Coast Raid Day 4
I usually handle sleep deprivation very well (it's my normal lifestyle), but not today. After 30 hrs of racing over 3 days and just 2.5 hrs of sleep last night, I felt light-headed and sleepy until mid-afternoon. In retrospect, I should have taken wake-up pills or eaten some chocolate espresso beans, but I was so tired that it didn't occur to me. As a result, I lagged behind more than usual on the road biking (my weakest discipline in this race), but otherwise, I held my own. Looking back at the GPS tracks, I navigated well on the long trek, but I was happy to leave the map in Tiny's hands for the final short trek. It wasn't just me - everyone looked bagged this morning, including the normally dashing Phatty.
Even our friends on Team XTreme South Africa at the front of the pack were concerned about the final day of racing.
We biked to our kayaks a few km away, inflated them, then headed out onto the sunny, windy Baie des Belles Amours to pick up two CPs located by little fishing houses. There were some decent swells on the ocean today, but we were very comfortable in the kayaks by this point. They're very stable and reasonably quick for what they are, but it is possible to inflate them with improper alignment, and then you get a boat that tries to turn all the time. (This happened to one of the Team Salomon Suunto boats today, and it happened to 'Bent and me on Day 2.)
We enjoyed our last kayaking session on the Lower North Shore - for now! If someone wanted to run kayak tours here, it would be an awesome destination. Based on our experience, the locals would be very supportive, and we've done enough kayak trips to know that this is truly a world class destination. I'd have to look at the maps some more to find protected routes along the coast, as paddling on the open ocean would be a bad idea on most days.
We hopped on our bikes to pick up another few CPs on our way to the start of the long trek. We were given a slightly incorrect UTM for the first CP, which led to a few minutes of concern as we hiked with other teams along one pond to the adjacent one, where we found the flag. In an event with so many CPs over five long race stages, it's actually amazing that there weren't more missing or misplaced CPs. From here, it was a long trek where we tried to stay high and out of trouble. We could always see the next point we wanted to aim for, and the challenge was to make it there without getting stalled by prickly patches of tuckamore, which often lurked in hidden gullies that we only saw when we got up close. Bushwhacking through this stuff made me "pine" for the forests of home. Usually we can just lean and push to move through thick bush, but in this stuff, it was easy to get your foot caught under something because of the twists and turns in the branches and trunks. Even more fun were the frequent surprise holes. One minute you'd be walking beside a teammate chatting away, and the next minute, he or she would drop half a meter into a hidden creek with a shocked "Aaaaahh!?!".
The highlight of this trek was a spectacular long, rocky spur that we followed down to the sea. Unfortunately Pixie felt ill during this section and didn't enjoy it as much as she normally would. On the bright side, Tiny had recovered nicely from feeling sick last night and this morning, and 'Bent was perking up around the same time after over-exerting himself on the bike tow earlier. (Apparently I need to lose weight.)
Walking by the sea here was incredible.
Then we headed up - *way* up - to find one more CP before returning to our bikes at the road. Our next stop was a zip line at beautiful Brador Falls, and I think someone must have put an ad in the paper because nearly everyone on the Lower North Shore was there to cheer us on. 'Bent and I did the zip. Back in the parking lot, someone asked Tiny to pose for a photo with some children, and one of the local mayors chatted with him and Pixie. The mayor explained that everyone had been talking about the Coast Raid for the past year, and it had been really good for morale to have the first-ever international event in this area at a time when the economy has become difficult because of the decline of the fisheries. Once again, we realized how lucky we were to be part of something that was much more than a race.
This pic shows me crossing the zip line over the waterfall, with photographer Luis Moreira of Breathe Magazine hanging on the other rope.
We had a road ride along the coast past the village of Brador, then we headed inland to pick up CPs in a complex area of ATV trails. Tiny nailed the difficult nav, and we made some time in here. Between the zip line and the technical bike riding, I was awake by this point - and happy to be close to the finish line.
We rode to a TA outside of town where we had the option of pushing our bike over a low, tundra-covered mountain, which would give us a faster trip back to town when we hit the ATV trail on the far side. We decided to go on foot, since the descent to the sea looked cliffy, and the ATV trail section was under 2 km. As it turned out, we were the last team allowed to go up the mountain, since the wind was high (80 kph, we heard later) and the clouds continued rolling in to create white-out conditions. We met the Yoga Slackers up there, the team that ultimately won the mixed 4-person category. They had done the advanced section, and they had their bikes on the mountain. In this boggy, rocky terrain, we were able to stay even or ahead of them on foot for quite a long time without any running at all.
At last we were on the final stretch of ATV trail leading to Blanc-Sablon.
We did our only running of the entire race when we got two blocks from the finish at the school. As we approached the finish line, the race director handed us two huge flags - Canadian flag and Ontario flag. All teams were handed the flags from their respective countries at the finish - U.S., Brazil, Italy, South Africa and France. (I think that's the full list.) We were immediately handed a jumbo bottle of beer and ushered onto a podium, where photographers, volunteers and dozens of townspeople cheered and took photos.
After hot showers, we were treated to yet another fantastic, home-cooked buffet. A truly wonderful touch was that the organizers had invited a number of local people to attend the race banquet, including the ladies who had cooked the amazing food for us in St. Paul's and Middle Bay. We were privileged to share our table with locals and exchange stories with them during the evening. One of them pulled out a digital camera and showed us close-up videos he had taken of whales when he was out on his boat yesterday. There were speeches by mayors from along the coast, and one touching comment from the head of the Council of Mayors was, "You have shown us that our area is more beautiful than even *we* knew." At one point we realized that the applause was especially loud, and we looked back to see that the 2nd floor bleachers of the gym were filled with local residents - wow.
The huge group of volunteers and race staff (probably as many of them as there were racers) had written a song for the race director, which they presented with gusto. Each team was called up and given a framed certificate showing that they'd completed the Coast Raid, and the top teams received prizes with little fanfare. We cheered loudly for Team Salomon Suunto, who placed a close second in the mixed 4-person category, but the loudest cheers of the night were reserved for Team Harrington Harbour, the locals who had done everyone proud with a respectable result. They were the ones who had come to the race via a 13-hr boat ride along the coast, and one of them had raced in a hockey helmet because he didn't own a bike helmet. The Italian team presented them with new bike helmets from their sponsor - very classy. There was a cool 10-minute video montage of race highlights. A couple of Europeans were here filming the race, and we're told that 20 million people will watch it overseas.
Like everything associated with this event, the post-race celebration was a class act and a perfect way to finish this amazing experience. Oh, and the Tree Huggers placed 15th of 19 teams, which exceeded our goal for our adventure vacation!