the last two spots in the top10.

edit:colombia 3.5hours behind seagate on the road.

"Dicing"! I'd completely forgotten that terrific word the South Africans taught us during last year's ARWC. :)

Something is not right with FRA Caffte, they moved a total of 3k in the last 5h, and that's after they left TA8. ESP Columbia did the same distance in less than 1h.

I hope Slice managed to get her gear back and enjoys the beach by now.

FRA Caffte is finally moving for real.

oh yeah! let the dicing begin!

also jackson5 I noticed the same thing about columbia's TAs. they know how to race!

very much looking forward to post-TA8 tracking, when everyone will be back on level playing field. I think the choose-your-own-discharge-sleep is an interesting idea but overall the mandatory mid-camp (or even 2 mid-camps) is better for everyone. but granted, this is coming from someone who's never done a true expedition race. so there ya go.

@shebeen - Movistar would not have been able to discharge any time at TA7 after the paddle. All their discharging (3h I think) has to happen at TA8 coming up.

So that 1h they took at TA7 was pure transition time.

@shebeen: TA7 wasn't a transition where discharge was allowed. Movistar can only do this at TA8 at the end of the cycle.

Beaten to the punch by Stijn... ;-)

@shebeen, TA8 is after the bike, so Movistar will have to discharge their 3 remaining hours after this section.

Caffte looks like they may have started moving again... so we'll see if Movistar has a chance of catching them. They are about 3 hours ahead of Movistar along the route + Movistar's mandatory 3 hours of rest time, so they effectively have a 6 hour lead, but if they're having trouble, that's not much. Especially with a fully rested Movistar.

I can only assume that FRA Caffte had decided for another 4 hours of sleep before pushing onto the finish, electing to sleep outside of transition so that ECU Movistar wouldn't get to know about the sleep and assume that Caffte were much further ahead on the course. All the other teams moved pretty fast along this section of the course and Caffte don't seem to be having any problems now.

Race between Movistar and the chasing pack (Tecnu and co.)

2.5 hours for the paddle from CP26 to the finish (roughly where Tecnu are now)
1hr for TA7
1.5hr of moving time for Movistar so far

That only puts Movistar 5 hrs ahead of this pack, and we know that they have to discharge an additional 3hrs over Tecnu. This places them virtually 2hrs ahead of Tecnu. Am I right?

Race on for 4th, and maybe 3rd depending on what Caffte is up to...

ok, I see where i went wrong with the TA7/TA8 mix up.

@nmulder - would be surprised if they did that, knowing the local team are surely going to get updates of sorts at transition!

I think movistar have 3 hours to discharge, tecnu the minimum 2. so still quite a healthy lead. edit- look at the map, miles ahead!

Tecnu will also have to spend 2h at TA8, so Movistar should still have a 4h virtual lead.

@Rob

Movistar have 3 hours to discharge in TA8
The chasing pack have 2 hours to discharge in TA8, so Movistart will loose 1 hour on them.

Movistar took 2h15 yesterday + 3h45 today to cover the in-between distance, so the 6 hour gap will become 5 hours after TA8 if they all do the same pace.

@shebeen - from the blogs and news articles, it seems that this race has clamped down very firmly on news and split time leakage to the teams, so no-one should legally be able to tell Movistar that Caffre just had a 4 hour sleep outside transition.

This jungle trek seems to be going faster than the organizers expected? 7 hours so far for ESP Columbia and they're 2/3rd of the way through the stage already? NZL Seagate should be arriving at transition soon if everything went well.

Raid Gaspésie are moving well on the 159 km Leg 6 bike ride and have passed several teams who got ahead of them near the end of the Leg 5 trek. Looks like they're in 23rd place now. Whatever was slowing them down on the trek, it wasn't a serious illness or injury - possibly foot problems or sleepiness. Or... perhaps they were simply being strategic and saving their energy, knowing that they wouldn't get to the river in time today anyway. They had to serve their 4-hour penalty at TA5, and they actually stayed there about 5.5 hours so they weren't in a rush to leave, and they should be well-rested now.

Barbara Bonfim of Columbia describes the 159 km mountain bike leg in this video. Doesn't sound that much fun!
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=7542466379744...

@Bash: Yeah. They could just as well take it easy at this point.

2 Ecuador teams are rolling into TA6 right now about exactly 24 hours behind Movistar. Will be interesting to see how far through the paddle they make it tonight. Would be hard to see 2 more Ecuador teams get caught that close 24 hours later.

Doesn't look like anyone else will make it onto the river today.

Found a photo of the lagoon they'll be paddling on the last leg of the race. Taken from the town of Chamanga, which is on the right as they exit the river into the lagoon.

Link to image : Here

Doesn't look like it'll be any fun at night or at low tide.

Finalin has left TA6 and are on route to the put in. They have an outside shot at making it off the water before today's dark zone if they have a good paddle. Powerade has been in the TA for 45 minutes and will end up sleeping beside the river somewhere tonight I suspect.

At Finalin's pace RIG should hit TA6 around 9pm tonight. Plenty of time to Discharge their remaining time and rest for the final push.

Columbia's breadcrumbs are proving just how slow the last part of this trek is. Since joining the recommended route again, they've taken 45 minutes to cover just 1km.

With 8km of the trek still ahead of Columbia, Seagate could easily still have their 3-4h lead and not be at the TA yet.

Typically, the dots prove me wrong again and Seagate shows up at the TA :)

I can't load the tracking page right now. Is this just me?

Bash mine isn't working either.

From Sleepmonsters on Facebook:
Team Tecnu and Team adidas TERREX reach TA7, followed closely by Raidlight, then CZE Black Hill and Team Peak Performance still in the picture.

Mine also just bombed.

So Seagate started the trek at 2200 and finished by 1200. That's 14 hours, 2 hours faster than the fastest predicted time, and 8 hours was in the dark.

Site working again for me.

Yup, it's back. Phew! At least it's better that it happened now than at, say, 18:25 yesterday. :)

The final paddle is estimated to take 9-15 hours. The wide time range may not be strictly a function of paddling skill but tides may come into play too. Assuming that Seagate rocks the paddle as they usually do, they should hit the finish line before North Americans go to bed tonight.

(And South and Central Americans too, of course, although I don't know if any of them are following this discussion.)

Something I just noticed, of interest to other Americans, is that Yogaslackers is in a Top 10 position. That would be an awesome achievement for them, especially considering they had a major mechanical right out of the gate.

i really hope the Yogas make it into top 10, it is their goal for this race.

Tecnu/Adidas/Raidlight got to TA7 exactly 6 hours behind Movistar. That gives them a virtual 5 hour lead. I would think the trailing teams would be better rested sleeping in the TA and should TA a little faster. I don't think that is a big lead but Movistar may have a big advantage on the jungle trek being locals so it may extend their lead.

In the race for 3rd Caffte left TA8 at 330, 9.5 hours before Movistar's predicted departure of 1300. Caffte then took a 4 hour nap. That gives them a 5.5 hour lead and Caffte will have better rest in the TA and like I said could have a significant advantage on the trek. I don't know their paddle skills too well but I wouldn't expect Movistar to catch Caffte on the last leg if there is a significant (>2h) lead.

Are there any darkzones on the last paddle?

hmmm, to make things more interesting, it is currently 1 hour to low tide. Hopefully there is some flow in the river to start, but Seagate are going to be doing things pretty tough paddling against the flood!

I haven't seen any comments about it but I am assuming being so close to the equator teams can use either a northern or southern hemisphere compass. Anyone know?

When Kyle passed along info on the course, he wrote about the dark zone on Leg 7 and said this about Leg 10:

Leg 10 we are not allowed in the open ocean. Oh and stingrays that bury themselves in the mud at low tide ('so be careful when dragging your kayaks in the mud').

Go Yogaslackers! It looks like they arrived at TA6 in time to discharge any remaining sleep time, so their place should be accurate!

Here's the compass zones map of the world. Looks like Ecuador is just on the edge of Zone 3.
http://www.wildman.co.nz/assets/zoneMapc.png

When we raced in South America, I took a global compass so it didn't matter. I'd expect that most international teams do that.
http://www.mapworld.co.nz/global.html

Looks like 10th place could be an exciting battle between Yogaslackers and SWAFAR. At least it looks like the two Swedish teams aren't trying to work together. That could make things really difficult for the Yogaslackers.

Thanks for the education Bash. Knew about the balancing but didn't know there were so many zones. Forgot they made global compasses.

Does the race end with a 4.5k portage or can they leave their boats at the water? The finish is on the beach but they can't go in the ocean to get there. I remember people giving the RD flack for making teams carry their heavy rafts up the big hill at the end of last year's race.

Check out the Sleepmonsters Facebook photos from this morning's paddle. The whitewater and rocks definitely look too challenging for a night paddle.
https://www.facebook.com/SleepMonsters/posts/81171...

Of interest, the caption says, "Lots of broken paddles too." These are top 10 teams who still have a 59 km paddle leg to do.

Note that Kyle sent Jason for a swim. :)

"At CP 33, teams leave their boats and run to the finish line which is located at Mompiche."

I think there is a lot left to play out in the battle for Top 10. Teams are so close that Tecnu could feasibly end up out of the Top 10 at this point. It is unlikely, just conveying a point.

That being said Tecnu spent less than 30 min in TA7 and are on their way in 5th followed by Adidas. They just gained over 30 min on Movistar.

Thanks McB

Seagate has started the final paddle.

Tecnu and Terrex look like they are going to have yet another sprint to the line... It's amazing how evenly matched those 2 teams are.

So it looks like the podium is pretty much set in stone. And I think it's pretty reflective of their performances throughout the race. It's just Movistar that can call themselves unlucky - they really deserved to fight it out for one of those top-3 spots...

Yeah, with whatever mystery reason stopped La Frenchies for 4 hours, that would have been interesting for sure. They seem to be moving well again now though. Hope it wasn;t a repeat of the end of ARWC last year when Jacky's mind went AWOL - that gave Stu and the team a proper scare! Shouldn't be with all the sleep teams have had in this race.

Tecnu is hammering this bike leg... already opened up a 4km gap.

Tecnu and Adidas Terrex have been well matched two years in a row, however, Kyle is the only team member who raced for Tecnu at last year's ARWC. Adidas Terrex has just two returning teammates from Costa Rica (Gracie and Bates).

The satellite imagery of that lagoon suggests lots of mudflats at low and middle tide. Does anyone have an exact low tide time for the lagoon as well as the next high?There would probably also be a lag in the high and low times if it's for the lagoon mouth vs the the point where the river reaches it. I'd guess that the river might also be tidal for the last 2, 3 or 4 kilometers until it reaches this lagoon. Seagate's breadcrumbs across that section should give us some idea.

Adidas Terrex are missing their navigational master Tom Gibbs this year after he smashed his patella to pieces earlier this year.

Jari Kirkland was also on Adidas last year. If Adidas and Tecnu catch Movistar it will be quite the reunion.

Looks like Raid Gaspésie should get to the ropes around 16:00, which means they'll get to TA6 in time for (I hope) a relaxing sleep, a good meal or two, and some foot care.

The original cut-off to leave TA6 was tomorrow at 10 a.m. I haven't heard anything about whether it will be extended, given that the previous cut-off was extended considerably (7 hours for arrival cut-off, 12 hours for departure cut-off). It looks like teams should be just fine with the original cut-off. The Lanterne Rouge, Irish AR, is currently at CP 19 where RIG passed through 7.5 hours ago.

Columbia arrived at TA9 at 15:00, about spending about 13 hours on the final trek.

Seagate left TA9 around 12:30. They haven't tracked for an hour but should be finished with the river and out in the lagoon now.

Team 8 BRA Kailash is hiking to the river from TA6 at 15:45, ready to spend a night on the river with the creepy crawlies.

I expect most teams have a tent which meets the bare minimum footprint of 2.5m^2. That is essentially a small 2 person tent. It will be very cozy in there for 4 people for 11 hours.

Nice Sleepmonsters report on the teams that went through the rapids today. Really, Kyle? A "whoop of exhilaration" when all your teammates went swimming except for you?? ;))

The Swedish Army only has one unbroken paddle left with a 59 km paddle yet to come!
http://live.huairasinchi.com/news/index.htm

Seagate hasn't tracked in 2.5 hours but they must be on the final half of the paddle to the finish line. Arggh.

Tecnu has been busy discharging at TA8 since 15:30. Not much longer now. Looks like Adidas Terrex came in about 25 minutes behind them, and Raidlight was half an hour behind them. U.S. team Odyssey Adventure Racing is also in TA8 on the short course, presumably discharging according to some other set of rules.

Next to arrive at TA8 will be the Swedish Army, Peak Performance and Yogaslackers in 7th-9th place [CORRECTION: 8th-10th place with CZE Black Hill/Opavenet in 7th - thanks J5]. It's a long way back to 10th 11th place Team Polska, who has just started the Leg 8 bike ride.

CZE BLACK HILL / OpavaNet (46) are also in the house at TA8, between Terrex and the Swedes. One of these teams will end out of the top 10

Seagate finally tracked, halfway up main channel.

Tecnu just left on the jungle trek.

adidas Terrex just left too, they are only about 25min behind Tecnu.

Here's Columbia finishing the jungle trek. It is muddy!!
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=6686918699112...

17 ECU Finalin, 18 ECU Guambras and 8 BRA Kailash are on the river and will spend the night. Strangely, 17 Finalin's tracker has just disappeared. It's not displaying an old time - it is simply not showing at all. But I know I didn't just imagine them because there are breadcrumbs leading to the place where they probably are.

As the sun sets, our friends on Raid Gaspésie have finished the ropes and are pedalling toward TA6 for a good sleep. They need to be at the water's edge for 5:30 a.m. so they'll probably be setting an alarm before 3 a.m.

Columbia is more than 3.5 hours behind Seagate, just nearing the open lagoon.

So it looks like Seagate and Columbia will complete this ARWC in less than 5 days, which is about 2.5 less than last year's winning time @ ARWC Costa Rica if i remember correctly...

Sunset photo of Seagate on the water. Nice.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=...

Team Bones just put up a great write up of their Ecuador experiences on their facebook page. My work computer won't let me get the page, so if a "friend" of Team Bones can attach the link or the copy of the prose, then others can read it. It was a well written piece describing their race, how it played out, and how it ended.

Movistar must be flying. They appear to be only about 3 hours behind FRA Caffte. They lost 11 hours due to the dark zone, but I think got one hour back on them at TA8 due to having 3 hours of sleep time left compared to Caffte's 4 hours. Then Caffte appeared to take another 4 hour rest just after leaving TA8. So unless I'm missing something, they have made up 2 hours solely by going faster and another 5 hours due to Caffte's extra rest time. At this rate, they may find themselves on the podium.

Team Bones Adventure Racing
44 minutes ago
In the native Ecuadorian tongue of Kichwa, Huairasinchi means strength of the wind, and the organizers of this amazingly beautiful race could not have picked a more suitable name for their flagship event.

Ecuador is a land of extremes: enormous mountains, wildly complex terrain, and an incomparably friendly people make the Ecuadorian adventure racing experience one we won’t ever forget. Of course, the giant raindrops and feeling of near-constant oxygen-depletion will help create lasting memories as well, and we would have had many more, had our race not suddenly taken a turn for the worst a mere 31 hours after the starting gun went off…

All of our pre-race ramblings went off without a hitch. We were confident that our new team configuration (which now included Canadian Liza Pye) was going to be a contender for a top 10 position this year and our race plan seemed dialed as we rode the bumpy bus to the starting line at the foot of the 5500m Antisana volcano. The sky was bluebird and the hulking mass of Antisana’s glaciers were sparkling in the morning light. It was a perfect day to start an expedition race.

As expected, the race started high and continued higher, until it reached an oxygen deprived 4400 meters. Since most of us live a speed bump above sea level, getting enough oxygen to satisfy the lungs was a challenge. We pushed and pulled each other along as we all took turns feeling like our lungs might explode. Things eventually got easier after we descended through the sharp spikey alpine grasses and shrubs, and after five hours on our feet we came into the first TA in a respectable 11th place.

Quickly transitioning to bikes, we continued by descending a screaming 1000-meter downhill on a smooth, paved highway. The twists and turns of the pavement were pure pleasure to descend as we played cat and mouse with another couple teams. We were too scared to look down at our speedometers, but judging by the bugs in our teeth, we must have been topping out at 45-50 miles per hour. Eventually, the highway turned to gravel, and gravel became trail, which ultimately became a long forgotten path that was at times shin-deep in mud. We plodded along as our memories hinted back to last year’s challenges in the first stages of Costa Rica, but thanked the Ecuadorian gods that we were at least moving forward with relative ease. After abusing our bikes by pushing, pulling and dragging them through the muck, we escaped the high jungle trail for the smooth dirt that would lead us to TA 2. Soon after, we conveniently found a local Ecuadorian who was busy power washing his car by the side of the road, and with some quick work of Jason’s Spanish, we were soon rolling into the TA with shiny clean bikes, ready to tackle the next trek.

Again, we made a quick transition at TA2 where we were treated to delicious sandwiches, baked goods, and fresh fruit, which were supplied by the local community before we headed out on a 40km trek. We left with Yogaslackers and chatted briefly as we made our way up the road before it crossed a bridge and became another jungle path. It had been a couple of hours of running and trekking and was dark when we hit the first ropes section. This long-abandoned bridge, due to its rotting condition, required us to rope up and cross with the use of a safety line. We shuffled along while avoiding the most rotted bits, but at one point Liza’s foot went right through and she found her leg dangling in mid-air. Thank goodness for the ropes! Once safely across, we had another 2+ hours of route finding, as the over-grown jungle trail would lead us down to the river, disappear, and then pick up again some time later. We waded through shallow eddies and scrambled up and down the steeply vegetated banks as we made our way westward along the riverbank. While the map showed this section as roughly 7 kms and a gradual uphill, in reality it was much more, due to the switchbacks, misdirection, and steep ups and downs that has us sometimes using all fours to negotiate our way forward. At last, we made it to the second dilapidated bridge, this one in much worse shape as many of the treads had long rotted away leaving only the rails and a rickety fence as our passage. We made our way across aided by a safety line and once on the other side, resumed the ugly path.

Then it began raining.

The drops came slowly at first, and the tree canopy caught most of it before reaching our weary bodies. But it continued, and then it became heavy. Dime-sized drops were soon pelting us from above, and aided by the caress of wet leaves, ferns and plants that adorned the way, we were quickly getting soaked. In only shorts and long sleeved shirts due to the earlier heat, we were soon drenched, and in retrospect, slow to put on our protective rain gear. We spent the next five hours sliding and slipping and the trail got progressively worse, until most of our progress was hard fought. It's really hard to describe the amount of suffering that this effort has on the body and soul. Midnight, cold, wet, and bathed in tropical mud. We’ve done it many times before, but these are dark moments.

During the last part of this trek, Jason began losing body heat. Despite him wearing three layers of clothes, having his space blanket wrapped around his torso, and even donning a moldy yellow rubber raincoat discarded by a farmer who’d left it on a fence post, he was unable to retain any energy and started to show serious symptoms of hypothermia. We tried to up his calorie intake, had him eat more salts, more water, even run a bit, get rid of his pack, make him carry more weight, and put him on tow. All these efforts were to no avail. It was still raining hard, and stopping was not an option. Fifteen hours after starting this leg, we finally arrived at TA3 resolved to get some sleep and recover a bit before heading off to the next long bike leg.

After a two-hour sleep, we packed and saddled up. Jason was still having a hard time staying warm, but we figured by going slow he would be able to recover. The bike section began with a 900-meter climb up to a 3500-meter summit before descending. Despite wearing multiple layers of clothing, Jason could still not stay warm on the climb that had the rest of the team feeling hot in shorts and short sleeves. Near the peak, having lost fluids, body heat, and all energy, the decision was to surrender to the course. Jason had been suffering for over 15 hours at this point, and it wasn’t getting any better. Reluctantly, the team decided to turn around back to TA3.

In hindsight, our biggest mistake was probably trekking too long before putting on our rain gear, and it proved fatal to our chances of finishing. For a team with as much experience as we have, it is disappointing that we let the excitement of the race get the better of our race intelligence so early and made such a short-sighted mistake in not taking care of ourselves early.

Thanks for all of the support from the US. And congratulations to Tecnu, Yogaslackers, and Odyssey who are continuing the fight in wild Ecuador. The country is beautiful and treacherous- especially at altitude and we look forward to a future return.

If anyone is listening. We have very little internet at the finish and can't track. Any updates here would help. This is one of the few places I can see

The race website crashed. No one knows what is happening.

Tracking is back. @20:00 Seagate was about to make the turn off the main channel into the river. Columbia just passed the CP on the Island. Tecnu and Adidas are a few hundred meters apart while getting a gap on teams behind them.

Caffte really slowed down while Movistar are getting back on them. Some pictures could indicate that a member on Caffte would be having feet issues. They must be really looking to the end of this trek and get in the boats.

Thanks Mary.

RIG came in TA6 @ 2015, well enough time to discharge everything -2 and refuel for tomorrow. They should be able to make good time and maybe catch a few teams with more paddling than everything else in the next legs.

adidas Terrex has passed Tecnu in the Reserva Biologica Bilsa.

@ afsheen - most welcome.

Day 5

adidas Terrex and Raidlight are definitely moving faster than Tecnu in stage 9 so far. Raidlight is about to make contact soon.

Seagate is onshore, ready to run the last few kms to their gold medal!

Come on, Tecnu! If you run faster, you'll leave the snakes behind sooner!

It appears that Adidas has passed Tecnu! From Tecnu's FB page:
"We battled for 2 days against them last year in Costa Rica so ironically it's come down to a battle with them headed towards the finish line yet again. The only difference is this year we're not going to tie."

If anyone has contact with TA8, please ask them to update Yogaslacker's arrival time. It appears their tracker stopped working just before the TA.

Looks like Seagate arrived at the finish at 23:30. A well earned victory!

Meanwhile, our Lanterne Rouge, #39 Irish AR, is having a rough time. They're a little past CP20 and they've just taken 8 hours to do a section that took Raid Gaspésie 3.5 hours when they weren't hurrying. I wonder if they have bike troubles. I'd thought that no teams were at risk of missing the original 10 a.m. cut-off tomorrow morning but that may not be true anymore. We don't know whether the cut-off is still at 10 a.m.

Photo of Seagate at the finish!
https://www.facebook.com/SleepMonsters/photos/a.23...

For all the Yogaslacker fans, I'd love to hear of a race where their tracker actually worked through a full race. Some of us have thought that they purposefully sabotage their trackers. For what reason?...I don't know. Maybe to keep from being tethered to the electronic realm?

@afsheen, IKR! and why does it go out at the most exciting times. Last year, it was in the mangrove. This year, just when they catch up to and are in a tight battle for 10th place.

Go Irish AR. Pete Spagnoli is a fellow American who used to race with ATP and Dancing Pandas. I believe Avril also lived in the USA for a bit.

Looks like Columbia is about 3 hours back as they entered the canal. This might have been an even better race if it wasn't for the mixup back at TA3. If you figure Seagate lost about 1.5 hours and Columbia was penalized 4 that would put Seagate "virtually" in front of Columbia by 30 min.

Movistar is where Caffte was 2 hours ago
Adidas is where Movistar was 5 hours ago
Tecnu and Raidlight are where Movistar was 6 hours ago

Irish AR now seem to be going backwards along the course.... never a good sign.

And Team Polska have been stuck at the transition at the end of the river paddle for almost 11 hours now. They seem to have started the bike and returned. Bike trouble?

The short course race has just restarted from TA8. When Yogaslackers / SUI R'adys and the New Caledonians head out on the trail in a few hours time it'll be like following the track of a herd of elephants through the jungle....

Or have Yogaslackers already left?

Yogaslacker's tracking battery showed 2% at the last transmission. We don't need to accuse them of trying to keep the things warm by wrapping it in a foil emergency blanket.

And why are they, Yogaslackers, the only team in their group with a tracker that was at 2%? The worst, closest teams have 30+%. The teams ahead have 80+%.
It's always the Yogaslackers...

well done to seagate, classy team and deserved World Champs. Sure they might have had their doubts earlier in the year when Nathan had some health issues, but they always looked in control. even when down in 8th position or something they still logged sleep at the discharge point.

I don't agree with the point of them only winning due to the penalty. The time served by teams was spent resting in transition so can't be compared to bushwacking on the 'correct course'. I also get the feeling that they had a bit more in the tank as they held a comfortable lead for the last third of the race.

Yes, well done to Seagate!

I'm curious to see what the Caffte-Movistar gap is when they come into transition... this could get interesting.

Caffte or Movistar - Which team has the faster 3000m track time? Could be an interesting sprint finish with odds favouring Movistar if someones feet are trashed in the Caffte team.

Movistar has almost caught Caffte now with the latest tracking update - just over 1km gap. This after getting off the river almost 12 hours behind them and starting this jungle leg 9.5 hours behind.

Would love to be standing in this last transition and see the reactions when these 2 teams see each other.

I think Jacky and Mimi would be looking particularly unhappy - wonder who is having problems? could be any number of things, but stomach or feet seems most likely...it has been a tough race for them, lots of ups and downs.

Looks like Movistar has made the pass!

from arrival at TA8 to arrival at TA9
Caffte - 29hours
Movistar - 17hours

Caffte must have some serious medical issues as they still aren't on the water. Movistar left that transition 1h30 ago. With normal / bad blisters you would have expected them to take off their shoes, put their feet up and paddle off. Alternatively, they're taking some more sleep and hopefully will start out pretty soon given that they're just getting to daylight now.

WOW. And this is adventure racing folks! I can't imagine the stress of just trying to get going and not being able to so relatively close to the finish line. That is the beauty of this sport......there are just so many factors involved!

How are the teams crossing the river to get to the trek/paddle TA? Looks like quite a big crossing! Is it wadeable/swimmable or are the boats waiting for them just before the TA on the jungle side of the river?

I really hope for Caffte's sake that they get moving soon - Terrex/Raidlight/Tecnu will be in the transition in about 2h, champing at the bit for 4th place.

@Stijn. I assume they swim into TA9. Can't imagine that boat in the satellite image is still there waiting for them. I also don't think the teams are too concerned about getting wet in the crossing. :-)

Haha, no I meant their sit-on-tops. I guess it's unlikely they would have been delivered to the other side of the river ;)

It looks like tecnu have also engaged turbo reverse now, lost two places on this leg as well.

could there be further twists in the tale? raidlight to be top french team?

Thought I saw on FB that Columbia crossed the finish line? Congrats to them as well...correct me if I missed something?

oh yes W4J, Columbia's in! their (preliminary) final time is 115h30m. Seagate was 111h15m.

super impressive performance by Columbia, not easy to podium at any expedition race two years in a row, much less ARWC!! bravo y felicidades!

Terrex now across the river into TA9. They seemed to have crossed pretty quickly, so the short swim doesn't seem to be a problem. Caffte are still in transition, so it's now a joint 4th place. Raidlight about 1 hour back and Tecnu another 30 min after that.

It's a small river crossing, there are pictures of Columbia doing it, about knee deep.

Irish AR tracker makes another u-turn, this time back towards the end of the long bike leg. They are now exactly where they were 12 hours ago.

so terrex appear to be on the move? if so they've now also overtaken Caffte who have been in TA9 for about 4 hours now, really wonder what has happened there.

the final leg took columbia 13 hours, seagate 12 hours.

terrex have got a bit of a cushion on raidlight and tecnu, BUT the tides and mud could still catch them out.

Endorphin Magazine journalists heading out to TA9 to find out what up with FRA Caffre. So not even the people on the finish line know exactly what's happening out at these transitions. Obviously pretty remote. What would we do without GPS tracking?

Yogaslackers just reappeared after no tracking well down the river in front of Terrex!!

Their tracker is directly ontop of Caffte, who appear to have moved!

Interesting. I think there is a chance that there is some GPS tracker / server problem here. I just find it very hard to believe that both Caffte and Yogaslackers have got the same time stamp on the exact same square meter of map.

Realistically, how could Yogaslackers have got there that quickly? I think maybe there is a mis-acredditation of tracker serial numbers to teams and this might be Caffte on their own?

Team Poland have withdrawn in the last few hours. They were still at the end of the river paddle leg.

What a comeback for Movistar...truly epic after getting dark zoned <1km from kayaking finish

At 8.15am, Caffte were still in TA9. At 8.45am, they are 8km down river, almost in the lagoon. That's pretty much Speedboat pace.

USA Yogaslackers (33) had an amazing trek, it seems they overtook 6 strong teams that were right in front of them at TA8:

GBR adidas TERREX (44)
FRA Raidlight (35)
USA Tecnu Adventure Racing (32)
CZE BLACK HILL / OpavaNet (46)
SWE Team Peak Performance (49)
SWE Swedish Armed Forces (48)

This is THE move of the race so far if it is not tracker issue related. Go Slackers!

Yeah maybe there is some data issue here, because that would be truely amazing - still possible, this is AR and the Yogas know how to race.

Yogaslackers must have left TA8 at about 8pm last night, assuming they had already discharged all there sleep and only had the 2 compulsory hours left. It took Columbia 12.5 hours to do the trek, mostly in the day light. Yogaslackers started out at night.

I reckon that if there is a speed boat out there, it is carrying Yogaslacker's replacement GPS tracking unit and that Yogaslackers are going to want it fairly soon back in transition.

Great comeback indeed for Movistar. They took the right decision to stay on the shore at 2k with the DQ risk if they moved further. Lots of race left at that time and they where refueled to reel in a diminished Caffte.

Yip, superb result for Movistar. Took a very bad situation and made the most of it. Must have been some good focus, determination and positive thinking there.

@nmulder you could be right, but the tracker now show 47% battery. I guess we should know soon anyway.

Aside from Yogaslackers, the fastest time on the trek was about 18 hours by Adidas. 12 hours is unlikely, possible. Yogaslackers got a lot of practice trekking through the jungle last year at the NAARS Championship in Belize. Maybe they figured something out that no one else did, i.e. some way to trek through mud more efficiently. I can't wait to hear the real story.

@jackson5. I remember Caffre's tracker was 12% in TA9 a couple of hours ago. Now it is 47%, so they have done a device change.

Maybe they forgot to turnoff the old tracking device for Caffre after they left TA9 with the new device? That would explain why they were apparently in TA9 for so long.

I'm on the road in the U.S. where I have to pay $1,000,000 per MB for phone data so AP is my only ARWC news source today. Thank you for the great info!

@ianhoag, I was counting time of the trekking leg excluding the transitions times. Adidas Terrex's time on this leg was 14 hours accordingly, 1.5 hours slower than Columbia, but done at night by Adidas vs the day for Columbia.

Oh yeah, the Yogaslackers also have a lot of off-trail experience from their years in the Patagonian Expedition Race. Not many of the ARWS contenders take time to do the Patagonia race, but as far as I can tell, it has by far the most off-trail (and difficult) trekking.

USA Yogaslackers (33) tracker is back a few km east of TA8.

Oh well. They must be somewhere in between, most likely close to the the Euro trio of CZE BLACK HILL / OpavaNet (46), SWE Team Peak Performance (49) and
SWE Swedish Armed Forces (48)

Yogaslackers are a phenomenal team on foot in rough terrain. I've been on the wrong end of one of their bolts for home in Patagonia, where they all of a sudden picked up the trekking pace from about 20min/km to 12min/km on our 8th and last day of racing.

... and now back in front of Caffte. Definitely tracker issues.

@nmulder oops! You are correct. I was looking at the wrong column on the leaderboard. Yes, it was 14 hours for Adidas. Making Yogaslackers performance even more believable.

My tracking pins for Yogaslackers and Caffre are both unchanged, even after a browser reload. Given that both pins show the exact GPS location to the metre, the same time stamp and the same battery life, I'd say that Yogaslacker's ID has been mismatched to the new Caffre tracking unit serial number by the Website gurus.

And as I press send... the Yogaslacker GPS moves.... duh. Murphy.

The Yoga's are flying now ! the are in the middle of the bay ! :p

randy says "France left there tracker at the kayak put in"

I hate when that happens.

So are Caffte possibly still ahead of Movistar then?

I think the Yoga tracker is probably the Caffte tracker. Yoga must still be on the trek or just finished it. Surely???

Anybody know what the tides are doing right now? Both Caffte and what may or may not be Yogaslackers are moving really fast.

If Caffte left their tracker at the TA per Randy, there will be a time penalty for that. Another twist

According to a Facebook post by the race organizers, Caffte is having tracker problems but they ARE behind ECU Movistar (1.5 hrs, they said).

Here's the post

Update. France has a new tracker. It is number 33. That is why it shows Yoga slackers in 3rd. It might be changed again
from Randy

@ianhoag - I don't know what the tides are doing right now... I've navigated through that Cojimies estuary and I can say that at times the tide can be really low -low enough for the boat to hit the sand. As I said, I don't know what it's like right now, but good navigation can be essential.

Thanks Dobos...makes a lot more sense. So Caffte is in 4th with Raidlight or Addidas about 2 hours behind in 5th. Movistar is in 3rd.

So the question still remains: where are the Yogaslackers? And why aren't any of the reporters saying anything about the battle for 10th?

Just got an update on the Yogaslackers, but it's more flawed information. Their arrival at CP8 was just posted on the leaderboard... with a future timestamp: 17:56 TODAY. Come on! You can probably understand that I'm hesitant to make the obvious assumption that it should have yesterday's date.

Yogaslackers at TA8 at 17:56 yesterday ties in perfectly with their GPS tracking prediction before it went offline. My calculations suggest they only had 2 hours of discharge time left, so they should have been out of there at 19:56.

At the island in the lagoon, it looks like it was Caffte 1.5 hours ahead of Adidas Terrex who were 15 mins ahead of Raid Light. Tecnu still have about 2.5 to 3km to reach the island.

Judging by Raid Light's current paddling speed after the island, the tide might be going out?

At the derrière of the field, Irish AR are now facing the right way after 12 hours spent going in all directions and now seem to be breaking course speed records. Approx 20km done in the last hour. Sitting on the back of a truck I presume?

The Canadian team #9 made it off the first paddle 30 minutes ago

In the pics of Movistar at the take out it looks like the tide is out.

This should (not) make the trackers clear. This is the way the trackers are working. They get swapped out all the time when the batteries get low. Someone in the back office changes the number of the team and all is well. Some times they miss the change in trackers

Thanks Randy. Technical difficulties. Understood. Now, how about the living breathing people tracking teams the old fashioned way. Let's not let these tracking devices become a crutch. Who is responsible for keeping track of when teams check in and out of TA's? I know there's a lot going on, but from thousands of miles away, it feels like no one cares that Yogaslackers' tracker isn't working. There was no a manual update on the leaderboard for half a day. It seems like EVERYONE is so focused on the finish line and the top five teams, that NO ONE is looking out for the safety of the other teams. I'm probably blowing this out of proportion, but would really like some sort of confirmation like: "they checked in to TA 8 at 17:56 yesterday and checked out at 19:56 in good spirits with healthy feet," or "they checked in to TA8 yesterday completely drained with concerns about the condition of their feet for the difficult trek lying ahead." They should have passed through TA9 by now! And still not even a word about where they actually have been since their tracker stopped working just before TA8. Is it really too much to ask for an update from the TA's?

Well said Ianhoag! Thank you!

I kind of agree although I know from having been in Costa Rica last year that internet coverage can be next to nil in some of these places and I have to think that would be the case given the location of this race. I do hope we start to get some updates on the rest of the field though.

Tecnu just ahead of Raidlight near finish - but where is adidasTerrex? And Caffte UPS?

Mysteriouser and mysteriouser

:D

time stamp is now almost exactly 24hrs since Yogaslackers went 'missing' - 17h30

From Endorphinmag on Twitter:

"we are with Team France Green Caffe UPS HMV. 4th of this ARWC ;-)"

Check out this report from Sleep Monsters:
http://www.sleepmonsters.com/v2_races.php?article_...
It makes it sound like Raidlight was right behind Adidas and Caffte (back near Cojimes). So if Tecnu passed Raidlight, they should be pretty close to the other two teams unless Raidlight is moving really slowly.

Based on reports, it appears that Caffte UPS have just crossed the finish line in 4th. Well done! - Endorphinmag

Race twitter acct posted this 20 minutes ago.

1er. Puesto ARWC2014: #42 NZL Seagate
2do. Puesto ARWC2014: #28 ESP Columbia Vidaraid
3er. Puesto ARWC 2014: #21 ECU Movistar
Puesto 4: #36 FRA Caffte UPS Maurien/Vanois
Puesto 5: #35 FRA Raidlight
Puesto 6: #44 GBR adidas TERREX
Puesto 7: #46 CZE BLACK HILL / OpavaNet
Puesto 8: #32 USA Tecnu Adventure Racing
Puesto 9: #48 Swedish Armed Forces
Puesto 10: #49 SWE Team Peak Performance
Puesto 11: #50 SUI R'ADYS

Looks like Tecnu is behind the Czechs now.

Well, Tecnu just popped up right ahead of Raidlight at PC33, so that report wasn't spot on :)

Can anyone confirm whether Adidas has passed PC33?

Adidas right at 33 - Tecnu in the lead!

Thanks fuddam! Go Tecnu!

Doug just stated adidas is 12 mins behind Tecnu, who are about 15 mins from the finish :)

Looks like less, to be frank

I think we're crashing the live tracking website. Three teams minutes from the finish and the live tracking is frozen!

Tecnu just finished!
https://www.facebook.com/afuera.producciones.ec/po...

Now, back to Yogaslackers...
Their tracker just popped up in the middle of the paddling leg with a time stamp of 11:30 today. WTF? I'm not going to believe anything about where they are until I see pictures! But seriously, I hope they are ok.

wow, now they're saying Tecnu was in FOURTH, not 5th!!! wowow

IKR! What's going on?

Tecnu 4th
Team France Green Caffe 5th 1min behind
Adidas-Terrex 6th 10min behind
Raidlight 7th 10min behind - they took a novel way into the finish :D

It's confirmed: Tecnu finished 4th!
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=...

Wtf! That kayak split must have be incredible.

I guess Endorphinmag, being a French company, jumped the gun on reporting their national team's finish.

they did, they did, lol.

they look super sour in the pics. Mimi did say she wasn't going to race any more, during the early stages. Ho hum.

EDIT: beaten by 400m, I hear. That's got to hurt

They are a classy team, I can't imagine how tough the last 24 hours must have been for them - hope after a rest they can have a better perspective, and shed some light. Full respect to them for carrying on and never giving up, despite the obvious difficulties they faced.

That is a nutso finish...was thinking Tecnu was hurting and losing spots, but I know how hungry KP and Mari can be...so in the end, not surprised they grabbed back spots right at the end. Awesome work on their part!

That is a nutso finish...was thinking Tecnu was hurting and losing spots, but I know how hungry KP and Mari can be...so in the end, not surprised they grabbed back spots right at the end. Awesome work on their part!

Beating the frenchies at the line...that's almost as fun as winning!

Kyle, when you read this, you have to share with us how much pain you and your team must have been in during that last paddle. I'm imagining your shoulders and back just screaming out silently for oxygen. While you're trying to keep your quads from locking up.

It's great to be able to come here and get such terrific updates on the race... And saves me a lot of time!!!
I wouldn't be too quick to throw the race staff under the bus. It's frustrating to be back home when the coverage gets messed up, but the first priority is to the take care of the people actually on the course. Sometimes in order to do this other things get sacrificed/overlooked.
I'd wait for feedback from the mid-to-back of the packers ...... Then toss them under the bus :-)

Congrats Tecnu...WOW.

This sort of explains why Yogaslackers move so much.
http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/2014-adventure-...

The danger of any information, is it is never enough.

Has anyone had contact with TA9 to confirm that the Yogaslackers have emerged from the jungle?

Nothing I've seen so far has been a definitive statement. Everyone is like Yogaslackers "should" come off the water a little after midnight. That sounds like complet speculation. And now, we have a single time stamp with their team number in the middle of the paddling leg from 11:30am. But with the mix up in tracker numbering earlier this morning, who knows if that was a valid location?

Big congratulations to Tecnu! A perfectly timed sprint finish.

There is a manual leaderboard time on the website that says Yogaslackers got into TA9 just under 2 hours ahead of SUI R'adys. That means they could be anywhere paddling on the lagoon, but should already have passed SWE Peak Peformance (as have R'adys). CZE Black Hill and Swedish Armed Forces should be finishing pretty soon for 8th & 9th.

The existing time stamp for Yogaslackers on the lagoon is very incorrect. It is 12 hours old and is left-over from when Caffte were carrying Yoga's replacement tracking device.

Exciting!! Thanks for all the great updates today. Now that I have wi-fi temporarily, I'll add that Raid Gaspésie is sleeping at TA8 before the jungle trek. They've already been there a little longer than 2 hours so they're probably trying for a little extra sleep before the final push.

Awesome finish Tecnu!

Tecnu's finish
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=7422574658096...

Great video! So nice to see all those smiling, shocked faces! Well done, Tecnu. From now on, people will always be thinking of this moment when they say, "Never give up - anything can happen in AR." :)

Great video Randy.

Kyle et al - great finish guys. Huge respect for that.

Yogaslackers are safe they just finished 10th

Thanks Randy :)

Fantastic finish Tecnu! Great push at the end (and all the way through). Great work Kyle, Mari, Rob and Jason!

Thanks for the video Randy

Go Phatty and Team RIG!

Great job Yogaslackers!!!!

Yes! Two U.S. teams in the top ten. Well done.

From sleepmonsters:

http://www.sleepmonsters.com/v2_races.php?article_...

I know that Caffte had a disappointing race for them, and if anyone has any reports or insight on their perspective of the race, I'd like to hear of it.

Caffte weren't happy about their penalty but they still appeared to be heading for a podium position until the last two legs of the race. After making it past the dark zone that trapped Movistar, the top 3 seemed all but guaranteed. It's hard to imagine how Caffte could blame anyone else for the way they slowed down on those final legs - except maybe if, as they say, a photographer took precious minutes from their finish line sprint. But that seems unbelievable since nobody would stop for a picture at a time like that. They may have been distracted by someone though, which is still their responsibility.

Raid Gaspésie spent about 5 hours in TA8 last night and left at 1 a.m. for the jungle trek. It looks like they took another 4 hours of rest at CP29 starting around sunrise, which suggests that someone isn't feeling 100%. They are back on course and have been moving well for the last 2 hours so there's nothing to worry about. They're currently listed in 21st place and their goal was to finish in the 10th-20th range so they're getting close!

No more wifi for awhile. Keep the updates coming, please! :)

I likes Arther the Dog

:D

https://www.facebook.com/peakperformanceadventurer...

From what I saw Mimi never mentally recovered from the penalty. Most teams bitched and moaned and the embraced the chance to sleep. Those that saw Jackie on the course said he was in the same bad shape he was in Costa Rica last year. Maybe a cheeseburger once and a while?
About Arther. There is precedence for bringing a dog home from an AR in South America.http://youtu.be/IeXY_rVDkBQ?list=UUMVzteMQ5UIBQS2j...

That is one impressive dog if he followed them for so long. They must have been feeding him along the way?

Thanks Randy.

Meanwhile, who on the team is adopting the amazing dog?

Bash, Caffte should nor ever complain about a photographer. They had their own "sponsor/filmmaker" following the whole race. He paddled the river with them and followed in a truck at night "filming". This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Yeah, you have to let the penalty go. Almost every team had to serve the same penalty except for Seagate and they were just so far ahead that the penalty had nothing to do with it. They were suffering.....end of story. It happens but you can't blame that on anyone else.


Does anyone know when the official race cutoff time is? I am concerned that team Canada is moving so slowly that they might get cut off somewhere. I hope not but this trek is taking it's toll. I can only imagine what it's like in there, especially after all of those teams have gone through.

Nevermind, I just saw that the race closes on Monday at noon, I thought it was Sunday. They should be okay if they just keep moving. I can't wait to hear the stories.

That story about Arthur the Dog is a real tear jerker. Sniff sniff. Hat's off to Peak Performance.

Trying to coach my girls through a hockey tourney and follow along with the race (go RIG) and all I can think about is who gets the dog!?!?
Good stuff! :-)

Canada RIG seems to be moving very slowly on this trek...the photos look crazy muddy...it has to be way harder for these teams to bust through.

Yikes, it actually looks like Canada RIG are going off course now...Leanimal are you watching them?!

Nope, they're okay, Columbia Vidaraid took this route too.

I'm liking Canada's chances of pulling into the 20 spot!
I hope they get great weather and tides for a glorious paddle to the finish tomorrow!!!

It will be close, 13 teams have finished, and 6 teams are already on the water. They just have to leap frog over the Brazilian Avocado Team. Fingers crossed they will!

Raid Gaspésie is leading the Avocados with about 3 km to go to TA9. They've been on this trek for almost 24 hours now, including rest time. They will be glad to get into those kayaks and put their feet up. Go Canadians!

Way to go, Peak Performance! Arthur even has his own beautiful Andreas Strandh portrait now. On Facebook, it says they are driving Arthur back to the place where he joined the team. Hopefully he has a family who cares about him - although that isn't always true of dogs in countries like Ecuador. Randy, are you sure Chile Dog wouldn't like a nice South American friend?

'Bent and I were joined by a dog during the Snowgaine a few years ago. When he didn't move out of the way of an approaching snowmobile, we realized he was deaf so we started using our tow rope as a leash. We had to help him get across an icy river when he got too scared to follow us. It wasn't the easiest way to race but we couldn't lead an innocent dog to his doom. Obviously, Peak Performance felt the same way, and their race was much more important than ours. Good on them!

Another great story Bash! Canada RIG now has a healthy lead over the Avocados, and is now reaching the end of the river that empties into an estuary area that parallels the coast to the finish. Hopefully the tides are in their favour. I don't know how to figure out if they are!

I will be meeting CanadaRIG when they get out of the water. They know the question to ask me.

Go RIG. Almost there!

Oh my. RIG must be so tired. Keep paddling you guys!

Pepsi?

Go Pete and Team RIG! We are cheering hard from Canada!

Say hi for us legendaryrandy!!!! I can't imagine how many groceries I am going to have to buy for Phatty when he gets home.

Correct JayXC. But it has to be Coke here, no Pepsi. I will let them know you are all watching.

In more AR news. Arthur is going to Sweden with Mike. He made the decision, but after hearing about the ChileDog, he was really happy.

That is fantastic!! :))

Awesome about Arthur! Found this when I got to wondering.

http://www.teampeakperformance.se/news_item.php?id...

I am so happy about Arthur! It was meant to be. :))))

That's it RIG, almost there! (Oh man, they must be soooo ready to be done)

Now that they (RIG) are on the road to the finish I think I can go to bed! Hopefully I'll get a phone call tomorrow or the next day to get a "quick and dirty" synopsis. I have the feeling it will include the words, mud, cold, heat, altitude and tired. Just a guess.

That was an impressive full course performance put on by Canada RIG. Must be so satisfying.

I walked in with RIG in was incredibly tough for them. There were a lot times they didn't think they would finish. I will have video from all of them when we get back to Quito tomorrow

I walked in with RIG in was incredibly tough for them. There were a lot times they didn't think they would finish. I will have video from all of them when we get back to Quito tomorrow

I got one picture uploaded.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=8931848406...

Congratulations!!!! Well done, Phatty, Harps, Relentless and Frenchie! That was a super demanding 7.5 days of racing in very tough conditions. Chapeau!

Ding, ding, ding!!

RIG: so impressive that you guys toughed it out to do the whole course!! Sounds like it was harder than hard, I'm super curious to hear the stories! Welcome "home", rest well, recover well, savor the satisfaction of never giving up!

Congrats RIG! This race seemed nuts. I was having trouble following it even. As soon as it started though I was kicking myself for not being there as a volunteer. Can't wait to read the reports & to find out what @Leanimal's grocery bill will be. :-D

Top 20 at the World Championship! Way to represent, RIG! Nice work!

Great job RIG!!

Team Pictures.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.89343810...

Amazing RIG! And great pics!

Excellent pics, Randy! The Canadians look happy and well, although extremely tired.

Nathalie's right hand is bandaged up so paddling may have been difficult.

Raid Gaspésie at the finish line - from the race organization.

Great following the whole race. Congrats to all the teams that put their best foot forward and more congrats to teams that persevered when the race got tough.

Great shot of Raid International Gaspesie! So nice to see them smiling and looking good after all they went through.
Beautiful flag :)

Love that flag.
Reminds me a lot of Olympic hockey. :-)

Look at how white that flag is...now compare it to the white that used to be their race jersey!

Team Canada Talks about their race as they near the finish. http://youtu.be/E92yGQ7SsJc

Phatty: "It was a piece of cake."

Heheh. So nice to hear them talking about the race. Thanks.

Nathan Fa'avae's race report. They felt the penalty was too weak and filed a protest to that effect.
http://us3.campaign-archive2.com/?u=be596cad7488f5...

That's a pretty cool clip Randy. You really captured the emotions you feel as a racer at the end of a really tough race. When you're just physically, mentally and especially emotionally spent... caught in that place between laughing and crying, between euphoria and depression, between relief and disbelief.... and wondering where the cold beer is at :-)
Well done all!!

A great race report by Fa'avae with lots of details that I appreciated.

Some take home points from the write up for me: he's very proud of his accomplishments (as he should be); Chris Forne is an amazing navigator; he hated the kayaks and it was cool to see they drilled a scupper hole (how?) through a cracked kayak; and he's upset about the 4 hr penalty, and from his point of view I see why.

Nice race report from Seagate which seems pretty balanced and fair in it pros and cons of the race organisation. I hope the World Series race organizers read the piece concerning 'discharge' time, as I also think it doesn't work as per Nathan's reasoning in that it makes the race less safe and takes a large element of strategy out of the race.

I like Fa'avae race report too. Makes sense about the penalty from their stand point. I like that they are all focused all the way and worrying only about their efficiency as a team and not individually. Worthy champions indeed.

Columbia will be their main contenders in Brazil in 2015 for sure. They are the only team able to fight with Seagate at the moment.

Why not publish the race "special rules or specific logistic" in advance? It does not sell anything from the race itself. These guys in Ecuador did not come up with the 8h mandatory sleep a week before the race, so ARWS must have known before (I would hope but maybe it's not the case).

2009 Portugal: A rogaine style race that the organization did not feel relevant to explain in advance...
2013 Costa Rica: 4h mid camp - best 'mandatory enforced system' so far I think
2014 Ecuador: 8h scatered sleep in 4 TA

and there must be another ARWC that had a 'special thing' that I may not recall. I really wonder how these people come up with such untested system and apply them straight to the big race. Mid camp is a proven concept.

Will there be something similar in Brazil next year? it is a legetimate question to ask ARWS/Brazil people at this point. I would really appreciate to know as a potential racer.

Haglofs Silva for 2015

One of the biggest challenges any RD faces is building a course that works for everyone. It's no different when trying to bring new people into local (6-30 hour) races. The abilities of teams in most races is vastly different. The points that Nathan brings up are certainly valid and for Seagate and a handful of top teams there are serious implications. As you move back in the field those factors have much less impact and are just part of a teams race management strategy (just an additional obstacle).

I think the organizers wanted to force a rest at TA 8, perhaps for safety reasons before the next section? It was too far into the race for a midcamp format I think. This is what they came up with and for 2 to 5 teams it was probably less than ideal.

I've been doing this (sometimes badly) for almost 20 years and I have yet to see or hear about the ideal course for all teams. I've given up laying awake thinking about it.... most nights :-)

... I always enjoy reading Nathan's reports and the discussions they often generate.

Hi everyone! We're back in Quito now, with gear put away (far from clean!) and awaiting the final awards and party. This was a great string to read as it gave me a sense of what went on out there for the top teams. As for us, this was an epic adventure, full of ups and downs, and the finish line hung in the balance on a couple of occasions. In short, we wanted it too much to not push through to the end. I'll admit, I had a little moment during that final "trek" when I just knew we would get to the end. We had endured so much and we were going to do it...simple as that. It was a great feeling, even though there was the rest of the hellish muck trek and the final sleepy paddle to get through. Hypothermia, bumps from the big water section, strained muscles, dislocated hand bones, and a big bout of some sort of sickness put our foursome to the brink of elimination but never quite tipped the balance. Other than the last two sections, we really enjoyed the course and were treated so well by the locals. It all topped off with the best finish line experience I've ever had. Yes! Story to come...

Well done Phatty and crew. It was fun to watch your number 9 works its way across the landscape of Ecuador. We can't wait to see you here on Thursday and get all of the details!

Phatty!! :))) Fantastic to hear from you and so proud of you all. I look forward to your full report. Enjoy your party, have a safe journey home, and congratulations on an impressive finish. Sending hugs to all the Canadian crew!

Mikael needs help to bring Arthur home to Sweden. (From PyeintheSky's Facebook status and the Team Peak Performance Facebook page.)

HELPING ARTHUR
Anyone who wishes to help Arthur get to Sweden, may use the link below. It is in Swedish but as soon as you enter the country name "Kanada", the text reverts to English. Also, the amount must be entered in Swedish Krona but at checkout you will be provided with the amount in Canadian dollars. FYI $50.00 is approximately 325 Krona. Total expenses, including travel expenses and vet fees in Ecuador/Sweden are estimated at roughly $7000. Let's help this boy get home!
https://www.paypal.com/se/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_flow...

If you check the team's Facebook page, a lot of people are donating in the name of their pet or a pet who has passed away, and there are a lot of photos. Since we just lost Mocha, I'll be donating in her name. :(
https://www.facebook.com/peakperformanceadventurer...

P.S. It's necessary to enter the amount and your Paypal login at the same time - and I didn't see anywhere to enter "Kanada" but it worked fine, albeit in Swedish.

Arthur has his own Facebook page now!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Multisport-Arthur-m...

If Carbon is reading this, that page links to some articles in Swedish. Arthur has hit the news in Sweden! Interestingly, Mikael has never had a dog and had to phone his wife to sell her on the idea. She had already read about Arthur and was delighted. There are a few hurdles but if Arthur passes his medical check, he should be able to live with Mikael after 90 days of quarantine.

So is next year Nathan's last year?

If you consider nobody seemed happy with the penalty given that may mean it was just right.

Further to fundraising for Arthur - Team Peak Performance this morning have stated on their Facebook page that the financial goal for Arthur has been reached. Their sponsor has agreed to cover the remaining cost. This is great news and it is also an example of the positive side of social media.

Great news!

The Swedish Department of Agriculture said yesterday that they wouldn't let Arthur enter the country but now that he's had a vet appointment, received vaccinations and had his back wounds treated (he appeared to have been beaten), they are now willing to let him enter Sweden with a 120-day quarantine period. Poor dog, I hope he can have visitors. Good news though.
http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article19883881....

Recap *en français of Team #36 Green Caffte Costa Rica/UPS Adventure/Haute Maurienne/Vanoise

http://www.team2raid.fr/2014/11/18/championnats-du...

Jacky basically shut down at TA8 until the end. It explains why they slowed down so much at that point. Second year in a row after Costa Rica. Scary.

It took me a while but I was able to read it.....phew. I didn't catch everything but wow, did they ever struggle at the end and Jacky was out of it for so long. It seems like he may be one of those people that needs to sleep more earlier in the course. Their team is so fast that they could make up a lot of time when they are rested. Kind of like Seagate. They don't panic and have to stay ahead but they make all of the right decisions based on their team and look where it gets them.

Columbia VidaRaid race report: http://www.vidaraid.com/#!arwc2014/c225a

Jacky's post:

"Everything kills me, makes me feel more alive!
Hello friends, family, supporters, sponsors ...
After some days of recovery i am back in the real life.
I would like to thanks a lot all my team who has fight until the end, we have not done the race result ever but we have shared an epic part of life in the wild of Ecuador. We have created new feeling for each other and accomplished an unbelievable adventure which i will never forget.
Now about the race ... i squeezed voluntarily all the moments when everything is pink and goes so well because everybody know about that. And i'm lying if i tell you that we didn't got.
What i would like to explain now is the dark zone of adventure race and why adventure race has got so many problems to be recognize as a real sport.
To put a scenery i give you some details about the invest we have to put to be ready the D Day and i am not speaking only for my team or for top teams but for all the teams who take the start. We all have first to find a team of 4 (with a lady), to train in any disciplines, to do some team spirit to learn each other by training camp, find sponsors, spend time to prepare our specific gears, spend money to buy a lot of gears which will be destroy during the race (to cross the bush), pay entry fee, pay hotel, excess baggages ..., be away from our family for the race and for training, away from work, all that for the supreme goal to participate at the AR world champ!
At this stage, we are like other high level athletes in other sport, we do some sacrifices everyday for one goal...to participate at the ARWC. The only different, our sport is just a sport for the few passionate peoples...because our sport is not really recognized by the government, so to win this race you become a world champion in our world but not really in the real world
Anyway, when you arrive on the race you expect a professional organization which can pay back all the sacrifices. Each year, we really appreciated from the director of the circuit to ask about what we should step up...and it's true we can observe some progress but every year after the ARWC we can hear to many teams complain. To be honest, it's difficult to accept some massive mistakes from the organization who try every year to push further your physical and psychological limits but in same time forgot the essential of the race. When you are athletes, you have to follow some rules but why it's not the same for an organization?
During Ecuador, for our team it was pro until we arrived at the end of the second trekking section, where we get a penalty.
In my mind it is very strange to put a penalty to 40 teams and only 3 teams don’t have the penalty. Any young kid will resolve this problem and says «maybe the rules where not clear enough» !!!
What we have done it was only reading again the rules, and for sure it wasn’t clear. A track was compulsory but there is no start of the compulsory track and no end of the following track. During the safety speech, the organization has insisted on the fact, we can’t cross the river without bridge, so we have respect this rule and we couldn’t do different.
At the end we were not agree with this penalty and we have written a paper to the jury to cancel this «stupid» penalty who advantage only one team who will become world champ.
So we were very not happy on the next section because we really feel something was not fair and have talked a lot about this situation. When you are racer you have to feel confident about the decisions of the race, and in only in this situation you can give your best. Anyway, this first decision has be taken so now we have to keep going...but instead to just follow the rules of the race and to apply the penalty at TA9 like it was written, the organization decided to do a 2nd mistake and decided to change the transition where the penalty has to be. On the road book it was clear, the penalty will be in TA9...so at the end of the race.
So why??? And so when an important rule changes without to inform the racers, how the racers can still trust in something...because it means the organization has spend 1 year to prepare and think about their race and the rules and at the last second during the race they change all!!!
We arrive at the TA5 were they would like to give us the 4h penalty.
We were surprised because no body told us really about the penalty, so we though than our request was accepted. And it's true that we saw one team sleep here.
We are back in the race, we do a fast transition get ready on our bike in 1h and when we are ready to press on the paddle ... the guy from the organization told us «you have to do your penalty !!!»
You can imagine the level of stress we had at the moment. We started to argue why no body told us before, why no answer about our reclaim, why, why, too many why with no answer ...
The only answer is : «if you leave now you are disqualified, like if we are criminal» !
We had already given back all our boxes, so we will sleep on the ground our 3 more hours.
The worst is not the penalty but how it comes.
We had no real information about the organization and worst point they have changed the fundamental rules of the race just because the team captain who put the reclaim is very powerful speaker and the jury is weak against him.
The jury has to be strong and take good decision.
So, in the rule they say: «all penalty will be done at the last transition» , to have no impact on the race, i suggest.
This time they have move the penalty of 4h just before a turning point of the race : the river section.
It is very difficult to pass the dark zone (no paddling between 18h30 and 5h30) we know that from the start, and we know also that no many team will pass this section in time.
When you race for the podium or first place it is strategic to go faster at the start to be more relax for the rest.
Our team was in the window to pass the dark zone but with the penalty we were not.
So after the penalty we had a lot of stress just because we were rob by the organization, it was clear they put this to slow down all the team behind the first.
So we have push hard on the bike, we have run hard before the kayak, we have jump in the kayak, we have forget a little bite to eat to save time and with a bite of luck we make it by 5min.
In fact, all the stress energy, the riding energy we have put in this race against the time to stay in our strategic way for the the first place will cost a lot to our team by the end of the race.
I have forgotten to say, but 4h penalty it is more than lost time ... we have slept during the day (which is less good sleep than during the night), we had (unfortunately) rain straight at the start and the other has ridden on dry terrain, they also have ridden 4h more in the day light which is a good advantage.
Adventure race is thousand of parameters we have to keep in mind to loose less time and we try to organize our race around this but when we had a stupid rock (like the penalty in the wrong TA) who come in the mechanic it starts to be a big mess !
So we have finished the race not so well and had several physical problem in our team.
But the last joke was at the finish line ...
All the photographers and organization were at the finish point of the kayak to follow us on the last 4 kms.
The organization told us «relax and enjoy the last km, the next team is at 2h behind» ! what a good news, so we have take our time to give some photoshoots to the photographers because in my mind it's the part of the deal. We have to help them to do a good coverage even if we are tired to promote our sport.
The only problem, they have take too many of our time and at 50m from the finish line the team Tecnu pass us like crazy people.
I am not sure they have taken time to do some photo ... anyway once again i can say we were rob by the journalist and the organisation.
Apparently the organization has asked Tecnu to rank us at the same position and they have refused.
How come a team can say NO when you know the story, there is no glory to catch a place like that, if they want to be proud to be 4th they have to run faster before not on the last 50m of the race.
And how the organization had to ask to the other team to be agree? The organization knows they have done a mistake because they have talked to us to apologize, so why they just inform the team and give back our normal ranking?.. So once again...we can't accept this mistake!!!
Anyway, i think i am done with this kind of races, there is no respect for the racer and when you are professional athletes you can't race anymore some races not serious like these one. I have try my best since few years to promote those races because I'm passionate, because i believed on this amazing sport but unfortunately i am feeling they are not going in the good way ...
I know that we will think i'm too much and i have lost the control, but my result has any impact about my thinking, i have too many stories to confirm the lack of seriousness of this ARWS circuit.
Per example :
There is few team who come just for finishing the race and the have trained so hard all the year round and do so many invest, sacrify ... those little team are the cement of the organization because without them the circuit couldn’t survive.
To be clear, without there money the circuit ARWC is over !
What the best way to disappoint them, the organization has moved forward the cutting time and many teams were cut after the 1st section, after they have wait 2 days, because the «elite team» has to be first and they had other cut off further because they start late again and they are slower !!
So they have done 30% of the race, the can’t say they are finisher, they haven’t seen so many places except the transition area, no more comment, i am pist off !!!!!!!!!
An other example : we raced Godzone 2 years ago, during the race the organization lost our gear boxes...yes i know bad luck...but anyway, at the end of the race we asked them what we do now? And the more funny answer from them..."it's not our problem, the racer are responsable of their own gears and have to have an insurance"!!! Yes i'm not joking!!!
So yes we had a good insurance but also when i have explained the situation they were not agree because it's the organization who is responsable!!! So i explained to the organization and what they proposed to me...to go to the police and do a fake declaration!!!
The conclusion, all the teams pay so many the entry fee because it's so expensive and in fact they have no insurance and this is the minimum to provide when you are an organization.
An other example : during the race, we have to find CP, and you have to punch a control card and sometimes take pictures...and imagine, it's the World Championship and no one has asked me after to cross the finish line to show the pictures and the control card!!! How we should consider these races more serious?
Ya...no more because it will start to be boring...and now it's time to step up and keep going in an other way. I have lost too many energy and my mind to try to help this sport. Now i have to be focus in my future.
Don't worry i'm still an adventure racer and i will still race because i love to give my best, it's just with my team we will be more focus on the other races where you can really use your fitness.
Thanks a lot for your support, thanks to all my sponsors...
And let's for the new adventures...
Have a nice day
Jacky Boisset"

maybe we need a rulebook for race organisers alomng these lines
http://www.arworldseries.com/ARWS_Rules_of_Competi...

Jacky maybe one of a kind but he certainly raises good points...

Guess who's fault it is when someone beats you?

Thanks for sharing Jacky's post. Regarding the 4 hr penalty issue, I like mayer22 's viewpoint: "If you consider nobody seemed happy with the penalty given that may mean it was just right."

It is the inherent flexibility in the rules that bothers those with experience in other competitive sports. I agree with these concerns and this being a hindrance to the "professionalism" of the sport.

I'd argue that if it was a 30th place team, and only them, that made the correct decision at the river, they would be ignored.

Don't forget that it wasn't just Seagate, but also Silva who made the decision that ended up being the right one. Two of the best teams in the world made the same decision. That's got to count for something.

Afsheen - that's my point. It shouldn't count for anything.

Ahh. I missed your meaning. Yes I agree: placement and prestige and reputation and expectations should not count for anything in a competition. Just results, as the Mayor alluded to.

When Seagate got a 4-hour penalty for leaving their tracker at a TA in ARWC 2011 in Tasmania, Jacky and Myriam appeared unconcerned about whether 4 hours was a true representation of the time gained by breaking a rule. However, they won that race.

All but one of the teams who beat Caffte in this race served the same penalty they did. Two of those teams were held up by the river dark zone, putting them 11 hours behind Caffte, who were seemingly "guaranteed" a podium position at that point. The hard truth is that they did not race well at the end.

By the way, ARWC rules say: "Penalties may be served on the course at a time and location designated by the organisers, or added to a team finish time, at the discretion of the organisers." Perhaps the Huairasinchi rules specified the final TA, and many people like that idea but that venue is not always appropriate for serving a penalty. (I say that as someone who served my only team penalty while shivering in damp clothes at sunset without access to a gear box.)

In spite of all the whinging, there are several good points in Jacky's letter that could have been expressed in a statesmanlike manner that befits a past multiple world champion. For example, a world championship - and in fact every race - should always check control cards, photos, etc. I'm disturbed to hear that short course teams waited two days to move forward on the course. The ARWS should look into some of his comments and talk with other racers and the organizers.

Organizers need to take rules seriously and remember there are almost always consequences to deviating from rules so you need to think long and hard before doing so. For example, extending a cut-off seems nice but if you don't make an effort to inform teams on the course who think they have already missed the cut-off, then you have made the race unfair. When in doubt, it's usually safest to stick with the original rule.

On the other hand, participants in this complex, unpredictable sport who think a week-long event can be guided 100% by an inflexible set of cookie cutter rules will be very unhappy. There are some situations that organizers can't anticipate, and there are other situations they perhaps *could* have anticipated - but organizers are human, mostly with day jobs, and are always going to miss something, e.g. the alleged ambiguity of a road book instruction written in a language that is not their native tongue.

Any of us who have organized events know that even in a 2-hour race, a participant is going to do something we never anticipated, often based on instructions that we thought were perfectly clear. In a race of 700 km covering so much terrain with so many modes of travel, operated mostly by volunteers, something is bound to confuse someone along the way. Best efforts need to be made by the RD to avoid problems but even the best RDs will miss the occasional detail. If that's not OK, then there are sports like 10K road runs that tend to be nice and predictable and easy to control. (Having said that, I'll bet 10K runners occasionally find things to complain about too!)

Seagate are worthy winners. And Caffte, given Jacky's serious problems, did well to place in the top five, penalty or no penalty. If indeed they are leaving international competition now, it is unfortunate that they chose this way to be remembered.

^^^^^LIKE

Couldn't be said any better Bash.

Agree with Bash...

Also reminds me that after an especially hard race (physically and mentally) maybe giving yourself some time to recover is a good idea before writing race reports. Logic seems to fall by the wayside and emotions take over when your brain is foggy from racing.

Meanwhile in Sweden Arthur has landed. Who would have thought that Peak Performance would have gotten the most exposure for their sponsorship dollars out of all the team sponsors! I don't think adventure racing has had this much coverage since the days of Ecochallenge (sadly).

the Arthur story is pretty incredible. a good reminder that teams can bring value to their sponsors without having to win.

Here is Arthur with his new family.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1020510681...

This Facebook page has been providing Arthur updates.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Multisport-Arthur-m...

"A lot of media" met him at the airport in Stockholm. In the photos, he looks great for a dog who just took an international flight and may have been caged for the first time in his life. Suddenly, adventure racing is all over the news, and it's all good!

Here's a photo showing the Swedish media.
https://www.facebook.com/peakperformanceadventurer...

One reason why I love this sport is that ANYTHING can happen, and, its HOW the team deals with it is what matters. The Arthur story is so great for me because it shows that these awesome athletes are real people too.

Regarding some of the feedback...and my disclaimer is that I know very little about the rules, and whatnot...I just want to share that from time to time I give talks on leadership as part of my job, and I often relate it back to AR... 1) you have to know where you are to know where you are going, 2) Toeing up the line is a success in itself if you have prepared for it, 3) ANYTHING can happen and the outcome is so much based on your attitude and willingness/ability to go to the "edge" and lastly 4) Your team, in anything, is very important and it's the teams goal to get the entire team over the finish line. This perspective that I have grown to learn has done everything for my own leadership.

I think it all comes down to quality control and consistency.

Anything can happen for sure, it's the base of our sport, and racers do not expect RDs to be perfect.

The problem is that almost every expedition race it seems that inconsistency and lack of preparation and quality control have an impact on the outcome of the race itself, not only for top teams, but all teams. The focus should be on the drama of every team, that's what is amazing wit AR, but too often it is overshadowed by the bumps of race logistics.

On smaller scale in local events it's ok up to a point I guess but when international teams pay big money, take their holidays and travel from all over the world to be part of such events it is normal that they expect a 'certain level' of quality/service. RDs and ARWS should see it as keeping their customers happy. As ARWC is the biggest race of the year and gets most viewers and media attention, it's normal we expect it to set the bar in every aspect.

It's ARWS role to ensure of quality and consistency, especially for ARWC. An example is that the official ARWS media release, sent more than 36h after Seagate crossed the finish, had a mix up in the top ten teams naming SUI R'adys (50) in 10th place instead of USA Yogaslackers (33).

I know a lot will be lost in translation from Jackie's report/complaints.

But it just reeks of sour grapes, even worse that he's had enough time to reflect on it before posting this. - there seems to be a much more balanced report from Sylvain from the same team here (thank you google translate - what is a "rythm section" supposed to be?)- http://www.team2raid.fr/2014/11/18/championnats-du...

The upshot of the penalty is that they actually sneaked past the dark zone and got an almost guaranteed 3rd place from it. Things went downhill from there but they had a podium on a platter, yet still blew it.

I expect a better response from a multiple world champion, sure you can be disappointed and complain about certain factors but there's no way on earth you can't say that Seagate didn't deserve this win. Would be interesting to see their comments at the time when they got handed the World Champs win in tasmania.

just for a bit of perspective -

I can only find page 1 of 4 from the thule report from 2011 tasmania, not archived on sleepmonsters properly, so had to use the wayback machine -
https://web.archive.org/web/20130928105323/http://...

The Winning Strategy

By staying focused, taking minimum sleep, keeping a fast pace and making few mistakes the Thule Adventure Team crossed the finish line of the 2011 World Championships in Burnie one hour ahead of Team Silva, another part-Swedish team, followed by Team Seagate (NZL), just minutes behind.

“We were very focused. Everyone in the team was prepared to do their utmost, which we knew we had done when we crossed the finish line,” says the team captain Martin Flinta, who has learned the hard way that adventure racing is all about avoiding mistakes, or at least minimizing the mistakes.


seagate's race report from 2011 - have a look at the summary paragraph,

http://www.xpd.com.au/previous_races/XPD6_ARWC2011...

A few coffees, scoops of ice cream and sleeps in a comfy bed later, I’d accepted the reality of the race. It
needs to be kept in perspective. It’s only a sporting event and if the only problem one has in their life is losing
an adventure race, then one must lead a very privileged and blessed existence.
Despite all our mis-fortunes and set backs, the team rallied and preserved to a level that demands huge
respect. The characters in the team proved their tenacity and value over and over again. Chris did an
exceptional job of navigation and breaking trail, a job that the chase teams also benefited from at times.
Marcel is always a loyal and committed teammate prepared to hurt for the team at high levels. Sophie who is
a relative new comer to expedition racing has well and truly proved her value. I’ve been lucky enough to race
closely with the best female the sport has ever seen, Kristina Anglem, and Sophie is fast following in her
footsteps. The reason our team can travel as fast as we can is largely because of Sophie, her strength, speed
and unwavering positive attitude. Despite our penalty, we had plenty of opportunities to win the race, it just
wasn’t meant to be, we just had one of those races where the curve balls kept getting thrown at us.
Results are reality, I’ve been around long enough to know that, and Thule and Silva both raced well enough to
keep in contention and were rewarded justly for their efforts.
Personally, I don’t have any issues with the organisation. Craig was following procedure and sticking to his
race rules.
While I don’t agree with the rules and the size of the penalty, I respect that they are the rules of this race and
we broke them. I’m quite a purest when it comes to adventure racing, I want races to be won on paddling,
biking, hiking and navigation ability. I don’t want to see the sport in a corridor of rules and regulation, protests
and penalties.
XPD is one tough race, 733km through some stunning but punishing country. I applaud Craig for putting the
race on and allowing us to be subject to some real risk in pure wilderness areas.

France-Caffte may be unhappy and even bitter, but I applaud their tenacity to finish a race after their captain cracked. And has to be pulled, pushed, and prodded to keep going. You guys know that's not easy to do, over two days, continuously. Certainly despair would set in next to you, telling you to pack it in. Good job on their finish. I would want them to be more pragmatic and less bitter, but it's their experience, and their race.

Yogaslackers race report: http://teamyogaslackers.com/2014/11/22/adventure-r...

Arthur is now on the Peak Performance website as one of their official sponsored athletes.
http://friends.peakperformance.com/

Handling all the media attention with grace.
https://www.facebook.com/peakperformanceadventurer...

Someone just e-mailed me that they saw Arthur on NBC?!

and now Yahoo Ticker.

Yes, the NBC national news tonight had a short story on Arthur. Though they didn't mention "adventure race" or even "race" - just "a group of Swedish adventurers on a 430-mile trek through Ecuador".

Arthur was in the Daily Mail in the U.K. yesterday too - a more detailed story with some photos from the vet that I hadn't seen before. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2846228/Me...

Also the Huffington Post. Wow. Arthur has only been in the sport for two weeks. Nathan Fa'avae, eat your heart out.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/24/stray-dog...

And a video posted on The Toronto Star's website. http://www.thestar.com/videos.html?bcpid=207134954...

2/3 of page 3 of 'The Times' in the OK today. Not so good for the sponsors as there name has bean lost which is a bit sad.

That's too bad since Peak Performance put a lot of money toward bringing Arthur home. I notice the team is shutting down Arthur's Facebook page now that he is in Sweden so further news will be posted on the Team Peak Performance page. That should help keep the sponsor name involved!
https://www.facebook.com/peakperformanceadventurer...

There is now a short Youtube video telling the story. I've been hearing about Arthur from friends not involved in AR. Who would have thought this would get our sport in the international spotlight?

Team Terra Aventura Race Report written by a Scandinavian woman who joined 3 men from Ecuador.
http://www.sleepmonsters.com/v2_races.php?article_...

Willderness' mom, my lovely wife, can't get enough of the Arthur story. To the point where I'm concerned I'm going to come home any day now to find I have a new dog.... I love dogs... don't want one at this time ... hope this blows over quickly!!!

.... Mike's getting a wedgie next time I see him :-)

I guess she needs to replace Wilderness now that he's off to university, and a puppy seems like a good trade. You'll have to keep being nice to me or I'll send her this very dangerous website. This is where we found BazingaDog.
https://www.petfinder.com

Btw there is a campaign in New Zealand to e-mail a TV program that shared Arthur's story without mentioning Seagate's victory in the same event. It's certainly something to keep in mind. This is a wonderful story and we can use it as an opportunity to promote a great sport - as long as we make sure the sport remains part of the story!

BBC News - the first to mention that the dog was named after King Arthur due to his fearlessness. No mention of the name of the sport but they do describe the race a little.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-301945...

At this point the people to benefit the most from the Arthur story is Jacky and Mimi...

PRI has the best version of the story that I've seen: http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-11-24/stray-dog-ad...

And CNN has good interview clips with Mikael Lindnord.
http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/world/...

@JayXC, why? Because nobody is talking about their poor attitude anymore?

That's correct.

We can resume that discussion later. ;)

Because of all the offers of support, Team Peak Performance is setting up the Arthur Foundation.

"Arthur Foundation has been created to help stray dogs to get a value in society and support the new law proposal that give the stray dogs rights against violence and abuse."
http://www.teampeakperformance.se/arthur/

A friend of mine at UBC just asked me if I had heard the story... It really is everywhere.

This is when we need to pounce! If you have an event or a team that could or should be in the news, send a press release to the local media using the Arthur story as a door opener and let them know about the local angle.

Right you are Bash! This is a golden opportunity for AR.

I'm going to adopt a pet and bring it home from Swaziland in June. Anyone know of a sponsor looking for some GOOD publicity? Of course now we have to raise the bar....

... anyone know what I should feed to a honey badger to make him follow me to the end of a race? It gets to sit on Will's lap for white water sections. Should be great footage :-)

Story made the Sports Illustrated blog with a pointer to the NPR story.

Front page of ESPN.com, too. The story is the daily "Instant Awesome" feature.

Tecnu race report http://www.scribd.com/doc/248374662/Race-Report-20...

Great report!

@Racers, what was it about the race instructions that caused so many - but not all - teams to think it was OK to cross the river? The wording seems unambiguous but there must have been other factors teams considered because I know you didn't want to break any rules. Maybe the lack of Xs on the road?

Kyle's protest made a case for it. If Seagate said they had some bushwhacking to find a trail, then using a path to keep river at your left would expire when there is no path, such as when a bridge goes to an un x'd road while no trail appears to continue on the non road side. Perhaps semantics in path versus "route choice". Seems like CP or marking should be used, although I understand how it could be missed since the course designer knew what they wanted.

Seems like all these retiring racers would make great course/instruction vetters just to look for this sort of thing. (And argue for or against sleep banks.)

Having road books in two different languages is a big risk too but I'm not sure there's a good way around that. In orienteering, there are international symbols for control descriptions but the subtleties of an AR course require words.

Part of the problem was that in every other case forbidden route were "Xed" out. Not in this case.

If you are wondering why Seagate is so hard to beat, this helps explain.https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=8991103867679...

Btw I think TA2 was CP4 and TA3 was CP6, and I think the penalty was given for a route choice between CP5 and CP6. @Racers, interested to hear what your thoughts were. Here are the maps posted by Breathe Mag although they aren't the easiest to read at this resolution. No Xs on the road, as we'd heard during the race, although some racers may have added their own Xs when they read the instruction saying that the road was banned.
http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/2014-adventure-...
http://www.breathemag.ca/flashblog/2014-adventure-...

We haven't heard if there were other unmarked out of bounds areas or if this was the only case, which would be a major omission. The important thing is to figure out how to prevent this from happening again - even in events that we manage. My inclination would be to give racers notice, e.g. "Note that race instructions may indicate out of bounds areas that are not marked on the map."

Arthur will be on CTV national news tonight!

Race report from Team Peaklife Sport, the last full course team to finish ARWC.
http://www.peaklifesport.co.uk/results-and-race-re...

CTV News interviewed Mikael Lindnord over Skype.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=499328&playlist...

not a national news source, but i overhead a conversation in a hotel breakfast room in Iowa yesterday where two people were talking about Arthur. i very much doubt either of them were adventure racers, but it was really cool hearing them interested in the sport!

Breathe Mag's angle on Arthur - a little different.
http://www.breathemag.ca/news/expedition-racing/ar...

Official race highlights video - a great tour of all the stages with occasional glimpses of Attackpointers. Also a nice view of two Team Spirit Canada bike boxes at 5:40 - although their owners were watching the race online!

That bike box has done several epic races without me :-(

It must be about spent by now!

It's still got a few more xpd races left in it! Thanks again for letting me borrow, I'll get it back to you soon.

Love the clip of you guys crossing the finish line, Harps!

Here is another look at the race.
https://vimeo.com/113304941

Nice, Randy! Notable Attackpointer moments:

1:07 - Before the start, Phatty and Harps match the terrain to their map.

8:33 - Shocked and ecstatic Tecnu finish

I think if you look real close you will see a TA1 sticker on one of the boxes.

Great work Randy!

Here's my race report - Team CANADA Raid International Gaspesie

http://ar.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_2655/pe...

Fantastic read! So interesting to hear some of the stories behind your dot, which we were watching so closely. Congratulations on a tough and impressive finish.

Great race report phatty! Wow.

AR World Rankings have been updated post-ARWC:

1) Columbia Vidaraid
2) Seagate (affected by their DNF at ARWC 2013)
3) Adidas TERREX
4) Tecnu
5) France Caffte etc.

http://www.sleepmonsters.com/v2_news.php?article_i...

Full Rankings List