I just spoke to Karyn on the phone … she and Roy are currently driving to a bike drop off point before retiring "somewhere" for a very well earned rest.
She has solved the mystery (to a degree) of Orionhealth.com's first missing CP. It was not the bike CP (600m down - 600m up) that was reported by Sleepmonsters but was a later CP on the trek before the Zezere "white water" river kayak. They abandoned going to the CP as they didn't think they had time to get it before the "dark zone" kicked in for the kayak. It sounded like the terrain and the maps were a bit confusing too … Nike did go for and get this CP. Arriving after the Dark Zone started would have meant that they had to hike rather than paddle to the kayak course CPs. This scenario makes a lot more sense to me as the team separations didn't seem to match the report at all.
Since then the team has however now missed at least one more CP on the Tagus river paddle (as reported by Sleepmonsters) although I understand from Karyn that Nike managed to collect this one too to put them a little bit further ahead again on the points table. It sounds like Nike are definitely travelling faster than our team (and the others) as they are getting these few additional CPs and still coming into transitions/assistance areas about the same time as them.
The teams that were aiming to get "all CPs" are now getting very tired and Karyn reported that Anna seemed to be finding the going a bit tough with the boys all starting to get a bit jaded too and less able to do much towing. Wayne's chest is still a bit congested but he has apparently been racing pretty strong and was up to towing when needed in the first two days which means things can't be too bad!
Karyn commented that the Race Directors have said all along that the first half of this race is particularly challenging physically and that the latter half will be more mentally taxing. Hopefully our team will be up to the challenge and have recharged well after a bit of a sleep at the last transition. Apparently, like most of the other "top teams", they had only had about 2.5 - 3 hours sleep in total up to this point!
They will need to be on their game for the next sections - a trek that is expected to take about 10 hours to complete and a bike ride of about 12 hours. I asked Karyn if she thought that they had a good plan for these next two legs and she seemed pretty confident that they did. She said it's getting very very hard to plan now though as they need to be looking ahead several sections to cut offs rather than just looking at the leg that they are currently on.
It is going to be very interesting to see what becomes of these teams that have pushed themselves so hard physically in the first half of the race compared to teams like OpavaNet (#5 - Czech) and Ertips (#20 - France) who have not bothered with the bonus CPs to this point and have therefore been conserving energy. (By the way … I saw a photo of Buff Thermocool (#4) carrying their kayaks so I am sure that they made the cut off to continue with the leading group.)
Karyn and Roy are doing a great job … the crewing is really tough with time estimates for each leg being very variable - requiring them to stay on their toes and plan ahead to ensure everything is where it needs to be, when it needs to be there. The team are lucky that they have these two working away so hard for them as it sounds highly unlikely that unsupported teams will be having a smooth run!
It seems that we will probably not hear much from anyone on the course for quite a while now with these next few legs being long ones without Assistance Points or formal Transition Areas.
:o)
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End of Stage 3
Orion got here about 7:30pm, really tired and anxious to sleep.
They crawled into their tent for a 3/4 hour sleep, then got up to sort their team, then left the TA before the 9pm cutoff, but only headed to a nearby paddock to sleep a couple more hours.
They had to drop a checkpoint on the river, they started up towards TA28A, but decided after a while that they weren't going to make it, and turned back.
Nike left at about 8:55pm, stopping just out of the TA to debate their route choice for the next 60km again. They looked pretty tired.
Blackheart also made the cutoff with a few minutes to spare. They also looked really weary.
I need to check how many teams in total made it out before the cutoff, maybe about 30.
Alexandre, the race director, is still picking one of the European teams for the win. (How rude). He thinks the Poles are going well, and says they 'look strong', and the two French team. I think the Poles are continuing with their strategy of trying to get all the regular checkpoints and ignore the bonuses.
The next leg is a tough 60km trek, followed by a 150km MTB. That gives them 27 hours till the next cutoff at midnight Thursday.
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