Team Blackheart Adventure have now completed 2 days of super fast paced racing and are sitting in 15th position overall, and are slowly moving their way up the leaderboard. Day 1 saw them complete the 2.5hr Prologue consisting of paddling inflatable canoes (which seemed to cause many teams some steering problems!), running and swimming. The team finished mid-field in this section and as Rob put it - "we went okay, but sucked at canoeing". I'm assuming from that that they were one of the teams that struggled with the steering!!! A few hours after the Prologue, racing continued with a 30km flat mountain bike ride and then a 6.3km running section. Again the team hit problems on the riding section with Rob being "taken out on the second corner". I assume with the tight bunch start that Rob must have had his wheel cut off and came off second best. To make matters worse he also broke a spoke and punctured during the same incident so they spent the rest of the stage playing catch up. After Day 1 they were placed 30th overall, with plenty of work to do.
(Photo courtesy of Sleepmonster.com.au)
Day 2 had teams starting the day's racing before sunrise. They began with 5.5 kms of adventure running, before picking up their bikes for a 13.8km ride on the tarmac, up hill to the top of the highest point of the race, the Jebel Hafeet. They had to carry all their climbing gear with them, making this an even tougher climb. Teams then had to complete an 11km mountaineering stage which included about a 2km fixed rope section. The stage times of this section are yet to be updated on the event Website, however Team Blackheart Adventure must have had a good day as they have moved up to 15th position overall, and time's are still very tight with plenty of racing to go. In Rob's words, "Today was a great course. Real mountain with 2km of fixed rope. We had okay day but still have a long way to go. The sand dunes look big!".
(Photo courtesy of abudhabi-adventure.com)
Rob's last comment is referring to the stage which they will tackle later on today. In about an hour they will complete a 94km mountain bike section, followed by the huge 121km desert orienteering section. The team must have caught sight of the sand dunes in the distance they will be crossing so at least they have an idea of the huge task ahead!
In other Australian news, Jarad is racing right up near the front of the field and still holding onto his 2nd place overall with the fast Thule Europe team. The Cairns based team of Giddiup started the Prologue in very impressive fashion finishing the canoeing section in 3rd place, before holding onto a 5th place finish for that section. They've continued to race strongly and are currently in 19th position. The Brisbane based team of Rogue / Sleepmonsters have been racing very consistency and are in 35th position.
I'll try and post another update after this next stage which will take teams the next couple of days to complete. It's hard to get much on the team's progress other than their overall position, but hopefully they'll have a great next stage and we'll hear from them once they're done and are resting up for the next stage.
Good luck to all teams in keeping the desert sands from migrating into their shoes!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment