America’s Qualifier for the Adventure Racing World Championship in 2010, the Untamed New England,  is now accepting team registrations.

The 2010 Untamed New England race will run August 12-15, and be hosted from the famous Balsams Grand Resort in the extreme north of New Hampshire.  The race course features 3 days of non-stop paddling, biking, trekking, ropes,  orienteering, and environmental conservation projects.

Only 4-person coed teams are eligible for the Adventure Racing World Championships, but teams of 2 and 3 people are permitted to join in the race.  Support crews are not permitted for this race, so the race organization handles all gear staging.

Inquiries have already come from teams in Denmark, Sweden, the UK, South America, and Australia . . . all indications are that this will be the most international race in the US for 2010, and not to be missed.

The course for 2010 will be even more rugged than previous editions, and while exact details remain a closely guarded secret, racers can expect real back-country navigation to figure prominently in the event.  In the words of one journalist at the 2009 Untamed New England,   “I had no idea that this was such deep country!”

Untamed New England is your chance to race where there is no mobile phone reception, no condominium complexes, no street lights.  More moose than people; more bogs than towns.  Untamed New England is an event that is more an adventure than a race.

Details on the race are available online at www.UntamedNE.com.

Ocean waves crashed to my right; more waves to my left.  I sat on a narrow spit of beach with the Atlantic to either side.  The beach landscape here was stunning, with sandstone formations and pillars of rock jutting up at extreme angles.  It’s as if rock structures from the Utah desert had been magically  transported to the ocean side.  This was the scenic finish to the 2009 Adventure Racing World Championship, and while the race organizers took heat for their unorthodox race format, nobody can question their selection of dramatic race finish locations.

For a specific look at the race format, see this piece published earlier today.

The real racing started on Monday morning Nov 9, with teams battling through the tallest mountains in Portugal and reaching over to the Spanish border.  Besides the furious pace set by the race leaders, the early highlight had to be the medieval castle that served as an early transition area for the course.  Teams made their way through the course, struggling through cold, wind, and dense fog much of the way.

Early reports had Nike firmly in the lead, and with the withdrawal due to medical reasons of several top Scandinavian teams, the race looked like it was Nike’s to lose.  However, quietly at the transition area of the first paddle leg, the Helly Hansen/Prunesco team from the UK took their time and made decisions worthy of a future World Champion.  In the words of Tom Gibbs, navigator for the team,

“We set out the maps to see the next 2 legs (65km trek, 160km bike) and we knew we couldn’t do it all before the cut off. The run was very linear so that only left the bike as having opportunity. We worked out we could cut 3 Cp’s and 80 km off the route with an easy 35km ride on road. A quick look at a road atlas showed us the key town name we had to head too. No other team did this in transition and I think it is where our victory charge started.”
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One of the big stories of the 2009 AR World Championships was the style of the race.  I had the opportunity to see the event myself, and it took me a few days of asking questions to piece together how this race worked.  Let me share with you what I learned.

Instead of the traditional “first team across the finish line wins” race format, this Portuguese organization is known for an alternative style where the team who obtains the most checkpoints is the winner.  The main rules are easy to summarize:
-The team who visits the most checkpoints wins
-The race is divided into several Stages
-Each race Stage has a set cut-off time and no team will get credit for visiting checkpoints on a Stage after the cut-off time
-If a team is still on a Stage after the cut-off time, they will be routed on a shorter course for the next Stage and have significantly fewer checkpoints available to them for that next Stage

This all doesn’t sound too strange, but consider that in a regular adventure race if you miss a cut-off, you’re forever ranked below all the teams who successfully made the cut-off; it has a permanent impact on your race result.  At this race, when you missed a cut-off, you are penalized by having fewer checkpoints available to you for the next section of the race . . . but it’s not permanent, and you end up spending less time on this next section because you’re on a shorter course.  At the end of this shortened section, you resume racing on the “full” course again and can obtain as many checkpoints as you can again.  In practice, missing a cut-off can be a jumpstart for teams to speed past parts of the race that don’t suit them or are particularly tough; teams who realized this early enough during the race decided to intentioanlly miss cut-offs and strategically decide to focus on specific parts of the course.

This is compounded by the fact that teams were not given a clear and concise explanation of the race format, so many teams were learning as the race went on.  Even worse, at the pre-race briefing teams were told that it was a key idea *not* to miss any cut-offs, and if teams were confused by the format, that they should keep that one concept in mind.

One final complication with the race format was the inclusion of “clustered” checkpoints on the race course.  Some checkpoints would be labeled 56A, 56B, and 56C on the maps.  In order to get credit for checkpoint 56, teams would have to visit 56A, 56B, and 56C — and if they just obtained 56A, for example, they would get no credit at all.  I spoke with several teams that didn’t know this until the final day of the race, and so they may have visited 56B and 56C, but bypassed 56A and not gotten credit for anything.

I can see the attraction of a race style such as this: all the teams crossed the finish line within 4 hours of one another, and throughout the course teams were grouped much closer together than at a conventional race.  Considering most expedition adventure race winners cross the finish line days before the last teams, this format in Portugal has appeal in that regard.

There are other positives, too, such as forcing teams to evaluate their route options closely and really understand their strengths and weaknesses.

Unfortunately, the absence of communications about the race format is more an issue than the particulars of this race style.  If all the teams understand how the race is operated, it’s a level playing field where everyone has the same information.   Then the focus on the race course can be on out-racing the competition, instead of figuring out how the race operates.

This race format is not the norm in Europe, and besides some races in the United Kingdom and this one race in Portugal, there are no other organizations I know of hosting events in this style.  There were many sighs of relief when the 2010 Adventure Racing World Championships in Spain announced that their race format would be “traditional, first across the finish line wins.”

The Estoril Portugal XPD Race has already covered two thirds out of the 900 Kms track, and teams are having to make major strategic decisions. Title holders are having a hard time keeping up with the the leaders. Tonight’s paddle in Castelo do Bode dam may be decisive.

Casualties have not been significant, taking into account the 600Kms that teams have already covered, in a track that is traversing the centre of the country until Saturday. So far, only nine out of the 59 teams that came from 25 different countries to take on this adventure have withdrawn.

After charging through the highlands, teams have come down to the Geodesic Centre of Portugal and they shall be passing through Vila de Rei within the next few hours. Before that, the track – which has alternated trekking sections with long mountain bike hauls – passed through some of the most remarkable landmarks of the North-East Alentejo. This competition is ultimately playing an important role on promoting tourism, by placing mandatory checkpoints in destinations like Castelo de Vide and Marvão.

North-American Team Nike/Beaver Creek are still leading the pack, but a number of other teams are also very well placed to fight for victory – a very demanding paddling section is expected to occur tonight in Castelo do Bode dam. Title holders, Team OrionHealth from New-Zealand, are in fourth place surprised by this Estoril Portugal XPD Race’s track. Team leader Wayne Oxenham explains; “The track is very rough and it’s impossible to collect all the checkpoints and that has somewhat disturbed our strategy”.

Out of the Portuguese and after the withdrawal of Team Aldeias do Xisto, there are still four teams racing. Team Extreme Challenger/IGeoE is 12th and keeps high hopes for a good final result; leader José Marques prefers not to unveil their objective; “We are following our strategy and it’s working out fine. We have only slept for a couple of hours since Sunday but feeling well enough to keep the pace and fight for a good final position.”

Photos by Paulo Calisto

via Press Release

You have got to love technology (especially when it is working)…this update just came in from Grant Killian (via his iPhone) who is on ground there in Portugal.

The rain started to come down just as the local church started tolling midnight. 12 midnight was the deadline teams had to LEAVE Assistance Pt 4, and so just before the hour a parade of dirty, tired, and committed racers checked out and headed for a short trek, then a long bike ride, then a “paddle” — although reports are that water levels are too low to paddle in some parts. It was quite the scene: an international band of elite athletes shuffling down the road with bags of food, drinks, and equipment.

At this late stage of the adventure race, it will boil down to who can slow down the least — and this race format makes it hard to report the current standings, so I think many teams will push hard for that finish line.

Saturday morning is when the first teams should finish, but who will win is still undecided. Nike has a lead — I’m pretty sure — and after that I really can’t say. Orion, Helly Hanson, Buff, and Quechua are all certainly in the running. I think Lundhags took a step back by missing the midnight cutoff. They weren’t alone, as ATP/Salomon, Blackheart, Cyanosis, and others were still unaccounted for when I left the Assistamce Point.

There are also some teams who have flown low on the radar, like Kinetic from Canada and nuun from the US. A team from Poland (name escapes me) and a couple others have saved their energy for this final day and a half of racing so they could turn things on here.

As frustrating as this race is to try and make sense of, the spirits of the teams and their support crews are impressive and there is a spectacle of endurance on display here in Portugal. Teams are running low on fuel, their bodies breaking down, but they press on.

This was the 3rd day of the competition and the harshness of the mountains has already caused the first casualties in the Estoril Portugal XPD Race, forcing 7 teams – out of the 59 that started – to abandon the race. Title holders – New Zealand’s “Orion Health” – are still well placed in front, closely followed by the North-American “Nike/Beaver Creek”.

Racing into the depth of the Portuguese highlands, the 3rd day of the adventure racing world championship – Estoril Portugal XPD Race – has taken charge of enforcing natural selection among the 59 teams that came from 25 different nations for the competition.

Through hills up high and valleys down low, teams went through the Lousã, Açor and Estrela mountain ranges on a stage that was done mostly on foot and mountain bike. News on the first casualties in the caravan came in the early hours of the day; Team Finland, one of the favourite teams, were forced to quit due to one of their members injured foot. Team leader Tommi Putkuri said “I still can’t believe we stepped down from favourites to mere spectators!…”. One of the seven official withdrawals so far, is the Portuguese “Team Ippon”; all other Portuguese teams are still racing.

Positively surprised by the extreme beauty of the landscape and the warmth of the people (there was even a surprise meal waiting for the teams at Fajão last night), the North-American “Nike/Beaver Creek” are taking the lead. Mike Kloser, describes their first three days of the race; “We are impressed with the harshness of the track as we honestly expected to be going faster. For now our strategy is to collect all the checkpoints, but it hasn’t been easy so far.”. World champions (Team Orion Health – New Zealand) are also well positioned in the race and may still be able to revalidate their title.

Photos by Paulo Calisto

via Press Release

Leaving the Atlantic coast behind, teams racing for the adventure racing world title have resumed action today deep inside central Portugal’s mountainous region. Estoril Portugal XPD Race has invaded the Schist Villages, aiming at Serra da Estrela. Nordic Teams are leading the pack so far.

After the Estoril coast, Sintra and Cascais, the 59 teams coming from 25 countries, racing for the adventure racing world title, have been regrouped at the Village of Lousã in order to resume action. As of now, there will be no more stops in this unusual competition, with about 900 kilometers to complete within 120 hours.

Proper management of effort as well as that of sleep (or lack of it) and most of all strategy – not to mention physical performance – are the key factors for electing this year’s World Champions.

At the start line, at Lousã’s Castle this morning, all eyes were set on the “Lundhags Adventure” Swedish team – leading the pack after the 1st Stage of this year’s Estoril Portugal XPD Race. Even so, team captain Mattias Nystrom sounded imune to pressure; “I believe we are in the lead due to our vast experience in short races, but we know how little that means. We will have to keep calm and manage our resting times properly in order not to compromise our final objective – Top 5”.

Among the Portuguese teams, a special highlight to “Team Greenland ATV”, who are racing for a cause. Team captain Pedro Roque explains: “We want to dedicate our race to Operação Nariz Vermelho who are playing an extremely relevant role and therefore deserve our total commitment”. Obviously, they started this stage with their clown’s red noses on!

During this day teams evolved mostly on foot and mountain bike, with some intense pauses for a rappel and a surprising cannyoning section, spreading the teams over mountains and valleys approaching the country’s highest mountain. During the night, with increasing navigation difficulties, the cold will also be the enemy that teams must fight.

More info at: www.arwc2009.com

Photos by Paulo Calisto

Via Press Release

It’s been a challenge following what’s going on with the AR World Championships.  I won’t personally arrive in Portugal until Thursday, so I’ve been in touch with our Untamed staff person at the race and I’ve been trying to keep track on Twitter and the race website as best as possible.  Caveats apply: this is pieced together from fragments and could be off-base, but some news is better than no news — even if it isn’t 100% confirmed and verified, right?  This is a blog, after all, and not the NY Times!

It was a cold, windy, and foggy night for all the teams as they worked their way through Portugal’s tallest mountains.  There was a chance of snow up top.  I’m told there was hot soup served at one of the Checkpoints in a small village up in the mountains last night; you’ve got to love the cultural experiences you can get with adventure racing!  With the sun coming up, and just over 24 hours of racing in the books (not counting the now controversial prologue), I can share the following:

At the front of the race pack, it sounds like Nike and OrionHealth are really pushing the pace.   Lundhags is not far behind.  To illustrate the pace at the front, I understand Nike actually sprints their way into and out of a Transition Area — where a more mortal team might slow up and jog the final stretch or resume their race a bit more slowly, they are going 100% apparently 100% of the time.  Just amazing intensity but the race is still early!  

Nike certainly has been aggressive, feverishly going after bonus checkpoints.  This puts pressure on teams like OrionHealth and the others vying for the victory, forcing them to make tough decisions to try and beat Nike at their own game (speed!) or bypass some of the early bonus points to conserve energy and time for later in the race.   As one friend of mine observed, “Nike knows how to work a complex, rule-heavy course” and so Nike could be laying the foundation for a win at this race.  Conversely, they could be opening the door for other teams to out-wit them and there is some very smart and speedy competition in Portugal.  It’s too early to have any perspective on what strategies are paying dividends.
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I’m saving some final thoughts on the World Championship race course for tomorrow, letting the 2 pieces from earlier this week (here and here) simmer.  I’m turning my focus instead to the teams racing in this AR World Championship, and with 59 high quality teams and adventure racing being such an unpredicable endeavour . . . you must take any prediction with a healthy dose of salt.

Another complicating factor, and I’ll be honest with you here, is that half of these teams are unknown to me.  The sport is truly global and in the absence of an international ranking mechanism (that I’m told Adventure World will be addressing as we move into 2010!), or an easier way to know the backgrounds of all the teams, it is very challenging to foresee who has the endurance, speed, and intelligence to claim the World Championship in Portugal.  I’m not even mentioning injuries or bike mechanicals or any of the other factors at play on an adventure race course.

Before I get into my summary of teams to watch, I’ll offer you a chance to weigh-in and pick the results of the World Championship.  Visit www.UntamedAdventure.com/ARWC to pick your top 10 teams, earn points for those you select correctly, and the winner of this “fantasy” adventure racing experiment will get some cool equipment from Ultimate Direction.  Give it a shot and see if you can beat me at this — it’s a tough challenge to predict the outcome of an expedition adventure race!  My precise picks won’t be unveiled until Sunday, but in the meantime I’ll offer up some food for thought.

Let me go down the official race roster from www.arwc2009.com/en/teams.php and touch on the teams that jump out at me.  Going in the order of their official team race number . . .
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There are only a couple more days until the World Championships!  This is a great time to be following adventure racing, and an even better time for somebody with a ticket to Portugal . . . but I digress. This is my second installment in the pre-race coverage for Adventure World on the Adventure Racing World Championship; in case you missed our first piece, we outlined what the first part of the race course will consist of and what teams could be facing.  This post will finish our summary of the course — as compiled from the many team bulletins and other public notices send out by the race organization.

Just as a quick review:

1)  Stage 1 is a short variety show to start the race off; lots of photo opportunities and fun on the beach.

2)  Stage 2 has a long trek and a long bike leg, delivering 11,000 meters of elevation gain and probably culminates on top of something pretty tall!

And now for new material . . .
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The 2009 AR World Championship starts this coming Sunday; as I write this, teams from around the world are making their way to Portugal, where the weather forecast looks downright perfect for a race such as this (sunny each day and around 60 degrees).

The race organization in Portugal has been very open about the layout of the race, and we can share some observations about the flow of the course and what teams can expect.  All of this is gathered from public sources, so I’m not spilling the beans or anything . . . but a very interesting picture can be developed from all the various tidbits of information out there.  This is the first of a multi-part series I’ll be posting as pre-race coverage here on the Adventure World ARWS blog.  Be sure to check back tomorrow for the next installment.

Let me begin with a few basics: the race is roughly 5 days in duration, starting on Sunday Nov 8 at 10 AM and the course closing on Saturday the 14th (but the race winners, the future Adventure Racing World Champions for 2009, finishing earlier on lucky Friday the 13th).

Moving on to some more interesting material, I’m going to review the race step by step using the information at my disposal.
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I can’t believe that the World Championship are just a little more than a week away. Are we ready? Physically, I think we are. Logistically, we’re definitely a little behind in terms of getting our gear cleaned, inpected, and packed but we’re well on our way. This will be another mad rush to get everything done on time while still managing to take care of the rest of our lives and get enough sleep. But, as is always the case, we’ll pull it off.

The team for this year’s World Championship will be the same team as last year: Jen Segger, Aaron Rinn, Aaron Matzke, and myself. In 08, we placed 6th and were thrilled with our result given the depth of the competition. We had a solid race with limited mistakes. This year, we obviously hope to break the top 5 but there are so many unknowns in the sport that we simply don’t know what will happen. We’ll focus on managing what’s within our control like preparing well before the race, managing sleep during the race, supporting each other continuously in the heat of competition, making sure we move as fast as navigation permits, staying effiicient in transition areas, and making sound strategic decisions. All the other stuff, we can’t control like the speed of other teams, the weather, a mechanical breakdown (although we can make sure everything works well before the race). If we focus on ourselves, we have a good chance of achieving our goal. But, even if everything is perfectly prepared, disaster can await you around the next corner. How well your race is going can change hour by hour. You just have to be ready for the unexpected and be adaptable. Continue Reading

Most teams will begin their travel to Portugal within the next few days in preparation for the AR World Championship event. We caught up with Cyanosis team captain Nicholas Mulder before their departure. This will be there first World Championship race since 2005. Ryno Griesel, Debbie Gerrand, and Clinton Mackintosh make of the rest of the team. Here is what he had to say as they prepare to return to the ARWC stage.

Have you raced at World’s before? If so, how did you do?

Nicholas: Cyanosis made its debut at World’s in New Zealand’s Southern Traverse in 2005. Unfortunately, until now we have not had the finances and logistics in place to attend any others. We had a very interesting race… it was a big eye opener for us. We finally missed a cut-off on Day 4, but over those days we learned almost everything about racing at the international level.

What is the origin of the team’s name?

Nicholas: The ‘Cyanosis’ team name came to be in 2004 when we formed the original team. At that stage, almost all the squad members had jobs in the medical field, so there was a quite a bit of fondness for this medical term. We thought it would be an interesting and unique team name.

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After coming off an impressive win at Primal Quest Badlands this summer, Team OrionHealth.com is preparing to head to Portugal to defend the title that they took back to New Zealand last year. Team captain Wayne Oxenham spends a lot of time traveling with his day job but took a few moments to answer a few questions for us in our continuing interviews with some of the teams heading to the AR World Championship early next month.

How psyched are you to race in Portugal this year?

Wayne: I’m still very busy at work, trying to get ahead of the load before taking the next 2 weeks to race in Portugal, so haven’t had much time to get too psyched yet. I’m sure the excitement will kick in as soon as I do some packing and head to the airport. I can tell you what I’m not looking forward to … that’s 30 hours of travel to get there.

What other international races have you competed in? How are they different?

Wayne: Over the past 5 years we’ve raced in a number of different countries including Australia, Brazil, France, Scotland, Ireland, Sweden, USA, UAE and China. All the races differ simply from a cultural and terrain perspective, but also from a course focus perspective, some race organisers like to have plenty of transitions and short legs, others like to send us off for days at a time on one leg. Some of the non-core sports that are included are also a key difference, with such things as camel towing, inline skating, glacier crossing, caving, open water rowing and even jigsaw puzzles.

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We’re aiming to get interviews with each North American team competing in the AR World Championships in Portugal this November. Cyril from the California based team “nuun-FeedTheMachine” is usually busy training or growing his endurance sports nutrition store, FeedTheMachine, but he carved out some time for us earlier this month . . .

nuun-FeedTheMachine was impressive in 2008, finishing in 6th place at the World Championships in Brazil.  How psyched are you to race in Portugal this year?

Cyril: “The World Championships regroup the highest concentration of the best international teams. The energy that results is incredible and it brings out the best in our team. We love to race against the best, because it clearly lets us know where we stand. There is no pretending at the World Championships!”

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An amazing field of talent is assembled on the team list for the 2009 Adventure Racing World Championships in Portugal this November. Adventure racing luminaries such as OrionHealth (fresh off their impressive victory at PrimalQuest Badlands and the defending 2008 AR World Champions), Quechua (a very strong European team), Lundhags Adventure (a Scandinavian force to be reckoned with), and Blackheart (a top Australian team) jump out at you . . . but there are also some fantastic teams from North America that are going to join the party!

ATP-Salomon, fresh off their victory in North America’s Qualifying race Untamed New England 2009, will be representing Canada and the USA at the World Championships (their team is composed of racers from both nations). Team Kinetic will also be there from Canada. The eastern United States has a couple dynamite teams joining the fun in Portugal, with NYARA and Berlin Bike also earning entrance into the World Championships based on their performance at the New England race. From the West Coast, Team Sole and nuun-FeedTheMachine will also be racing, bumping up the participation of North American teams to a significant level. Add to this mix the organization team, Untamed New England, and the tally comes to 7 teams from the USA and Canada! I don’t have the complete rosters for all the World Championship events through the years, but I suspect that the last time so many teams from North America participated in the World Championships was when the race was held in Canada . . . back in 2004. The 2009 Adventure Racing World Championships begin on Sunday Nov 8th, from Portugal’s beautiful Estoril Coast on the Atlantic Ocean. In the intervening 10 weeks, we’ll take a closer look at the teams representing North America in this race and delve into some of the history behind the AR World Championship.