For this race, we had three of our usual team members: Stephan Meyer, Nathalie Long, and James Galipeau, but had to scramble in the months leading up to the race to find a 4th person when one of our regulars was no longer able to do the race. Luckily Bruno Haché, an Acadian adventure racer was able to step in and join us for the race. His navigation skills and local knowledge were both an asset to the team for the race.
The first day of the race was a prologue, which consisted of a run on the beach, a bike along the beach and then on roads and trails, a trekking loop on the mountain (with a waterfall CP and a ropes section) a ride back down to the beach, and then a short paddle to the finish. This was an extremely fast day with the overall winners of the day finishing in just over 2 hours. Our team had a decent day on the course, mixed in with a few spots where we lost some valuable time, but all in all we were still in good shape, sitting in 4th in our category at the end of the day.
Day One of the race had us starting with a short trek section to spread the teams out before getting into the canoes for a paddle down the Cascapedia River. Then after a fast-moving river crossing, it was a trek with a Tyrolean traverse along the way followed by a very fast bike section. At the end of the bike section two team members had to swim across the river once again to retrieve the canoes and bring them back to the other shore where teams would have to put their bikes in the boats and paddle to the finish line. Overall it was another decent day for the team, despite some challenges, which included Bruno getting a leg cramp just as he and James set off on the swim across the fast-moving (freezing!) river to get the boats. Nathalie also twisted her ankle during a trek through slippery rocks in a stream, and one of our canoes capsized in a rapid with 2 of our bikes attached to it at the start of the final paddling section. But we recovered well from each of these setbacks and managed to move up to third place in our category at the end of the first full day of racing. The evening after the day's racing was also pretty amazing as we were hosted by the Mic Mac tribe on their land. We were treated to a spectacular display of traditional drumming and dance, as well as fresh salmon with maple syrup smoked on cedar planks inside hollowed out tree trunks. To cap off the night, there was an amazing display of the Northern Lights.
Day Two would unfortunately barely get started for our team before we ran into serious trouble. The race started off with a paddle section, and for our team, this was also where our race ended. It was a very cool morning that had left a frost on the ground and made for some chilly sleeping (or not sleeping!) the night before. Nathalie had been battling a pretty nasty chest cold that started up just before the race, and the cold, rain, and camping of the previous 3 days was certainly not helping things. We started out pushing pretty hard and trying to manage the "bumper boat" craziness that always comes with a mass paddle start. The plan was for our team to use a tow rope to help us to move faster, but this proved to be very difficult for the first part of the paddle with all of the boat traffic seemingly moving in all directions.Once we finally were able to get our boats attached, it was full steam ahead and we pushed very hard to try and make up some lost ground. Unfortunately this exacerbated Nathalie's chest cold and set off an exercise-induced asthma attack less than 1km from the end of the paddling section. The combination of the stress and chaos of the race combined with the anxiety caused by the asthma attack then caused her to hyperventilate, which immediately got the attention of a few thoughtful teams who stopped to make sure everything was ok, as well as a boat with a camera crew on board. It appeared that Nathalie was getting everything under control and the team began to paddle again to try and get to the transition area. But once again her breathing became very difficult, so her boat pulled to the shore so that she could walk the remaining 300 metres to the TA. She was met half way by a crew of medical staff and other onlookers who immediately tried to help restore her breathing to normal. While the medical team was excellent, it seems that having having so many people in close range created more anxiety and unfortunately Nathalie wasn't able to get her breathing back to normal on her own. So she was taken by ambulance to the hospital (despite her pleas to be unbuckled so that she could keep racing!) where she was warmed up and monitored for a brief time before being released. While she was feeling better, the trip to the hospital meant the end of the race for our team. Nat said this is the worst chest cold she's ever had and it actually got worse the following night - she said she's not sure if she could have continued to race hard on the following day even if the team had been allowed to continue. Stephan however did manage to race on the final day with the team from Costa Rica after one of their team mates had to withdraw from the race as well.
Obviously this was not the result that any of us had hoped for, but we can say that we raced hard for the whole time that we were out there on the course. We all agree that a team mate's health is far more important than any race result and we are all happy that Nathalie didn't suffer any lasting effects from the incident (except for the chest cold that doesn't seem to want to go away!). We are all keenly aware of the dangers that we subject ourselves to when we choose to do an adventure race, and we don't take these risks lightly. So when a serious situation does occur, it reminds us how fortunate we are to be able to race hard and to finish most of the races that we enter. And it's also a very big comfort to know that our fellow competitors care enough to stop their race in order to offer a helping hand when something does go wrong.
All we can say in the end is that the race course, the region, the organization, and the medical response were all outstanding - and we can't wait to come back again to take care of some unfinished business...
Here is a video recap of the race: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVFwnKAc7lE
James
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