2017 RAID GALLAECIA, PART ONE
It’s a crazy thing to commit to an expedition-length adventure race on another continent. Getting four willing people together, paying a multi-thousand dollar registration fee, booking flights, parsing gear, dealing with language barriers…there’s so much that can go wrong and it takes so little to derail the whole project.
But as we did in the race, Chaos Machine persevered, taking it one step at a time, and that enabled us to reach the finish line - and just as importantly, the start line.
The initial idea for Chaos Machine’s entry into Raid Gallaecia came after the Two Rivers Adventure Race in December 2016. Rick Keilty and Eric Wyler, who had raced together for years as Chaos Raid, including as a two-person team at Untamed New England and Cowboy Tough, were looking for an international adventure, and to race as a standard, ARWS-qualifying four-person team. Cliff and Kate were also looking for two more friends to join them on an international expedition, but with the news that Kate was pregnant, Kate had to banish any thoughts of an expedition-length AR in 2017. So the three guys took a look at their calendars and at the ARWS calendar, saw that Raid Gallaecia matched up with good times for each of them, and then turned to Facebook to find a fourth. After a few false starts with potential options that petered out, Melody Hazi got in touch through the Adventure Race Teammate Finder page and by February, we had registered and were looking into flights.
A few Skype conference calls and one epic gear spreadsheet later, the team met up in As Pontes, Spain before the 2017 Raid Gallaecia. The twin cones of the local nuclear power plant dominated the skyline of the small, industrial town, an odd backdrop for a race that would ostensibly take us into the wilderness for four-plus days. However, we all admitted it was quite nice to have a high-quality supermarket, a fully equipped gear shop and several options for good food within a few block radius of our hotel.
Speaking of which, the hotel was simple but the people who worked there were super-friendly, and allowed us free rein of the storage room, the common room and the hallways to arrange our gear, build our bikes and socialize with other teams. And the race organization was superb, even generously helping out with fixing a couple of last-minute bike issues (including a broken pedal and burst hydraulics on a front shock). Our new best friend and race sub-dirctor, Victor, even toted the newly fixed bike out to the TA, which the rest of us had to bike to, a hot ride of around 10 miles.
Gear problems aside, our team came together quite nicely, with everyone getting along and even laughing at each others’ jokes. The night before the race, we talked about our goals for the race. We agreed that our main objectives were to have fun, gain experience, and hopefully attain a full course finish. However, in the back of our minds, we remembered our boastful post made through the race’s social media accounts: a finish in the top half of the field.
But as we did in the race, Chaos Machine persevered, taking it one step at a time, and that enabled us to reach the finish line - and just as importantly, the start line.
The initial idea for Chaos Machine’s entry into Raid Gallaecia came after the Two Rivers Adventure Race in December 2016. Rick Keilty and Eric Wyler, who had raced together for years as Chaos Raid, including as a two-person team at Untamed New England and Cowboy Tough, were looking for an international adventure, and to race as a standard, ARWS-qualifying four-person team. Cliff and Kate were also looking for two more friends to join them on an international expedition, but with the news that Kate was pregnant, Kate had to banish any thoughts of an expedition-length AR in 2017. So the three guys took a look at their calendars and at the ARWS calendar, saw that Raid Gallaecia matched up with good times for each of them, and then turned to Facebook to find a fourth. After a few false starts with potential options that petered out, Melody Hazi got in touch through the Adventure Race Teammate Finder page and by February, we had registered and were looking into flights.
A few Skype conference calls and one epic gear spreadsheet later, the team met up in As Pontes, Spain before the 2017 Raid Gallaecia. The twin cones of the local nuclear power plant dominated the skyline of the small, industrial town, an odd backdrop for a race that would ostensibly take us into the wilderness for four-plus days. However, we all admitted it was quite nice to have a high-quality supermarket, a fully equipped gear shop and several options for good food within a few block radius of our hotel.
Speaking of which, the hotel was simple but the people who worked there were super-friendly, and allowed us free rein of the storage room, the common room and the hallways to arrange our gear, build our bikes and socialize with other teams. And the race organization was superb, even generously helping out with fixing a couple of last-minute bike issues (including a broken pedal and burst hydraulics on a front shock). Our new best friend and race sub-dirctor, Victor, even toted the newly fixed bike out to the TA, which the rest of us had to bike to, a hot ride of around 10 miles.
Gear problems aside, our team came together quite nicely, with everyone getting along and even laughing at each others’ jokes. The night before the race, we talked about our goals for the race. We agreed that our main objectives were to have fun, gain experience, and hopefully attain a full course finish. However, in the back of our minds, we remembered our boastful post made through the race’s social media accounts: a finish in the top half of the field.
As we looked around the start line at 9 a.m. on Monday, we realized that was going to be a tall task. The strength and depth of the field was obvious, with most of the teams around us donning matching jerseys and sporting long and impressive resumes in the sport. Nevertheless, we weren’t intimidated and, with nice weather and the relatively late start time (by AR standards), we were eager to get going. We had one hour with the maps for the first four stages, which were compsed of a 12-kilometer trail run uphill, a 48K whitewater and flatwater kayak, a 38K trekking/orienteering stage and a 55K mountain bike. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot of big route choice, so we spent the bulk of our time looking over the big trekking stage, aiming to figure our best route between the numerous CPs, which were laid out almost like an orienteering course rather than an expedition-style trek.
Before we knew it, we were lined up and the countdown had commenced, and bizarrely, we ended up not crossing the start line, as we, along with most of the teams around us, decided to head off a side street and towards the river through town. We followed that uphill, making steady but slow progress compard to the rest of the teams, despite running at a decent clip. Before the race, Melody had hurt her ankle, and right off the bat, it was causing her some pain, resulting in Eric and Cliff taking turns carrying her pack while she attempted to move as quickly as possible on her injured limb. We hit the one CP on the leg and not long after, we found ourselves in the TA.
We grabbed a couple of fast-looking kayaks and loaded our gear into dry bags, then strapped them down. A relatively quick transition put us in the water ahead of several teams we had arrived at the TA behind. However, the small stream we were paddling on was chock-full of boats, and in the early hours of the race, many of the teams were over-eager and got a little pushy and aggressive, testing our patience. An hour of tight, shallow paddling in Class II water and we arrived at the first portage, a 700-meter haul that was made doubly difficult by the fact that we didn’t have portage wheels. While Melody and Cliff attempted to haul the boats using brute force, Rick and Eric put on their problem-solving hats, honed from years of computer programming, and fashioned handy body slings out of our rented backrests. Eventually, Cliff and Melody got too worn out physically to continue trying to carry the boats with their arms and they adopted the sling method also. We made steady progress towards the put-in, ceasing to yield ground to other teams, and laughing that we had saved 80 euros not buying portage wheels.
Before we knew it, we were lined up and the countdown had commenced, and bizarrely, we ended up not crossing the start line, as we, along with most of the teams around us, decided to head off a side street and towards the river through town. We followed that uphill, making steady but slow progress compard to the rest of the teams, despite running at a decent clip. Before the race, Melody had hurt her ankle, and right off the bat, it was causing her some pain, resulting in Eric and Cliff taking turns carrying her pack while she attempted to move as quickly as possible on her injured limb. We hit the one CP on the leg and not long after, we found ourselves in the TA.
We grabbed a couple of fast-looking kayaks and loaded our gear into dry bags, then strapped them down. A relatively quick transition put us in the water ahead of several teams we had arrived at the TA behind. However, the small stream we were paddling on was chock-full of boats, and in the early hours of the race, many of the teams were over-eager and got a little pushy and aggressive, testing our patience. An hour of tight, shallow paddling in Class II water and we arrived at the first portage, a 700-meter haul that was made doubly difficult by the fact that we didn’t have portage wheels. While Melody and Cliff attempted to haul the boats using brute force, Rick and Eric put on their problem-solving hats, honed from years of computer programming, and fashioned handy body slings out of our rented backrests. Eventually, Cliff and Melody got too worn out physically to continue trying to carry the boats with their arms and they adopted the sling method also. We made steady progress towards the put-in, ceasing to yield ground to other teams, and laughing that we had saved 80 euros not buying portage wheels.
We hit the water in the middle of a pack of teams and tried our best to make it through a series of small cascades that we had to get out of our boats and walk around, but it the task was made difficult by the stampede of teams behind us pushing aggressively to try to go faster. Since there was only one way, and it was clogged with traffic, this resulted in some frustration at the teams pushing behind us. After five or so of these mini-portages, we hit our second large portage. However, by this time, we had become experts using our slings, and we made good progress up to As Pontes Lake, where we saw the race organizers and lots of media. The lead teams were just going by, and we saw Sweco and Estonia out front. We put in amidst a bed of rushes and headed across the lake, passing all the front-of-the-pack teams returning from the far side of the lake.
By the time we went past our put-in, we could tell we were about 1.5 hours behind the race leaders, but importantly for our morale, we were far from last place. We continued through a shallow river area, then through the reemergence of the water that had been used as coolant in the power plant, which made us feel...dirty. Several other shallow areas finally gave way to some nice rushing water, and Melody and Cliff even went for a swim after dueling with a particularly feisty little wave. No harm done other than some washed-off sunscreen, however, and we continued downstream, making solid progress.
The rapids finally petered out and the river started widening, and we got into a good rhythm paddling on the quieter water. We even managed to reel in a few teams that had been ahead of us. We chatted, mostly about how much Rick and Eric hate paddling, and then we entered a beautiful valley with sharply rising green cliffs on both banks of the river, and Cliff couldn’t understand how it was possible to hate paddling this nice. Despite their dislike of the sport, the guys managed to keep a good pace, and Cliff and Melody managed to hang with them, and we continued to make very good progress. Rick shouted that he thought we would make it into the TA by 9 p.m. at the latest, and Cliff and Melody were ready for another two hours of paddling when a puzzling sight appeared in the distance: a dam and an AR World Series banner. Apparently, we had reached the TA. It was just after 7 p.m. and we had been paddling since around 11:30 a.m. We were surprised and happy with ourselves for beating our time estimate.
By the time we went past our put-in, we could tell we were about 1.5 hours behind the race leaders, but importantly for our morale, we were far from last place. We continued through a shallow river area, then through the reemergence of the water that had been used as coolant in the power plant, which made us feel...dirty. Several other shallow areas finally gave way to some nice rushing water, and Melody and Cliff even went for a swim after dueling with a particularly feisty little wave. No harm done other than some washed-off sunscreen, however, and we continued downstream, making solid progress.
The rapids finally petered out and the river started widening, and we got into a good rhythm paddling on the quieter water. We even managed to reel in a few teams that had been ahead of us. We chatted, mostly about how much Rick and Eric hate paddling, and then we entered a beautiful valley with sharply rising green cliffs on both banks of the river, and Cliff couldn’t understand how it was possible to hate paddling this nice. Despite their dislike of the sport, the guys managed to keep a good pace, and Cliff and Melody managed to hang with them, and we continued to make very good progress. Rick shouted that he thought we would make it into the TA by 9 p.m. at the latest, and Cliff and Melody were ready for another two hours of paddling when a puzzling sight appeared in the distance: a dam and an AR World Series banner. Apparently, we had reached the TA. It was just after 7 p.m. and we had been paddling since around 11:30 a.m. We were surprised and happy with ourselves for beating our time estimate.
CONTINUED...
