Our first competition in 2014 was Le Grand Tour 1st-2nd May. This was also the first race in the new Swedish series of 24 hour competitions.
The race started with a very interesting prologue; the map was split into three sectors and within each sector the controls could be punched in any order. The first sector had to be completed on foot, in the second sector one bike was allowed and in the third sector two bikes were allowed. If we chose to use one or two bikes we had to return to the arena between sectors to collect them. We elected the rather bold strategy of running the entire prologue, without picking up any bikes. For a while it seemed a good strategy – we were first to the top of the slalom hill at the farthest point from the arena, having punched most of the controls. However, in our planning we hadn’t noticed a good bike route that went almost to the top, and had under-estimated the speed at which cyclists could return to the arena on good tracks and roads. Still, considering the length of the competition, it was hardly a crisis to finish the prologue 4-5 minutes behind the leaders.
The first running leg didn’t go quite as well as we would have liked and we struggled to keep up our speed towards the end, in spite of the temporary rest afforded by an interesting trip down through an abandoned mine. After illness and breaks in training during the winter and spring, it was hardly surprising that we struggled to keep pace.
We were quite lucky with the weather… well… it snowed during the first paddling, but it didn’t settle and it was sunny at the same time so we were in good spirits. Some of the good kayakers had capsized their surf skis a few times on one early stretch, but we had taken the canoe, which is more stable.
During the evening paddling it was dead calm. That was one of the best bits – first down a canal, then over lakes into the sunset, and into Filipstad town by night.
The cycling was good in part too. We took the time to get changed at the transition and put on lots of warm clothes, so the frozen stiff waterproofs weren’t a problem. Jo Inge kept one of the drinks bottles inside his jumper so we had something to drink when the ones on the bikes froze solid. However, as usual our preparations for the race had not involved much sleep and we struggled to stay awake. We crawled along on gravel roads where we should have been able to push much harder. Some of the cycle tracks were perfect though – worth waking up for. Narrow paths covered in pine needles, through open forest, with frothy looking white lichen covering the rest of the ground. It looked really magical by torchlight. But of course there was hours of it, with frequent interruptions to carry our bikes up insanely steep hills… yes – proper adventure racing in other words!
Jo Inge’s patience was really put to the test on one apparently short section, where the race organiser had decided to send us all on a little detour along a small river valley, where normal healthy people wouldn’t have dreamed of taking a bike…
The morning’s orienteering leg was nothing to write home about in terms of physical acheivement or technical prowess. However, it did take place in very beautiful terrain.
We didn’t do very well result-wise. We ended up in fourth place, but having had contact with the leaders during the first half of the race, we lost lots of time on the long cycle ride and were about four hours after number three. Neverthelsss, after a spring with illness and long training gaps, we could be happy enough just to have finished the course and had a good time along the way.
Videos from the race are available here:
http://karlstadmultisport.se/legrandtour/?p=195
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